Dead Pilots Society

Episode 177: Blessed and Highly Favored by Chris Marcil & Sam Johnson - Live from the Elysian Theater

We have such a great dead pilot for you this month. It's called Blessed and Highly Favored. It’s a hilarious comedy about a rookie pastor struggling to keep her progressive Baptist church afloat while dealing with megachurch competition, financial strain, and the looming presence of her father—the church’s legendary former pastor.

Th...

Episode 176: Ilana Peña (Diary of a Future President) and Anne Sundell (writer and comedian) Interview

In this month’s after-show interview, Andrew chats with Ilana Peña (Diary of a Future President) and Anne Sundell (writer and comedian) about their pilot How to Get Over Bryan Byers. The pair share the real-life inspiration behind the show — yes, the actual Bryan Byers who unknowingly brought them together as friends and collaborat...

Episode 175: How To Get Over Bryan Byers Written by Ilana Peña & Anne Sundell (Recorded Live at the Elysian Theater)

This month on Dead Pilots Society, we’re bringing you How To Get Over Bryan Byers, a hilarious comedy pilot from Ilana Peña (Diary of a Future President) and Anne Sundell (writer and comedian).

The show follows two former enemies, Anna and Izzy, who become best friends after realizing they’ve both dated—and been dumped...

Episode 174: Austen Earl Interview (Letters to Beyoncé, Up All Night, The Millers, Happy Together)

In this after-show interview, Andrew talks with writer/producer Austen Earl about his pilot Letters to Beyoncé, inspired by his own mom. Austen shares how he went from a tiny town in Vermont to a Hollywood writing career—with a surprising assist from his athletic background.

They discuss the ups and downs of working in TV, including can...

Episode 173: Letters to Beyoncé written by Austin Earl (Up All Night, The Millers, Happy Together)

In this episode of Dead Pilots Society, we bring you a heartfelt and hilarious pilot from Austen Earl (Up All Night, The Millers, Happy Together, About My Father). The script, Letters to Beyoncé, tells the story of a middle-aged schoolteacher in rural New England who decides to reclaim her life—with a little inspiration from an unlike...

In this after-show episode of Dead Pilot Society, we're joined by writer Lauren Herstik, who brought us Camp Friends — a pilot that's had more lives (and deaths) than most scripts could dream of. This one has everything: clown camp trauma, projectile vomit over a salad bar, surrealist puberty freakouts, and a long, winding journey through the chaotic world of TV development.

Lauren sits down with host Andrew Reich to talk about the ...

This month, we have a fantastic dead pilot, Camp Friends, written by Lauren Herstik. You may know Lauren as a writer on American Vandal and Pearson. Camp Friends is about best friends who spend every summer at Camp Wigeon. This is their CIT (counselor-in-training) year, the last before becoming counselors, and the last chance to have the best summer ever. So when a new, hot, mystery girl shows up at camp and threatens to derail tho...

We have another live show coming up soon. It’s on Sunday March 16th at 2:00 and at the Elysian Theater in Los Angeles, and we will be reading not one but two episodes of a hilarious dead pilot or I guess a dead show, written by and starring the incredible Riki Lindhome and Natasha Leggero. Riki and Natasha co-created and starred in the Comedy Central show Another Period. But you know them from so many other things as well. Riki is ...

John also wrote on Veronica Mars, iZombie, and Benched. This pilot has that unique Enbom touch.

Rich Dan, Poor Dan was recorded live in front of an audience at the Elysian Theatre in Los Angeles. Our cast was Ryan Hansen (Party Down) as Danny, Martin Starr (Party Down, Silicon Valley) as Daniel, Zoe Chao (Party Down) as Marnie, Olivia Liang (Kung Fu) as Sasha, Comedian Patrick McDonald as Stuart, Janet Varney (Stan Vs. Evil, JV Club...

In this interview we talk about Joe and Joe’s first show business jobs, including the insane, no-longer existent job of Night PA, delivering scripts in the wee hours of the night. They talk about how far having a great attitude can take you in this business, the lessons they’ve learned through their long careers and what they look for in people when they’re staffing shows.

And we have an update on Eternally Yours! CBS ordered up a ...

Things have been a little tough in Los Angeles this month, so we are bringing you our first ever Dead Pilots Society Rerun. This is one of our all-time favorite episodes. From way back in 2020, it's Eternally Yours from Joe Port & Joe Wiseman (Ghosts, The Office, New Girl), about a family of normal looking but emotionally closed off, stuck-together-for-eternity vampires. If you think there's no fresh spins left in the vampire genre...

A happy holidays to you! Hopefully you're wearing that Dead Pilots Society shirt you bought for yourself as a gift while listening to this episode! This is our interview with Amy and Brendan. In it you'll hear an honest take about how hard it is to sell things and make a living in Hollywood these days. We get into Amy & Brendan's writing dynamic, navigating writing with a partner versus writing solo, and the shows Amy and Brendan g...

It's the end of the year and we have a very special dead pilot for you! This is The 14th Floor written by Amy Reed (The Diary of a Future President) & Brendan Scannell (Bonding).  It centers around an ambitious young executive at multinational McKenna Corp who gets hip-checked by her threatened CEO, and is then banished to the depths of the 14th floor, where a staff of castoffs collect checks doing absolutely nothing. It was setup ...

Happy Thanksgiving! In this episode, Andrew interviews Bill Callahan about his pilot Massholes. Bill has an impressive résumé, having worked on Spin City, 8 Simple Rules, Scrubs, Psych, American Housewife, and The Goldbergs.

A former college athlete turned comedy writer, Bill shares his journey from football to comedy, starting in an agency mailroom and learning from legends like Gary David Goldberg and Bill Lawrence. He discusses t...

This month's pilot is Massholes. It was set up at ABC and written by Bill Callahan (Scrubs, Spin City). Bill is a veteran comedy writer who's worked on so many shows you know and love. This is a Friends-style ensemble pilot inspired by Bill's group of friends from Massachusetts. To keep things authentic, we assembled an all-star cast of actors from the Boston area.

Massholes stars Rob Corddry (Ballers, Hot Tub Time Machine), Nichola...

Welcome to the after-show for Mr. Macho! Andrew and Al recount their unusual first meeting during a casting session for a show that came together under extraordinary circumstances. They discuss how close Al has come to getting his story on air as a half-hour comedy, as well as the ongoing challenges of Latino representation in TV comedy. Chris also shares his wisdom on guiding and helping sell this pilot as its supervisor. This is ...