Contemporary Authors

• Just the Funny Parts: ...And a Few Hard Truths About Sneaking into the Hollywood Boy's Club - 2018 Dey Street Books, New York, NY

• Nell Scovell Home Page - https://nellscovell.com/about/

  About
  Because you might not be able to navigate to my page on IMDB (the Internet Movie Database, I’m just trying to help you here), you didn’t want to string together the stuff you found on Google, and missed my Amazon author’s page, there’s this:

  Scovell is a television and magazine writer, producer, director and collaborator on the #1 New York Times bestseller Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead. She is the creator of the televisions series Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and her TV writing credits include The Simpsons, Coach, Monk, Murphy Brown, Charmed and NCIS. She has directed two movies for cable television and an episode of Awkward. She has contributed to Vanity Fair, Vogue, Rolling Stone, and The New York Times. She lives in Los Angeles and Boston.

• IMDB - https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0780051/?ref_=nv_sr_1

  Nell Scovell
  Writer | Producer | Director
  Nell Scovell was born on November 8, 1960 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA as Helen Vivian Scovell. She is a writer and producer, known for NCIS (2003), Warehouse 13 (2009) and Charmed (1998). See full bio »
  Born: November 8, 1960 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA
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  Known For
  NCIS
  NCIS
  Writer
  (2006-2007)
  Warehouse 13
  Warehouse 13
  Writer
  (2010-2013)
  Charmed
  Charmed
  Writer
  (2001-2002)
  The Muppets.
  The Muppets.
  Writer
  (2015-2016)

  Show Show all | | Edit
  Filmography
  Jump to: Writer | Producer | Director | Thanks | Self
  Hide HideWriter (30 credits)
  2018 Stuntwomen: The Untold Hollywood Story (Documentary) (commentary) (post-production)
  2017 Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Return (TV Series) (writer - 1 episode)
  - Carnival Magic (2017) ... (writer)
  The Muppets. (TV Series) (story by - 3 episodes, 2015) (teleplay by - 2 episodes, 2015) (written by - 1 episode, 2016)
  - A Tail of Two Piggies (2016) ... (written by)
  - Single All the Way (2015) ... (story by)
  - The Ex-Factor (2015) ... (story by)
  - Walk the Swine (2015) ... (teleplay by)
  - Pig Out (2015) ... (story by)
  Show all 6 episodes
  2014 The 37th Annual Kennedy Center Honors (TV Special)
  2010-2012 Warehouse 13 (TV Series) (written by - 6 episodes)
  - The Ones You Love (2012) ... (written by)
  - No Pain No Gain (2012) ... (written by)
  - Emily Lake (2011) ... (written by)
  - Past Imperfect (2011) ... (written by)
  - Reset (2010) ... (written by)
  Show all 6 episodes
  2009 81st Annual Academy Awards Pre-Show (TV Special) (continuity and narration)
  2005-2009 Monk (TV Series) (written by - 3 episodes)
  - Mr. Monk on Wheels (2009) ... (written by)
  - Mr. Monk Goes to the Office (2005) ... (written by)
  - Mr. Monk and the Election (2005) ... (written by)
  2007 It Was One of Us (TV Movie) (written by)
  NCIS (TV Series) (written by - 2 episodes, 2006 - 2007) (teleplay by - 1 episode, 2006)
  - Dead Man Walking (2007) ... (written by)
  - Driven (2006) ... (teleplay by)
  - Dead and Unburied (2006) ... (written by)
  2006 Hello Sister, Goodbye Life (TV Movie) (teleplay)
  2003 Criminology 101 (TV Movie)
  Sabrina, the Teenage Witch (TV Series) (created by - 162 episodes, 1996 - 2003) (written by - 8 episodes, 1996 - 1998) (teleplay - 3 episodes, 1996 - 1997) (story - 2 episodes, 1997)
  - What a Witch Wants (2003) ... (creator)
  - Soul Mates (2003) ... (creator)
  - A Fish Tale (2003) ... (creator)
  - You Slay Me (2003) ... (creator)
  - Spellmanian Slip (2003) ... (creator)
  Show all 163 episodes
  2002 Presidio Med (TV Series) (writer - 1 episode)
  - Secrets (2002) ... (writer)
  Charmed (TV Series) (written by - 4 episodes, 2001 - 2002) (teleplay by - 1 episode, 2001)
  - Lost and Bound (2002) ... (written by)
  - Black as Cole (2001) ... (teleplay by)
  - Size Matters (2001) ... (written by)
  - Sin Francisco (2001) ... (written by)
  - Blinded by the Whitelighter (2001) ... (written by)
  2000 The War Next Door (TV Series) (writer - 3 episodes)
  - The End of the World as We Know It: Part 2 (2000) ... (writer)
  - The End of the World as We Know It: Part 1 (2000) ... (writer)
  - And Baby Makes Death (2000) ... (writer)
  1999 Hayley Wagner, Star (TV Movie)
  1999 Providence (TV Series) (written by - 2 episodes)
  - You Bet Your Life (1999) ... (written by)
  - Runaway Sydney (1999) ... (written by)
  1998 The Wonderful World of Disney (TV Series) (television series creator - 1 episode)
  - Sabrina Goes to Rome (1998) ... (television series creator)
  1997 Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves! (Video) (written by)
  1995 The TV Wheel (TV Movie)
  1995 Space Ghost Coast to Coast (TV Series) (writer - 1 episode)
  - Urges (1995) ... (writer)
  Coach (TV Series) (written by - 6 episodes, 1991 - 1995) (story - 1 episode, 1991)
  - Don't Get Mad, Get Cooley (1995) ... (written by)
  - The Commercial: Part 2 (1993) ... (written by)
  - Dresswreckers (1992) ... (written by)
  - Born Luther (1992) ... (written by)
  - War of the Dopes (1992) ... (written by)
  Show all 7 episodes
  1993-1994 Murphy Brown (TV Series) (written by - 4 episodes)
  - The Tip of the Silverburg (1994) ... (written by)
  - The Fifth Anchor (1994) ... (written by)
  - Bah Humboldt (1993) ... (written by)
  - Ticket to Writhe (1993) ... (written by)
  1994 The Critic (TV Series) (written by - 1 episode)
  - A Little Deb Will Do You (1994) ... (written by)
  1991 Sibs (TV Series)
  1991 The Simpsons (TV Series) (written by - 1 episode)
  - One Fish, Two Fish, Blowfish, Blue Fish (1991) ... (written by)
  Late Night with David Letterman (TV Series) (1 episode, 1990) (writer - 28 episodes, 1982 - 1983)
  - Episode dated 14 September 1990 (1990)
  - Episode dated 24 May 1983 (1983) ... (writer)
  - Episode dated 23 May 1983 (1983) ... (writer)
  - Episode dated 5 May 1983 (1983) ... (writer)
  - Episode dated 4 May 1983 (1983) ... (writer)
  Show all 29 episodes
  Newhart (TV Series) (story editor - 24 episodes, 1989 - 1990) (written by - 4 episodes, 1989 - 1990) (teleplay by - 1 episode, 1990)
  - The Last Newhart (1990) ... (story editor)
  - My Husband, My Peasant (1990) ... (story editor)
  - Father Goose (1990) ... (story editor) / (teleplay by)
  - Dick and Tim (1990) ... (story editor)
  - Handymania (1990) ... (story editor) / (written by)
  Show all 24 episodes
  1988 The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (TV Series) (writer)
  1987 The Wilton North Report (TV Series) (1987-1988)
  Show ShowProducer (11 credits)
  Show ShowDirector (3 credits)
  Show ShowThanks (2 credits)
  Show ShowSelf (3 credits)
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  Personal Details
  Other Works: Currently contributes to The New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, and SELF magazine. Past magazine credits include Rolling Stone, Vogue, and The Tatler. She was the first staff writer hired at SPY See more »
  Official Sites: Twitter
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  Did You Know?
  Star Sign: Scorpio

• Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/Nell-Scovell/e/B00CSHXCCQ

  Scovell is a television and magazine writer, producer, director and collaborator on the #1 New York Times bestseller Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead. She is the creator of the televisions series Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and her TV writing credits include The Simpsons, Coach, Monk, Murphy Brown, Charmed and NCIS. She has directed two movies for cable television and an episode of Awkward. She has contributed to Vanity Fair, Vogue, Rolling Stone, and The New York Times. She lives in Los Angeles and Boston.

• VOX - https://www.vox.com/2018/5/21/17371100/nell-scovell-interview-just-the-funny-parts-book

  What it’s like being the “only woman in the room” on a TV show
  “I really didn’t want to be perceived as someone who was there for any reason but my talent.”
  By Todd VanDerWerff@tvotitodd@vox.com May 21, 2018, 3:00pm EDT
  SHARE

  Nell Scovell’s new book, Just the Funny Parts, is a terrific TV memoir. HarperCollins
  Writer Nell Scovell has worked for some of the best, most popular TV shows of the past 30 years. She wrote for David Letterman. She wrote for The Simpsons. She created the ’90s show Sabrina the Teenage Witch. She wrote on NCIS. And at too many of those jobs, she was the only woman working in the writers’ room, countering Hollywood’s endless boys’ club.

  It’s something she points out frequently in her new memoir, Just the Funny Parts, an excellent chronicle of her time in the TV trenches. Early in the book, Scovell will mention going to work in one of the writers’ rooms listed above, and then casually drop, as an aside, “I was the only woman in the room.”

  She’s not doing so to make a major point but rather to note her reality, as she slowly builds to the argument in the book’s closing passages that Hollywood is better when the people making movies and TV better reflect the world at large.

  Scovell’s long career writing for some of my favorite shows (as well as her gigs co-writing Lean In with Sheryl Sandberg and coming up with jokes for President Obama’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner performances) made her a natural fit for the latest episode of my podcast, I Think You’re Interesting. And we got to talk about everything from sitcom running times to why Bonnie and Clyde director Arthur Penn never rewatched his movies.

  But I also wanted to talk with her about those asides, about the idea of being the only woman in the room and what effect that had on her as a young writer. A transcript of that portion of our conversation, lightly edited for length and clarity, follows.

  Todd VanDerWerff
  Can you talk a little bit about those experiences, about being the only woman in the room?

  Nell Scovell
  Well, I get out of college in the early ’80s, and I think gender inequality has been solved. Gloria Steinem, we have Roe v. Wade, Betty Friedan — they’ve been beating the drums. So I really walked into the work world thinking, “Okay, there was this problem, but I’m in this great first wave, and it’s just going to keep going.” Didn’t quite work out that way.

  But early on, I just wanted to blend in. I loved doing what I was doing. I get to Letterman, I’m the second woman who ever wrote for that show. The first was, of course, the great Merrill Markoe. She’d been gone for two years. They hadn’t had any other women. And I get there, and the last thing I wanna do is call attention to my gender.

  Nell Scovell
  Nell Scovell. Robert Trachtenberg
  Todd VanDerWerff
  One of the things I thought was fascinating about the chapter about Letterman, which later in the book you talk about, is that you had a cordial relationship with Dave while you were working there, and then people were assuming things about that. And that was something I had never really thought about. That experience, what did you learn from that?

  Nell Scovell
  People who have read the book come away with this insight that I am conflicted about David Letterman. He’s a giant. In the ’80s, he reinvents comedy. Back then, there was Johnny [Carson], and there was Dave. Johnny was your parents, and Dave was the cool kid. I really wanted to work on that show. So many great writers had come out of there, from Andy Breckman to George Meyer, my old friend Kevin Curran. And I just desperately wanted to be part of that club. So I keep sending him material, and I go off, and I’m having a sitcom career. I work on Newhart the last season. I’m writing a Simpsons. And finally, I get this call from Steve O’Donnell saying, “Dave would like to meet you.”

  And when I get there, Dave was one of the nicest people to me. He’d stop by my office. He’d say things like, “Do you need anything? Can I get you some soup?” So I was a little taken aback when one day in the writers’ room, someone made a comment about maybe I could pitch an idea to Dave while he was in my office. The implication was he was paying attention to me. So I started closing my door 10 minutes before he came in, because I really didn’t want to be perceived as someone who was there for any reason but my talent.

  I say in the book that was a very admirable thing for me to do. It was also very stupid, because Dave was the ultimate source of power on that show, and cutting myself off from him, voluntarily, was not probably the best thing for getting my work produced on that show.

  Todd VanDerWerff
  Late in the book, you talk about the revelation Letterman made in 2009, where he said he’d been sleeping with staffers. When you were on the show, was that tension in the air, that sense that Letterman was creating an environment that had sexual harassment baked into the core of what that show was doing?

  Nell Scovell
  Yes, although it was pre-Anita Hill, so we didn’t have vocabulary. I just thought the place was fucked up. [Laughs.] That was the technical term. I want to be clear: I wasn’t harassed, and it wasn’t just Dave. That’s the thing. When you’re in these situations and it starts at the top, it does give permission for others to act in that way, to think it’s okay. Some office romances are perfectly fine. It is problematic when it is a manager or someone who has the ability to hire and fire people.

  Todd VanDerWerff
  Tell me a little bit about the psychology that develops from being the only woman in the room. You write really smartly about wanting to be a writer, first and foremost, and not wanting to be “a woman writer.” But as you got later into your career, you started to think about it as, yes, I am a writer, but I’m also a woman. So tell me about the psychology of what that does to you.

  Nell Scovell
  It’s our culture. As much as I wanted to blend in, forget that I was a woman, the business kept reminding me, in small ways and big ways. The big ways were in the way I was paid, in the way I was viewed. I make this leap from half-hour to hour at one point, and I’d been an executive producer in half-hour, and I understood I would have to take a step back. I’ve now been writing dramas for 19 years, and they still have not given me the executive producer credit. I have other male friends who’ve made the leap and within two years were back to being executive producers.

6/4/2018 General OneFile - Saved Articles
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Print Marked Items
Just the Funny Parts: And a Few Hard
Truths about Sneaking into the
Hollywood Boys' Club
David Pitt
Booklist.
114.11 (Feb. 1, 2018): p12.
COPYRIGHT 2018 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Full Text:
Just the Funny Parts: And a Few Hard Truths about Sneaking into the Hollywood Boys' Club. By Nell
Scovell. Mar. 2018. 308p. Morrow/Dey St., $27.99 (9780062473486). 808.2.
People who pay attention to who's operating behind the scenes to bring us the shows we watch on television
certainly know Scovell's name; but even if the name doesn't ring a bell, her work should. She's been a part
of such shows as NCIS, The Simpsons, Murphy Brown, and Late Night with David Letter man. Although
her memoir's title suggests the book is going to be a laugh riot--and indeed there are lots of funny things
going on here--Scovell has something serious to talk about, too: the culture of harassment and gender bias
in the entertainment industry from the 1980s, when she was just getting started in TV, right up to the
present. And she has some startling stories to tell, incidents from her own life that clearly required courage
to reveal. Scovell comes across as a smart, energetic, determined woman, someone who is always shooting
for greater success and who really hates it when she fails at something. A revealing and timely portrait of a
professional writer and the industry in which she works.--David Pitt
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
Pitt, David. "Just the Funny Parts: And a Few Hard Truths about Sneaking into the Hollywood Boys' Club."
Booklist, 1 Feb. 2018, p. 12. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A527771742/ITOF?
u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=985e8e6f. Accessed 5 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A527771742
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Scovell, Nell: JUST THE FUNNY PARTS
Kirkus Reviews.
(Feb. 1, 2018):
COPYRIGHT 2018 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Scovell, Nell JUST THE FUNNY PARTS Dey Street/HarperCollins (Adult Nonfiction) $27.99 3, 20 ISBN:
978-0-06-247348-6
A TV writer reflects on carving out a career in male-dominated Hollywood.
Scovell, a veteran writer, producer, director, and show creator, minces few words when skewering the toxic
atmosphere for female talent in Hollywood. In her frank memoir, the author, who collaborated with Sheryl
Sandberg on Lean In, escorts readers through the beginnings of her career writing for SPY magazine in the
1980s while unpacking the emotional baggage of two botched marriages. At 26, she spontaneously flew
from New York to Los Angeles to meet with an executive producer only to be placed in the first of many
competitive, sexist, "penis party" writing teams and learning one industry lesson after another. A talent for
comedic timing and impressive spec scriptwriting ushered Scovell into the writers' meetings of some of
TV's top programs over a career that now spans over three decades. She reflects on the mixed success of
scriptwriting for an impressive array of popular programs, including The Simpsons, Coach, and Murphy
Brown. She also created and produced Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Charmed and even wrote jokes for
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. "The ratio of fun versus not fun varies from show to show," she
acknowledges, commenting that "the people, the process, and the product" are the determining factors. As
Scovell's career matured and her confidence bloomed, so did her role as a wife and mother of two. Her
fearlessness was clearly evidenced when the David Letterman sex scandal broke and the author made a
controversial and risky career move by speaking out about a marked lack of gender diversity in the latenight
TV arena. Photographs, newspaper mentions, and script clips further illuminate the author's rise to
prominence. While arguing that the industry still has a long way to go "in changing its casual acceptance of
inappropriate behavior," Scovell counts herself among the many who have made successful careers in show
writing and creative collaboration.
A breezy, affably written amalgam of memoir, advice, and workplace survival guide from the front lines of
the entertainment industry.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Scovell, Nell: JUST THE FUNNY PARTS." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Feb. 2018. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A525461614/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=1132ff44.
Accessed 5 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A525461614
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Just the Funny Parts ... and a Few Hard
Truths About Sneaking into the
Hollywood Boys' Club
Publishers Weekly.
265.3 (Jan. 15, 2018): p53.
COPYRIGHT 2018 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Just the Funny Parts ... and a Few Hard Truths About Sneaking into the Hollywood Boys' Club
Nell Scovell. Dey Street, $27.99 (336p) ISBN 978-0-06-247348-6
In this illuminating memoir, sitcom writer Scovell (Newhart, Murphy Brown, NCIS) details her career as a
highly successful television writer over the last three decades, during which she was usually the only
woman in the room. Scovell revised her ambition to become a serious journalist when she landed a job at
the satirical Spy magazine in 1986, thereby launching her new career as a master of snark. Scovell's first
foray into television writing was a spec script for It's Garry Shandling's Show, the script was killed but it put
her on Hollywood's radar. During her tenure at Late Night with David Letterman, which she started in 1990,
she worked well with the host, but nevertheless encountered a toxic, male-centric culture. After years of
writing jokes and scripts for various shows, she created Sabrina the Teenage Witch. In the 20 years since,
Scovell has repeatedly felt the sting of toiling in Los Angeles, "where rejection and failure are the bread and
butter of this gluten-free, nondairy town," and in an industry that continually looked for a cheaper, younger
version of her. But in working with Sheryl Sandberg as the co-writer on Lean In, she was reminded of a
timeless lesson: doing something that is meaningful to oneself might also have an impact on others.
Scovell's memoir is wonderfully entertaining and ultimately uplifting. (May)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Just the Funny Parts ... and a Few Hard Truths About Sneaking into the Hollywood Boys' Club."
Publishers Weekly, 15 Jan. 2018, p. 53. General OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A523888933/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=69f3bc5b.
Accessed 5 June 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A523888933

How Legendary TV Writer Nell Scovell Thinks We Should Treat Workplace Harassment
Vulture. (Mar. 21, 2018):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 New York Media
http://www.vulture.com/
Full Text:
Byline: Katla McGlynn

"Can I try out some jokes on you?" Nell Scovell asks us backstage at 92Y before her interview with Last Week Tonight's John Oliver about her new memoir, Just the Funny Parts - And a Few Hard Truths About Sneaking Into the Hollywood Boys' Club. She whips out a couple of handwritten notes and rattles off a few jokes about Dustin Hoffman, whom Oliver (https://www.thedailybeast.com/john-oliver-opens-up-about-confronting-dustin-hoffman-i-was-surprised-that-he-showed-up) notably confronted about sexual-harassment allegations at a panel in December.

Onstage, Oliver introduces Scovell with praise for her "constantly funny" book, which gives an inside look at the writer's 30-year career, including gigs writing for Spy magazine, Vanity Fair, The Simpsons, Murphy Brown, Late Night With David Letterman, and Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, which she also created. Scovell, who has written jokes for everyone from Miss Piggy to President Obama but has never tried her hand at stand-up, takes her seat and gets right to the jokes she wrote backstage.

"I was a little nervous coming here tonight, but I was having coffee with my friend Dustin Hoffman and he said: 'Don't worry, it'll be fine!" Nell says to a laugh while Oliver pretends to squirm and cover his face with her book.

Scovell, who was described in New York Times book review as "(https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/books/review/nell-scovell-just-the-funny-parts.html) a few biological tweaks" away from being Conan O'Brien, grew up in Massachusetts, attended Harvard (though never wrote for The Lampoon), and started as a sports writer before making her mark as often one of the only women in the writers room at many beloved TV comedies (she joked that an alternate title for her book was Penis, Penis, Penis, Me, Penis). Although Just the Funny Parts isn't a how-to guide for young women working in the industry, Scovell's experiences have made her a primary source for discussing equality in the workplace, having also co-written Sheryl Sandberg's 2013 book, Lean In.

Oliver came to know Scovell through their mutual friend Tim Carvell, a showrunner for Last Week Tonight, and asked her to help them staff up in an inclusive way. Scovell has a keen eye and what seems like good luck when it comes to identifying talent ("I encouraged [Carvell] to be a TV writer and now he has ten Emmys. I have zero," she noted). Jill Twiss, one of the writers Scovell suggested for LWT after following her on Twitter, is now a staff writer and the author of Oliver's book about Mike Pence's gay bunny that's (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/20/books/pence-gay-bunny-bundo.html) currently a No. 1 best seller.

While Scovell may not be a household name, her fingerprints are all over pop culture. Three of the shows she's worked on - Murphy Brown, Charmed, and Sabrina, the Teenage Witch - are currently being rebooted ("It's the golden age of no new idea," Scovell jokes). Oliver notes that Scovell kept all of her notes, pictures, and alternate scripts, not because she always thought she'd write a book, but because she thought her success would be fleeting.

"I mostly kept things because I thought TV would evaporate at any moment and I wanted proof that I had been there, so it was completely out of insecurity," Scovell says backstage. "The average career span for a TV writer is 11 years. The only other thing I could find that had the same career span was a police dog. And that's like 77 years!"

In Just the Funny Parts, her encounters with comedy greats like the Smothers Brothers and David Letterman are colored by the fact that she's the only woman in the room. Upon writing her first-ever spec script for TV's It's Garry Shandling's Show, the late Shandling told her "You write like a guy," the highest possible compliment at the time. Growing up with funny aunts and watching Gilda Radner and Laraine Newman perform on Saturday Night Live and Joan Rivers guest-host The Tonight Show meant it never occurred to her that women weren't funny, she tells Oliver. Ever practical, she approached writing jokes for President Obama's Correspondents Dinner by thinking of him as any sitcom character ("He's the leader of the free world and he lives with his mother-in-law," she quips).

As a freelancer on the second season of The Simpsons, Scovell wrote the iconic blowfish episode, in which Homer eats the poisonous fish and is told he has 24 hours to live. Scovell tells Oliver about an alternate ending scene that didn't go over well with the male writers room: Homer races home to have one last "intimate" night with Marge, which then cuts to the two of them staring at the ceiling as Marge says, "It's understandable - you're under a lot of stress." Anecdotes like that one show the subtle (and not-so-subtle) ways Scovell used gender politics in her writing. "One of the things I want is for men to read this book," Scovell says backstage. "Come for The Simpsons, stay for the feminism."

Scovell's knack for turning tough situations into comedy is at the root of her memoir. Oliver notes that the moment he laughed the hardest was also one of the toughest to read: Scovell's "Me Too" story about an inappropriate encounter with her former boss Jim Stafford some 30 years ago at a wrap party for The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. Talking to Oliver, Scovell joked that Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein have "raised the bar" for how terrible men can be, but still finds it important to add her voice to the chorus of women who are speaking out against any inappropriate behavior from men in power.

"It doesn't just drive away women, it drives away good men," Scovell says. "That behavior needs to be made socially unacceptable. It needs to be like farting in public. If you rub a woman's shoulders, it's like ripping a huge fart. Everyone should look at it and go 'Ew!'"

After the talk, Oliver reads Scovell a few questions from audience members off of index cards. One asks, "What's your favorite Simpsons episode?" Scovell thinks for a beat.

"That would be 'The Substitute Teacher.' Who was played by -"

Oliver fake-cringes.

"Dustin Hoffman!"

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Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"How Legendary TV Writer Nell Scovell Thinks We Should Treat Workplace Harassment." Vulture, 21 Mar. 2018. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A531779054/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=b6cb356d. Accessed 5 June 2018.

Gale Document Number: GALE|A531779054

Book World: She quit a Letterman writing gig, and thrived
Karen Heller
The Washington Post. (Mar. 15, 2018): News:
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2018 The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Full Text:
Byline: Karen Heller

Just the Funny Parts ... And a Few Hard Truths About Sneaking into the Hollywood Boys' Club

By Nell Scovell

Dey St. 316 pp. $27.99

---

When Nell Scovell started writing for the David Letterman show in the early 1990s, she was the only woman in the writers' room.

It was her dream job, but she left after a few months.

Her experiences on "Late Night" - some of which she described in Vanity Fair in 2009 - were soul-crushing. Half of Letterman's assistants appeared to have been sleeping with the boss. Not Scovell, who had a hard time being taken seriously by her male colleagues.

But working for the late-night legend looked swell on Scovell's resume. And now it's scribbled on the cover of her memoir, "Just the Funny Parts," amid a tower of her scripts for "The Simpsons," "Murphy Brown" and other popular TV shows.

Her memoir's subtitle is "And a few hard truths about sneaking into the Hollywood Boys' Club," and she relates a Superfund site's worth of sexist garbage for anyone brave or foolish enough to follow her exhausting career path.

Scovell's resume is dizzying, frantic even. Now 57, she seems to have worked on more shows than most people have watched. It's never clear whether this moving around is the result of miserable working conditions, customary Hollywood protocol or Scovell's eternal quest for something better. She helped pave the way for more female writers and served as their champion, although women are still woefully underrepresented on most shows.

Scovell worked with Garry Shandling, the Muppets and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. (She was the co-author of Sandberg's best-selling "Lean In," and Sandberg wrote the foreword to "Just the Funny Parts.") Scovell created "Sabrina the Teenage Witch" and served as co-executive producer on "Charmed." So, a talent for witchcraft. She also crafted White House Correspondents' Association dinner jokes for President Obama, such as this one: "There's someone who I can always count on for support: my wonderful wife, Michelle. We made a terrific team at the Easter Egg Roll this week. I'd give out bags of candy to the kids, and she'd snatch them right back out of their little hands."

Scovell could behave as stupidly as the next naif, and her candor is a tonic. She sometimes sounds unaware of sexism's subtler forms. She writes that in the 1980s, as a staff writer for the revered "Spy" magazine - the publication that branded Donald Trump a "short-fingered vulgarian" - "baby-sitting was cool": She had looked after co-founder Graydon Carter's children.

Uh, not cool. That's not why she went to Harvard, and bets are Carter never asked male staffers to play with his tykes.

"Funny Parts" includes lots of stories and a tonnage of names dropped, but it still seems that Scovell's on a quest. Larded with apercus and advice, this is another one of those girlfriend memoirs - a (BEGIN ITAL)femoir(END ITAL) - the sort mastered by Tina Fey, Amy Poehler and Mindy Kaling that sell brilliantly and are devoured in an afternoon. It's a very jokey, often charming book, but Scovell also seems to be in search of that home run, a "30 Rock" to call her own, which makes the reader root for her all the more.

Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Heller, Karen. "Book World: She quit a Letterman writing gig, and thrived." Washington Post, 15 Mar. 2018. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A531108828/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=810b72ee. Accessed 5 June 2018.

Gale Document Number: GALE|A531108828

Pitt, David. "Just the Funny Parts: And a Few Hard Truths about Sneaking into the Hollywood Boys' Club." Booklist, 1 Feb. 2018, p. 12. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A527771742/ITOF? u=schlager&sid=ITOF. Accessed 5 June 2018. "Scovell, Nell: JUST THE FUNNY PARTS." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Feb. 2018. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A525461614/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF. Accessed 5 June 2018. "Just the Funny Parts ... and a Few Hard Truths About Sneaking into the Hollywood Boys' Club." Publishers Weekly, 15 Jan. 2018, p. 53. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A523888933/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF. Accessed 5 June 2018. "How Legendary TV Writer Nell Scovell Thinks We Should Treat Workplace Harassment." Vulture, 21 Mar. 2018. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A531779054/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=b6cb356d. Accessed 5 June 2018. Heller, Karen. "Book World: She quit a Letterman writing gig, and thrived." Washington Post, 15 Mar. 2018. General OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A531108828/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=810b72ee. Accessed 5 June 2018.

• Vogue
  https://www.vogue.com/article/nell-scovell-just-the-funny-parts
  Word count: 1828

  Nell Scovell’s Just the Funny Parts Is the New Bossypants Meets Lean In
  Michelle Ruiz's picture
  MARCH 21, 2018 10:32 AM
  by MICHELLE RUIZ

  Photo: Courtesy of HarperCollins
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  Tina Fey’s Bossypants has been my go-to, crowd-pleasing book recommendation ever since I read it, in a day flat, on my honeymoon in 2011. For me, it stood alone in the canon of celebrity memoirs—until now. Nell Scovell, a pioneer among women writers in Hollywood, who has worked on The Simpsons, Late Night With David Letterman, and Murphy Brown, as well as created Sabrina the Teenage Witch, sets a new standard with Just the Funny Parts...and a Few Hard Truths About Sneaking Into the Hollywood Boys’ Club (Dey Street Books). It is at once a hilarious showbiz memoir peppered with Scovell’s celebrity run-ins and a compelling #MeToo story about the sexism and hostile environments she experienced as the lone woman in many a television writer’s room (including a tense time in Letterman’s: After he admitted to sleeping with female staffers in 2009, Scovell wrote a story for Vanity Fair about the sexually charged atmosphere at the show).

  Now, almost three decades into her career, Scovell writes that Hollywood still has a long way to go: “Sexual harassment is so embedded in show business, the industry even has a cutesy name for it—the casting couch,” she writes, “which does sound a lot nicer than the ‘rape sofa.’” But even in her detailed excavation of her past (Scovell includes script excerpts, magazine reviews, and all manner of fascinating primary sources), she doesn’t spare herself, making for at least one remarkable moment (I gasped; you’ll know it when you get there). Just the Funny Parts is an ideal read for right now: humor with an eye toward gender diversity. It helps that Scovell has the bona fides. She cowrote Lean In with Sheryl Sandberg, who has now penned the foreword of Scovell’s book.

  Vogue spoke with Scovell by phone about making sexism funny (“Am I corporeal?” she recalls asking a rare female coworker on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, “You can see and hear me, right?”), confronting Letterman, and the power of women in high places helping each other.

  You’ve been a private person, so it’s pretty new for you to put your personal stories out there. What possessed you to write this book now?

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  I’ve been asking myself that question a lot lately. I feel lucky that we’re in this time where people are paying attention to female narratives, and my life has been filled with some bizarre moments, from making Homer Simpson eat blowfish and thinking he was going to die to having Sabrina the Teenage Witch turn a cheerleader into a pineapple. So, I wanted to get the fun stories down. I’m also aware that it’s unusual that a female writer got to be in a lot of these rooms. There are so many times I felt like I was both an insider and an outsider at the same time.

  You strike a perfect balance between writing very honestly about sexism in Hollywood and also being so funny about your experiences. How did you pull that off?

  There’s a great old play and a movie called A Thousand Clowns by [Herb] Gardner, and in it, he says, “If life isn’t funny, then it’s just what it is, and it’s just a long dental appointment.” I’ve always had that approach to life.

  Having been in Hollywood for so long, as you have…

  I am very old.

  No! But what does it feel like to go from being the only woman in the Letterman writers’ room to now seeing Frances McDormand on the Oscars declaring “inclusion rider”? You’ve probably been thinking about this stuff for decades, and now it’s going mainstream.

  Oh, completely. And I don’t want to get too optimistic because for 30 years, I’ve been told, “It’s getting better, right?” And that’s always anecdotal. You can cherry-pick your data, but until we have sustained, statistical proof that things have gotten better for women, then I will remain wary. I do think women in their 20s are smarter about this than I was when I was at the same age. They grew up in a post–Anita Hill world, and that’s huge. When I went through my experience at Letterman, I had no vocabulary for that. I just thought it was fucked up. That was the technical term. And then, years later, Anita Hill comes along, and I’m watching her on television and a senator says to her, “Well, you know, if the workplace was so unhappy, why did you stay?” And she said, “I loved my job.” And I burst into tears in my bedroom because I had loved my job at Letterman, but I really didn’t see a way to stay in this atmosphere where I knew I was not going to thrive.

  When Letterman’s scandal broke in 2009, you wrote a Vanity Fair story about the sexist culture, the hostile environment, and the lack of female writers on the show. Some of the response from readers was: “Shut up” and “You’re a fame whore.” You remind us in the book that there was sympathy for Letterman. Did it feel like a risk to be telling your story?

  Writing that was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. It’s the only time I’ve really felt a compulsion to speak out. I couldn’t not write it. I tried to. I didn’t really want to. I was scared. My husband and I actually had a phone call with my accountant to say, “If Nell never works again, are we gonna be okay?” But it really went from being something I thought would be a terrible thing to one of the best things I’ve ever done in my whole life. There’s all this talk about being authentic, and I really felt like I was true to myself in that moment.

  Years later, you had this heart-to-heart—as much as that’s possible—with Letterman, in which you asked him about sexism in late-night and he said, “I don’t worry about that stuff.” But then, in subsequent years, you write that he started to actually be more vocal and suggest a woman might replace him…

  I’d like to note that his new Netflix show has five executive producers, and they are all male.

  I was going to ask if you think you had a role in bringing him a little more awareness of gender issues.

  He doesn’t worry about that stuff. When someone reveals themselves, believe them.

  No spoilers, but one of the best parts of the book is when you tell the story of working with a “novelty singer” turned writer named Jim Stafford at The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. You write that Stafford had a “dim” view of women, boxed you out of creative decisions, and once crudely suggested you fellate the guitar great Chet Atkins. Why did you decide to go there, so to speak, about Stafford? It just occurred to me: Is he dead?

  Well, he lives Branson, Missouri, so, pretty close. One of the reasons I told this story about myself was, there’s a tendency when we see someone who’s been successful to think they’ve sailed through and nothing bad ever happened to them. So I wanted to reveal that you can succeed, not because it’s all good, but because even when bad stuff happens, you keep going.

  You tweet often about the Trumps and the current political circus. You wrote jokes for President Obama for multiple White House Correspondents’ dinners. If Stephen Miller called you and said, “Hey, Nell, can you write some jokes for President Trump?” What would you say?

  I might say yes, and then send only jokes about how venal and hideous and corrupt he is. Like: “I tried to block Stormy Daniels from appearing on 60 Minutes, which means I imposed more sanctions on a porn actress than on Russia.” Or, “My first wife wrote in a book that I raped her. That hurt, but I learned from the experience. Now I make my wives sign NDAs.” Then I’d be like, “What? He didn’t use any of my jokes?”

  Before I forget: What do you think about the Sabrina the Teenage Witch reboot?

  I’m excited to watch it. You know, Sabrina and Buffy both came on at the same time, and I was a huge Buffy fan, so if this is sort of a combo thing, I think that sounds like fun. They’re rebooting three shows I’ve worked on: Murphy Brown, Charmed, and Sabrina. If it brings in a whole new generation, then that’s kind of interesting.

  I was shocked that you could write about having a career drought in later years, after all the success you’ve had. Do you attribute that to the usual cycle of a Hollywood writer’s career, or to sexism and ageism?

  I turned 40 and things started to go south. One of the things I learned by writing the memoir was how often female executives came through for me, from Nina Tassler to Susanne Daniels and Chris Sanagustin. They continued to call to see if I was available for work, and I always was. So, this is another reason we need women in leadership positions—too many men in Hollywood appreciate the potential of young women more than they appreciate the experience of middle-aged women.

  When you hear people say, “Women don’t have each other’s backs,” how does that strike you?

  One of the greatest benefits to come out of Lean In was convincing women to help and support other women, not out of this sense of duty and that you’d be condemned to hell forever if you didn’t, but because it will make all your lives better. The way Gloria Steinem puts it is that “we are linked, not ranked,” which I’ve always loved. In Just the Funny Parts, I quote the line about how women who don’t help other women have a special place in hell, but I add that women who do help women should have a special cloud in heaven.

  This interview has been edited and condensed.

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