David Lloyd
Although it might seem strange to suggest that honoring David Lloyd with the 2001 Paddy Chayefsky Laurel Award for Television for lacing one-liners with wit for Jack Paar and for Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show, for Bob Newhart quips and punch lines for Dick Cavett, a collaboration that sketched back to their undergraduate days in Saybrook College, might have been anti-climactic. Or capricious to argue that this highest award for television writing by the Writers Guild of America, given to him for his hilarious skits which flourished into TV scripts for Mary Tyler Moore and Frasier and the gang in Taxi and the crowd in Cheers, was an also ran. But, perhaps his name lit up in brightest lights in July 1997, when Chuckles Bites the Dust, which he authored, was selected by TV Guide as Number 1 of the 100 best television episodes of all time.