Mark Simon.

You've created the best idea for a TV show since Scooby-Doo and you're trying to get pitch meetings. You're wondering where to go, who to pitch to. You want that perfect relationship to foster your baby. Sound familiar?

The good news is that you have a few options on how to find your perfect partner in a production deal marriage.

You can call your uncle to set you up. You know, the one who runs a giant studio with plenty of cash to throw around. What? You don't have that uncle? Too bad. I was planning to ask you to introduce me to him.

Another option is to pick up the phone and call someone at a network and pitch to them. Sound far-fetched? Not at all.

We have a client who recently called the head of VH-1, got him on the phone and told him they had a perfect show for his network. He transferred our client to his head of development and they set up a pitch meeting. Our client was able to do this in less than 10 minutes without any industry experience or contacts. I wish dating was that easy when I was single.

Of course you can always go to a matchmaker, an agent. Agents can be great matchmakers in more than one way. They can introduce you to execs whose studio families have tons of money. They can also set up double dates, by packaging other suitors with your project. Our project, Jail House Rocks, may be great on its own, but it's gold when packaged with Paris Hilton.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that you're personally done making new contacts as soon as you have your own agent. The most successful creators are masters of their own destiny and are always out there meeting new people and are always pushing their projects.

One of my matchmakers, an agent at Gersh, did a spectacular job at setting up great pitch meetings at the networks. He set up one meeting for me at Fox with their TV movie division. I've never had to do less work to get a meeting. He even came with me to the pitch because he had a personal relationship with the Fox exec and he wanted to experience one of my pitches firsthand. Everything worked great and I was offered a deal. What a fantastic experience.

I wish it always worked that well.

I've had other matchmakers that didn't do anything but take 10% of deals that I had set up and negotiated on my own. Not such a good experience.

Experience and referrals are about the only way to know whether any specific agent will be helpful. However, the more contacts you make and the more interest you generate in your own ideas, the more likely an agent will be willing and able to act as your matchmaker.

Before I had any success in selling shows, I found it difficult to get an agent. The secret to getting an agent is to not need one. Few agents will represent someone without a track record. It's their business to make money and they make more money selling experience and success to the studios. You need to do whatever it takes to get interest in your ideas. Then you can get an agent. To completely misquote a great movie, "If you sell it, agents will come."

I had pitched one of my animated series, Timmy's Lessons In Nature, to a number of studios and networks. We got two contract offers on it. One from Alliance Atlantis in Canada and another from Dargaud-Marina in France. It took exactly two phone calls to get an agent once I had been offered contracts on my project. The first call was to a friend who had been an agent to get a referral. The other was to the agent who agreed on the call to represent me.

Why did he take me on so quickly? Because all he had to do was negotiate the details of the contract. I had already done the hard work of getting the meetings, pitching and selling.

Do you need an agent? I wanted an agent to negotiate the terms of the contract for me, but I've done most deals without an agent. An agent can (notice I said "can" and not "will") get you pitch meetings, but you may push harder and faster on your own.

Many of the networks and studios state that they will only accept pitches through an agent.