Eric Gilliland, a longtime comedy writer best known for his work onRoseanne, died Sept. 1.
The cause was cancer.
He went on to consult onThe Connersin 2019.
Eric GillilandGetty
Gilliland received WGA Award nomination in 1994 forRoseanne.
In 2019, he received a Daytime Emmy nomination for writing the childrens showThe Was Was?
Away from TV, Gilliland was quite the whistler.
AndMonty Python, Jack Benny,The Carol Burnett Show,SNLand bad puns.
(Yes, people, we started a pun club).
Eric was just plain smart and funny.
In high school, we did plays and musicals and comedy assemblies, parts of which we even co-wrote.
He somehow pulled off the impossible of being biting and sweet at the same time.
Somehow, I ended up with the only Polaroid.
And theres Eric, smiling brightly, front and center.
Fly high, my friend.
In all the colors of the rainbow.
You were loved (and cherished) by so many.
The television showRoseannewas produced by Carsey-Werner, which was, as production companies go, an excellent company.
They also had a pretty good chef who prepared a free lunch and dinner for the employees.
They were like Google before Google.
OnRoseannewe ALWAYS were there for dinner.
In fact, we were sometimes there for the following days breakfast.
And Eric decided that the potato bar could go fuck itself.
Menus were photocopied and distributed, and Eric urged us to order anything and everything that we wanted.
Dan Palladino and I ordered multiple bottles of chianti.
I think somebody ordered a t-shirt.
There were heaps of food.
There was food on top of food that slid off and landed on top of food.
It was a feast that Caligula would have considered a little over the top.
The room was joyous as we tore open one bag after another we were alive again!
People were yelling, laughing, shoving food into their mouths.
As I was passing him I said, What did you get, Eric?
He looked at me, smiled that great flat smile of his, and opened his to-go package.
And there it was.
Eric had gotten a baked potato.
