Author: Erin Peterson

With dark hair and a slightly rumpled appearance, Bob Daily has the low-key delivery you’d expect from a man whose job is not to seem overly amused by the jokes he writes for a living. Daily is a 1982 graduate of Carleton College, and a writer (and current co-executive producer) for Frasier. One day in late January, he left the balmy climes of Hollywood for an auditorium in Northfield, where he gave a talk called “Writing and Producing the Television Situation Comedy.” The live studio audience, as it were, was a capacity crowd of students. They asked the tough questions: How does one break into Hollywood? What is David Hyde Pierce really like?

Being a network sitcom writer is not easy these days. Reality shows are hogging prime-time real estate, while cable TV is snagging high-profile awards and thumbing its nose at the banality of network shows whose characters can’t swear or discuss their sexual exploits.

What’s a network comedy writer to do? For Daily, the situation isn’t as dire as it first appears. Good comedy, he notes, relies on more than shock value. One of the things common to most long-running comedies is writing that appeals to both the head and the heart, with jokes that work on more than one level. In other words, you can write a dumb joke about a smart subject, or vice versa, thereby appealing to both sensibilities. As an example, Daily offered what he thinks of as the perfect joke about highbrow post-modern composer Philip Glass.

In the scene, Frasier, Roz, and scriptwriters B.K. and Ed are working on a documentary about space travel. As they discuss the possibilities for the show’s accompanying music, B.K. suggests the theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey. The recommendation is vetoed by Frasier, who finds it trite., B.K. tries again. “What about Philip Glass? You know, go completely minimalist,” he says. “It’s like space,” Frasier chimes in eagerly. “Now we’re cooking!” The scene continues with the characters ticking off obscure composers while Roz grows increasingly agitated.

“If we do a reference like that, we write it in such a way that even if people don’t know who Philip Glass is, they get it in the context and the attitude of the actor,” Daily said. “We don’t try to be snobbish, but if it’s constructed in the right way, you can do a smart joke without alienating your audience.”

However smart, can comedy really compete against, say, a bikini’d babe eating live minnows? Well, sure. Daily regards intelligent humor as both the past and the future of the network sitcom. Television executives habitually underestimate their viewers. The longevity of the witty, classy Frasier has proven that a show need not pander to achieve mainstream success. Classic sitcom formulas can spell success, as long as the writing sparkles and the acting is superb—take Everybody Loves Raymond and Friends as two beloved examples.

Despite their current dominance, reality shows probably won’t stay hot forever, Daily said. He cited a truism he learned from a friend: “Hollywood is a place where people run to wherever lightning has recently struck. As soon as people heard about reality shows, everyone ran to that spot, but I think most will disappear eventually.” Then, too, clever writers may begin to crib from reality TV’s playbook. Daily said he knows of at least two pilots being created presently that are ripping off Survivor—shows set on a desert island.

Daily will put his theories to the test this May, when Frasier takes its final bow. He recently inked a deal with Paramount that gives him two years to formulate ideas for series and pitching them to networks, in hopes that one will make it on air. “The odds are always against you in something like that. But there’s a great tradition of comedy at Paramount—Taxi, then Cheers, then Frasier,” he said. “I want to keep that going if I can.” He hesitated. “Got any ideas?”—Erin Peterson

In between the yarn-stuffed aisles there were a half-dozen customers fretting over supplies for their projects. Mostly, they were exactly the kind of people you would expect to see at Depth of Field, a Minneapolis knitting store: older women choosing needles for baby blankets and rifling through patterns for cardigans. And then there was Anne Kimball. Kimball, who is young and urban and kind of punky, does not seem like the kind of person who would be buying supplies in a knitting store. She seems like the kind of person who would be buying Camus instead of cashmere.

Kimball is 28. She started knitting five years ago when she found some yarn and needles at her mom’s house. She’s been hooked ever since, and she teaches her friends the craft whenever she has a chance. “I know a lot of people who do it as a stress reliever, but I have one friend who started knitting because she was trying to quit smoking,” she said. “It gave her something to do with her hands.”

Kimball and her friends aren’t freaks. Knitting has suddenly and unexpectedly become cool. According to the Craft Yarn Council of America, more than three million people began knitting or crocheting between 1994 and 2000. More than half of them were under the age of 35.

Doris Wickstrom, a staff member at Depth of Field who teaches a beginning knitting class, isn’t surprised. “We had a big group of students from St. Thomas, and it went through the dorms at Augsburg,” she said. While most young knitters favor traditional projects like hats, scarves, and sweaters, Wickstrom said that updated patterns and novelty yarns keep young knitters coming back. “People like it because it’s so portable,” Wickstrom pointed out. “They can be working on a project on the bus, in the waiting room at the doctor’s office, or in front of the TV.”

The trend isn’t limited to young women. Increasing numbers of men are also taking up the needles. Chris Wernimont, who teaches math at Anwatin Middle School in Minneapolis, began knitting in 1996, when he was 20. He thinks it’s catching because it’s both creative and relatively easy. “Knitting is accessible—it doesn’t require a lot of skill or many tools, but people can still make something.”

Kimball has a more complex theory about knitting’s appeal. “I think that, as everything becomes more mass-merchandised, people want something that’s unique,” she said. “It’s a way for people to make something by hand—and even design it themselves—so they can feel like it’s really their own.” That may not qualify as a revolutionary act against commercialism and anomie, she conceded. Then again, maybe it does. She ran her hand sensuously over a shelf of earth-toned skeins. Revolution, they say, starts at home.—Erin Peterson