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What is “funny?” Besides just showing us funny shows, this year’s ATX TV Festival, now in its 15th year, took two deep dives into the subject. The Austin, Texas event included both an intimate conversation and a theater-filling romp.
The intimate conversation, titled “Funny AF,” took place among four actors who shared experiences from their pasts on four different sitcoms. They dug into the whys and hows of making people laugh.
The theater-filling conversation, “Everybody (Still) Loves Raymond”, brought together actor Ray Romano and seven writers from the show.
Damian Holbrook, writer for TV Guide Magazine and host of the You Don’t Know Peanuts podcast, moderated both events.
Funny Four
The funny four panel brought together Chelsea Frei (The Paper), Belissa Escobedo (Happy’s Place), Precious Way (The Fall & Rise of Reggie Dinkins) and Oscar Nunez (The Office, The Paper) with a roomful of fans at the Omni Hotel.
Moderator Holbrook inquired about what or who got these four funny folks on the road to comedy.
Escobedo recalled moments from her youth: “Growing up, the joy I would get from seeing people laugh. It was unbelievable.”
Nunez recalled inspiration from comedians he’d see while watching TV with his father. “One time we were watching The Carol Burnett Show, and she and Harvey Korman were doing a soap opera [skit]. On his entrance Korman stepped out of the scene, pretending he had to go to where the clapping was coming from. I told my dad, whatever that guy is doing, I want to do that.”
Later during the panel, much to the delight of the audience, Nunez did just that, stepping away from the chairs and launching into an old Jack Benny routine.
Chelsea Frei got right to the point: “Kristen Wiig!”
Precious Way remembered a funny moment on a set. “I was told, ‘You look like a Black Jessica Rabbit.’ I didn’t get the joke, but I got the part.”
Learning Non-stop
All the actors agreed that comedy was a never-ending learning process.
Escobedo said she appreciated being chosen for Reba McEntire’s Happy’s Place, in which several of the actors had worked together on previous shows. “I’m so lucky coming into an established family. There was this familiarity. And working with Reba and Melissa Peterman – they bring an entire new layer to some things – and I’m learning from them.”
Frei gave credit to the crew as well as her fellow actors. “When you see them [the crew] smile,” she said, “you know you are doing well.”
Holbrook asked the panel what their favorite show was.
Nunez said Montecito, Escobedo said Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and Way exclaimed, “Golden Girls! The timing, it’s like a master class.”
Then Escobedo snuck in, “And I Love Lucy.”
Still Raymond
On a completely different level from that discussion, ATX TV Festival brought together close to 1,200 people in Austin’s Paramount Theatre to hear a discussion about the making of Everybody Loves Raymond. This was a writers’-room reunion with the star, Ray Romano.
What made the event particularly entertaining was the projection on the big screen of segments from the show, followed by a discussion of them by the writers. Multiple times the takeaway was that what we had just seen in the on-screen family experience, was something that had occurred in one or more of the writers’ lives. Aspiring writers are told to “Write what you know.” Perhaps they should be told more specifically, “Write what’s happened to you.”
During a discussion on the red carpet Romano commented on how it had been years since he watched the show, but during COVID he rewatched all 210 episodes. He observed a difference between watching a show you’re working on, and watching one from the past. “When I was watching it back then,” he said, “I was more critical of it. Particularly when you’re in the middle of it. When you’re doing it. When you’re watching last week’s show. Oh this, oh that, you think of the lines you could have used. And now, removed from that, I like it so much more and I noticed how great all the other actors were.”
Creator/showrunner Phil Rosenthal added, “The other thing, too: There were so much of our own personal stories that are in it, it was a little bit like watching home movies.”
More ATX TV?
ATX TV Festival brings TV fans and industry together to celebrate their favorite moments in TV as one community. Deep dives into show creation, revisiting past favorites, and discovering something new at “TV Camp for Grown Ups” are highlights of the Austin event.
For more information on the Austin TV Festival and opportunities for yearlong participation, check their website or social media sites: Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok.
