Creator of @shitmydadsays, writer of the book you may have liked, and co-creator of the TV show that was totally shitty.

My ex loved your show. I had to watch it with her. Every episode. You owe me.

Ha! I'm not sure how I can repay you. If you ever run in to me on the street, say "FUCK YOUR SHOW, HOMEY" and then I'll know it's you and I'll buy you lunch, or, if my mere presence sickens you, I'll hand you whatever gift card I have in my wallet at that moment. Deal?

What was it like working with Shatner?

He was actually very nice. He has a lot of amazing old Hollywood stories. He'll be silent for ten minutes, then turn to you and say something like "I once punched out a fellow actor on stage during a broadway show for touching me." Then he'll go back to silence.

I hear he once had sex with Eartha Kitt in an airplane bathroom.

I would not doubt any rumors about him having sex with anyone. I always just assume any hot extra I see on Star Trek, he had sex with.

He was quoting Chevy Chase's character from the show Community. But I wouldn't be surprised if Shatner also had sex with her.

I thought that sounded familiar, but then, i also thought Shatner talking about having sex with someone sounded familiar.

That's surprising. I've always heard he's a huge douche.

Not a douche. Just imagine your nice grandpa who has a couple buttons you don't want to push.

This may seem like kind of an odd question, but is your dad proud of you?

I mean, you seem pretty successful now and all, but I see that you mentioned he was a scientist, and so I can imagine him having different ideas of success. Is there something your dad would rather see you doing?

My dad wanted me to be a major league baseball player. I fizzled out after two years of playing in college. That was a bummer for him. But he's proud of me. He once told me "you're terrible at everything but writing, so I'm glad you chose that. I'm proud of you." That's the way he says he's proud of me. Which, is actually very sweet if you're there.

Bookstore worker here, in a very conservative area.

I just wanted to thank you for your book. I had so many awkward conversations with customers who came in and didn't know how to ask for it. Handing it over to them felt very secret-clubbish. How does this make you feel?

Also, to the 12 year old boy who "prank called" our store: Yes, I could tell you were 12. Yes, I knew you were just really excited to say the word "shit" over the phone.

That's really interesting. I got some hate e-mail from a couple evangelical groups, which was funny because the emails were like "You should be ashamed of yourself," and then I'd respond with "Did you read the book?" and they'd be like "Of course not." I love outrage mixed with self-congratulatory ignorance. It's the best kind.

Oh yeah, sorry, but.. proof?

Ah whoops. Here's my twitter feed where I announced it: http://www.twitter.com/justin_halpern

What were the expectations you had going into the show? Did you ever imagine that would be the end result?

Honestly, I thought before production started that it had a chance to be good. The problem is, my dad is not a guy who "makes jokes." He just says what's on his mind, with no intention of being funny. So to then try and translate that to a mult-camera comedy with a live audience was a huge mistake. Single camera on cable, maybe it could have worked. Maybe.

I honestly thought the show was awesome. It was hilarious i really wanted to watch a second season. I don't understand why you keep saying it was bad

I had an idea in my head of what I thought it should and could be, and it didn't match that, so, to me, it was a big disappointment. If you liked the show, then I think that is fantastic. That was our goal. I was just really close to the project, you know?

Maybe too close. It almost sounds like you wanted Shatner to essentially be your dad (as did many viewers which I think is what doomed the show). I think the media format required the role to be played as Shatner did. I found the show pretty damn funny myself. It probably would have done better if it used the concept but somehow divorced itself from your original blog.

Also I just wanted to say Shatner one more time. Probably because it sounds vaguely juvenile.

You're right, format did require that, which is why I think Shatner was perfect for what this was. Which ultimately means we just didn't get it any version of it right.

| The problem is, my dad is not a guy who "makes jokes." He just says what's on his mind, with no intention of being funny. |

Being from an old school New York Irish family, I can relate to this on so many levels. This is exactly what I thought of when I heard the title of the show. Never got around to seeing the show and never even knew it was a book beforehand. Your confirmation of my initial impression of the title is why I don't care to check out the show, but just bought your book.

Thanks! I actually get an overwhelming number of Irish east-coasters telling me that. That makes me happy, but also afraid to ever go to Ireland.

Did you make a lot of money?

I didn't off the show. The book has been very kind to me.

I bought your book and loved it. You're welcome.

I spent the two dollars I got from that on a smoothie this morning. It was delicious.

Seriously, you get two dollars a book? Here I am trying to be a fucking musician...

Just remember this: No one ever wants to fuck a writer. Everyone wants to fuck a musician...

That's goddamn genius.

I bet his dad told him that.

You would win that bet.

You should have just spent the 2 dollars on paper to write another book. Then you would have more money.

Look at you. You're a regular Timmy Geithner.

What's your favorite quote your dad has said?

I think my favorite is "A parent's only as good as their dumbest kid. If one wins the nobel prize, but the other gets robbed a hooker, then you failed." It nicely summed up parenting in a way I hadn't heard before.

Were you trying to say "gets robbed by a hooker" or "robbed a hooker"?

Whoops, yes, "robbed by a hooker."

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Thank you! I think the show suffered from the format and the writing, mostly. I'm as much to blame as anyone. I think we couldn't figure out how to do it, and then we fell in to this trap of writing lazy jokes we knew would satisfy a live audience. It veered away from what I thought made the book work.

It did get better as it continued. Did it have an actual conclusion? The last episode I saw was the one where the girl was dating (married?) to possibly a 3rd son.

That was the last episode that aired. We were having a lot of trouble trying to figure out the show, so that was a desperate attempt at introducing a new character. That probably would have been our "poochie."

I really wanted to enjoy the show. I really liked Shatner as your dad, but there was just way too much of the other characters who, quite frankly, sucked.

I'm sure some old MadTV fans will disagree with me here, but I have never found the guy who played the brother and the woman who played his wife to be good in just about anything. They dragged the show down into an abysmal pit of no return.

I think that was more the fault of myself and the other writers than it was of Will and Nicole. Don't underestimate our suckiness!

I remember when your twitter blew up. It was fun seeing it go from like 5k followers to hundreds of thousands in days.

What are you working on now?

That was so crazy when that happened. I basically owe much of my career to Rob Corddry and Kristen Bell. No one was really following it until those two saw it somehow and tweeted out a link to it.

Right now my second book is coming out May 15th, it's called I Suck At Girls and it's just a series of essays about growing up and navigating women. It's very much like SMDS in that it starts when I'm six and progresses chronologically. It has a lot of my dad in it, as well.

What does your dad think of all of this? From the 'fame' to a television series and everything in between?

He honestly does not give a single fuck. He's happy for me, but he enjoys his life exactly how it is and since he rarely ventures further than one square mile away from our house, it doesn't affect him.

How hard was selling the book idea to a publisher?

Well, book publishers had reasonable fears, which were: "is this just a bunch of quotes?" I wasn't interested in that either. But I had been an essay writer online and for magazines, so I thought it could work as a series of short essays about life with my dad, interspersed with his quotes. After I put together a compilation, publishers were much more willing to go after it.

I've followed @shitmydadsays for a while now. Is 100% of whats been posted there from your dad? Also, it seems he has a sort of, although hilarious and usually wise, bleak outlook on things. Is he always like this? Or just in little nuggets that eventually make it to twitter?

He does have a pretty bleak outlook on things, it's true. He generally considers human beings to be pretty disgusting creatures with the capability of doing good, as opposed to vice versa. That said, he enjoys life quite a bit. The things on SMDS are things he says, but I do edit them to get them in to the 140. It's rare that it's exactly word for word unless it's a shorter post.

How much creative control did you have on the sitcom?

Not a ton, but not none. I was sort of like the third assistant coach on a basketball team. I mostly just clap a lot when good plays happen, and every once in a while say "what if we did this?" and then hope they think it's a good idea.

Did you have any visions for the show that you think would have made it better that were ignored?

I dunno, I think I was always heard. I mean, you have to remember I had ZERO TV writing credits. So, really, why should anyone listen to me? They had to answer to networks who were paying money to put the show on the air. That's their job. I really wanted to keep it grounded, at least in tone, and I think that would have helped it, but that's hard to do on a multi-camera sitcom.

If you had to fight a dinosaur to the death in a Dinosaur Death Match using only primitive weapons and not allowed to set traps, what's the biggest dinosaur you think you win against? You don't have to name a specific dinosaur, just give us a size reference.

I was once almost killed by a raccoon, so I'd say whatever dinosaur is small than a raccoon. God, I'm a huge pussy. Thanks for reminding me of that.

Story about almost getting killed by a raccoon? Please tell it if you can.

Scroll down about half-way: http://deadspin.com/5871198/why-wont-tv-networks-show-people-running-onto-the-field

I think everyone agrees the sitcom was totally shitty, but did any parts of it come together exactly as you wanted? (Someone's performance, or specific episode or scene, for example.)

I think Will Sasso and Nicole Sullivan are very talented, skilled performers, and I wish we could have given them something better to do. There are a couple of times during the show when I thought we nailed my dad, but they were so few and far between.

Your father is quite the creator of adages. Do people within earshot of him burst into laughter when he comes up with these great lines? Have you ever considered hiring an artist and making a series of comic books about him?

My dad rarely leaves his home, so generally only my family is within ear shot, and we enjoy him immensely. I never thought about doing a comic book, but I did once hire an artist to do a portrait of him for his birthday. He did not enjoy that. In fact, he hurled it in to the garbage when I gave it to him.

How is work on Shit Shatner Said coming along?

I actually think he's doing a one-man show which is basically that. His stories are pretty amazing/insane. I think he's "fought to the death" in real life no fewer than four times.

I loved the book and actually bought several to give as gifts last year ...also, Borders was going under and I got them cheap so I could look a lot more generous than I actually am. Your Dad sounds like I wish my Dad had been, but he came up short in the humor category.

Thanks! My dad actually went in to a Barnes and Noble once and someone recognized him from the twitter picture and asked him to sign some of their copies and he just wrote "dad" in twenty books, then left.

Can you actually eat and digest every limb while still attached to your body?

Hmm. I would say if you could somehow stop the bleeding, then maybe?

You keep referring to multi-cam/single-cam. How would having less cameras be preferential?

Ah, it's just the style. Multi-cam is shot in front of a live audience. It has laughs that you hear at home. Single cam is just a way of saying it's shot more like a movie. No live audience. Multi-cam = Big Bang Theory, 2.5 men, 2 broke girls. Single cam = community, 30 rock, new girl

Even though there is obviously more than one camera being used?

yeah, it's just shorthand for the style.

What is your favorite joke?

Probably something involving poop or a dick. I'm basically a twelve year old boy.

If that's the case, then I gotta take an opportunity to plug my site of fart poems (poemsaboutfarting.com). My work includes poems such as:

It hurts like a bitch every time I pass gas
The trouble with having a hemorrhoidal ass
It's itchy and burns and it's sore to the touch
Some say it happened from farting too much
Now when I feel one, I quiver with fear
What I wouldn't give for a healthier rear
This is the worst, it's like a bad dream
But I'm not gonna stop, so where's the ass cream

Hope you like it.

You had me at "tootsMcAnus."

Was your dad always the way he is portrayed as cynical and wise in shitmydadsays or did he become that way over the years?

He was born in the depression, and his dad was a cynical guy as well. He's also an athiest, as well as a scientist, so I think he likes to look at things critically. He contends he's not a cynic, and instead a realist, although I think most cynics say that.

I always wondered, how old is your mother? I mean, your father was born before the boomers and you are a genY kid. That's a two generation difference and the math doesn't add up unless your mother is quite a bit younger than your father. Just curious.

Also, I actually liked the show for the first few episodes but I think the main flaw was that it didn't mirror your family situation enough. I mean, where was the mother? Also, Shatner wasn't cynical enough.

How were Will Sasso and Nicole Sullivan - always been fans of theirs? I really had high hopes for the show but it sort of got worse and worse until it fell of the cliff but I didn't think it was inevitable. I bought your first book for the hell of it b/c it was neat idea.

My mom is 61. 14 years younger than my dad.

Will and Nicole are the nicest people I've worked with. They are talented and great to work with.

While reading your book, I realized that I worked with your mom about ten years ago. I just wanted to say she is totally awesome. You should do a book all about her.

Whoa, really? My mom is the best. Tireless worker. She's even more private than my dad, and doesn't even like me mentioning her in passing in the book. Where did you guys work together?

I was working for a legal nonprofit in Los Angeles when she was doing work with low-income moms in San Diego. I just have the utmost respect for her, and was totally gobsmacked when I made the connection.

That is so awesome. She is still doing that. She's basically my hero. Thanks for sharing that with me. If you ever talk to her again, she always gets a kick out of people bringing up the book.

I've been following you forever, your dad is hilarious. It seems you update less than usual now, though.

I don't see him as often, and also, I don't want to bombard people with quotes now unless I think they're really something people would enjoy.

Can you describe what the process of pitching your book was like? Did publishers just go ape shit after twitter exploded or was it still a tough sell?

It was a tough sell until I wrote four of the stories that would later be in the book, and presented those to them. People were interested before that, but they didn't really know what the book would be. Nobody really wants to pay 16 bucks for just quotes and I felt I had some good stories to tell.

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I think when I realized that it was set up-punchline and that's not who my dad is at all. Which, again, is my fault. We sold it as a mult-cam, and it's not like I'd never seen a mult-cam before.

Do you think you'll be like your dad when you get older? Does he always wear sweat pants?

Nah, he's much tougher than I am, and I don't curse nearly as much. I'd like to think I'll be as analytical about things as he is. He's rarely rattled because he always thinks things through first. I'm much more impulsive and prone to acting like a dick hole. And yes, he almost always wears sweat pants. He has different ones for different occasions. The dress sweats have stripes...

Striped dress sweats? That just made my day. Thanks for doing this AMA.

He also has both a casual and dress fanny pack.

Amazing. I have to demand photos.

Hmm, I may have tweeted one on my personal account, if you scroll through those photos.

Do you know what you're going to write about when you run out of personal experiences? You're great at relating stories from your life, do you think it would be challenging to write a book with a different topic/style?

It would be incredibly challenging. I don't think I'm good enough currently to write a book of fiction. I feel most comfortable when I'm just relating an experience that feels rather universal. But I'm also a complete idiot most of the time, so I end up having some interesting experiences.

I loved the book. How do you feel about laugh tracks? I can't watch any TV show with laugh tracks. The fake laughing hurts my brain.

Well, here's the thing; did you like Seinfeld, or Cheers? They had laugh tracks and they were funny. I think laugh tracks do feel dated these days, but I still think someone will come along and really nail one. I have this weird feeling Dan Harmon is going to do one just to prove to everyone it can be done.

When are you going on the Frotcast next?

I'm actually doing a live Q and A on filmdrunk next week I think. Love Vince as well as that site. I think he does funny film news better than anyone else on the web.

Would you do another multi-cam network comedy?

I worked on one last year called "How To Be A Gentleman." It did not turn out so well. I think it's very possible to do a good multi-cam network comedy. It's been done before (Seinfeld, Cheers, etc...) but I think it's starting to feel dated, so it needs to be reinvented a bit. I'm not smart enough to reinvent that, unfortunately, so for now I'll have to wait for someone else to do it.

oh you were involved in that show? i remember that show, with the rickety cricket guy from it's always sunny. i thought it was okay, not great, but had hoped it would continue.

We got the absolute SHIT cancelled out of us. Our ratings were horrible. Rickety Cricket is a great guy, though. Very talented.

in my opinion, he's not lead guy material, neither is that guy from entourage.

Unfortunately that was also the opinion of the a little old country called America.

How did your dad feel about being portrayed by William Shatner?

I really like Shatner, and for a multi-cam sitcom, he's a great guy to have. He's "in" on the joke that is himself, and he's a pleasure to work with. If we had done single cam, I think Ian McShane would have been awesome.

That's awesome, great to hear.

I accidentally left out the "r" on your, but I'm very curious to know how your pops felt about Denny Crane portraying him.

I don't think he cared. He wanted James Earl Jones to play him (not joking), so anyone outside of JEJ he didn't really care.

I applaud your ability to admit your own failure, as opposed to many creative types who will chalk it up to the producers/network executives/whatever. I never saw the show, but I was an avid fan of the Twitter account, and think that you're pretty fucking funny.

Thanks! I appreciate that. I think failures need to be embraced, otherwise you just keep making the same mistakes.

Is the Shat actually similar to your Dad? Like, was he a good pick?

In real life, Shatner is very much like my dad in some ways (unpredictable, lovably crazy) but different in other ways (a little warmer, a performer so he wants people to like him. My dad does not care if anyone but his family likes him.)

When SMDS first started, did you do any specific promotion for it? Or did it just catch virally? If you did promote it, how did you initially get the word out? I mean, it's one thing to be funny, but it's an entirely different thing to make people aware that you're there.

I actually just did it to show my friends. I assumed no one would find it funny, but dared to dream that maybe some day someone would. The reason it took off was because somehow Rob Corddry and Kristen Bell saw it and tweeted out links to it and that caused it to explode. Also, it got on the homepage of the artist formerly known as Digg. That helped send it viral.

What other projects are you currently working on besides the new book?

I sold the new book as a TV show, and Bill Lawrence is going to Executive produce it, if it goes. It's sort of like the Wonder Years, but set in the early 90s, and mostly about kids trying to navigate girls. That was the last time in history when porn was not readily available. If you saw a picture of a boob is was like spotting a lamborghini. That always felt like an interesting time period to me.

I JUST started reading the book last night - and am loving it. The style you chose captures the life advice and general outlook of your father perfectly. Of course have followed @shitmydadsays for a long time. And have laughed at damn near every post - which there are few people I follow that make me chuckle out loud.

I never watched the show past episode 1, I never really expected it to work, not for lack of heart, but for the reasons you have stated, your dads "humor" is not intentional, it is literally just what he is thinking, without filter. I cannot imagine the challenge of trying to transition that to a sitcom.

That being said - has the success of the twitter feed, book, and working on the sitcom changed your relationship with your father at all? He actually stikes me as someone who simply doesn't give a shit about these elements, but I am curious if the dynamic between the two of you has altered at all.

It hasn't changed it at all. We are close friends, and since he doesn't give a rat's ass about it, we never talk about. I can't even remember the last time he even brought up the TV show or the book. We've talked some about my new book, but that's just because he's in it, and I always let people who are in my stories read them before they go to my editor.

"Liked"? Shit holmes, it's the funniest book I ever read, I love it more than my family.

I'm not sure I want to ask this for fear of the magic being ruined, but did all that stuff happen how you said it did or was there embellishment/exaggeration? In particular the "frogger" scene at the conference your dad was speaking at. Also, did you really jerk off to your gay neighbours?

Though your dad is hilarious, your writing style is amazing and is what really turns a bunch of funny quotes and anecdotes about what is really a fairly normal family life into a fantastic read, can't wait for your next book.

Thank you! I really appreciate that. Whenever I write any non-fiction story, I try and sit down with the parties involved in the story to get the details right. That story in particular was one that my dad remembered so clearly that I feel that it was as close to accurate as possible. Some of the other ones, I'm going off my memory, so it's hopefully as accurate as possible. I always make sure to tell people at the beginning of my books that I'm just doing my best to remember things accurately.

And yes, I did jerk off to my gay neighbors.

why do you think there is such a mass appeal for "live audience" laugh-button shows?

I read an interview with Dan Harmon, who is infinitely smarter than I am, and he put it best. He basically said we're pack animals and that we like to feel like we're watching a show WITH someone. That makes a lot of sense to me.

Do you think the show would have worked better on a different channel? Where you could actually get away with some language? CBS seems like the worst possible channel for that show to have been on.

I think it could have, yeah. To be fair, I don't think it would have worked on any of the basic cable networks, CBS, NBC, FOX, ABC. The problem was, it wasn't really ambitious enough to be a cable show. It's just a father and a son, and normally places like HBO, Showtime, etc..., like some topic that's a bit challenging for their audience, like behind the scenes of drug deals, or the old west, or stuff like that. So they never would have bit I don't think.

I think it could have worked on FX. They seem like they are willing to take chances if the material is good or cheap enough.

That would probably be the only place that might have bought it where it also could have worked.