MarkTreitel.com

Alyson Hannigan -- where are you?

I heard through an actor friend that Alyson Hannigan is a HUGE FAN of Situation Comedy and SPERM DONOR. (She went off how much she liked our sitcom recently).

If anyone can contact her -- tell her we appreciate it and we'd send her a copy!

Sperm Donor not on list for Worst Prime Time Shows for Prime Time Viewing

I'm happy to announce that our sitcom "Sperm Donor" is not on the Parents Television Council's list of the worst Prime-Time shows for family viewing.

Will & Grace performed live on Sperm Donor Set

Will & Grace had their first live performance on the same set of Sperm Donor.

Though we got even more laughs, we didn't have NBC's multi-million dollar publicity machine behind our show. Oh well.

Letters

I received many email from people very upset about the outcome of "Situation: Comedy".  Here are a few:

Hello Mark and Shoe,

My friends and I are so disappointed that "Sperm Donor" was not chosen the winner from "Situation: Comedy."  Your pilot was so superior to "Stephen's Life" that there really was not a contest. Blame the voting (more about that below).  You should both be very happy with the results and I am sure that TV executives out there will take notice of your efforts.

I am really unhappy with how the voting was handled.  I am sure there were many people watching tonight who had no idea that the voting had closed the previous week.  Although I voted on AOL, many people seemed to be under the impression that there would be a chance to vote after your pilots were shown on BRAVO.  After all, who wants to watch a postage-stamp window for 15 minutes?  Furthermore, not everyone has a broadband connection to make the streaming video even viable.  Nowhere that I saw in last week's episode did BRAVO state that voting was closing after episode 7.  The voting procedures were mishandled and misguided by BRAVO, AOL and the producers.  The pilots should have been screened last week with an announcement that voting was closing.  This week's episode should have been a wrap-up and should have included comments/interviews with the directors, actors and NBC executives.  I am shocked by the amateur way in which "Situation: Comedy" was produced.

"Situation: Comedy" finale, finally

99.9999% of America polled said they didn't know that Bravo actually broadcasted at 7 PM on Fridays, nor had they heard of "Situation: Comedy". Well, for the other .0001%, watch the finale of "Situation: Comedy" tonight, the Sperm Donor pilot and Shoe's hair.

Also, tonight is as close you're ever going to get to a Situaiton: Comedy marathon, with episode 106 starting at 5 PM, Episode 107 at 6 PM and Episode 108 at 7 PM. Shoe and I will be presenting Episode 103 in Spanish on the corner of Melrose and LaBrea at 8 PM.

Sperm Donor Tape Night Photos

I've had these on my iPhoto for months, now finally, photos from "Sperm Donor" tape night, from December, 2005, can be shown. (Top left of blog)
I'll get around to labelling all the photos soon enough.

This is my favorite photo of the cast, taken at the "wrap party". Everyone was coming off a great night.

(Lto R, Richie Keen "Dalton", Lauren Schaffel "Brooke", David DeLuise "Clyde", Maggie Wheeler "Kaitlyn").

Thank You

Dear all Marktreitel.com viewers, Sperm Donor voters & viewers,

Thank you so much for all of your kind words and support.

Ever since Sperm Donor went online last week, Shoe and I have gotten hundreds of e-mails and phone calls of congratulations, warm wishes and tremendous compliments and kudos I apologize if I could not respond indepth to everyone, but I am honored and grateful of the outpouring of support from friends, renewed acquaintenances, and even total strangers. There was nothing sweeter than receiving a kind word from people of various stages of my life, who knew that I always wanted to write sitcoms, but for the first time, could not only see a product of my work -- but now had the personal knowledge that I have accomplished my lifelong dreams.

I was especially grateful to all the individuals who forwarded our vote campaign to hundreds of their friends. This was the internet in action -- and it was a total trip to get forwarded e-mails from random people saying that their friends loved our show and were new fans of Sperm Donor.

The email campaign was a phenomenal effort on everyone's part and I know I can speak for Shoe when I say, that not matter what the outcome of the contest, you have our deepest gratitude.



People ask me now, what advice do I have for new writers. I give them the following words of advice:

1. Never stop beleiving in yourself.
2. Make sure you have a day job to support yourself.
3. Go back in time and become the son of someone famous.

We feel honored that we made it this far, especially when we realize how hard it is to get anything produced without knowing someone. And although my father might look like Bob Hope, he wasn't. Shoe and I got where we are because of hard work, not because we knew a single person.


Whatever the outcome of the contest, this is just the beginning of our writing careers.

Stay tuned for chapter two...

------------------

Don't forget to watch the last two episodes of Situation: Comedy, this friday night  at 7-8 PM for an episode about tape night and next week, Sept. 9th, when they announce the winner. Make sure you Tivo so you can show the episodes to your friends.

I'm telling you next week's episode is Must See TV, just to see Shoe's hair.

News: Sperm Donor Meets Kids

Who says sitcoms aren't real?

CBS Morning Show: Anonymous Sperm Donor Meets Kids

(CBS) For decades, sperm donors have been willing to help infertile couples have children, as long as their identities remained a secret. But what happens if the donor wants to meet his offspring?

CBS News Correspondent Susan McGinnis found out for The Early Show. She went to Somerset, Mass., to meet a single mom and the anonymous donor her two kids now call "Dad."

"They knew that they didn't have a dad in their family and that was OK with them," Raechel McGhee says about her children.

Until recently, Aaron and Leah McGhee had never met their father and, what's more, neither had their mother.

"If anybody said, 'Where is your daddy?' They would just look at the person and say: 'We don't have a daddy in our family," Raechel McGhee says. "We have a donor.'"

Blogcritics.com interviews Mark Treitel

Blogcritics.org which gets over 50,000 hits a day, interviewed me.

Interview: Situation: Comedy Star and The Sperm Donor Co-Creator Mark Treitel

Posted by Eric Berlin on August 30, 2005 06:14 PM

For much of the spring, I heralded Bravo's Project Greenlight as the best show on television. Situation: Comedy, its successor of sorts, comes very close to that lofty apogee. Created by Sean Hayes of Will & Grace fame and Todd Milliner, Situation: Comedy goes behind the scenes to examine the fun and terror of creating a sitcom pilot.

Mark Treitel and his longtime writing partner Shoe Schuster, co-creators of The Sperm Donor, were selected from over 10,000 applicants to be filmed during the process of writing, re-writing, getting castigated during States of the Union, and occasionally helping to help out with casting, set design, and post-production. To up the ante even further, Treitel and Schuster face off against another team of aspiring sitcom writers (David Lampson and Andrew Leeds, co-creators of Stephen's Life). The winning team will receive a cash prize, talent agents, and a theoretical shot at sitcom immortality.

I spoke with Mark about the pressures of going through the reality show wringer while trying to pound out a top-notch sitcom pilot under a tight deadline. We also found time to get into such topics as the makings of a great sitcom, the real reality of reality shows, and a hypothetical Happy Days of the future.

Eric Berlin: What was being on a reality show like, and how did you feel about the editing process later on while watching yourself on the television?

Mark Treitel: [Laughs] For everyone watching reality shows, I would point to the fact that the WGA [Writers Guild of America] this week is basically suing reality show producers, saying there are "reality writers."
You have to know what you're in for going in. My writing partner Shoe Schuster and I are actually avid reality fans, so we were ready to expect anything. When we came in to pitch to Stan and Max [Executive Producers Stan Zimmerman and Maxine Lapiduss] that first day, which you see on Episode One, Shoe and I were expecting anything, like there might be little kids sitting there and we would have to pitch to them like they were the NBC network executives.
You just don't know. And you sign away everything, like this giant ironclad contract that basically signs away all of your rights.

Click here for the full aritcle by Eric Berlin.

Shillin' For Sperm -- Updated Tuesday (8/30/2005)

Here's my P.O.F.O.S. - Post of Friends of Sperm

Email me if you want to be a POFOS!

• Rickey.org (8/30/2005)
• Carolyn Castiglia - Undiscovered Superstar (8/30/2005)  
• Planet Bex    
• Fun Joel  
• Shalla Goes Hollywood
• My Urban Kvetch
• The View From Here (PLUS PODCAST)
• The Last Best Place
• All About E
• The Berkshire Blog