Interview: Situation: Comedy Star and The Sperm Donor Co-Creator Mark Treitel

For much of the spring, I heralded Bravo's Project Greenlight as the best show on television. Situation: Comedy, its successor of sorts, comes very close to that lofty apogee. Created by Sean Hayes of Will & Grace fame and Todd Milliner, Situation: Comedy goes behind the scenes to examine the fun and terror of creating a sitcom pilot.

Mark Treitel and his longtime writing partner Shoe Schuster, co-creators of The Sperm Donor, were selected from over 10,000
applicants to be filmed during the process of writing, re-writing, getting castigated during States of the Union, and running ragged through the process of casting, set design, and post-production. To up the ante even further, Treitel and Schuster face off against another team of aspiring sitcom writers (David Lampson and Andrew Leeds, co-creators of Stephen's Life). The winning team will receive a cash prize, talent agents, and a theoretical shot at sitcom immortality.

I spoke with Mark about the pressures of going through the reality show wringer while trying to pound out a top-notch sitcom pilot under a tight deadline. We also found time to get into such topics as the makings of a great sitcom, the real reality of reality shows, and a hypothetical Happy Days of the future.

Note: Through September 2nd, click here to watch video clips of the shows and to vote for The Sperm Donor or Stephen's Life. The team that receives the most audience votes will win the competition. You can vote once per day.

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Eric Berlin: What was being on a reality show like, and how did you feel about the editing process later on while watching yourself on television?

Mark Treitel: [Laughs] For everyone watching reality shows, I would point to the fact that the WGA [Writers Guild of America] this week is basically suing reality show producers, saying there are "reality writers."

You have to know what you're in for going in. My writing partner Shoe Schuster and I are actually avid reality fans, so we were ready to expect anything. When we came in to pitch to Stan and Max [Executive Producers Stan Zimmerman and Maxine Lapiduss] that first day, which you see on Episode One, Shoe and I were expecting anything, like there might be little kids sitting there and we would have to pitch to them like they were the NBC network executives.

You just don't know. And you sign away everything, like this giant ironclad contract that basically signs away all of your rights.

Article Author: Eric Berlin

Eric Berlin is the publisher of Online Media Cultist. He's also prone to referring to himself in the third person in author bios in an attempt to make it look like someone Less Important wrote it for him.
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