There's no better satisfaction than writing. I feel that writing is the best and everything else comes with it
My partner after Fred Freeman was Jerry Belson. And Jerry Belson, after I was doing so well writing situation comedy, said, this is not good enough. We got to create our own shows. I said, but we're very happy doing this. No, no, no, you got to get your own show. So he made me - and he and I created our own shows. And we actually - everything we created failed. "Hey, Landlord" was our first show - 99th in the ratings. But imagine this - it's a great reflection on the years.
He convinced me - Fred Freeman - to go to Hollywood and we went to Hollywood to write sitcoms. Joey Bishop actually paid my way to Hollywood.
I really wasn't too interested in writing "Father Knows Best" and "Ozzie And Harriet." I thought they were pleasant enough, but it wasn't really what I wanted to do.
I was never ambitious. I just wanted to have quiet, calm, listen to public radio and say, hello, how are you? Sit down, rest. But I had an early partner named Fred Freeman, a wonderful writer who I met at Northwestern. And I thought we were doing very well with "Jack Paar," and he said, no, we got to go to Hollywood. We got to write sitcom. It's the coming thing.
I always remember writing a page of jokes for a comedian and handing it to him backstage at a club and he read it and then took his cigarette lighter and lit the page on...
