As Told To - Episode 54: Rebecca Shaw & Ben Kronengold

Episode 54: Rebecca Shaw & Ben Kronengold

12/19/23 • 64 min

1 Listener

“Voices of their generation. Except for Greta Thunberg. And Malala. Amanda Gorman . . .you know what, I take it back.” — Jimmy Fallon

That’s high praise for the comedy writing duo of Rebecca Shaw and Ben Kronengold, from their former boss at NBC’s “The Tonight Show,” where our podcast guests became the two youngest writers in that program’s storied history and earned a shared spot on Variety’s “Power of Young Hollywood Impact List” in 2021.

Shaw and Kronengold began dating and writing together as freshmen at Yale University and capped their undergraduate career with a 2018 commencement address that went a little bit viral. (Okay, it went a whole lotta viral – their speech was seen by more than 5 million people, and landed them an agent...and, eventually, their “Tonight Show” gig.)

Together, they’ve just published a disarmingly funny collection of essays, stories, and humor pieces called Naked in the Rideshare: Stories of Gross Miscalculations, which was hailed by actor and comedian Will Ferrell as “incredibly original, bizarre, and funny” prior to publication by William Morrow in November.

Join us as we talk about what it means to find your voice in collaboration with your partner, and to take that voice to one of the most dynamic writing rooms in late night television – and beyond.

Learn more about Rebecca Shaw & Ben Kronengold:

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“Voices of their generation. Except for Greta Thunberg. And Malala. Amanda Gorman . . .you know what, I take it back.” — Jimmy Fallon

Join us as we talk about what it means to find your voice in collaboration with your partner, and to take that voice to one of the most dynamic writing rooms in late night television – and beyond.

Learn more about Rebecca Shaw & Ben Kronengold:

Please support the sponsors who support our show.

Daniel Paisner's Balloon Dog
Daniel Paisner's SHOW: The Making and Unmaking of a Network Television Pilot
Unforgiving: Lessons from the Fall by Lindsey Jacobellis
Film Movement Plus (PODCAST) | 30% discount
Libro.fm (ASTOLDTO) | 2 audiobooks for the price of 1 when you start your membership
Film Freaks Forever! podcast, hosted by Mark Jordan Legan and Phoef Sutton
A Mighty Blaze podcast
The Writer's Bone Podcast Network
Misfits Market (WRITERSBONE) | $15 off your first order
Film Movement Plus (PODCAST) | 30% discount
Wizard Pins (WRITERSBONE) | 20% discount

Previous Episode

Episode 53: Rob Kutner

George McFly’s A Match Made in Space, from “Back to the Future”...

Hank Moody’s God Hates Us All,” from “Californication”...

Dr. Frederick Frankenstein’s How I Did It, from “Young Frankenstein”...

Some of our best-loved movies and television shows feature books written by one of the lead characters. In many cases, the publication of those “books” becomes a central plot point or a running gag. (Think Handbook for the Recently Deceased, from “Beetlejuice.”) In other cases, those books leap from the screen and onto our bookshelves—IRL, as the kids like to say.

That’s the case with Look Out for the Little Guy, the in-movie memoir by Scott Lang, also known as Ant-Man, as seen on screen in the Marvel Studios blockbuster, “Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania.” The book was published by Hyperion Avenue in September and became an immediate New York Times best-seller, but here’s a news flash: it wasn’t really written by Scott Lang, the “Everyman Avenger” played in the movie by actor Paul Rudd. And no, it wasn’t really written by Paul Rudd, whose face graces the front cover of the book in stores and online, and as it appears as a prop in the movie.

In fact, the book was really written by our guest Rob Kutner, a veteran comedy writer who has collected five Emmys, a Peabody and a Grammy writing for such shows as “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” on Comedy Central, and “Conan,” on TBS. Rob’s other television writing credits include “Teen Titans Go,” “Angry Birds: Summer Madness” and “Dennis Miller Live,” and he has also written material for the Oscars, Emmys, and MTV Movie Awards broadcasts, as well as for two White House Correspondents Dinners.

He is also the author of Apocalypse How: Turn the End-Times into the Best of Times! and the just-published Snot Goblins and Other Tasteless Tales, with illustrations by David DeGrand.

Join us as Rob shares what it was like to channel the voice of a fictional character to craft a page-turning memoir of an ex-con turned world-saving superhero, and to be tasked with the caretaking of the life and legacy of one of the most beloved characters in the Marvel Universe.

Learn more about Rob Kutner:

Please support the sponsors who support our show.

Daniel Paisner's Balloon Dog & Horizontal Hold
Unforgiving: Lessons from the Fall by Lindsey Jacobellis
Film Movement Plus (PODCAST) | 30% discount
Libro.fm (ASTOLDTO) | 2 audiobooks for the price of 1 when you start your membership
Film Freaks Forever! podcast, hosted by Mark Jordan Legan and Phoef Sutton
A Mighty Blaze podcast
The Writer's Bone Podcast Network
Misfits Market (WRITERSBONE) | $15 off your first order
Film Movement Plus (PODCAST) | 30% discount
Wizard Pins (WRITERSBONE) | 20% discount

Next Episode

Episode 55: Andrew Crofts

“I’m quite good at detaching and passing the tissues and just listening,” says Andrew Crofts, one of the world’s most prolific ghostwriters, on his ability to help his clients share their most intimate, most harrowing, most traumatic experiences in the pages of their memoirs.

As the author or co-author of more than eighty books, including a dozen Sunday Times best-sellers, Andrew is well-known in England for his work behind-the-scenes with top television personalities, footballers, politicians, and ordinary individuals caught in extraordinary circumstances.

He is also well-known among publishers for his willingness to take on any subject, and to collaborate with any celebrity, as long as the project comes with the promise of a good story. “Extremes of evil are as interesting as extremes of goodness,” he writes, of his ability to work with heroes and villains alike. In fact, he once told a reporter for The Guardian that he is grateful he was not born early enough to pursue this type of work during Adolf Hitler’s rise to power. “I have a horrible feeling that if I’d got the call from Germany in the 1930s,” he said, “I would have hopped on that plane like a Mitford.”

Learn more about Andrew Crofts:

Links to some of Crofts’ collaborations discussed in our interview: