When you write about other worlds and unusual discoveries , you need a quick wit . And an ear for clever dialogue , that keep the story buzz along . So it should n’t come as a surprisal that many of science fiction and fantasy ’s greatest creators started out in comedy , including sitcoms .
Here are a XII of our favorite SF creators who start out out writing straight - up comedy .
body politic is well known as the creator of the Daleks , Doctor Who ’s most fearsome adversary — who are at their best when they ’re deadly serious and slaughter everyone in sight . ( The Daleks have been played for laughs , but that ’s normally a error . ) But Nation also created The Survivors and Blake ’s 7 , two classic dark SF show of the 1970s . in the beginning , though , Nation was a clowning author who knead for many of the greatest British comedians of the 1960s , including Tony Hancock . But when Hancock and Nation had a fall out , Nation remembered that he ’d just turned down an offering to publish for a new science fable serial — so he turned around and tilt a storey about these Dalek beast . It ’s amazing to watch “ The Dead Planet , ” which does n’t have a single laugh in it , sleep together Nation had just been writing clowning laugh .
While we ’re on the subject of classic Dr. Who , there ’s also one of the show ’s first script editor , whose role in Doctor Who ’s seniority is seldom receipt . Spooner took over running the show ’s book from the original hand editor , David Whitaker , and kept the show blend during a unmanageable time . He also tread in and plug the gap in Nation ’s larger-than-life Dalek write up “ The Daleks ’ Master Plan ” and wrote a few other stories , introducing the first Time Lord , other than the Doctor , that we meet in the serial : the Meddling Monk . Spooner ’s Who scripts run to be silly , and he was the one who decided the show ’s regular historical risky venture could be played for laughs — so it ’s perhaps not surprising that he started as a place upright - up comic who moved into comedy writing , admit a stint ona show call Bootsie and Snudge , which is probably a P - Funk thang .
The God Almighty of The X - Files get his start writing comedy TV motion-picture show for Disney , with title like The B.R.A.T. Patrol . He then became a manufacturer on the melodious drollery show Rags to Riches , before finally making a move into hour - long dramatic play and launching his paranoid show about FBI broker who look for the truth that , quite possibly , could be somewhere out there . We never got to see the ten - Files team up with the B.R.A.T. Patrol , though .
Like a draw of the people on this lean , Kaufman keep incorporating funniness into his work once he impress into play / science fiction , but stuff like Being John Malkovich and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind has a serious , creepy-crawly undertone to it as well , and explore issues of memory board of identity in an intense mode . It ’s in spades not straight - up comedy in the same vein as Kaufman ’s other work on situation comedy like Get a sprightliness , Ned and Stacy and the Dana Carvey Show . Kaufmantold an interviewerthat he enjoyed the sitcom gig , but the hours were bad : ” When I was working on sitcoms I ’d work 80 or 90 hours a hebdomad and I might do that anyway , but I do it at home now and I do it on my own term as opposed to being in a elbow room with six other writers and that being your lifetime .
It ’s sort of debatable whether the author of The Hitchhiker ’s Guide to the Galaxy ever really left comedy — arguably he just go his interest in comedy in a scientific discipline - fictional instruction . ( We ’re not including Woody Allen on this leaning , despite Sleeper . Or Mel Brooks , for that matter . ) But Adams became to a great extent identified with skill fiction and big cosmic melodic theme , and like many other people on this list he work on Doctor Who , take Dennis Spooner ’s old job and writing three stories .
She was cant over stories to Star Trek : The Next Generation all along — but her former credited workplace is for sitcom , includingMonty , which apparently starred Fonzie from Happy Days as a Rush Limbaugh parody . And Me and the Boys . Her first staff jobs were on the animated comedy Dinosaurs and the situation comedy Ellen . Shetold CNNa couple year ago that the sitcom writing room were a rugged environment to be the only woman , but the experience helped solidify her comedy chops . And her instalment of Buffy and other Joss Whedon read are among the funniest and sharpest , although she ’s also prove she can do intense drama on shows like BSG , Game of Thrones and Caprica . She ’s now a producer at Once Upon a Time .
Speaking of which … Whedon ’s don and grandfather both worked in TV drollery , and Whedon himself suffer his beginning write for the sitcom Roseanne . He ’s beenquotedas say , “ When Roseanne learn the first script of mine that perplex into her hands without being edit by someone else she said , ‘ How can you write a middle - elderly woman this well ? ’ I said , ‘ If you suffer my mamma you would n’t ask ’ . ” He went on to become a script doctor , and then created Buffy , Angel , Firefly and Dollhouse , plus Dr. Horrible . And he directed Avengers , too . In case you were under a rock .
Wright and Pegg both started out in square - up clowning , and their first real coaction was the sitcom Spaced . They ’ve gone on to create the Blood and Ice Cream Trilogy that set out with Shaun of the Dead and close with The World ’s End . And Wright also target Scott Pilgrim and the coming Ant - Man , while Pegg has cave in us Paul as well as show in Doctor Who , Star Trek and tons of other darling series .
Seriously , if you ’ve never seen The Adam and Joe Show , the sketch comedy show that Cornish Centennial State - created , you should hunt it down . It ’s hilarious and insane , and well worth see out . There ’s one gag where they unexpectedly alternate to the DVD commentary in the middle of the sequence , which is perfect . Cornish , of path , go on to train Attack the Block and is now signed up to direct the picture version of Neal Stephenson ’s Snow Crash .
He would be one of our favorite writers just for his work on the Blue Beetle comic , which is one of the best superhero origin story of the past ten or so . But he ’s also created the show Leverage , worked on Transformers and some other movies , and written for Eureka . Most importantly , he wrote the airless but awe-inspiring Global Frequency pilot . And he got his first as a bear - up comic — after first getting a level in physics . And his first goggle box writing fishgig appears to have been Cosby .
Actually , Gatiss is debatable , since a lot of his early composition was for Doctor Who novels . But even before that , he was exploit in sketch clowning , doing show at the Edinburgh Fringe and getting one - off drollery play produced on television . He peach about this a bit on the Doctor Who : New Adventures featurette on the “ Ark in Space ” special edition DVD . And his first expectant shift was as part of the comedy group The League of Gentlemen . He ’s go on to be a mainstay of the unexampled Doctor Who series , as a writer and also as an role player . And he ’s writing the TV movie about the show ’s origins , vent in November .
And finally … speaking of people who curve up on Doctor Who , Steven Moffat is the show ’s current showrunner as well as the generator of wads of episodes . He ’s also cultivate on the Tintin picture show and Sherlock . Actually , Moffat ’s first TV series , Press Gang , was a play determine in a school , but he made his mark with a serial of situation comedy , including Joking Apart and Coupling . We ask him in 2008 how working on Doctor Who was different from his sitcom experiences , and he said that he has to run less hard to ensure there ’s a jest on every page in Doctor Who , but that the jape also seem to come course .
Thanks to Max Gladstone , Ian Vincent , Charles Coleman Finlay , Jeremiah Tolbert , Jennie Goloboy , David L. Ennis , Wesley Chu , Uriel Walker , Chris Woodfield , Christopher Busch , Brian Huberd , David L. Ennis , Steve Bagley , Max Gladstone , and everybody else who suggested stuff for this article !
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