If you were creating a new TV sitcom, what would it be about? What would distinguish it from the rest of the mob?
[ul]
[li]What sort of setting would you use?[/li][li]Any particular actors in mind?[/li][li]Family series? Business-place? Bar? SF? Something more outré?[/li][li]How would you want the series to develop? What sort of plot-lines would you want to see?[/li][li]How would you make it stand out?[/li][/ul]
I mean, I’m sure Dopers could come up with something better than the current lot we’re stuck with…
I could make one up based on my own family. ( When my sister was a kid she said she was going to write a book about us and it would be so weird nobody would believe it.) I could also make a reality show about my ringneck parrot–it’s the “Isidore Show!” What will he destroy today?.
I’ve had so many close encounters with falling bookshelves I’ve considered contacting Fox and asking them to do a series called “When Furniture Attacks.”
But if I made a sitcom, there’s one rule: no women having babies in stalled cars or stuck elevators.
“Odin* Knows Best”. Watch as the wacky hijinx of Loki and his trusty dog, Fenrir, causes the Aesir family – Odin, Frey, and brother Thor – any number of crises that’re neatly resolved in thirty minutes or less.
Leave it to Cthulhu: ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn, In his house at R’lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming- of a new pair of Jly’uilhfhta shoes! But he loaned all of his allowance to Abhoth, and won’t get any more for a week! How will Cthulhu earn the money to get that wonderful pair of sneakers and be the talk of R’lyeh? watch what happens when he agrees to wash and wax the Gate of Yog-Sothoth!
How about … Housewives of Gor? Oh dear, hubby’s only got one thing on his mind again, and the Ubar’s coming to dinner! Wait – the Ubar’s only got one thing on his mind too? What’s a kajira to do?
Frank runs the pet shop. Everyone in town stops by to talk to him, and they love how he talks to the animals. But little do they know that the animals talk back to Frank. All they hear is squawk, yip, grrr, screech, and purr, but little do they know that Frank hears:
(squawk) - Yo, Frank, the hot one you like is back.
(yip) - Aaaaaw, she is kind of cute.
(grrrrr) - Ask her out. Ya chicken? Whaddya got to lose?
(screech) - Sheesh Frank, you know, you ought to get married, settle down, have kids, ya know a nice human breeding farm.
(purr) - My food bowl is empty again.
Even though they’re always trying to set him up with the cute waitress who stops in every week for fish food, Frank still loves his animal friends. And they love him back.
Not in that kind of way, ya pervert.
Setting: Cheers meets Cantebury Tales meets Excel Saga, sort of. A bunch of people who have nothing better to do than hang in a bar all day swap stories, and one of the regulars with an overactive imagination daydreams about the plot (or lack thereof). Hilarity ensues.
Actors: No idea.
Genre: Comedy/Parody, mostly, but we can sneak plenty of drama and socio-political commentary into it.
Development: Anything goes, I suppose, except stupid romantic polygons that make no sense.
Stand Out Factor: Everything has multiple layers of meaning. Lots of symbolism, allusions, foreshadowing, and in-jokes.
Suds After Hours–A sitcom set between 11 p.m. to 7 p.m. in a 24 hour laudromat. The attendant would be an older intelligent guy who never got the breaks (I originally came up with the character for John Ritter). There would be the regular weird assortment expected to be found there. Sort of Night Court in a laudromat.
I had an idea a while back a sitcom about two guys who are friends to move into an apartment as roommates. They’re both bachelors with day jobs, but by night, one is a superhero, the other is a supervillain, and they are arch-enemies. They have a mutual, grudging respect for each other, but they’re always foiling each other’s plans. By day, they’re just cool Generation Xer dudes, and they have no idea! It would be like The Odd Couple meets… The Tick?!
Another idea would be for a show about people coming in and out of a big city delicatessen, perhaps run by a gruff-but-lovable ex-cop/father-figure, and with the regulars always hanging out, having sandwiches, and talking about life. Kind of like a cross between Cheers and Barbershop, but maybe capturing a more New York City/Jewish/Seinfeld/Woody Allen feel. It would be called “Regulars,” or perhaps “The Usual,” as in “I’ll have the usual.”
I had this idea to have a show centered around an extra from Saved by the Bell. Tehy would never directly interact with the stars but you’d see them blurry in the background and they would be involved in plotlines just not fully shown. He/she could be an extra on other shows but Saved by the Bell would be their meat and potatoes.
All the dead crew members from the various Star Trek series are in a waiting room-like Limbo. They spend their time waiting to earn their gold jerseys (and thus, invulnerability) cracking wise and doing what they can to help their surviving brethren out of various alien traps, cosmic strings, etc.
Sort of a cross between Cheers and Touched by an Angel – with phasers.
Inspired by Dinosaurs Man with 6 interracail childer marries a ghost with 6 interracial childern of her own. Just watch the sparks fly when mother-in-law moves in. its all Way Too Complicated!
Somewhat more seriously. How about these for settings:
An internet cafe
a bookstore cafe
A “dot net” company (at least people being at work all the time would be realistic)
A video / game rental place ala acts of Gord http://www.actsofgord.com/
That’s a pretty neat idea. But I think it would be funnier if they knew each others secret identities and were neighbors. One would be male and one would be female. There would be at least one episode where the villaness tries to seduce the hero over to the “dark side”. And one episode where the hero nearly suceeds in reforming the villaness until he says some stupid male chauvinist thing. Oh and Micheal Richards would be a next door neighbor who’s also a superhero but he’s like a total stumblebum and the hero’s the only person who wants to hang out with him.