Dead Pilots Society

We’re starting off the year with a great dead pilot! It’s called Falling/Apart written by Steve Basilone (The Goldbergs, Community, Happy Endings). In Falling/Apart Lena and Evan, both newly single, must navigate the uniquely demoralizing song-and-dance of single-hood: the swiping right, the ghosting, the banal first date banter. Honestly, they both (kind of) hate it...until they meet each other....

This week’s episode is an insightful interview with the writer of Dear America: We’ve Seen You Naked, Scotty Landes (Workaholics, Ma). In it, Scotty discusses the Politico article his pilot is based on. You can check that out here . He tells us how he wrote a pilot with 9 main characters, the best breaking into the business story we’ve ever heard, his transition from a reality TV producer to a scr...

Happy Holidays, Dead Pilots Society listeners! Our pilot this month is Dear America, We’ve Seen You Naked written by Scotty Landes (Workaholics, Who Is America?, Ma). It’s a workplace comedy about a group of TSA agents at Chicago O’Hare airport. We think this pairs well with our Episode 25: Airport Marriott written by Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi. Dear America also has a unique origin story in that...

Happy Thanksgiving to all of our Dead Pilots Society listeners! This week we caught up with Emily Cutler (Fresh off The Boat, AP Bio) the writer of Step Dave! Emily talks in depth about how the Step Dave format came to her. Also, Andrew will give you a brief education about what a format even is! Emily felt a special connection to the material because, like Annie in the pilot, her husband is 10 ye...

We have a wonderful pilot for you this month! It’s the perfect pilot to listen to while curled up next to a fire this holiday season! You all have fireplaces, right?! Either way, this month’s script comes from Emily Cutler (Fresh Off The Boat, AP BIO). In STEP DAVE, lives are turned upside down when a 24 year-old bartender and a 36 year-old divorced mom fall in love. That's right, it's a romantic...

This is the after show interview with Niki Schwartz-Wright ( The Office, Speechless ). Niki was the writer of  Valley Trash  which we released last week. In this interview, Niki lets us in on how autobiographical and personal this pilot was. She dishes on some advice her father gave her on how to handle bullies. Niki walks us through her journey to becoming a TV writer: starting as an assistant at...

This month’s pilot is brought to you by the clutches of the pandemic! It’s called Valley Trash written by Niki Schwartz-Wright (The Grinder, Speechless, The Office). Valley Trash was days away from going into production when the network shut it down at the start of the Covid lockdowns in March 2020. The pilot centers on The Harmans, a scrappy, blue collar family living in the deep Valley who sudde...

Welcome to the after show interview! This week we sat down with the writer of Peak Eve, Lon Zimmet. Andrew and Lon worked together on Lon’s first show, Worst Week. Since then Lon has gone on to write for Happy Endings, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Superstore, and he created the sitcom LA to Vegas on Fox.  In this interview, Andrew and Lon talked about Lon’s transition from working in a writing team...

We have an edgy FX pilot for you this month!  It’s called Peak Eve and it comes to us from Lon Zimmet (Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Superstore, creator of LA to Vegas). It centers on a misanthropic, twenty-something narcissist who resigns herself to becoming a better person… and then is annoyed to discover what a huge pain in the ass that’s going to be. This one is really good and super funny! You w...

Please listen to the table read of Electric Youth written by David Iserson if you haven’t yet. This is the after show with David, who has a ton of amazing credits including SNL, New Girl, and Mad Men. We get into a lot of them in this interview! David let us in on some great advice he got from Matthew Weiner  when he was on Mad Men and how that show was more of a comedy than people realize. He giv...

This month’s pilot is going to make you want to go back in time and start this summer all over again. That’s right it’s our very first time travel pilot. It’s called Electric Youth and it comes from the prolific screenwriter David Iverson (The Spy Who Dumped Me, Mad Men, New Girl, SNL). It centers around Britt, a woman in her 30s who gets a knock on her door one night and finds her high school boy...

We have a unique and enlightening interview for you for this month! This is the after show for Mostly Dead Things written by Brian C. Brown (Lucy In The Sky, About A Boy, Bad Monkey) and Jessica Lee Williamson (I’m Dying Up Here, F Is For Family) based on the book by Kristen Arnett. In this interview we discussed Brian and Jessica’s experience as veteran storytellers from The Moth. The Moth is cle...

We have a wild and weird and very Florida pilot for you this month! It’s called Mostly Dead Things written by Brian C. Brown (Lucy In The Sky, About A Boy, Bad Monkey) & Jessica Lee Williamson (I’m Dying Up Here, F Is For Family). After the death of their patriarch, a dysfunctional family of Florida taxidermists spirals out of control, coping with their loss through redneck love triangles, intersp...

If you haven’t listened to the table read of Lenny written by Lucas Hazlett (American Princess, Wrecked) & Alex Herschlag (Will & Grace), you should do it now. This is our after show interview with Lucas & Alex. It’s a fun interview where we got into very specific details of Lucas Hazlett’s background and origins. His transition from studying philosophy to studying improv! We also dive into Alex’s...

We’re kicking off summer 2022 with a wonderful pilot! It’s called Lenny written by Lucas Hazlett (Wrecked, American Princess) & Alex Herschlag (Will & Grace, Modern Family). Lenny centers around a gay half black half white man child who moves in with his white mother and her new white fiancé on the condition that he becomes the nanny to the fiancé’s children. It was written for CBS and it’s just a...

If you haven’t listened to last week’s episode How To Be A Couple written by Naomi Ekperigin (The Standups on Netflix) & Andy Beckerman (The Pete Holmes Show) you must! While you’re at it, check out their podcast Couples Therapy too. This is our After Show interview with Naomi & Andy. It’s a fun one too! You’ll hear them get into the unique dynamics of their writing relationship and how they go ab...

We have another great episode for you this month, but before we tell you about it, we want to thank everyone who became a Maximum Fun member or upgraded their membership during the MaxFunDrive this year. If you haven’t done so yet you still can by going to  maximumfun.org/join .    Moving on to this month’s dead pilot! It’s called How To Be A Couple written by Naomi Ekperigin (The Standups on Netf...

It’s week two of the Max Fun Drive! This is the one time of year where all of the shows on the Maximum Fun Network reach out to you and ask you to become members or upgrade your membership to help make our show possible. We’re following up last week’s table read of Greatest American Heroes with an interview with its writer, Andy Bobrow (Community, Last Man On Earth, Brooklyn 99!) In it you’ll hear...

It’s Max Fun Drive! The one time of year where all of the shows on the Maximum Fun Network reach out to you and ask you to become members or upgrade your membership to help make our show possible. We have an amazing and special Max Fun Drive episode for you this month! We’re bringing our first ever 1-hour dead pilot. Don’t worry! It’s not a dry police procedural or boring medical drama. It’s a fun...

This is the After Show featuring Jonathan Groff ( Happy Endings, Black-ish ) and Elena Crevello ( Vida, Grace & Frankie ). If you haven’t checked out  The Thing About Lulu , you should do so before listening to this episode because there will be spoilers. We dive deep into the development process of their pilot and its roots in an unaired series called  The Jake Effect  that Jonathan made starring...

We have a great pilot about female friendship this month.  It's called The Thing About Lulu written by Elena Crevello (Vida, American Auto) and Jonathan Groff (Happy Endings, Black-ish). It centers on two women, Scottie and Lulu, best friends with completely opposing worldviews. It was set up at ABC Network with ABC Studios attached to produce. We had a great cast for this one including Phoebe Rob...

If you haven’t listened to the table read of Fun For The Whole Family you should do it right now! This is the after show with its writer John Quaintance ( Will & Grace , Workaholics ). In our interview with John, he talked about making the transition from actor to stand-up to writer, his experience working on the Friends spin-off Joey, the tale behind the Workaholics writers' room's list of banned...

We have a hilarious pilot for you this month!! This one is called Fun For The Whole Family written by John Quaintance (Hot Pursuit, Will & Grace). It’s the first pilot John ever sold actually! Fun For The Whole Family centers around Max, an estranged son who returns to work alongside his brother and sister at his father’s Michigan Avenue toy company. While there he discovers it's hard to run a fun...

It's the After Show for Perfect Harmony featuring Andrew's interview with writer Tim Long (The Simpsons) along with the producer on the pilot, Jon Radler. Jon was an executive at Imagine Entertainment, the production company on this project. He offers great insight to what a producer does during the development of a pilot. Tim is a former head-writer for The Late Show with David Letterman and has...

We have a great pilot for you this month! It’s sure to be a hit with fans of music and character driven comedy. It’s called Perfect Harmony written by Tim Long (The Simpsons). Inspired by Art Garfunkel & Paul Simon’s relationship, Perfect Harmony centers around a pair of warring former musical partners. It was set up at Amazon and it’s a hilarious pilot with an incredible cast! Two legends playing...