It is not a pretty world on display at the Winter Garden [in "The Roast"]…. Jerry Belson and Garry Marshall, two television writers, want nothing more than to expose the seamiest side of their own business. Their characters are comedians—beloved comedians, talented comedians, superstars—and they are all sick. They alternately grovel and backbite, hoping to advance their careers and settle old scores. They dream of hookers and money, of drugs and power, of sit-com spinoffs and extended engagements on "Hollywood Squares." The wounds from their poor, immigrant childhoods have never healed; they've gotten even by destroying their own wives and children. Still, they have an instinct for survival: these comedians always come back with the laugh.

The Messrs. Belson and Marshall know whereof they speak. They are veterans of their trade and proved masters of it…. But what television giveth, it also takes away.

In writing...