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The Bill Engvall Show on TBS: Storylines

Hey everyone! Well it is time for another installation of Bill’s Blog. I have been asked several times how we decide what storyline we use for a show. Well, I will try to explain this, because to be honest with you, I did not know myself until I started working on this show.

See, before The Bill Engvall Show, I was just another actor on a show. So I would show up on Monday, be handed a script and that was the story we were doing that week. When we started production on my new show, we had no storylines. We had to come up with eight shows. So the process began: I would sit in a room with the writers and basically we would just talk. I would convey different ideas that I had come up with over the previous few weeks. Now, in this room there was me, Mike Leeson and four other writers. There is also a person who sits at a laptop and writes down every idea that comes out of our mouths. We would do this for about three hours and then we would break for lunch. When we would come back from lunch, the person who had taken down all the notes would now have them all printed out on sheets of paper and each of us would have a little notebook of ideas. Then we start by picking the ideas that we feel are the funniest and these are written down on a board and put into groups. There might be 40 or 50 different ideas on this board by the end of the day. While we are doing this we are coming up with general story ideas. For example, let's say that we come up with an idea to do a show about jealousy. So there will be a card that just says "jealousy" and under that we will put different ideas about jealous actions or ideas that have come up in our discussions. That will be our "A" storyline. Then we come up with a "B" storyline. This is a storyline that will be going on alongside of the main idea. Maybe this storyline will involve the kids on the show. Now these two storylines will intersect at various points in the show. Sometimes the B storyline will affect the A storyline, other times it will be its own independent story.

OK, now we have a basic idea for a show that week. Now these ideas are put into an outline form. So, following our idea about jealousy, the outline might look like this:

Jealousy

1. Susan feels like she and Bill don’t go out enough.
— talks to Bill about it
— Bill goes out and gets tickets to a show.

2. Trent is learning to drive
— Bill takes Trent out for a drive.
— Bill and Trent discuss the responsibility of driving.

So that is a basic idea of how we outline a story — obviously that is a shortened version of what we do. This outline when finished will be several pages long. Once this outline is approved by the network, the writers take it and start putting dialogue with each of the ideas. This then becomes a rough draft of the show for that week. After it has been written, we all read it and make notes on the rough draft. We get back together and talk about these notes. Then the writers take it again and start to put the finishing touches on the script. It is at this point that the actors will read the script out loud and the writers make more notes, go back and rewrite it again. Finally there is a finished script and even then, on tape night there might be last-minute changes made.

So as you can see, it takes quite a bit of work to go from idea to finished product. I hope that this has given you a little insight into what goes on before you even see the finished show on TBS. Until next time, hope you are enjoying the show. See ya next week.

— Bill