Michael Schur
Michael Schur
Michael Herbert Schuris an American television producer and writer, best known for his work on the NBC comedy series The Office and Parks and Recreation, the latter of which he co-created along with Greg Daniels. He also co-created the FOX comedy series Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Schur is also known for his small role on The Office as Mose Schrute, the cousin of Dwight Schrute...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScreenwriter
Date of Birth29 October 1975
CityAnn Arbor, MI
CountryUnited States of America
You should be nice to people because it's better to be nice to people than mean to people, not because you think there's something in it for you.
I think that that the main problem with a lot of social media stuff in terms of ratings is it's a very skewed motivation.
I think if you're too concerned with being cool or hip or liked, you can't really make good TV because sincerity and coolness are opposites.
You can't just sit around in leopard-print slippers and drink champagne all day and think everything's gonna work out somehow.
People think of taxes as money just being robbed from you. They don't consider the benefits of paying taxes. The benefits that they get and also the benefit of just being a part of a large group of people: a town, or a city, or a country, or a society that allegedly should stand together and all try to help each other.
Society is completely unreasonable. People want everything and want to pay for nothing. They panic if they think about their taxes being raised, but if their garbage collection is a day late they scream and yell.
If a show ever tries to be cool, then it's going to be doing something wrong.
When someone pitches a joke for a character that is just perfect, and you can imagine that actor reading that line at your table read or on the set, it's like the sound of a snap snapping into place.
The best episodes of 'The West Wing' that dealt with policy and stuff, in my opinion, were the ones where they were in the middle of a crisis, and they were trying to figure out how to solve problems.
I personally think the best ideas for TV shows - at least comedies - are very low-fi ideas. High concepts often sell pitches in movies and TV, but, especially in TV when you're talking about hopefully a 100 or 150 episode proposition, those concepts just burn off, and then you're stuck with nothing.
I believe in the importance of sincerity and emotion and honesty in TV, even when it's goofy comedy.
What's important on a comedy show, or any show, is that some stories have to go somewhere. There have to be ends to the beginnings and middles you create. But sometimes it's like a way station on the highway, then the actual thing doesn't have to be this giant, climactic, life-changing, game-changing thing.
Topical-sketch writing were incredibly rational and well reasoned: don't do a joke if the subject doesn't deserve it. An ad hominem attack on someone might get you a cheap laugh, but it doesn't earn you any long-term trust. The biggest rule was: you attack whoever's in power. Don't bring your personal bias to the table.
In a weird way, it's not different from any other kind of joke-telling. You make those calculations about jokes about celebrities: is this a fair hit or not? The stakes were higher because the whole world was crumbling around us, but in terms of joke-telling, it's all about feel.