{"id":167,"date":"2008-11-13T01:05:00","date_gmt":"2008-11-13T08:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danoday.com\/blogWORDPRESS\/2008\/11\/13\/lessons-from-sitcom-writing\/"},"modified":"2008-11-13T01:05:00","modified_gmt":"2008-11-13T08:05:00","slug":"lessons-from-sitcom-writing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danoday.com\/blog\/2008\/11\/lessons-from-sitcom-writing\/","title":{"rendered":"LESSONS FROM SITCOM WRITING"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Today I’m preparing for our annual Sitcom Room<\/a>, where people get the unique opportunity to find out what it’s like to be part of a TV sitcom writing team. One truism all great comedy writers seem to agree on:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

“Never sacrifice a character for a joke.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

No matter how funny the joke, if it doesn’t fit the character, dump the joke.<\/p>\n

You can \u2014 and should \u2014 apply that rule to your radio commercial copywriting: Never sacrifice the commercial for a joke.<\/p>\n

The relevant question is not, “Is this joke funny?”<\/p>\n

The question to ask is, “Does this joke enhance the impact of the sales message?”<\/p>\n

If the answer is no, take it out of that spot and file it away to use some other time in some other message.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today I’m preparing for our annual Sitcom Room, where people get the unique opportunity to find out what it’s like to be part of a TV sitcom writing team. One truism all great comedy writers seem to agree on: “Never sacrifice a character for a joke.” No matter how funny the joke, if it doesn’t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-167","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized"},"yoast_head":"\nLESSONS FROM SITCOM WRITING - DAN O\u2019DAY TALKS ABOUT RADIO<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/danoday.com\/blog\/2008\/11\/lessons-from-sitcom-writing\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"LESSONS FROM SITCOM WRITING - DAN O\u2019DAY TALKS ABOUT RADIO\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Today I’m preparing for our annual Sitcom Room, where people get the unique opportunity to find out what it’s like to be part of a TV sitcom writing team. 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