Dead Pilots Society

The MaxFunDrive is here and we have a very special episode for you. It’s Tails written by Riki Lindhome (Knives Out, Another Period) and Monica Padrick (Community, Central Park). Tails follows Erika, a woman in her late 30s, who despite the pressure she feels from the world around her, refuses to settle in any area of her life. It was set up at Fox with Universal TV, Paper Kite Productions and 3 Arts attached to produce.Our table read stars Riki Lindhome as Erika, Maria Bamford as Greta, Ron Funches as Cyrus/Man, Moshe Kasher as Guy/Adam, Mary Holland as Allison/Doctor/Sheila, Brian Huskey as Josh/Man 2, Kulap Vilaysack as Rachel/Haley, Malcolm Barrett as Kyle, Joy Osmanski as Darcy/Simone, Charley Koontz as Carson/Phone Voice/Executive/Thai Food Guy and Andrew Reich with stage directions.If you don’t know already, MaxFunDrive is the one time a year where we ask you to support our show by donating and becoming a MaxFun Member. All Maximum Fun podcasts are audience supported. That means that our audience directly support and make our show possible month after month. With your new or upgrading Max Fun membership, you’ll get access to all of our bonus content along with the entire library of Maximum Fun bonus content. There’s a whole bunch of membership tiers that get you all different kinds of gifts too!This year our bonus content includes all of the video from our table reads this past year along with TWO incredible Maximum Fun Crossover episodes.Our first crossover episode is with the hosts of Round Springfield, Allie Goertz and Julia Prescott. Round Springfield is a Simpsons-adjacent podcast where Allie and Julia interview writers, directors, showrunners, and voice-actors from the Simpsons-verse on their various paths to Springfield — failed pilots, other projects, and beyond. In our crossover, Ben, Andrew, Allie and Julia take a deep dive into the Simpsons pilot, they discuss the Simpson’s spec script that started Andrew’s career, inside scoop from the Friends writers room, and a general 90s nostalgia trip.Our second crossover episode is with John Moe and his MaxFun podcast Depresh Mode. John and Ben talk to writers Steven Canals (Pose), Paul R. Puri (Chicago Med), and Rachel Bloom (Crazy Ex-Girflriend) about mental health among writers and writing about mental health on TV. It’s an enlightening conversation about process for our process nerds!Get all of this bonus content for as little as $5 by going to https://maximumfun.org/joinTune in next week for our interview with Riki and Monica. Thanks for watching and supporting our show! Enjoy!For more Dead Pilots Society episodes and information about our live shows, please subscribe to the podcast!Make sure to like us on Facebook, follow us on Instagram, and Twitter, and visit our website at deadpilotssociety.com

In our episode today, we are feed swapping with Reading Glasses! Dead Pilots Society producer Ben Blacker chats with Brea Grant and Mallory O'Meara, hosts of MaxFun's Reading Glasses podcast. This is a podcast all about book culture and literary life. No matter how much you read, you can listen to this show! Brea Grant and Mallory O’Meara are joined this week by Rider Strong to discuss bad book habits. Is it okay to dog ear a library book? What about writing in a book you know you’re going to give away? Take a listen to find out their opinions on these hot button issues. Don't forget to check the boxes for Dead Pilots Society and Reading Glasses when you become a MaxFun member during Max Fun Drive! Max Fun Drive starts on May 3rd.Please help support the little shows that can and do!For just $5 you get all the bonus content Max Fun podcasts have to offer! You can also get gifts at a higher membership tears. More to come on that! Become a Max Fun Member here: https://maximumfun.org/join/Brea and Mallory share episode 161 with us: Book Criminals with Rider Strong!Rider Strong (Boy Meets World) from Literary Disco joins Brea and Mallory to confess from bad book habits!Read Glasses links to follow:Reading Glasses Facebook GroupReading Glasses Goodreads GroupAmazon Wish ListNewsletter Literary DiscoBooks Mentioned - Nothing to See Here by Kevin WilsonThe Third Rainbow Girl by Emma Copley EisenburgYour House Will Pay by Steph ChaFor more Dead Pilots Society episodes and information about our live shows, please subscribe to the podcast!Make sure to like us on Facebook, follow us on Instagram, and Twitter, and visit our website at deadpilotssociety.com

In this week’s episode, Andrew sits down with with the writers of last week’s pilot Next Door, Steven Cragg & Brian Bradley (MadTV, Happy Endings). In their interview, Steven and Brian talk about how they met on MadTV and what the writing process for that show was like. They tell war stories about past pilots, their experience show running Uncle Buck, and a helpful tip for mining material. Steven and Brian are examples of talented TV writers who’ve made a wonderful living selling and developing pilots. Lots of laughs in this one. Enjoy it!If you've been wanting to support Dead Pilots Society you'll finally get your chance! Our annual Max Fun Drive is coming up on May 3 - May 14. We're going to release some special content and bonus content for new and upgrading Maximum Fun members. We are a listener supported podcast so every little bit helps us to keep bringing you the best dead pilots around. More to come on that! Stay tuned!To get free shipping & 30% off your first Lumi Labs order… use code: DEADPILOTSSOCIETY and go to MicrodoseDrops.com/topusesGo to GreenChef.com/90deadpilots and use code 90deadpilots to get $90 off including free shipping! That’s GreenChef.com/90deadpilots and code 90deadpilots for $90 off!For more Dead Pilots Society episodes and information about our live shows, please subscribe to the podcast!Make sure to like us on Facebook, follow us on Instagram, and Twitter, and visit our website at deadpilotssociety.com

Our pilot this month is called Next Door written by Steven Cragg & Brian Bradley (Mad TV, Happy Endings). It’s a multi-generational comedy about three diverse suburban couples, all at crossroads in their lives, who bond while investigating the murder of the worst person in their neighborhood. It was set up at Fox with Sony Pictures TV and Stoller Global Solutions attached to produce. Our table read stars Jackie Tohn as Tommy, Okieriete Onaodowan as Brad, Edi Patterson as Margaret, Toni Trucks as Queisha, Rex Lee as Steven, Suzy Nakamura as Kim, Hudson Yang as Henry, Annie Savage as Headhunter/Cop/Geeky Guy/Man, Nick Wechsler as Jerry/Tattoo Guy, and Andrew Reich with stage directions. Tune in next week for our interview with Steven and Brian. Thanks for listening! Enjoy!Interested in getting free shipping & 30% off your first order of Lumi Labs Microdose Drops? Use code: DEADPILOTSSOCIETY.Purchase link here: https://www.lumicbd.com/topusescode: DEADPILOTSSOCIETYFor more Dead Pilots Society episodes and information about our live shows, please subscribe to the podcast!Make sure to like us on Facebook, follow us on Instagram, and Twitter, and visit our website at deadpilotssociety.com

This week’s episode is a special tribute to Jamie Tarses. An irreplaceable force in the television business, Jamie was the producer of shows such as Happy Endings, My Boys, Franklin and Bash, The Wilds, Men at Work, and the upcoming Mysterious Benedict Society. She was a tireless and fearless supporter of writers, and Andrew interviewed 16 writers who worked with her to talk about what Jamie meant to them. We invite you to listen to his edited conversations with Betsy Thomas, Adrian Wenner & Ethan Sandler, Phil Hay, Dana Calvo, Breckin Meyer, Kevin Falls, Bill Chais, Gabrielle Allan, Nate Reger & Mike Lisbe, Hilary Winston, Jonathan Groff, Amy B. Harris, Eric Gilliland, McCrae Dunlap, and Jay Chandrasekhar.

After months of tracking Tessa Coates’ pilot Primates, we were so happy to finally get it on the pod last week. If you haven’t listen to it yet, get on it! Andrew caught up with Tessa in this week’s episode to discuss the rollercoaster ride her pilot went on in the development process. She talked about her experience of learning how to write a pilot on the spot. What it was like to work with Greg Daniels (The Office, King of The Hill) and a helpful tip on how to make your characters come alive. Enjoy this one and thanks for listening!For more Dead Pilots Society episodes and information about our live shows, please subscribe to the podcast!Make sure to like us on Facebook, follow us on Instagram, and Twitter, and visit our website at deadpilotssociety.com

This month we bring you a pilot that was consumed in the fires of Quibi's epic flame-out! The pilot is Primates by Tessa Coates. Tessa is a British writer, performer, journalist, and comedian. Primates is based on her debut solo show which sold out its entire run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and ran at the Soho Theatre to even more sell-out audiences. After Soho, Tessa performed her show around Los Angeles, and then sold it in a competitive situation to ABC Studios with Greg Daniels (The Office, King of the Hill) attached to executive produce. After a round of development at ABC, the project moved to Quibi, and, well, you know how that ended. Primates centers around Tessa, a hapless primatologist who tries to navigate love, life, and friendship, one biology lesson at a time. Primates stars Tessa Coates as Tessa, Maria Bamford as The Professor, Lolly Adefope as Kat, Joel Kim Booster as Anthony, Nick Mohammed as Dean Gaffney, Jon Rudnitsky as Jamie, Moujan Zolfaghari as Very First Bug/Embarrassed Female/Sandrine/Other Uber Pool Passenger/Juliette, Hal Lublin as Chimpanzee/Wright Brothers/Steve Ballmer/John The Uber Driver/Director/Freud/ Mark Gagliardi as Schrodinger/Uber Passenger/Buzz Aldrin/Wright Brothers/Cave Man and Andrew Reich with stage directions. Enjoy it!For more Dead Pilots Society episodes and information about our live shows, please subscribe to the podcast!Make sure to like us on Facebook, follow us on Instagram, and Twitter, and visit our website at deadpilotssociety.com

We hope you enjoyed last week’s table read of Space Bound written by Golden Globe-nominated writer/director of Promising Young Woman, Emerald Fennell. We caught up with Emerald in this week’s episode to discuss her pilot and her writing process. She talked about the importance of writing redeeming characters in comedies and why she prefers writing on spec versus pitching. A lesson in attaching producers to a project and a highly anticipated dive into the space world of Beta Complex 622. If you're afraid of spoilers, you should definitely listen to the table read before this interview. But either way, enjoy Andrew's conversation with Emerald Fennell. Thanks for listening!For more Dead Pilots Society episodes and information about our live shows, please subscribe to the podcast! Make sure to follow us on Instagram and Twitter, and visit our website at deadpilotssociety.com

Welcome to the first episode in our new format! We are splitting up the table reads and writer interviews into separate episodes. Let us know what you think! We are starting the new format with what we think is one of our all-time best episodes. It’s a pilot from the Golden Globe-nominated writer/director of Promising Young Woman, Emerald Fennell. Emerald was also the showrunner of Season Two of Killing Eve, and her acting credits include Call the Midwife and The Crown. Her pilot is called Space Bound, it follows an alien who goes on an intergalactic coffee run and finds herself stranded on “the worst planet in the universe”: Earth. A group of eccentric friends takes her in and she discovers she might actually be the most functional person in the world.The cast for this one is out of this world! It stars academy award nominee Carey Mulligan as G456, Sam Richardson as Dan, academy award nominee Richard E. Grant as The Overlord,  Max Greenfield as Phil, Emmy nominee Rainn Wilson as Tall Man, Craig Cackowski as Round Man, Lolly Adefope as Venetia, Ellen Wong as Karen, Marcus Bishop-Wright as Detective Fairbanks/Pervy Guy/Terrifying Man/Barista, Greg Santos as Obnoxious Guy/Bongo Drummer/Cop 2, Shulie Cowen as Fancy Dog Owner/Andie Macdowell/Cop 1/Anchor, and Andrew Reich with stage directions. Enjoy it!For more Dead Pilots Society episodes and information about our live shows, please subscribe to the podcast!Make sure to like us on Facebook, follow us on Instagram, and Twitter, and visit our website at deadpilotssociety.com

Happy New Year to all our listeners! We're taking a break from dead pilots this month to do something fun and different! At the beginning of the pandemic Jenny Jaffe (Big Hero 6: The Series),  asked the Twitter-verse to send her the names of fake TV shows that she could write the cold opens for. It was an incredible writing exercise and Jenny ended up writing over 60 cold opens!! We've selected 19 of them to read for you. They’re all tonally different and jump from genre to genre.  They’re silly and outrageous and we recorded them all with a great group of actors including: Kathleen Rose Perkins (Episodes), Maria Blasucci (Drunk History), Langston Kerman (The Boys, Insecure), Ashleigh Hairston (The Neighborhood), Oscar Montoya (Bless The Harts), and Andrew Reich with stage directions. In Andrew’s interview, Jenny goes in depth about her day to day writing process, and what a creatively freeing exercise this was. It’s a great listen if you’re trying to kick off 2021 inspired to create! Enjoy it!For more Dead Pilots Society episodes and information about our live shows, please subscribe to the podcast!Make sure to like us on Facebook, follow us on Instagram, and Twitter, and visit our website at deadpilotssociety.com