Newhouse School of Communications
MASTER STORYTELLERS SERIES
April 22, 2009
by Patricio Maya Solis
Television writer and producer Norman Gunzenhauser spoke in the Joyce Hergenhan Auditorium in Newhouse III on Mar. 23. The lecture was part of the Master Storytellers Series, which brings noted mass media professionals to Newhouse.
Professor Peter Moller introduced Gunzenhauser, who is also a Newhouse alum, to the audience. "I hope that someday you guys will be standing here where Mr. Gunzenhauser is, after a successful career," he said.
Hannah Montana, Rugrats, The Jeff Foxworthy Show, and Cheers are some of the TV shows Gunzenhauser has written for. He is particularly known for an episode he wrote with his longtime writing partner, Newhouse professor Thomas Seeley, for Murphy Brown. The episode, which aired in 1998, is considered groundbreaking. It showed the main character smoking marijuana in order to cope with chemotherapy.
Gunzenhauser began with the basics. "I'll be happy if you come away with just two things. One is to have fun with it," he said. "The other thing is [to know the importance] of structure in a story: to have a proper beginning, middle and end."
He then played part of the celebrated Murphy Brown episode and spoke about the writing process. "I look at TV ideas as two things: you're either a garbage truck or you are a lighting rod,"he said. Garbage trucks, he explained, are writers who get most of their ideas
from everyday life, like family interactions or random people on the street. Lightning rods are writers whose ideas come in short, unexpected bursts. "Some of your best ideas are going to come when you're washing your floor or cleaning the toilet," he said.
However important the writing process and narrative structure may be, Gunzenhauser ended the lecture by stressing the importance of fun. "Frankly, we're all here to play. If we were that serious we'd be at management or studying to be doctors," he said.
You can watch segments of Gunzenhauser's lecture by clicking on these links:
