My best of my worst

I’ve been tagged by Kevin Arbouet of tenspeedbrownshoe.blogspot.com. These questions all revolve around “the worst”. And when you think of the worst you naturally think of me.

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1. WHAT'S THE WORST THING YOU'VE EVER WRITTEN?

It’s hard to top (or bottom) AfterMASH. Take the three weakest characters of MASH, put them in the hilarious confines of a Veteran’s Hospital and you have a recipe for classic comedy. I thought at least I’d make a fortune in merchandising on those AfterMASH Action Figures.

2. WHAT'S THE WORST LINE YOU'VE EVER WRITTEN?

From an episode of MASH. A marine says “Radar, you and your rat are okay”. I defy any writer/blogger to come up with worse.

3. WHAT'S THE WORST ADVICE YOU'VE EVER GIVEN?

A writing teacher said take the money you would be paid for a script, divide it by the number of pages, and for each page ask yourself “is this page worth $200 (or $300 or whatever it was)?” Just writing this my tic came back.

4. WHAT'S THE ONE TIME YOU KNOW YOU SHOULD HAVE SPOKEN UP BUT YOU DIDN'T?

When Fox wanted us to cast a certain former ALLY McBEAL regular in a pilot of ours. As someone said afterwards, “he not only killed it. He then fucked its empty skull”.

5. WHAT'S THE WORST PITCH MEETING YOU'VE EVER HAD?

Very early in our career my partner’s friend was a secretary for a certain producer. She arranged a pitch meeting for us. When we got there he accused us of getting the meeting through “Nazi tactics”. It went downhill from there.

6. WHO'S THE ONE PERSON YOU'D NEVER WORK WITH AGAIN AND AREN'T AFRAID TO NAME?

Mary Tyler Moore. Wait, let me rephrase that: MARY TYLER MOORE!!!

7. WHAT'S THE WORST SCRIPT IDEA YOU'VE EVER HAD?

A romantic comedy about a woman having an affair with Saddam Hussein. I could never find the magic between them.

8. WHAT'S THE WORST THING ABOUT YOU BEING ON SET?

Going down for runthrough, hearing that the script has problems, and the cast looking at you like you killed their puppy.

9. WHAT'S YOUR WORST WORKING HABIT?

Writing a blog when I should be working on something that might actually pay me money.

10. WHAT'S THE WORST MISTAKE YOU'VE EVER MADE?

Created a show for Mary Tyler Moore. (in case you’re scoring -- failed comeback vehicle two of five). As the saying goes: We dragged a dead horse across the finish line to shoot it.