Punching Up with Sean Conroy

I sit down with Matt Besser, co-founder of the legendary Upright Citizens Brigade, to talk about what happens when your college advisor trashes your shock comedy thesis, Adam McKay calls your sketch "a little jackass," and a studio writer tells you single-lead sitcoms are dead. Matt talks about everything from the early days of alt-comedy at Chicago’s Roxy to creating Comedy Central’s chaotic cult...

Sitcom writer and producer Lisa K. Nelson (Everybody Loves Raymond, Ellen, The Kids Are Alright, Last Man Standing) shares some of her behind-the-scenes stories from the landmark coming-out season of Ellen, pitching to Phil Rosenthal (and finding surprising common ground!), writing (forbidden) jokes for Emma Thompson, and accidentally insulting Eric Idle to his niece (but at least not to his face....

My old pal (and sitcom writer and producer) Michael Curtis ( Friends , Love, Inc. , JONAS , Phil of the Future ) sits down with me to break down television comedy. Michael shares some insider stories from writing on Friends during some of its peak seasons (I mean, they were ALL peak, right?), the fun of fixing scenes on the fly, and the real truth behind Billy Crystal and Robin Williams' famou...

"Hey, you guys are great. Goodbye." That’s Hollywood, baby!. This week, I'm looking at some critically acclaimed one-season wonders. Starting with Emmy-winning Disney+ hit The Muppets Mayhem , I talk some screenwriting mechanics, discuss the difference between movie endings and TV series engines, and hmention. some truly great, memorable television shows that only lasted a single sea...

How do you survive for decades in Hollywood while writing for hit animation, live-action TV, and huge video game franchises? Mark Hoffmeier has credits that go back to the Stone Age (or at least  The Flintstones). He’s worked on Mighty Morphin Power Rangers , Back to the Future , Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions , and lots of other fun stuff. We talk about what it takes to write effective spec scr...

Author, podcaster, and UCB alum Kate Spencer joins me to talk about turning life’s toughest moments into art. We talk about her raw, funny memoir The Dead Moms Club, and how she pivoted from that to romance novels (that happen to be funny). Kate explains how long-form improv principles help her writing process. We get into the disgusting messiness of draft revisions, overcoming creative self-doubt...

Writing is like the gym, the dentist, or peanut butter—it’s all about consistency. But what happens on those days you have absolutely nothing left in the tank (like, um, today)? This week I get into the unglamorous side of the creative process (hopefully someday I will reach the glamorous side), from surviving my bad week, to some questionable exposition choices in Netflix’s I Will Find You , to t...

What does it take to run one of the most celebrated sketch shows in television history? This week I talk with Ian Roberts (co-founder of the Upright Citizens Brigade ) about the brilliant writers' room of Key & Peele , the brutal reality of running a narrative show (TV Land’s Teachers) , how  writing partnerships are like throwing a board under flat tires, and why writing a sitcom pilot is...

How long should you hold onto a script idea? Because I just ran into her in New York, in this episode I wanted to get into the truly inspiring journey of writer and showrunner Katie Dippold ( Parks and Rec , The Heat , Ghostbusters ). Her current Apple TV series, Widow's Bay , started as a spec script she used years ago just to get staffed. In this episode, I yammer on about the core differenc...

This week I got to hang out with veteran late-night writer Laurie Kilmartin ( Jimmy Kimmel Live , Conan , Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn ), an old friend of mine from many stand-up rooms back in New York. We talk about joke writing, the evolution of a comic’s perspective over time (and why it's great to start releasing specials the day you start), and why a lot of stand-ups now include way too m...

What does it take to get a green light from Disney+ and a room full of legendary Muppet performers? This week, I sit down with my old pal Jeff Yorkes. Jeff is an award-winning trailer editor, and oh yeah the co-creator of The Muppets Mayhem . Holy smokes, nice work Jeff. Jeff breaks down the chaotic, brilliant process of bringing Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem to the screen—from pulling off a s...

Comedian, filmmaker, and Groundlings alum Mel Stephens and I talk about going from performing to being a writer and director. And why!  What it’s like to be a comedian working with comedian Brett Goldstein to shoot a high-stakes short film in one take; what it’s like when you realize your comedic sensibilities don’t align with the establishment; what it’s like when you realize that no one is comin...

How do you make a character likable when they’re doing terrible things? Just ask Andy Daly ! Actor, comedian and writer Andy Daly ( Review , Eastbound & Down , Silicon Valley ) goes deep on the chaos of the Hollywood development process, and on his own comedy process. We dissect the origin story of Comedy Central’s Review , and the creative note from debate champion and director Jeff Blitz tha...

Welcome to Season 2 of Punching Up with Sean Conroy ! I'm Sean, and just so you know, this episode gets pretty intensely personal. I'm a TV writer and comedian, and because of some stuff that's gone in my real life recently I've decided to try treating my life like a script. I'm gonna be 60 in a little more than a year, and I'm trying to change some things, both physically...

There's a lot of stuff I think about now when I'm starting to figure out how to write a TV pilot script that I would have liked to know when I started out, if somebody was like "hey here are some screenwriting tips for beginners." And writing that script doesn't mean developing a TV series, but it feels like that is something you have to have in the back of your mind when you...

I've been working on my creative process lately, struggling with overcoming perfectionism and writing consistency, and I feel like I'm kind of winning. A little. Discipline is to creatives as ice cream is to lactose intolerants, but these days I've somehow acquired (ulp) (at least temporarily) some creative discipline. WIth the help of my trusty yellow legal pad and my Sanford uni-Ball 207, and my...

In this episode I talk to Ed Herro, who wrote for (among other things) Jeff and Some Aliens and American Housewife. Most recently he co-created and co- ran The Sticky for Amazon Prime. In this showrunner interview, we get into a lot: the importance of sitcom pilot writing when you're starting and as you continue in writing for television, some great ideas on writers' room etiquette when yo...

One thing I've always struggled with as a writer is "paralysis by analysis"- maybe if I read THIS book or follow THIS method or use THIS structure I'll get it right, and everything will be easy. So in this episode I talk about some of the things I've done that have helped me get better at writing, and also specifically helped me get better at writing sitcoms. For example, you...

TV writer and comedian Sean Conroy and his guests talk about how to write a great sitcom pilot, how to have a career in comedy, how to develop good habits as a writer, and his struggles with all of those things. He gives the advice he wishes he'd gotten earlier on, and gets advice from guests that he hopes it's not too late for. If you're a fan of comedy, this show is for you.

Have you ever seen a movie trailer and thought, "That’s my idea!"? This week, Sean Conroy shares a devastating morning spent on Twitter discovering a project that mirrored his current screenplay beat-for-beat. He talks about an old project he co-wrote that collided with a Tim Allen movie, the famous Art Buchwald vs. Paramount case and why it matters (and why it doesn't), and some incredibly useful...

The cold open of your sitcom pilot may be the most important two pages you will ever write in your life, unless you write a long ransom note for yourself or jot down an ancient family recipe to pass on. You have so much work to do in those two pages: you have to introduce us to a world we will want to inhabit, introduce us to characters we're going to want to spend time with, and you have to h...

I’ve always written all my TV scripts according to a very methodical screenwriting process. I break the story, do somestory mapping, write an incredibly detailed script outline (including lots of dialogue and jokes), THEN write the script. That has always been my creative philosophy in the writers’ room (where I’m working with lots of other writers), and I’vepretty much stuck to it when I have bee...

What happens when a high-stakes commercial real estate lawyer decides to trade the courtroom for a writer’s room? This week I talk to Marcus Perkins Bejarano, a graduate of the Nickelodeon Writing Program and writer on the Victorious (with Ariana Grande!) spinoff, Hollywood Arts . Marcus talks about his journey from a Dallas law firm, to an MFA in Musical Theater at NYU, to a writing fellowshipt,...

All comics have horror stories. Some involve heckling. Some involve check drops, or check disputes. Some are... quieter. This is mine. In this episode I'm talking about the worst set I ever had, which happened at the legendary Stand-Up New York. I went up after two A-list comics whose sets primed the audience for chaos (because they were dirty or obscene or over the line or whatever) (think Ri...

I'm a comedian and a writer, and in this episode of my podcast I'm talking about when to follow the 180-degree rule in filmmaking and when to break it for the sake of a laugh. And obviously I'm doing this to make a larger point. Using a hilarious short film video moving picture project I made called "Sex Beards" as a case study, I'm talking creative instincts, the reality...