I’ve been happily watching The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Many of my friends and family are watching it as well. At this point I think I would watch anything created by Amy Sherman Palladino.
There is one montage in the first season where the protagonist, a talented yet still budding comedienne, is observing everyday occurrences around her — in restaurants, on the subway, at dinner with her parents — and using those moments as seeds for jokes to put into her act.
We see, scene by scene, how she develops each such moment into a joke while performing for various audiences. The first few attempts fall flat, but then she figures out why the moment was funny, and how to turn that nugget of humor into a truly good joke.
It’s thrilling and delightful to see the process of creativity portrayed with such clarity. I also love Palladino’s underlying message about how creativity works.
It’s not all about some brilliant moment of intuition. Nor is it all about plodding away hour after hour. Yes, you need a flash of intuition — then you go to work.