I think that that the main problem with a lot of social media stuff in terms of ratings is it's a very skewed motivation.

Sometimes you've got to just commit to the idea and press forward and trust that you made the right decision.

With mockumentaries, the conceit is that the characters are being interviewed, so you can start a scene and cut to a character looking at the camera and saying, "I'm working on this project," instead of having to figure out ways for people to talk naturally about what they're doing. You see this problem in pilots - people end up explaining things to each other that they'd never explain in real life.

I love crazy names. It comes right from Monty Python and Woody Allen - nothing in the world makes me giggle more than a funny name. It became a thing I started doing when I wrote. If a person came into a store and said, "How much is this apple?" that person would have an insane name.

My main qualm about TV criticism has been when people review TV the way they review movies. They watch the pilot, and write a definitive review of the show. The obvious analogy is that you don't read the first eight pages of a book and then talk about whether the book works or not. People want so desperately in this day and age to declare something thumbs-up or thumbs-down that they declare it immediately.

I would far rather add a character who generates strong feelings than someone who just kind of floats along, generating medium-warmth smiles of gentle affirmation.

My favorite sitcom of all time is 'Cheers.' That's a perfect example of how, like, people made fun of Cliff, but you never got the sense that they didn't like Cliff.