No Joke

At one point I supplemented my income by writing jokes for the radio trade publication, “One-on-One” as well as Big Dog Productions, the company owned by comedian Jay Leno. I made fairly good money at this.

However it all came to screeching end one early evening when I received a call that proved I was not very good at keeping the two jobs separate. I was fired by One-on-One publisher, Jat Trachman because he believed I was plagiarizing material from the “Tonight Show.”

I quickly looked over the jokes I had written and faxed to both employers and found I had sent several of the same jokes to both places; a big no-no!

So attempting to avoid a double disaster, I called Big Dog and told my manager about my mistake. He was sympathetic with me and I felt like I was okay when I hung up the phone that evening.

However the following day, I got a call from another manager, this one for the Tonight Show. He was less sympathetic as he read me the riot act, and then fired me.

I made both organizations look like they were using stolen material.