Earlier, Drew mentioned the harrowing, unstable process of writing for TV. It is a blast if you get hired. If the show goes to series and you are staffed, you are now making around $200K minimum on a union show. That is more money than my family has made in generations. I would fill up my bathtub and swim in that money, never to worry again! (I am not a sound financial planner.)
But there is a number of roadblocks before you even are ALLOWED to submit for a job that will likely amount to nothing. Submissions are almost always by request. An executive producer will solicit agents and managers for packets from their writers. Getting an agent or a manager who can submit you is usually the result of doing stand-up or improv or sketch in rancid bars for years until someone notices you and believes you may be capable of generating ideas that could make them money.
Then, the manager or agent sends packets for which they'd like you to submit. Below is my most recent submission. This was for the second round of the Charlie Sheen Roast on Comedy Central. I doubt I got hired, because the special is supposed to film in three weeks and this was submitted about a month ago, in the midst of the Casey Anthony madness, as you can tell by at least one of the jokes.
My first submission was what I imagined a lot of their submissions looked like. "You're so self-destructive, Hollywood dead pools still give better odds to Elizabeth Taylor for being alive 2012."
For the second round, my manager wanted something different. I decided to roast myself at 13 years old. I'm pictured at right.
Red Delicious Roast
• Wow. They should call you ‘Curves' cause you look like a 53 year old Mom trying to get in shape.
• I never knew Sasquatch's last name was O'Hanlon.
• This is what happens if 200,000 freckles formed a flash mob.
• Things this big and this red always vote Republican.
• This kid single-handedly caused the Potato Famine.
• A lot of kids try to suck their own dicks. But you may be the only one who could tittyfuck himself.
• Congratulations on all those pubes coming in. Now your groin officially looks like the carpet at a Howard Johnson.
• When you look down while masturbating, does it feel like you're choking Carrot Top?
• Where are you running to in this picture? Was there a Tastykake truck crash on I-76?
• Did you lose your shirt or did your mom accidentally slip it over the duvet again?
• You better put your shirt back on or Tom Arnold is gonna get a nostalgia boner.
• How cool was it being the first kid in junior high to get a breast reduction?
• If you ever find yourself at a bull fight you, good sir, are fucked.
• Laugh all you like. But this kid is the Mark Zuckerberg of "The Fleshlight."
• In high school you were voted "most likely to tilt something out of a vending machine".
• Even your dick has freckles.
• Your nipples look like Irish pepperonis.
• "Precious" seems different with red hair.
• You're so pale. I know your Mom was Irish but was your father a ghost?
• You're so pasty I bet your dick is a glue stick.
• You're beyond white, you're light blue. I think I can see your heart beat.
• I'm sure you get picked on a lot: by your brothers, by the kids at school… by the Sun.
• You'd think you'd be more popular. Just like Pamela Anderson, you're a natural C cup.
• I'm not sure if I can think of a crueler joke than the one God has already made here.
• Staring at this photo and trying to think of jokes is like staring at a tub of shit and trying to think of recipes.
• The CGI Jabba looks sooooo fake.
• It must be hard to avoid sunburn when the only way you can stand in the shade is if you're next to a zeppelin hangar.
• You could be the entire cast of Two and a Half Men, except they'd have to change the title to Ten and a Half Men With Cheese on Top.
• The only way I know this isn't a charging white rhino is because rhinos don't have freckles and also aren't this fat.
• I bet this jog didn't last long.
• Shouldn't have eaten your shirt, kid.
• You've got a big fat ass, kid. You've got more junk in your trunk than Casey Anthony.
Thanks to Austen Earl, Doogie Horner, Chip Chantry, Tommy Pope and John McKeever on this submission.