A TV Crisis Worthy of the Newest Batch of Sitcoms

OK, I have an idea. We call Ed McMahon, and if he’s not busy on a project with Tom Arnold or Jerry Lewis, we get him to bring back “Star Search.” This, after all, was a great show and responsible for introducing America to both Jenny Jones and Carrot Top--how many other shows can say that? None, that’s how many.

In this new version of “Star Search,” we add a category called “Sitcom Writer.” Of course, the contestants wouldn’t have to do any writing, they would just “take a meeting” with the judges. Then, the judges (people who can sniff out literary talent like, maybe, Cindy Crawford, Jenny McCarthy and that kid from “Jerry Maguire”) would decide who’s the best writer and assign the winner to a current TV show.

This would solve the crisis that has fallen upon America. What crisis? Wake up and smell the Frappuccino. America is facing a sitcom writer shortage! And it’s serious. What with six networks now, and that’s not even counting the Food Channel, there aren’t enough good writers to go around. Apparently the canceled “Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer” drained all the talent away from the big three (four?). This explains why that “Brian Benben Show” didn’t make it--it’s that damn UPN! If UPN and the W-W-W-WB (don’t you love that frog?) would just get out of the sitcom business and stop siphoning off all the funny writers, you’d see how brilliant ABC’s “The Hughleys” would become.

I learned of this impending crisis in Brian Lowry’s Oct. 20 column, “Writers’ Shortage: Still a Catch-22” (for all you sitcom writers who were born after its publication, “Catch-22” was a book). So, here’s the problem: There are 53 sitcoms on the air and not enough clever people to write them. If you do a little math, you too will be horrified at the enormity of the problem. Here, let me show you--let’s say each sitcom has eight staff writers. Oh hell, let’s round up to 10--that makes 530 writers total. 530! You can already see the crisis brewing.

There are 6 billion people in the world, give or take Indonesia. Let’s say half of them are literate; that leaves only 3 billion writers in the potential talent pool.

So, we narrow this pool down to the really good writers. Then we subtract all the people who have never even written a sitcom spec script, which lowers the number by 12 or so more, and we are down to a very low number. A number so staggeringly low that it might force some beleaguered producer to, hold on to your iMacs, hire someone who is not already a writer’s assistant on his or her own show. Can you imagine? Having to leave the comfort of your own office to find new talent? You mean, not just hire the guy who fetches your coffee? Who has the time?

So, we are left with The Crisis. This is the most treacherous shortage in this town since last pilot season. That’s when I read an article in The Times in which casting directors and TV executives were bemoaning the lack of funny people. People just aren’t funny anymore! Next thing you know, there will be a shortage of tall people. People just aren’t tall anymore!

Lowry makes the comparison that it’s hard to become a TV writer like it’s hard to become a doctor or a lawyer. OK, that makes sense. But, he sells sitcom writers short because while there are millions of doctors and lawyers, remember, there are only 530 sitcom writers. It must be much harder to become a sitcom writer. He says doctors have to endure 36-hour rotations, which, of course, is not as difficult as enduring even one episode of “Meego.” (I’m speculating, of course, having done neither.) And passing the bar is not nearly as hard as hanging out at the right one.

But those 530 writers must be really amazing because they achieve all this success at such young ages. In some cases, by the time they pretend to be 19. And no doctors do that, except, of course, Doogie Howser--but he was made up by a TV writer.

Bitter? Who me? That’s easy for you to say. I’m me, sitting here surrounded by 10 specs (so, what if one of them is “Maude”) that are only used as coasters for tumblers filled with bourbon and dashed hopes. I know it’s over. For God sakes, I’m 38! Shout it from the rooftops: 35 years old! That’s right, you heard me: 31! I don’t care who you tell. I embrace it. In fact, sign me up for the AARP. I’m going to the International House of Pancakes right now and demand my discount. I gotta go, the phone’s ringing. It might be Ed McMahon!

Steve Tatham is a stand-up comic and a writer at Walt Disney Imagineering.