Producers Are Producers for Better or Wurst

Network television used to be relatively recession-proof, but no longer now that viewers are being carried off by cable, Internet and video-game rivals like nymphs who’ve wandered into a herd of intoxicated centaurs.

The results are lower network advertising rates, lower licensing fees and teensy-weensy writing staffs. Small-screen big boys such as Larry David and David E. Kelley may still command the bucks deluxe, but most of us are getting by on freelance assignments wherever we can find them. And as long as we’re on the subject, the next person who says, “Well, nobody put a gun to your head to become a television writer,” will immediately have a gun put to his.

Still, mortgages must be paid and Botox injections bought, so when word got out that a U.S.-German coproduction for German television was hiring American comedy writers, my partner and I were all over them like white on spaetzle. Of course, it seems ridiculous that a German show would hire Americans to write scripts in English that would be performed in German by German actors, but never having produced half-hour comedies themselves, they had nobody else to turn to for help.

The sitcom format is as indigenous and peculiar to the New World as corn, the buffalo and the handgun. And before you know it, we’ll have proudly exported this valuable commodity to budding programmers all over the globe. One could argue that the flatulent old sitcom structure no longer entertains anyone stateside either, but in the case of the Germans, they’re bound to see it as a bloodless way to even the score for their having started World War II.

After having our material vetted by both the American and German producers, my writing partner and I were sent videotapes of episodes of the show that already had been shot in English-subtitled German. Said partner is, incidentally, a first-generation American raised in Philadelphia speaking the language of Schopenhauer at home with her German parents, never suspecting this second language would be of much economic value beyond conducting Amish Country tours or tending bar at the Valley Forge Oktoberfest.

As for the tapes . . . ach du lieber. Why didn’t these people just stick with the arts they know, like oom-pah-pah?

The show is set in Hamburg in one of those lumpen-proletarian families where everyone waxes dialectical about the Tunisian guest-worker, or Gastarbeiter, situation. Dad’s a morose motorcycle mechanic. Mom’s a sassy cashier in a supermarket with the requisite quirky co-workers. And their 15-year-old son is a horn-dog nerd. Big on their subplot list is the notorious, centuries-old rivalry between their city and Frankfurt. That’s right, Burgers versus Hot Dogs. Throw in a little sauerkraut and you’ve got a show and lunch.

We came up with five stories and e-mailed them to the German producers. They said they liked them and arranged to meet with us while they were in L.A. to interview prospective freelance writers, or Gastschreiber.

We drove to West Hollywood’s uber-funky Chateau Marmont Hotel for our meeting with Peter and Michael. (When Germans don’t have names such as Dieter and Ernst, that should serve as a portent.) The two strapping Teutons were seated on the patio in 60-degree weather in their shirt-sleeves, speaking fluent English and swilling imported pilsner instead of one of our fine American brews. While my partner regaled them with amusing chatter in German, I, in English, did my part by trumpeting our material as Brechtian in its political subtext and Billy Wilder-esque in its bite.

Ninety minutes later we left with a handshake-buy on three stories and a $20 hotel parking tab. Several days after that, a sheepish-sounding Peter (or was it Michael?) called to confess that they’d already bought their limit before they met with us, but canceling would have been rude, or un-menschlich.

Talk about your fast learners: With a little more hostility and a little less accent, they could have passed for American producers.