David's Reviews > Confessions of a Rogue TV Comedy Writer: Forty Years of Fame, Fun and Combat Inside The Writers Room.

Finished reading today “Confessions of a Rogue TV Comedy Writer: Forty Years of Fame, Fear and Combat Inside the Writers Room” by Ted Bergman (2019).

Bergman’s book is a fun read. As much (or more) an autobiography/memoir of his life (his various personal adventures, travails, and relationships) during the time that he was a Hollywood television sitcom writer as much as it is about his experiences working on those shows but he does commit chapters to telling those stories as well.

From his first television script he ever sold and saw produced (an episode of “The Munsters” (1964-1966), to writing set up lines for “Hollywood Squares” (1966-1980), Bergman’s big break came when he was hired as a staff writer on “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” (1967-1969).

From there, he next worked on “The Jonathan Winters Show” (1967-1969), “The Trouble With Tracy” (Canadian, 1970-1971), “Sanford and Son” (1972-1977), “What’s Happening!!” (1976-1979), “Sanford” (1980-1981), “Gimme a Break!” (1981-1987), “Rocky Road” (syndicated, 1985-1987), and (very briefly early on) “Full House” (1987-1995). Bergman also takes us through the various projects that never saw the light of day for various reasons (unsold pilots, stage plays, movie pitches, etc.).

In between tv writing jobs, his life with wife and fellow writer Kathy takes them around the world including buying a tropical island home that they end up living in for only a short time.

As I said, I enjoyed this book. A couple things I should mention. Bergman himself points out that there was another Ted Bergmann working in Hollywood (and sometimes at the very same production company) which oftentimes led to people confusing the two of them for each other. This other Ted Bergmann (1920-2014) was the head producer on “Three’s Company” (1977-1984). The Ted Bergman who wrote this book is not *that* Ted Bergmann.

The other thing is that this paperback edition (which has the look of a print-on-demand book) has to be one of the worst copy edited books that I’ve ever read. Words misspelled on just about every other page. Proper names misspelled. (On one page Pat Morita’s name is spelled “Pat Moria” several times.) “Newhart” is “Newheart”. And many, many instances of words missing apostrophes, such as “we’re talking about” being instead “were talking about”.

Also, there are no page numbers. So, to keep track of how far I was progressing each day I’d have to go by the table of contents. Except I soon realized that they missed a chapter in the table of contents so that wasn’t correct either.

All of that said, I still recommend this book for anyone interested in the writing of television sitcoms during the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. Those of my age and older will probably remember watching several of these series and enjoy reading about what things were like behind the scenes. Others will probably find Bergman writing style to be funny and his life outside of the writers room to be just as interesting.