Funny Business

I have a few things I would like to say about the article “Mass Hysterics” (by Paul Brownfield, Dec. 6). I have a few things to say about how bright Aaron Sorkin of “Sports Night” is to even try and do something different. I have a few things to say about how “Just Shoot Me’s” Steven Levitan (a very talented person) sits and waits for a room of people to feed him funny lines that obviously have nothing to do with “character” but is simply funny at that moment. No wonder every show sounds the same!

I have a few things to say about great shows: Carl Reiner and “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” and how Linda Bloodworth-Thomason wanted a “voice” in her show “Designing Women” and wrote many of the episodes herself.

This debate is going to go on forever because writers have no guts to say, “This is my show--you hired me to write it and I will write it. I can have help, but I will write it.” I have a few things to say about the article, but I need 15 other people to help me say it because I have no vision, no voice and no ideas.

MARK TROY

Hollywood

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I happen to be a veteran comedy writer (who began when one or two of us wrote an entire season’s 36 episodes). It’s nice to be able to commend the print media for those rare times they recognize and publicize the writer’s seminal place in the visual arts.

But by what reasoning would you illustrate the article with routine publicity stills of the actors in the mentioned shows rather than the subjects of the articles themselves?

MARK TUTTLE

Shadow Hills