The Comedy Tribune

I’ve been writing comedy for 39 years, and I’m positive that the next script I hand in will be the one where people discover that I’m a fraud. This is the anxiety that every comedy writer goes through, all the time – no matter how good you think you are, the voice of self doubt gets louder with experience.

I have never been fired from a gig, but I have had to take over jobs where the previous writer was “let go” and all I can think is – am I next? I’m pretty much going to do the same job as the last writer.

With Dave Foley as teenagers and 35 years later.

I mostly write for live television and I’ve been very fortunate to have written for comedy virtuosos like Martin Short, Rick Mercer, Seán Cullen, Mary Walsh, Alan Thicke, Dave Foley, Andrea Martin and Russell Peters – people who don’t need extra jokes from me, but they are also people who are smart enough to know that it doesn’t hurt to have a writer on board. Just a little help to make them appear to be the smartest person in the room. And then there is this added pressure of the trust and confidence that these people put in you – it’s empowering, but it also fertilizes the seed of self doubt. What if I’m the one who kills their career?

I’ve also been very fortunate to work with many “non coms” – like Queen Elizabeth, Sarah McLachlan, Michael Bublé, Bryan Adams and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau – all of them very high profile public personalities who value the hard work that goes into writing. People associate wit with intelligence. This is a fair assessment – as is associating wit with insecurity. Many “comedy” hosts when they step off stage will whisper to you “well, we fooled them again”. Code that acknowledges the shared anxiety of doing comedy.

You might not realize it, but in my experience, I’ve found that people are actually respectful of comedy writers. It is not easy to do, even though anybody who has ever held a pencil fancies themselves a writer. Everybody thinks that their “family should be a sitcom”, or they have a great idea for a screenplay - but are unaware of the discipline of sitting down and actually writing.

Sitting down and doing it is the most difficult part – there are at least a million other things to do besides write. Trust me I’ve done them all.

But truth be told, procrastination is not your friend, it is just an enabler. I used to ask for dead lines on Fridays, because then I knew I could hand it in on the following Monday, (nobody reads on the weekends). I thought that having those two extra days would make my material look like genius – the reality was that I wouldn’t get around to working on it until Sunday night or even Monday morning – then look at it and think, I should have just started this two days earlier.

Undeniably, nobody wants to hand in their material early. I mean, if they want it for Friday why would I hand it in on Wednesday? That gives them two full days to tell you it’s not very good. But the fact is, they appreciate it earlier, and with this appreciation comes softer notes. You’ll usually get “this is very funny” which of course is all you want hear – anything after that note doesn’t matter. I’ll even accept “you really captured her/his voice” – no idea what this means, but I interpret this as – you are not being fired.

The amount of procrastination is dictated by the person you are writing for – some hosts don’t want to see a script until a few days before the event. Then they will fix it in TelePrompTer rehearsal. This means you have about a month to write a five minute monologue, but the real work will be collaborative, on the day of the show. But some hosts prefer to be really prepared, like Martin Short. He was hosting the Canadian Screen Awards in March 2014, and flew Sean Cullen and I to Los Angeles in January to talk ideas – Sean and I were just thrilled because it was Martin Short! And we got to go to his house for meetings, and when we needed a break, he’d give us a great showbiz story.

Then at the end of each day, we’d drive back to our hotel, and just reflect on how surreal this all was. But we did actually have work to do, because Marty likes to be prepared – he had ideas for songs, and sketches and he wanted about 80 jokes so that in March, the week of the show, he can have 12 for his monologue.

The next year, his dear friend Andrea Martin was hosting the same awards. I talked to the producers in January, then never heard again, until they told my agent that they were “going in a different direction”.

Anyway, about a week before Andrea’s show, I got an email from Martin Short asking me to fly to New York to work with Andrea, as she had no monologue (Note: Andrea did have superb sketches written by Robin Duke and Kathryn Greenwood – but she needed a topical monologue). I went to New York to work with Andrea, of course the whole flight there instead of thinking of ideas – I was mired in stupid questions “what if she doesn’t think I’m funny? What if she hates Italians?”

We eventually did write a decent monologue – that week it was rehearsed on stage, and I made it more topical as the show approached. I could not attend, but Andrea was very gracious, texting me before and after the show – “well this is it, I can’t do anything more” and on the Monday morning there was a gift basket with Dom Perignon at my doorstep with a nice note. This of course was the “we fooled them again” message.

There are some gigs that don’t require a comedy writer, but the producers who are putting on the event are aware that comedy writers can approach subject matter in a different, more human way than a journalist, or a speechwriter can.

For instance I’ve written hosts scripts for the Olympics (Athens, Torino, Beijing, and Sochi), because CBC Sports knows the value of having good human stories, stories that aren’t about how much we win or statistics, but more about the importance of the moment, content and context. Which is a comedy trope that I am more than familiar with, or so I thought until I had to work in Sochi. First of all, it was Ron MacLean’s Olympic Prime – THE Olympic show to watch – and truthfully Ron MacLean doesn’t need any help, he knows this stuff cold, and all I am is a nuisance.

That said, I’m 9 time zones away from home, in Russia, and am committed to doing the best job possible. My shift started at midnight. I look for stories so that the editors can chase footage. At 2:00am Ron comes in, he never hated anything I was submitting, but he did have his own stories that he wanted to tell and Ron MacLean is a virtuoso – so there are rewrites and then at 4:00am we are live.

At 8:00am we are done for the day – with a big sigh of relief, we go back to the hotel to sleep – and to think of how they are going to fire me. Is it tonight before the shift or maybe after the show? This went on for 16 live shows. I never got fired – but a starter’s pistol will trigger my PTSD.

At the Olympics there was no time for procrastination – or self doubt – every night I’d have the same mantra – “they didn’t ask just anybody to write this, they asked me” – which I’m sure was not true, I was just the one they asked who was available.

I worked with Michael Bublé, when he was hosting the Junos in March 2018, he asked Kristeen von Hagen and I to fly to Vancouver in December to start to work on ideas. On January 2 he called me and said he wanted to talk every day until the show. For sure I thought that this was impossible, as he’s busy with his new album, his family and generally being a pop star.

But sure enough, everyday there was a phone call. And on the night of the show, he was prepared and hit a grand slam (Kristeen and I won a Canadian Screen award for this. Note: if you write enough award shows, you’ll win awards for them). A classy gentleman, Michael also thanked us on camera in his closing remarks.

And my Alan Thicke experience was also a clinic on working in this craft. First of all, to any comedy nerd, Alan Thicke is a legend, having written one of the most important TV variety series, (Fernwood Tonight) so I knew I was going to learn a lot. My agent told me this was going to be 11 weeks, and Alan’s difficult to work with, “you are going to be his punching bag”. I can handle that – the alternative is not working for 11 weeks, which is far more painful.

Our conversations began in July, everyday at 10 until noon and as we got closer to production (Unusually Thicke) 10 to 12 and then 3 to 5. He was very thorough, but this also gave me an opportunity to bond with him. This was also when my phone provider sent me a text to inform me that my unlimited plan wasn’t that unlimited.

By the time we started production all the scripts were in place, or so I thought – I didn’t know that Alan was going to get up at 5 every morning, make notes and call me at 7, so that we would be ready to shoot for 10.

And even though we had writers do a first draft, excellent writers like Evany Rosen, Lara Rae, and Steve Kerzner – I had to oversee the rewrite of each script – up to 21 drafts on some. Alan treated me with so much respect, as he knew how difficult it is to write comedy – so I wasn’t his punching bag at all. There were many on the crew that did become his punching bag – but as many of you know, comedy is a great defense – it is the survival instinct that we’ve honed since we were children.

Eleven weeks turned into 26 weeks and it was one of the best experiences I’ve had in my career. Alan and I became good friends, and even at one point he was going to sponsor my green card. As I continue to work in this industry I realize it doesn’t get easier, but the saving grace is, and I didn’t realize it until I was in my 4th decade of doing it – comedy writers DO get a lot of respect.

But I learned the hard way. You have to do the work, you can’t just call yourself a comedy writer because you want to be one, or you’ve written some funny memes to promote your appearance on an open mic. There is a great deal of discipline required, and sitting down and actually doing the work is THE toughest thing to do. As William Goldman said “the easiest thing to do is not write”.

Remember, no matter how good you get at it – one day, hopefully way past my 40th year of self doubt, somebody’s going to figure out that you’re a fraud.

If this is published, then I fooled them again.

Luciano Casimiri - @LCasimiri