Show Runner Quotes

When you're a writer on a show, your job is to write in the show runner's voice, really.

When I first found out what a show runner was, I thought it was the strangest job I had heard of in my life.

Never name a show after a character if you want to be the guy running the show.

While the TV show 'Rizzoli & Isles' may have been inspired by my books, show runner Janet Tamaro has total control over where the TV characters go from there. As Janet once put it, I'm the birth mother, but she's the mother who adopted them, and now that Jane and Maura are living in her house, they have to do what she tells them to do.

I have to say that The Simpsons comes from a huge number of great writers headed by Al Jean, the show-runner, and the work that they do is really fantastic. It's a blast just to sit around with them in the writers' room and listen to all the filthy jokes that will never get on the air.

Jason Katims creates truly relatable three-dimensional people you fall in love with right away. Jason always puts a lot of heart into what he does. He has a way of touching your emotional core in a life-affirming way. And he's a great show runner.

There's something rare and wonderful that's very particular to television, and it's when a great cast meets a great show runner/creator with the right set of characters to play. That's what happened with 'Arrested Development.' It happens every so often, but all too rarely on TV.

The idea of being a show runner was very attractive to me, to create and control something.

There's probably a little more creative freedom in cable versus network, a little less of a committee looking over everyone's shoulder, but it depends on the network; it depends on the show; it depends on who the head writer or show runner is and what track record they have.

The show runner's the boss until the network shows up. And then they're the boss, because it's their money.