John Banta Adam Resnick.

Justin, Brendan, Simon, Sue, Mich.e.l.le, Mary, Alison, David, David, Marnie, Ben, Matt, Mich.e.l.le, Walter, Louisa, Callie, Jeannie, Bruce, Dana, Jack, Wayne Gloria and Maria Ayalde, Connell Barrett, Alex Beggs, Melanie Berliet, Steve Bopp, Bill Bradley, Mr. and Mrs. Catfish, Jason Cronic, Brad Engelstein, Adam Frucci, Bruce Handy, Jane Herman, Mike Hogan, Katie I., Todd Jackson, Marco "Meatball" Kaye, Rob Kutner, Austin Merrill, Gina Merrill, John O'Hara, Nathan Rabin, Julian Sancton, Mark Selby, Mark Simonson, Elaine Trigiani, Marie Warsh, Teddy Wayne, Steve Whitesell, Steve Wilson, Claire Zulkey, the library at Montgomery Community College in Rockville, (And Presenting . . . Danny Haynes & Kim Woodman, live in the Gold Room) Dan Abramson, Lauren Bans, Yoni Brenner, Mich.e.l.le Brower, Rocco Castoro, d.i.c.k Cavett, Michael Colton, Phil Davidson, Gabe Delahaye, Andres du Bouchet, Janice Forsyth, Michael Gerber, Courtenay Hameister, Jack Handey, A.J. Jacobs, Al Jaffee, Dan Kennedy, Adam Laukhuf, Dan Lazar, Gabe Liedman, Ross Luippold, Merrill Markoe, Sam Means, Daniel Menaker, Richard Metzger, Christopher Monks, Kliph Nesteroff, Don Novello, Dave Nuttycombe, Dan O'Brien, Tony Perez, Alana Quirk, Jason Reich, Eric Reynolds, Simon Rich, David Sedaris, Streeter Seidell, Andrea Silenzi, Becki Smith and Rob Caldwell at WCSH, John Swartzwelder, John Warner, John Waters (and the staff and clientele at the Wigwam), Jim Windolf, Jon Wurster Andrew Clark and the students and staff of Humber College Transcribers (a huge thanks): Michal Tamar Addady, Michael Bannett, Caitlin Murphy Brust, Monica Giacomucci, Elizabeth Meley, Maggie Phenicie, Sean Michael Simoneau, Darren Springer Hair by Keith at Smile.

To the upstanding citizens of the planned community of New Granada ("Tomorrow's City . . . Today").

Charlie Cocoa; Fritzy the b.u.mblebee and The Professor, 143.

Contact Information.

Steve Heisler, writer: steveheisler.com Seth Olenick, photographer: www.setholenick.com.

Louise Pomeroy, ill.u.s.trator: www.louisezpomeroy.com Eric Spitznagel, writer: www.ericspitznagel.com.

mikesacks.com.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR.

A member of the editorial staff at Vanity Fair magazine, Mike Sacks is the author of Your Wildest Dreams, Within Reason, and And Here's the Kicker: Conversations with 21 Humor Writers About Their Craft. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, Time, Esquire, Vanity Fair, GQ, the Believer, Vice, Salon, and McSweeney's, among others. He is not pictured here.

2 In a backstory on Parks, the character of Ben Wyatt becomes the mayor of Partridge, Minnesota, at age eighteen, but is quickly impeached after bankrupting the town by building a disastrous winter sports complex called Ice Town.

3 Emily Kapnek: "Mike read a TV pilot of mine called Wiener Park, which actually wound up getting shot [in 2005, but was never aired]. The joke that Mike liked wasn't really a joke but more of a funny moment: The dad character offers to show his house guest a home video of his son playing clarinet in a school talent show. The guest agrees to watch the video, but it's very uneventful. In fact, nothing appears to be happening, but the dad turns to the guest and proudly points out: 'He's wetting the reed.'"

4 From The Loss of the SS t.i.tanic: Its Story and Its Lessons by One of the Survivors, by Lawrence Beesley, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, June 1912: "To ill.u.s.trate further how little danger was apprehended-when it was discovered on the first-cla.s.s deck that the forward lower deck was covered with small ice, s...o...b..lling matches were arranged for the following morning, and some pa.s.sengers even went down to the deck and brought back small pieces of ice which were handed round."

5 George: "Ordinarily I wouldn't mind, but . . ."

Jerry: "But what?"

George: "Well, I just got back from swimming in the pool. And the water was cold . . ."

Jerry: "Ah. You mean . . . shrinkage?"

George: "Yes. Significant shrinkage."

Jerry: "So you feel you were shortchanged."

George: "Yes. I mean, if she thinks that's me, she's under a complete misapprehension. That was not me, Jerry. [Voice breaking] That was not me!"

6 In the routine, Bruce describes the character's new house in Sherman Oaks, California, as the following: "The pool isn't in yet, but the patio's dry." The Rolling Stones' Keith Richards, thirteen years later, used a slightly different version when writing the lyrics to 1981's "Little T&A": "The pool's in, but the patio ain't dry."

7 Jon Wurster: "There were years when I constantly worried about whether I'd ever realize my dreams. I applied to become a writer on The Daily Show. I wrote a sample packet, but stopped midway through. I wasn't very excited about it. I'm not a super newsy guy. It took me forever to come up with one desk piece. And I realized that I'd probably never be able to ever function in that world. But I think that's a good lesson. You don't have to take the route that others might think you should take. We're so ingrained to think that we have to do things the exact way of the status quo, but 80 percent of the status quo is miserable, you know? Everything came together for me when I stopped caring about it. I was really worried about making a living in music and writing comedy. I was just constantly worried. And then when I stopped worrying about it, that's when all the music gigs came and that's when The Best Show started to take off. When I gave up worrying about it all is when it all got better."

8 "Friedolf & Sons has never lost a pair of shoelaces in over forty-seven years of operation."

9 "When did comedies get so mean? Step Brothers has a premise that might have produced a good time at the movies, but when I left, I felt a little unclean. . . . Sometimes I think I am living in a nightmare. All about me, standards are collapsing, manners are evaporating, people show no respect for themselves. I am not a moralistic nut. I'm proud of the X-rated movie I once wrote [1970's Beyond the Valley of the Dolls]. I like vulgarity if it's funny or serves a purpose. But what is going on here?"-Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times, July 24, 2008.

10 Some Mad rip-offs since 1959: Blast (mascot: Mr. Muggles), Bughouse, Crazy (mascot: Obnoxio the Clown), Eh!, Flip, Frantic, Gag!, Get Lost, Glad, Grin, Help!, Humbug (mascot: Seymour Mednick), Madhouse (mascot: Clyde Diddit), Not Brand Ecch, Nuts!, Panic, Plop!, Ratfink, Riot, Snafu (mascot: Irving Forbush), Thimk (mascot: Otis Dracenstein), Trash (mascot: Norman Nebish), Trump (mascot: Jack of Spades), Whack, Wild (mascot: Orton Leffield), Zany.

11 Summary on the Netflix DVD cover of Ghost World: "Geeky humor that really snarls pervades this movie riff on the legendary underground comic/graphic novel by Daniel Clowes. . . . But when Enid begins to bond with one of [her] targets, watch out-teen angst might give way to real feeling."

12 The Fres...o...b..e, March 21, 1994: "Yearn to experience botulism, but just can't bring yourself to open a tin of spoiled meat? Try Cabin Boy instead. This movie gives you all the hallucinatory, nonsequential and senseless perceptions that come as a byproduct of a severe bacterial infection, without the chance that you might actually, you know, die. . . ."

13 Jack Handey's Fuzzy Memory: "I remember when we were kids, one of our favorite games was to play 'pirate.' We'd dress up like pirates. Then we'd find an adult walking down the street and we'd go up to him and pull out our butcher knives, which we called 'swords,' and say, 'We're pirates! Give us your money!' A lot of adults would pretend to be scared and give us their money. Others would suddenly run away, yelling for help. We played pirate until we were twenty or so."

14 A Dan Guterman's Tweet: I don't need drugs to have a good time. I need them to focus, avoid depression, endure spring, fall asleep, and maintain an erection.

1 Megan Ganz, writer for Community: "The best thing I ever learned about script writing has come from working on Community. The creator, Dan Harmon, had us write these things called 'spit drafts,' which is basically an outline for your script. It's the shape of that script. You write out the script scene by scene with dummy dialogue that you'll later replace with actual jokes. For instance, the character of Jeff walks into the room, and Jeff says, 'Here's the point where I say that we should all go get a sandwich.' And then the character of Annie will say, 'I don't want to do that.' And then another character will say, 'I have a joke here.' You can have them do whatever you want, but you just have to get through the scene and have all of what needs to happen in that scene baldly stated.

"If you can't get through a script that way, then chances are your story doesn't work. If you're stuck and you feel like you have writer's block, this is a really helpful method because it distinguishes between, 'Okay, do you have story problems or are you having a hard time writing the dialogue?' Also, when you write really quickly, you end up writing really good jokes anyway; it's almost as if you trick your brain into thinking that it doesn't matter."

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