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1. ChrisO says:

   October 10, 2006 at 12:46 pm

   Actualy, my guess is that the story line is inspired by an episode in Jay Mohr’s book about his time on SNL. Mohr talks about the incredible pressure, and confesses that he submitted a bartender bit he stole almost word for word from Rick Shapiro (for some reason, Mohr was dumb enough to steal a bit that a well-known comic was currently doing in NY clubs.) When Mohr got to work the day after the shpw aired, Lorne Michaels was looking at a tape of Shapiro’s act. Mohr somehow claimed coinicidence and got off the hook. But according toi him, SNL settled cash on Shapiro, and the show will never be seen in reruns.Mohr’s book is kind of entertaining, but I have to say I’ve never seen a guy handle pressure worse. He essentially ends up having a nervous breakdown.

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2. pg says:

   October 10, 2006 at 8:18 pm

   I’m a big Aaron Sorkin fan–loved “The West Wing” and was even more enamored of “SportsNight.” I’ve been worried that NBC might be hyping “Studio 60” beyond reasonable expectations since I heard it was announced…While the heroic Sorkin dialogue style remains intact for this show–no one, I hope, is buying the level of artificial gravitas that he’s trying to inject into the world of late night television comedy–it’s as if he can’t stop projecting his stories into the world of “The West Wing”…forgetting the charmingly underplayed reality he created for “SportsNight” (based at the third rated cable sports network.)I’m enjoying the show, but I have many problems with it–and in THIS particular episode, my biggest problem with the show was revealed: Aaron Sorkin doesn’t know sketch comedy or stand-up comedy. He knows character-based or situation based comedy…and can certainly crank that out… But when it comes time for Sorkin to write what his character writer on Studio 60 (the Matthew Perry character) would write–it isn’t the “everyone drops to their knees and praises him for his genius”-level comedy that every other character in the show keeps saying that it is… It CAN’T be–Sorkin has written himself into a situationally-based comedic corner that he, himself, can’t write himself out of…I mean, I love the man’s television and film work…but would I want to see him on open mic night? No.So, in this episode…not only does Aaron have to write the amazingly stellar, earth shakingly brilliant comedy coming from Matthew Perry’s character…but he has to come up with a bit that the hip, cool writers in the writers room would seize as something good that they could use to impress their new boss…something that everyone in this room can get behind and say “Yeah, THAT’S good.” Something so good that everyone involved with the show says “Yeah, THAT’S good”–good enough that it breaks through the wall that the head writer had set up to prevent bad writing from the other writers from getting on the air anymore.Something so good that it kills at dress rehearsal…and it kills when performed for the East Coast feed.And what THAT turns out to be is two incredibly hack bits. Now, the fact that they actually turn out to be stolen material–not just once, but twice stolen…AND the material is supposed to ALSO be 15 years old…might suggest that the hackishness of this material was deliberate.That’s fine–from a situational point of view–but I would WANT to think that the room of young writers would have dismissed such junk out of hand…that the former head writers desperate to impress their quality driven new boss would pound the shit out of whoever suggested such tripe…that the head writer would roll his eyes, crumple up the bit and vow to NEVER take anything from the room again…that the news anchor, who’d been given the task of writing his own news segments would denounce it for the piece of shit that it was…that the producer of the show would shake his head at how the previous producers could have compiled such an awful and untalented bunch of writers when there are always fresh comedic talents performing everywhere nightly…that the audience of the show would groan at these weak attempts at humor…And finally…does anyone know of any kind of humor–much less humor that the previous shows have highlighted that it is socially relevant and culturally aware–that works equally well with a hot audience of fans of that style…as with a collection of street people, gangstas and the mentally ill? (I do imagine that Aaron will produce an episode where they have an audience that doesn’t laugh. And there will be much hand wringing…and it will probably be the night after the Matthew Perry character and the Sarah Paulson character temporarily and accidentally sleep with each other…thus proving that it is the sexual tension between the two of them that makes him a great writer and her a great performer.)See…some of us stand-ups understand hack sitcom premises, too…The end result–I’ll still watch…but I’m not watching expecting reality (to which, to some extent, I could convince myself of the reality of The West Wing and of Sportsnight) but a fantasyland where everyone has snappy dialogue and everything matters far more than it really does…and comedic brilliance never needs to actually be witnessed to be believed.–pgreyy-seattle

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3. danpace says:

   October 16, 2006 at 4:07 pm

   I prided myself for 20 years as not resorting to hack out another comic’s stuff. Then I was watching a tape of my mother-in laws cruise trip entertainer and the guy did a bit about cameras taking pictures of your plate ,… a great bit. I thought that’s pretty good and even incorporated it into my act. I thought its a cruise comic ,.. that stuff isnt original. So I did the bit at a showcase in Charlotte for a chain that was going to book me. A young comic saw the bit and thought ” thats pretty good” and decided to use it as well. Except that he used it headlining a show in which I was the feature act and never bothered to pay attention to my act the second time so didn’t realize I had used it allready. The audience went silent like seeing the magiciacians secret or something.The chain black balled me ,siding with the young comic they were using throughout the chain. I was expendable. Months later while talking to a headliner in Raleigh who had played clubs I had and knew the same people ,he began to tell a story about a bit he wrote that was getting stolen all the time. I had told him the story of what happened in Charlotte and later in Greensboro and how I know the guy robbed me. I didn’t tell him I was as guilty myself of the same plagiarism.So he proceeds to tell me about the bit and its the same BIT . This guy was the author of the same bit that we all had stolen.I was too embarassed to tell him at the time but started to feel so bad about it that I wrote him and told him the whole story. My friend is very confrontational about his material and a little intimidating. He writes me back to thank me for my honesty,kick me in the pants a little and then let me know that he had contacted the guy that robbed me and told him to cease and desist that joke. That part made me feel a little better. The point is,if you steal it , you will be caught. Veteran Comic Dan Pace

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