Hit Shows Quotes

Television is ultimately a business of failure. You try a lot of things, and most of it fails.

Television is a completely different industry now. It's just extraordinary. It's so wonderful, because there's more interesting product. It attracts the best writers and directors. And one thing that's really interesting about it is that it used to be, if you were on a big network show, like it or not, you were a household face and name. And believe it or not, not all actors like that. That's not their goal. They just like being actors. And there are so many actors that are on hit shows that I have never seen, I've never heard.

In New York people don't go to the theatre - they go to see hits.

I think a lot of actors, maybe who have been on a hit show and been lucky enough to get successful, might say 'no' more than I do. And maybe that's good, maybe that's smart. I don't know.

People forget that even the biggest hit shows, like 'Hamilton,' started off-Broadway.

Film is much more of a brand business, whereas on Broadway, you can do complete unknowns and have hits.

There will always be economic pressure to make hits, identify hits, and then exploit hits. And you're going to exploit them with as many episodes as you probably can.

A lot of the shows that really become hit shows are often demonstrated, like Mystery Science Theater.

I feel like the high-concept shows that have some kind of gimmick tend not to be the hit classic shows of all time.

The landscape is television has changed so much, because there are so many outlets, that the odds of getting a zeitgeisty hit - you know how 'American Idol' seems to appeal to every human being on the planet? Doing that in comedy nowadays is very, very hard.

Something economically changed. It used to be that you needed 20 million people to watch a TV show for it to be a hit. Now, with just a few million people watching, you're considered very successful, for a lot of these streaming services, or cable channels. Now, that allows people to do much more creatively ambitious work, because it's not lowest common denominator.

You know, if you're lucky enough to have two smash hit shows, the traffic of the world goes through your dressing room.