It’s about that time, people. Time for another round of my groundbreaking and/or awful TV show pitches. As always, I’ve got twenty ideas that are guaranteed to improve the quality of any network’s schedule. This edition features the usual crappy reality shows and cookie cutter TNT/USA original programming, as well as some made-for-TV movies and a couple ideas for potential CBS spin-offs. Hell, there’s even a children’s show thrown in there. It may be my best work to date. (A word of warning: slide 19 is a teensy bit NSFW.)
One brief production note before we begin: if anyone can explain to me how in the name of Zack Morris I didn’t come up with the idea for “Franklin & Bash,” I’m all ears. Seriously. A show about two zany lawyers who play by their own rules, love high fives, fight for the little guy, throw parties where everyone drinks out of red plastic cups, and instruct busty witnesses to take of their blouses in the middle of a trial? IT’S GOT EVERYTHING! Between my previous two TV pitch posts and this one, I’ve come up with sixty ideas. I’ve covered doctors, bankers, nuns, assassins, judges, and a bunch of lawyer shows. How I missed this one, I’ll never understand.
In summation, I’m livid.
CBS Spinoffs
Summary: A spinoff of “How I Met Your Mother” set in Sin City. SPOILER ALERT: She was a prostitute!
Title: How I Met Your Mother: Las Vegas
Summary: In a classic fish out of water scenario, a group of physicist nerds are given a grant to do research in the deep south… where they don’t take kindly to discussions of Stephen Hawking’s view of a godless universe. Hilarity (sic) ensues.
Title: Big Bang Theory: Bible Belt
Summary: A spinoff of “The Good Wife” set in a fundamentalist Middle Eastern country. Instead of being centered around a lawyer who is married to an adulterous politician, the main character stays at home and can’t own property.
Title: The Good Wife: Iran
Summary: Horatio Caine in the role he was born to play. After being fired from the Miami police force, Horatio opens up an office as a private eye. Lots of voiceovers, punny one-liners, fedoras, saxophones, and dames that ain’t nuthin’ but trouble.
Title: CSI: Miami: Nights
BONUS CORNY TAGLINE: If you thought the days were hot in Miami… wait until you see the nights.
Daytime/Reality Shows
Summary: A reboot of the MTV 90s staple “The Grind,” featuring cast members from “Jersey Shore.”
Title: DJ Pauly D Presents The Grind featuring The Situation
Note: The fact that this hasn’t already happened is MIND-BOGGLING to me. Hell, bring back the whole Beach House. You could have this show, one where JWOWW and her implants host a music countdown, a dating show where Snooki picks out a new gorilla juicebox (or whatever it is she likes) every week, and one where Angelina sits in a dunk tank on the boardwalk and passers-by can pay $1 for three chances to dunk her. Instead of sending them to Italy, MTV should have just put the animals in charge of the zoo this summer in New Jersey. It would have been riveting television.
Summary: Since Oprah quit her talk show, there’s a huge hole in the daytime schedule. What better way to fill that hour than to give Gary Busey a live microphone and full creative control.
Title: The Gary Busey Show
Summary: Twenty nerds vie for the affection of a fiery mamacita, and overcome their timid disposition, by learning the ancient Spanish art of bullfighting.
Title: Matadorks
Summary: A game show where bored billionaires offer poor contestants ungodly amounts of money to take part in demeaning, morally questionable activities. Sometimes things get sexy.
Title: How Bad Do You Want to Be a Millionaire?
Summary: Ray Lewis hosts a show where he tries to get troubled youths to give up their wicked ways and accept Jesus Christ into their lives as their personal savior.
Title: REPENT, MOTHERF-CKER.
Summary: A “Punk’d”-style show where celebrities are the victims of practical jokes. But here’s the twist: the pranks are done by everyday joes with their own video cameras, like “America’s Funniest Home Videos.” Basically, this pitch exists for me to have a proper forum to smash Guy Fieri in the face with a pie.
Title: Punk’d: Civilian Edition
Summary: A game show where contestants are sealed in a 8 x 8 booth with overweight people who just ate a disgusting combination of food. Prizes awarded based on the amount of time they are able to stay in the booth without leaving or opening the vents.
Title: Fart Attack
Summary: A children’s show featuring a colorfully dressed doctor who goes on adventures and teaches kids important facts about science, medicine, and nature.
Title: The Adventures of Dr. Aloysius Stinkybutt
Note: This idea is a gold mine. A learning element to please the parents, the word “Stinkybutt” to delight the kids… it can’t fail.
TNT/USA Original Programming
Summary: A blue blood brain surgeon is sent by his hospital’s board of directors to open a new unit in a downtrodden South American town. He has to deal with broken equipment, run-down facilities, and language issues with the locals. Despite this, he learns to enjoy it with the help of an attractive, mysterious nurse named Maria.
Title: The Other Hemisphere
Summary: A down-on-his-luck actor/improv comedian stumbles into a gig as a wedding date for hire, taking on roles designed by the women who enlist his services. One week he’s a fancy London banker, the next he’s a bad boy rocker from Seattle. But wait, there’s a twist! He has to keep his new career a secret from his improv classmate Sarah, who he’s had a crush on for years. Hijinks ensue.
Title: Breaking Character
Summary: Gruff, no-nonsense police chief Ed “Cannon” Carmichael gets carried away one day, declares all of the town’s cops to be live wires, and takes every one of them off all of their cases (“DAMMIT! The mayor’s gonna have my ass for all your hotshot shenanigans! That’s it! Badges and guns! ALL OF YOU!”). He’s left to handle the entire department’s caseload himself, with only untested bookish rookie Spencer Pencilneck to assist him.
Title: Loose Cannon
Summary: High-powered lawyer Rex “T-Rex” Sanders decides to give up the profession after a particularly unjust result for a client. He teams up with his grandfather, legendary grifter Conrad “One Shoe” Sanders, and the two of them combine their talents to game the system and get justice for their clients outside the rigid confines of the law.
Title: Dupe Process
Summary: A successful, eccentric, Lebowski-type pot dealer gets sent to prison for possession and intent to distribute. Once he gets out, he decides to go legit. He uses the lessons he learned in the drug trade, and a colorful cast of former clients turned employees, to help his small mom-and-pop convenience store survive against the giant chains moving into his area.
Title: Nickels and Dimebags
Summary: In an attempt to drive his stuffy family crazy, rebellious Prince Reginald (of the fictional country Standishland) marries airhead American beauty queen Mallory Bustington after a hard night of partying. Two days after the wedding, the Prince and his parents die in a tragic fox hunting accident, leaving Mallory as Standlishland’s rightful successor to the throne. With the assistance of her royal handlers and staff, she learns to rule with grace and fairness.
Title: Bimbo Queen
Note: Some of you may be thinking, “Hey, DG… isn’t this pretty much the plot of the hilarious John Goodman movie King Ralph?” My response: You ask an awful lot of questions, fella.
Made-for-TV Movies
Summary: In a Lifetime Original Movie, one mother struggles to prevent her adult son from marrying Mary Francis Kille, who she suspects of being a notorious praying mantis. Three of Mary’s previous husbands died under mysterious circumstances after consummating the relationship on their wedding night. Can her new fiancé’s mother stop her in time?
Title: Stay Away From Mary F. Kille!
Note: Get it? GET IT?! (*nudges readers with elbow*)
Summary: In the NFL Network’s first foray into movies, a horrible, scary world where the Players Association has gotten all their labor demands met is depicted. There’s no draft! Players are free to run amok both on and off the field! This lawlessness has spun out of control, and now the players are wreaking havoc on America. At the film’s climax, Ray Lewis will call Commissioner Goodell, and they will have this conversation:
Ray Lewis: If the players aren’t given all of the gold in Fort Knox by midnight tonight, I’m going to blow up the Hoover Dam.
Roger Goodell: But Ray… you can’t do that! Think of all the lives that will be lost!
Ray Lewis: Too bad you didn’t put anything about killing thousands of innocent people in the Collective Bargaining Agreement! MUAH-HAHAHAHAHAHA!
Will our hero Roger Goodell and the brave owners be able to band together to stop the dastardly actions of the evil players? Will Hoover Dam and thousands of lives be saved? Find out in the exciting NFL Original Movie…
Title: Midnight in the Garden of Goodell and Evil
