097 - TV Writer/Showrunner Bill Martin

What The Hell Is Michael Jamin Talking About?

On this week's episode, Writer/Showrunner Bill Martin (The Unicorn, The Neighborhood, 3rd Rock From The Sun, and many many more) talks about his showbiz career and starting out writing in sketch comedy then eventually transitioning over to scripted. Tune in as he also talks about his experiences working with a writing partner.

SHOW NOTES

Bill Martin's IMDB Page - https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0551979/

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Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/course

Free Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/free

Join My Watchlist - https://michaeljamin.com/watchlist

AUTOGENERATED TRANSCRIPT

Bill Martin:

When we got on board, we just got an overall deal with A, B, C. So we were assignable to this and we thought, this is insane. We'd love the commercials about anybody, but there's no way they're going to put on. So we thought it was just like, we'll help out a pilot, meet some new people, and then we'll do something else. It was shocking to us that they put it on tv.

Michael Jamin:

Oh, how

Bill Martin:

Interesting. Because it just seems so unlikely, but with anything you do, you know how it is. Once you're given your assignment, you've got to find a way to take pride in it.

Michael Jamin:

You're listening to Screenwriters Need to Hear This with Michael Jamin.

Hey everyone, welcome back to Screenwriters. Need to hear this. I got another great guest today Actually. Ordinarily I would never have a sitcom writer who's more successful than me on my show. I out of Insecurity, but I'm doing it today to prove that I'm more magnanimous than he is. And so welcome to the show, bill Martin, whose credits are fricking crazy good and he had so many great credits. I'm going to list some of the great credits and I'm also, maybe I'll throw in some not so great credits to humble you, to keep you humble.

Bill Martin:

There are plenty of,

Michael Jamin:

But you started in Living Color and I wanted to talk about that. I love that show. But then she tv, third Rock from the Sun, grounded for Life, and I'm skipping many. Okay, cavemen, the singles table. Hank How to Rock Malibu Country Soul Man, which I believe, I think we met on that and I think you guys beat us out with good reason.

Bill Martin:

That's what I'm really here for. Revenge.

Michael Jamin:

Yes. Right, right, right. Living Biblically. We'll talk about that. And the, the unicorn, the neighborhood, the unicorn, which you and your partner created and the neighborhood. Are you guys running that as well, neighborhood or no? We are. You are. Damn. What's it like to be welcome to the show and what's it like to be a working sitcom writer? What's it like working on a network TV show nowadays?

Bill Martin:

Yeah. Well, I mean, I will point out that it's fantastic and I know that because I've also been a non-working sitcom writer. Plenty. I mean, that's the awful thing about this life we've chosen is that every spring is the panic of, oh my God, am I retired? I just don't know it yet.

Michael Jamin:

What do you know? Brian Bihar? Do you know who he is?

Bill Martin:

Yes.

Michael Jamin:

He said me and he said to me that people in the business are retired seven years before they know it.

Bill Martin:

Yes.

Michael Jamin:

I hadn't heard that. I was like, oh God, is the clock

Bill Martin:

Running? I knew that makes perfect sense though. Yeah, yeah.

Michael Jamin:

But the thing is not even about staffing season anymore now you don't even know when you're not working. You just

Bill Martin:

True. True.

Michael Jamin:

So what is it like, how is it, honestly, haven't written on a network television show in many years we've been on cable or whatever, streaming. And how has it changed? How has Network changed? More notes, last notes.

Bill Martin:

That's the weird thing is it has not changed. I mean, we are preserved in Amber. The neighborhood is just the good old days. It's a big writer's room. It's run throughs, it's show nights. It's really almost unreal. When we took the job, we expected it to, COVID obviously jumbled everything up, but once the covid restricted to Lifted, it was like, oh, this is exactly the classic sitcom situation.

Michael Jamin:

See, one of my fears is that multi cameras will go away because there's so few people still doing it. I mean, do you feel that way?

Bill Martin:

Yeah, we keep thinking that they're done, but at the same time, people are still watching friends in Seinfeld and there still aren't that many single camera comedies that are that sticky with people. So I'm not sure that they're being given up on yet. I mean, there's pros and cons to them, but I think that kind of warmth that you only have when you're watching an audience show is something that people still crave.

Michael Jamin:

But I mean in terms of there's so few multi-camera shows being made now, then let's say in 10 or 15 years if they want to make more, who's going to know how to do it?

Bill Martin:

The breeding pool is, yeah, the breeding pool has shrunk to the point where we'll all be just inbred ligers. Yeah, you're right. Frankly, that's why I'm working because there's not a minor league for it anymore. Yeah, I know N B C and a BBC are trying them. They are developing them, but really right now it's Monday night on c b s and that's about it. So we are fully prepared to just turn off the lights when we leave and that'll be the end. But

Michael Jamin:

Now tell me how you broke in, because I think your first creative was living single, I mean not living single, but living color.

Bill Martin:

Living color and

Michael Jamin:

Living, which, so there was a sketch show, which huge for the young people. I mean it, Jim Carrey and all these huge stars came out of that, which you couldn't have been imagined back then. It's one of the first shows on Fox. But how did that come to be? How did you get on that?

Bill Martin:

That was purely a situation where Keenan burned through writers so fast that they were always hiring

Michael Jamin:

Really.

Bill Martin:

And we got our first agent and this says 92, and she said, there's openings that in living color. There's always opening today in living color because Kena was demanding and he was hard to work for, but it was a great job. And so we went in and pitched, and I think it was kind of a conveyor belt of new writers coming in there all the time. And we actually managed to stick for the final two years of the show and not get fired, which is a very small club for people who've worked for Keenan, I think.

Michael Jamin:

And so you put together a sketch packet. How did you even know what to do? I wouldn't know what to do to get hired in a sketch show.

Bill Martin:

It was write a couple of sketches for existing characters and write a couple of sketches that are new ideas or commercial parodies or something like

Michael Jamin:

That. And did any of those ever make it to air?

Bill Martin:

No, but I think because of how anal my partner Mike Schiff is what we came in with were very thoroughly thought out ideas. I think that's what must have impressed Keenan, was that we didn't come in pulling stuff out of our ass. We were prepared.

Michael Jamin:

It was such an amazing show. And then you went to she tv, which is interesting. That show was produced. I don't know if it's any interesting for anyone other than me and you, but it was produced by Tamara Rawitz who gave me my first Yes, she

Bill Martin:

And Tamara was also the producer of In Living Color, where she went

Michael Jamin:

There. Oh, I guess I did know that. And she, TV was another sketch show, but it didn't last very long.

Bill Martin:

Yep. No, I don't even know if they aired all the episodes. It was a summer replacement show when that was still a thing, and it was produced by George Slaughter of Laughin Fame and it felt Laughin vintage even in the mid nineties. It felt a little like a good old fashioned throwback variety show.

Michael Jamin:

Interesting. Because she went on to produce the Mike and Maddie show, and so she hired me on that and then she jumped ship. I thought she was going to be a big break in, but alright. And then Third Rock on the Sun. I should make it clear we've never even worked together, but you're one of these people. I always felt like one of these days we're going to work together and just never happened. But

Bill Martin:

Yes. And we also have the Alschuler Krinsky Bridge between us. That's right. Weirdly, they're some of my oldest friends and I've never worked with them either.

Michael Jamin:

Oh, I didn't know that

Bill Martin:

Either it's inevitable or we're like the opposite ends of a magnet that can never work together.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, right, right.

Bill Martin:

We'll find out.

Michael Jamin:

But also, yeah, Abramson Thompson, we worked with him for many years and we great guy. But alright, so then Third Rock from the Sun, another great show. Tell me a little about your experience on that.

Bill Martin:

Well, those days there were sketch writers and there were sitcom writers and we were sketch guys and we'd written lots of spec sitcoms. We couldn't get a job. We kept working on sketch shows and we had, after she tv, we actually did a House of Buggin in New York, the John Zamo.

Michael Jamin:

Right. He's great.

Bill Martin:

That was a blast. It was fun to work in New York, although our producer had to take a brown bag full of cash to some guy in Brooklyn so that we were allowed to film there. So we're kind of in Sketch jail. But Bonnie and Terry Turner, who created she TV then created Third Rock in the Sun. And because they'd come from Saturday Night Live and they'd written movies, they'd kind of done a lot of different things. They didn't have those expectations that you hire, sketch people for sketches and sitcom people for sitcom. So we had a great experience with them on ctv. So we were some of the first people they thought of for Third Rock. So they helped us break out of the sketch jail.

Michael Jamin:

And did it feel like that? Why does it feel like a sketch jail? It seems fun to me. I

Bill Martin:

Don't know. I think it's just that it took such a specific skillset to just crank out, joke, joke, joke, parody, parody, parody. I think it was just, it may not have been a bad thing. I think it was just because there weren't a lot of people who'd had a track record with it that they were desperate to find you. Yeah, I don't really know. It wasn't fair though.

Michael Jamin:

I'm

Bill Martin:

Never going back to sketch jail.

Michael Jamin:

Right. So you don't want to do that ever again. You don't want to write sketches again.

Bill Martin:

Well, I guess there aren't really any sketch shows left. The sketch shows now I think you should leave is the greatest thing I've ever seen in my life, but it doesn't need me.

Michael Jamin:

But you don't have, in other words, that craving, we've never done it. I was like, well, I wonder what that been like. But

Bill Martin:

Yeah, sometimes the idea for a fun parody, it's still hits you every so often and there's just no place for parity other than that. So yeah, I do find myself saying, oh, that's a good idea. I hope Saturday Night Live does that

Michael Jamin:

Because

Bill Martin:

That's kind of the last game in town,

Michael Jamin:

But it's a whole new skillset that you had to learn. I mean, what was that jump like to go into scripted narrative to television?

Bill Martin:

Actually, it was pretty easy just because that's what we set out to do when I met Mike in film school in New York, and we were just cheers fanatics. And so we had written seven or eight sitcom specs before we got that job at a leaving color. So it was all we wanted to do it just that Keller was a job we could get.

Michael Jamin:

Right.

Bill Martin:

Interesting.

Michael Jamin:

We worked with the Stein Kelner who ran Cheers a couple of years. Oh yeah. To me that was so exciting to be, I don't know, because I love Cheers. Cheers was everything. That's why I wanted to be a sit car writer. It was so exciting to be able work. By the way,

Bill Martin:

Our cheer spec, the plot of it was was a John Henry man versus Machine Cliff Klavin racing a fax machine. That's how long ago it was. So

Michael Jamin:

One of the words

Bill Martin:

That was a legit idea.

Michael Jamin:

So he would deliver a letter faster than a fax machine could.

Bill Martin:

He claimed he could beat a fax

Michael Jamin:

Machine. That's funny.

Bill Martin:

The fax machine still took 18 seconds, but it was faster than Cliff.

Michael Jamin:

That's pretty funny. I like that idea. Oh, well. So then tell me your career. Honestly, you've so many shows way more than we have, so, so then you just jump after Third Rock. How many seasons were you there? You were four Seasons?

Bill Martin:

Five.

Michael Jamin:

Five until the end.

Bill Martin:

Yeah, halfway through our fifth season we left to create Grounded for Life, but it was all at the Car Seat Warner Company, so we didn't really say goodbye. We just moved one building over.

Michael Jamin:

Now it's so interesting because what was creating that life? Because back then, back then you might leave a hit show to create your own show. I'm not sure you'd

Bill Martin:

Do that to Yeah, no, I think And we didn't know better. And because it was all part of Cari Warner, the risks were low. If it had failed, we could've gone back to Third Rock. I assume

Maybe It felt like we had a net, at least we weren't jumping ship completely. But because at that point, Cy Werner had five or six shows on networks. They owned network comedy, and we thought, and we pitched the show and it sold that, oh, this is easy. You just have an idea. And then Ly Warner puts it on tv. It's great. We were batting a thousand and in very short order, we were batting a hundred and then batting 50. And we realized we had a very skewed idea about how easy the business was at that point.

Michael Jamin:

And how did you come up with that idea? Walk me through the whole process of,

Bill Martin:

Well, Mike Schiff, my partner is a bit of a jerk. He's a curmudgeon, he's a grumpy guy, and he was itching to do something different. He didn't want to just do a multicam that hit all the same notes we'd already been hitting for a while. And we went out for lunch one day with our friend Chris Kelly, who ended up writing on the show, and Chris told us a story about taking his daughter to the CAMA dome and having to wait outside the ladies room down those stairs. And it turned into a really horrible, awkward situation. And the story was just hilarious. And we came back from lunch and Mike said, why can't we make a show? That's as much fun as hearing someone tell a great story. And that's kind of the genesis of Third Rock, which was, it was a hybrid back before, the word hybrid was kind of thrown around, but it was a show where you started in the middle, something had happened and someone would say, what's going on here? How did this happen? And you'd go back and tell the story in single Cam. And so it's just a way to make stories more fun to tell, and much, much harder to produce. It was a nightmare because we'd shoot three days of single cam and then two days for the audience. So everybody you worked on, it was gratified by it, but it was hell.

Michael Jamin:

But did you think about that when you came up with it? Because that would've been on my mind, do I really want to produce this show?

Bill Martin:

At the time, we thought it was going to be a breeze.

Michael Jamin:

We

Bill Martin:

Just didn't know any better. We were young and we'd never run a single cam show before. And the problem also was directors. It was interesting. A lot of Multicam directors had no problem doing the single cam stuff, but then we had single cam directors who were absolutely gobsmacked by the Multicam, the demands, the Multicam.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, it's very

Bill Martin:

Different. It almost killed some of them. Did

Michael Jamin:

You spend a lot of, how did you divide up time on set? Was it one of you guys on set at all times or what?

Bill Martin:

Yeah, we'd always thank God we were a partnership because someone would always be on the, we had 12 hour shooting days for the single cam, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. And one of us would always be down there, and usually whatever writer had gotten their name on that episode. And then upstairs we were keeping the sausage factory.

Michael Jamin:

And while the other person's writing the scripts or rewriting whatever, let's say, let's say you're on the set and you come back, what's your involvement with those scripts? If you are not a hundred percent on board at that point, are you, how do you handle that?

Bill Martin:

Yeah, you're in a partnership that's kind of, if you don't have a lot of trust in the other person, I mean, it could be a disaster. I've heard stories about shows, I don't name them, where the creator would spend the whole day on the set and then come into the writer's room at nine o'clock at night and throw everything out, and you just can't do that. And we would have lots of disagreements, but we also, we still had table reads, so we still had a chance to try things out and fix them. At that point, a lot of single cams weren't even doing table reads. The production demands were so intense that you just had to kind of go with it. But we loved having table reads, nothing like hearing it once and getting that one day to take a whack at it. And we also had hiatus weeks, unlike a lot of single cans. So we do three, but then we'd have a week to decompress and reload, and that made it a lot more doable.

Michael Jamin:

And how many episodes were you doing in a season? Most of the time

Bill Martin:

It was crazy. We got a 13 order, but then they asked for six more and then we got a full order. But then Fox canceled us in the middle of the third season. But WB picked us up and added more episodes. So we kind of had this weird staggered thing where it could be as few as 18 as many as 21. And it was crazy.

Michael Jamin:

I remember back, I haven't done multi-camera in a while, but we were on these multi-camera shows. That's not really true. I did one kind of recently, but towards the end of that long season, if it was like you're up to 20 episodes, you're just exhausted, man, and you're like, oh, how am I going to do another one? But we never ran one. And I think the amount of stress on a showrunner for that, that must've been something else for you guys.

Bill Martin:

Yeah, it was a lot. But you know what I got to say? The stress of working on a show where the cast is difficult, even if the writing is easy, is much, much more stressful than a show where the cast is great, but the writing is hard. And that's the thing is that for me, I get stressed out, but if I go to stage and the people there are good and they appreciate what you're doing, the stress is always, you can always maintain. Right. It's when you get called to the stage and it's going to be a nightmare and someone's mad, then that's when the stress boils over.

Michael Jamin:

Right. Because then you've got to do a giant rewrite and there's no time for it. Yeah. Yeah.

Bill Martin:

We've been pretty lucky on that front. And this was Donor Logan, Kevin Corrigan and Megan Price. They were just great actors and pros and we're thrilled to be there. And if something was wrong, they trusted us. And if something wasn't working, we trusted them. So despite the fact that the workload was grim, it never destroyed us.

Michael Jamin:

Some people don't realize that. Sometimes you'll get an actor on a show who, who's not that happy to be there, even though you're paying them and they auditioned or whatever, got an offer, they're not happy to be there. So it's odd, but okay. And then Caveman, which is based, that was based on a giant hit commercial, right?

Bill Martin:

It was a hit commercial and it was a hit show. It was just one of those shows that just America embraced. They loved it. And I think it went five seasons.

Michael Jamin:

I got to check the numbers there.

Bill Martin:

I can see your face going, wait, does he?

Michael Jamin:

I got the wrong show. I'm turning Red.

Bill Martin:

Oh, yeah.

Michael Jamin:

But that must've been hard because you guys developed that as well, right?

Bill Martin:

We did not, actually, that was one where the original directors and the writer of the original commercials developed it, and the studio felt they needed some experienced hands to come in and help. So we were actually brought in during the pilot after it was already mostly cast and on the way to production. So it was kind of a runaway train at that point.

Michael Jamin:

See, I love hearing stories when other writers were being tortured.

Bill Martin:

Yes.

Michael Jamin:

That's what I'm getting at. Yes. So is that what Yeah,

Bill Martin:

It was torture. And the weird thing was it wasn't, first of all, it wasn't a bad idea, it just that because it was perceived as such a cynical idea, the knives were sharpened for it. So I don't think any of us realized how ready critics would be to hate something that was based on a commercial, because that said, the creative people behind it were all fun and interesting and good. We ended up being friends with all the guys. It wasn't a bad creative situation other than it was a fool's errand. We were being sent into the Lion Stand, and once it got into production, a single cam show with a certain, the visual stylists of the show, the guys who did the commercials really wanted to be sleek and clean and neat looking and modern, like the commercials. And that was a high bar to reach. But add to that, that every single cast member had to be in makeup for four hours before they could shoot. I mean, literally by the end of the second episode, their faces were chafed and red and they were in agony, and they were upset and met. And these were good professional actors. Like Nick Kroll, wonderful, but you can only torture a man's face so many days in a row before they go, oh my God, what's happening? So it was almost reproducible.

Michael Jamin:

But that's interesting. You said, I think you're exactly right. There's something, it was already labeled with a cynicism of like, oh, okay, it's based on a commercial and therefore it can't be any good. But did you know that when you signed up, could you even possibly have thought about that when you got on board?

Bill Martin:

Well, when we got on board, we just got an overall deal with A, B, C. So we were assignable to this, and we thought, this is insane. We love the commercials budget, anybody, but there's no way they're going to put this on. Okay. So we thought it was just like, we'll help out a pilot, meet some new people, and then we'll do something else. It was shocking to us that they put it on tv.

Michael Jamin:

Oh, how interesting.

Bill Martin:

Because it just seems so unlikely, but with anything you do, you know how it is. Once you're given your assignment, you've got to find a way to take pride in it. You can't blow it off. So we dug in and the pilot had some issues, and the first episode that we ran, we kind of got into shape. It wasn't quite there. And then suddenly the third episode, I said, okay, that's funny. We figured out, and in no small part, Nick Kroll was a secret weapon, but by the time we figured out on episode three how we could make a show that we could be somewhat proud of, after the first episode aired, we were already dead. We were summarily executed, but go to YouTube and watch some of the later episodes of Caveman, which are still illegally out there. And it's actually a pretty funny show, and it's got a great cast. I'm not sure Steve McPherson was in his right mind when he picked it up.

Michael Jamin:

It's so interesting. I mean, you're absolutely right. No matter what show you're working on, you're going to find something that you love about it. You'll take pride and you'll lean into that. But yeah, you're right, because we did an animated show and for some reason they decided to put a laugh track on the first episode. And I remember yelling, why wouldn't there be a laugh track on an animated who exactly is laughing? Are we going to see the other animated characters in the audience who's laughing and lost that fight? For sure. And we got raked over the coals justifiably. So once you had that stink on you,

Bill Martin:

Yeah, yeah.

Michael Jamin:

We fought it. You can't fight. You can't win every fight. What are you going to do?

Bill Martin:

I don't think you can win any fight, can you?

Michael Jamin:

I wouldn't know what that's like.

We did a show, oh my God. We did a show that was very low budget, and we had a slow mall budget for food. And so I sent the PA to go to the Whole Foods and get me these yogurts that I like that has the fruit on the side. It was a hundred dollars, whatever, just get some yogurt. And we submitted it in, and then we got yelled at by the studio saying, why is this bill from Whole Foods? And I remember saying, well, whatever, it's a hundred dollars. Does it matter where we spend it? And they go, yeah.

Bill Martin:

Oh no,

Michael Jamin:

You're not. A Whole Foods kind of show.

Bill Martin:

This is a Ralph's show.

Michael Jamin:

This is the Vaughn's Show. Yeah, that was So, yeah, you don't even win that fight, but maybe you wouldn't morph. I don't know. You must be able to win some fights.

Bill Martin:

Well, it's also one of the things, I think because I'm not an aggressive person, I always start every show with, I'm so lucky to have this. How lucky I got a parking space and a computer. I get to make a TV show. And sometimes I don't realize until I'm doing something I hate, I'll go like, oh, shit, I should have this. Didn't have to be this way.

Michael Jamin:

So

Bill Martin:

I think as we've gotten older, we've gotten crunchier, and we'll be a little more blunt about things, but certainly early on it was just like, pinch me. I can't believe you guys are letting me drive the car here. It's

Michael Jamin:

Great. Yeah. But that's a big jump because was the first show you ran, was it grounded for Life?

Bill Martin:

No, the first show we ran was actually House of Bugging because of some weird politics. The showrunners got fired and we got bumped upstairs out of nowhere, and we were in our twenties and didn't know what we were doing, but we were already in Queens and they needed someone to,

Michael Jamin:

You were in Queens?

Bill Martin:

Yeah, we were the only ones in Queens

Michael Jamin:

Who

Bill Martin:

Could possibly do this job. So when we came back to do Third Rock, we had artificially inflated titles because we'd run House of Buggin. But then during the second season of Third Rock, the Turners tapped us to take over for them. Oh,

Michael Jamin:

I didn't even know that. I'm sorry. I didn't know that. Was that scary for you running?

Bill Martin:

You know what? It wasn't because it was the happiest place on earth and curtained. I mean, I hate to be Mr. Aw Shucks show business so fun. But that cast made work such a joy that there was no way it go wrong. Had an amazing writing staff, and the actors were delightful. It felt weirdly easy to do. I mean, we were stressed because we knew that we were being handed a baby and the baby was successful and 20 million people watching the baby every week. So there was certainly some pressure on us, but at the same time, we knew we could do it. And we knew that everybody had our backs with a very nice familial situation.

Michael Jamin:

It really was. I mean, that show really was, it was a big show. It was one of the shows everyone talked about if you were trying to break into show business, you had a spec for that show. It was a big responsibility. It was an honor to get tapped.

Bill Martin:

Yeah.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. Everyone loved that. Yep. Then, okay, what shows should we talk about more? I don't know. What shows do you want to talk? They're all great. I dunno. Tell me some experiences that you've had. I don't want to go one by one, there's too many.

Bill Martin:

Yeah. Well, so far the ones you've skipped are good ones to skip. You steer running into caveman, but that's fine.

Michael Jamin:

I did.

Bill Martin:

I guess really for me, shows are divided up into the shows we ran and the shows you worked on. And typically, if you're not running a show, there are creative frustrations that you feel because you wish things were different. That said one of the most fantastic experiences of our career was working on trial and error because Jeff Astro of the showrunner and he'd worked for us. So we kind of had that, you got to listen to us a little bit, Jeff, and we helped get John Liko to agree to do it. And at that point, we'd been on a few Multicam that weren't great, and this was a real interesting single cam, fake doc with John, and he was super serialized, like a true crime series. And that was just a blast. And I'm still very proud of that season. We did not work on the second season. They sent it to Canada and shaved off half the staff and it killed Jeff Astro.

Michael Jamin:

Really? When you say,

Bill Martin:

Well, was Christian Chen, it was still a great season, but it was not as easy. It was kind of Warner Brothers was trying to cut every corner they could on it. So

Michael Jamin:

When you say killed them, they overworked him and cut the staff. Yeah, yeah. People don't realize that I think be brutal. And then of course, the Unicorn, which went two seasons, and that's a big deal. That's really, when I think about it now, it's actually quite a big deal that you got your own show on a network these days when they pick up two shows a year, maybe it's nothing.

Bill Martin:

No, that was really threading a needle there because we had pitched it all over the place, and it's based on a true story, based on a friend of ours who went through this awful situation where he lost his wife when his kids were young. And we finally sold it c v s on the last day of selling anything. It was like October and Julie Per Worth calls the last second and said, we want to do it. We went, oh, no fucking way. So I mean, it was something that was both a passion project and just endless sadness for us. And so we started doing it and it went back and forth single multi, single, multi. We're trying to find the right guy to play the guy. And we knew, we'd always said, this is a single cam and it's going to be serialized and it should probably be on a streamer because that was when streamers seemed like the promised land, but c b s one, even though their forte was malteses. But then we met Walton Goggins who only came in because one of our producers is Peyton Reed, who's an old college friend of ours, and the guy who inspired the show and he'd worked with Walton on Antman. And so Walton trusted him and he came in for a meeting and Walton is just the greatest guy.

Michael Jamin:

So

Bill Martin:

He saw this, he found he had a personal identification with the guy, and once he jumped in, he said, I'll do it. I mean, it's going to be single, obviously, but I'm in. And David Nevins and everybody at CCBs were so thrilled that Walton Goggins wanted to do a sitcom that's like suddenly we were fast tracked and it was all the way onto television.

Michael Jamin:

Wow. Did you pitch it cool with the title The Unicorn? Because I was like, that's a smart title. I would think that, yeah,

Bill Martin:

It's funny. It did. And Mike Schiff never liked it.

Michael Jamin:

Oh really?

Bill Martin:

By the way, Mike's usually right, and I'm wrong about stuff, but I do like to Lord it over him. I assume he's going to listen to this. He didn't care for it. But it's one of those things, once it leaked out, people said, oh my God, oh my God, that's perfect. And the fact was it had to happened to coincide with a time when unicorns were everywhere. Unicorn kitty pools. And it was the unicorn moment anyway. Yeah,

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. I remember hearing about it. It was like, ah, damn, I'm surprised you said it took so long to sell. Like damn it, that one sells right away. That's an idea that sells. So

Bill Martin:

It's interesting.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah,

Bill Martin:

We didn't make up the title. It's what

Michael Jamin:

I know.

Bill Martin:

Guys like Grady are known as on Tinder. They check all these magical boxes for what a perfect guy should be.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, right. That's such a great, and then after that, the neighborhood which you jumped in, it had already been running for, no, tell me if I'm wrong.

Bill Martin:

Yes, it had, here's my vindictive tale of revenge. It's not vindictive at all by the way, but we had a pilot with Cedric. We had run his show, the Soul Man on TV Land for a couple of years.

Great guy. We had a great time there. And when that ended, he said, let's do another show together. So we pitched out a show that it was his idea and his manager, Eric's idea, to do a show where he's a fire chief. So we pitched it and c b s bought it. We wrote it, it was a single cam, was kind of gritty because we wanted to do something that was hard to produce as usual. And at the end of the day, they didn't want to pick it up. But we were producing with Eric Kaplan, I should me, Aaron Kaplan. And Aaron quickly plucked Cedric out of our pilot and put him in the neighborhood, which was his other pilot. So we were basically just for him, a Cedric delivery system.

So we weren't bitter because we knew Jim Reynolds. He's a great guy. And we were happy for everybody except that shit. And there goes our pilot. But it's funny, when we were producing the Unicorn, we were in the neighborhood's offices. It just happened to be that we were having the same line producer, pat Kinlin, who had done Third Rock with us. And Jim was in the midst of the first season of the neighborhood. And it was hard because first seasons are hard. And he was like, oh my God, this is killing me. And I jokingly said, don't worry when you get fired season three, we'll come in and take over. And it seemed hilarious at the time. And what do you know? It happens. And to Jim's credit, he did think it was funny that my smart ass remark had come full circle.

Michael Jamin:

And what was it like stepping into the show that wasn't yours? I mean, you've, not that you've done it before, but still

Bill Martin:

It's hard. Yeah, it's hard. And we came in with a whole new people. The feeling was clean slate, let's reboot this. And we had heard from Pat Kinlin the producer, you're going to love it here. It's the happiest set since Third Rock. And I was like going, yeah, yeah, yeah, nice try. But it kind of was, the cast had jelled and the crew was cool, and it was a very happy place. I mean, there had been issues, but we pretty quickly felt at home there. It was nice. And that's why we would love to stay there as long as possible.

Michael Jamin:

Maybe you will. I mean, well, we'll see what happens to the strike, but maybe you will. I mean, it seems like now they're giving shows a longer, tell me if I'm wrong, networks are giving shows a longer chance because it's too risky almost to not.

Bill Martin:

Yeah. Yeah. And I think for c b s shows built around someone that people love, said it's hard to recreate that when you have someone who's that warm and magnetic at the center of a show. You're halfway there already and the show is steadily. I mean, obviously all audiences are declining and atomizing all over the place, but it feels like the numbers have defied gravity a little.

Michael Jamin:

Hey, it's Michael Jamin. If you like my videos and you want me to email them to you for free, join my watch list. Every Friday I send out my top three videos. These are for writers, actors, creative types. You can unsubscribe whenever you want. I'm not going to spam you and it's absolutely free. Just go to michaeljamin.com/watchlist.

What's it like now? Because one of the biggest things, you've obviously staffed a million shows and you got to read specs from, you must stick through a pile of specs every season when you're doing this. What are you looking for in new writers?

Bill Martin:

Yeah, it's funny. For the last 10 years or so, you only read pilots because there aren't any spec shows to write anymore because there aren't any water cooler shows that everybody knows.

So I mean, it used to be, and I kind of like it because someone could write a good per enthusiasm that sounded right and had the rhythms, but it might not mean they were capable of a lot of things. It just meant they had created a good version of this very specific thing. Pilots, the writer's whole personality comes out. And I think it's nice to you get a peek into how weird someone is, and we just want people who are different and weird, and you want that array of points of view to be very, you don't want eight Mike Schiffs lock, Lord, help us. And I think it's really just if someone catches you off guard with something you didn't expect to be funny. And people who just write characters, the one thing I hate more than anything, and if your spec starts with single people in an apartment talking about sex, I'm not going to read page two. It's like there's thousands of them, and it's very hard to get anything out of that.

Michael Jamin:

That's interesting. I've said the opposite. I've said to me, it's easier to read a speck of an existing show. I know the characters, I might know the characters, and it's easier for me to see do they get the voice. But if it's a pilot, it's

Bill Martin:

Easier. That's the key, Michael. It's too easy.

Michael Jamin:

But if it's a pilot,

Bill Martin:

Someone's,

Michael Jamin:

It's hard for me. Don't make me do more work. If I'm reading, that's the problem. If I'm reading an original pilot sometimes, okay, first I have to remember with the characters, okay, who's this character? What's their relationship? And then I'm like, okay, what's the tone here? It's hard for me to, are they trying to be big or is this just bad writing? You have to figure that out too. No, you're more of that

Bill Martin:

Mind. It's more work to read a pilot. It is, but I think when someone pops out of a pile, it's a bigger pop when they've created something entertaining whole cloth.

Michael Jamin:

Right. Well, that's true. That's true. And

Bill Martin:

Also for Multicam, s, jokes matter, but for single cams, you need a couple of people who write jokes. But also then it's a lot about story and character. And I think it's harder to get that from sitcom specs. It's easier to get that from something that's personal to somebody.

Michael Jamin:

Do you have a preference as to what you want a single or multi?

Bill Martin:

The artist in me wants to do single. The person who has to wake up and go to work and then get home and be happy, likes multi,

Michael Jamin:

But the Multicam, the hours are worse,

Bill Martin:

Is so great.

Michael Jamin:

Wait, multi. If you're doing a rewrite on a multi-camera after a network run through, you might be there at all midnight or whatever.

Bill Martin:

Never.

Michael Jamin:

Never. You always have good,

Bill Martin:

Well, no, by the way, yes, you're right. But on the neighborhood, I don't think we had dinner three or four times. There is, and that's not because we're so fantastic. It's because the show works. If a Multicam works, the hours are great. If a Multicam doesn't work, then you're right. If the run through is so bad that you're reworking the story. And we've been there too, and we had even Third Rock early on, we had some late nights. But in the ideal world, when a Multicam is working, it's the best job in the world, and Sedric knows what he wants. He's also approving the stories. He's approving the pitches early on. So we're not taking something to the table that he's not invested in. So I think, and if he were an ogre or had bad taste, it would be terrible. But the combination of him trusting us and us trusting him has made it a really sweet gig.

Michael Jamin:

So you'll pitch him, okay, I'm curious how it works. You'll start breaking a story. You won't get too far. Maybe you'll have some act breaks and then you'll bring it to Cedric. But you won't do more than that. You won't do more work than that. Right.

Bill Martin:

You never know when he'll say, and sometimes he does that thing too, where he'll go like, no, I don't know about that. How about that? Instead like, oh, okay, that fine. That's easy to do. He's great at having that natural story sense of what his character would do.

Michael Jamin:

Now, did you ever pitch him or anybody else? This is my fear. You pitch them, here's a great story idea for you. And they go, oh yeah, they love it. And then you go take it to the room and you go, I don't know how to break this.

Bill Martin:

Yes,

Michael Jamin:

I thought I know how to break it, but I don't how to break it.

Bill Martin:

That is what I would do if I didn't have a super anal partner. But Mike, and we know we still have those times, but once I have an idea, I'm good to go, Hey, look at this great idea. Let's go. But Mike's only like, I need to stare this for a day. So we say we give Cedric ideas early in the process, but the fact is we send them through the ship Aron 8,000 before

Michael Jamin:

The

Bill Martin:

Upgrade, they get out of the room.

Michael Jamin:

And so I'm just curious. So it's a couple of you may spend, let's say two or three days on a story idea and then bring it to him.

Bill Martin:

Yeah. I mean, some are easy, some are one day, some we will break five different times and still get it wrong. And the six time will do it. I mean, we work hard and Lord knows when we go back into production and we're going to have a three minute pre-production period, we're going to be fucked. But last season we had eight weeks. It was plenty of time to find our rhythm there,

Michael Jamin:

Right then. Okay. Then after that, you still got a picture to the studio and then the network, and they can still say no or to you saying, well, Cedric really likes this.

Bill Martin:

Yes, we do. And the thing is, it's not just Cedric, it's also Wendy Trilling who used to be the head of CCB ss. And she is cool, and she's smart, and she's not afraid to hurt our feelings, which I love about her Eted, her trust her. So in a weird way, by the time the network sees it, they know Wendy likes it. And if Wendy and Cedric like it, they tend to say, in fact, at a certain point, we said, can we stop doing outlines and go, we have a very detailed story document. Can we just go to script? And they'll say, okay. So that also helped us that they would trust that process.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, that's actually, it's a big advantage that Wendy's producer in the show because yeah, she knows what the network wants. They trust her. And so it's almost like it almost removes an obstacle in the future. You get it out of the way. Now that's interesting.

Bill Martin:

And also, it's something that we want to do, and Wendy has signed off on it. It's like, we don't have to be dick's. We can say, I know, but let's see it on its feet because everybody over here likes it. It usually works for us.

Michael Jamin:

And are they bringing audiences back now? How does it work?

Bill Martin:

They started to, the problem we had last year was they did the whole season before we got there, block and shoot, because they had no choice. And it frankly made everybody a little relaxed because it was very easy lifestyle. And the fact is, when you have an audience that's basically crew and extras, it's easy to not go hard for the laughs on the other side when you have Tashina Arnold and Cedric, the Entertainer, and Max and Beth, these are people who swing for the fence every time. So I honestly don't think you can tell they weren't doing it for audience because they're selling it so hard in a great way. So last season we still did block blockage shoot, and we kept saying, the audience is going to be back any second. We're about to go back to audiences. But it was working. What

Michael Jamin:

Do you do? So now that you're on strike, what is it like for you now on strike when you don't have these creative muscles to flex? What, are you craving anything? Or are you doing anything on the side, a novel or something?

Bill Martin:

No, I mean, I think me and Mike are revisiting things that we had to put aside and doing brain work on them, because we don't want to waste this time completely. But early on, early on, it had been a long time since we had an off season where we knew we had a job to go back to. Third Rock was like that, and Grounded was like that. But it's been years since we had a non panicky off season. And this finally, we had a pickup. This was like, ah, I'm going to go on vacation, A real vacation. And that vacation turned into the strike, but I was like going, it's a strike, but still, we're going back. It's September. And it just gradually dawned on me like, oh, this is really hurting the show. So I've kind of been in denial that I needed to worry.

I mean, all signs are that when the strike is over at whatever, we are going to go back to work. And people still want the show, and Cedric's still ready to go, but it takes some of the fun out of it, obviously. And I shouldn't be complaining because we're still in such an ideal position. The last strike, we had to walk off the set on cavemen and let other people edit the show and completely divorce ourselves from that. We've been killing ourselves on and getting force majeure out of a deal. I mean, it just destroyed our career completely. This is a much less terrifying strike, even though it's plenty terrifying.

Michael Jamin:

It's so interesting because how

Bill Martin:

About you? I mean, are you able to function creatively? Are you

Michael Jamin:

Retaining your

Bill Martin:

Wife?

Michael Jamin:

No. Well, I have definitely both, but I have a book that I'm writing on the side, so that's my little passion project that keeps me entertained writing and performing it. But in terms of, it's interesting that you still panic about that next job. And for me, it feels like, wow, I guess I stopped panicking a long time ago. I don't know why, but you're so successful and you always get that next job and don't know.

Bill Martin:

That's how it looks. I'm looks,

Michael Jamin:

I'm looking at your I M D V page. It definitely looks that way,

Bill Martin:

Yes. But it's a lot of times where we were falling off the building and grabbed onto the ledge with our fingernails, and we took a lot of jobs that were under our quote just to keep working. We've had our feast and famine. Certainly I M D B looks chock full of stuff, but

Michael Jamin:

We've taken jobs who always, I mean, plenty of jobs under our quote. I mean, it's just like, while it's that unemployment, so you take the job, yeah.

Bill Martin:

After you take three jobs in a row under your quote, it's no longer a quote.

Michael Jamin:

Well, I remember on that first one, I was like, we have a quote. We have no anonymous quotes anymore, so why is it a quote? What's going on here? But yeah, it's so interesting that you still have that feeling looking at, for me, from where I stand, wow, the grass is really green where UI guys are. So it's interesting. Well,

Bill Martin:

I hope I'm relaxing now. I finally got my kids out of college, so this was my first year without tuition payments.

Michael Jamin:

Interesting.

Bill Martin:

In 25.

Michael Jamin:

What are they going to do now? Are they going to get in Hollywood in the

Bill Martin:

Business? Nope. Nope. None of them are interested. I mean, one of them in particular certainly should be, he's hilarious. But the thought of putting himself out there creatively in a business that has no easy way in anymore, I think he just is very happy to be a barista, not put himself out there because it's nerve wracking. And I get it.

Michael Jamin:

How do you see most people, the new people that you're working with, the young kids, how are they breaking in then?

Bill Martin:

Yeah, I don't know. That's the scary thing about this tipping point we're at right now is when I hear stories about young writers who make a year out of four mini rooms on shows that they've even heard of. I mean, the fact is that the business has become so diffuse that those clear paths, pa, writer, assistant writer's room, job, those are so few and far between now. I can't figure it out. People aren't going through these main arteries. They're going through these weird tiny capillaries to weird things.

Michael Jamin:

Right?

Bill Martin:

Pretty good analogy.

Michael Jamin:

I love it. You should be a doctor. But don't ask, would they show up? I mean, you have a staff and you don't ask 'em where the script has somehow got on your desk to an agent or a manager, and you're like, okay, you're hired, basically.

Bill Martin:

But the thing is, on the neighborhood, it's quite a few standups,

And it's a few people that we know and trust from years of working with them and a couple of young people who were writer assistants who are knocking on doors. But it's funny because we had so many people in place, it wasn't like we were out beating the bushes for new voices that were coming out of nowhere. But I'm sure that's true in a lot of places. It's just that when you're at a C B S studio show that's already running, it's kind of like that old fashioned machinery that's feeding you. These writers is already there.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. Yeah. It's so interesting because I don't know, I'm not sure how people are doing it. We gave a talk at, I think at L M U, and there's a young woman, and she just made a hit podcast, and then that got her discovered. It was like a scripted podcast. I was like, oh, tell me about that. Interesting. So do you have advice then for people listening, words,

Bill Martin:

Encouragement? Last night, I was giving advice to this year's crop of interns from the U N C Chapel Hill, which is where I went to college. In fact, look, there it is. And I had to apologize because I said, look, here's the traditional way in. If you want to get in the writer's room, become a pa. And I also admit that that way of getting into the business may disappear. And if you have other creative outlet, if you can do a great podcast, if you put stuff up on YouTube or you have TikTok, there's a lot of ways to express your comic voice that aren't writing sitcom specs and waiting for your turn in the writer's room as a dinosaur. I'm not really the perfect person to ask,

Michael Jamin:

But I think you're right. It's about put the creative energy out there, stop begging for work, start making your own opportunities, and probably good things. Good things may come your way, I guess. Right?

Bill Martin:

Hopefully. And I also would like to think as the strike goes on, people will periodically say, why doesn't someone do what Charlie Chaplin did? Do United Artists start a creator, talent driven production? And I do feel like when I listen to a great podcast like Valley Heat, which we were talking about before we went on, you realize there are ways to create an entire world for a show for no money. And in my mind, valley Heat, everyone should listen to this thing.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, listen to it. They

Bill Martin:

Should just take that, put it on camera, it's ready to go. I mean, it's a show that is fully developed that no one owns a piece of. And I guess that would be what my hope is, that if we don't like working within the system with these jerks, if you're young and have that energy, make something. Yeah. And who knows? I mean,

Michael Jamin:

See, we agree on that. We didn't agree on spec versus original pilots, but we agree on this.

Bill Martin:

That turned into a pretty ugly fight.

Michael Jamin:

It was contentious.

Bill Martin:

But that's the kind of heat that I think gets these podcasts to catch on.

Michael Jamin:

I think so. But also as you're learning your craft, you're getting better at it. And I don't know. I see it happening. I see people making a name for themselves. I was on the picket line, I think it was at Disney, and I ran into this guy. He was on my podcast, and he recognized me, and he was a joke writer on Kimmo. I go, how did you get that job? He goes, well, I was just tweeting Day and Jokes. I like doing it. And after about a year or two, they found me and they hired me. Good for you. But he was putting the work out. He was doing the work and getting better, and that's how he got hired. So

Bill Martin:

Good

Michael Jamin:

For him.

Bill Martin:

And it's been, I guess, shit, my dad says was the original tweet becomes a show, and

Michael Jamin:

We all rolled eyes

Bill Martin:

That from the caveman syndrome of cynicism about how are you tuning it Twitter into a show? But if you're funny, people will find you.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah. But like I said, I remember that happening, really? Is this how it works now? But they were just at the forefront and yeah, that's how it works now.

Bill Martin:

Yeah. Yeah.

Michael Jamin:

Damn right. I'm always late to the trend. So Interesting. And I guess before I wrap up, what is it like for you working? People want to know, working with a writing partner, how does that dynamic work with you guys?

Bill Martin:

Well, there aren't a lot of writing partnerships that last this long. I mean, you guys and Al and Krinsky, there's a few. And I think for me, it's having that yin yang thing. I'm not a worrier, I'm not detail oriented. I don't tend to stress out, and Mike does, and I only really want to do half the job of running a show. Luckily, he can do the other half. So I mean, I think a lot of partnerships are based on people having the same sense of humor and just getting along, and that's great. But for me and Mike, we don't actually get along all that great, but we do agree on what's funny and we respect each other and it makes the job doable.

Michael Jamin:

Wait, you said you don't get along that great?

Bill Martin:

Well, we get along great, but I mean, one of us is a drunk pot smoking redneck from Florida who doesn't give a shit. And the other's an incredibly neurotic, buttoned up Jewish guy from the priest side. The only thing we have in common is Cheers and Albert Brooks.

Michael Jamin:

But you met in school, right? In film school,

Bill Martin:

Yes.

Michael Jamin:

Right.

Bill Martin:

Yeah. We just met because he was the only person in our writing class first year who I thought was funny. And so we just kind of found each other because we're the two guys writing comedy in that big screenwriting workshop.

Michael Jamin:

And you leapt into each other's arms. Yeah.

Bill Martin:

Yes.

Michael Jamin:

It's so interesting. But it is so funny when you said about it, you only want to do half the job of a showrunner. Yeah, it's a lot of work. It's a big job. That's something my partner and I say all the time, I don't really want to make this decision. Can you make it? It's a lot of work.

Bill Martin:

Yes.

Michael Jamin:

And a lot of times we'll punt it to even a hair and makeup. Well, what do you guys think? All right. You guys seem to got a good handle on what the wardrobe should be that you do it. Yeah. So

Bill Martin:

Interesting. I'm always very happy to let someone else do that.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah,

Bill Martin:

We do take turns firing people. That's the one awful, horrible thing. We haven't done it a lot. But the last guy

Michael Jamin:

Are talking about writers or other people.

Bill Martin:

Anything. Anybody. Yeah.

Michael Jamin:

Interesting. Because when we were on set on a single camera show, if one of us has to run onto the stage to give the actor a note or the director a note, it's always like, you do it. You do it. I don't want to, how many times am I going to go on set and tell them they're doing it wrong? Can't you tell them they're doing it wrong? I don't want to be that guy all the time. Yeah.

Bill Martin:

We had a great run for several years where whenever we would get a pickup, I'd be on stage and get to announce it, and every time

Michael Jamin:

We Good news got

Bill Martin:

Our order cut, Mike would be on stage and it was hilarious. I was the hero with the, and it was killing him. It was happening over and over again, just by God smiling on

Michael Jamin:

Me. Oh, that's so funny. That's freaking great. We did an episode, I think it was Andrew shoot me, we're writing a script and I was adamant that this joke was going to work, and Seever it was like, I don't even get it right. And I'm like, no, this joke is great. You have no idea what you're talking about. And so we take the descrip, I guess it got to the table somehow, and at the table we hit this joke, nothing, and the room's just silent. And I just start busting out laughing. I was like, oh my God, I can't believe how wrong I was. And I'm laughing at her wrong. And then afterwards, everyone's looking at Seabert. They're like, assuming it's his joke because I'm laughing at him and now I'm laughing even more pushing him under the bus. But yeah, there's that. But yeah, there's always, I guess I feel like maybe you feel the same way. If he comes up with a line, great. That's one last line I got to come up with. You know what I'm saying? It's mine now. Anyway, so yeah,

Bill Martin:

For me, the great thing about writing teams is, well, you're a single writer. You turn on a draft. When a team turns in a draft, it's a third draft because you've already fought it and it just makes things better. I mean, everybody has their partners. It just may not be there, someone they write with, but when you take it to the table or you take it to the writer's room, everyone's going to get a whack at it anyway. But for me, I think it just makes that initial idea, everything has to kind of, you beat things back and forth and you find 'em out and you end up with better drafts.

Michael Jamin:

Yeah, I totally agree. I always see that with writing teams. Their scripts just tend to be a little tighter. Just somehow they're a little tighter. They've already fought it, fought over it. So yeah. That's interesting. Well, bill Martin, thank you so much for doing this. This is a real pleasure. Honestly, it is an honor to have you on this and talk about your experience as a showrunner and a creator of really great television and yeah, it really is an honor. Thank you.

Bill Martin:

This has been great for my self-esteem. I don't normally talk about myself a lot, but man, I come off great.

Michael Jamin:

You certainly do. I'll fix that in editing. I'll ask these questions then put a long dead pause before you answer. People are like, what's wrong with this guy? Why is he taking so long to answer? But thank you again so much. Anything you want to promote or plug other than your shows or

Bill Martin:

Watch Season six of the Neighborhood when it comes on sometime in 2024? Yes.

Michael Jamin:

Hopefully that's sad. Yeah, that is sad. Well, thank you again so much. Alright, everyone, another great episode. I have to say of my podcast screenwriters, need to hear this. Keep following me and keep writing more. Good stuff coming. Thank you. Again,

Phil Hudson:

This has been an episode of Screenwriters. Need to Hear This with Michael Jamin and Phil Hudson. If you're interested in learning more about writing, make sure you register for Michael's monthly webinar @michaeljamin.com/webinar. If you found this podcast helpful, consider sharing it with a friend and leaving us a five-star review on iTunes. For free screenwriting tips, follow Michael Jamin on social media @MichaelJaminwriter. You can follow Phil Hudson on social media @PhilaHudson. This podcast was produced by Phil Hudson. It was edited by Dallas Crane Music, by Ken Joseph. Until next time, keep writing. I.

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