Chuck Lorre keeps TV viewers laughing

"With his vanity cards, I think Chuck has exposed his psyche pretty clearly," Prady said. "I would say that Chuck is a sweet curmudgeon. He has mellowed. Sometimes I'll go into Chuck's office, especially on show night when there's a little odd break after dinner and he'll be playing some blues riff on his guitar. And there's a genuine sweetness to Chuck, which I think, at times, he works to conceal."

Then again, Prady, who was a writer-producer on "Dharma," has only been around for the professional good times. That comedy marked a sea change for Lorre, who had spent eight years working on emotionally explosive sets with Roseanne Barr, Cybill Shepherd and Brett Butler.

"I used to liken it to trying to produce a sitcom in Hitler's bunker in 1945," said Lee Aronsohn, who co-created "Men" and worked with Lorre on "Cybill" and "Grace Under Fire."

But Lorre, who was fired from "Roseanne" and "Cybill" and quit "Grace" over creative differences with Butler, doesn't cast all of the blame on the actresses. "If you're in a really difficult environment over a sustained period of time, you become part of the problem," Lorre said. "You become an emotional wreck and you're hard to work with and you're anxious and you're angry. Insanity is contagious. But so is sanity."

That epiphany came during the second season of "Dharma" when, during a rehearsal, he realized there was no need to be afraid of visiting the stage.

"It just hit me: We're just going to show up and work?" Lorre said. "What a concept. Nobody's going to throw anything at you and there's not going to be any screaming and crying. Wow. The worst that you do is try to anticipate problems and defend against somebody's ego-driven outburst of fear and anxiety. That's not writing. That's defending, and so your scripts get claustrophobic and you don't take chances. It's a recipe for disaster."

Fortunately for Lorre, "Dharma" wasn't an anomaly. He has enjoyed professional and courteous relationships with the cast of "Men" since the beginning, and the same holds for "Big Bang." "I am immensely grateful for how it is on these shows because I know how unhappy people can be in success," he said. "It's nice to be around people that are successful and grateful."

Especially when you're a college dropout, another sign that Lorre's life has taken a turn. On May 17, his alma mater, the State University of New York at Potsdam, is giving him an honorary doctorate of human letters and has invited him to give the commencement address. If it's anything like what Lorre posted on a vanity card recently about the professor who tried to dash his dreams, watch out, graduates.

"Well, I think I'll point out that when I was there I was told I'd never make it as a writer," Lorre said. "That might be the kickoff point of the speech."

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maria.elena.fernandez@latimes.com