Podcasts about Baby Bob

Welcome to Bottle Episodes! The show where Daniel Crow and David Piccolomini watch the best of terrible television! This week we're covering commercial turned sitcom Cavemen. Watch Nick Kroll try not to fall apart right before he's about to blow up. Imagine putting on 6 hours of prosthetics just to do the most boring run of the mill sitcom stylings. It's a show that makes Baby Bob look like it's full of plot. Strap into your time machine and let's go to the farback land of 2007 where Cavemen reigned supreme. Comedian Harrison Tweed is out here with his great album, fun sunday show, and strong prejudices against lifeforms from 10,000BC   Cavemen Bottle Episode: S01E04 Nick Jerk Andy Work Watch Cavemen on the Youtube, or the Link Follow David on Instagram @DPicComedy and check out his special Goblin King Follow Crow @DanielFCrow View Synonyms and Definitions

Welcome to Bottle Episodes! The show where Daniel Crow and David Piccolomini watch the best of terrible television! This week, it's Baby Bob! Chicago teamster child Bob is talking and parents are WORRIED. Elliot Gould and Holland Taylor add gravitas to a sitcom that is 7 years too late. Jim Rash shows up though, so David was willing to forgive immediately. Baby Bob Bottle Episode: S02E03 Reality Bites Watch Baby Bob on Youtube, or the Link Follow David on Instagram @DPicComedy and check out his special Goblin King Follow Crow @DanielFCrow  

Golf DMV was invited to the PXG store in Fairfax VA to speak with Bob Parsons, Founder and CEO of PXG, about his new book "Fire In The Hole". Renee Parson, his wife, was also very generous with her time to share her vision for PXG's investment in women's fashion.

Connor makes the case for the Baby Bob, the new Bob Kerrey Bridge coming to Omaha in late 2024. Producer Josh is confused as to why this is necessary.

Entertainment news on Steve and Ted is called "The Blur," where we blur that fine line between entertainment and news.  Does anyone remember Baby Bob?  How about From Justin to Kelly?  Well, no reason you should.  But we do!

Steve Baldikoski is an Emmy nominated Showrunner known for Fuller House. He's also worked on Last Man Standing, Glenn Martin D.D.S., Wilfred, and Kristie. Join Michael Jamin and Steve Baldikoski for a conversation about how Steve broke in and what it takes to make it in HollywoodShow NotesSteve Baldikoski on IMDB - https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0049747/Steve Baldikoski on Twitter - https://twitter.com/finchbot2000Free Writing Webinar - https://michaeljamin.com/op/webinar-registration/Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Watchlist - https://michaeljamin.com/watchlistAuto-Generated TranscriptSteve Baldikoski:I mean, you're, you are sort of clued in to, to what your boss likes. Mm-Hmm. , you also have your own tastes. You, you kind of know what the project is supposed to be. I, I, yeah, I don't know. There, there's no formal executive school on how to give notes. That's why it's kind, it's kind of a weird job because there's no training for it. I don't really necessarily know what makes you good or not good.Michael Jamin:You're listening to Screenwriters Need to Hear This with Michael Jamin. Hey everyone, it's Michael Jamin. Welcome to another episode of Screenwriters. Need to hear this. I got another great guest today. This is my old buddy, Steve Bobowski. Steve has written on some of the, some of your favorite shows, as long as your show's favorite shows are ,Steve Baldikoski:As long as they're, as long as you have Terrible Taste and only watch shows that are gone after 13 episodes, andMichael Jamin:Then, then these are your favorite shows. But I'm gonna start, I'm gonna, in no particular order of, of, I think I'm going in order Teenager Working. Remember that show Dag with David Allen Greer Baby Bob. Oh, we're gonna talk about Baby Bob. Okay. Yeah. A U s A. Andy Richter controls the universe. People like that show a lot. I, I'm with her or I'm with her. I'm with her. I'm with her.Steve Baldikoski:I'm withMichael Jamin:Her. I'm with her . Eight. Eight Simple Rules. The New Adventures of Old Christine. That was a good show. The Jake Effect. Big Shots. True. Jackson, I forgot you worked that out. Wilfred. Which you could thank me for Glenn Martin d s, which you could thank me for Kirsty, which I can thank you for. Last Man Standing, whatever, .Steve Baldikoski:Yeah. They don't have anyone to thank for that.Michael Jamin:Thank for that.Steve Baldikoski:Save Me.Michael Jamin:Jennifer Falls, Ned and Stacy. And then of course, you were the executive producer and showrunner of Fuller House, the Full House remake. Steve, welcome to the big show,Steve Baldikoski:. Thank, thank you for having me. It's very exciting to be here.Michael Jamin:Wasn't it exciting, man? Oh man. Oh, and I have to say, so yeah, so we started out my partner and I hired Steve and his partner Brian, on, on Glenn Martin dds. And we were always very grateful. These guys turned in great drafts and we were always extremely grateful. Yeah, thank you. And then we would just shovel more work as, as for gratitude, we would just shovel more scripts in your face. Write this one now,Steve Baldikoski:, that was one of the highlights of my career. That was some of the best times I've ever had.Michael Jamin:We had some, you know, it's funny, I asked Andy Gordon in in a, in a previous episode, I said, and I'll ask you the same question. If you had, if you could go back in time and either remake any of the shows you did worked on, or like rebooted or just work on it again, what, what would they be? Any,Steve Baldikoski:I thought you were gonna tell me. Andy's answer . AndyMichael Jamin:Said if you want, Andy said, just shoot me. And true. JacksonSteve Baldikoski:Uhhuh . I, I, Glen Martin was a highlight, and and I think it was an underappreciated show,Michael Jamin:Certainly was. AndSteve Baldikoski:If, if it weren't in Claymation, maybe someone would've watched it.Michael Jamin:You know, we went on the internet, Seabert and I, my partner and I, we went on the internet and we found some guy talking about Glen Martin. And it was as if he was in the writer's room. It was as if he was, because he, he was right on the money . Like he knew what was good about it, what was bad about it. He had theories as to why ,Steve Baldikoski:I think you, you talking about Alex Berger, the creator,Michael Jamin:, it wasn't Alex. It was something like, it was something like Whacko on the internet, but boy, he was dead on. He was like, he knew exactly what he was talking about.Steve Baldikoski:. Well, one, one weird thing that that happened to me, this is slightly related. When, when Brian, my old writing partner and I took over for house in the last couple of seasons, it was right before the final season, and it was after Lori Locklin had her collegeIssues, legal issues with varsity Blues. On April Fool's Day, there was this article in some Likee News or something where someone did a whole, it was a fake interview with me, but it seemed like it was real. And the reasonings that they were talking about getting rid of Lori's character and what would happen after, you know, she was divorced from Uncle Jesse on Fuller House. W it was so well thought out that it, I thought it had to be written by also someone in the room, Uhhuh, because they actually knew like, specific arguments that specific writers had in getting rid of this person. And then it turns out, only if you clicked the very bottom did it say April Fools. And it was all phony interview with me,Michael Jamin:But still they got it. Right. But itSteve Baldikoski:Was, it, it was so eerie that it was, it was probably probably had better reasons to include her or not include her than we did. So there are a lot of fans out there who understand the shows just as well as the writers Do.Michael Jamin:I, I think so. I, I think even on, people talk about King of the Hill and they remember episodes. I'm like, I don't remember that one. And then they look it up and go, I, I worked on it. I don't tell me what happened. It's like, I don't remember it. You know, it's from, you know, very important to some of these people. And you know, they, they, they watch it all the time. And I haven't watched it in 20 years. ButSteve Baldikoski:But did you, there was a moment where when on Wilfrid where David Zuckerman, the creator didn't even know that he had a logic fallacy in the first episode. Do you know the story? No. I think he was at Comic-Con and he, he was, he, it it was about the pilot of Wilfred where Wilfred is trying to get through the fence and a regular dog would crawl through the fence, but instead Wilfred has an ax.Michael Jamin:Right. AndSteve Baldikoski:And then they said, well, shouldn't I take the ax from Wilf Fred because it's dangerous? And then David said, wisely said, no, you can't grab the ax cuz that means the ax is real. And the second he said that someone in the audience held their hand up and said, well, what about the Bong? Yeah,Michael Jamin:What about the Bong? Yeah.Steve Baldikoski:And David had never considered that.Michael Jamin:Well,Steve Baldikoski:But Jar, that was fascinating that, that he, they had never thought of it on set, but out there. Got him instantlyMichael Jamin:Etro gave a headache to write and remember, like, what, who, and then, and then your part of Brian's likeSteve Baldikoski:That, that anecdote gave me a headache to mention.Michael Jamin:Yeah, it was, I remember he just like, don't you think people just wanna see the dog danceSteve Baldikoski:?Michael Jamin:See the dog dance? That was his pitch. . Oh man. Oh my God, what a show. But did you ever,Steve Baldikoski:This whole section is even inside Wilf Fred.Michael Jamin:Yeah, it is inside Wilfred.Steve Baldikoski:I don't think anyone would appreciate that. But did youMichael Jamin:Ever, even when you were running Fuller house, did you, did you ever turn to the, what do the fans want? Did you turn to the, because there's a lot of pressureSteve Baldikoski:On that actually, I have to say. That was a huge part of Fuller House and it was one of the things I think that the audience loved. And it was a unique situation for me because I had, still, to this day, I've seen two and a half episodes of the original full House.Michael Jamin:Uhhuh .Steve Baldikoski:So I didn't know anything about Full House, but other people did. And so if we would want to throw in, we call them Easter eggs, right? Throw in little Easter eggs and bring back, you know, some character that was in an, in a single episode 30 years ago, we would bring those actors back and the audience would go bananas. Yeah.Michael Jamin:But how, how can, you didn't watch any old episodes or, you know, there's so much,Steve Baldikoski:Why, why didn't I, orMichael Jamin:Yeah, why didn't you?Steve Baldikoski:Well part of it is I, I didn't want to actually be beholden to any of the other of the old stories.Michael Jamin:Right.Steve Baldikoski:Because I mean, even, you know, like Fuller House is a little bit of an old fashioned show, but we didn't wanna make it just like completely stuck in the past and, and a show that is only about, that's referencing the original show. And that was more helpful to just have a perspective of like, what's it like raising, you know, three kids in, you know, modern day California.Michael Jamin:But did you feel a, a strong, I guess, obligation to make sure the fans were happy? Cuz I'm show the writers are writing for themselves.Steve Baldikoski:Oh, oh, for sure. We were doing that constantly and you know, we, we knew it. There were certain things that were like, you know, throwing red meat to the audience.Michael Jamin:Oh.Steve Baldikoski:You know, kind of like, like, like if you're doing the show Fuller House, no. You know, no matter what the story you're doing is, or whatever, if you have to, you bring in a dog wearing sunglasses and the audience goes bananas. And then how do you talk? And a, a baby runs in wearing the same sunglasses.Michael Jamin:Mm-Hmm.Steve Baldikoski: and then just the, the audience like tears of joy in the audienceMichael Jamin:Because that's, that, that was an old staple in the original show, stuff like that.Steve Baldikoski:Yeah. I mean, that's just the kind of thing that they would stoop to, you know, . And so, no, but it was, but it was this, it was this, the Four House is a show that like, you know, it really, it really affected me as a writer cuz it was really that time when every week there were 200 fans in the audience. Super fans who knew every single episode of Full House and Fuller House. And so you would get this amazing instant recognition from the audience that you're writing for them.Michael Jamin:Right.Steve Baldikoski:Especially when you would have those little Easter eggs and you don't get that on a lot of shows.Michael Jamin:Right. YouSteve Baldikoski:Know, like I, you know, may maybe on your Just Shoot Me you would have just shoot me fans, but every seat every week was a super fan.Michael Jamin:No. The weird thing about Just Shoot Me, you know, cause we was, we were there the first four years and the, the first season, probably the first two seasons that the audience, they weren't fans, they were hostages. There was people who came from Free Pizza, , you can tell they wouldn't wanna be there. . And they know the showSteve Baldikoski:Prisoners,Michael Jamin:Prison Prisoners,Steve Baldikoski:You're sailors in for Fleet Week.Michael Jamin:It's basically that. I mean, people listening, it's like you show up on Hollywood Boulevard and they hand out tickets, Hey, who wants to see a taping of the show? And then anyone would show up and they would stay warm, cause anybody to get outta the rain. ButSteve Baldikoski:These, no, these were people who came from not just around the country, but from literally around the world to see the show. Yeah. And they would th these people would center their vacation on coming to the show. And, and so, you know, I I mean I, it was also amazing to be able to, like, after the show, you know, if you knew who the people were you would bring them down and, and they would just get a kick out of walking around the set. Mm-Hmm. . And that was another kind of highlight every week was, you know, having these people, you know, have this awesome experience that they've grown up with these characters in this set. And then they're running around on the set, you know, now that they're grown up and they've got kids who, who like the shows.Michael Jamin:Now this set was a repeat that wasn't,Steve Baldikoski:That was kind of amazing cuz you would, it it wasn't just, it wasn't just fans, it was two generations of fans. Right. You know, it was like people who are sort of our age and then they're kids. Right. And, and so, you know, when network people talk about family co-viewing, it really was that it was, you know, parents who still love the show,Michael Jamin:But it wasn't the set was a remake. Right. It wasn't the actually,Steve Baldikoski:It, it was a remake. But I'll I'll tell you, and this is also part of the weird experience coming onto the show, cuz neither, you know, I had no appreciation really for a full house at the time. So before the first show, and this was the entire first season before it aired on Netflix there was a curtain covering the set. And before they would announce the actors, they would, they would lift the curtain like it, like it was like at the theater. Right. And the first time for the shooting the pilot, when they revealed that to the audience, people burst into tears.Michael Jamin:Wow.Steve Baldikoski:Just seeing the set and the couch looking just like it did in the eighties. And the way they really, really mimicked the original set, you know, to the Inch cuz they had the original plans. It was amazing to see people moved by a set.Michael Jamin:Yeah, I bet. ISteve Baldikoski:Bet. And yeah. And so, so that was pretty unusual. And then any line would get, even a mediocre line would get an aureus laugh from the audience cuz they were all, they've been waiting for 25 years to see this moment.Michael Jamin:Now, I imagine you had some of the writers in the show who grew up with watching the original Fall House, who knew more about the show than, than you did? Who?Steve Baldikoski:Oh, oh yeah. Yeah. For sure. And that's why also I felt I didn't need to see the show that much. I'm not recommending people shouldn't do homework .Michael Jamin:Now, one of the things that shocked me when we, when we were working with you, this is long, many years ago, and maybe it was only a season one or something. You shocked me when you said that you, at one point you were, you started as a network executive. I was like, you what? WhatSteve Baldikoski:Well, yeah, Stu, a studio, executiveMichael Jamin:Studio. SoSteve Baldikoski:Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. I was, I was I was like a director of comedy development at Universal.Michael Jamin:And so tell tell us what, what that means. WhatSteve Baldikoski:Do, should I go back further? Could goMichael Jamin:Back to where you wanna startSteve Baldikoski:To that point. I mean, I never, I never set out to be a writer. I don't even know if you know any of my origin story about this stuff. Oh. I never really set out to be a writer. I always loved TV, but I also love music in, in movies. But didn't even know I was gonna get into the entertainment business until I was trying to blow a year or two before I would get a little bit of work experience and then back to go to law school. You were gonna law school get an mba and I was never gonna be a part of the entertainment industry, but I just lucked into what turned out to be a great job in the mail room at United Talent Agency, uta. And it was like this moment that U t A was on the rise and I, yeah, I was in the mail room where I'm literally working 80 hours a week delivering mail and reading scripts for free and writing coverage, doing that for five months. Then I got on a desk, I worked for Nancy Jones and Jay Surs.Michael Jamin:Oh boy.Steve Baldikoski:I was their first assistants at United Talent, I believe. And then and then I knew it wasn't for me cuz it was really cutthroat. Yes. I, I was learning what I didn't want to do. And working a traditional office that led to I got a job in development. I worked at Aaron Spelling Productions, and then that job got me wait, howMichael Jamin:Did you get a job in development? Cause it's, it is hard to make the transition from being an assistant at a desk to having a non-a job anywhere.Steve Baldikoski:Oh, oh. I, I was still an assistant for Oh, okay. Years. I was an assistant for spelling for one year. Mm-Hmm. , then I was an assistant. I worked for Jamie Tarsus at b c. Right. And that's, and that was kind of the, the, the pivotal moment in my career. Cuz kind of anyone who was Jamie Tarsus assistant moved on to become the next executive. Right. And so that kind of became my path. I was, I, I never set out to do this, but I just kept at getting a job that was just better than the last one. Mm-Hmm. . So I never had the reason to go back to law school. Right. And it was just like they kept on dragging me back in with a slightly better job. So this one year I spent as Jamie's assistant at N B C Frazier had been bought, but not shot.And then Jamie bought friends that year. I can't remember the names of the other shows, but but like, you know, being on set at the pilot of Friends was really that pivotal moment for me where I thought, oh, th this is, you know, really what I wanna do. Like, and I was on the path to be an executive, but I really would look over and the writers seemed to be having a lot more fun. And that's where I, I didn't really even know it, but that was, that was my path to be to being a writer was just kind of hanging out at N B C and, and seeing how things, you know, being a part of. But evenMichael Jamin:When you were an executive development exec, were you thinking, I want to be a writer? Or were you thinking No, no,Steve Baldikoski:Not really. I, I knew like, the executive path was like, was fine and I did that. And on the executive path, when you're no longer an assistant, you get bumped up and you get the office and it was very kind of, there were a lot of fancy trappings. I would wear a suit and I'd drive around all the networks trying to sell co half hour comedies to the networks. And it was it was a good job. But there was just something I still kept on looking at, you know, the writers who were on the floor and thought they were having more fun.Michael Jamin:But Do you, and you were giving notes to writers Yes. As executive. Do you at any point feel like, I don't really, how might, who might I be giving notes to a writer when theySteve Baldikoski:Oh, I, I, I felt that all the time. And because I felt that, cuz I kind of had so much respect for what the writers did. Yeah. That it was, it was hard for me to give as many notes. Cuz I thought the writer probably already had thought these things throughMichael Jamin:Uhhuh .Steve Baldikoski:But where were youMichael Jamin:Getting your notes from then?Steve Baldikoski:What's that?Michael Jamin:Where were you getting your notes from? Where were you getting your opinions from?Steve Baldikoski:Well, I, I have opinions just like, IMichael Jamin:Wouldn't have, I wouldn't have when I was starting it out, I go, I don't know. That's fine to me.Steve Baldikoski:I mean, you're, you're sort of clued in to, to what your boss likes. Mm-Hmm. , you also have your own tastes. You, you kind of know what the project is supposed to be. I, yeah, I don't know. There, there's no formal executive school on how to give notes. That's why it's kind, it's kind of a weird job because there's no training for it. I don't really necessarily know what makes you good or not good.Michael Jamin:And some, a lot of it is just opinion. But I I sometimes you'll get the same notes and which are fair, which is a, you know, start the story journal, whatever. That's a great note that you're always, this is totally valid note. But sometimes I, you know, I've been in meetings and you're like, you get a note, you're like, but that's just your opinion. This doesn't make it better or worse.Steve Baldikoski:Yes. And, and I mean, obviously, you know, that's something you, you will struggle with till the end of time. Yeah. But, but I also always go back to, you know, I, I think there's a, there's a cartoon about this at, at some point, but, but like, if Shakespeare handed an Hamlet, his agent would give him notes. Yeah. And he would say, Hamlet is inactive. Yeah. And then you would make him Mae swashbuckling hero.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Right. Yes.Steve Baldikoski:And that would ruin Hamlet. So, so like, you know, and, and the problem is that like, the, that agent's note would be a well, well-guided note.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Hamlet, that isSteve Baldikoski:A mm-hmm. is a valid thing for him to say, but it also ruins the inherent art of the piece. Yeah.Michael Jamin:You know? Yeah. Had a kick. ButSteve Baldikoski:Then not that writing Glen Martin was the equivalent of ShakespeareMichael Jamin:In many ways. But it wasSteve Baldikoski:Pretty close.Michael Jamin:It was a little higherSteve Baldikoski:. But ,Michael Jamin:We had some fun on that show. But and then when, when you wanted to make the transition, I don't know how, how, how do you do, how did you do that?Steve Baldikoski:So, so, and once, like, and this is just my case, it was shockingly not that hard. My who became my writing partner was one of my best friends in college. And Brian had always wanted to be a sitcom writer. And just kind of had, kind of flamed out a couple of times. And then he was living in San Francisco and having a really excellent career as a, as an advertising copywriter. And I called him up and I told him I wanted to write sitcom with him. And he said no. And then he say he changed his mind.Michael Jamin:Why did he say no?Steve Baldikoski:Cuz I said, fine, I'm, if you don't write it with me, I'm gonna write it with Sue Ale .Michael Jamin:Oh,Steve Baldikoski:Funny. That's a true story. She wasn't,Michael Jamin:Sue wasn't an Sue Nagle who later went on to run H B O and then and Ana and you know, she, she's big, but she, at the time she was, she was, sheSteve Baldikoski:Was not yet an agent or she was a very young one. And we, butMichael Jamin:She didn't wanna write,Steve Baldikoski:Did she? So then we got together and to go to a coffee place to brainstorm. And we got into a, we didn't even make it to the coffee place before we got into a huge argumentMichael Jamin:Over what?Steve Baldikoski:Oh, I don't, I don't rememberMichael Jamin:. This partnership's not going well,Steve Baldikoski:. No, he was, he was not. But, but if you can't make it to the place where you're supposed to think , then it's probably a doom partnership. So anyway, Brian said yes. Mm-Hmm. . And then so over the phone we wrote a spec news radio back when people still did that. Yep. And News Radio had just been on the air. So we wanted to write a show that we loved and also that there weren't a ton of samples of other specs like that. Right. So we, this news radio early on and I gave it to Sue Nagle, she liked it. She gave it to Michael Whitehorn at Ned and Stacy. And we had one meeting Brian flew in from San Francisco. I showed up in my suit from being in an executive. I had to sneak out from Universal and not tell him where I was going. DidMichael Jamin:Michael White hard know you were an executive at the time? Yes, he did. HeSteve Baldikoski:Didn't think, but, but, but that was actually kind of a good thing because Brian was an ad executive. Mm-Hmm. and Ned of Ned and Stacy Right. Was an ad executive. And then also cuz I had, you know, funny corporate stories I think Michael liked that as well. And the fact he gets two people for a staff writer's salary.Michael Jamin:Were you afraid to leave your cushy job?Steve Baldikoski:Less so than Brian. I, if, if I flamed out, I could always go back to being an executive and, you know, that would be fine. Right. And, and in hindsight, that probably would've been the best thing that happened, everyone.Michael Jamin:But Yeah. I mean, itSteve Baldikoski:Wouldn't be here talking to you. I, I, I'd be living in Bermuda by now, .Michael Jamin:Oh, well, you know, learn.Steve Baldikoski:Yes. So, but unfortunately I made it through that year and then made it through the next like 25 years. And so, so that was my, that was my path. And, and it kind of happened really fast that I, so then Michael hired us after that meeting, and then I had to go tell my boss at Universal that not only was I looking for a job, but I had one and it was as a writer.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Steve Baldikoski:And then, and so their business affairs made this big stink that they owned my half of my spec script.Michael Jamin:And what, what are they planning on doing with it?Steve Baldikoski:I, well, that, well, I, I asked them that and I think they were all gonna take my spot in the writer's room.Michael Jamin:Yeah. What you're, they have they own ha you're half of a worthless SPAC script that just got you a job. I don't know,Steve Baldikoski:Value it. It was a weird thing. But they,Michael Jamin:But businessSteve Baldikoski:Affairs won't hesitate toMichael Jamin:Sink a deal whenever possible. . Yes. We remove the joy out of a writer . We have a three hour phone call toSteve Baldikoski:Figure this out. And they, yes, they effectively did steal my joy of that moment,Michael Jamin:. Oh my God. And then, yeah. Then the rest was just one show after another, basically. AndSteve Baldikoski:Then, yeah. And yeah, it started out we got in, at the time there used to be the WB in, in U p n, the Paramount Network. I think like in that, in that time period, this is like 97, 98, there was like the peak of the sitcom. I think there were over 60 half hour sitcoms on the air. And then Brian and I rode that rollercoaster.Michael Jamin:Hey, it's Michael Jamin. If you like my videos and you want me to email them to you for free, join my watch list. Every Friday I send out my top three videos. These are for writers, actors, creative types. You can unsubscribe whenever you want. I'm not gonna spam you and it's absolutely free. Just go to michaeljamin.com/watchlist.So tell me about developing your last project.Steve Baldikoski:Okay, so the, the last project that I just developed I sold it to a ABC with 20th. Mm-Hmm. came to me because it was so personal to what I'm going through as a dad. Mm-Hmm. , my youngest kid is non-binary.Michael Jamin:Okay.Steve Baldikoski:And she she was born a girl, Vivian. And then around time, she was about the second grade, she came to us and said that she, she felt that she was a boy. Right. And so that led us down on this journey. You know, finding out, you know, like having a trans kid and non-binary kid and never knowing anything about it. Right. and that kind of led me to want to write about it after I broke up with my writing partner right at the start of Covid. And I was gonna have to write my first thing. So I was gonna write at first I was actually gonna develop step by step BA based on the same concept. I was unable to sell that to H B O Max mm-hmm. . so instead I redeveloped the idea of me being this like hapless dad sort of middle class working class guy in rural Wisconsin, which is where my mom's family is from.And then having this tomboy kid that he just loves more than anything. Hi. Her, his Maisie all of a sudden informs him that no her name is, she's now Hunter. And you're thinking this as a single camera comedy or what? This was a single camera comedy. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was structured like a multicam, but, but really that was from, anyway, that was my speck. And what that led me to, to, to, to do is it got me the attention of other people who were in the non-binary trans world. So then ultimately I partnered just through meeting lots of people this woman named Billy Lee, who some people know because Billy Lee was on early seasons of Vander Pump Rules. Okay. and so it was kind of a, like a well-known person in, in the trans community.And then, so Billy Lee and her friend Priscilla had this idea about her own life, which is kind of almost too hard to believe is true. Billy Lee grew up in rural Indiana as a boy. Left home in 18, found out that he wasn't gay, he was actually a, she Right. And went through the surgeries and then, you know, a a lot of turmoil, but then returns back home and fell in love with her best male friend from junior high. And now they're together as an on and off couple. And so it was, how, how do I take that and turn that into a half hour comedy? I know it's a long wind up, but it's a great story that is almost hard to believe. Yeah. AndMichael Jamin:Was her best friend growing up.Steve Baldikoski:Yes. And so we pitched it really as a Netflix H b o Showtime show that would, would show that magic relationship and also have sex and, you know, things that I think would be hard, you know, relatively hard for a, you know, a regular network audience.Michael Jamin:And it's sold,Steve Baldikoski:But it sold to a b ABC because they wanted, there's this great, her relationship with her father is also really what it's about. Right. And it's, it, it is a fa is also a family show about how it took a trans woman to fix this broken Midwestern family.Michael Jamin:Right. AndSteve Baldikoski:Right in ABC's wheelhouse, youMichael Jamin:Know, where where is that now? At likeSteve Baldikoski:A, like a Connor's but with a strong trans element.Michael Jamin:And where is that right now?Steve Baldikoski:It's dead. Oh,Michael Jamin:Steve Baldikoski:Michael Jamin:With every other pilot.Steve Baldikoski:Yeah. yeah. I, I, you know, I can't, I I can't entirely blame them. Like, it, it would be very amazing to see a, b, c put on a show about a trans woman and not have it be one of the peripheral characters.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Steve Baldikoski:I, I, I think that's just a hard sell. Maybe if I was, you know, a more powerful writer, could, could you, you know, jam that down their throat? But I, I don't think, I think the subject matter was exactly their wheelhouse, but also maybe too, too on the bleeding edge for them.Michael Jamin:It, it feels a little like, you know, some somebody somewhere at that H B O show. I love that show. No. Oh yeah. It's a little sim it's it, and there's not trans, but it's, it's similar that, I don't know, that just remind me of It's great. It's a great show. Our friend Rob Cohen directs a bunch of those. Oh yeah.Steve Baldikoski:Oh, I'll have to check that out.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Great show. But, so then, okay, so then what, what else? Like, you, I mean, it's been a while since, you know, since Fuller House, but what was that like? I always ask this, what's it like working with the cuz a lot has changed since you and I broke in. Yes. What is it working on with like the, the new generation of writers?Steve Baldikoski:Well luckily at Four House I was still the new generation of writers . What wasn't thatMichael Jamin:Mean, wasn't that long ago.Steve Baldikoski:I, I still felt young on the show Uhhuh. Cause Cause we had people No, we, we had people who were older and Oh right. And you know, were around the early, theMichael Jamin:Original show.Steve Baldikoski:And so, so it was kind of great to feel like I was on the young side for once. Yeah. but I, I understand what you're, I understand what you're, what you're getting to are like in terms of how the room has changed from started to now, evenMichael Jamin:In terms of preparation because, you know, you can answer any way you want. But it, like, basically there was more when we were coming up, you were on a show for longer. There were more senior writers and you were constantly learning and you were never, I never, you were never like thrown into the hot wa hot water yet. But now I feel like these kids come in and there's no really training ground. There's no, there's even, you know, I think there's an article a couple days ago, there's no mentorship anymore becauseSteve Baldikoski:No, no, no, no, no. There, there isn't. And you know, that's too sad. I think that, I think content in general is as good as it's ever been. Mm-Hmm. . And yet that training system doesn't seem to exist. And I wish it did. When, when we first got in around the Ned and Stacy era, like there still was that you would still feel that like a showrunner would take someone mm-hmm. Under his wing, like Michael Whitehorn did with David Lit. Yep. And Shepherd that person cuz they would have multiple years of Ned and Stacy. And then luckily that turned into King of Queens. Mm-Hmm. and, and you know, soMichael Jamin:There were schools.Steve Baldikoski:Mike were together for a long time. That's the old model. I don't see that anymore. I wish it was there. Because to to be honest with you, like when Brian and I made the jump from co-executive producers of Fuller House to executive producers, it, it was like, we are being thrown to the wolves after 25 years. Yes. Because because of jumping from show to show, to show like younger writers do now all the time. I, I didn't learn those skills mm-hmm. . And so we didn't really know that much about editing, you know, sweetening like it, how's our camera coverage. Right. you know, all all of those little things that, you know, I had to, I had to learn them very, very quickly. And so luckily I had a, a great, you know, you know, crew that all wanted to help us as, you know, learn as well. But yeah, there is no system. I wish there wasMichael Jamin:Like, I even think like multi-camera, like you, back in the day, you'd come out of a school like we basically . We, we kind of came out of the Frazier school cause Levitan came outta Frazier, which came outta the cheer school. And it was like that kind of pedigree that you had and you're just learning from all those people. And then now, like, there's so few multi cams. Like if they were to bring back multi cams, well who's gonna do it? Who knows how to do it? Because it's different than doing a single camera.Steve Baldikoski:It's funny, it's funny you say that because that's why I'm calling onto the business. Yeah. that I'm hoping, I'm hoping that that we can stick around long enough that it will come back at some point. UhhuhMichael Jamin:. Yeah.Steve Baldikoski:I, I love the format. Like, I mean that's, that's one of the things that like really me about Fuller House is you know, I was able to be there for like five years mm-hmm. . and I never really had to worry about, you know, job security and it, it was this amazing place and we, and there were fans of the show and, and it was just great to write for them. And so that spoiled me, you know, now that that kind of is, you know, has gone away now that Fuller house is no longer on the air. Friday night was my drug, you know, cuz you know, Friday night I love putting on a show every week and I miss that.Michael Jamin:Here's my pitch Fullest house. Pay me. That's,Steve Baldikoski:That's, that's a great idea. That's a great, I wonder, I wonder if anyone pitched that to me, before the day I started.Michael Jamin:I wonder if anybody pitched that to me. Your shitty joke. .Steve Baldikoski:So was it one of my low IQ children?Michael Jamin:. Well then, so then what do you do? So what do you do now? I mean you're obviously you're developing and, andSteve Baldikoski:So, so now I I'm, I'm working on a, a, a new multi-camera idea. I'm very excited aboutMichael Jamin:And Gone Steve Baldikoski:Haven'tMichael Jamin:Taken it out yet.Steve Baldikoski:Yeah. no, I'm just, I I I, I think I finally ha I have the pilot story. I'm just trying to populate it with all the other, all the other things.Michael Jamin:Okay. And then, and thenSteve Baldikoski:With all the other characters cuz I basically started with the central character, Uhhuh . It is kind of high concept, but I don't wanna give it away. I I'll talk to you off camera about it. Okay. with the central character and then that led to a bigger world. Then populate that world kind of how to, how I want to, how I wanna fit tonally into that world. Like it's, it's, it's an idea that would, to me, it feels a little in the vein of what we do in the shadows.Michael Jamin:Oh, okay. Yeah.Steve Baldikoski:In terms of like a high concept comedy idea. And because I never worked for him, but like, my hero as a sitcom writer is Paul Sims.Michael Jamin:Okay.Steve Baldikoski:And it, you know, my first spec was Ned and Stacy. I mean, I, I was news Radio. Radio. Yeah. And which was run by Paul Sims, created by Paul Sims. And now he runs mm-hmm. . you know, what we do in the Shadows, which I just think is a brilliant, brilliant show.Michael Jamin:So then what do you have, what advice do you have for people? Do you have any advice for people trying to get into the business now? Well,Steve Baldikoski: that's why I'm here. I thought I was seeking advice from you. Yeah.Michael Jamin:You thought you were a, a job.Steve Baldikoski:I thought people were gonna, I thought people were gonna call in and tell me what to do with my life.Michael Jamin:Yeah, exactly.Steve Baldikoski:I, I mean the, the number one thing is like, if you want to be a writer, I think you probably have to move to LA maybe New York. But if you want to be in TV comedy, I think you have to be in LA Yeah. That's the first thing you have to do is move here and then write all, you can write things that make you laugh. Right. That abuse you, because no one else will probably enjoy it. So you might as well, you might as well . And, and also, and also I think you, you, you have to get creative, you know I think social media is a great way to get noticed.Michael Jamin:Mm-Hmm. ,Steve Baldikoski:My wife happens to be an executive on the TV side, and she bought the Twitter feed shit, my dad says when she wasMichael Jamin:Wild. And that was gotta be 10 years ago now.Steve Baldikoski:And Yes. And I, and I think that was like the first thing that a network executive or that a network has like, bought something on, like no one was buying a Twitter feed at the time. Right. And, and I thought that was pretty clever that Wendy started looking at things like that. And I, I think that's a great place to get noticed. Yeah,Michael Jamin:I agree.Steve Baldikoski:Especially for young comedy writers. Does sheMichael Jamin:Still do that? Does she still actively, does she look on social media for other people like that?Steve Baldikoski:She does that. She also she flips through, they get they get proposals of books that are coming out. Not even books that have been written, but just titles of book proposals sometimes.Michael Jamin:Really. AndSteve Baldikoski:She has scanned through that and bought a series based on one of the blurbs that she read aboutMichael Jamin:That I'veSteve Baldikoski:Never heard that. That was, that that was actually the show Atory.Michael Jamin:I Okay. Cuz that's a good title. ISteve Baldikoski:Never heard thatMichael Jamin:Before. So I would, I would, I've always, cause my advice to given people is, well, it's gotta be a bestselling book, but you're sayingSteve Baldikoski:Oh, oh, oh. I'm not, oh, I'm not suggesting that's a way to get noticed,Michael Jamin:Right.Steve Baldikoski:To, to write a book. Although it's not a bad idea. If you have a great life story, write a book or put it on TikTok.Michael Jamin:Right.Steve Baldikoski:I think, I think just if you have a comic voice, there are a million ways to get it out there. Yeah. and my dear friend, a guy named David Arnold was a writer on Filler House and just started showing, you know, doing TikTok videos of, of him and his wife and kids. And then he, like, I think Ellen DeGeneres was the first to share one of his videos, and then that blew up for him. And then he ended up, he was getting sponsored and he was a, he was a standup comic and it was helping out with his standup business. Yeah. And so at the age of, you know, 53, he was discovered on new media, you know, andMichael Jamin:And what would hasSteve Baldikoski:Become little tiny sketches about his family.Michael Jamin:Oh, I, let's talk about Kirsty, which was you, you were, to me, that was a lot of fun. So that was a Kirsty Alley show. Yeah. And you guys brought us in. They needed a a freelance. I don't know why they, but they wanted to have somebody freelance even though you got a, a great writing staff. Oh,Steve Baldikoski:.Michael Jamin:And I like, we're like, we'll do it. And thenSteve Baldikoski:I think, I think our, I think I think your agent said that your teeth were falling out and if you didn't write a script for the medical Oh,Michael Jamin:Not at all. Honestly,Steve Baldikoski:That show,Michael Jamin:Because that was a bunch of heavy hitters on that show. Yeah. I really enjoyed it. We were only sat, we only sat in for a couple days. We walked you guys, we walked in and then you guys said, okay, here's the story. We, we broke it, kind of go write it. We're like, okay. And but it was a, itSteve Baldikoski:Was to start Ted Damson. Sson.Michael Jamin:Yeah. And, and then, and Marco punted it for se the next season thinking it was gonna be a season two Marco, there's no season two . You don't punt that. You shoot it today before, before they pull the plug. Steve Baldikoski:The old, we will use this we'll use scripts season two. Yeah.Michael Jamin:The old season twoSteve Baldikoski:Trick. I don't know if that was him being tricked or you being tricked.Michael Jamin:Honestly, we had a great time. It wasSteve Baldikoski:A great script. It was a greatMichael Jamin:Script. It was fun. It was just fun sitting in with a bunch of people. Yeah, well, a bunch of writers that I respected. SoSteve Baldikoski:No, that was an amazing, that was an amazing experience. I, I, we like Claris Leachman did the show. Mm-Hmm. like some really, you know we, we wrote an episode for John Travolta. Yeah.Michael Jamin:And was it Michael Richards and Ria Pearlman. And it was like, these are good, these are heavy hitters, these are great actors. So, andSteve Baldikoski:The, the night that Claris Leachman did the show, we went out for drinks afterwards, Uhhuh with her. And I ended up sitting next to Kirsty Allie's assistant. And it wasn't until about 10 minutes into my conversation when she mentioned reincarnation, that I realized that I was talking to a high level Scientologist. And then I, and then I noticed she was doing all these Scientology tricks with me, like deep deeply staring into my eyes and not blinking until I blink. It was, it was, it was very bizarre.Michael Jamin:Wow. I I think we can,Steve Baldikoski:That's, that, that's, that's a good enough reason to become a sitcom writer is Yeah. To have someone do Scientology mind tricks on you. ThoseMichael Jamin:Are, that those are all these, those are always good stories when you Yeah. Can you go hang out on the past? Hang out. Yeah. And then what aboutSteve Baldikoski:When, when Clarus Leachman is far from the craziest person at the table? .Michael Jamin:She was, she was pretty wild. Yeah.Steve Baldikoski:Michael Jamin:Did I ever work? I'm trying to remember if I ever worked with her on something. I think I did, but I can't remember what it was.Steve Baldikoski:Gotta be. Just, just shoot me.Michael Jamin:It might have been. I don't remember. I, I, you know, but Okay. Well let's get to baby, let's get to the, what everyone wants to talk about Baby Bob.Steve Baldikoski:Oh,Michael Jamin:, let's go. YouSteve Baldikoski:Saved the best for last.Michael Jamin:I saved the best for last. Let's talk about baby. Well,Steve Baldikoski:I, I believe that Baby Bob was the highest rated show that I've ever been on,Michael Jamin:But they canceled it so fast.Steve Baldikoski:They canceled it. Yes. I think that was a, that was a disconnect where the high, high ups meaning like Les Moon vest when he was running CBSs, I think he wanted Baby Bob to be on the air. Oh. And so that he developed it like two or three times with multiple casts.Michael Jamin:Right. We gotta have a talking baby.Steve Baldikoski:And it was, and, but the, but the Talking baby always stayed the same based on these commercials. Was it Geico? Yes. I think his Geico commercials with the baby Ba with Baby Bob interviewing Shaq Yeah. Is, it's the concept that got everyone all hot and bothered. And so, so Les Moonves bought the show. This is my version of the story, I'm sure it's only partially accurate. But he didn't really include the lower level executives who absolutely hated the show. And so, as Brian and I got hired on the show, we thought, Hey, it's a c b s show. They must like the show. But the reaction from the executives after every table read was basically, how dare you,Michael Jamin:How dare how dare you have the baby talk? How dare you. WhatSteve Baldikoski:Like, just everything about the show seemed to offend the, the c bs executives incivility who were in charge of the show.Michael Jamin:Were, were there anything advertised guys in it? Were they involved at all?Steve Baldikoski:No, not, I don't think so. Kenny Kenny Campbell is the voice and mouth of the baby. Uhhuh . And then actually I didn't know much about babies when I was on the show, but then now when I look back, I realize how creepy it is that a baby has a full set of adult teeth. Yeah. Yeah. That are prominent. If I saw a baby like that in real life, I would run.Michael Jamin:Do you think that was the problem with the show? Steve Baldikoski:, this is the baby's teeth? Well, well the Mike Saltzman, my dear friend who Yeah. Saltman created the show, described it as Frazier, and they happened to have a talking baby.Michael Jamin:The other, so the other Oh, Freeman was Frazier had, okay. Frazier. All right.Steve Baldikoski:And they just happened to have a talking baby. IMichael Jamin:SaltmanSteve Baldikoski:That was, that was Mike'sMichael Jamin:And what, what were the writers do? Did, yeah.Steve Baldikoski:I don't have a lot of memories. . Okay.Michael Jamin:SoSteve Baldikoski:There were a lot of late nights and one night, I think it was about midnight, that I got into a shouting match with one of the other writers about whether or not Baby Bob was a genius.Michael Jamin:Right.Steve Baldikoski:And the other writer was taking the stance of he's not a genius, he's only talking at six months. Mozart was writing symphonies at, at five or seven, and I was shouting and I was yelling about the other side that Mozart was not talking at sick at six months.Michael Jamin:And was everyone looking at you both outta your mind? ?Steve Baldikoski:Yes. Like, it's midnight. Can I go home?Michael Jamin:Can I go home? How get the baby to dance? That's all.Steve Baldikoski:But, but, but, but, but I mean, part of the lesson there is even a show that you think is so, so simple or terrible that you could write it in it, in its in your sleep. Uhhuh . It's not that way. No. No. Because even a show like that is very hard to write. Yes.Michael Jamin:Yes. BecauseSteve Baldikoski:You have so many layers of people to Please,Michael Jamin:Yes. People ask me is they say is a, is a, is a great show. Hard to write than a bad show. No, they're all, they're all kind of hard to write for different reasons. Yeah.Steve Baldikoski:And that, that was, I mean, definitely a lesson. And then another lesson was despite what we felt like, I like it, it is sort of embarrassing to be on a show like Baby Bob when you're on the Paramount lot and then the Frazier Golf Cart drives by and you're in the same business, but you're not in the same business. But when it came to the ratings, baby Bob did huge in the ratings. Yeah. Yeah. And it was like one of the top, I think it's one of the top new comedies that year.Michael Jamin:And that's so interesting. And, and that's, that's the thing people don't realize as well, is that you, you may be a great writer, but if you're in this lane, it's hard to get out of that lane cuz that's how people see you. Yes. And if you're in a great, even if you're even a bad writer on a great show, now you're in that lane. You're in a great ri you're, you know, you, you're inflated. So Yeah. Yeah. yeah. People don't quite realize that.Steve Baldikoski:Yeah.Michael Jamin:And you take, you gotta take the job, you gotta get you, but you take the job you get, you know, so Yeah. And,Steve Baldikoski:And, and you really, and you really don't know if it's gonna pan out.Michael Jamin:No.Steve Baldikoski:Like I remember talking to Al Jane and Mike Reese mm-hmm. when we worked with them and asking them when they got started, they started on the, started on The Simpsons I think coming off of Gary Shaline show and when they were pitched coming on to do this cartoon on Fox.Michael Jamin:Right.Steve Baldikoski:They thought, I think that they thought it was, it was not good for their career.Michael Jamin:It would kill their career. Yeah. And, and now it would make no difference, honestly. Now you what? You take a job, you know, whatever job you can get, you take a job, you know? Yeah. But back then you could make decisions. You could make choices.Steve Baldikoski:Yes. Yeah. I, yeah. And, and interestingly, like back when Brian and I were making lists of shows, we would wanna be on Uhhuh, Simpsons was like a C-level list at the time.Michael Jamin:Uhhuh Really? CauseSteve Baldikoski:We liked it, but we thought it was imminently. We, we didn't, no one still knew it was gonna be on the airMichael Jamin:40 years later.Steve Baldikoski:Yeah. And you know, cuz cuz being on The Simpsons, I think it was like uncool. Then it became cool, then it was uncool.Michael Jamin:Well, in a way it's a little bit of, it's almost golden handcuffs if you're on the Cho. That that's if you're on the Simpsons now, you you're not gonna leave. Yeah. Cause it's job security and get ready to, for writing Bart jokes for the rest of your career, you know. Yeah.Steve Baldikoski:But the crazy thing is that there are writers who are still there, who were there when I was in the mail room at United Town. Sure.Michael Jamin:Yeah. SoSteve Baldikoski:Th there are peopleMichael Jamin:Who, they've made a career at it who,Steve Baldikoski:Yes. So I was in the, I was on the business side of the business. I became an executive and then I was a writer for 25 years. Yeah. And they're still doing the job from the day I got into the business.Michael Jamin:It's so interesting. It's just so, yeah. It's, and I would think creatively it's hard, but you know, you, but the money will make, will make you feel better. You know,Steve Baldikoski:Money makes a lot of things feel better.Michael Jamin:You crying for your 50? Is there a 50 bill? . I wouldn't know what a 50 bill looks like. Fascinating. Dude, thank you so much. We have a good chat. We had a good time.Steve Baldikoski:Steve. Thanks for having me.Michael Jamin:Thank you so much. This is, I, I don't know, I'm always fascinating in, in learning people's journeys and how they got there and so thank you so much for, for being on my little show.Steve Baldikoski:Thank you. And hopefully you have stuff that you don't have to cut.Michael Jamin:Oh, , sorry folks. If you heard the version that, the edited version, we had a trash, a lot of stuff. ,Steve Baldikoski:.Michael Jamin:All right everyone, thank you so much. Remember, we offer, we got a lot of great stuff for you on my website. You can get on my newsletter, you get my free all that stuff. Go to michaeljamin.com and find out what we got there. And I got another webinar coming up. All right everyone, thanks so much. Until next, next week, keep writing.Phil Hudson:This has been an episode where screenwriters need to hear this with Michael Jamin and Phil Hudson. If you'd like to support this podcast, please consider subscribing, leaving a review and sharing this podcast with someone who needs to hear today's subject. For free daily screenwriting tips, follow Michael on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok @MichaelJaminWriter. You can follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok @PhilAHudson. This episode was produced by Phil Hudson and edited by Dallas Crane. Until next time, keep writing.

Link to original articleWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: $500 Bounty/Prize Problem: Channel Capacity Using "Insensitive" Functions, published by johnswentworth on May 16, 2023 on LessWrong. Informal Problem Statement We have an information channel between Alice and Bob. Alice picks a function. Bob gets to see the value of that function at some randomly chosen input values... but doesn't know exactly which randomly chosen input values. He does get to see the randomly chosen values of some of the input variables, but not all of them. The problem is to find which functions Alice should pick with what frequencies, in order to maximize the channel capacity. Why Am I Interested In This? I'm interested in characterizing functions which are "insensitive" to subsets of their input variables, especially in high-dimensional spaces. For instance, xor of a bunch of random bits is maximally sensitive: if we have a 50/50 distribution over any one of the bits but know all the others, then all information about the output is wiped out. On the other end of the spectrum, a majority function of a bunch of random bits is highly insensitive: if we have a 50/50 distribution over, say, 10% of the bits, but know all the others, then in most cases we can correctly guess the function's output. I have an argument here that the vast majority of functions f:{0,1}n{0,1} are pretty highly sensitive: as the number of unknown inputs increases, information falls off exponentially quickly. On the other hand, the example of majority functions shows that this is not the case for all functions. Intuitively, in the problem, Alice needs to mostly pick from "insensitive" functions, since Bob mostly can't distinguish between "sensitive" functions. ... And Why Am I Interested In That? I expect that natural abstractions have to be insensitive features of the world. After all, different agents don't all have exactly the same input data. So, a feature has to be fairly insensitive in order for different agents to agree on its value. In fact, we could view the problem statement itself as a very rough way of formulating the coordination problem of language: Alice has to pick some function f which takes in an image and returns 0/1 representing whether the image contains an apple. (The choice of function defines what "apple" means, for our purposes.) Then Alice wants to teach baby Bob what "apple" means. So, there's some random stuff around them, and Alice points at the random stuff and says "apple" for some of it, and says something besides "apple" the rest of the time. Baby Bob is effectively observing the value of the function at some randomly-chosen points, and needs to back out which function Alice intended. And Bob doesn't have perfect access to all the bits Alice is seeing, so the function has to be robust. Formal Problem Statement Consider the following information channel between Alice and Bob: Alice picks a function f:{0,1}n{0,1} Nature generates m possible inputs x1,...,xm, each sampled uniformly and independently from {0,1}n. Nature also generates m subsets S1,...,Sm of 1,...,n, each sampled uniformly and independently from subsets of size s. Bob observes Y=(Y1,...,Ym) where Yi=(f(xi),xSi,Si). The problem is to compute the distribution over f which achieves the channel capacity, i.e. argmaxP[f]∑f,YP[f]P[Y|f]lnP[Y|f]∑f′P[Y|f′]P[f′] Bounty/Prize Info The problem is to characterize the channel throughput maximizing distribution P[f]. The characterization should make clear the answers to questions like: What functions have the highest probability? How quickly does the probability fall off as we move "away" from the most probable functions, and what do marginally-less-probable functions look like? How much probability is assigned to a typical function chosen uniformly at random? Which functions, if any, are assigned zero probability? All of these should have human-in...

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: $500 Bounty/Prize Problem: Channel Capacity Using "Insensitive" Functions, published by johnswentworth on May 16, 2023 on LessWrong. Informal Problem Statement We have an information channel between Alice and Bob. Alice picks a function. Bob gets to see the value of that function at some randomly chosen input values... but doesn't know exactly which randomly chosen input values. He does get to see the randomly chosen values of some of the input variables, but not all of them. The problem is to find which functions Alice should pick with what frequencies, in order to maximize the channel capacity. Why Am I Interested In This? I'm interested in characterizing functions which are "insensitive" to subsets of their input variables, especially in high-dimensional spaces. For instance, xor of a bunch of random bits is maximally sensitive: if we have a 50/50 distribution over any one of the bits but know all the others, then all information about the output is wiped out. On the other end of the spectrum, a majority function of a bunch of random bits is highly insensitive: if we have a 50/50 distribution over, say, 10% of the bits, but know all the others, then in most cases we can correctly guess the function's output. I have an argument here that the vast majority of functions f:{0,1}n{0,1} are pretty highly sensitive: as the number of unknown inputs increases, information falls off exponentially quickly. On the other hand, the example of majority functions shows that this is not the case for all functions. Intuitively, in the problem, Alice needs to mostly pick from "insensitive" functions, since Bob mostly can't distinguish between "sensitive" functions. ... And Why Am I Interested In That? I expect that natural abstractions have to be insensitive features of the world. After all, different agents don't all have exactly the same input data. So, a feature has to be fairly insensitive in order for different agents to agree on its value. In fact, we could view the problem statement itself as a very rough way of formulating the coordination problem of language: Alice has to pick some function f which takes in an image and returns 0/1 representing whether the image contains an apple. (The choice of function defines what "apple" means, for our purposes.) Then Alice wants to teach baby Bob what "apple" means. So, there's some random stuff around them, and Alice points at the random stuff and says "apple" for some of it, and says something besides "apple" the rest of the time. Baby Bob is effectively observing the value of the function at some randomly-chosen points, and needs to back out which function Alice intended. And Bob doesn't have perfect access to all the bits Alice is seeing, so the function has to be robust. Formal Problem Statement Consider the following information channel between Alice and Bob: Alice picks a function f:{0,1}n{0,1} Nature generates m possible inputs x1,...,xm, each sampled uniformly and independently from {0,1}n. Nature also generates m subsets S1,...,Sm of 1,...,n, each sampled uniformly and independently from subsets of size s. Bob observes Y=(Y1,...,Ym) where Yi=(f(xi),xSi,Si). The problem is to compute the distribution over f which achieves the channel capacity, i.e. argmaxP[f]∑f,YP[f]P[Y|f]lnP[Y|f]∑f′P[Y|f′]P[f′] Bounty/Prize Info The problem is to characterize the channel throughput maximizing distribution P[f]. The characterization should make clear the answers to questions like: What functions have the highest probability? How quickly does the probability fall off as we move "away" from the most probable functions, and what do marginally-less-probable functions look like? How much probability is assigned to a typical function chosen uniformly at random? Which functions, if any, are assigned zero probability? All of these should have human-in...

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: $500 Bounty/Prize Problem: Channel Capacity Using "Insensitive" Functions, published by johnswentworth on May 16, 2023 on The AI Alignment Forum. Informal Problem Statement We have an information channel between Alice and Bob. Alice picks a function. Bob gets to see the value of that function at some randomly chosen input values... but doesn't know exactly which randomly chosen input values. He does get to see the randomly chosen values of some of the input variables, but not all of them. The problem is to find which functions Alice should pick with what frequencies, in order to maximize the channel capacity. Why Am I Interested In This? I'm interested in characterizing functions which are "insensitive" to subsets of their input variables, especially in high-dimensional spaces. For instance, xor of a bunch of random bits is maximally sensitive: if we have a 50/50 distribution over any one of the bits but know all the others, then all information about the output is wiped out. On the other end of the spectrum, a majority function of a bunch of random bits is highly insensitive: if we have a 50/50 distribution over, say, 10% of the bits, but know all the others, then in most cases we can correctly guess the function's output. I have an argument here that the vast majority of functions f:{0,1}n{0,1} are pretty highly sensitive: as the number of unknown inputs increases, information falls off exponentially quickly. On the other hand, the example of majority functions shows that this is not the case for all functions. Intuitively, in the problem, Alice needs to mostly pick from "insensitive" functions, since Bob mostly can't distinguish between "sensitive" functions. ... And Why Am I Interested In That? I expect that natural abstractions have to be insensitive features of the world. After all, different agents don't all have exactly the same input data. So, a feature has to be fairly insensitive in order for different agents to agree on its value. In fact, we could view the problem statement itself as a very rough way of formulating the coordination problem of language: Alice has to pick some function f which takes in an image and returns 0/1 representing whether the image contains an apple. (The choice of function defines what "apple" means, for our purposes.) Then Alice wants to teach baby Bob what "apple" means. So, there's some random stuff around them, and Alice points at the random stuff and says "apple" for some of it, and says something besides "apple" the rest of the time. Baby Bob is effectively observing the value of the function at some randomly-chosen points, and needs to back out which function Alice intended. And Bob doesn't have perfect access to all the bits Alice is seeing, so the function has to be robust. Formal Problem Statement Consider the following information channel between Alice and Bob: Alice picks a function f:{0,1}n{0,1} Nature generates m possible inputs x1,...,xm, each sampled uniformly and independently from {0,1}n. Nature also generates m subsets S1,...,Sm of 1,...,n, each sampled uniformly and independently from subsets of size s. Bob observes Y=(Y1,...,Ym) where Yi=(f(xi),xSi,Si). The problem is to compute the distribution over f which achieves the channel capacity, i.e. argmaxP[f]∑f,YP[f]P[Y|f]lnP[Y|f]∑f′P[Y|f′]P[f′] Bounty/Prize Info The problem is to characterize the channel throughput maximizing distribution P[f]. The characterization should make clear the answers to questions like: What functions have the highest probability? How quickly does the probability fall off as we move "away" from the most probable functions, and what do marginally-less-probable functions look like? How much probability is assigned to a typical function chosen uniformly at random? Which functions, if any, are assigned zero probability? All of these should ...

GOD Provides JESUS SavesGoodShepherdTraining.comPatreonhttps://account.venmo.com/u/MilitoMinistryPodI'm Humbled by Your Support, Thanks and Have a Blessed DayServant Milito

Bryan Behar is a writer/producer known for Wilfred, Glenn Martin D.D.S., and Las Man Standing. Join Michael Jamin and Bryan Behar in this deep conversation, perfect for emerging writers or aspiring TV Writers.Show NotesBryan Behar on IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0066864/Bryan Behar on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bryanbeharBryan Behar on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bryan_behar/Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Watchlist - https://michaeljamin.com/watchlistAuto-Generated TranscriptsMichael Jamin:Someone said, well, you know, when are they gonna, are they gonna bring back multi-camera sick? They should bring 'em back.Bryan Behar:They exist Uhhuh. But they exist either for the very old or the very young. But there's been an entire generation that has been raised without them.Michael Jamin:Right? AndBryan Behar:Which infuriates me because as a historian of the, of the genre, I look back as recently as a couple years ago, and in the previous, I think 60 years of sitcoms, the number one sitcom on the air, uh, in terms of total viewers had been a multicam in 59 of the six first 60 years.Michael Jamin:You're listening to Screenwriters Need to Hear This with Michael Jam.Hey everybody, welcome to Screenwriters. Need to hear this. I'm Michael Jam. I got a special guest today. But you know, the way, um, the Letterman show always opens with, you know, my next guest needs no introduction. Well, my next guest needs an introduction, but he's like, . But, but you know what? All writers need introductions. No one's ever heard of any of us. But I'm here with Brian Behar and he is, dude, this guy's got a, he's a sitcom writer with a list of a laundry list of shows that he's worked on. I'm Brian. I'm gonna run through those cuz I'm sure you've forgotten half the credits. That's how many credits you have. AllBryan Behar:Right. I, I could name three, so please.Michael Jamin:, we started his, his career with the illustrious teen Angel, and then we slowly move up to working. I remember that show. I'd forgotten you were on work. You had some,Bryan Behar:I started with Ned and Stacy, but that may not have appeared on the, on your laundry list.Michael Jamin:Uh, my researchers who basically just download imdb did not tell me that. But we're gonna go on the IMDB order. , okay. That's accurate. Uh, then dag, remember that show with Andy and Eileen Baby Bob, you remember that show Baby Bob?Bryan Behar:The biggest hit I've ever been on ,Michael Jamin:Then a usaBryan Behar:And I still quit because I, as I told the Showrun my self-esteem can't handle running into anyone I went to high school with telling them I'm on Baby Bob. Sorry, Saltzman.Michael Jamin:Sorry. The, then a usa and then Andy Richter controls the universe. Guys, hang on. This guy's got so many credits then I'm with her. Although we're not sure if it's I'm with her or I'm with her.Bryan Behar:Brent Must Berger said I'm with her. So it was, I'm with herMichael Jamin:, I'm with her. I'm coughing. Then eight simple rules. How many of the rules did you ever get to before they canceled the show, by the way?Bryan Behar:Uh, we were on the fourth rule.Michael Jamin:Fourth rule. I was on, by the way, rules of engagement. So, oh.Bryan Behar:And I've done three shows with the working of the titleMichael Jamin:. Then, then the New Adventures of Old Christine. The, the old conventions of new Christine would've been better, but apparently that's okay. Then The Jake Effect.Bryan Behar:Yes.Michael Jamin:Weak shots. I don't even know what that is, to be honest.Bryan Behar:Oh, that was an, that was a highly touted one hour.Michael Jamin:Oh, so you can talk about some drama experience.Bryan Behar:I can talk about anything.Michael Jamin:It doesn't mean, doesn't mean what you're talking about, but you can talk aboutBryan Behar:Any Yeah, no, you're not gonna be able to stop meMichael Jamin: then. Big. Okay. Big shots then. True. Jackson vp, which was on NickelodeonBryan Behar:One episode. I, I wrote a, I wrote a story. Let's not get carried away.Michael Jamin:All right. Let's not give you too much credit then. Wil, which we worked on together.Bryan Behar:Yes.Michael Jamin:Talking Dog Show.Bryan Behar:Oh, that's where's our other Talking dog show? That that should have been a, uh, oh,Michael Jamin:Getting there. Glen Martin dds. No one knows what that is, but that's when we first worked together.Bryan Behar:But if you love, uh, Canadian cable Claymation shows you might like GlenMichael Jamin:. You might like it. Uh, last Man StandingBryan Behar:Like animation with a laugh track that isn't jaber. You're gonna love Glen. You're,Michael Jamin:That's how they promoted it. Then, uh, last Man Standing, which you were not one of the last men standing on that show.Bryan Behar:No, I was the first to go. ButMichael Jamin:. Well, Jack, no, Jack was the first to go.Bryan Behar:That's true. GreaterMichael Jamin:Was the first to go.Bryan Behar:Then he came back and then he went again, and then he came back. So, yes,Michael Jamin:I didn't realize he came back. Sorry. Then saved me. I don't know what that is. Do you know what that is?Bryan Behar:Give me a moment.Michael Jamin:Was that just a letter that you wrote to your agentBryan Behar:? Um, I did, I did write that letter from the writer's room of Save Me . Um, that was a show about Ann Hay, uh, think she Can Speak to God. And that was the least crazy part of the show.Michael Jamin:Oh, I did not know that. We'll talk about that.Bryan Behar:Yes, please.Michael Jamin:Uh, then we'll talk about Kirsty, which we worked again on You guys brought, I mean, me and my partner in on to do a freelance of that. And I had the great Cogan on the show a couple weeks ago.Bryan Behar:Oh my goodness. Well, you, you've got to everyone before me. Oh,Michael Jamin:I I, yeah. This is the bottom of the barrel week. IBryan Behar:Know, I saw on the list. I was like,Michael Jamin:. Really?Bryan Behar:So go ahead.Michael Jamin:Uh, I also have here Jennifer FallsBryan Behar:And does not get back up. Yes. All yes, I've heard them all. Uh,Michael Jamin:Ratings falls then Ned and Stacy we have on here. I don't know why it's, it's out of order here, but yes, that was 1997 N and Stacy there. And then finally, uh, you were the, you were the showrunner of Fuller House, the, the full House Free make.Bryan Behar:That is correct. I was,Michael Jamin:Now you,Bryan Behar:Is the first time you're hearingMichael Jamin:This. I had no idea. , you've, now you're fond to say that I think you've, like, you've worked on 20, it's 26 shows. Is that what it is?Bryan Behar:21 shows in 26 seasons,Michael Jamin:21 shows. And think about, so this is a career, guys. YouBryan Behar:Are, this is a hard way to do it.Michael Jamin:It is the hard way.Bryan Behar:Apply for a new job twice a year.Michael Jamin:Yeah. And it's act I mean, to be honest, it was, um, it was more doable then than it is now. I mean, now it's really hard to do that.Bryan Behar:I have no idea what people do now. Yeah. Which is, which makes me a sort of, sort of a sham as a, a teacher of, of sitcoms as I'm trying to, um, encourage and promote people to take a, take the, the risk and, uh, and jump in. But, uh, I have no idea what a career trajectory, uh, looks like today. It was, it, it, it it was very, uh, understandable when we broke in. Yeah. Like, it, like there was a clearer path and you're like, oh, I can go from show to show and there's enough sitcoms and there's, you know, I can just, if I lose one job, I'll just walk to the next bungalow on CBS Bradford and knock on the door and hope somebody else lets us in. ButMichael Jamin:That's, that's what I say. I say maybe I wonder if you agree. I say that, um, I think it's easier to break in now, but it's harder to make a sustain a career. What do you think?Bryan Behar:Um, well, I'm, I'm certainly not gonna disagree with you on your own show. I mean, you, you ,Michael Jamin:Please, if you do, I just edit it out.Bryan Behar:You have your burgeoning media empire here and I looking to be part of it. Um, God, how many does it? Okay. Um, I think you're right. Um, and by that, i I, I don't know if it's harder to sustain a career. I see a lot more people not entirely willing to commit to putting a career together.Michael Jamin:What does thatBryan Behar:Mean? Which, I mean, there's been such, um, on social media and in the press, there's such a sort of hype surrounding the concept of like the celebrity showrun that, and, and sort of with the advent of streaming services, that there's this idea that anyone can get a show on the air at any time and immediately jump from like an unemployed, unemployable, aspiring writer to a show runner. Mm-hmm. without doing any of the work in between. Like, you know, I know I hate to sound old fashioned, but you and I, we definitely put in the time working up the rung, working up the ladder. So when we finally got that call to run a show, I, you know, we, we had the skill set presumably, you know, we had been learning, we'd been acquiring a certain set of skills. Um, and I don't know that that is really like, promoted as much,Michael Jamin:But are you seeing people with not, with not a lot of experience becoming share owners?Bryan Behar:No. Um, but I'm seeing, but I'm hearing a lot of that's the aspiration.Michael Jamin:Oh, oh, yes. That's for sure. I hear that a lot.Bryan Behar:You know, like, you know, because I know you talk to a lot of people, you know, who were, you know, aspiring TV writers. And I, you know, I was doing a lot of talks on, on Clubhouse, and a lot of ask me anything kind of talks on, on Twitter and, and the, the question always sort of circles back to how do I sell a pilot to Netflix? How do I get a show on the streamer? How do I become a show runner? And it's not like, oh, what samples do I need Yeah. To break in? What skills do I need to move up the ladder? You know, it's just a different mindset. Like, it never would've occurred to me. I didn't, I didn't even sell a pilot or even attempt a pilot until I had been on 12 networks at college.Michael Jamin:It's so fun, Brian. It's like, maybe we're just the old guys, but this is exactly what I say all the time. I mean, so I'm glad that I'm not the only one saying it, or thinking atBryan Behar:Least. No, there are, there are two old guys in the Yeah, we have become the guys from the puppets, butMichael Jamin:The cranky old guys Yeah. InBryan Behar:Waldorf and Staler.Michael Jamin:But, but you, so I wanna actually wanna mention this. I wanna jump around for a second. So yes, you are also teaching at Chapman University. You're teaching, uh, is it television writing? What are you, what's their course?Bryan Behar:Um, yeah. Um, I'm teaching, I, I just, I started last semester from, this was my first time. Um, and, and currently in this fall semester, I'm teaching two classes. One is a sitcom writing class, uh, for graduate students, uhhuh. And one is a pilot writing class for undergrads. And then I'm gonna do two, they've already asked me back, uh, for two sitcom classes, uh, in the spring semester.Michael Jamin:Wow, that'sBryan Behar:Great. Yeah. It seems to be what I do. Uh,Michael Jamin:So you're enjoying it then? I loveBryan Behar:It. I love it. And I, uh,Michael Jamin:You weren't sure if you were gonna enjoy it?Bryan Behar:No, I, it, it actually took a little bit of Mm, a little coaxing internally in the family. You know, my wife had a bit of a come to Jesus moment with me. You know how, I don't know if you've heard the old joke, but they say that in Hollywood, you're retired for seven years before you realize it. Well, I had been retired for three years, and my wife was certainly well aware, and I was, I was starting to get it. Um, and she really was, you know, she really sat me down and said, like, you know, is this what you wanna do the rest of your life? Just keep banging your head against the same wall? Or is there, is there a wall you can go around and find something that gives you joy? And this has been great. WhatMichael Jamin:Exactly do you like about it?Bryan Behar:Well, I like not being on a TV show, which apparently Hollywood, Hollywood and myself have the same, likeMichael Jamin:You do have the same goal for you.Bryan Behar:They both, my, my, uh, agent manager, Hollywood producers and teaching, I'll see it the same way. .Michael Jamin:Um,Bryan Behar:No, I, I, I love, I mean, it, it, it's something so special to be around people who just are filled with nothing but hope and nothing but confidence. And, you know, it's really, I mean, if I have to spend my days around people who are positive and, and still love, have a love for the art and a love for the craft, and would give anything to be in television or be, you know, be by myself or be around a lot of bitter people complaining about why they're not in, you know, I'll take the four hours of driving down to Orange County anytime. Uh, it, it's, it's been great. And I didn't, I had no idea if I would like it.Michael Jamin:Well, first of all, it's not really a four hour drive.Bryan Behar:It's, it's two hours each way.Michael Jamin:Right. Okay. Um,Bryan Behar:So yes, for clarity's sake. Okay. It's not a four hour drive each way, but it is.Michael Jamin:But, and I'm sure what surprises you, cause it does surprise me, is just, is how much you actually know about how to do this. Right.Bryan Behar:That's the other fun part. I mean, that's is, I mean, and I don't mean it in like a smug, self satisfactory kind of way that like, wow, I'm, I'm smart, I've learned things, but when you're, when you're actually seeing it through the perspective of, of new writers and, you know, and new students and, and you're imparting knowledge on them, and, and it's, and like you said, it's not even knowledge that you're aware you have. Right. It's, we've almost picked it up by osmosis. But I mean, you know, me and I think you're a lot, you're really kind of the same way where, you know, we were both students of, of television, students of the TV history, students of the craft, you know, more than a lot of people who we did it alongside. I mean, so I think it makes sense. The, the two of us have found virgins of, of offering guidance and coaching and Yeah. And, you know, and trying to impart expertise. But it, it is, it is really satisfying and gratifying to, to realize like, wow, I, I actually did learn something. I actually have a certain level of skill. And, you know, all those years were not for, not, yeah. I'm spelling not differently in those two cases, butMichael Jamin:K nBryan Behar:O t not for nothing. Yes. , I mean, I know you're from the tri-state area. I should, I should have said it more colloquial,Michael Jamin:But, um, and so, yeah. Good. So, and you're enjoying that and you, the class sizes are kind of small or what?Bryan Behar:Yeah, I had, uh, seven last semester. My grad student was, is nine, and then 15, uh, I got 15 in my, uh, pilot class, you know, but it's, it's way tougher than I expected. You know, like, I, like they turn in, you know, like pages of a script or an outline, uh, the day before we go into class. And I, and I'm so like, you know, of, of the neurotic sense of I need to give them their money's worth, you know, they're paying a lot for the, so I write up about three pages of notes per student, per class. Wow. So, pilot class, that's, I'm writing up 45 pages of notes between the hours of two and eight on a Thursday night just to make sure I have something to give themMichael Jamin:A lot of work, dude,Bryan Behar:You know, you know, on Friday. And it's like, wow, you know, I, I used to do half the amount of work for a lot more money, but it, you know, I don't know that I would do that again. AndMichael Jamin:Let me be clear.Bryan Behar:And that's okay. I've made, I really have made my peace, which, which is threatening to people. You know, I had, I had lunch with a writer we both know the, uh, last week. And he is like, you, you want back in? I was like, no, I really don't. He's like, you can't be at peace. I'm like, no, I'm at peace. He goes, what if I offered youMichael Jamin:Go?Bryan Behar:Yeah. And I was like, he goes, what if I offered you a job on a, on a, on a pilot? I was like, okay, well first you'd have to get it on the air and you're not going to offer it. I said, but yeah, sure. Let's say you offered me a job. I'm not gonna like turn it down out of hand. Um, but I don't think it's gonna happen. He goes, yeah, probably not. He goes, your old partner's, uh, wife works at the network. She never let me hire you anyway. I'm like, then why are we having this discussion? You, you better pay for lunch.Michael Jamin:Could you wait, can you say who it was?Bryan Behar:This was Marco from, uh,Michael Jamin:Oh, Marco, really? MarcoBryan Behar:From, uh, yeah, from our Kirsty,Michael Jamin:Yes. Marco from Hello Marco from Kirsty.Bryan Behar:Hello Marco from KirstyMichael Jamin:.Bryan Behar:One of, one of my dear friends. But, you know, but I think, you know, for a lot of people that you know this, and I'm not singling him out, you know, that being a writer on television becomes one's identity. And, and it was for me for a long, long time, you know, you know, 25, 26 years, uh, of doing it. But it, you know, at some point you just have to read the writing on the wall, if that's, if that's where your career is at. And, and that's where IMichael Jamin:Are you still doing any other writing outside? Just for your, for personal reasons?Bryan Behar:Yeah, I'm doing all kinds of writing, but none of which is with the intent ofMichael Jamin:Making aBryan Behar:TV show, selling a pilot or, or getting back in, you know, on staff. Yeah. And, and that's, you know, you know, we've talked about this off camera a lot over the last, you know, five, six years just finding our own voices and, and finding other avenues to, to write on, you know, on my own. And so I'm like, I'm still writing a, you know, you know, a lot of essays. Um, I, you know, I, I had written I think 40 essays for the Huffington Post, um, over the past five years, another 20, 25 for Medium. And, and then I've moved my stuff over, uh, to sub stack. Um, so I recently wrote a, an article about growing up in Encino that was shared 10,000 times. Um, and I performed it at a, um, wow. I performed it at a spoken word, and I,Michael Jamin:And that was all from Sub, it got shared 10,000 times.Bryan Behar:Yeah. Yeah.Michael Jamin:Wait, what? We'll plug it.Bryan Behar:Apparently. I know a lot about the Valley,Michael Jamin:But, and you have a lot of thought. We'll plug it again at the end, but I wanna make sure, might as well mention it now as well. What's your sub name?Bryan Behar:Oh, find You. I assume it's, it, it has to be Brian Behar. That's with Brian with a Y. But I can, I can check. I'm sorry. This is, this is not gonna make great television watching an old Jew look, look up his SubT. But, uh, I just, um, I just got O brian behar.com, but I just got two Twitter notifications saying that even though this, uh, episode hasn't aired, it's already been referred to as two JulieMichael Jamin:, Elon Musk's ahead of time.Bryan Behar:. He's,Michael Jamin:He's, he's, he's making it better. Um,Bryan Behar:Yeah, I've lost 10,000 followers in the last week, and I don't think I've gotten that much less funny. I, but uh, I mean, there's, there's just a Twitter at Trisha. Yeah. So, as you, but in, in reference to your other question, yeah. I'm still still posting a ton on Twitter and on, on Facebook. I, I wrote a novella, um, which is just a novel that I didn't have enough words to legally call a novel. Uh, I've been writing my articles, doing spoken words, so really doing everything but the stuff that used to pay me. And, uh, but, and loving itMichael Jamin:And loving itBryan Behar:And loving it.Michael Jamin:And that's great. I wanna, so I wanna circle back to stuff that I wanna ask you, how you broke into the business. Although it's odd because I'm not sure how helpful it is for people since so much has changed, but we might as well talkBryan Behar:About it. Yeah. I mean, sitcoms used to be on Kiddo Scopes when we were breaking in , you know, was it the Dumont network that gave me myMichael Jamin:First job? , yes.Bryan Behar:I mean, my story is sort of, sort of interesting for people who like ancient history, , um, you know, cuz in many ways I was an overnight success. I wrote one spec script and was on the staff of n and Stacy two months later. Um, but this was an overnight success that, that was seven years in the making, right? Um, between the time I graduated from college, brown University. Um,Michael Jamin:Oh, for applause. Nothing.Bryan Behar:Oh, for applause. Hold for salute. Thank you. Thank you. Everyone still holding, still holding. No one seems to, no one seems to care as much as, as I do, um, between graduation and, and, and even knowing at the time of graduation that I desperately wanted to be a sitcom writer, it was seven years between then and actually getting my first job Right. Um, for the first few years. It, it just felt as though it was not like a conceivable path in my mind. It's, it felt like that was for like the funny people. That's what other people did. Um, but I knew I wanted to write mm-hmm. , and that was something I discovered at Brown. Like, I, I went to Brown thinking I was gonna be a lawyer, like all dutiful Jewish boys trying to buy their mother's affection through grades, . Um, that didn't work. So I decided I might as well do something I actually am good at and something that I like. Uh, and I started to realize that like, wow, people seem to be laughing when I'm writing stuff for the school paper. So I knew I wanted to write comedy, but, uh, a job in advertising actually felt more, uh, conceivable to me. And, and as such, I went on that path and I, and I worked as a copywriter for seven years. AndMichael Jamin:That was in New York, or out hereBryan Behar:On the west coast. Started in San Diego, then Los Angeles, and finished up in San Francisco.Michael Jamin:Okay.Bryan Behar:Um, and I was pretty good at it, and I was starting to actually get like a, a decent amount of success and traction, but all the while I could not shake the feeling that I really wanna write tv. I really wanna be a comedy writer. And if I don't try it soon, I'm gonna reach that point where I am too successful or too well paid at, at something I don't wanna do to ever take the chance. So, um, my old partner, uh, was a college friend Steve, and he said, Hey, I'm writing a specs script. And I was like, wait, you don't wanna be a TV writer? That's my dream. He's like, well, I'm doing it with another friend of ours. I said, well, tell her we're not doing it. And he and I wrote it over a facsimile machine while he was in LA and I was living in San Francisco. We were never even in the same room. Wow. AndMichael Jamin:And he was an executive at the time?Bryan Behar:He was an executive. He frequently wore suspenders by choice.Michael Jamin:I'm sorry. He was a TV executive, right? He was at, was he at a, where was he? Wonder Brother abc. WhereBryan Behar:Was he? He was at Universal. He was at Columbia. He was at spelling and he was at nbc. Yeah. So he was well into that career, but he also, he was, you know, he wa he'd been to enough tapings and be like, wow, these people aren't that smart. Like, right. Like, I can write, I can write mediocre multi-campus, it comes as well as the next guy . SoMichael Jamin:You guys teamed up, you wrote a spec and then what?Bryan Behar:And then we, we were on staff two months later. HowMichael Jamin:Did you get into, how did you get into someone's hands? What,Bryan Behar:Uh, well, he was dating the woman who became our agent. ThatMichael Jamin:Helps.Bryan Behar:And so, so there is thatMichael Jamin:,Bryan Behar:I mean, he had dated her earlier. They had met in the, uh, UTA mail room. Hi. SoMichael Jamin:That's right. She, she was my, our agent at one point too.Bryan Behar:Yeah. Um, but like I will say to our credit, like, she was like, you have to send it to me. But we were, we thought that it was almost not kosher and it sent it to some other people who were gonna sign us Uhhuh. Um, so it was a good, but here's the thing, it was a good spec. Um, and I see why we got hired, but we took a year to write it. Yeah.Because like, you know, we had unlimited time. There was no constraints of being on a show. And then we get to our first job and they say, oh, well we need our, your first script in a week. Right? Well, we had no, we had no system in place. We had never even been in the same city. Right. So we totally panicked, wrote it as quickly as possible, turned it in, and we're like, I think we did it. And we got called in by our boss, Michael Whitehorn is like, guys, you know, I have to say about this script. Like, it reads like a Marks Brothers movie. And I was like, well, thank you very much. I I appreciate. He's like, no, this is terrible. He goes, I love the March Brothers, but that's not how you write tv. He goes, there's no story, there's no setups.It's just bouncing from joke to joke. Mm-hmm. . And it literally read like it felt writing it like it was done out of panic. Yeah. And he, and he told us he was gonna have to fire us. And this was like, you know, I finally was living my dream after years and years. He did. You already. And, and within like a month it was, it was all gonna go away. And I had quit my career in San, in San Francisco in advertising. Moved down here. I had just gotten married, you know, I always like to say, other than death, divorce, and space travel, I took on all of life's great stressors in one month. But did And did you get fired from it? We did not. What happened? Here's some advice for you young folk. Yeah. Cause I know young folks like this podcast. Um, they might, they might to laugh .Um, he said, well, legally, I have to give you a second script. So you know how long ago it was when you had a two script guarantee? Yeah. He goes, so I might as well let you write it anyway cause I don't have to pay you. Right. So at that point, we, we had nothing to lose because we'd already suffered like all the indignity of being fired and everyone in the room knew it. So we kind of just slowed down and like pieced it together a lot more carefully and a lot more artfully. You know, we still, you know, we still had a ton of jokes, but it wasn't in this like, frantic style. And he, and he, to his credit, he said, this is so much better. I'm gonna, I'm taking it back. I'm gonna let you keep your job. And we ended up staying there for 24 episodes and we wrote four of them.Mm-hmm. , and we were, you know, sort of off to the races. But it, you know, so much attention is given to getting that first job. And so little attention is given to how do you keep it? Yep. How do you get the second one? How do you go from jobs two to jobs three and four? And that's like, that's the stuff that I'm trying to help people with both online and in my class, which is anyone can kind of break in with like, you know, and I've heard you talk on your, your ticks about one hit wonders. Like, that's not what people should be aspiring to. They shouldn't be aspiring to, well I, I, you know, I sold this one movie, or I sold this one pilot. But how do you get on a show? How do you, how do you keep, how do you stay in the boss's good graces mm-hmm. , how do you make friends on a staff as a staff writer, um, without being the annoying staff writer who feels compelled to fill the air with your voice mm-hmm. because you think that everyone's judging you and keeping score. And these are, you know, again, these are all super valuable, but, you know, lessons that are kind of lost arts in my mind. Um,Michael Jamin:I totally agree. It's also, you know, when I, the first script that I wrote, this is even Withouts before I met my partner, it was a good script. It got me signed by Bro Cro and Webner. But I thought I would never write. It wasn't my first script. It was the first script. I guess it was good, but I, I thought I would never do it. How could I do it again? I don't, I I got lucky. I didn't know how, I didn't know what a story was. I just got lucky, you know?Bryan Behar:Yeah. I hundred percent felt that and felt that for a long time. I mean, when I was writing like samples, and again, I, I, I sort of jumped ahead and didn't mention that I was trying to write samples for all seven of those years.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Bryan Behar:And I tried it with three or four different partners. I tried it on my own. Interesting. Um, and my real issue was I couldn't finish. You know, like people always say like, what, you know, what's the, what's your biggest advice? I'm like, finish a script. Yeah. Because I would belly ache at coffee shop houses all over Le Brea. Like, why am I not on staff? Oh, do you have a sample? Well, I've never finished oneMichael Jamin:,Bryan Behar:You know, but like, how did people not know about me? I, I won't stop talking about it, but like, I think I, I, deep down I felt that if I were to finish a script and I don't get hired then like I no longer have a sustainable dream. Like as long as it was still out there, it was something that I could always like shoot for as a safety valve if I didn't like what I was doing in advertising or in life. But once you finish something, then it becomes tangible and people would read it. But if you don't do that, it it, there's no way for them to advance you. So, uh,Michael Jamin:Yeah. Yeah. I mean it's so interesting you say about keeping the job I did. I definitely talk about that as well. It's like, how do you keep your job? And so I've seen, I've seen so many, and you must see more than me, but young staff, writers just flame out flame. They get, it's a shame cuz you get this job, but you're not ready for it. And then you're done.Bryan Behar:You, I've seen so many people get the first job and never get the second job.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Yeah.Bryan Behar:If you get the second job, there's a pretty good chance that you're inMichael Jamin:Uhhuh.Bryan Behar:Um, now again, that was in the mid nineties when NBC alone had 18 sitcoms on its fall schedule. Yeah. I don't mean 18 sitcoms on all the network, I mean, just on one of the networks. And it's not like the others, you know, were only doing, you know, biopics you, you know, this was an, an era where there was a clear path forward where you could, you could rise through the ranks. You could go from show to show you could take, you know, good credits and get a better job on another show. Mm-hmm. . Um, I mean we used to always, always, before we knew you guys, we used to resent the hell out of you. We're like, you know, cause we, you know, we'd been on like 10 shows while you guys were on Just Shoot Me in King of the Hill. Yeah.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Bryan Behar:And it's like, wow, that is a, that is an entirely other way of doing it. Which is we, we would look at you and like, so you're telling me you can get on a really good show, stay there, do a good job, stay there for a long time, then get on a better show. Yeah. And do that for a long time. And that was, you know, andMichael Jamin:A lot of that is luck. Like, you know, we got on a good show and it went four seasons and you got on a show that didn't get, you know, four seasons and then you have to, and so yeah. A lot of that is, you know, that's just luck really. You know,Bryan Behar:A lot of it is. Yes. I mean, and yet, you know, like now I've had some opportunities to sort of reflect back on my career and there are situations like old Christine for example, which ran for six years, but we just ran for the first 13 episodes. Right. Um, you know, if I knew better how to play the game, um, or you know, not to take defeat so much to heart. Um, you know, and a lot of that had to do with like, sort of grappling with depression and a lot of things mm-hmm. . Um, but like I, you know, if I knew now, if I knew then what I know now, I think there might have been a few opportunities along the way where I could have kept a job for longer. But, um, nothing I can do about that now.Michael Jamin:Not that it, not that really makes a difference, but Do you, do you see any change between the way young staff writers are today? Like when you were doing one of your last few shows and the work when you were first starting off, do you see a change in their attitudes or their readiness or anything?Bryan Behar:No. Um, I'm, I'm trying to think. You know, because I, I was very fortunate on Fuller House that I was able to promote a ton of younger writers from within the system, uh, and, and was able to give them their first staff writing jobs. Right. Um, and like that was a little different than how I had done it, which was, you know, in my case. And I think maybe, maybe in your case, but I, I don't wanna speak for you. Like, certainly in our case it was you write samples and you break in as a staff writer. And I see more and more that the only way in for a lot of people is to take other jobs on a show in the production working as a PA and then working up to a writing's assistant or start as a writing assistant then becoming the, you know, the, you know, the writing supervisor or, or you know, like that that sort of path, uh, of promotion from within seems to be a lot more common. I know that didn't answer your, that didn't answer your question specifically about the writers themselves. No. They, they seem just like young writers mm-hmm. who were, you know, who were appreciative of the shot. It seems like they've all been maybe out in the cold a lot longer than we were Yeah. Uh, before they get their first break. And I think there's less certainty about what comes after because there just aren't as many sitcoms in general and multi cams in specific.Michael Jamin:I did a post about this just a couple days ago about, cuz someone said, well, you know, when are they gonna, are they gonna bring back multi-camera sick? They should bring them back. And I was like, you know, at some point, maybe in 10 or 15 years, it might almost be impossible because whoBryan Behar:It might be Im now.Michael Jamin:Well, why do you thinkBryan Behar:So they, they exist Uhhuh, but they exist either for the very old or the very young mm-hmm. and there's been an entire, and I'm sorry I didn't mean to interrupt you, but there's been an entire generation that has been raised without them.Michael Jamin:Right.Bryan Behar:And which infuriates me because as a historian of the, of the genre, I look back as recently as a couple years ago, and in the previous, I think 60 years of sitcoms, the number one sitcom on the air, uh, in terms of total viewers had been a multicam in 59 of the six first 60 years.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Bryan Behar:Um, and this even includes like, you know, what you might call like the heyday of the single camera era. And yes, there have been a few hits that have become sizable monsters like Modern Family and The Office, but the Office even more so, you know, once it became syndicated or once it went to Netflix. Um, but even during that, those shows having their heydays, the top rated sitcoms were still two and a Half Men and Big Bang Theory. You know, I mean, I am someone who strongly believes that, that the multi cam has always been more popular than the single cam. But, and maybe we've spoken about this before, but executives didn't think it was as cool to talk about it at their, you know, west side cocktail parties. And nobody wanted to be the one who developed, you know, a big embarrassing show with a laugh track. So they would just keep plowing ahead.Michael Jamin:But they always say they're looking for it because it costs less money.Bryan Behar:They always say it, but they never buy them. Yeah. And in fact, many times we would, Steve and I would sell a pilot to someone, um, as a single cam knowing that that's the only thing that those networks were putting on that year. And they say, no, no, no, we're really looking for multi cams. They would change our pilot to a Multicam and then pick it up and say, well, nobody's, there's nowhere, nowhere on the schedule where we can place us a multicam. Yeah. There's, wait a second. You made me do it. Yeah.Michael Jamin:Um, why do youBryan Behar:Think, I'm not gonna say it would've gotten on anyway, so, butMichael Jamin:Why do you think they couldn't make it today? Do you think it's just a scheduling thing? Cause I had a different feeling about it.Bryan Behar:I think it's a scheduling thing on the one hand. Um, and I've read some articles recently about the difficulty in scheduling multi cams alongside single cams. There was an article just like this week in fact. But beyond that, I think it's, it is almost just like, why isn't there rock and roll on Top 40 radio because there hasn't been in 15 years, so there's nobody alive in that age demo who would listen to it.Michael Jamin:You think so? You think it's a viewership thing? Cause I don't, that's not what I do. I think the problem is, is I think it, when we jumped on a set, you know, when we first were on sitcoms, like, especially in Multicam, there's so much to learn about how to produce a multi-camera show that we weren't, we weren't even thinking of like running one in 10 15. Like, it was like, I don't know how to do this. Even when I'm working on it, I'm like, I wouldn't be, you couldn't put me in charge of this. And then, but now, but you, but you come out of a school. So like we were on Just Shoot Me and that came out of was on Frazier. So we kind of grew outta the Frazier School, which grew outta the cheer school. So there's like this column of like writers before you that you learn from.Bryan Behar:Yeah. It's like coming out of like the Bill Belichick coaches tree. Yeah.Michael Jamin:Right. VeryBryan Behar:Similar. You if you're, if you're a, you know, a co-executive producer on, on one on Levian show, then you can be the executive producer on when you get a deal on your next show. Like, very common to putThem,Michael Jamin:Hey, it's Michael Jamin. If you like my videos and you want me to email them to you for free, join my watch list. Every Friday I send out my top three videos. These are for writers, actors, creative types. You could unsubscribe whenever you want. I'm not gonna spam you and it's absolutely free. Just go to michael jamin.com/watchlist.Now, like if you wanted to put a single, a multi-camera show on the air, where's the talent pool other than a bunch of old guys or people who've never done it before?Bryan Behar:Yeah. And, and, and like, you know, I sounded a little facetious earlier when I said it was the purview of the very old or the very young. But like, I mean that both in terms of the people who create it and the people who watch it, you know, it, it's either like pretty old fashioned, the last remnants of like CBS multi cams mm-hmm. or it's a Disney channel, Nickelodeon show. Right. Um, and what used to be like the mainstream of comedy doesn't exist that that really vast middle Yeah. Isn't there anymore in terms of, of multi cams, either in terms of like the space that's given on the schedule or in, in the age of the people who consume it. Yeah. Um, so I just think that people now think of it as old fashioned and kind of, there's a superficial, there's a fakeness to it.Yeah. An artificiality, not superficial, an artificiality to it. Cuz now that they've seen enough comedies that are written, you know, written and produced like little movies mm-hmm. , you know, I think it's part of this, it's part of the movie of TV that's happening in the more general sense mm-hmm. that, you know, when you look at the streaming services and, and I, and I think me teaching a class on pilot writing and like of the, of the 15 kids that are writing pilots, 14 are writing one hours mm-hmm. one is writing a single camp, but of the one hours most are done in like, in genres of, you know, it's superheroes, it's science fiction, it's it's space and it's zombies. Yeah. You know, like all of which wouldn't have been on television when we were breaking in. Yeah. It was multi cam comedies and procedural dramas and that was it. It was, and it was like you could wrap your hands around it. It doesn't mean that it was like a glorious time in terms of, you know, this great diversity of product, but like from the perspective of people trying to, you know, like rise up through the hierarchy, it was a lot more tangible and easier to comprehend. Yeah.Michael Jamin:I was even thinking of shows, like even the shows were like, gimme a break or, or small Wonder. Like, those shows were also very comfortable, you know, or Punky Brewster, like they were comfortable shows they don't exist anymore.Bryan Behar:It feels like you're setting me up. But I am, I have long been of as much as I try to write edgy stuff and like you and I were on Will, I mean, you know. Yeah. Like we both have, you know, the bonafides of, you know, to write cool single camera stuff. But I've also been of the belief that the calm and sitcom often stands just as much for comfort as it does for comedy. Yeah. And all those shows you described, um, there was a comforting, soothing value. Now some of it has to do with, we were young at the time, some of it has to do with our own nostalgia for an easier time. But I mean, that's why I got into sitcoms in the first place because, you know, my family life was pretty rough. I didn't have a ton of friends, but I loved the Brady Bunch. Yeah. Um, and I found that even like, at a very, very young age, like I found that world incredibly soothing.Michael Jamin:But that's not a good example. Cause that was a single camera show.Bryan Behar:I know. But it, it doesn't feel like a single camera show. Um, and you're right. But, uh, I mean, but whether, but it was still, it was still a family sitcom. Yeah. Um, and like for instance, like when I, like when we were first offered the chance to write on Fuller House, not to run it, but just, you know, to be a co-executive producer in the first season, I had no interest mm-hmm. and I was like, I never saw Full House. Um, but two, but two things sort of changed my mind. One was my daughter, who was like maybe like 13, 14 at the time, and she's like, you're gonna take this meeting and you're not gonna fuck it up. She's like, this is gonna be huge. Because she, you know, she knew the power of the original Full house as a kid who sort of grew up on the reruns and like whatever, she was homesick from school, we would tape her five episodes of the Brady Bunch and five episodes of, um, full House.It seemed easier than actually parenting or offering her medicine. Um, but that's neither hit nor the other. But the other thing was realizing like, okay, I don't know Full House, but I sure know the Brady Bunch. And that full house served the exact same function for kids who were 10 years younger than me as the Brady Bunch did in my life. And I'm like, oh, I know what that felt like to Yeah. I know what it felt like to be that age and, and want to be soothed by a TV show and wanna feel like you're part of a, you know, a surrogate family on the air. And, and that that really helped, helped me as a way inMichael Jamin:Yeah.Bryan Behar:So realize is that kind of showMichael Jamin:Yeah. It's an interesting, it really is an interesting time for writers. What are you, what are you, how are you advising your students to break in then? What are you telling them?Bryan Behar:Well, I try not to spend as much time on the how to break in mm-hmm. as to give them the tools that might open the door and might help them. And, and, and I, you know what, what I do, again, I'm, I'm, I'm sort of evading the question by design. Um, like for instance, I, I run my classes as if they were a writer's room. I push all the tables together. We sit around one big table with me at the front, like a big mock, just like the old days. Yeah. At one 20th. At one 20th. The salary. Right. Of, of, but like, I want them to get used to what it, you know, what it feels like to, you know, pitch amongst their peers what it feels like to, you know, offer an idea or a joke to somebody at the head of the table.So like, as far as teaching them the craft, I think I'm doing a pretty good job. I don't know that I have as much wisdom when it comes to how does one break in these days. Right. Um, I alluded to in a teeny bit earlier, which is one of the things I will say is do not turn down any job on a television show mm-hmm. , because that has become more and more the only way in is to rise through the ranks. It, it is entirely a function of who, you know, so many of the jobs come from the people doing, you know, the non-writing jobs that, you know, that lead into it.Michael Jamin:But you also have to be ready. It's not, it's not enough to know somebody. Your script has to, you have to know how to writeBryan Behar:Well. Yeah. I don't know that you're gonna get those writing assistant jobs or those pa jobs even without a script. So, I mean, you have to have a great script now just to get those jobs.Michael Jamin:Oh, okay. I wasn't aware ofBryan Behar:That. I think you do. I'veMichael Jamin:Never, I've never read any, I've never asked a pa or write assistant to read their, I'd rather not read their script.Bryan Behar:Yeah, no, I, I, I mean, I'm of the, I'm of the, I'm the same way. I just would rather assume that they, that they're funny. Right. Uh, you know, after the interview, but like you, I, again, since I wasn't running the show, um, when we started out, I don't know if they had spec scripts originally. Right. I inherited so many of them, you know, so, but you know, but what I tell them is like, you know, you're sitting there behind the keyboards. Like, nobody wants you to be the one pitching jokes all day long, but like, pick your battles. Like, you know, I've seen, I've seen writing assistants like win a job from pitching a, you know, lobbying a giant joke out of the corner of the room when no one's expecting it. Right. You know, and in some ways, like the pressure's off. No one is expecting you to save the day.Mm-hmm. . Um, and I always say like, if you really need to be funny, be funny at lunch, you know, like when you're just like, cuz then you were, if you're sitting around one table at lunch, you're all just people. There's not that same hierarchy. Right. People. And then a year from now when we say, oh, we need a staff writer, we were far more likely to say like, oh, so and so made me laugh, you know, you know, while I was eating my gato grill. Then, uh, you know, then have to read a stack of scripts. You know, you know, so like I say, like you can break it as a staff writer, the traditional way you can get hired, um, at, in another type of job. Like we've just been talking about within the production. And then there's all these writing programs that mm-hmm. Things still exist, even though Warner Brothers a few weeks ago said they were canceling the Warner program. They brought it back. They brought it back. Okay. Yeah. That's like, that is like the third way. And that, that's still a valid and beyond that, I don't really know how, I know people all wanna be discovered. Everyone, everyone wants to like write a pilot that gets bought by a streamer mm-hmm. and they wanna be a celebrity showrun. Right. And I don't know, I don't know that that exists, but it probably exists just enough that everyone thinks they can do it. Yeah. Like for instance, like I'm teaching at Chapman, which is a fabulous program. It like barely existed 20 years ago, and now it's like the fourth film school in the country according to the, you know, the most recent rankings. And like, their big claim to fame is the two brothers who created Stranger Things like in their twenties. Right. Like out of nowhere, I think they had one credit. And the next thing you know, they have a show that's the biggest show on all television in all mediums. Right. Streamer, cable pay, cable, anything. And I forgot broadcast that used to be a thing that we cared about. Um, but like, everyone's like, well, the Duffer Brothers did it. Why can't I create some, some genre of sci-fi? And it's like, you can possibly, but that's again, that's the exception. Yeah. What's gonna happen if you don't,Michael Jamin:I think that's exactly right. I think that's, that's the exception. It's, and it's such a remarkable exception that the media picks up on it and talks about it because it's what an unusual story. And then therefore people think, oh, that's how you do it. You know,Bryan Behar:And I guess that's, I mean, if we really were being fair, there's always been that media story of the V kid, you know mm-hmm. 20 years ago it was Josh Schwartz, he's, he's 11 years old and he created the oc Yeah. You know, there's always, you know, there's always someone who got, you know, I think James L. Brooks was one of them, you know? Right. Like, there's always somebody who in their twenties gets a show on the air and ruin it for everybody else. Mm-hmm. . But, but, but I mean, by ruin it by everybody else is it creates this illusion that all you need to do is sell a pilot, not learn how to write tv.Michael Jamin:Yeah. I, you know, I remember when we were first signed, or when I, yeah, I guess it was with Sheer signed and, um, our agent said, oh, oh, no, no. She said it to me before, before I was with Sheer. She said, you know, I signed one new baby writer a year. You're the baby writer. In three years you're gonna be running your own show. And, and I, and I, I, I smiled very play. Oh, that's great. And then after I hung up, I was seriously panicked. I was like, run my own show. I, I, I don't even know if I can write another script. Like that's the last thing I wanna do is run our own show.Bryan Behar:Of course. Now here's something I'm gonna admit to you that you're, you're gonna laugh at me. And, and, and That's okay. It would not be the first time. Like Steve, and, and, and I can't talk too much about it because it's part of ongoing litigation, some of the specifics of this. But Steve and I were offered the opportunity to run Fuller House, uh, beginning season four.Michael Jamin:Mm-hmm. .Bryan Behar:Um, so we had been doing this for I think 22 years. I was like 53 years old, 52 years old. And I said no, because of the thought of running a show, even with 22 years experience, even at 52 years old, seemed inconceivable to me. Yeah. Now, you know, I have a history of severe panic disorder and a lot of other things that, that contribute to that. And then they came back and offered it to us again. They're like, no, no, we, we thought about someone else, it's you. And we said no again, um, because no, now we're, we're in a kind of an extreme case, but part of it was a function of that ship had sailed in my mind mm-hmm. as far as like being a possibility. Like when you, when you're hitting your, your, you know, your your early to mid fifties and you've not run a show, I think in it's a, it's a, it is a fair assumption to say that the business doesn't see you that way.Mm-hmm. , like you're, you know, Steve and I were very competent number twos and very competent number threes mm-hmm. . Um, but the thought of actually like taking on the big chair still seemed like something that like engendered panic. Yeah. And, and then, you know what? We did it and I loved it and I, I loved doing it. I was eager to do it again. Um, you know, we did 30, 31 episodes, uh, under our helm and like started to take on responsibilities and facets that I'd never, ever even thought about. Right. It was great. So, and I, so even though I never got to do it another time or another time yet, I'm thrilled that I was able to get past that fear because it really was like the sort of the last fear that was out there for me.Michael Jamin:But the thing is, when people say that, when people say, I wanna run my own show, and I said, do you, you don't even know what a Showrun does. Like why would you, like, why, why are you signing up for a job? You don't even know what the job entails.Bryan Behar:Well, because they've seen Matt Wener give an interview at the end of Madman or Vince Gilligan, the end of Breaking Bad. And they know that like, you know, they know what their salaries are and they know their celebrities. Yeah. You know, and they get good, you know, they get good tables at Mr. Chap. I mean, I don't know, but like, I didn't know what his, there was no such thing as a celebrity Showrun when we were breaking in. Like there were, yes, there were successful people. You know, like I was very aware who created Seinfeld and friends and who created Cheers and what the back ends were. Right. But that thing where, and it really is kind of a function of premium tv, like sort of the Post Sopranos one hour world, you know, the Mad Men, Sopranos, breaking beds, the Shield, the Wire Deadwood, like those have really kind of deified the one hour show runner as like pop culture celebrities.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Bryan Behar:And they've, they've sort of become the new film directors. Yeah.Michael Jamin:Right.Bryan Behar:So everybody wants that.Michael Jamin:Right.Bryan Behar:And again, like if you see the Duffer Brothers do it, you know, at, at 28 years old or however, however young they were, um, people are, people rightly do ask Why not us? Mm-hmm. . But again, like I had been doing TV for 22 or 23 years before I took over that show and still had no conception of what running a show entailed. Yeah. In terms of just the sheer enormity of the pressure of the responsibility. And that was with two of us, and that was with two of us dividing the task. I had no idea how someone does that on their own. Yeah. Cause even with two people that felt like, like, like a, her her lay super human effort. Yep. You know, and I'm sure you found the same thing, like, um, there's so many different, you're making a decision all day long, every day at a furious pace. Yep. And yet there's nothing like it. Like it was such, it was, you know, and I don't mean like just from like a, the standpoint of like, I felt powerful, but like, there were like, having such a sense of purpose every day was fantastic. Uhhuh,You know, overcoming fears and like developing like a skill like that I didn't even know I needed to possess. Like, that was interesting. Yeah. You know, so I feel, I mean, it certainly helps me as a teacher because if I had never run a show, I'd feel like a little bit like a fraud offering notes and like fixing scripts and mm-hmm. having now having done it, like at, I'm not gonna say the highest levels, but a high level. Right. Um, you know, I feel like far more qualified to be the one teaching people. Cause I feel like I've done at least the equivalent of that in, in tv.Michael Jamin:Yeah. It, it's, it's interesting because even as I, before I started doing, like talking on social media, I was like, well, you know who, I'm not Vince Gilligan, I'm not Chuck Lori, I'm not Steve Levitan. I'm not, I'm not the highest there is, you know, um, what,Bryan Behar:Well, two things come to mind. Number one, don't sell yourself short because you're still super high within, you're still super high within the, you know, the pecking order. Like, once you take out those, those few brand names, right. You've done it. You've, you've run multiple shows. You've run multiple good shows and people liked working for you. And, uh, you know, like the, the job we did together on, on Glen Martin was a pleasure. And, uh, you know, that's probably the closest I ever felt to like really writing in my own voice Yeah. And kind of just letting go and not being self-conscious and just writing whatever felt silly or funny. Right. So that's one thing you've done. But the other thing where I think you have a leg up in fact, is what was the last time Chuck Laurie or Steve Leviton had to really think about what they were gonna do next and plot accordingly. You know, like both of them just go to CS and say, get me a get me, you know, get me a show on Hulu. And they do. Like, but that's not like how people in real, in real life behave.Michael Jamin:Yeah. I, that's one I talked about with my wife. She goes, well, yeah, but that, those are the superstars you can talk to. You can speak to what does it mean to be a working writer who's not a superstar? Who'sBryan Behar:That's, that's a hundred percent right. It's a little insulting that our wives know about people who are superstars and they, they tend to usually be taller, um, Who had a here, but like, um, I don't, I don't know that Steve Levitator or Chuck Laurie or you know, or Larry David is gonna speak as, you know, as succinctly or as I impactfully as you do about, you know, the like day to day mechanics of breaking in, building a career, keeping a job. And those are, you know, those are the things that I talk about day to day. And, and now I've moved on to the third, you know, the third thing, which is how do I build like a sort of a purposeful life outside of the writer's room, right. And, and try to use the skills that I developed or the knowledge that I accrued and either help others or, you know, game satisfaction for myself. And I'm, you know, trying really hard to still do both without, you know, the, you know, the old crutches that I used to have, which is, you know, getting laughs from a, from a gaggle of Jews,Michael Jamin:It's so,Bryan Behar:And JBMichael Jamin:N JB, we, um, you know, I, when people, they'll comment on social media, sometimes I'll, I'll make a post and then I guess people are, I dunno if they're being argumentative or just trying to impress me or whatever, but they'll say, yeah, but Quentin Tarantino says, and I'm like, Quentin Tarantino is anybody just, is anyone mistaking you for Quentin Tarantino ? Yeah. No, I mean, have his career,Bryan Behar:But I mean, but they're, they're, I mean, it's beyond annoying, but that's always been the case. I remember like my, one of my first or second jobs running into like, the wife of someone I went to college with, and she's like, why aren't you on Seinfeld or South Park? That's what we watch. Yeah. You don't watch the shows you're on. It's like, okay, first of all, like, you're a viewer. You didn't create either of those shows unless you're, unless you change your name to Matt Stone. Like you're not those people. So like, pipe down a little. I said, secondly, you have to think about this. Like, it's the nba, like, hey, like I'm coming out of college, I wanna be on the Lakers. Who gives a fuck what you want? You were drafted by the Pelicans. Like, like, we don't get to choose where we write.Yeah. Like, oh, Tarantino said like, okay, you're not Tarantino. Like, trust me, I'm doing better than you are. So like , you know, I mean, yes. But that, I mean, that's gone on forever and ever. I'll tell you a story. My grandmother re she rested me. She just, she passed away a year ago and she ended up being, she lived in 99 years and eight months and ended up dying as a very kind person for like the first 95 years. She wasn't Right. And like, she would admit that, and like, we had no relationship and like on, I, I had been on four jobs at the time. Um, and on all four she told me how much she didn't like the show. I was on . So she invited Beth and I out for dinner. I hope it wasn't Glen Martin . No, no, no, no, no. That would've been later that she didn't like, okay, what's, she's like, who watches Claymation ?Why is there a laugh track? Scooby . But she, so she invites Beth and I have to dinner with her and her, her boyfriend. Um, and she's like, oh, that show that Then Stacy, I hated that show. And I'm like, oh, well I'm on a different show now. Oh, I don't like that show either. Okay. And I literally said, grandma, like I, I'm happy to tell you that before I, right before I came to dinner today, I came, I'm coming directly from a meeting. I had just had a meeting on Frazier. Uhhuh. Now Frazier at the time had just won the me for Best comedy five years in a row. Right. Anything's gonna oppress her. And she goes, Ugh. She goes, I hate that show. That's a dumb show, . So I say to myself, okay, and I turn to Beth, like, she can see that I'm soothing, and Beth and I are Huling and I'm like, the woman doesn't know anything about television.She's an older, she's an older Jewish woman from a different era. She's not gonna like anything you do. She, she knows nothing about television. I was like, you're right. That's why would I get myself upset? She knows nothing. And then she says, why don't you write something like David Kelly mm-hmm. . And then the boyfriend says, it's David E. Kelly. And then I realized, no, she knew a tremendous amount about television shouldn't . Like she knew chapter in verse, everything that he had written from Allie McBeal to picket fences. She just didn't like what I was doing. Right. , I don't remember, I don't remember how we got to this, but Oh, annoying people telling us our credits aren't good enough. Right. It's like, yeah. Like, I remember, I remember when people were on Raymond for the, you know, all nine years, and I'd be like, these lucky SAPs, like had, they haven't had to go through anything that we've gone through.They got one job. They had a, they had to go to a few movie nights on a Sunday with Phil Rosenthal never eat dinner there. Yeah. And to get nine years of fat paychecks. And that's just not, that wasn't our experience, but our experience certainly prepared us for more kinds of experiences. And I, and it certainly behooved me, I believe when it, when it was time to run a show, you know, I definitely had far more of an awareness of what I wanted a room to feel like mm-hmm. , uh, what I wanted it not to feel like specifically. Yeah. Uh, you know, based on having had so many different kinds of experiences. And that's, that's like 0.2 that I alw

GoodShepherdTraining.com https://www.patreon.com/GoodShepherdTraining the Vid https://www.patreon.com/posts/baby-b-o-b-bail-72976085

GOD Provides GoodShepherdTraining.comhttps://www.patreon.com/GoodShepherdTrainingoriginal episode baby bob https://www.spreaker.com/cms/episodes/49565601/edit/info?filter=NETWORK&network=9922581

GOD Provides GoodShepherdTraining.com

All about hospitals and things around my recent stay with tangents into odd medical machines and so much more. Also folks if anyone wants to do a belated Betty White Challenge Please donate to these guys Lucky Paws Animal Foundation If you really love us like we hope you do, check out our patreon and maybe throw us a couple bucks to help make the show better for you at our Patreon Wanna see some funny memes and wildly inappropriate pictures, check us out on our Facebook too. Don't forget to check out my other podcast The Wheel of What where we talk about a great fantasy series that is about to be a new exclusive on Amazon Prime.

A sad passing, dogs, babies, jaw lines... rugby league had it all this week! Big thanks to the support from Surplus City https://www.surpluscity.com.au our friends at PWA www.prowrestlingaustralia.com.au the boys from www.trophyland.com.au and The Messenger RL https://instagram.com/themessengerrl?igshid=z9t4j1fauvqy Big Tees Ts are here https://www.mehink.com.au/product-category/bigt-tees/

Oh, Baby, this sucks! All the Desitin in the World couldn't prevent this diaper rash from becoming an unfortunate by-product of the Dot-Com boom. This episode is sponsored by Hu Kitchen (use code POD for 15% off your purchase), and by Dave's Archives on Youtube.

We're breaking all the rules this week...well, just the one that says we only cover shows canceled in one season. This week, we cover the (inexplicable) two season show Baby Bob, based on the talking baby from the freeinternet.com commercials. Join us as we pitch episodes featuring mascot corporate espionage, a talking dog, and a new segment "Catchphrase You Later" where we pitch potential catchphrases for the characters in this show.

Hey guys, I have a fun one for you today. I’m currently 6 months pregnant with our first baby, a boy, and like many couples my husband and I can’t agree on a name. The problem is that he wants to name our son Bob. The name Robert runs in his family, but he doesn’t care for it and neither do I. Bob, on the other hand, he loves, and he feels like it still keeps with his family tradition. I just CANNOT imagine naming my sweet baby BOB. I don’t think it’s classic or strong. To me, it’s silly. Alexander, Charles, Benjamin, Anthony, Joseph – I’m okay with so many. But BOB? It’s just so weird to me and I don’t want to call my son that. I know it means a lot to him but I just can’t bring myself to agree. But, we need to decide and move on with our lives. We both listen to the show and I threw out the idea to let your audience decide. Do you like the name Bob, or at least think we should name our son that out of respect for my husband, or do you dislike the name and think we can find a better first name that I like so long as I agree to give him the middle name Robert? 

  Oh Baby! Mike and Morgan are crying for their mommies after watching this dirty diaper of a show! It's the sitcom everyone in 2002 was clamoring for, based on a dumb Quiznos commercial, and starring a freaking talking baby: Baby Bob. They also rattle on about Baby Bob Balaban, speculate that the Chicago Fire franchise is just an elaborate ruse, and briefly remember that Tila Tequila was a thing! Strap into your booster seats kids, it's gonna be a bumpy ride.   Cut the Shit: Mike: The Twilight Zone Morgan: The Favourite   If you enjoy the show please help spread the word by giving us a quick review on iTunes and sharing us with friends. You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram @badreceptionpod. If you have a show you’d like us to watch, you can tweet at us or send an email to pod.badreception@gmail.com. For those links and more go to BadReceptionPod.com   We are proud members of the PodFix network. Visit their website to find more awesome shows like ours, and follow them @PodFix on Twitter.   #PodernFamily #UnderDogPods #LegionOfIndiePods #Podbean #mbmbambinopodcasters #WLIPodpeeps #PodFix

Today Ken welcomes actor, singer, and author of the memoir "Growing Up Fisher", Joely Fisher to the show. Ken and Joely discuss her enormous group of children, TV wallpaper, the news, the way kids watch TV, how difficult it is the tell stories on social media, growing up with Connie Stevens, The Love Boat, Fantasy Island, "Does TV Go Too Far?", Made for TV movies, "Someone I Touched", AIDS on TV, After School Special, why Ellen will never get rebooted, the wonders of multi-cam television, directing, Til Death, the loss of opening titles and end credits, Station 19, bothering people in public, Ken's interactions with Norman Lear, getting lost in the story, the new content hungry avenues of streaming media, rebooting Amazing Stories, the lost pilots, getting married on stage, Love American Style, Variety Shows, Reality TV, The Battle of the Network Stars, showing side boob, breaking preconceptions, Desperate Housewives, the failure of Ellen's last season, Last Man Standing, the 90s stand up comedian based sitcom boom, the essential nature of a good ensemble supporting cast, Grace Under Fire, being warned not to run on camera, Wild Card on Lifetime, being in the show Baby Bob and having it named one of the worst shows of all time by TV Guide, having a rival, and moving toward the future of storytelling.

In which Matt invents a new hobby for dairy enthusiasts.

Steve Cooper talks with writer/producer Michael Saltzman. Michael has been writing and producing some of Hollywood's top TV series for years. An Emmy nominee and a 2 time Writers Guild of America nominee, his credits include Anything But Love, Wings, Murphy Brown, The Naked Truth, The Middle, Hell on Wheels, Mad Men and Halt and Catch Fire. He also created the series Baby Bob and wrote the screenplay for The Suite Life Movie and had story credit on the 2006 remake of The Pink Panther.

This time we dive into Jake's old school work. Find some old art, and writings. Baby Bob, and Toilet Man!

JARED BUSH (Screenwriter) is responsible for helping to develop and shape character personalities and overall story for “Moana.” Bush is also co-creator, executive producer and writer for Disney XD's animated comedy adventure series "Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero." He also helped develop the Oscar®-winning features "Big Hero 6" and "Frozen," and served as a screenwriter and co-director for this years hit feature “Zootopia.” Bush, who began his career as a script reader for Academy Award®-winning director Robert Zemeckis, worked as a staff writer on the series "Baby Bob," starring Adam Arkin and Elliott Gould. Bush added producing to his repertoire, serving as executive story editor and co-producer of Will Smith's series "All of Us." Bush has developed original television series for Revolution Studios, Fox and NBC, and feature film projects for New Line Cinema, Columbia/Tristar and 20th Century Fox.  A Harvard University graduate with a degree in English and American literature, Bush is an avid traveler who has visited forty countries on six continents and an accomplished trombone player who has played with several jazz bands over the years. Bush currently resides in Los Angeles with his college sweetheart, three sons and a house full of pets that includes an emperor scorpion, a ball python, a tree frog and an 80-pound pit bull. Find Jared on Twitter: @thejaredbush Basic Brainheart on Twitter: @basicbrainheart Instagram: @hannah_camacho Music courtesy of bensound.com

You can call them One Season Wonders or Single Season Superstars, just don't call them late for dinner......or say they "got canned for a reason," because these are the Top 5 One Season TV Series. On this episode, J & Q spend some time exploring why some of the best TV shows in history only lasted one glorious season (spoiler alert: most of the time it's due to networks and producers being stupid dicks). Whether we're spending time in high school, with clones, fighting super villains, or flying through space, these are the cream of the crop that left us wanting more. You'll recognize a lot of the names behind these shows, even if you don't remember the shows themselves, but we're about to add a whole mess of good stuff to your watchlist. When we're not exploring bad timeslots and the intricacies of meta-parodies, we hear from some second-favorite sponsors and dissect a classic terrible TV theme song. Trust us, you won't believe how nearly-racist some old TV shows kicked off their episodes. It's a free-for-all for good and bad shows alike. Fair warning, That 80s Show and Baby Bob don't make an appearance on either list and if you liked those shows, there are bigger problems at play. Seriously, what are you thinking? Jesus Christ.

This week, ‘Big Keith’ from award winning sitcom ‘The Office’ tells us what he does with his action figures, I dig through some vintage toy ads, the missus and I review the Baby and Toddler Show at Sandown Park and part 2 of our interview with Dad Network Founder, Al Ferguson (released 30 April)

This week me and missus reveal the sex of our baby, Velvet Sky shares her top baby names and Mick Foley resurrects Dude Love. Plus the latest pregnancy news, the debut of ‘Baby Bob’ and Jeremy Borash guest announces (released 2 April)

Comedian Dwayne Perkins guests on The Fort Podcast to talk about Dwayne's billionaire theory, Jay Z's 99 problems, renting rims, fast food madness, eating in the deep south and alien plans for the earth. Dwayne Perkins made his sitcom debut on the 2002 fall season premiere of CBS's "Baby Bob" as a guest star supplying comic relief. He has performed stand-up on "Late Night with Conan O'brien," and has been featured in the Montreal Comedy Festival. He has made international appearances in the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Amsterdam and South Africa. Dwayne will be appearing in the upcoming HBO film "The Gristle." Kevin, Ed, Mike and Dwayne perform a radio sketch entitled "The Accident" written by Ed Galvez. Stick around as Kevin, Ed and Mike review the movie "Inception" during the last part of the show. This will probably be the last movie review on the show due to a slight format change. More information will follow.