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New Sitcoms

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Whisky Priestess

17:37 / 12.11.02

(To moderators: this should probably be in the Creation but no-one ever goes there so could you wait a couple of days before moving it? Cheers.)

Went to a comedy thingy last night called Sitcom Trials. (www.sitcomtrials.co.uk) It was good, kind of like Nuremberg with gags, y'know? So they have six ten-minute pilots a night, which are your basic bog-standard 30 y-o male hero, everything goes wrong, comedy misunderstanding with hilarious consequences kind of scenarios. But the best bit is when they ask the audience to come up with pitches for sitcoms of their own and you get things like:

SLAP-HO AND SON - Two underachieving pimps squabble as they try to make a living out of their crumbling knocking shop. (This one won a pint)

NONCES - "Porridge" meets paedophilia as a gang of happy go lucky sex offenders get into scrapes and japes behind bars.

From the website:

IT SHOULDN'T HAPPEN TO A VIETNAM VET

KHMER IN THE COMMUNITY - Pol Pot is a social worker in Neasden (winner)

NAZI LOOT (winner) - A sitcom set in the offices of 1930s Berlin's leading free-ads newspaper.

So what I need, people, is MORE of these, because they are funny, and I bet Barbelith can come up with some corkers. Plus if I go along next week with a fistful of quality titles we might even get them made ...

22:08 / 12.11.02

Friend and I came up with a whole concept.

"IF NOT SATAN, THEN WHO?"

Basically, family end up living next door to Satan through a slip up in house numbering (number 670, their house, being next to 669, whose number has slightly come unstuck...).

Shit, mid-eighties thing, every episode ending with the line "IF NOT SATAN, THEN WHO?" as the family fail to spot the obvious clues to their next door neighbour's identity.

The best bit: the christmas special.

"IF NOT SANTA, THEN HO?"

Murray Hamhandler

22:44 / 12.11.02

A skit show done entirely w/extras, shitty puppets, and a prancing Charles Nelson Reilly as the only human actor on the program. Charles enters the scene in character (but still unmistakenly Charles Nelson Reilly), witnesses and comments on a scene off-camera as extras mill around behind him. Cut to the previously off-camera scene, where aforementioned shitty puppets are exaggeratedly acting out vulgar scenes of human excess and pomposity. Cut back to Charles and the extras, who have inexplicably also become puppets, all of whom are now in the midst of as much chaos and insanity as is imaginable. Fade out. Repeat formula as many times as it takes to fill up an episode.

Based on a drug hallucination. If the show is half as funny, it'll be a hit.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

23:50 / 12.11.02

A friend of mine came up with "DAHMER AND GREG".

Kind of like "DHARMA AND GREG" but with more serial killing.

ONLY NICE THINGS

07:37 / 13.11.02

HYUNDAI I'M HOME

Modern-day reworking of "My Mother the Car" and "Bewitched". Darren is married to an affordable Korean car. Sometimes he sexes it. Culture-clash comedy ensues, especially with her father-in-lae, played by Ken Masters from Howard's Way.

HOWARD'S GAY

See above, but with men's big cocks. And less driving. And Ken Masters again.

10:13 / 13.11.02

NAZ ABOVE, SAUL BELLOW.
Hilarious comedy in which Prince Naseem rents a flat directly above that of noted author Saul Bellow. That's it.

10:46 / 13.11.02

Terry and Balloon Follow-up to 'Terry and June'. June is dead, and Terry Scott turns to an inflatable doll for comfort (they get married in the final prog). Comedy arises out of attempts to prevent balloon June from deflating or bursting, allowing for 500 'floppy' gags and 6000 'prick' jokes per episode.

Some Mothers Ain't Half Hot, Mum! Accident-prone Oedipal comedy.

Whisky Priestess

12:45 / 13.11.02

A fine crop of ideas - that Channel 4 pilot will be mine, all mine ... I mean ours. Obviously.

TO THE MANOR, BURN!

Penelope Keith flirts with Richard de Vere over cumcumber sandwiches as a gang of angry yokels played by the cast of Last of the Summer Wine set fire to their mansion with huge flaming torches.

Sorry - the above should read "cucumber sandwiches" I don't even *want* to know what a cumcumber is.

13:46 / 13.11.02

MORE THAN FRIENDS
Wacky gang of young, attractive, urban sex-cult members face the trials and tribulations of sophisticated city life and a frequently misunderstood polyamorous lifestyle.
The pilot's main plot will revolve around the question: "who fathered Ruth's baby?" with sub-plots featuring Candler's infatuation with an attractive fundamentalist and Jamie tricking Chloe into costarring in his porn film.

13:55 / 13.11.02

EASTER RISING DAMP

Hilarious comedy about a group of republican lodgers with a royalist landlord in 1916 Dublin. (NB: May not be as hilarious as advertised).

UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS, UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS

Hilarious new situation comedy starring Thora Birch about a disfunctional stairlift.

2 POINT 4 CHILDREN

Gary Olson stars as the head of a family with three children, who one day has a terrible accident (redeemed only by the wonders of modern surgery) with a chainsaw. Wheelchair gags abound.

(PS: I think Biz's idea is genius. Clearly a professional)

14:36 / 13.11.02

SHERLOCK HOMIE

Sherlock and sidekick MC Watson chillin' in dey crib in Baker Street and solving crime. Cackhanded collision of stereotypes and counter-stereotypes makes for a bucket-load of shall-I/shan't-I laughs. In the pilot, Sherlock solves a ho's murder after correctly identifying a torn strip of a garage club flyer used as a roach. Blacked-up Ricky Gervaise stars.

15:53 / 13.11.02

These are rubbish, but I'm going to post them anyway 'cos I can, you just watch me:

Are You Being Severed? - Torquemada slips through a hole in time and gets a job demonstrating power tools in a department store.

Till Death us do Party - The Grim Reaper becomes sick of his job and tries to make up for thousands of years of slaughter by becoming a children's entertainer. A different child dies each week in a hilarious, good-intention-derived accident.

Father Bread - Father Hovis McGuire is a boozy gambler and a lazy, gluttonous lumox with a penchant for buns. One day (first episode) whilst blessing a new bakery on Crusty Island he stumbles drunkenly into a dough mixing machine and is turned into a sliced white loaf (comedy observer, shaking head: "Poower fayther: from oaf to loaf!") Each week we see a different slice of the naughty priest's personality wreak havoc as a different slice of bread is eaten and his spirit is absorbed into the hapless host, with hilarious consequences.

The Two Fawlty Towers - um... Gandalf as hotelier... "I'm so sorry, he's from Boromir."

Dad's Barmy - er...

Travels With My Ant - shit!

Whisky Priestess

15:57 / 13.11.02

Sax - Can Father Bread be turned into communion wafers rather than sliced white? It would just be *so* much more blasphemous ...

16:03 / 13.11.02

*Pretending to be Sax* Yeah, sure, why not?

Our Lady of The Two Towers

17:21 / 13.11.02

Last of the Communion Wine The hilarious adventures of three old priests as the BBC wait for the fuckers to die. With Thora Hird as the Virgin Mary.

Desmond Tutu's South African priest tries to bring peace and reconciliation in the post-Apartheid era with haircuts.

Red Ken New Labour deal with Ken Livingstone's extraordinary popularity by blasting him three million years in to the future where he's the last Labour supporter alive.

Yes, Prime Munster What ghoulish hi-jinks wilkl occur when policy for the living is decided by a reanimated corpse and his strange family?

Malcolm Rifkind in the Middle Ex-Tory minister and his wacky family!

AND IN DRAMA;

Twenty Four (Hours From Tulse Hill) An exciting real-time adventure on a typical delayed intercity train.

Whisky Priestess

18:31 / 13.11.02

oh my God oh my God - friend appealed to says

EVER DECEASING CIRCLES

Richard Briers, Penelope Wilton and Peter Egan's corpses slowly rot on camera in a post-nuclear Mole Valley.

21:58 / 13.11.02

MIDGETS, MONKEYS AND A TOY FROM FROM THE SEVENTIES
ITV George Lucas' up 'Babes In The Wood' by going back and inserting CGI midgets, monkeys and toys from the seventies, such as the space hopper and deely-boppers. A guaranteed ratings wolf.

THE SPIKE-LEE LADS
Two young men from Liverpool who love Spike Lee films wander around moaning about the fact that it's difficult to get hold of his films. This week's episode: They've taped Do The Right Thing off the telly, but everyone seems to be talking about the ending. Can they successfully avoid the... oh sod it.

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE SPIKE-LEE LADS?
It got cancelled after one episode. That's what.

22:17 / 13.11.02

Actually, that should've been THE MIKE-LEIGH LADS.

00:27 / 14.11.02

To the Manor Porn

Heretical high-jinx as the Windsors lose their vast fortune following an ill-advised investment in the dot com industry and are forced to move to a high-rise in Peckham. Each week, using their acquired server technology, they attempt to rebuild their wealth and status by hosting hysterically themed monthly-subscription pornography, with hilarious results.

Borg and Bindi

Mismatched intergalactic live-in lovers explore their uproarious relationship in increasingly mundane situations. Starring Seven of Nine and her arranged marriage to an IT specialist from Bangalore.

Heidi High

Cum shots, crack and lederhosen. With subtitled jokes.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

06:30 / 14.11.02

Truly Biz is a genius. "MIDGETS, MONKEYS AND A TOY FROM THE SEVENTIES".

I'm so there.

07:22 / 14.11.02

THAT SEVENTIES' SHOW

Nostalgic and remarkably unfunny sitcom about the way we supposedly were in the seventies.

Oh, wait...

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

08:01 / 14.11.02

SAD'S ARMY- Arthur Lowe (or preferably someone who looks like Arthur Lowe but isn't dead) plays a bungling Iraqi dictator trying to repel an invasion with the help of his Elite Republican Home Guard.

THE LEAGUE OF GENTLE BEN- assorted grotesques in an insular British town get eaten by a bear.

MY TWO DADS ARMY- TV's Greg Evigan plays a bungling Arthur Lowe impersonator. With hilarious consequences.

10:47 / 14.11.02

i've been working on a sitcom based on the Lambert & Butler advertisments... Lambert is a young wealthy landowner with too much money, Butler is a long-serving, erm, butler who discovers that he is set to inherit everything once Lambert is out the picture, so he forces Lambert to smoke these cheap, nasty cigarettes in the hope that it will kill him. I'd use the current actors obviously. Hopefully it will be TWICE as funny as the roadside adverts (that would be quite an achievement.)

Hattie's Kitchen

10:51 / 14.11.02

MEN DEPRAVING BADLY - hilarious antics of two Royal butlers after one too many sherries...

11:17 / 14.11.02

MARRIED WITH CHILDREN. WITH ONE CHILD, THAT IS. WHAT YOU'RE LOOKING AT?

Follow us to the zany century XVIII to meet newly-wed Lord Alfred Reitner and his lovely 12-year old wife, Emma.

The pilot shows how Lord Alfred met Emma, saving her from a life of poverty in the cold streets of London (and from her dirty uncle, who lusted after her. But not so much that he wouldn't sell her, anyway. Like he did).

Clash of ages ensue, with hilarious consequences. And lots of gags about the legal adulthood age and the hazy morals of filthy rich bastards.

The Christmas special shows Emma meeting her old little friends from the streets, who are still selling matches and eating rats, and telling her best friend Laura about where babies really come from.

The episode ends with Lord Alfred telling Emma she's pregnant, and explaining to her what that means. Emma looks at the camera, smiles and says: "Holly gosh! Like a little doll, just for me!". Everybody laughs, and a peg-legged boy says a prayer.

11:17 / 14.11.02

DEAD WORF

Sci-fi sitcom following the hilarious adventures of a Klingon in Sto-Vo-Kor.

Whisky Priestess

15:05 / 14.11.02

READY, AMIS, FIRE!

Knockabout reality sitcom with Martin Amis as a POW in a mocked-up WWII Japanese concentration camp. Every week he's doomed to go up in front of the firing squad - unless he can think of a clever distraction! The hook: people keep watching just to see him get shot.

15:43 / 14.11.02

THE JUNG ONES

Psychology student bedsit-com.

18:17 / 14.11.02

TOE AND STEPSON
The hilarous adventures of a living toe (brought to life in some bizarre experiment) and the ungrateful social climbing son he's adopted to help him run his flagging rag-and-bone business, due to his lack of limbs.

TOPICOM
The hilarious new topical sitcom, which takes stock sitcom plotlines and bolts on topical references 30 minutes before broadcast. This week: Saddam Hussein's staff are trying to hold a surprise party for him: Will he find out about all the striking firemen they've invited?

Whisky Priestess

14:22 / 15.11.02

ONLY FOOLS AND HERPES

Del and Rodney spring back to life as Trotter's Independent Knob-Doctors, running a dodgy VD clinic out of their flat in Peckham. Cue hilarious reminiscences from Nurse Uncle Albert ("When I was in the wawar...") and hi-jinks aplenty as the brothers try to conceal from Cassandra and Raquel just exactly how they make their money.

14:46 / 15.11.02

COUPLING

On The Buses meets The Railway Children in this nostalgic sitcom about an stationmaster and his ever-loyal (but always-useless!) signalman. They banter about nothing in particular. To a laughter-track that's too high in the mix. Whilst they couple trains.

THE SIMPSONS

Fly on the wall spoof documentary in the vein of the Osbornes. John Simpson, OJ Simpson, Mrs Wallace Simpson and volleyball professional Steve Simpson are all living together. The cameras follow their day-to-day antics, all narrated by Ant and Dec.

The Natural Way

14:52 / 15.11.02

YOU WANT TO FIGHT? FIGHT ME!!!!

Like 'Dear John', but with more fighting.

DEAR 'POWERFUL STEED'

Like 'Dear John', but with 'Powerful Steed' thrown in for good measure

These are both Ultimate Classic ideas for comedies.

19:01 / 15.11.02

Here's one a freind and I worked out in college:

Spleen of Evil P.I.

When a sleeping Satan's spleen is stolen by organ theives, it acheives sentience and opens a detective agency. You never actually see the organ, just a fedora that leaves a blood/slime trail everywhere.

Ex

08:36 / 16.11.02

DROP THE DEAD BABY

Gag-rich half-hour slice of compassion fatigue in a social services department.

Whisky Priestess

16:42 / 19.11.02

Magnum PA

Tom Selleck plays a former private investigator fallen on hard times who is forced to temp as a legal secretary in order to make ends meet. Featuring hilarious gender-reversed classic situations such as Magnum getting felt up by his boss, and a Christmas special where he gets drunk and sucks off Doug from Accounts on the photocopier.

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