THE OTHER NETWORK started as a festival of the best un-aired TV pilots ever made – introduced by their creators. Un-Cabaret creators Beth Lapides and Greg Miller made a pilot for MTV. It never aired, even though they loved it, and they realized that a lot of brilliant TV writers’ best work was literally gathering dust in the closet.
They unearthed and screened mind-blowing, and previously unseen pilots by Conan O’Brien, Judd Apatow, Robert Smigel, Bob Odenkirk, Ben Stiller, Merrill Markoe and other great writer-producers. Audiences and the press went wild!
“A runaway hit!… A revelation!” NY Times
“An alternative universe of television!” salon.com
“Sitcoms worth leaving home for!” Rolling Stone Hot List
“Creative… Original… Offbeat!” NPR
“Glorious… Hilarious!” Newsweek
The Other Network has screened un-aired masterpieces including…
The mind-expanding “Heat-Vision & Jack” by Dan Harmon & Rob Schrab, directed by Ben Stiller, starring Jack Black as a super-intelligent ex-astronaut and Owen Wilson as the voice of his sidekick, a talking motorcycle, on the run from the villainous NASA enforcer Ron Silver (playing himself).
The sly, sarcastic sketch show “Next!” by Bob Odenkirk (“Mr. Show”, “Ben Stiller Show”), features Bob, Fred Armisen, Ray Romano, Andy Dick, Patton Oswalt, and others in a series of sketches and musical numbers that starts where ‘Mr. Show’ left off.
The legendary “Lookwell!” by Conan O’Brien & Robert Smigel (“Saturday Night Live”, “Triumph the Insult Comic Dog”), starring Adam West as a has-been TV actor who thinks he’s a private detective.
The dark & demented original pilot for “Saturday TV Funhouse” by Robert Smigel, features Smigel (and co-conspirator Dino Stamatoupolis) tormenting an audience of kids and their parents with truly twisted cartoons and sketches.
We, and audiences, found the creators’ insights into the process of making TV were as entertaining and valuable as the shows themselves, which led to…
THE OTHER NETWORK COMEDY CONTEST (currently on hiatus). Among the prizes this unique contest offered were script notes from top showrunners. We received hundreds of entries to the contest, and a few great scripts, but there were a lot more writers who had the potential to be great. The problem is that outside of a few schools with really good TV writing programs, at that point there wasn’t any hard information available about how to structure a script, what to write, how to get people to read your material, how to get your foot in the door and what it takes to put your creative vision on TV. Which led to…
THE OTHER NETWORK WRITERS’ ROOM, a series of audio interviews with top TV showrunners about the art, craft and business of writing comedy for TV. Some of the most original, outspoken and successful head writers in the business share their collected wisdom, stories and advice. Volume 1: Michael Patrick King, Alan Zweibel, John Riggi, Scott Carter. Vol. 2: Larry Charles, Seth MacFarlane, Gary Janetti, Rob Cohen. Plus, we made a companion piece, THE OTHER NETWORK WRITER’S ASSISTANT in which Beth & Greg synthesize the practical, actionable info from the series, plus their own advice based on teaching workshops and reading contest submissions, into an 8-step program to get you writing for TV – or make you realize you don’t want to!
GREG MILLER - Writer & Writing Coach 