Creating Television: Conversations With the People Behind 50 Years of American TV
A Volume in LEA's Communication Series, © Copyright 2004
Robert Kubey (kubey@scils.rutgers.edu)
Director, Center for Media Studies (www.mediastudies.rutgers.edu)
Professor, Dept of Journalism & Media Studies, Rutgers University
Story Ideas about Creating Television
See also the quotations page
- Competition for audiences and ratings has increased with the passing of each decade, affecting creators’ attitudes
toward their work and their industry. (View quotations)
- Changes in business climate and financial arrangements, and the introduction of the financial-syndication rule have
changed television over the last 10 years, many creators believe for the worse.
- The creative vision of individual television creators makes for programs that have their own style and identity.
The voice and vision of each creator is essential in the creation of television programs. (View quotations)
- Talent, perseverance, luck, and nepotism play critical roles on the road to success in the television industry. (Quotes to be added soon)
- There is often a striking similarity between actors’ personalities and the roles they play. (Quotes to be added soon)
- People wanting to work in Hollywood can use Creating Television to get a handle on -- and a foothold in -- the industry. (Quotes to be added soon)
- Numerous creators in Creating Television explain how they came to work in
television, and many trace their childhood experiences to the style and
content of the TV programs they make as adults. Examples include:
- A rebellious school boy relives his childhood adventures and conflicts through the exploits of his cartoon character,
Bart Simpson (Matt Groening).
- A frustrated young man working at dead end jobs becomes the most successful--but still alienated--comedy writer
in television (Larry David).
- A lonely 3-year-old tells herself stories using cut-outs from the “funny” pages and later becomes the most celebrated
soap opera creator in the history of the medium (Agnes Nixon).
- A little girl has her first experiences with television holding tea parties for the people on the screen and later becomes
the guiding visionary who builds a global name in children’s television: Nickelodeon (Geraldine Laybourne).
- A shy teenage girl, afraid to perform in drama class, now plays Janice Soprano, regularly facing off against her mob
boss brother, Tony Soprano (Aida Turturro).
- To avoid the Hollywood Blacklist, a future soap opera writer and her family flee to live in Mexico
(Jean Rouverol).
- A former child actor, upon learning of the suicide of a fellow child actor, forms an organization of 500 former child
celebrities working to protect the rights of children in entertainment (Paul Petersen).
- A dyslexic child struggles for years in school before becoming the most admired comedy star of the 1970s
(Henry Winkler).
- The son of a junk man becomes the most honored television actor in the history of the medium
(Ed Asner).
- A chubby, star-struck boy from Oklahoma migrates to Hollywood, studies the history of celebrity, and uses
glamorous female stars from the golden days of movies as his models for creating major television stars like
Farrah Fawcett and Suzanne Somers (Jay Bernstein).
- A man is forced to leave NBC because he opposed the televised sex and violence of the early 1960s
(David Levy).
- A pudgy boy learns how to entertain others with his imitations and becomes a successful television actor
(Jason Alexander).
- A single mother, suddenly needing to make ends meet, tries her hand writing for television and becomes the most
successful female television writer in history (Susan Harris).
- An African American boy wins a photography contest that helps him to escape from his impoverished neighborhood.
He later becomes a high level television executive at CBS, only to have racism block him more in adulthood than
it did as a child (Frank Dawson).
- A gifted young man, majoring in drama and in his final semester, finishes his thesis but never gets his degree
because he flunks a class in scenic design. He becomes the most celebrated musical variety program creator
in television history (Gary Smith).
- At one time in the 1980s, one man and his very small company put 80% of the laugh tracks on television comedies.
He sweetens rock concerts and figure skating programs as well (Carroll Pratt).
- And many others…..
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