Mark Hudis '90

Hollywood Squares | Page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

by Todd Larson

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A couple things Roger doesn't tell me about a sitcoms - or at least a couple of things I didn't know before snagging a front-row seat for a taping of That '70s Show on my third night in town:

First, have you ever heard the phrase, "This program was taped live before a studio audience"? Personally, I've always put a lot of stock in the "live" part of that sentence: in my head, I've imagined sitcoms as plays, short comedies performed beginning to end while the cameras roll. Nope. Turns out they shoot these things a scene at a time (there are usually 12 to 15 scenes) and then edit it all together later. For good measure, they shoot three or four takes of each scene, and often spend five or ten minutes in between. That breezy little 25-minute diversion you tune in on Tuesday night? Try five hours.

Fortunately, the other thing no one told me is that there's an in-the-stands host who entertains the studio audience throughout the evening. Part stand-up comic and part studio tour guide, it's the host who advises the assembled audience members on what's happening on stage, when to applaud, and when to shut up. With an endless stream of jokes, gags, games and door prizes (at one point, a Japanese tourist from the back row sits on my lap and feeds me chocolate cake), our madcap master of ceremonies manages to keep the audience energized and focused as the retakes roll on. By end of night, I'm convinced he's the funniest person I've ever met.

Running a close second, however, is Mark Hudis '90, a senior story editor and one of the dozen or so writers for the popular Fox series we've all come to watch. Before the taping, he shows me around the Radford Studios lot (also the home of Seinfeld, Third Rock from the Sun and Just Shoot Me) and explains how he got here. "I was undeterred," he tells me. "I was sort of Mr. Magoo-ish." Shortly after graduating from Haverford he sold an article to Mad Magazine. "Besides the day I got my chest hair," he remembers, "it was the happiest day of my life." While working as a reporter for Media Week, Hudis pursued his comedy work on the side, penning additional articles for Mad and sending out "spec" scripts for shows like The Simpsons. (To get a writing job in Hollywood, he explains, you write dummy scripts for popular programs to demonstrate your skills to agents and producers.)

"It's as close to a college dorm experience as I've ever had in a workplace," he explains. "We spend time playing video games and poker, we go out to lunch together. We come in looking like shit and we smell like hell....you get to be really close."

Hudis' big break came when a former colleague from Media Week, a graphic artist named Allen Ball, scored a job on the sitcom Grace Under Fire and passed along some samples of Hudis' work to his L.A. agent. The agent was impressed, and immediately signed Hudis, who had traveled to L.A. for a meeting. A year-and-a-half later, during which Hudis continued to write for Media Week out of the magazine's L.A. office, the same friend moved to Cybil, which had an opening for a "baby" staff writer. Hudis got the job, and a serious case of the self-doubt endemic to the business. "For the first three months, I didn't say two words," he recalls. "I was scared. I would sweat for seven hours, eat lunch, go to the bathroom three or four times and go home and cry. And that was like 12 weeks. I'd call my parents every day and say 'Keep my bed warm, I'm coming home.'"

Hudis eventually found his sea legs, and when Cybil was canceled, he landed an interview with That '70s Show creator Mark Brazill. While the interview was a success, the doubts remain. "It's my third year writing for TV," he says, "and I still wake up every morning and say gosh, I hope I can write for TV." Misgivings about his place in L.A., however, should not be construed as misgivings about the place L.A. "You hear a lot of bad stories," he says. "But everyone I've met, the real higher-ups, they're just cool people. I've been lucky."

Hudis seems genuinely thrilled with the camaraderie among his fellow writers. "It's as close to a college dorm experience as I've ever had in a workplace," he explains. "We spend time playing video games and poker, we go out to lunch together. We come in looking like shit and we smell like hell....you get to be really close." It's clear that the environment suits him, and he admits that he finds it refreshing compared to the more serious atmosphere he encountered at Haverford. "I got in trouble at Haverford for not censoring myself enough, so coming out here, it was like, 'I don't need to do that anymore.'"

Hudis supplements his work on That '70s Show with freelance contributions to GQ, Playboy and E! Online, and he has just finished the script for a film entitled Mirror-Mirror. Persistence, he says, remains the key. "Even if I hadn't gotten hired, I would probably still be at a magazine and still writing scripts." Fortunately, Hudis also had a well-connected friend who saw something in his work and helped him out. Which reminds me: that friend, the "graphics guy" at Media Week&emdash;Allen Ball? You might have heard of his work as well. Seems he just won the Academy Award for writing a little suburban satire called American Beauty.