TV Writer Dave Mandel & Unproduced Episode ”Thanks For The Giving”

This week we are joined by one of television's best comedy writers Dave Mandel (SNL, Seinfeld, Veep) to discuss an unproduced episode of The Odd Couple for which we have obtained an official script from 1973.  It is a Thanksgiving episode and would have been for the 4th season to air in November 1973.   

We start by discussing Dave's history with The Odd Couple and how it influenced his TV writing.

We then get into the script itself and -- spoiler - it  is not very good so we discuss in depth why it doesn't work and how it maybe could have become a workable episode.

We also start going into it line by line but that is too painful ultimately so we summarize the last few acts. 

We also discuss why The Odd Couple had no traditional holiday episodes after S1 like so many of its fellow sitcoms did during the 1970s.

If you want to get a dropbox link to the script to read it for yourself please email us at 1049pod@gmail.com