RIP Matthew Perry. An obituary for Matt Albie.
Chandler Bing was a relatable nobody and not an aspirational somebody. Perry deserves to be remembered as the latter as much as the former.
Matthew Albie was the Head Writer and Executive Producer of Studio 60.
Matt wasn’t the perfect man.
He had his quirks and he had his faults.
For instance, he wasn’t a fan of the informal dress code at work and once harangued the entire Writer’s Room about the way they dressed and insisted they not turn up for work like they were going to high school.
His knowledge on theater, sports, classical literature, comedy and music was encyclopedic. As a result, he was a very hard person to argue with — and was often perceived as a snob.
As a boss, he wasn’t a great teacher. He was fair, but never held back or sugar-coated his criticism of his team’s work and quality of writing.
He was bad at managing his work, often taking on too much on himself because he couldn’t (or wouldn’t) trust his writing team to deliver.
In some ways, he was a throwback to the 70s when political correctness hadn’t found its way into pop culture.
He had affairs with co-workers — which sometimes, took a toll on his work as well on his colleagues. To be fair though, it never colored his judgement of their work. And as a boyfriend, he was loyal and honest to a fault — which was often the cause for his breakups.
And while those colorful sides of his will always be memorable, there was more to the man.
Albie was a recovering junkie who was fighting his inner demons as much as he was fighting Network Management. Both were battles he sometimes won and sometimes lost. He was a man who always stood by his friends — even when it cost him his job to do so.
Matt was an intelligent educated man who tackled late night comedy content with the seriousness of delivering the news. He believed comedy was a platform for educating the masses and therefore needed to be progressive, funny and insightful. It wasn’t a popular point-of-view, but something I agree with.
Rest in Peace, Matthew. Thank you for some of the best comedy on television.
