Lois Bromfield

A NEW EXCERT FROM MY BOOK : COMING OUT ON AUDIBLE DECEMBER 2020

"MY DIRTY LIFE IN COMEDY" 

THE FABULOUS AMY SHERMAN 

   The writing jobs were dwindling thanks to reality television.  I was so desperate  I  turned to  Saturday morning kids shows. I had no experience  writing for kids, just insane women and dysfunctional  families.  But I needed a job fast!  A friend of mine was  a producer  at NBC.  She had a kids show and  needed writers.  I mean little kids, the audience was four - eight years old.  The stories were sweet and always ended with a lesson.   The show was about an unrealistic perfect  mom  and dad, a girl a boy and  your standard TV dog.  Most of the stories followed one theme,  someone in the family does something wrong and in  the end learns a lesson.   When I say wrong,  I mean lying about cleaning your room, or breaking something and blaming it on someone else.  I wasn’t sure how I was going to write this kind of show,  I only knew how to write for  imperfect families.  My first day, I felt like a hooker disguised  as the  tooth fairy.   They were working on a  possible story, about one of the kids whose caught with cigarettes. I was surprised this was a pretty edgy story for little kids. So I pitched.  "What if a few weeks later they find a joint in her bedroom, but it turns out its an older kids joint from school?”  Everyone stared at me “ She’s ten” I didn’t see the problem “   Well   ten  is the new twenty”  I lasted two weeks on the show.  My story sense was a little rough.  So instead  of trying to get staffed on another show, I decided to pitch a teen sit-com  for NBC Saturday morning’s.   My main characters were  already  menstruating so way more stories to tell.     It was the  worst show I  had ever pitched.   I sold it in twenty minutes. I was stunned.  They loved it!!    It aired for one season.   I didn’t write on the show . I just created it and cashed the check. I watched a few episodes but  it was unbearable.    Then after I  had lost all hope… a miracle. happened. I got a call from AMY SHERMAN!   She had a show and need some writers.  I was  deliriously happy. I had worked with Amy before on Roseanne.  I knew it was going to be  a lot of  hats, long hours and endless pauses between pitches.  Amy was a total perfectionist.  Every  line had to be brilliant.  This  is why she has two Emmys for  “ The Marvelous Mrs Masiel”   This was her first show and certainly not the show she dreamed of making  but a path to Mrs Masiel.  There was five of us on staff which was a relief from the Roseanne days of a packed room of writers.  The show was  about a couple trying to raise a family.  What set it apart from other  family show’s was everyone was a bad ass.  This  made it fun to write.  But it was the usual torture each day writing with Amy, and her huge hats, but at the end of the grueling writing session the show as good. At least we though so.  After writing a few episodes.  Amy decided to take us to Vegas.  I can’t think of a better place to concentrate and focus  than Las Vegas!   But I think she wanted to treat us.  It was August 1997 and hot as hell.  She rented a few cabanas by the pool.    It  was totally unproductive.  Then to make things completely impossible,  the news came  that Princess Dianna was killed in Paris.  After this news  we  could not write a damn thing.  We ended up drinking too much and gambling.  We got back to LA just in time to get the news  AMY’S SHOW HAD BEEN CANCELED.  She told us she would get another show and hire us again.   It was many years before Gilmore Girls.  But her brilliance was Mrs Masiel.  Amy Sherman is a genius.