An Interview With Tom Straw, Author of The Trigger Episode Part One

This is the first part of a two-part interview with TV writer-turned-novelist Tom Straw. 

Straw has had a remarkable career, making it all the more astonishing that he was emailing me to ask if I’d consider reading his book and interviewing him about it. As if I was going to turn down a chance to find out what Bill Cosby and Craig Ferguson are really like. 

I mean, this is a guy who wrote for Mary Tyler Moore, Bill Cosby, and who was co-executive producer of the critically lauded Fox series Parker Lewis Can’t Lose for its first season. The latter, for that season, was one of my favorite shows in college. He went on to work on Grace Under Fire and currently writes for The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson on CBS.

But, Scott, you may be saying, enough with the ego strokes for him and you. How about the book, The Trigger Episode? Well, I’m only halfway through it so I’ll answer that in part two. For now let’s get to the interview, where I asked him about this impressive resume.  

Scott Butki: How did you get into writing?

Tom Straw: I was an early reader, loved books as a kid, and felt a drive to write stories too.  An early childhood memory is sitting at a toy typewriter at age 10 in Weston, Massachusetts, tapping out my own neighborhood newspaper: pages, one; circulation, one; editions, one. Then in high school, I wanted to be Johnny Carson and became a radio DJ as a first step, which in hindsight was a form of comedy writing: Wisecracks and jokes in a tight form under deadline pressure.  A DJ friend, Ken Levine, went on to write MASH, (and later, Cheers, Frasier, and others - crappy shows, I know, but he was a friend).  Ken mentored me.  I sold my first script because of him, to AfterMASH, which was basically MASH without the war or the funny characters.  It was a start, though, and one for which I am very grateful.   It changed my life.  Immediately thereafter, Ken and his writing partner, David Isaacs, hired me for my first staff job on Mary, a series they created for Mary Tyler Moore.  Book writing, a novel, remained a dream, but a dream deferred as I moved on to Night Court and my TV writing career grew.  

Can you elaborate on your acknowledgements in the book: You thank “Ken Levine for opening the door to TV writing” and then thank “Bill Cosby making me glad I stayed in.” 

Article Author: Scott Butki

Scott Butki was a newspaper reporter for more than 10 years before making a career change into education... then into special education.

He reads at least 50 books a year and has about the same number of author interviews each year and, …

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