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The Writers Panel

Macon Blair (The Toxic Avenger)

The Writers Panel

Ben Blacker

Tv & Film, Movies, Writing, Screenwriting, Tv, Hollywood

4.7796 Ratings

🗓️ 26 August 2025

⏱️ 37 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Writer/director Macon Blair (The Toxic Avenger; I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore) discusses managing a bigger production for his second feature, "handmade" films, balancing tones, writing a movie that's not "accidentally stupid," and lots more.


LIVE STUFF!


A live Dead Pilots Society in LA (or available to stream on demand) on Sunday 9/14 2-4pm at the Elysian Theater. With scripts by Lisa Muse Bryant (The Four Seasons; Black-ish) and Jim Brandon & Brian Singleton (Animal Control; Mixed-ish). Starring Amber Riley (Glee), Yvette Nicole Brown (Community), Kyla Pratt (One On One), Dan Gregor (The Naked Gun co-writer), Phil Lamarr (King of the Hill; Futurama), Marcel Spears (The Neighborhood), Brian Safi (Throwing Shade), Jessica McKenna (Dropout), and more.

Get live or streaming tickets here.


The Thrilling Adventure Hour celebrates its 20th anniversary with shows in NY and London!

Come see Paul F. Tompkins, Paget Brewster, Busy Philipps, Joshua Malina, Janet Varney, and more this fall! https://thrillingadventure.live for details.


THE WRITERS PANEL IS A COMPLETELY INDEPENDENT PRODUCTION.

Follow and support the show by subscribing to Ben Blacker's newsletter, Re:Writing, where you'll also get weekly advice from the thousands of writers he's interviewed over the years, as well as access to exclusive live Q&As, meet-ups, and more: benblacker.substack.com


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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hey folks, it's me, Ben Blacker, the creator and host of the writers panel. Thank you so much, as always, for listening to the podcast. Before we get into today's episode, and we've got a string of really strong episodes coming up, I think, for the next couple months. I want to draw your attention to a bunch of shows that I am putting on this fall, producing and or writing.

0:26.1

First up, if you are in Los Angeles, or even if you're not, we have a live Dead Pilot Society on the 14th of September.

0:35.5

That's a Sunday afternoon.

0:36.8

It's a 2 to 4 p.m. show at the Elysian

0:41.3

Theater. In Dead Pilot Society, scripts that were developed by studios and networks, but

0:46.8

were never produced are given the table reads they deserve. We have two really great scripts

0:52.4

for the September 14th show.

1:00.9

The first one is by Lisa Mews Bryant, who has worked on the Four Seasons, Blackish, a ton of great shows.

1:07.8

And the other script is by Jim Brandon and Brian Singleton, who are currently on animal control.

1:09.0

They worked on mixed-dish.

1:10.3

They worked on Arrested Development. These are two of the strongest scripts we've done in Dead Pilot Society.

1:15.4

And the casts are already bananas.

1:18.7

We got Amber Riley from Glee, Vic McAilis from dropouts, very important people,

1:25.0

the naked gun co-writer Dan Greger, Phil Lamar from King of the Hill and Futurama,

1:31.1

Marcel Spears from the neighborhood, throwing shades, Brian Safi, a bunch more great folks.

1:37.3

So come on out on September 14th to check out that live Dead Pilot Society.

1:42.5

You can also stream it live from the comfort of your own home, wherever you are.

1:48.2

And I'll put the link to that on my website, but it's at the Elysian Theater.

1:54.3

And then this fall, we've got some live thrilling adventure hour shows.

1:59.8

This is the stage show in the style of old time radio that my writing partner and I created 20 years ago.

2:05.8

We're celebrating our 20th anniversary, and these are our last shows of that anniversary year.

2:12.4

The next one is on October 26th.

...

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