The Sitcom Career Book was released by Back Stage Books and is now in bookstores. If you have any problems finding a copy, please email Mary Lou or Phi.l

We spent much time and energy writing this as a guide to learning the "Louder, Faster, Funnier World of TV comedy." We think that this low-cost book will get you the best start in learning the craft of the sitcom.

We will also be adding to this site links to other sitcom resources for you to use, like the following:

A great article form TVWeek:

Guest Commentary: Single-Camera Sitcoms Squelch Sound of Laughter

By Jim McKairnes

A TV disciple’s wish for 2008 (if not for, at least, the coming network pilot season—should there actually be one): That the respite brought on by the 2007 WGA strike will have afforded TV writers and TV executives and TV producers the time to reflect on, among other things, what exactly has happened to the television sitcom—and what might save it from extinction.
Who knows, the answers might even go a ways toward saving TV as a whole.

Some interesting facts about TV comedy:

By my count, in the past 35 years (since the start of the 1972-73 season), there have been 146 new sitcoms introduced into prime-time network television that finished their seasons in the Top 25 of the Nielsen rankings.

I say Top 25 because you gotta start somewhere in defining success. And yes: Top 25 in household ratings, because with all deference to demo-driven prestige (read: "cult") comedies, popularity is popularity. Show me a network that says it doesn’t want a Top 10 berth for even its hippest 18-to-49 comedy and I’ll show you a network that’s fooling itself.

146 comedies. 146 half-hour sitcoms.

(And don’t get me started on the illusory and genre-killing "re-definition" of what a comedy is. Attention Emmy members: A comedy is a half-hour show. A drama is an hour-long show, unless it’s "Adam-12." "Desperate Housewives" is a drama. "Ugly Betty" is a drama. "Monk" is a drama. As were "Moonlighting" and "Eight Is Enough" and a host of other unusual or unconventional 60-minute series before them. That an hour-long show is light-hearted or features eccentric leads or quirky situations or even makes you laugh out loud does not make it a comedy. Was "Columbo" a comedy? "St. Elsewhere?" "Scarecrow and Mrs. King?" "Northern Exposure?" Were its writers writing sitcoms? Conversely, some of the saddest moments in the history of TV writing came in episodes of "M*A*S*H" ("Dreams" or "Heal Thyself" or the final episode). Was "M*A*S*H" a drama? How about the landmark "My Name Is Alex" episode of "Family Ties" that won an Emmy for acting and writing? Few laughs there; heavy emotion. Was that a drama?)

Of those 146 comedies introduced since 1972 that landed in the Nielsen Top 25, just 13 were single-camera/non-traditional sitcoms: "Bridget Loves Bernie," "The Partridge Family," "The Little People," "M*A*S*H," "Happy Days" (which started off as a single-camera sitcom then went multi-camera in its third season—also when its ratings soared, if that means anything to anyone), "Good Heavens," "House Calls, "ALF," "The Wonder Years," Doogie Howser, M.D.," "King of the Hill," "Baby Bob" and "Scrubs." Thirteen out of 146; lousy odds.

Even lousier: Of those 13, just one ended up a syndicate-able, money-printing, long-lasting home run—"M*A*S*H." (Again, I discount "Happy Days" from the mix because it only became a smash hit once it switched to the multi-camera format in 1975.)

One out of 146 comedies in 35 years.

I love and respect all forms of well-written, well-executed, well-envisioned comedy—of whatever length. As I do its writers. I thought "Frank’s Place" was fairly brilliant. I loved "The Wonder Years" and "Malcolm in the Middle" and "Arrested Development." I even like "The Office" and, on occasion, "30 Rock"—although you don’t have to have a memory that stretches back to NBC’s failed 1969-70 "Bracken’s World" to guess the number of mass-appeal hit TV shows on TV about the workings of the TV business. (Hint: It’s close to zero.) And this year "Aliens in America" and "Samantha Who?" have stood out (although we’ll see if the latter show morphs into "Samantha What?" without its powerful lead-in).

But unlike the broad-appeal soundstage single-cameras of old (from "The Beverly Hillbillies" to "Julia" and "The Brady Bunch"), these self-impressed half-hours of today are art-house releases in a multiplex world. And TV still is (or can and should be) that multiplex world.

To pursue one single-camera effort after another in search of the next "Friends" or "Everybody Loves Raymond" or "Seinfeld" or "Cheers" is not just folly, it’s destructive: It’s rendering the live-audience comedy obsolete when its power to collect mass eyeballs is needed more than ever. (Funny how those and other reruns continue to prosper and draw audiences off-network, though, what with the "traditional" sitcom being declared dead and "viewers wanting other options for comedy.") Last I heard, the powers-that-be at each of the networks weren’t saying to themselves: "If only we had another ‘Scrubs’" or "Get me our ‘Earl.’"

The traditional TV comedy can survive, and prime-time can again be a place to find collective belly laughs and characters to grow old with long into syndication if we all take a page from history and judge what will work based on what has.

Until then, the sitcom doesn’t seem to be much of a laughing matter.

Jim McKairnes, a TV consultant and writer, was formerly executive VP of programming at Discovery and senior VP of scheduling at CBS.

From Making Great Television: Four Essential Ingredients by Dee LaDuke:

David Hyde Pierce knows about the great unknown that lies ahead for a lead actor in a television series. " I think as an Actor coming from the theater, the hardest thing to get used to is that television is open ended and you don't know. When you're doing a play, it is different every night because it's a different audience but it's the same words and the same situation. You always know that you're going to end up killing the butler in the third act. On Frasier, especially in the first or second year, I'd have a great episode where I would do a lot and then the next week I would only have one scene and I would find I was depressed. I realized that the character's life was becoming my life and he had nothing to do. The blessing of having great writers in eleven years is I never thought much about where I wanted the character to go. I was so genuinely and delightfully surprised by where the character was going.

Patricia Richardson (“Strong Medicine,” “Home Improvement,” Ulee’s Gold) shared some great advice exclusively for our readers:

"We all rely on process so much. After doing three sitcoms (plus a pilot that never made it out of the gate) even before all those years on “Home Improvement,” it seems to me that writers and actors have completely different processes.

Writers have to write jokes. They can’t worry about character development and plot as much as they do about laughs per page. They face all kinds of obstacles to the creative process particularly when a show runs for a long time (at two-plots per show, fifty plots a year) and especially with the “suits” from the network on their butts about laughs, more laughs, bigger laughs all the time. It’s not that the executives aren’t great and funny and witty and even smart. But they’ve lost their minds along with everyone else because doing comedy is so hard.

As for actors: If we say a line just to get a laugh, if we try to “hit the ball out of the park,” as the writers like to say, we almost certainly won’t. An actor has to stay focused on the real intention of the character at every moment. What’s the action, the motivation, the “verb” behind the scene? In comedy, the actor takes that motivation and “raises the stakes,” in actor-speak, to make it even more important. That’s where the humor is. That’s what makes jokes work.

Sometimes, though, the story disappears in the joke parade which is why actors always hope they’re working with writers who like to collaborate, who will listen when you point out that the story is lost and who will want to figure out a way to get it back. The truth is, one of the reasons I’m avoiding television comedy these days is that it’s so damn hard."

Here are some fascinating opinions from Daily Variety:

They polled a quintet of Emmy winning and/or nominated writers. Here are the highlights.

What informs your humor, the personal or the external, and why?
Gail Parent answered: "Mary Tyler Moore" and "Tracey Takes On": The personal. I can't write anything that I haven't experienced, unfortunately. I admire people who can write sketches about Martians. I can't.

Peter Tolan answered: "The Larry Sanders Show" and "Rescue Me," the new Denis Leary series: I think it's probably the personal, the way I react to the world. On "The Larry Sanders Show" we created characters who are also human beings, who are flawed but functioning- flawed people behaving poorly. That seems to be where I come from."

Is there such a thing as writing above your audience?
Peter Tolan answered: ...I think you always have to write to your best possible audience.

Do you consider your humor grounded in everyday reality or is exaggeration a necessary evil?
Ben Karlin answered: It's grounded in reality but we defintitely exaggerate and tailor facts to fit a comedic point of view.

Jenji Kohan answered: I think really funny, funny stuff comes from exaggeration. .. Exaggeration is its own artform in a way.

What current show other than the one you work on do you admire?
Parent answered: "Two and a Half Men"
Micheal Patrick King answered: "South Park"

What vintage show was your favorite growing up?
Karlin liked "It's Your Move" with Jason Bateman. King sited "The MaryTyler Moore Show" "All In The Family." Kohan was a "Brady Bunch" fan. Parent : "Dick Van Dyke Show."
Tolan's answer was a classic in itself: "The Dick Van Dyke Show" becasue I really wanted to have that job where you went to the office and wrote jokes and then went home and did it with Mary Tyler Moore.