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:
Inside the OODA Loop of television development. It's a military thing, which, surprisingly, really applies.
Why do TV shows have dumpy guys married to beautiful wives, and movies have really old dudes married to young women, but it's never the other way around? Rob senses a marketing opportunity.
Rob attends a meeting to come up with something really new and different. But it's meeting, so that doesn't happen.
Rob sends a shout out to the bankrupt Relativity Media company. Because a successful movie and an unsuccessful movie both employ the same number of people, so more movies, more better.
The TV business is like the oil business -- we keep pumping shows out of the ground until there're just too many shows and the price collapses. We need a show business OPEC.
The TV business is like the oil business -- we keep pumping shows out of the ground until there're just too many shows and the price collapses. We need a show business OPEC.
It's nice to have options. This is LA, after all. Things fall apart. Projects collapse. People flake.
What primates do when they present themselves to each other. It's what we do around here, when we pitch.
Rob turns into the dark anti-hero he's always wanted to be.
On dating and television programming, which are a lot more alike than you'd think, both being complicated, expensive, and futile.
Going back to a time when Dynasty and Laverne and Shirley were hit TV shows, now known as Empire and Broad City.
With no original material, Rob does everybody else does: he steals from Twitter.
Getting ordered around town by Arnold Schwarzenegger, who turns out to know the very best traffic shortcuts.
Every entertainment executive should work at the Olive Garden for a day. Not exactly, but close.
Trying to do the impossible: to enter the gates of a studio and park for a meeting when it's the wrong studio and still maintain a small amount of personal dignity.
