Ken Levine (screenwriter)

Kenneth Levine (/lɪˈvaɪn/ liv-EYEN) is an American screenwriter, director, producer, and author. Levine has worked on a number of television series, including M*A*S*H, Cheers (for which he shared Outstanding Comedy Series honors at the 35th Primetime Emmy Awards), Frasier, The Simpsons, Wings, Everybody Loves Raymond, Becker and Dharma and Greg. Along with his writing partner David Isaacs, he created the series Almost Perfect.[1]

For other people named Ken Levine, see Ken Levine.

Levine was also the co-writer of the feature films Volunteers[2] and Mannequin Two: On the Move.[3]

Levine has also been a radio and TV play-by-play commentator for Major League Baseball games, having worked with the Baltimore Orioles[4] (1991), Seattle Mariners[5] (1992–94, 2011–12), and San Diego Padres (1995–96). From 2008 to 2010, he co-hosted the KABC Dodger Talk radio call-in program after every Los Angeles Dodgers game, as well as the station's weekly Sunday Night Sports Final program. During his second stint with the Mariners, he returned to help fill in for the deceased Dave Niehaus.

Levine grew up in Woodland Hills, CA, graduating from Parkman Junior High and William Howard Taft Charter High School.[6]

Other work

For several years in the 1970s, Levine was a disc jockey using the air name "Beaver Cleaver" on several West Coast Top 40 radio stations including KYA San Francisco, KFMB-FM San Diego, and KTNQ, KIQQ and KHTZ Los Angeles.

Levine has written several books on television, travel and growing up in the 1960s.

From 2005 to 2022[7] he ran the blog By Ken Levine, which was rated one of The Best 25 Blogs of 2011 by Time magazine. While Levine's blog spans many of his personal interests (including sports), a core focus of the content is about TV shows, writing for TV, and questions and answers about the various shows where Levine was part of the writing team.

A 2014 blog post paying tribute to playwright Neil Simon led to Levine providing on-camera introductions to 17 movies written by Simon on the Turner Classic Movies cable television channel on Friday nights in January 2015.[8]

Currently, Levine is a contributing cartoonist to the New Yorker magazine.

Comments about Roseanne Barr

In what the Los Angeles Times called an epic "Blog Fight!",[9] Levine responded to an assertion in New York Magazine by Roseanne Barr that her sitcom Roseanne was doomed due to sexism and her lack of creative control.[10] Levine said "...Roseanne is a monster. No amount of spinning on her part is going to change that. No amount of 'woe is me', 'no one understands me', 'I'm the only one who cares' laments are going to change the fact that she treated people like shit. Routinely. Constantly. Knowingly."[11]

Barr responded with an obscenity-laced rejoinder which included this challenge: "I am pretty sure that women who have worked for you in the past (if indeed there were ANY) worked in a hostile work environment. Let me know, women writers out there—how were you treated on Ken Levine’s staff?"[12] Levine posted an answer from Almost Perfect co-creator Robin Schiff: "There are many sexist guys in the business, but Ken Levine is not one of them. The most sexist thing he ever did was blather on about baseball with the other men in the room despite the fact that I was visibly bored. Hardly grounds for a lynching."[13]

But Schiff did offer, "I totally agree with Roseanne that there is rampant sexism in the industry. A couple of weeks ago, the WGAw released its executive summary finding that (in addition to dismal stats for ethnically diverse or older writers), women comprise only 28% of working writers. We still make less money than men. All you have to do is look at the writers onstage accepting Emmys for late night talk shows and sitcoms to see that women comedy writers are on the endangered list."

Podcast

In 2017, Levine launched a weekly podcast, Hollywood & Levine, covering subjects similar to his blog, along with occasional interviews.[14]

The Simpsons episodes

M*A*S*H episodes
  • "Out of Sight, Out of Mind" (season five)[17]
  • "The Most Unforgettable Characters" (season five)[18]
  • "Post Op" (season five)[18]
  • "The M*A*S*H Olympics" (season six)[18]
  • "The Merchant of Korea" (season six)[18]
  • "Patient 4077" (season six)[18]
  • "Dr. Winchester and Mr. Hyde" (season six)[18]
  • "Peace on Us" (season seven)[18]
  • "Our Finest Hour" (season seven)[18]
  • "The Billfold Syndrome" (season seven)[18]
  • "None Like it Hot" (season seven)[18]
  • "They Call the Wind Korea" (season seven)[18]
  • "Point of View" (season seven)[18]
  • "A Night at Rosie's" (season seven)[18]
  • "Ain't Love Grand" (season seven)[18]
  • "Good-Bye Radar: Part 1" (season eight)[18]
  • "Good-Bye Radar: Part 2" (season eight)[18]

Awards and nominations

Books
  • It's Gone...No, Wait A Minute..., a diary of his season broadcasting with the Baltimore Orioles (1991), released in 1993.[21]
  • Where the Hell Am I?: Trips I Have Survived,, a 2011 collection of travelogues he had originally started writing for friends and family.[22]
  • The Me Generation... By Me (Growing Up in the '60s), a 2012 memoir[23]
  • Must Kill TV, a 2013 satirical novel[24]

Plays
  • The ‘60s Project (2006 musical, conceived by co-writer Janet Brenner)[25]
  • Upfronts & Personal (2007)
  • A or B? (2014)[26]
  • Going... Going... Gone! (2016)[27]
  • Our Time (2017)[28]
  • Fifteen Seconds (2018)

References
  1. "Almost Perfect" – via www.imdb.com.
  2. "Volunteers (1985)" – via www.imdb.com.
  3. "Mannequin: On the Move (1991)" – via www.imdb.com.
  4. Baltimore Sun article, "Ken Levine brings story-telling talent to Orioles broadcast booth," April 8, 1991
  5. My Northwest article, "Ken Levine: From Hollywood producer to broadcaster," June 4, 2011
  6. "Author Ken Levine details one suburban teen's journey through the '60s". Daily News. October 27, 2012. Retrieved May 31, 2023.
  7. Levine, Ken (September 6, 2022). "By Ken Levine: Last Post".
  8. Levine, Ken (January 5, 2015). "By Ken Levine: How I got to be a TCM host".
  9. Blog fight! 'Cheers' writer trades barbs with Roseanne Barr, Los Angeles Times, May 31, 2011
  10. New York Magazine article, "And I Should Know", May 15, 2011
  11. Levine, Ken (May 23, 2011). "By Ken Levine: Roseanne's latest insane rant".
  12. "the grotesque sexism that I wrote about in ny mag: – RoseanneWorld". www.roseanneworld.com. May 30, 2011.
  13. Levine, Ken (May 31, 2011). "By Ken Levine: My response to Roseanne".
  14. "Hollywood & Levine by Wave on Apple Podcasts". Apple Podcasts.
  15. IMDb full crew listing of "Dancin' Homer (1990)"
  16. IMDb full crew listing of "Saturdays of Thunder (1991)"
  17. "M*A*S*H FAQ: Episode Guide". www.faqs.org.
  18. "
  19. Ken Levine Awards and Nominations at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences
  20. Ken Levine library holdings at Writers Guild Foundation
  21. Levine, Ken (March 2, 1993). It's Gone!... No, Wait a Minute . .: Talking My Way into the Big Leagues at 40. Villard. ISBN 0679420932.
  22. Levine, Ken (March 11, 2011). Where the Hell Am I?: Trips I Have Survived. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. ISBN 978-1460979235.
  23. Levine, Ken (June 8, 2012). The Me Generation... By Me. Ken Levine. ISBN 978-0615653525.
  24. Levine, Ken (November 8, 2013). Must Kill TV. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. ISBN 978-1493674978.
  25. "Flashback: Maltby Directs The 60's Project, a Musical Tale of a Generation - Playbill". Playbill.
  26. Klugman, Deborah (November 3, 2014). "M*A*S*H Writer Ken Levine's New Play Is Like Sliding Doors, With Sex as the Crucial Choice".
  27. "Author Q&A: Playwright Ken Levine, "Going… Going… GONE!"". September 22, 2016.
  28. "The New Play Festival: Our Time - Saratoga Arts". saratoga-arts.org.
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