On 'Curb Your Enthusiasm,' it takes almost a year to get 10 shows written. It always reminds me of my old yeshiva days, where you used to sit over a piece of Talmud and analyze everything that was going on.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
In this fragmented world, with such short attention spans, you've got a couple of episodes to make an impression. And if you don't, you start to lose your audience in a big way.
The second episode of any new show can be tough. You have about a week to top the well-crafted and polished pilot episode that was written over six months.
Right now I'm doing four shows at a time, trying to read four outlines every week, four scripts every week, and watching four rough cuts; it's a lot of good work. It's fun to do it, but it does wear you out.
When I was on 'The Golden Girls,' we'd have eight scenes per show. And when 'Seinfeld' came along, they went to, like, 30 scenes a show, which was revolutionary. 'Arrested Development' has probably got 60 scenes per show. It just keeps emerging as this more and more complex thing. I always try to keep it very simple at its heart.
Especially in the last 10 years, the writing on animated shows has jumped by leaps and bounds.
It's a lot of a workload doing an hour dramatic show. It's just incredible what little time off you get.
You know, it takes a while to get used to - it's a whole group of people with all these ideas and after you sort of navigate your way through the first few episodes it becomes collaborative and creative.
With my book 'How to Remodel a Man,' I was on Oprah, Fox News, the Early Show, and Good Morning America. Oprah was the best - an hour long segment. TV is so short; you answer a few questions, and then it's over. It feels like a hit-and-run with a camera.
And Seinfeld is so quick: we crank out one show a week, and the hours are very reasonable.
Ten episodes goes by really quickly, especially when you've got a really tough shooting schedule of seven-day episodes.