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Set Up, Joke, Set Up, Joke
'Right now we're deep into what the phrase-makers around here call "heavy development ". Essentially that means that the studio which gives us an office, a secretary, two parking spaces, and two pay checks is patiently waiting for us to come up with a new comedy television series But ideas are hard to come by So we sit and stare, at each other and out of the window, at the tour groups being led around the studio, pitch out show ideas, and mutter to ourselves, 'is there a show in that?'. An award-winning television comedy script writer is fifteen years on from his last major success and the ideas have dried up. His agent is constantly on the phone demanding at once where the next script is coming from whilst at the same time shattering his confidence with news of other clients' roaring success, as well as demanding unswerving loyalty from him. It's a fragile, nerve-racked existence and one where the writer tragically begins to realise only the strongest survive.By turns hilariously funny, shockingly honest in it's brutal deceptions and full of raw emotion, Set Up, Joke, Set Up, Joke gets to the core of Hollywood society whilst at the same time holding a mirror up to all of our basest desires.
- GenresHumorComedyNonfiction
Paperback
First published November 7, 2005
50 people want to read
About the author
Rob Long
9 books2 followersRobert Long is an American writer and television producer in Hollywood. As a screenwriter and executive producer for the long-running television program Cheers, he received Emmy and Golden Globe nominations in 1992 and 1993. Long created the television show George and Leo, among others.
In addition to his television work, Long is a contributing editor for National Review, as well as a contributor to TIME, Newsweek International, The Wall Street Journal, and the Los Angeles Times. He hosts the syndicated weekly radio commentary Martini Shot, and appears regularly on political commentary shows. In May 2010, he took part in launching a new center-right commentary site, Ricochet.
Long received an award from the Writers Guild of America, and is on the board of directors of The American Cinema Foundation, a non-profit arts organization created to nurture and reward television and feature-film projects. His published works include Conversations with My Agent and Set Up, Joke, Set Up, Joke.
In addition to his television work, Long is a contributing editor for National Review, as well as a contributor to TIME, Newsweek International, The Wall Street Journal, and the Los Angeles Times. He hosts the syndicated weekly radio commentary Martini Shot, and appears regularly on political commentary shows. In May 2010, he took part in launching a new center-right commentary site, Ricochet.
Long received an award from the Writers Guild of America, and is on the board of directors of The American Cinema Foundation, a non-profit arts organization created to nurture and reward television and feature-film projects. His published works include Conversations with My Agent and Set Up, Joke, Set Up, Joke.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
March 12, 2025
Better than the first book-he branches out into more Hollywood types and executives giving notes instead of just the same conversation with his agent over and over. A good look inside the difficulties getting a show on the air.
February 16, 2016
Rob Long was a writer and producer on "Cheers" and then went on to produce half-a-dozen sitcoms each of which sank in one season or less. I think the only one of them that anyone aside from Rob's mother cared for was "George and Leo" with Bob Newhart and Judd Hirsch back in 1997.
This book is difficult to categorize. It is sort of a novel, but the author tells us up front that "This book is half true." That earned my first laugh when I read it. In fact, what would make me recommend this book is that it had me chuckling often enough and was otherwise enlightening to me with regard to "the television producing business" as the author calls it. (I like television from many different angles. I love everything about it. One of my heroes is Philo Farnsworth, the inventor of television, but that is another book to put on my shelf on another day.)
In his own words, Long tries "a pastiche of forms" including screenplay format and anecdotes to present a "half-comic half-tragic look at the business through the eyes of a writer, maybe a guy like me" in the hope "that maybe it'll form some kind of accurate picture or snapshot" of a business that is mysterious to most people. This sounds more serious than it is however.
From the beginning and periodically throughout the book, Long's unnamed protagonist meets with a group of studio or network executives--I am not clear which--who are basically a group of yes-men with a nominal leader. The meeting is about the book I hold in my hands. Long has asked the question: What if this book had to be shopped around like a movie or TV series? It would have to get past a committee that would critique it (called giving notes in the business) and try to turn it into something completely different while pretending they were only making teeny-tiny suggestions. The meetings are silly-funny because all the yes-men and yes-women have to go around the table and say hello; if someone wants to participate but isn't physcially there, they have to be put on speaker phone; and two of the participants are named Josh which becomes extra confusing when one of them is on the speaker phone. My favorite meeting scene is the one in which the writer-protagonist is late, so the meeting starts without him. A new member of the group, Delia, goes on and on about her favorite entertainment concept, then the meeting gets down to putting together a list of notes for the writer. Everyone in the group then says he has to be somewhere else, so they ask Delia if she can meet with the writer and convey their notes to him. She agrees, but when the writer arrives, Delia gives him not the notes the rest of the committee agreed on, but her own favorite entertainment concept. In any well-run industry, someone like that would end up being justly fired, but Delia, we later learn, has been promoted!
Television is a crazy business. Long, who previously wrote "Conversations with My Agent" takes up much of this book with further conversations with a colorful Hollywood agent who tries to encourage and cajole the writer into picking himself up after his TV series is cancelled and write a new series. The agent sometimes seems like a father telling his twenty-something son that he has only so many months to find a job or find himself out on the street.
Hollywood is a place where mixed signals are the rule, not the exception. In the latter half of the book, when the writer is trying to figure out how the network is reacting to his new series' mediocre ratings, he gets into a disagreement with his agent over whether the network sending him a fruit basket means that they are keeping his show on the air or kissing him off. The writer goes into a panic when he sees someone delivering a fruit basket to his building and is relieved when the delivery man goes to someone else's office.
For those who like the TV series "Curb Your Enthusiasm," this book will seem to be taking place in that same universe of shmoozing writers and actors being seen at the hot restaurants and trying to get ahead in the business or trying to cushion their fall. There is some tragedy in this story as when a friend of the protagonist commits suicide. ("The Meeting" tries to give notes on whether the protagonist should have a different reaction to the suicide in order to make him more sympathetic to the reader.)
A very witty look at the half-delusional, half-philosophical, and entirely neurotic life of a TV writer/producer as he rides the roller coaster of elusive success in "the business."
This book is difficult to categorize. It is sort of a novel, but the author tells us up front that "This book is half true." That earned my first laugh when I read it. In fact, what would make me recommend this book is that it had me chuckling often enough and was otherwise enlightening to me with regard to "the television producing business" as the author calls it. (I like television from many different angles. I love everything about it. One of my heroes is Philo Farnsworth, the inventor of television, but that is another book to put on my shelf on another day.)
In his own words, Long tries "a pastiche of forms" including screenplay format and anecdotes to present a "half-comic half-tragic look at the business through the eyes of a writer, maybe a guy like me" in the hope "that maybe it'll form some kind of accurate picture or snapshot" of a business that is mysterious to most people. This sounds more serious than it is however.
From the beginning and periodically throughout the book, Long's unnamed protagonist meets with a group of studio or network executives--I am not clear which--who are basically a group of yes-men with a nominal leader. The meeting is about the book I hold in my hands. Long has asked the question: What if this book had to be shopped around like a movie or TV series? It would have to get past a committee that would critique it (called giving notes in the business) and try to turn it into something completely different while pretending they were only making teeny-tiny suggestions. The meetings are silly-funny because all the yes-men and yes-women have to go around the table and say hello; if someone wants to participate but isn't physcially there, they have to be put on speaker phone; and two of the participants are named Josh which becomes extra confusing when one of them is on the speaker phone. My favorite meeting scene is the one in which the writer-protagonist is late, so the meeting starts without him. A new member of the group, Delia, goes on and on about her favorite entertainment concept, then the meeting gets down to putting together a list of notes for the writer. Everyone in the group then says he has to be somewhere else, so they ask Delia if she can meet with the writer and convey their notes to him. She agrees, but when the writer arrives, Delia gives him not the notes the rest of the committee agreed on, but her own favorite entertainment concept. In any well-run industry, someone like that would end up being justly fired, but Delia, we later learn, has been promoted!
Television is a crazy business. Long, who previously wrote "Conversations with My Agent" takes up much of this book with further conversations with a colorful Hollywood agent who tries to encourage and cajole the writer into picking himself up after his TV series is cancelled and write a new series. The agent sometimes seems like a father telling his twenty-something son that he has only so many months to find a job or find himself out on the street.
Hollywood is a place where mixed signals are the rule, not the exception. In the latter half of the book, when the writer is trying to figure out how the network is reacting to his new series' mediocre ratings, he gets into a disagreement with his agent over whether the network sending him a fruit basket means that they are keeping his show on the air or kissing him off. The writer goes into a panic when he sees someone delivering a fruit basket to his building and is relieved when the delivery man goes to someone else's office.
For those who like the TV series "Curb Your Enthusiasm," this book will seem to be taking place in that same universe of shmoozing writers and actors being seen at the hot restaurants and trying to get ahead in the business or trying to cushion their fall. There is some tragedy in this story as when a friend of the protagonist commits suicide. ("The Meeting" tries to give notes on whether the protagonist should have a different reaction to the suicide in order to make him more sympathetic to the reader.)
A very witty look at the half-delusional, half-philosophical, and entirely neurotic life of a TV writer/producer as he rides the roller coaster of elusive success in "the business."
December 8, 2007
Unfortunately this book isn't quite as good as Conversations With My agent. It does contain a similar jaundiced view of the whole Hollywood/TV industry and the writer's position within it. There are a couple of laugh-out-loud moments. The book is prefaced with the words "This book is half true" as is the earlier work. The difference is that this book doesn't seem quite as personal as the other one, there are many more anecdotal stories about other people. It does effectively convey the tone of a world-weary man who has spent too much time in the duplicitous world of show-business, where every remark and action is open to a number of (mis)interpretations. Maybe the protagonist isn't as likable as his earlier incarnation, something which is satirised in the book itself. On the whole I felt this just wasn't as good a read as the earlier, funnier book. Maybe I should send the author my notes ...
March 26, 2007
This book is best described by the blurb on the back of it, which says something along the lines of it being a witty and sometimes dark insight into the world of television production (or similar). It is very funny in places and very occassionally somewhat depressing in others.
Kind of annoying because large parts of it are written like a script, but I still enjoyed it.
Kind of annoying because large parts of it are written like a script, but I still enjoyed it.
July 13, 2009
I loved this book! I only wished there had been more of it.
July 31, 2011
Mr Long appears to have written the same book twice. How tedious.
January 16, 2012
I read this years ago so have only a hazy memory. Suffice it to say, it was brilliant, witty and insightful and is highly recommended.
October 25, 2013
Couple of interesting bits, but it's mostly just a string of satirical anecdotes in no particular order and with no real bite.
November 8, 2014
Enjoyable and funny. Doesn't have as strong a through line as Conversations With My Agent, but still a good read.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews