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Interview with Rowby Goren (Laugh-In, TunnelVision, He-Man)

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Rowby Goren might not be a name everyone reading is intimately familiar with, but it only takes a cursory glance at his myriad of credits to realize it would be hard to find someone without at least a passing awareness of something he's worked on. Rowby is a veteran comedy writer whose work stretches from variety shows that range from classic to infamous ( Laugh-In, Pink Lady & Jeff ), beloved sitcoms ( Three's Company ) and iconic children's cartoons ( He-Man , Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ). I contacted Rowby to talk about his work on the 1976 sketch film TunnelVision , a film where he's listed with the somewhat dubious title of "creative consultant". I had to talk about that film for a podcast , and learned quickly that despite containing appearances from multiple notable future comedy stars (SNL's Chevy Chase, Laraine Newman, Al Franken & Tom Davis, SCTV's John Candy & Joe Flaherty; as well as Betty Thomas, Roger Bowen & Howard He
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Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda: The Pre-SNL Years of the Lonely Island (Part 3: Awesometown)

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  PILOT #3 :  Awesometown (May 2005) Okay, so the biggest issue with the last two pilots were they were coming from a group of guys who had only ever made short videos online before, and in turn weren't ready to stretch their sensibility into a coherent, sitcom-length narrative. So it's actually a pretty natural and logical conclusion that for their next go-around they'd eschew narrative entirely and pivot into sketch, where their history of only making 2-3 minute shorts would be an asset and not a hindrance.  It's worth noting that in between the last pilot and this one the guys started entering their shorts in Dan Harmon's famous Channel 101 festival, which is where they say they really started to hone in on their specific voice and style. If enough people (meaning literally anyone, I'm starving for feedback) like these articles, I'll go ahead and write an addendum piece going through the Channel 101 material. The other big thing they gained from Channel 1
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