Sketch Comedy Show Production
What are the challenges of producing sketch comedy shows?
It's hard to find good enough writers to do it. It's has become easier because of the slow death of multi-camera sitcoms. There are more writers out there. There used to be a time when Saturday Night Live or Letterman would pluck writers from the Harvard Lampoon, put them in jobs on the network shows, and then after 2 years on the job they'd leave to write movies or come to Hollywood to do The Simpsons or whatever the show of the day was. Now that there aren't so many of those, there's a much bigger pool of writers who know how to do character and know how to do story type stuff.
How did Mind of Mencia get started?
What is a typical shoot day like on Mind of Mencia?
How did you come up with the format for Mind of Mencia?
The format for Mencia was pretty simple. He had done a lot of development at the networks, and they'd always want to put him in a sitcom. They'd always want to put him in a character part, and I had always said that he's not an actor, he's a reactor. So when we formatted the show, we always wanted to make it stem from his stand-up comedy. We used to always use the term 'dressing the pig'. We would dress the pig up any way, but essentially everything he does on that show, if it's done right, is just stand-up comedy dressed up in a different way. He was always great at reacting. Give him something reactive, give him someone in the street, give him someone in the audience, give him a celebrity on film or a picture or whatever, and he'll react better than most people out there.
