Ben Karlin is a writer and executive producer of The Daily Show, one of the three co-creators of The Colbert Report.  He also used to write for The Onion as well as Space Ghost Coast-to-Coast as well as one of the editors of America: The Book. Jesus, he stays busy.

We talked to him about some of that and his new collection of essays by some of the funniest people in the country. Titled: Things I've Learned From Women Who Dumped Me. 

Chief Magazine:  So, tell me your name and what you do.

Ben Karlin:  My name is Benjamin Miles Karlin and I was found in a wicker basket on the edge of the Nile River. I have this company called Superego Industries.  Not Super Ego Industries.

Is that a different company?

I don’t know if it’s a different company but they have very different meanings. [Laughs].  My company basically exists by the good graces of the Home Box Office.  HBO funds this to do television, film and Internet projects for them. We have a bunch of different projects that will all revolutionize the face of entertainment as we know it.  There’s no possibility that any one of them will fail.  So, it’s just a question of how to manage all of that success…

Aren’t Bob and David doing a new thing?

Yes, they are, for HBO.  Bob isn’t starring in it.  It’s Bob’s show and David is starring in it.  Maybe Bob has a small role, but that just got picked up.  Being here in New York versus Los Angeles, I don’t really know a lot of what’s happening in the entertainment industry…or even if it still exists. I assume it does.

So, you exist outside of it?

Well, it’s not that I exist outside of it but I’m protected in a little bio-dome.  I’m still on Planet Earth but I’ve got my own self-sustaining, homeostatic environment, like Pauly Shore.

Is it easier or harder living outside of the West Coast?

Well, it depends on where you are in your career.  For me, I find it to be much easier because there’s just not as much “chatter.”  You know, you come up with an idea, either good or it sucks, and then you have to trust your own instincts or the people you’re working with.  Then, maybe you’ll find out that someone else tried that idea several years ago. There are tons of creative people in New York, though, so it’s not like I’m in a cabin.  I love John Malkovich and how he’s like “I live in France and have a castle with a moat and you can send me scripts via DHL.” 

So, there are just four of you here?  Are you all writers?

No, various levels.  It’s myself, and I have an assistant.  Most companies like this would have a Development Executive, I guess you’d say, but I didn’t want that.  That’s a person whose job would be to look for projects, read scripts and try to match me up with other creative people.  I have my own little group of people I like to work with.   I just wanted someone who is funny, has good taste and had some experience producing.  So, I hired a guy who had more of a TV producing background, rather than someone who was an agent or worked for Fox’s development department. His name is Will.  And, we have an AP, who works under Will, like a field lieutenant-type person.  That’s the person who helps book crews and get photo clearances, more production type of job.  She kinda floats between all different projects to help make it actually happen.  We have an intern program, too.  They do everything, including bizarre sex slave shit. Like medieval.

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Are all of the projects in development at the same time or are they at different levels of development?

Well, you never want everything to be at the exact same pace because then you have overwhelming success or overwhelming failure.  You’re really not prepared for either.  So, things are naturally staggered.  A movie has a much different time line than a TV show.  With a movie, you’re making one and with a TV show, you’re making, hopefully, a lot. With a TV show, you turn in the script and if they like it, they’ll usually order a pilot.  You make the pilot and then have a few weeks to rewrite the script.  It’s a much more closed and finite process.  You could have the money and director and everything set up for a movie, be ready to shoot and an actor could pull out and your movie is dead because there goes your money.  It’s such a weird, inefficient business.

Have you worked in film before?  I thought it was primarily TV.

I’ve done a lot of rewriting of movies, which is the way many writers make money. I’ve never written a movie, with my original script, that’s been made.  I have worked on movies at various levels of production.  I’ve done rewrites for movies while they were being shot.  And there were some animated films too.  So, I’ve seen a little bit of the process that way.