What’s in Your Packet?

So you want to land a job on a late-night show. You’ll need a packet—basically a professional portfolio to submit to the series’ head writer. And what should that packet contain? Speaking on the WGAW’s 3rd & Fairfax podcast, Jimmy Kimmel Live! head writers Molly McNearney and Danny Ricker offer their tips.

Keep the jokes up-to-date.
Late-night monologues are all about the day’s news, so yours should be as current as possible. “Let’s say your packet is due on Friday,” says McNearney. “I would only write jokes about things that happened on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.”

Molly McNearney

Know the voice of the host you’re pitching. 
Before you pitch, do your homework and watch enough episodes to know the voice you’re writing for. “Sometimes we’ll get a packet and it will have big musical number, and I don’t think our Jimmy has maybe ever sang on our show, or maybe three times in 21 years,” says Ricker. “So when I see that I go, ‘OK this person has probably never seen our show before and maybe this was from an old sketch show they had.’”  

Bring your uniqueness.
What can you—and only you—bring to the show that they are not already doing? Ricker cites the example of JKL staff writer Troy Walker who, in addition to having been a stand-up comic, once worked in fraud protection at a bank. Not a bad guy to have around when you’re crafting jokes around Donald Trump, Stormy Daniels, Michael Cohen, and the election fraud trial.

“If we read a packet and the material is fresh and unique, we go, ‘We wish this person worked here right now so we could put this on the show tonight,’” says Ricker. “That’s how you want to get hired.”

Make your jokes stand out.
Still on uniqueness, remember that when you pitch for hit late-night series, your packet will land on a stack alongside 300 submissions, meaning that killer presidential debate joke you think is so witty might have also been served by 298 other writers.

Danny Ricker

“So think about how can I push a little further and find something that’s more surprising and unique,” Ricker says.

Clean it up.
When it comes to your packet, the humor may be dirty, but the copy should not be. Spelling, grammar or factual errors can instantly propel your work down that 300-pile stack.

“That drives me crazy,” says McNearney. “’Oh, I like this joke. Oh, no! They don’t know the difference between “there” and “their.”’ That, to me, shows a lack of work ethic or organization or the meticulousness that we need, particularly in late-night as you’re diving into political things. You’ve got to make sure that everything is fact-checked and correct and I feel like If someone can’t do that with their own words, they’re not going to do it with Jimmy’s either.”

Adds Ricker: “Usually it’s the head writer reading your packet and we pass on our favorites to Jimmy… It’s kind of our reputation on the line a little bit, too, when we pass people along. Don’t give yourself any reason to get put in the ‘Maybe’ pile. Really look at every single word.”