That's what veteran sitcom writer Ken Levine (right) wonders on his blog; in fact, he wondered about that so much, he decided to write a little scene that would be typical of a Sorkin-written baseball program. Let's just say that involves a meeting on the mound between the manager and a pitcher named Danny (there's always a Danny in a Sorkin show, according to Levine) that lasts a lot longer than it should and involves lots of topics that are much more esoteric than whether to throw the next hitter a curveball or a fastball.Levine knows where he's coming from with both comedy and baseball. As Bob Sassone has pointed out many times, Levine has worked on many classic sitcoms in his career (M*A*S*H, Cheers, Frasier, etc.), but he was also a play-by-play broadcaster for the Orioles, Mariners, and Padres (comedy writer and a baseball broadcaster... my two dream careers). One day, he should combine those careers and make a series about the lives of a major league team's broadcasters. I'm sure he'd make it less inside and self-important than Sorkin made Studio 60, know what I mean?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
10-28-2006 @ 12:53PM
David said...
Well it would have to be better than Studio 60, and doesn't have to be funny!
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10-28-2006 @ 1:05PM
Cinesister said...
I bet Sorkin would write a great show about baseball, I remember from Sports Night days he really seemed to have a great love of baseball that came through whenever he wrote about it.
Levine's right about the Danny thing though. I think it's pretty common knowledge by now that Sorkin likes to use the same names in his shows and movies. It's not exactly a remarkable observation.
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10-29-2006 @ 3:14PM
kewo said...
a lot of great writers do that. That's because the names arent important. Alfred Bester used to grab his names from the phonebook.
Its the ideas and the the character concepts that are the most important part. The stuff that make you think. Because there's enough popcorn entertainment out there. Maybe S60 is preachy. And maybe you frakin watch too much reality tv.
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10-28-2006 @ 4:24PM
Grim said...
It is a very funny article, but it is a parody, which means it takes everything Sorkin does and emphasizes it to the Nth degree.
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10-28-2006 @ 4:33PM
David said...
I think it would be even better if he wrote about Soccer! Noow that would be funny because he seems to so love soccer. :)
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