Watch TV to Write Better

Recommendations

“Literary gossip, unsolicited advice, sex tips” was my OG idea for Tragedy Plus Time.

I don’t have any (good) literary gossip or (good) sex tips right now, but I have unsolicited advice: watch more TV to write funnier.

Watching TV is writing if you do it right.

I was raised by television. Every day I watched half-hour comedies like The Simpsons, Married with Children, Seinfeld, Get Smart, Bewitched, etc. I didn’t know it, but I was training my taste.

If you want to be funny and to write better, then binge comedy. Be a fan and a nerd and a scholar. Be obsessed. Cultivate good taste. Then throw it in everyone’s face.

Unsolicited homework assignment: Watch TV 1-10 hours every day. Write down the jokes, phrases, and words that make you laugh. Taking notes will upgrade your powers of observation, enlarge your vocabulary, punch up your sad writing, and more stuff, I don’t know—just do as I say, it’s my birthday month.

Here’s an incomplete list of recommendations. A good writer will watch half; a great writer will watch everything twice.

*tragicomic

• 30 Rock (Hulu)

• A Black Lady Sketch Show (Max)

• Abbott Elementary (Hulu)

• After Life* (Netflix)

• Am I Being Unreasonable?* (Hulu)

• Angie Tribeca (Max)

• Another Period (Comedy Central)

• Arrested Development (Netflix)

• Astronomy Club (sketch) (Netflix)

• Atlanta* (Hulu)

• Baroness von Sketch Show

• Beef* (Netflix)

• Blockbuster (Netflix)

• Bob’s Burgers (Hulu)

• BoJack Horseman* (Netflix)

• Broad City (Hulu)

• Brooklyn Nine-Nine (Peacock)

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer*

• Catastrophe (Amazon)

• The Characters (Netflix)

• Check It Out! with Dr. Steve Brule (Max)

• Crazy Ex-Girlfriend* (Netflix)

• Chewing Gum (Max)

• Crashing* (Netflix)

• Dead to Me* (Netflix)

• Deadloch* (Amazon)

• Desus & Mero (Showtime)

• Detroiters (Comedy Central)

• Difficult People (Hulu)

• Don’t Trust the B— in Apt. 23 (Hulu)

• The Dutchess* (Netflix)

• The End of the Fucking World* (Netflix)

• Feel Good* (Netflix)

• Fleabag* (Amazon)

• Flight of the Conchords (Max)

• Full Frontal with Samantha Bee

• Future Man (Hulu)

• Ghosts (UK and US, in this order) (Max and CBS/Paramount+, in this order)

• Girls5Eva (Peacock)

• The Good Place (Netflix)

• The Great (Hulu)

• Great News (Netflix)

• The Great North (Hulu)

• The Grinder (Netflix)

• Hacks* (Max)

• Happy Endings (Roku)

• Harlem (Amazon)

• I May Destroy You* (Max)

• The Mindy Project (I have complicated thoughts) (Netflix)

• I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson (Netflix)

• Inside Amy Schumer (satire) (Paramount+)

• The IT Crowd (Netflix)

• Jury Duty (Netflix)

• Key & Peele (Netflix)

• Lady Dynamite* (Netflix)

• The Larry Sanders Show (Max)

• Last Week Tonight (Max)

• Life & Beth* (Hulu)

• Los Espookys (Max)

• Man Seeking Woman

• The Muppets (TV series) (Disney+)

• Nathan for You (Max)

• Never Have I Ever* (Netflix)

• New Girl (Netflix)

• Nora from Queens (Max)

• The Office (The Superfan Episodes) (Peacock)

• One Mississippi* (Amazon)

• Only Murders in the Building (Hulu)

• Other Space (YouTube)

• The Other Two (Max)

• Our Flag Means Death (Max)

• Parks & Recreation

• Party Down (Starz)

• Pen15 (Hulu)

• Pitch Perfect: Bumper in Berlin (Peacock)

• Playing House (Roku)

• Portlandia (parody) (AMC+)

• Reservation Dogs* (Hulu)

• Robbie (Comedy Central)

• Russian Doll, season one* (Netflix)

• Santa Clarita Diet* (Netflix)

• Saved by the Bell (the reboot) (Peacock)

• Schitt’s Creek (Hulu)

• Search Party (Max)

• Sex Education* (Netflix)

• The Sex Lives of College Girls (Max)

• Shrill (Hulu)

• The Simpsons

• Somebody Somewhere* (Max)

• SMILF* (Showtime)

• Sort Of* (Max)

• Stath Lets Flats (Max)

• Ted Lasso, season one* (Apple TV)

• Toast of London (Netflix)

• The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt* (Netflix)

• Veep (Max)

• We Are Lady Parts (Peacock)

• What We Do in the Shadows (Hulu)

• You’re the Worst* (Hulu)

• Zach Stone Is Gonna Be Famous (Netflix)

• Ziwe (satire) (Showtime)

What am I missing?

Note: I support the WGA writers and SAG-AFTRA actors on strike. For every episode you watch, maybe donate $1 to mutual aid funds.

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Smash:

Smash:

ICYMI: I’m Elissa Bassist—a humor writer, a humor editor, a humor teacher, a Netflix subscriber, and an ex-girlfriend. I teach short conceptual humor/satire writing, funny personal essays, tragicomic memoir, emotional emails, and that’s it. I teach in person and online at The New School, 92NY, Lighthouse Writers Workshop, Writing Workshops, Pandemic University, and elsewhere. I founded and still edit the “Funny Women” column on The Rumpus, and I wrote the award-deserving book Hysterical. I am probably my therapist’s favorite.

Here’s what I look like. Click to sign up for my face/August seminar.

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