Josh Bycel has hit a lot of dream landmarks in his career in comedy. From his early days as a freelance writer doing stories for The Onion to being a co-EP for two years helping shape a new series (“Psych”) to writing for the Academy Awards when comedian Jon Stewart hosted, Josh has navigated this sometimes tricky career path well. His talent and hard work and savvy have lead him to a seat at the creative table with some of the top talent working today.

Current position (or recently-completed project or projects): Exec Producer/Showrunner on Scrubs for 2009/2010 season.

College & degree (if any): University of Wisconsin – Madison, Bachelor of Arts, History.  University of California,  graduated from the School of Theater, Film and TV’s Professional Program in Screenwriting (1 year before you can go into the other one). Attended the School of Theater, Film and TV’s MFA program.

Internships: NONE. I was bartending and doing paid sports writing to support myself during that time.

First job in the entertainment industry: I was a PA on Revenge of the Nerds 3. My first task was delivering a script to Booger’s house.

Big break: In this business now, you have to get a big break each year to survive. (Laughs.) My first big break was while I was in the Master’s program at UCLA. I landed a staff writer job on “Veronica’s Closet.” Getting the showrunner job on “Scrubs” was the next big break in my career.

Eureka moment (when you realized you did or did not want to do something or that you should do something differently, etc.): When I left “American Dad,” which was a stable job, and one that I liked, because I felt I was in a rut and didn’t want to do animation for five years. Since then, I’ve had a bunch of really interesting jobs.

Career path (this is where you touch on career milestones you didn’t/won’t touch on in other questions): My writing partner and I had written “Friends” and “News Radio” specs. He had been an assistant at an agency as a day job and someone he worked with  got our stuff to an agent at Paradigm. He signed us, but then left to go to another agency and couldn’t take any clients with him. So we were agentless again for a while, until someone from ICM read us and then took us on. I haven’t worked on that many hit shows, but I have worked consistently and I have worked with great people such as Bill Lawrence, the creator of “Scrubs” and “Cougar Town,” Conan O’Brien and Andy Richter (on “Andy Barker, PI”) and Jon Stewart, when I wrote for the Oscars.

Describe a typical work day in your current position: I get in between 7:30 and 8:00 and begin the day by going down to the stage to make sure filming is going okay. Then I go into the office and review scripts and outlines for upcoming episodes and cuts of episodes in post production. Around 10:00, the rest of the writers come in and for the rest of the day, it’s working with them on stories and outlines, casting, and doing everything else that is involved with producing a TV show. At the end of the day, I check in at the stage one final time. If everything is going well, I leave at 7:30 or 8:00.

Worst job (or day) in entertainment industry: Worst day is when you don’t get jobs. If you get two out of ten jobs you go up for, you are considered wildly successful. But of course that means that eight out of ten times you are getting turned down.

Best job (or day) in entertainment industry: Best day was being up at Robert Evans house working on the cartoon about his life, “Kid Notorious.” When Jack Nicholson would come over for a visit… that was amazing.

Best thing about your current job: Best thing is that being a showrunner fits me. I love being the boss, letting it all fall on me. I think some people are built for that and some people aren’t.

Worst thing about your current job: The hours. The hours are long.

Brush with greatness (can be a celebrity encounter or just being exposed to someone being brilliant at what they do): Working at the Academy Awards. Standing backstage surrounded by people like Jack Nicholson and Nicole Kidman, writing jokes on the fly, writing jokes about them, and then watching Jon Stewart going out and say those jokes to millions and millions of people.

Secret of your success/advice to the newbie: The secret to my success is working hard and working smart. I tell anyone who wants to break in as a writer to keep writing. Sooner or later, if you are talented, someone is going to look at your work, but you have to be prepared when the lightning strikes. In other businesses you go from A to B to C, but in this one you have to be able to go from A to B to G because a lot of the time, that’s how it happens.

Next move (or next five moves): I’m not sure what my next move is because there aren’t that many jobs for people who do what I do. But as long as I stay in this business, I want to work on projects I think are interesting and work with people I like and respect. My ultimate goal is to get my own show on the air as soon as I can, and then run it. 

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Tags: Academy Awards, American Dad, Josh Bycel, Producer, Psych, Scrubs

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 16th, 2010 at 9:45 pm and is filed under Industry Pro - TV, producer, writer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.