Tom and I actually didn’t work together on Night Court – he came and went before I joined the writing staff.  In those days, there was so much money to be made in sitcoms, writers tended to move around like baseball players and strippers do now.  Tom and I first met on Good & Evil, a really terrific show that naturally vanished before anyone had heard of it. 

I liked and respected Tom from the moment we started working together, and I count the months when we were making those episodes as among my happiest in the sitcom business.  (Although I remember we kept a giant, Costco-sized bottle of Tylenol in the middle of the conference table, and the first thing I did every morning was wash down four or five caplets with a cup of terrible coffee.  So that should give you some idea of how much I enjoyed my other shows.) 

Of course it’s not a coincidence that we both wrote novels about TV, although Tom’s book The Trigger Episode is actually set around a sitcom, a world he knows intimately, whereas I pretty much pulled Keep It Real out of my ass.   

Who wrote the better book – you or him? 

Tom, being a much more organized and disciplined person than me (on Good & Evil, he kept a calendar for when we were supposed to do everything, including move our bowels) answered all his interview questions – including this one - much sooner than me, and they are posted online.  So naturally Tom has already mined all the good jokes, and also proved once again that he is among the most talented, generous, and honorable people in the business.  What a dick.  He wrote a damned good book, though – everyone should read it. 

What television programs have you worked on as a writer or producer?  

Too Damn Good, Hyperextended Family, Totally Frank, Meego, Mr. Rhodes, The Faculty, Cats & Dogs, Tommy Davidson, Hardball, Behind the 8-Ball, The Second Half, Overall Deal at Castlerock, Black and White, Furniture Store,Thea, Coach, Rubberheads, Good and Evil, Anything But Love, Night Court, and Crimes of the Heart. 

What do you think Donald Trump would think of your book? Have you sent him a copy?

I really don’t think I can say anything more eloquent on the subjects of Donald Trump and The Apprentice than this. (warning: Video deals with adult content)

Would you ever work or write for a reality show? Is this your book a way of getting back at what reality shows have done to sitcoms, i.e. killed them in the ratings?I suppose one should never say never, but it would take a big, hungry pack of wolves at the door to get me to consider such a thing.  Yes, there is definitely an element of revenge in my writing Keep It Real even though I had largely retired from the TV business before reality came along.  And I am proud to say that as a result of the light I shined on its hollow fakery, the networks have cancelled all of their reality shows, donated their ill-gotten gains to worthy causes, and resolved never again to pander to the lowest common denominator.  Hmm… what?  I must have dozed off for a minute.  Did I drool?