‘Seinfeld’ writer Peter Mehlman talks about his new book, writing the ‘show about nothing’
One of the great minds behind Seinfeld has a new book, It Won’t Always Be This Great, and author/writer Peter Mehlman talked about the project and his time on “The Show About Nothing” with us on Dispatch Radio.
The nameless narrator takes the reader on a journey, which is both “funny” and has a “strong serving of poignancy” says Mehlman, when asked about his goal when putting pen to paper and scribe the book.
“I wanted to write a book that was like a genre unto itself and the genre for this book is a marriage that actually works. Who ever writes about a good marriage?” he explains.
He recounts his time writing for magazimes, the easy time writing the book (“writing full sentences”) and admits “I always thought of Seinfeld as a kind of like a detour for my career… this is more like my natural course.”
Before getting to Seinfeld, Peter reflects on his early days writing for Howard Cosell, the love and hate reaction to Howard and “It was really like being in the center of the sports universe.”
Peter then detailed how Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld organized the storylines, no group approach, “armed with a bunch of ideas for each character” – “I would always try to have ideas which were funny and provacative in one sentence.”
Peter Mehlman photo/Dana Patrick
Great moments and pop culture quotes were birthed out of Seinfeld and Peter’s role was pretty amazing. He talks about some of those moments, what worked, what didn’t, what surprised him, working with the cast, if writing for Julia Louis-Dreyfuss was easy or hard and the great moments from Kramer.
Check out the full interview below.
** My personal apologies to Peter for saying the name of his book incorrectly a couple of times during the interview — Brandon.
Order your copy of It Won’t Always Be This Great through Amazon — click here
Follow the Peter on Twitter: @petermehlman
Peter’s official website is HERE
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