Friday, February 25, 2011

Q. I'm currently working on a spec Cougar Town. Cougar Town has a ton of recurring jokes and bits (Penny Can, the Japanese restaurant greeting, etc.). I'm trying to figure out how to strike a balance between writing a really great Cougar Town, recurring jokes and all, and not alienating readers who don't watch the show. Which side would you err on?

This is a toughie.

My first answer would be never to spec a show that showrunners are likely to be unfamiliar with. I don't know if COUGAR TOWN is a show everyone watches. Call a couple of agents' assistants and ask if execs and showrunners are likely to be familiar with it.

My second answer would be: this is one way that writing a spec is harder than writing for the show. You can't usethe recurring jokes as a crutch. You have to write the recurring jokes in such a way that they score anyway. If you can twist the jokes, or top them, then you get points from any reader and bonus points from the COUGAR TOWN aficionado.

Labels: spec scripts

7:42 AM

1 Comments:

I know Cougar Town is one of the handful of possible script selections for fellows at the Nickelodeon program (where they write specs during the fellowship). I don't think the execs would have them write Cougar Towns if it wasn't a good spec script.

By  Little Miss Nomad, at 3:17 PM  

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