With the passing of comedy legend Carl Reiner, it’s a good time to share this clip from several years ago. You can learn more about writing – in any medium – from this than any 10 books devoted to the subject. Namely: What you write has to work. You can’t throw something random out and hope it lands. It has to actually land.

Reiner’s credits are too numerous to count. From “The Show of Shows” to “The Dick Van Dyke Show” to The Jerk to scores of other shows and movies. It’s great that a new generation of filmgoers were able to see him glide in and out of scenes in Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s trilogy, adding humor and presence to everything he did, just like always.

Of course you can’t overlook his many many collaborations with Mel Brooks, with whom he had the kind of chemistry you usually only find in research labs.

Whatever it is he was doing, it all came down to the writing.