Tales from the Script - The Behind-The-Camera Adventures of a TV Comedy Writer (hardback)

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BearManor Media, Jun 22, 2016 - Biography & Autobiography - 286 pages
This is the HARDBACK version. Two questions that people ask television comedy writers repeatedly are: "How do you guys ever think them up?" and "Is writing for a television show anything like it was on the old Dick Van Dyke Show?" Tales from the Script invites you inside the writing rooms and into the writers meetings for such legendary television shows as The Carol Burnett Show, Laugh-In, Mama's Family, Welcome Back Kotter, Three's Company, the variety shows of Bill Cosby and Tim Conway. You'll also be part of the planning, preparation, and production of almost all of the Bob Hope Specials, including his Christmas shows entertaining America's troops around the world. As a reader, you'll step onto the stage with the writing teams to accept "your" Emmy for "Outstanding writing in a Comedy-Variety Series." You'll also know what it feels like to be nominated, but have to sit in the audience and try to look gracious while another team steps up to accept the award. After reading Tales from the Script, you'll be able to answer for yourself whether it was anything like the old Dick Van Dyke Show or not. As to the second question - "How do you guys ever think them up?" - you'll discover...well...you'll probably discover, as most comedy writers already have, that nobody knows the answer to that question. Foreword by Jim Nabors!

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About the author (2016)

Gene Perret has been a professional comedy writer since the early 1960s, writing stand-up material for Slappy White and Phyllis Diller, among others. He began in television in 1968 on The Beautiful Phyllis Diller Show. He wrote for Laugh-In and collected three Emmys as a staff writer on The Carol Burnett Show. Gene was on Bob Hope's writing staff for twenty-eight years, the last twelve as Hope's head writer. He traveled with the Hope troupe to several of the Christmas shows from war zones. He produced Welcome Back Kotter, Three's Company, and The Tim Conway Show. Today, he lives in Southern California and teaches email classes in comedy writing. His hobbies include painting, sketching, and playing the guitar. He paints rather well and sketches adequately, but you don't want to listen to his guitar playing. No one does.

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