I was given a book called You're Lucky You're Funny written by Phil Rosenthal, the Creator of Everybody Loves Raymond, and it joins Wake Me When It's Funny by Garry Marshall (The Odd Couple TV series, Mork & Mindy) on my shelf as one of the most inspirational books about comedy writing I have ever read. It's not a How-to book and it doesn't give tips or suggestions but it tells the story of getting this nine-year, multi-award winning show to the screen.
Rosenthal seems to be like the rest of us, not sure that he's all that terrific a writer - but he follows the rules and sticks to the techniques and remembers what it was he liked about comedy in the first place. He questions some of the traditions, e.g. that you have to stay really late to get the job done. I'd recommend it to all writers, new or otherwise.
As well as the two books mentioned I'd recommend King of the Half Hour which is about Nat Hiken who created The Phil Silvers' Show (Bilko). These books teach us that application, energy and enthusiasm are the attributes we should be displaying in our writings.
I might get round to compiling a list with my comments one day. I would say that, contrary to what we're told or surmise, one of the first things we have to be as comedy writers is FUNNY.

Quote: Charlie Adams @ December 26, 2006, 12:42 PM

I was given a book called You're Lucky You're Funny written by Phil Rosenthal, the Creator of Everybody Loves Raymond, and it joins Wake Me When It's Funny by Garry Marshall (The Odd Couple TV series, Mork & Mindy) on my shelf as one of the most inspirational books about comedy writing I have ever read. It's not a How-to book and it doesn't give tips or suggestions but it tells the story of getting this nine-year, multi-award winning show to the screen.
Rosenthal seems to be like the rest of us, not sure that he's all that terrific a writer - but he follows the rules and sticks to the techniques and remembers what it was he liked about comedy in the first place. He questions some of the traditions, e.g. that you have to stay really late to get the job done. I'd recommend it to all writers, new or otherwise.
As well as the two books mentioned I'd recommend King of the Half Hour which is about Nat Hiken who created The Phil Silvers' Show (Bilko). These books teach us that application, energy and enthusiasm are the attributes we should be displaying in our writings.
I might get round to compiling a list with my comments one day. I would say that, contrary to what we're told or surmise, one of the first things we have to be as comedy writers is FUNNY.

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Charlie A.,

You got to share more information, please! I know that you said that is is not a how-to book, but please let us know what you have learned from this book. I have to wait until this evening to go to the library to find the books that you recommended.

Edit 1:
Okay, I put the two first books on hold at the library.

Edit 2:
To include the I that left out before

im sure the books are an interesting read and that but if you need a book to tell you how to write comedy then you shouldn't be writing in the first place

You might not need a book to tell you how to be funny, but there's nothing wrong with how-to books about writing comedy. You're not just born with the ability to format scripts you know.

Well, I wasn't.

I agree, Zooo, you wouldn't say to a brain surgeon 'you shouldn't be operating in my head if you need a book to tell you how to do it.' My experience came from doing and I learned on the job and I didn't read a how-to book until I'd been a professional writer for nearly a year. That book (How to Write and Sell your Sense of Humour by Gene Perrett) put a lot of things into perspective and I realised that, without being taught, I knew how to write funny.
But we need to be inspired, encouraged and steered. We need someone to say 'don't say 'f**k' or worse in your writing.' Jokes about bodily functions, I don't care who writes them, are not clever, they are certainly not adult and serve only to cheapen the material.
The trend is to be outrageous and abusive but 90% of comedy is surprise; tell me where's the surprise in saying 'f**k' yet again?
The books I mentioned inspired me because I realised the writers had the same dreams and ambitions as I did; strived to make their scripts laughter filled pieces of literature and realised they could make a difference in our field. I learned about brevity, clarity and accessibility. I learned about tenacity, self-improvement and perseverence. This business has gone to pot recently and I now run a company doing a team building course. We teach effective communication through gag writing. I'm not proud of myself; I always said I'd happily tell anybody what I know for nothing - but, I need money to buy books.

Thanks, Charlie A.! I will read these books looking out for these themes that you mentioned.

dyingtolive - As we've said in our "ten steps to writing a sitcom" you actually do need to read books. It's a must!

Even the funniest person in the world needs insight. Without reading books like the one Charlie has just read you won't get an insight into how the industry works (although admittedly Phil Rosenthal focuses on the American industry) and without how-to books you won't get your foot in the door as you won't know how to format scripts etc. Charlie also said it inspired him - I'm not sure if it's possible to inspire ones-self (I've never managed to inspire myself) so that's another bonus of a book!

Take this example:

Really funny person: jokes are wasted as doesn't understand the industry and doesn't understand how and where to send in material.

Not quite as funny person: big time writer as knows the ins and outs of the comedy world thanks to reading up on the subject and always attracts the commissioner's eye thanks following the submission rules in the how-to books.

This is not funny to a commissioner:

"My dog has no nose". "How does it smell?" "Awful".

This is:

[code]
BALCONY. DAY. CINIFILM.

HITLER: My Dog Has No Nose

CROWD: How does it smell?

HITLER: Awful

p.s. I'm not a comedy writer so excuse the formatting - you get the idea though!

[/code]

Whether that's how it should be or not is another matter but it is the current state of things. You may be funny but without books you're unlikely to be writing comedy (as the industry defines it) so get reading

Quote: Mark @ December 27, 2006, 4:44 PM

dyingtolive - As we've said in our "ten steps to writing a sitcom" you actually do need to read books. It's a must!

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That's a tad misleading. You don't need to read 'how to...' books. They can be useful but I wouldn't say they are a must as most of the books I read were v. good at stating the bleeding obvious. From my experience, it's far better to devote your time to watching as many sitcoms (good and bad) as possible and analysing what makes them good/bad.

It's a case of no set rules. Some people could possibly benefit from reading a few books when starting out, whilst others (like me) will learn more by doing their own thing, doing their own research, learning from their own mistakes etc.

Mark, I don't think I said I inspired myself, I said Phil Rosenthal's book inspired me. That the experiences of writers in the books I mentioned, and others, inspired me is what I meant. As a kid in the sixties watching The Dick Van Dyke Show inspired me to go into my room and try to write jokes so maybe you could say I inspired myself -nobody told me to watch that show, they didn't write it for me and nobody said go to your room and write some one-liners.
On the subject of rules for submission I'd say that if you know how to set the thing out, do it, but only an idiot is going to reject a solid gold piece of work because it's not laid out according to the rules. Oh, wait, I've just described a commissioning editor. Really, if work is rejected because of lay-out, spelling, punctuation or anything else it's probably not good enough to start with.
We had a commissioned writer on The House Party who submitted his material as prose and it was worth my while to go through it dredging out the punch lines and routining them. We also had an elderly contributor to The Huddlines who wrote in biro on lined paper on both sides and sent us up to a hundred jokes a week. He would always get a line a week on and no matter how many times I explained how to make it easier for us, he never changed.
I read a story about a writer who had written for all the big shows in the 60s, 70s and 80s but by the turn of the century had fallen on thin times. He managed to get a meeting with a production company and the young exec producer's opening line was, 'Okay, Bill, tell me what you've done.' Bill said, 'You first.'
I read books about shows because I like to. I've come across few How-to books written by anyone whose name I recognise from a TV credit.

It looks like I have a few Amazon purchases to make Thanks for the references.

A book I like is 'The Joy of Work' by Scott Adams who writes the Dilbert comic strip. It's not a book about writing but there is a chapter about having creative ideas and inspiration which I found very interesting.

I think formatting you could learn in an afternoon. I went on a screenwriting course a while back and I thought it was just going to be stating the obvious. But I was amazed at the things I learnt. So now I try to read more to see what else I don't know.

I'll check 'The Joy of Work' out, Shoepie, thanks.
Mark, I've just re-read your comments and I realise you DIDN'T say I had managed to inspire myself. I'm sorry, but if I didn't jump to conclusions I wouldn't get any exercise at all.

Charlie Adams,

I got from the library Garry Marshall's Wake me when it's funny. You are right: this is an inspirational book, not only for comedy writers, but for anyone who needs direction on how to break into any working field. It is filled with useful information, and I have only read the first two chapters.

This is what I have gotten from these early chapters: the importance of getting people to mentor one, spending time writing, testing material, and networking. Now, Garry didn't say anything about networking per se, but one sees that he gets job after job through the people that he knows.

I guess he did talk a bit about this when he said that there is no big break, but a number of small breaks.

This is a great read. Thanks again for recommending it

i am not a huge reader of books, so i was surprise to recieve a book for christmas, it is "the sound of laughter" and is Peter Kays autobiography, now i am not keen on him because i think he is to merchandised and relies on catchphrases, but his book is quite interesting, it has a lot about his early life, working in dead end jobsand his interests, he is very nostalgicand has some good looks on life, as i said i'm not a big reader, i have only read a few books like "the curious incident of the dog in the night time" and we had to read a book called "the bible" which was written by some guy called "god" but this book is interesting, it isn't about comedy though so i would only recommend it if you like Peter Kay.