BlindGossip – A showrunner is the person who is ultimately responsible for a television series. It may be the creator of the series, a producer, or the head writer. Emmy-winning comedy writer (and Major League Baseball announcer) Ken Levine shares this story about a showrunner with whom he once worked:
The showrunner on one particular series I worked on had maybe the filthiest mouth in Hollywood. Sailors and bikers would blush. But he was screamingly funny.For late night rewrites we would have a writers assistant in the room taking down what was pitched. One night our normal assistant was sick so they got a temp to replace her. This new assistant (we’ll call her Prudy) didn’t know what hit her. After about an hour she finally spoke up. She said to the showrunner in a stern tone, “Can we just confine our comments to the script?”
There was a hush in the room. No one talks back to a showrunner like that. We braced ourselves for the explosion.
But it never came.
The showrunner took it in stride and good spirit. He said, “Alright, fine. Take this down”, and he began dictating.
“Fade in. Interior apartment – day. Fred enters. Fred says…”
At which point he let fly the raunchiest, filthiest, c-bomb laden, XXX, perverse stream-of-conscious monologue ever uttered. Needless to say, we were all dying.
When he was finished, careful not to leave out any depraved act or euphemism for sexual organ (he must’ve gone on for five minutes), he leaned back in his chair, clasped his hands behind his neck, took a beat, and said to the temp:
“Okay, now read that back to me.”
Ryan Murphy
Ray Romano from Everybody Loves Raymond
I don’t know, but that gave me a good chuckle!
Sam Kinnison?
First time comment, long time lurker.
I say The Simpsons is the show, John Swartzwelder. Apparently a very funny guy, and this sounds like many anecdotes from the “Unauthorised” Simpsons book I got for Christmas!
Welcome, Ameski! Love, BG
it’s funny
The two best known shows Levine worked on are MASH and Cheers. It sounds like he’s speaking past tense and this show runner has since died so I’ll say Larry Gelbart, creator and writer of MASH.
If it’s not someone dead I’ll go with James Burrows of Cheers.
He came in after Larry Gelbart left MASH.
I think this is someone who has done a substantial amount of writing in Hollywood and has been on Inside the Actor’s Studio. I am going with either Conan O’Brian, Ray Ramono or Ricky Gervais.
I’m going to guess Bob Saget. his story reminds me of the scene in the film “The Aristocrats” where they tell of him telling a similar story.
He’s not a showrunner… neither is Conan, Ramano or Gervais.
If I had to wager a guess it would have to be Chuck Lorre of course! I believe the show was Dharma and Greg. Yes, it has to be Chuck….he’s been in the news a lot recently because of the Charlie Sheen fiasco, yep.
This one’s not that easy. He’s written for so many shows, but it appears to be someone he didn’t work with that much so I like the John Swartwelder guess. He didn’t work in Everybidy Loves Raymond. And I thought he only made video games (just kidding).
per IMDB, he directed a couple of episodes.
I worked as a writers’ assistant for multiple sitcoms in the 90′s and stuff like that happened all the time. Some of the best times in my professional life were in the writers room. Saw and heard some crazy wonderful stuff. I couldn’t tell you who this was in the blind but I would almost bet anything it was an old-timer, someone who had been around for a long time. Newer guys are too afraid of getting in trouble but the old-school guys don’t care.
That’s rad. I love it when blind’s are about the behind-the-scenes of the writing room.
My guess is Don Rickles.
According to IMBD, Ken Levine worked on both Cheers & Frazier. I’ll say Kelsey Grammer.
i have no idea but this is really funny!
If the story wasn’t changed, doesn’t it mean whoever it is ran the show with a character named Fred who at some point was in an apartment or am I being too literal???
L arry D avid
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