Gig: Gag writer at Jellyvision, the company that writes and directs "You Don't Know Jack Netshow" for the software company Berkeley Systems.

Background: Improvisational comedy acting in college (graduated from Yale, '94). "I was in Amsterdam, performing and writing with Boom Chicago (an improvisational theater) when a friend at Jellyvision told me they were having a writer's search."

The Game: Players first choose from absurd categories like "Joanie, Chachi & Judaism," "B Movies for the Cultural Elite," and "Man from Nantucket, White Courtesy Phone." They then answer trivia questions written by the Jellyvision staff. "One of the things we try to do is twist a fact with high culture and popular culture. For my audition... I made a question about The Shining -- 'Suppose the family from the The Shining become caretakers at the Watergate Hotel. Given the crime committed there, what will the freaky little kid be saying?' And the answer was, 'Yrelgrub.'"

Labor: 50 hours a week, producing 20-22 quiz questions.

Cash : "It's hard for me to determine a cash level [high or low], since I spent the last year working in guilders and the years before that working at a sausage factory, as a temp, and as a puppeteer. Not so much cash in that factory, but lots of sausage."

Co-Workers: "For the Netshow, we have six people writing for it... but we're not all in the same office. There are certainly other writers in my room, but we're not all working on the Netshow. Which is good, because then they don't mind you asking, 'Hey, do you remember those Wacky Wall Walkers that came in a cereal box?'"

Problem Areas: Writing bad questions. "Bad questions are the ones that are potentially litigious -- where someone's favorite childhood character is in a potentially criminal activity. Another problem is that, as people who know a lot of trivia, our first instinct is to go more obscure than you probably should.

"And Jellyvision is pretty dedicated to not asking the same fact twice. 'Greek Mythology' is just about gone as a subject unless you're going to ask, 'What was the swan that Leda didn't sleep with?'

"When you work with trivia as much as we do, you can lose a little perspective. That's when you start thinking stuff like, 'I'm going to write a question about how Lennon was killed at the Dakota building which is also where Rosemary's Baby was filmed. I'll ask, 'Considering the movie that was filmed at the Dakota, who could have inspired Mark David Chapman?' The answer will be 'the antichrist.' So, all of a sudden, I've assumed for this question that people know Lennon was killed at the Dakota, that people know Mark David Chapman did it, that people know Rosemary's baby was the antichrist, and that people know it was filmed at the Dakota. That's a lot of trivia for one little question."

Method: "We have a schedule where we turn in all our questions on Friday and we start anew on Monday. Sometimes we have themes for our games and sometimes it's miscellaneous. This week, we have two different themes -- one is 'breakfast' and the other is 'All Nude.'

"So Monday, I come in around nine. I spend the whole day researching and coming up with ideas. Then I write down all the things that come to mind. So, say, with 'breakfast,' I write: Trix, Coco Puffs, Mickey, Minute Maid... Then I look through encyclopedias (Grolier's CD-ROM) and the library for anything that comes to mind. I might look up 'oats' or 'grains.'

"One of the main things with these themed episodes is that you don't want them to be all about breakfast -- that's just not fun. So I think of other different topics: arts, politics, history, commercials. How can I get from breakfast to music? The question I'm working on right now is about Snap, Crackle, and Pop, and the idea of a waltz being in 3/4 time. I have no idea what I'm going to do with it.

"Tuesday, for me, I'm still researching. Some people are faster than me, but there are lots of different methods. This week, I'm tired, so I'm not doing so great.

"Thursday is the time when we pass the work around to the other writers and they come up with jokes. At first, I was certainly vulnerable [about it], but it's really helpful.

"On Friday, I give my work to the two editors and they make decisions. We like to get 15 questions accepted by the editors. I shoot to give them between 20 and 25... One guy Phil turned in 38 in a week. If I turn in 25, I was really working my ass off. I just hit 25, actually. It's not going to happen again for a really long time. I got 'Great' written on my paper."

Special Skills: "The thing that I'm good at is the question type called 'Dis or Dat?' where we flash the name of something up on the screen and you have to determine which one of two categories it belongs to. I had one where the categories were, 'Bond girl or Puritan?' and the names that pop up were like 'Increase Mather,' or 'Paris Carver.'"

Sources of Inspiration: "People let loose a lot of facts when they talk to you. A woman the other day asked me to help her with her crossword question, and she told me about a guy who proposed to his wife through the crossword. I'm going to use that, but I don't feel like I should say it because somebody could get it."

Lingo: (For bad questions) "The Guess-O-Matic question"-- "It's a question like, 'If December 5th is a Tuesday, what day will the following July 5th be?' You'd never get it, unless you're Rainman."

"Grafted Questions" -- "That's the one where you try to force the Trix rabbit into a question about the 100 Years War. You're really pushing it."

Parting Shot: "One thing I definitely notice is that I always go to the same things -- 'Different Strokes,' 'Facts of Life,' and 'Welcome Back Kotter' which I've never seen but I've heard so much about. It's a sad commentary about what I watched as a kid."

©1998 FEED