HFPA journalist  Jenny Cooney met the powerhouse wife-husband writing-producing team, funny and witty Amy Sherman-Palladino and Daniel Palladino at the Hollywood Athletic Club. They have created TV shows like Gilmore Girls, Bunheads and the Golden Globe-winning comedy series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

“My father was a stand-up comedian, but I didn’t really see too much of his stand-up until I got a little older and he started doing cruise lines when I was in my teens. Then I learned stories of the Greenwich Village Basket House scene and played the Catskills”, Sherman-Palladino recalls her upbringing in San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles. “I’m still angry about my parents for leaving New York and not letting me be born there but that’s okay, I’ll get over it someday.”

Daniel Palladino lived eight miles from her, in Van Nuys. “It was kind of a drab place especially back then. I wasn’t athletic.  It was sort of the classic what could I do to keep from getting beaten up every day and that was just to be as funny and witty as possible so it was a little bit of a court jester thing. I never got punched so I think I was successful in that.”

They met through Amy’s former writing partner at the time. Amy was writing for Roseanne, Dan got a job on the TV show and a year later Amy left. “The world of comedy is a rough world and it’s not puppies and rainbows and unicorns. Comedy comes from darkness, it comes from unhappiness, it comes from loneliness and anger”, Amy tells.

Listen to the HFPA in Conversation podcast and learn why no psychotherapist would want to see this creative couple, why Amy didn’t become a dancer, why Dan got his first job as a writer, why Amy is great at being unemployed and many more interesting stories about their life.

Listen to the conversation here or, for immediate access to all of our podcasts, subscribe to HFPA in Conversation on iTunes.