Sitcom Terminology

[hatgirl]

Bill Prady is an executive producer on one of My Favourite Things, the sitcom The Big Bang Theory. We have a deep and meaningful relationship (i.e. I follow him on Twitter). Yesterday, he tweeted a series of TV Writers' Room vocab lessons:

• A story, the main story of the episode; B story, the secondary story; runner, smaller than a story, it "runs" through the ep.
• The final (hopefully strong) joke in a scene is the blow or the button.
• Taken from music, a joke or a few off-topic lines before the scene proper begins is a downbeat.
• The line before a joke is the setup. If the setup is phrased unnaturally to force you to the joke, it is bent and no good.
• Exposition (facts the audience needs to know to follow the story) is called pipe. A scene full of it is too pipey. Biggest mistake made when laying pipe: characters telling each other things they already know just because you need the audience to hear it. Classically bad setup for pipe: "Hey, tell me again why we're doing this."
• From the musician's term for a bad note, a hackneyed or overused joke is a clam. E.g. Snuggie jokes are now clams.
• List jokes often follow the rule of 3 -- 2 items to establish the premise, a third to (hopefully in a funny way) break it. "It was a cheap hotel. You had to supply your own sheets, towels and roof" (Rule of Three structure)

Jargon makes me happy...

Comments

[peadarog.livejournal.com]

Cool! I had no idea they were so technical about it, but it makes sense. When you write by yourself, you don't need terminology for what you do, although it does exist. In fact, we could create a dictionary for writers moving from one area of expertise to the other:
Infodump=Pipe
"Hey, tell me again..."="As you know, professor..." etc.
I particularly like 'A' story and 'B' story.

[hatgirl.livejournal.com]

Hmm... I wonder if literature students have equivalent terms? I must go catch one and ask.