KCRW's Martini Shot
Summary: Veteran TV writer and producer Rob Long shares his behind-the-scenes look at Hollywood life on "Martini Shot." A contributing editor for the National Review and Newsweek International, he was a co-executive producer of "Cheers" while still in his 20s and is the co-creator of a string of (cancelled) sitcoms: "George & Leo," "Men, Women & Dogs," etc. Rob is also the author of "Conversations With My Agent," the cult classic about real life in Hollywood, as well as its recently published sequel, "Set Up, Joke, Set Up, Joke."
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- Artist: Rob Long, KCRW.com
- Copyright: KCRW 2014
Podcasts:
Rob asks for younger and better looking extras, and ends up with a bunch of middle school kids...
Rob puts on a pair of $6 reading glasses and learns just how easy it is to look like he's thinking hard. Cheap, too. Beats actually thinking hard.
We put Hollywood on the couch and discover why it?s so interested in zombies these days. Can you say, projection?
Rob Long reveals the secret to being a powerful and effective agent: listening to clients on the phone, playing Candy Crush, and doing nothing.
In the worst possible move, Rob reads an article about himself on the web, and then reads the comments.
We learn the nice way to pass on a television pilot, and a soothing term for a plane crash. A controlled flight into terrain. A perfect show business euphemism...
The three things that make a great movie producer: lots of money, an impulsive nature, and an irrational mind. Those last two tend to be a drain on the first.
What happens when the world wide web meets the old television business, or what Rob Long calls, the world wide Webster.
We take two million dollars and we give it to forty eight people we find on Hollywood Boulevard. Or, as some call it, we focus group a pilot.
We repaint a set instead of doing what we need to do, which is rewrite the scene. But repainting is easier because somebody else has to do it.
On today?s Martini Shot, I sell a series without a script starring an actor who doesn?t even know the project exists. In other words, it?s pilot season.
Rob Long makes demographically undesirable references and attempt to appeal to the young people on the Facebook website.
Rob complains about other writers who complain about other writers, and decries the pettiness of his colleagues in a really petty way.
An actor throws a big party to watch his television debut. What he doesn't know is, he's been cut from the show. Humiliation, as always, makes the best comedy.
I handle my powerful enemies in the best Hollywood way: I wait like a coward until they?re fired, and then I pounce.
