The fall television season is right around the corner, ready to bring our favorite shows back, and introduce us to some new ones, too. Despite everyone’s best(-ish) intentions, most of these new shows won’t make it to a second season. Some won’t even make it through the first. What that means is that next year, like this year and every year before it, television networks will be digging through a mountain of dumb pitches and ideas, looking for new shows to fill the schedule and possibly catch fire in the ratings, Empire-style.
Well, I have dumb ideas. Lots of them. So, I figured I’d get in early with pitches for four shows that would make any television executive, uh, something. They will definitely make the executives something. My promise to you. Away we go.
Title: The Angry Baguette
Chef Bosco Amsterdam has a problem.
After years of serving brunches to hungover yokel tourists, he finally saved up enough money to follow his dream: He’s opening a small bistro in the old neighborhood. Bosco’s Bistro. See, the neighborhood fell on hard times since Bosco was a kid, and the residents found it impossible to keep pulling themselves up by their bootstraps, mostly on account of the old bootstrap factory closing down and taking their pensions with it. It’s gotten rough, thanks in large part to the growing influence of violent drug gangs. The bistro is part of his plan to class the place up again, to bring it back.
Unfortunately, the neighborhood has other ideas. In addition to low turnout, someone keeps breaking in at night and making off with huge amounts of inventory. One night, long after closing, while he’s tearing apart stale old baguettes to make croutons for the next day, he actually hears the culprit breaking in. That’s it. Bosco’s had enough. He’s staying to fight, for himself, for his dream, for the neighborhood. With all of his knives in the dishwasher, he has to act fast. So, he finds the two stalest, hardest baguettes he can, soaks them in water to weigh them down, and ties them together with a piece of butcher’s twine, like nunchucks. He waits. The door creaks open…
POW THWAP BLAMMO
He disarms the young thug, who scurries off. As Bosco sits in the kitchen drinking a glass of wine with smug satisfaction, he starts looking around. Suddenly, everything begins looking like a weapon. Cayenne pepper? Blinding cayenne pepper bombs. Crisco? Perfect for slicking the floor behind you as you evade your enemies. Pineapples? I don’t know. It probably hurts to have one smashed on your head. Should he… no. That’s what the police are for. But they’re obviously not making a difference. Maybe he should. But he’d need a secret identity. Something close to his heart. But what? He picks up his tall chef’s hat, looks at it quizzically for a moment, then cuts out two eyes holes with a paring knife. He pulls it over his head. Yes, this will do. It’ll need some work, but it’ll do…
Critics rave, saying, “Uh, isn’t this just Daredevil with food?” and, “Why doesn’t he use the knives once they’re out of the dishwasher? Wouldn’t that be more efficient than carrying a bunch of pineapples everywhere?”
Title: Swimmy & Trunks
So, it’s a cop show, right? Two detectives. One is an elephant, the other is a goldfish. BUT THERE’S A TWIST. We take the “an elephant never forgets” thing and the thing about goldfish having no memory, and we flip it. Now the elephant is a lovable and forgetful doofus, and the goldfish is a tough but fair mother of four with a photographic memory that haunts her, and the two of them are
solving
homicides.
It’s called “Swimmy & Trunks.” BUT THERE’S A SECOND TWIST. Swimmy is the elephant and Trunks is the goldfish. Live action. Ashley Tisdale as the goldfish.
Title: DA Scoopz
Peggy Phoenix graduated from law school in 2010, the worst possible time. The cratering economy and her average grades at Miami Law School took her job prospects and threw them straight in the toilet. Frustrated and deeply in debt, she took a job as a bottle service waitress at South Beach’s hippest new club, Spoonz, which grabbed the attention of the rich and famous with its revolutionary idea of serving all its drinks in soup spoons of various sizes. Its biggest claim to fame was The Big Spoon, a 32-oz solid gold spoon filled with champagne. Pitbull named a mixtape after it.
The waitress job was good money, and covered her loans, but Peggy felt unfulfilled. One night, after sharing a secret Big Spoon in the kitchen with a coworker, she had an idea. She picked up all this gossip about stars and politicians and underworld figures at work, why not share it? She opened a new Tumblr and started a Miami gossip site under a pseudonym, Da Scoopz.
Cut to: Madness. Newspapers with headlines like “Da Scoopz Takes Miami By Storm” spinning toward the camera. A chart with a line graph pointing up up up. Scoopz is a phenomenon. And now she’s posted her biggest scoop yet, which she overheard in the back booth: The District Attorney is in the pocket of local crime lord Victor St. Aspen.
Cut to: More madness. Her secret identity is uncovered by the press amid the scandal. She’s mortified, and suddenly unemployed after her boss realized she’s been snooping on customers, and afraid she ruined her potential legal career forever with her snarky Tumblr. But then a funny thing happened. As the public found out their beloved Scoopz was a licensed attorney, a movement began to recall the corrupt District Attorney and replace him with the only person brave enough to call out St. Aspen. And the movement grew. And suddenly, Peggy Phoenix, a 26-year-old waitress with no legal experience beyond a summer internship with a personal injury firm, found herself as the District Attorney of Miami. “Da Scoopz” had become DA Scoopz.
And Victor St. Aspen is furious.
Title: Adventure Capitalist
What does everyone love? You guessed it: Extreme sports and the ABC reality investment competition Shark Tank. And now we are COMBINING THEM. Rather than pitching their business ideas standing on two feet in a boring board room, contestants now have to pitch them while completing daring X Games-inspired acts. Examples include:
- Contestants BASE jump off the Space Needle and only have until they land to win over investors.
- Contestants jet ski through the treacherous waters of the Amazon, with only the winner getting to pitch his idea.
- Uhhh… other things!
Admittedly, I didn’t get too far beyond the title on this one. But when has a lack of an original idea ever stopped anyone in television? Let’s do this.
