072 - Silicon Valley Creator John Altschuler

Were you a fan of the TV show Silicon Valley? If so, make sure to check out this podcast episode featuring John Altschuler, one of the show's creators.Show NotesJohn Altschuler IMDB - https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1014365/John Altschuler Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_AltschulerJohn Schuler Emmys - https://www.emmys.com/bios/john-altschulerMichael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Watchlist - https://michaeljamin.com/watchlistAutomated Transcription:John Altschuler (00:00:00):And I got back from delivering pizzas. And this is like, we didn't even have an answering machine. Okay? This is like we had no money or whatever. I get back, my phone's ringing and I, I remember it was about four in the afternoon and I, I pick it up and I can I speak to John Altschuler and I go, this is, this is he? And he goes, this is Mad Simmons. No, his rats. I think this rats, you know, this is rats of Soman. And he goes, money talks. What have you got? . Okay. I'll be like, what is, I got your dollar beer bill right here. What have you got?Michael Jamin (00:00:33):You're listening to Screenwriters. Need to hear this with Michael. Janet.(00:00:41):Hello everyone. Welcome back to Screenwriters. Need to hear this. I'm Michael Jamin, and I have another great guest today that I don't know how many people are listening. I have thousands and thousands of listeners. And I'm telling you, not one of them is deserving to hear this man speak because this guy, the credits, his credits. And I'm gonna start off by saying, say, welcome to my show. It's John Altschuler. I'm gonna give him the proper introduction. He's my friend, but also many times he's been my boss and this guy, he, he was the, he ran, he and his partner, Dave Krinsky, ran King of the Hill for many years. They created Silicon Court, co-created Silicon Valley, their movie credits, or they also created The Good Family. Do you remember that show? They, they ran Beavers and Butthead for a while. They, they're in credits in they created, wait, did I say Silicon Valley? Yes. Their movie credits are included. Well geez,John Altschuler (00:01:31):John Henry, I'll tell you, blades of Glory,Michael Jamin (00:01:34):My Tongue, blades of Glory. But also produced X Track. And and they ran Lopez on I think that was tbs. Where was that? Tb?John Altschuler (00:01:44):That was Viacom, yeah,Michael Jamin (00:01:46):. And, and I worked on it. I don't remember what, but never . But John, thank you so much for the coming to the show. This is a go, this is gonna be a great one because John is one of, first of all, lemme start from the beginning cause I'm not even sure if I know all this. Like, when did you decide you wanted to be a writer?John Altschuler (00:02:03):You know it's interesting because I think, I would say when I was 10 or 12, Uhhuh , I was one of those kids from our age that comedy was everything. Okay. And back then you had three networks and you were just like, oh my God. You know, the, you know George Carlin is going to be on this show and you just get 10 minutes of it, you know? And so I always loved comedy and I always kind of loved the deep dive into comedy. And then, but so it, it always was kind of important to me. And then I went to the University of North Carolina and I majored my dad. You know, I come from an academic family, so I majored in anthropology and economics Uhhuh. But I was really interested in writing. Now my thing was, well, I didn't think that I should major in, you know, writing for screen, whatever, you know, whatever.(00:03:06): Because I kind of thought you learned by doing Uhhuh , and I wanted an academic degree. But what happened in college is that at Carolina, at the time, we had an incredibly bad communications department. Okay. It was so bad that I'm not making this up. They had equipment in the basement that students weren't allowed to use because they might break it. Yeah. Okay. Literally not allowed to use it. Okay. . So, but this these people who I knew started S T V Student television using cable access cuz they have to provide it and da da and Dave and I and our friend David Palmer, were just vultures and like, all these guys did really hard work. They got the campus to, you know, the university put up money and they got cable. And we just showed up and took all the cameras and, and filmed our stupid comedy show. Know, probably you're, you're familiar with Friday the 13th, the stage musical, and Bonnie and Clyde and Ted and Alice and, and Point and Wave you.Michael Jamin (00:04:12):And so you, I, this is obviously, cause I, I don't know this cause I haven't visited the Library of Congress re recentlyJohn Altschuler (00:04:18): Yes. With the Smithsonian.Michael Jamin (00:04:20):But, so with these, like, these were a single camera show that you acted, did you act in as well?John Altschuler (00:04:24):Oh yeah, yeah. It was me, ...