Few screenwriters can concentrate for more than a few hours, let alone sustain a career in Hollywood for over 30 years. But the blockbuster comedy writing team of Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel has been making television and film audiences laugh for decades. Starting with Happy Days, they followed actor-turned-director Ron Howard into feature films like Night Shift, Splash, Gung Ho, Parenthood, and Edtv. In total, Ganz and Mandel have written an astonishing 18 produced feature screenplays, including City Slickers, A League of Their Own, Mr. Saturday Night, Forget Paris, Where the Heart Is, Robots, and Fever Pitch, while also maintaining a “secret career” of un-credited rewrites on studio comedies. Listen in as these Bronx-born, old-school funnymen explain how to suckerpunch viewers with jokes they never see coming, why writing out loud is the best way to find your voice, how to avoid research, and when to build a scene around a housewife with an axe.
