Pitching Perfect Projects: Eating Dinner and Looking For Work

I've got two somewhat-related project ideas tonight. For those unfamiliar with my previous post on this topic, you can check out it out here and here. The concept? Pitching ideas that I think would make fantastic movies or television shows. First up...

- Eating Dinner. This is based on the idea of Roger Ebert's old reviewing partner, Gene Siskel. Ebert has said several times that Siskel always asked himself one question about every movie he watched: Is this film better than just sitting in on dinner with the leads? I love that standard, because it's relatively simple to understand.

However, instead of using it as a standard to judge movies on, why not just film movies or a show based on the concept? Of course, there is the legendary My Dinner With Andre, which stars the great Wallace Shawn. Most of y'all probably remember him as the funny dude from The Princess Bride, another great performance. If he's willing to sign on for the show, then great! If not, then we'll have to look elsewhere.

Some of you might be thinking - Hey, what about Shatner? He did have a show that was pretty similar to what I was pitching. However, the problem with him is that Shatner himself is too much of a buffoon, and doesn't have enough chops, to make it work. You need someone who brings something to the table besides a broad caricature. Preferably, you would involve someone who isn't widely known for just one role, or who has range as an actor. Actors with developed personas - Christopher Walken, Alec Baldwin - wouldn't really work for this, and a complete unknown wouldn't be believable as an equal of whoever he was talking to.

Assuming there is no limit to who I can cast, then I find George Clooney and Edward Norton to be the best choices. Clooney just exudes cool, between his presence in Ocean's Eleven and tagging anything hot that moves in Hollywood, yet I don't really know much about the guy. The same thing goes with Norton, except he also seems slightly nuts. He seems to have a slight sense of humor about himself, given his appearances on Stella and Modern Family. In the past, he dated Courtney Love and Salma Hayek, which is range in pretty much every conceivable way.

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Now we got a stew going...

- Looking For Work. Now, this is the show that Shatner could be on, if he wasn't busy with his show based on Twitter.

The premise is somewhat similar to Lookwell!, which I've written about in the past. In that show, Adam West played an out-of-work television detective, Ty Lookwell, who was deluded into thinking he could actually solve crimes now. It was nonsensical, and absolutely awesome.

The twist in this show is that the actor would just play him or herself. Obviously, Adam West would still work for this, as would anyone else who is normally seen as being available for just about any role with a paycheck - George Takei, Michael Caine, Carl Weathers. You can imagine it as the poor man's version of Curb Your Enthusiasm, except that it would be a scripted show with the character playing himself.

Part of the beauty of this is that it allows you the opportunity for tons of silly nostalgia and self-referential humor, especially when it comes to the business. The show should be a spoof of some of the more outlandish aspects of the trade - remember how Robert Goulet had a sitcom? - by putting the lead in ridiculous situations every week that he or she is completely serious about. (Spoofs work best when the people don't realize they're in a spoof; nobody ever cracks up in Airplane! or The Naked Gun.)

A sneak peek of the other upfronts, and Pitching Perfect Projects

Note: Elvis Costello should have his own sitcom.

Continuing on my post from yesterday, and from the excellent dispatches from the upfronts by Slate's Troy Patterson here and here, my thoughts on the new shows pitched for the upcoming fall season...

- Lonestar is about an oil tycoon con man trying to keep it all together. A FOX show, it'll probably be canceled at the first sign of ratings trouble. I'm not really that interested in the concept; this sounds like the type of show that will be crammed down my throat in promos during the baseball playoffs, only to disappear from the fall schedule after a couple episodes. (However, in case anyone has forgotten the lesson pounded into our heads from past postseasons, "Her father is the DISTRICT ATTORNEY!")

- I like the pedigree of Running Wilde, which has Will Arnett and Keri Russell in it. However, as good as Arnett was as Gob Bluth, he has produced a lot of... well, shit, since then. It would be a shame if that was his career peak, but it has happened to actors a lot better than him. Therefore, I'm going to remain cautiously optimistic for his new show.

- Mixed Signals got the best response from the mostly-old-dude crowd at the FOX upfront, so I will try to check it out in the fall, even though I know almost nothing of it. Raising Hope sounds horrid, even from Patterson's short description of it as Three Men and a Baby minus two men. Doesn't Two and a Half Men fill out quota for shows-without-moms needed on network TV?


Better yet, I think we need a ridiculous premise show that goes the completely opposite direction. Therefore, I am proposing a new show, which I call Four Lesbians, Two Babies and an Elephant. (In case "lesbians" in a show title doesn't fly, my alternate title is Four Women, Two Babies and an Elephant.) Of the four women, two would be doctors - they're very popular with executives - one would be a spy, and the last one would be a drug addict. If one baby means ratings, then two babies mean DOUBLE ratings. And, any show can have a puppy or a kitten. To spice things up, these gals need an elephant.

- At the ABC upfront, No Ordinary Family sounds like it could be a winner. A drama about a family with superhero powers? Yes. Sign me up. Heroes was awesome until it started adding 500,000 different characters, so focusing on just a single family of heroes could be interesting.

- In contrast, I'm not sure how much I'll like Mr. Sunshine with Matthew Perry. In the early seasons of Friends, he was savagely sharp and funny. But as the show was increasingly pitched toward female viewers and the female characters, he lost a lot of his edge. If he is back to his snide-as-eff character, then I'm in. If he's pining for some woman in the first episode, I'm out.

- Happy Endings sounds vapid and stupid and a waste of time. The same goes for My Generation. Generally, anything that claims to be cool, hip or on the cutting edge is never cool, hip or on the cutting edge.

- Off The Map and Body of Proof sound like rehashes of shows currently on the air. If they're decent, I'm guessing they'll just piggyback on to the existing shows. Neither one sounds like it has breakout potential.

- And finally... The Shatner show based on Shit My Dad Says. My goodness, I'm excited. Two reasons: It will either be legitimately good, or it will be so bad it is great, because Shatner is involved. I really don't see any middle ground on this, although I think it's far more likely that it sucks, like the show based on the Geico cavemen. I do like my friend Tom's suggestion: It should be renamed from Shit My Day Says, which won't fly on network television, to Shatner My Dad Says.

The picture of Elvis Costello at the top of the blog is from this blog, which is in some foreign language. The lesbian photo I modified a bit, but found at this blog. The baby photo is from here. And Dumbo is from this blog.