Martini Shot

Sound Off

Wed, 22 Apr 2026 07:30:00 -0000

Rob Long is at a bar on a Monday night, pretending to pay attention to a conversation while secretly watching CBS’ The Neighborhood on a TV across the room, sound off. He predicts every beat of the episode anyway. A friend in the business says that’s exactly the problem with those shows. Rob disagrees — politely, and then less politely. Sitcoms are the same as they always are. That’s the point.

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Shut Up and Listen

Wed, 15 Apr 2026 07:30:00 -0000

There’s a lesson Rob Long learned early in his television career: When an actor has a problem with the script, the smartest thing you can do is nothing. Don’t talk. Don’t fix. Don’t explain. Just listen — because sometimes that’s all anyone really needs.

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I See Dead Shows

Wed, 08 Apr 2026 07:30:00 -0000

The TV comedy writers’ room has a reputation as a creative paradise — funny people, good lunches, great jokes. That reputation is not wrong. It just leaves out the part where everyone is being systematically destroyed. Rob Long makes the case that the destruction is the point — that the specific cruelty available only to people who have been in rooms together for decades is what produces the trust that produces the comedy. Without it, you’re left with Zoom rooms and unfunny scripts.

Transcript here

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Too Wordy

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 15:21:00 -0000

Rob Long has spent 30-plus years in the television business telling other people what’s wrong with their scripts. But the tables can — and often do — turn. Rob’s seminary classmate doing his first open mic informed Rob that his joke suggestions are, and this is a direct quote, “too wordy.” And Rob remembers the time a day player on one of his shows submitted a spec script for the very same show — titled, with magnificent audacity, “Billy Moves In” — and then proceeded to give Rob detailed notes on everything that was wrong with his series and how all of it could be fixed by the addition of his part. The lesson, such as it is: In this business, the note always lands, regardless of who’s delivering it. Even if it’s Billy. Even if it’s a seminary student. Even if they’re completely wrong. Which they were. Probably.

Transcript here.

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Who’s Watching the Bar?

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 15:31:00 -0000

Every writing project hits the same wall: the neurotic feedback loop of details that don’t add up. Who’s watching the baby? Who’s watching the bar? Rob Long has been around long enough to remember the lost art of script research. You’d messenger your draft to a company, and they would send it back annotated with neutral and merciless notes. When Frasier Crane mentioned his deceased parents on Cheers, a margin note came back, Establishes for Frasier: parents deceased. Oh, how that same script research company must have reacted when they received the Frasier pilot.

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The Monkey’s Paw Award

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 17:32:00 -0000

We’re finally through Oscar season, which means it’s time to think about prestige, status and the difference between the awards you want and the awards you get. Rob Long has a People’s Choice Award obtained through what can only be described as informed consent, a WGA Award for the Earth Day Television Special, an LA Press Club Award that doesn’t read on camera and an Emmy certificate that looks terrific... on the wall.

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Hollywood's Employed Unemployeds

Wed, 11 Mar 2026 07:30:00 -0000

A friend asked Rob Long for career advice at Zankou Chicken. Rob hates giving advice — especially career advice, which is mostly just autobiography dressed up as wisdom. But while his friend waited for an answer, Rob started thinking about a leather jacket he bought in the early 1990s with $400 he didn’t have — and how Hollywood, despite devastating unemployment numbers, has always run on the assumption that something great is about to happen. For Rob, it did. For everyone else: the hope still remains.

Transcript here.

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‘Wake Up Dead Man’ and Religion on Screen

Wed, 04 Mar 2026 08:30:00 -0000

Whether it was Sally Field as The Flying Nun or Julie Andrews playing a novitiate in The Sound of Music, audiences used to watch priests and nuns and ministers — unremarkably — as part of American life on screen. But that all went away, and Rob Long is well aware why that is. Church attendance declined steadily for decades, and the stigma around religion has become unavoidable. Which made it all the more impressive how Rian Johnson brought faith to the screen in one particular scene of Wake Up Dead Man: an embodiment of what prayer does for people.

Transcript here.

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My Dutch Boyhood

Wed, 25 Feb 2026 08:30:00 -0000

Michael Lynton, the former CEO of Sony Pictures, has a new book that tells the story of greenlighting the Seth Rogen comedy that provoked North Korea into hacking his studio. He traces it back to an awkward childhood in Holland and a lifelong need to fit in with the cool kids. Rob Long also had an awkward childhood in Holland. He also ended up in show business. But he’s not sure Lynton’s story is really a cautionary tale. The entertainment business isn’t suffering from too much risk. It’s suffering from too little. Also: Puppets might have helped.

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Faith Is So Hot Right Now

Wed, 11 Feb 2026 16:50:00 -0000

Rob Long tries — unsuccessfully — to convince his Hollywood friends that seminary isn’t a branding exercise. His stint at Princeton, where he’s working towards a Masters in Divinity and ordination, has all the hallmarks of a great pilot. But according to Rob, it’s the opposite. Show business has prepared him well for studying the Bible — and led him to the unsettling realization that biblical scholarship and credits arbitration are basically the same thing.

Transcript here.

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Catherine O’Hara, A Writer’s Dream

Wed, 04 Feb 2026 08:30:00 -0000

The late and irreplaceable Catherine O’Hara’s greatness lived in the microscopic choices — the mouthed lines, the half-beats, the emotions stacked on top of jokes — none of which were written down, and all of which made the comedy work. From Waiting for Guffman to Best in Show to Beetlejuice, she gave audiences “permission to laugh” by making even the most absurd premises feel emotionally true. Which is why the Home Alone franchise became a global phenomenon, and why for writers especially, her loss is painful in a very specific way: The best, funniest, most essential parts of a script aren’t written, if you’re lucky enough to have Catherine O’Hara reading your lines.

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It Didn't Matter That I Was Right

Thu, 29 Jan 2026 00:45:00 -0000

Correcting others in public is an irresistible temptation — and almost always a mistake. Rob learned that lesson early, as a young writer on Cheers, when he pointed out that a character, a sort of ‘80s finance type, couldn’t actually be arrested for launching a hostile takeover as the line was written. He was right. But it annoyed everyone. The lesson however stuck: knowing when to let things go matters a lot more than knowing you’re correct.

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What Happened to Our Great Parties?

Wed, 21 Jan 2026 08:30:00 -0000

Awards season is here, which means Hollywood is again awash in parties, cocktails and mocktails. And yet, somehow, none of it feels like much of a celebration. Rob Long remembers the best awards party he ever went to — the one no one planned — and traces how an industry that once knew how to have fun became serious, fragmented and anxious. His antidote to malaise? A really good, wide-open bash — that someone else pays for.

Transcript here.

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‘Heated Rivalry’ and The Oldest Trick in Showbiz

Wed, 14 Jan 2026 08:30:00 -0000

Heated Rivalry, the horny hockey drama, employs a classic Hollywood formula: Sprinkle in some nudity, and suddenly the odds of your crapshoot becoming a hit improve. Like the perpetually packed “European-style” pool in Las Vegas, audiences are drawn in by the allure of illicit skin. And in a business where a hit can be hard to come by and certainty is nonexistent, nudity — whether from closeted hockey players or HBO hits of yore — remains the simple, reliable grease.

Transcript here.

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Quibi: Short Form, Long Regrets

Wed, 07 Jan 2026 08:30:00 -0000

The easy thing to say about anything new in show business is, “Never gonna work.” In the case of Quibi — Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman’s short-form mobile streamer — plenty of people laughed, and they were right to. But did Quibi fail because it was a bad idea, or because it spent and promised too much? Even Rob Long’s TikTok algo now serves soapy microdramas. Quibi may not have ended up a punchline because it was wrong, but because — after three glasses of wine — it ordered the deluxe version of the future and forgot the return policy.

Transcript here.

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Lucky Enough to Have Too Much

Wed, 17 Dec 2025 15:56:00 -0000

As Rob Long sits in his small New York City apartment surrounded by things — hard copies of old scripts, four umbrellas — he feels lucky to have it all. And in an industry where even modest success feels like a lottery ticket, Rob asks us to pause and consider an annual plea: supporting My Friend’s Place, an organization that works tirelessly to turn the tide for unhoused youth in Los Angeles. For young people failed again and again by the adults in their lives, My Friend’s Place does life-changing work — and for far less than this industry would spend on a half-hour pilot (if those even still exist).

Head to My Friend’s Place, Rob’s charity of choice, to help support youth experiencing homelessness.

Transcript here.

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Stop Waiting for Hollywood to Save You

Wed, 10 Dec 2025 08:30:00 -0000

Rob Long once walked into a packed table read for a Paramount show airing on CBS, only to learn that Paramount had announced it was buying the network that very morning. Suddenly every exec who feared for their job materialized, bringing tension, chaos, and definitely not enough doughnuts. It’s hard not to picture a similar scene at Warner Bros. right now as Netflix scrambles to outmaneuver Paramount. But while bosses barricade themselves in conference rooms and pray for synergies that never happen, creatives shouldn’t wait for rescue. In the worst possible moment to be in this business, the best move is the simplest one: make something. Go to YouTube, Instagram, wherever your work can live today. Because Hollywood isn’t coming to save you. You’re going to have to save yourself.

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How to Stay in the Game When the Axe Swings

Wed, 03 Dec 2025 08:30:00 -0000

When the axe swings in Hollywood today, there’s no cushy deal, no soft landing, no assistant guarding your Rolodex anymore like in the old days. You’re out — at least for the moment. But after the gate stops lifting for you, there is a way back in. And it’s the same one it’s always been: you keep moving. You take every meeting. You hustle. You become that person — popular, persistent, maybe pitching a terrible show — who stays alive in the business simply by refusing to vanish.

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The Tao of Bob Broder

Wed, 12 Nov 2025 08:30:00 -0000

Bob Broder — legendary agent, executive and showrunner-whisperer — saw Hollywood for what it was: a sprawling mosaic of chaos, ego and opportunity. As Rob Long remembers of Broder, who first represented him in the Cheers years, and who recently died at 85, he “had a way of scanning for cracks and openings and opportunities.” Broder didn’t scream or throw phones; he won with poise, charm and a look that said he already knew how any potential deal was going to end. Broder led with kindness, foresight and the occasional killer shrug. A legend, and the last man in town to make “calm” look dangerous.

Transcript here

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My 20 Years in Hollywood

Wed, 05 Nov 2025 16:50:00 -0000

A young hopeful recently asked Rob Long how to break into showbiz. His reply? “Bad timing — there’s no business left.” But for Rob, that’s also the fun part. When the old temples crumble, you get to build your own. Every Golden Age ends just as you arrive — usually somewhere on the 10 freeway — but stick around long enough and you’ll have your own wistful memoir moment: My Twenty Years in Hollywood.

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The Human Fly & the Kardashians

Wed, 22 Oct 2025 07:00:00 -0000

In 1923, to promote Harold Lloyd’s Safety Last!, the studio didn’t buy ads — it bought a spectacle. They hired Harry F. Young, “The Human Fly,” to scale a Manhattan hotel in honor of the film’s most famous stunt (you know the one). He made it about 10 stories up before falling to his death — and right into the morning papers. It was, in every sense, earned media. A hundred years later, Rob Long finds that not much has changed in Hollywood’s endless climb for attention — except, maybe, the safety net.

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Ellison’s Paramount Goes to the Dentist

Wed, 15 Oct 2025 07:30:00 -0000

When Rob Long was 18, a dentist said his wisdom teeth had to go. His father told him to hang up the phone: “The whole wisdom tooth thing is a scam.” Forty years later, Rob's fine — mostly. And now, watching David Ellison try to merge Paramount and Warner Bros. in an industry where economies of scale rarely if ever succeed, he sees the same impulse at work: a painful, costly procedure masquerading as progress.

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Psychos, Muggers, Thieves (And Agents)

Wed, 10 Sep 2025 07:30:00 -0000

Those who lived in New York during the ’70s and ’80s knew to carry around “mugger money”: a small wad of bills kept handy on the assumption you’d eventually be mugged. While New York has improved since then, the concept of “mugger money” remains alive and well in Hollywood. The managers with non-writing producer credits, pilot directors with perpetual royalties, agents’ 10 percent and lawyers’ 5 percent — showbiz is built off people smart enough to get some for themselves. But, as Rob Long notes, with budgets shrinking and spending slowing, even the pickpockets are getting squeezed.

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Back to School, Hollywood: Start with 'Porky’s'

Wed, 03 Sep 2025 07:30:00 -0000

In show business, “after the holiday” — Labor Day, that is — are the three magic words that make August a breeze and September feel like back to school. But for Rob Long, it actually does mean back to school, as he starts his second year in the Master of Divinity program at Princeton Theological Seminary, and comes one step closer to his goal of pitching a multi-camera comedy while wearing a priest’s collar. If Rob had his way, though, we’d all be back in the classroom. Why? If Disney, owner of Lucasfilm and Marvel, can’t reach young male audiences, then we all need a core curriculum — one with every installment of the Porky’s franchise, Caddyshack and Taken.

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Bip Bip Bip: Showbiz’s Lost Language

Wed, 27 Aug 2025 07:30:00 -0000

Industry jargon once separated the insiders from the posers. Rob Long remembers a network president who tried to talk the talk — pitching a spinoff with a cheery “bip bip bip” and some magician-like hand gestures. Cue hours of mocking behind closed doors. But the bigger joke may be on Hollywood itself: while words like “showrunner” have gone mainstream, the actual craft of making television — running a room, shaping a script, building a show — is slipping away. And that matters a lot more than knowing the lingo.

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You’ll Eat Lunch in This Town Again

Wed, 20 Aug 2025 07:30:00 -0000

Years ago, a well-known comic actor hosted an ill-fated late-night show that was canceled halfway through its 13-week run. But rather than leave town under a cloud of immense failure, this guy went to lunch. According to Rob Long, it was “the bravest lunch I’ve yet seen eaten,” and the comic was met with several well-wishers for his troubles. That’s because, as Rob says, people in Hollywood find failure exhilarating. “We wallow in misfortune,” he says. “We live to applaud the down-and-out. When people call you brave in the entertainment business, it’s almost always because you’ve done something that really sucked.”

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Here’s What New Paramount Should Really Do

Wed, 13 Aug 2025 07:30:00 -0000

Rob Long’s experience with Paramount goes back so far, he was there in the Gulf and Western days. He was there when Barry Diller fought Sumner Redstone for the company in 1994 for the company — and lost. He’s seen Viacom and CBS and everything in between. So as David Ellison takes over the storied company, Rob has a key piece of advice, if the young mogul is willing to listen: think small and watch Brad Pitt’s Moneyball. Because when you succeed at small, the big will take care of itself.

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Hollywood vs. TikTok

Wed, 06 Aug 2025 07:30:00 -0000

Walk up Madison Avenue, and there’s Hermès, Gucci and Tom Ford. Then, down in Soho is The RealReal, a luxury consignment store where you can find largely the same Gucci stripes, pebbled Hermes leather or giant Tom Ford zippers. The stuff is just a little used — and a whole lot cheaper. That’s the challenge Hollywood faces. A-list celebrities and studio-level comedy are just a click away on TikTok, YouTube or Instagram. It’s a little rougher around the edges, sure. But it’s free. So what’s Rob Long’s solution for Hollywood? Let him tell you.

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No One Knew How Johnny Carson Voted

Wed, 23 Jul 2025 07:30:00 -0000

Stephen Colbert’s out, Greg Gutfeld’s in, and late-night TV is a shell of its former self. Rob Long breaks down what went wrong, why Johnny Carson wouldn’t survive 2025, and how Kimmel, Stewart, Meyers, and Oliver turned late-night into political homework at bedtime — while fighting over the same half of the audience. But Rob doesn’t blame a certain president for the Late Show cancelation. He blames the thing that always forces showbiz’s hand: money.

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When Will the Young Lions Finally Attack?

Wed, 16 Jul 2025 07:30:00 -0000

Recording from Botswana, Rob Long figured he was as far as he could get from the chaos of showbiz. But it turns out that the wild African plain is a lot like Hollywood. Directors? They’re the Cape buffalo: loud, bossy and always wearing a headset (he’ll explain). Buzzards are akin to agents (no disrespect to either). And writers are rhinos — kind of prehistoric, not always strategic and endangered. Hey, even the sound of relief when Superman pulled in a $217 million opening weekend has a safari counterpart. But on the savanna, respite doesn’t last. It’s always back to getting stalked and eaten. Kind of like Hollywood. And the old lions better watch out.

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Never Talk Down to Your Audience — Even When They Have Terrible Taste

Wed, 09 Jul 2025 07:30:00 -0000

Some debates are nuanced. For Rob Long, this isn’t one of them: Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace is a disaster, from the pod racing to Jar Jar Binks. No amount of revisionist history can make George Lucas’ Star Wars prequel any less disappointing. Yet Rob once had a meeting with a brilliant, respected man who claimed it was his favorite Star Wars film. Did Rob laugh in his face? No. He smiled and moved on. Because a lesson, in Hollywood and life, is that even if you can’t fathom your audience’s taste, mocking them for what they like rarely helps.

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Dumb Comedies Will Save Hollywood

Wed, 02 Jul 2025 07:30:00 -0000

As Rob marks a milestone birthday while traversing France, his thoughts drift — as they often do — from real life to showbiz. Gone are his days of being 24 years old, writing for 20 million viewers on Cheers. In their place: streaming “drops” that sound more like bodily functions than cultural events. But amid all that change, one rule still holds: If the laughs are flowing, showbiz is worth betting on.

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What Keith McNally Can Teach Hollywood

Wed, 18 Jun 2025 23:08:00 -0000

Keith McNally isn’t in showbiz, but he might as well be. Whether you’re dining at Balthazar or, like Rob, a frequenter of Minetta Tavern, it’s all lights, noise and timing. The food matters, but it’s the vibe that keeps people coming back — and the same goes for Hollywood. It’s not just plot and characters; it’s atmosphere, tone and letting the audience feel at home.

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'Cheers' & Art of the 'Norm!' Entrance

Wed, 28 May 2025 16:12:00 -0000

If a joke falls flat, you’ve got two options: fiddle with the set-up or adjust the punchline. That’s comedy writing 101 — unless you had George Wendt. As Norm on Cheers, George’s timing, presence and even just how he walked into the bar got a laugh. But Norm was a lovable loser, while George was just plain lovable. And for writers like Rob, lucky enough to work with him, George was the secret third trick to make any joke land.

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The Missing Middle-Zone Shows

Wed, 21 May 2025 07:30:00 -0000

The best TV shows are like the best restaurants, says Rob Long: familiar, comforting, and just stylish enough. Not everything needs to be a tasting menu or guilty junk — sometimes you just want a steak, buttered broccoli, baked potato and a laugh. So in this era where prestige and junk reign in both food and TV, Rob asks, where are all the Hillstones and Houston’s?

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My ER Trip to Grey's Anatomy: Gen Z

Wed, 14 May 2025 07:30:00 -0000

This week, Rob wakes up spinning — literally — and ends up in the ER being evaluated by what appears to be the cast of Grey’s Anatomy: Gen Z. It wasn’t a stroke (spoiler), just vertigo, but that doesn’t stop Rob from noticing these physicians seemed to behave a little too much like TV doctors from ER, House or Chicago Hope — all of which gave Rob his own hope: TV really does still matter.

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The Trickery of Tariffs & Incentives

Wed, 07 May 2025 07:30:00 -0000

As President Trump involves himself in showbiz finances, Rob Long raises the problem of what happens when government gets involved in Hollywood spreadsheets: Everyone above the line gets a raise because A. money is fungible; and B. greed. And below the line? Taxpayers in whatever state is offering cash-back goodies end up paying for second season salary bumps for the cast and the producers.

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Upfronts, Auspices & Half-Truths

Wed, 30 Apr 2025 07:30:00 -0000

Time was when networks would land a major star, with the next step finding a writer with “auspices” — an industry term for somebody proven, with a hit show already on air. The only issue? Those successful writers often couldn’t write. In spite of that, those series sometimes became massive hits. Which is why Rob Long wants to keep optimism alive. After all, as he says, “Hey, could work.”

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The Leakiest Business

Wed, 23 Apr 2025 07:30:00 -0000

Like Rob Long’s old Subaru, show business is leaky and can emit a toxic cloud — but it works. That is, until Silicon Valley strides in and tries to plug up the holes with things like “ad-free offerings” and an “all-inclusive monthly price”. What the tech overlords don’t get, though: It’s all those wires and oil and grime that keep the engine running.

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Just Buy It. Just Say Yes

Wed, 16 Apr 2025 19:05:00 -0000

No matter how successful you are, the pitching never ends. Even the most seasoned TV creator has been known to melt down in front of their G-Wagon when they can’t land a greenlight: “Why don’t they just say yes?” Silicon Valley tech giants thought they could disrupt the “terrible business” of entertainment — less buying and selling, more ownership and verticality — which led to the streaming wars, and now a contracting industry where “the yeses just aren’t coming.”

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The Bezos Divide

Wed, 09 Apr 2025 15:00:00 -0000

There are two keys to making money in showbiz: make a hit, and make it easy to watch and find. In other words, make the experience more like shopping on Amazon. Easy is why kids are on YouTube, Rob Long is watching The Gilded Age in TikTok snippets and why Amazon makes being online a seamless experience — except on Prime Video.

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Let’s Hold an IP Swap Meet

Wed, 26 Mar 2025 07:30:00 -0000

Rob Long recently sold all the old junk from his house: airplane bottles of Dutch gin, a Yemeni incense burner, asparagus tongs and two boxes of computer cables, naturally. Refreshed and ready to begin a new chapter, Rob thinks studios need a similar garage sale with each other’s libraries. Offer up titles, make some swap deals — and reset the whole system, from the IP up.

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The Lineman TikTok TV Show

Wed, 19 Mar 2025 07:30:00 -0000

Languages other than English have special words for special situations (looking at you Germany and your fingerspitzenfühl). Now, Rob Long proposes a new local lexicon to help capture this particular moment now in the industry, a place where schadenfreude is giving way to another, strange new feeling: Hope for even someone else’s show, any show, to get made. Even if it’s about linemen in buckets.

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A Priest Walks Into a Pitch Meeting...

Wed, 12 Mar 2025 07:30:00 -0000

Mid-life, Rob Long has gone back to school. Princeton Theological Seminary has been a nice timeout from Hollywood — no profanity, shouting or the pressure to wrap up every meeting with a joke. But Rob is not ditching Hollywood. Instead he ponders bridging the secular and ecclesiastical divide by showing up to his next meeting in a priest’s collar to watch what happens.

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James Bond's New Corporate Suit

Wed, 26 Feb 2025 08:30:00 -0000

Brand extensions? Prequel? Janet Bond?? Rob Long bets meetings at Amazon are underway with those bullet points in a PowerPoint now that the franchise has been wrested away from its legendarily impossible owners, the Broccolis. Corporate-controlled and obligated by fiduciary responsibility, 007 has secured the plot of his next adventure: shaking every last dime out of his Savile Row suit.

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The Garbageman's Vanity Card

Wed, 05 Feb 2025 08:30:00 -0000

One of the problems facing showbiz right now: Too many production companies, private equity investors, and celebrity shingles — but not enough set-up projects. That’s why it’s worth remembering the actor-producer-garbageman Rob Long once hired, whose business card was a reminder of simpler times: the producer’s vanity card.

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‘You Guys Are All the Same’

Wed, 29 Jan 2025 08:30:00 -0000

New streamers all want to be the place that gets it. They’ll say, “Come here and be creative! Give us your quirky, oddball stuff!” But before you know it, Rob Long finds they’re giving notes on the act break and telling writers to raise the stakes. But anybody that’s been in this business awhile, or had any degree of success, can relate — it’s easy to forget that you don’t know all the answers.

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Craft Services Warning Signs

Wed, 22 Jan 2025 08:30:00 -0000

When the streets of L.A. and New York hummed with production, Rob Long would pass so many shoots that he’d zip through and stealthily swipe a coffee and pastry. Now, though, as production shrinks, artisanal donuts and Nespresso pods have given way to Dunkin’ and off-brand coffee. And you know the industry’s in really bad shape when rumors about having to pay for valet parking at your own agency pop up — and everyone believes them.

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Wanted: A Hollywood Happy Ending

Wed, 15 Jan 2025 08:30:00 -0000

When tourists come to Manhattan, some check out “historical landmarks,” like the Sex and the City cupcake shop, where a bite of buttercream frosting can spark the fantasy of a romantic adventure in the Big Apple with best friends. Indeed, Rob Long believes showbiz is at its greatest when, in hard times, it lets the audience daydream. Especially today, amid so much ash and smoke, when the people who make movies and TV need their own escape.

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Gelson's, Ralph's and the Palisades

Thu, 09 Jan 2025 02:21:00 -0000

“Gelson’s is gone.” That’s what Rob Long heard the TV newscaster say solemnly as he watched flames engulf the grocery store. Rob loved that now burned-down market off Sunset in the Palisades, now in the midst of catastrophic loss. All kinds of industry folk — executives, crews, a couple of famous faces — also did. Now with an industry-wide contraction, he understands you might be asking yourself: “Is it time to go?” But the industry’s best trait has always been to ignore and adjust. And start again.

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Sharing Our Showbiz Luck

Wed, 18 Dec 2024 08:30:00 -0000

As a 24-year-old aspiring screenwriter in L.A., Rob Long didn’t have the money or job prospects to purchase a $400 leather jacket. So, naturally, he did. As luck had it, Rob got his first job as a TV writer a few weeks later. And now, decades later — and oft-bemoaning how things used to be better — he reflects on his good fortune, and why he shares it with a charity helping homeless youth right here on Hollywood Blvd. All while asking you to keep going long enough to appreciate your lucky selves to be in this business.

Head to My Friend’s Place, Rob’s charity of choice, to help support youth experiencing homelessness.

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Luigi Mangione, Murder & Movies

Wed, 11 Dec 2024 08:30:00 -0000

From the moment the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO hit the news until the arrest of suspect Luigi Mangione in a McDonald’s, every loudmouth had a theory about the killer and his motive. You see, whether it’s a murder case, the Middle East or Hollywood’s upheaval, the know-it-alls all pretend they have all the answers. But society needs them, argues Rob Long. After all, who else would greenlight anything?

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Hollywood is Just Like Trump

Mon, 25 Nov 2024 20:10:00 -0000

Look deeply into the eyes of many of the team surrounding Donald Trump and you might find the same hollow and exhausted looks ubiquitous on the faces of talent managers, agents and executives. You see, that’s because the past and future president is a lot like an insane director or temperamental movie star. And it’s why this industry is the one best equipped to advise that one.

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Should You Write TV With Friends or Strangers?

Wed, 13 Nov 2024 14:35:45 -0000

A TV writers room can be a cranky, hostile place. Rob Long and his colleagues spend their days arguing over which story beats to keep, whose joke is funnier, and what to order for lunch. But is it better when that chaos happens with people you’ve worked with before or strangers? An academic study gave Rob the answer.

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What to Say About What Just Happened

Wed, 06 Nov 2024 08:30:00 -0000

The next few weeks are going to be tough, a little bit like being force-fed goat cheese if you are Rob Long. So in this current toxic political environment, or really in any uncomfortable situation forced upon you, Rob has some simple advice. Use the word ‘huh’ — the one magic word that saves you from further confrontation.

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Let Them See You Sweat

Wed, 30 Oct 2024 16:58:00 -0000

The Ankler recently launched The Ladder, a hub for early career entertainment professionals, which has Rob Long wondering one thing: What are these people thinking? Gone are the days where a 24-year-old like Rob could come to L.A. and months later be staffed on a show like Cheers, or make a lot of money specializing in just story beats or jokes. Today, you have to be a “multi-hyphenate,” or, to put it in Rob’s old Hollywood lingo, a “sweat act” — able to do a little bit of everything.

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'I'm Working on a Cancer Comedy'

Wed, 23 Oct 2024 07:30:00 -0000

A normal person, when a friend tells them about their broke dad with cancer, think this is a sad story; this poor guy; how can I help? Not Rob Long. He latches on to the part of the story about the dad having to move in with his New-Age vegan daughter to be closer to the hospital, and begins to wonder could this be a pitch?

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Botox and Fillers

Wed, 16 Oct 2024 18:04:40 -0000

We perform plastic surgery on a lot of things in Hollywood — even history. Say you’ve got an amazing true story about the highest-ranking woman in the mafia, as Rob Long once did, but you don’t know how many people she killed. Why not make it lots of them? Now it’s not quite true, it’s “based on true events,” but good enough. As Rob can attest, there’s not a story in the world — true or not — that couldn’t use a little Botox.

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Sell the House

Wed, 09 Oct 2024 07:30:00 -0000

Like many writers, Rob Long enjoys opining on writing more than actual writing. There’s no greater procrastination than, say, teaching a class on “maintaining focus.” Meanwhile, there are other writers at their computers, getting ideas out the door that are getting pitched first. Which may be when it’s time for procrastinators to turn to the best TV writing hack of all time: Sell the house.

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Indiana...Smith? Or Jones?

Wed, 02 Oct 2024 07:30:00 -0000

Indiana Smith didn’t sound quite right to Spielberg and Lucas, so they changed it to Indiana Jones — and the rest is history. You never know what’s going to work and what’s going to fail. Or why. That’s part of what makes notes, a pillar of Rob Long’s existence, so tricky. Because sometimes you should play ball with what a network wants. But other times you might need to pull a Sinatra: “My Way.”

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You Must Answer the Questions About Feet

Wed, 25 Sep 2024 07:00:00 -0000

It’s not easy being blunt in Hollywood, with a lot of time spent dancing around the truth. Is a network or studio actually interested in the pitch? How much money are they willing to pay? That’s why it’s worth remembering the fan letter an actress friend of Rob Long’s received, where the sender was less invested in her career than making sure she answered his more prurient podiatry queries. After all, someone has to ask for what you want, get to the point and keep everyone focused on the important things, which is how Rob finds himself praising, yes, his agent.

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TV's New Old Ideas

Wed, 18 Sep 2024 07:00:00 -0000

When a fading comedian says they want new material, that's not what they want. What they want is “new old material,” meaning fresh jokes that sound like the ones they’ve already told. Hollywood today finds itself in the same predicament: needing new shows that feel like the old ones. Because, as Rob Long points out, the comforting and the familiar are what audiences crave — like Italian food — and can fix an industry today broken right down the middle.

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But How Does This Affect Me?

Wed, 11 Sep 2024 07:00:00 -0000

Rob Long has tried everything: Meditation, free writing, morning pages — all in an effort to be more present, to get out of reading trade headlines and reflexively wondering, But how does this benefit me? In an industry pathologically insular and insecure, it’s hard to imagine the world outside. Now with Hollywood in desperate need of a shakeup, Rob’s going first: He reveals the surprise masters degree he’s now pursuing and you won’t believe it. Just don’t say he left showbiz.

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A Heartwarming Tax ID Number

Wed, 04 Sep 2024 15:50:15 -0000

Writing is a tough, lonely profession. One of its worse qualities: the payment structure, broken up into a zillion little pieces, withheld in full until the bitter end and altogether utterly unpredictable. The whole charade can make someone like Rob Long, understandably, crazy. That’s why, when a production company asks for a tax ID number, or a residual check comes in at $12, not $11, it’s hard not to get a little emotional.

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The Juicy Backstage Stuff

Wed, 28 Aug 2024 07:00:00 -0000

When tourists trek to Hollywood for their summer vacations, they want a look at the glamour they see onscreen. Instead they get Hollywood Boulevard, and filthy Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck in a fist-fight. Yet when the tourists disappear and the season turns, so do Rob Long’s emotions: Into fears about age, the business passing him by, why he never had another career. But then, as reliable as Labor Day on the calendar, he puts the costume back on again.

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Hide Your Job on a Plane

Wed, 21 Aug 2024 07:00:00 -0000

Ever tell the stranger sitting next to you on a flight what you do for a living? If you work in entertainment, your seatmate likely will first say, “Have I seen anything you worked on?” and then, “You know what you should do a show about?” And forget about answering the question about how your job exactly works. Because the rules of TV writing and the business have all the inconclusiveness and ambiguity of an annoying French sitcom.

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How the Sweaty Guy Wins

Wed, 31 Jul 2024 14:19:00 -0000

Why is it that the sweaty, doughy production assistants of decades past become the power brokers and “maximized” types of today? It’s the same reason the prolific, focused writers — regardless of quality — are able to get things made: They’re the ones actually sweating.

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An Ode to Bob Newhart

Wed, 24 Jul 2024 07:00:00 -0000

When he heard news of Bob Newhart’s death, Rob Long reached into an old shoebox to find a picture of himself with the comedy legend. Like many who had such a memento, his first thought was, “Get that image on Instagram pronto.” But he held off. Why? Because if he learned one thing from the man known for comedic timing, it’s that sometimes less is more. Sometimes it’s better to take a pause, clear your throat and just say . . . Bob Newhart was the best.

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Parking on the Top Floor

Wed, 03 Jul 2024 07:00:00 -0000

During Rob Long’s first job at Paramount, he would see a dusty, silver DeLorean on level two every day in the parking structure as he rolled in late for his gig on a hit show. Despite all the 1986 flash it signaled, its license plate gave the game away: That person had been on a popular show and now wasn’t. Everyone in Hollywood thinks they’ll always be parking on five, a place where you set your own hours and are flush with cash, but could end up, say, like Candle Media, back on two. So, Rob advises, maybe hang on to that Subaru.

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Forgiving and Forgetting

Wed, 26 Jun 2024 07:00:00 -0000

Grudges and feuds make Hollywood go ‘round. But sometimes, they are so longstanding that, as Rob Long learned, the aggrieved sometimes forget why they’re even mad. Which is why Rob is an advocate for, if not forgiveness, at least forgetfulness. Because without it, we wouldn’t be repeating the constant storytelling themes of friendship, money and family. And people would know that Succession was really just Dynasty.

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The Showrunner & the FedEx

Wed, 19 Jun 2024 05:00:00 -0000

In this age of contraction, Hollywood is full of unemployed showrunners grinding out half fleshed-out pilot ideas. But a great sense of story isn’t the only attribute needed to be a showrunner. It also requires decisiveness, self-awareness and preparedness. And that last trait applies to more than just running a show. Just ask the medical professionals that put together Rob Long’s “home collection kit.”

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No Place for Thinkers

Wed, 12 Jun 2024 14:43:57 -0000

As a child, Rob watched old sitcoms like Gilligan’s Island and Bewitched while pretending to do homework. He likes to say that his slacking off prepared him for the writing career he has now. Sure, he learned sitcom structure, but more important, by neglecting his schoolwork, he became less of a thinker. And in show business, thinkers just mess things up.

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Money, Real Estate & Secrets

Wed, 05 Jun 2024 07:00:00 -0000

When Rob Long sold his house in Venice Beach for his move to New York, the question from neighbors was universal: “When did you buy your house?” In other words, it wasn’t about where he was going, but how much money he was making. Selling high, of course, requires also believing things will get worse. Not hard in showbiz these days. Which explains why Rob recently found himself on the subway into the city from JFK.

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Are You a Showbiz Clown or Monkey?

Wed, 29 May 2024 07:00:00 -0000

Show business largely operates on what Rob Long calls the “Monkey-Clown Relationship.” Sometimes you’re the monkey who loses it and attacks the clown. Sometimes you’re the clown, waiting in fear of the monkey ripping your face off. Increasingly, though, as the industry gets tougher, Rob’s friends aren’t waiting for the monkey to snap, they’re wondering if they should call it a day. But some may end up the tough clown that stays in there, fighting. Supreme logo and all.

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Lessons of 'Lenny & Squiggy'

Wed, 22 May 2024 07:00:00 -0000

Rob Long worked on the Paramount lot 15 years, and the pilot of Lenny & Squiggy — a spinoff of Laverne & Shirley — was a ghost that haunted the grounds, so mercilessly rejected by a focus group that the tape disappeared. Forever. Which makes Rob wonder: How can one hack a hackneyed system where random people are selected to give an opinion on your show — and the studio listens? There are ways. Ethics aside, of course.

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Gaslit in TV Land

Wed, 15 May 2024 07:00:00 -0000

Everybody knows that one William Goldman quote: “Nobody knows anything.” But, Rob Long asserts, sometimes, people know something you don’t. And that’s where the mystery of the industry lies. Because as much shakra and selenite crystal as you can harness, your fate lies in the hands of others, and that can require going to desperate measures to maintain your sanity.

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Famous vs. Unfamous

Wed, 08 May 2024 13:33:00 -0000

Movie stars and aristocrats are just like you and me: They put their trousers on one leg at a time. We don’t really have a proper aristocracy anymore, so there goes half that saying. But do we even have stars? Rob Long considers what a star was, what a star is, and what it means for the industry. Also, if you should wear a t-shirt with your name on it.

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Paramount: Buy, Sell, Fight

Wed, 01 May 2024 13:18:00 -0000

Rob knows a quote . . . from which Chinese philosopher, he’s not sure. It goes, “If you sit by the river long enough, you will see the body of your enemy float by.” Showbiz translation: If you stay in Hollywood long enough, you’ll see Paramount bought and sold many times over.

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Dumpster Diving on the Studio Lot

Wed, 24 Apr 2024 13:27:00 -0000

No doubt, the internet and technology vastly improved the tedious labor of writing scripts and making revisions. But Rob Long believes something was lost in the disappearance of an actual paper trail: Archaeological artifacts that reveal the process of jokes moving, characters losing lines, and test audiences wanting (and getting) a happy ending. And it turns out, like his friend, you didn’t even need to read Save the Cat! to learn how to write TV. All you needed was to roll up your sleeves and sift through the studio garbage.

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Burger King Kids Club

Wed, 17 Apr 2024 07:30:00 -0000

Remember the Burger King Kids Club, the chain’s ad campaign targeted to “the kids?” There was Kid Vid, the white, video game-playing leader; Jaws, the Black kid who loved to eat; and a boy in a wheelchair named (seriously) Wheels. The idea, Rob Long speculates, must have been devised at one of those offsite retreats, the kind TV execs love to do in Laguna. But hits rarely are born from suits tossing around banal concepts. Instead they begin with a writers’ novel idea, the equivalent of a delicious-looking hamburger.

Also, we’ve been nominated for a Webby Award, vote for us here by April 18th!

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Gossipy, Critical, Snippy

Wed, 10 Apr 2024 07:30:00 -0000

Legendary fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld once complained about the way a room was decorated: “It was a lot of Louis Quinze mixed with Louis Seize,” he said. And then added: “Ugh!” The entertainment business runs on this sort of Lagerfeldian Ugh, a sort of lingua franca of Hollywood. But what if we tried, just for a while, to not slag others as conversational filler? Rob Long says then, very likely, you could expect a whole lot of deafening silence.

Also, we’ve been nominated for a Webby Award, vote for us here by April 18th!

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'It Only Made, Like, $50 Million'

Wed, 03 Apr 2024 07:00:00 -0000

Howard the Duck might not have won Best Picture, but if you’re a sandwich shop worker, or a young Rob Long at lunch with high-up producers, it’s probably best not to espouse how big a flop you thought it was. See, failure in Hollywood is a relative term. Movies fail, pilots fail, but after a failure of your own, it’s tough to see anything that makes it to the screen as defeat — especially if it came with a check. After all, getting paid in show business is getting paid to try. The later checks — the bigger ones — are about getting paid to succeed.

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The '10 Pages in One Night' Trick

Wed, 27 Mar 2024 07:00:00 -0000

When Orson Welles found an investor for a cheap little noir thriller, legend has it he devised a scheme. His opening sequence took up almost 10 pages of script, with descriptions and action all spread out. Except when he actually filmed it, he used only a high-tension, 12-minute “virtuoso” single tracking shot that became signature to Touch of Evil — but also fooled execs into thinking he’d be under budget and on time every day. As genius as Welles’ move was, Rob Long says he was also a practitioner of Haraka Baraka. And you should be too.

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The Scariest Word in Hollywood

Wed, 20 Mar 2024 07:00:00 -0000

Sixty percent of Americans say they read the Bible regularly. But in Hollywood, where Jesus and religion can feel — how do you say it — downmarket, people rely instead on the series bible, where writers flesh out their TV series’ characters, situations and possible future episodes. But Rob Long suggests Hollywood, much like he has, take a fresh look at the Bible — the one with a capital B, no IP rights, and packed with tragedy, sex and human weakness fit for a limited series.

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Shut Up and Pitch

Wed, 06 Mar 2024 08:00:00 -0000

When Rob Long pitches anything these days, he knows that he’s not going to sell that idea in the room. That’s over. But he wouldn’t be upset if he didn’t hear, “Fun stuff. We’ll talk internally and get back to you.” What’s fun about that? If we can identify fun — rather than fun stuff — the entertainment industry can get back to being like that big, noisy party Rob throws, with a supermarket ham and cheap booze. Overthink it, and the party’s over.

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We Cannot Be Boring

Wed, 28 Feb 2024 08:00:00 -0000

Rob Long loved his tailor — a man who ran his shop with unpredictable, cigarette-stained weirdness. But when he died, the business became faster, and it was easier to communicate with the staff. It was even open into the evenings. The new and improved shop certainly made for a better business. But the old tailor, for all his idiosyncrasies, was highly entertaining. And that is why Rob is not as worried about AI as many other people are. It may be more efficient, but can it pull a hilarious non-sequitur when you really need one?

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I Don’t Get Any Important Phone Calls

Wed, 21 Feb 2024 08:00:00 -0000

Rob Long’s friend once wrote a line for a TV show where a character reveals he doesn’t have voicemail. You see, the character, explains, “I don’t get important phone calls.” The network executive in charge, however, was not having it, bellowing that no one would care about someone not important enough to not get important calls. And that was that. Rob himself has thoughts on the function assistants play as status symbol in the industry— and what his trip in a shipping container from Seattle to Shanghai may say about it all.

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The Imaginary List of Approved Writers

Wed, 14 Feb 2024 06:00:00 -0000

Liza Minelli, Private Detective. Sounds pretty good, right? Unfortunately, the series — Rob Long’s brainchild — will never see the light of day. Rob was told Minelli was “not available,” and in show business, when someone’s unavailable, you move on. It’s one of those unwritten rules, or mysterious studio lists, that we all believe in. But are any of them actually true?

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If Lucy Ran a TV Network

Wed, 07 Feb 2024 08:00:00 -0000

Whether trekking to the cable store or preparing for the TSA line, Rob Long expects disappointment. Not because he’s inherently negative, you see. Show business, and all its grinding rejection, has molded him into a pessimist. So, Rob questions whether we are all too invested in our work here (the answer: yes). And how we can be prepared — and ready — for the time Lucy hands us the ball.

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Fragile Egos Don't Take Fountain

Wed, 24 Jan 2024 14:07:21 -0000

Bette Davis famously answered “take Fountain” — an L.A. street with fewer lights — when asked her advice for actors starting out. Thing is, the questioner didn’t actually want practical advice. In fact, most of us say we want the truth when we actually prefer our feelings to be protected. Which is why executives wind up delivering notes with fluffy preamble, and why Rob Long was once taken aback when asked if his canceled show meant — ouch — that he was “washed up.”

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Cover Charge and a Minimum

Wed, 17 Jan 2024 13:21:29 -0000

Every question that comes up in Hollywood these days is really a variation on money, and the big one on everyone’s minds is: how are we going to make buckets of money in the TV business again? By reinventing an already reinvented model, says Rob Long. Hate the ad model coming for streaming? Well, Rob says consider it akin to the cover charge and drink minimum required to enter a jazz club.

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Hey, That's My Joke!

Thu, 11 Jan 2024 01:49:00 -0000

Ever hear of iPartment? It was a Chinese knockoff of Friends, with some Big Bang Theory rolled in, that received complaints from viewers over lines and scenes ripped directly from these American shows. Outright joke stealing is, of course, wrong, but Rob Long can’t help but also ponder the full spectrum of today's content “borrowing” — whether it’s stand-up about Hot Pockets or a dissertation from a certain Harvard ex-president.

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Hollywood's 2024 To-Don't List

Wed, 03 Jan 2024 16:43:00 -0000

An entertainment CEO’s to-do list for the year could include, among other boring and depressing things: layoffs, a merger with Paramount, a sell-off of local TV stations, an acquisition of Lionsgate, and the making of one’s quarterly debt payment. Long to-do lists are, however, as a psychiatrist once told Rob Long, self-sabotage. So instead, he suggests to the powers-that-be: Make a big, crowd-pleasing comedy instead, one in the vein of Anchorman or Zoolander. It’ll be the perfect antidote to doom and anxiety — and might even win your audience back.

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My Holiday Cure for Greed

Thu, 21 Dec 2023 00:20:00 -0000

Rob Long loves Christmas presents — expensive ones, preferably — and money. Lots of money. It’s an affliction that impacts everyone in entertainment, he argues, where enough is never enough. Even during a particularly confusing and hard year, we’re lucky to be able to complain about the work most of us do, which Rob realized at the paint store. And while Rob may not be personally calling you for money, he’s asking for your donations anyway to his favorite charity.

Head to My Friend’s Place, Rob’s charity of choice, to help support youth experiencing homelessness.

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Get Paid for Doing Nothing

Wed, 13 Dec 2023 06:30:00 -0000

This week, Rob Long reminds us that nobody likes to work for free — which is why, more often than not, writers find themselves in a tricky predicament. In an ideal world, a writer gets hired off a pitch. But other times, the writer ends up drafting a script on spec, a.k.a for free. And even when a writer does sell a pitch, the executives who buy it likely won’t be around long enough to actually produce the script, thus rendering it no different from a spec (minus the small upfront fee). It’s enough to make a writer want to be a producer. Free money! Just ask Rob.

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Murder, But Make it Funny

Wed, 06 Dec 2023 16:39:26 -0000

According to Karl Marx, “history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce.” And in the eyes of Rob Long, so, too, does material in the entertainment industry. When something works as a drama, for example, people will try to find a way to jigger it into a comedy (cue the side-splitting version of Breaking Bad). Most films and shows these days are just a retread of something else. But as Rob explains, small tweaks can have a big impact — in the same way a loudmouth in a movie theater can break a poignant moment by uttering a single word.

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You Do Me Great Honor

Wed, 29 Nov 2023 08:30:00 -0000

This week, Rob Long explains his number one rule for sharing emotions in entertainment-industry relationships: Don’t. After all, the best and longest-lasting relationships in Hollywood are the ones that stay frozen in place, uncomplicated by unnecessary interactions until there’s a business reason to reconnect. Also: never confuse love for you with the love of money (as one might be inclined to do with network execs), and don’t ever feel pressure to say “I love you” back to anyone. Instead, consider the alternative, “You do me great honor.”

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The Fix-It Rule

Wed, 22 Nov 2023 08:30:00 -0000

When asked an honest opinion about someone’s appearance, you’ve likely enacted the Fix-It Rule: that is, if someone has the ability to do something about it — a stray hair, for example — you say something; if it’s congenital, well, you keep your mouth shut (or lie). That philosophy extends to Hollywood too, where almost everything is fixable, but everyone — even the most talented among us — has the capacity for at least one truly terrible, unsalvageable piece of work. How you move on from it, explains Rob, makes all the difference.

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Success is Contagious. So is Failure

Wed, 15 Nov 2023 08:30:00 -0000

Ever notice the insecurity of those flying to and from L.A.? Everyone is discretely eyeballing everyone else, figuring out who is in first class, and — in the case of one agent Rob Long met at the airport — over-explaining why he was not. You see, in an industry where people rise and fall, and often outright disappear, visible status symbols take on absurd importance. As does creating the appearance that everything is going just great! Which is why Hollywood euphemisms were born — and why Rob always writes his name in big letters on a script.

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The Locker Room Encounter

Thu, 09 Nov 2023 02:35:00 -0000

Bone marrow biopsy? Hahahaha. Or so says Rob Long, who, after his procedure (he was fine!) was able to find the comedy — something that weirdly arrives in the wake of high-stakes moments, particularly around death, disease and crisis. So the world seems like it’s falling apart, but this time for real? As a writer who has spent decades in the comedy business, Rob sees opportunity. Cue the fat guy and the fit guy in the locker room.

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The Danger Zone

Wed, 01 Nov 2023 13:35:00 -0000

With the writers strike ended, execs all over town are figuring out which pitches they agreed to pre-walkout actually will get produced. Like chefs taking food out of the freezer, suits give a sniff test — assessing what kept on ice can be safely thawed out, and which should be tossed. And as Rob Long explains, the most dangerous place to be — in a kitchen or show business — is in this defrosting stage, where bacteria and spoilage set in.

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Optimism and Gratitude

Wed, 25 Oct 2023 20:15:00 -0000

The industry today sorely lacks optimism, says Rob. How to get it back? Harness the memory of your early-career freedom.

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