John Barber
John Barber started as Director of Current Series Programs working for Paramount Pictures Television. Shortly there after he was promoted to VP of the department and supervised all aspects of the Current television series for the Television Division. John Barber supervised all aspects of the productions and worked with Gary Marshall on Happy Days, Lavern Shirley, Mork and Mindy. Other producers in residence Included; Ed Weinberger (Taxi, Mary Tyler Moore), Les and Glen Charles (Cheers, Frazer). After 7 years at Paramount, he moved to ABC as Director of Drama Series. After spending 2 years being responsible for all of the dramas produced for the network (Dynasty, Hotel, etc.) the specialist was promoted to VP Current Series Production and headed the department which was responsible for both drama and comedy series. Some of the series he supervised were; Roseanne (Carsey/ Werner), China Beach (Warner Brothers), Thirtysomething (Fox), Who's the Boss (Columbia), Moonlighting (abc Productions/Glen Caron), Wonder Years (New World) and approximately 50 other series.
Working for Columbia Television as Sr. V.P. of International Television, his goal was to establish a beachhead for Columbia Television International in Europe and therefore, he established and ran the International Television production unit in Europe for Columbia. Having lived in Germany for 5 years, he subsequently developed and supervised, along side our German Production and Creative team, 5 successful television series. They all were on the air for 7 years or more on RTL. The first success was Die Camper, followed by Nikola, Rita, Atze and Me and My Life. They all were award winners and established Columbia as the number one production house in Germany. This also established the half hour sitcom as the anchor for RTL on Friday nights. We put together the writing talent from both Germany and the USA and developed a creative environment where we could produce five series a year with high quality, original scripts.
Barber has had the chance to take what he learned in Germany and apply it around the world. Having gained that experience, he supervised Who's the Boss in England, Germany, Russia, Mexico, and Brazil. They took the American scripts and assembled writing teams from the home country and adapted the material and trained the directors and production crews. Most of these countries were using the adaptation process to train their local creative talent in the process of team writing and have gone on to develop their own series.
