Modified On July 20, 2006
We took in Just For Pitching Thursday at noon in the Delta. A less than capacity crowd watched six sitcoms and a drama pitched. Pitching were Ronnie Khalil (The Garden), Kira Soltanovich & Rachel Reiss (The Cult), Nat Coombs (Dear Journal), Ian Harrison (Bangalore Whore), Dwight Slade (thirtynine), James Mullinger (Success) and Eddie Pence (A Comic Life). Catching were William Burdett-Coutts, Amy Hartwick, Jeremy Whitham, Brent Haynes, Anton Leo and
Ron West.
“Originally, it was scripted… but I thought you liked that improvised crap.”
The above is a quote from Eddie Pence. He said it toward the end of the grilling he endured after his A Comic Life pitch. Grilling… did we say grilling? It was more like a mushy, Orwellian, cognitive therapy session in which the patient is being cured of the notion that he or she can create a marketable sitcom (instead of being cured of anxiety or depression). And there are six therapists. All of whom are fearful of contradicting each other… but, curiously, not at all afraid of contradicting themselves… sometimes in the course of one sentence.
There were seven pitches, and, as one of our party whispered, halfway through the proceedings, “Where is this year’s Beat The Chimp?” (See last year’s wrapup of Just For Pitching– We didn’t go on about BTC in any detail, but Franz Harary’s simian-based game show idea was offbeat and his presentation was entertaining. Nobody was able to engage the audience in such a manner this year.)
The panel– British, Canadian and American TV execs– were in rare form when it came to tortuous rhetoric, but somewhat sluggish. Brent Haynes of Canada’s Comedy Network, though gloomy, still got off a zinger or two. But the panel was somewhat reserved, not very enthusiastic. Perhaps even they are fed up with their own horseshit.
We actually heard one of them describe a former TV exec as a “champion of original voices.” We’ll let that sink in.
It took them only 35 minutes for someone to use the word “interstitial.” We counted two “Zeitgeists” and a “multiplatform.” We’re refining a pitch of our own. We said in years past that Just For Pitching would, in itself, make a great show. Now, we are considering adding the element of audience interactivity by turning it into a drinking game, encouraging the viewers to take a shot of distilled spirits every time an exec uses something on the approved list of Suitspeak Terms or Phrases. (Other terms or phrases: “high-concept,” “character-driven,” “script-dependent” any adjective combined with the word “voice.” You get the idea.)
After a while, we began to feel bad for the pitchers. They were all the butt of a protracted, yearlong practical joke!
Last year, the panelists declared the sitcom to be dead, dead, dead. (“The days of taking a fat guy, giving him a hot wife and building a successful sitcom around it are gone,” said one exec in 2005. Note to exec: The fat guy with the hot wife just got an Emmy nomination!)
Last year, everything was high-concept, improvised and reality-based. (You know, like Curb or Reno or Arrested, they all said, paring down the show titles to one word.)
So… The pitchers gave them high-concept, the pitchers took great pains to emphasize that there would be “unscripted and/or improvised components” to their shows and that their would be at least “be some segments that would be reality-based.”
So… The execs batted them all down.
In case you hadn’t heard, pitch people, we execs are all on the same page now and we’re “re-inventing the sitom” and “changing the face of television comedy!” From here on out, we want characters that people care and good writing. “The sitcom built around a clever idea is a misnomer,” they said. “At the end of the day, it comes down to a script. I would have to see a script.” We want Cheers! We want Friends! Get outta here with that improvised shit.
What a burn job!
We’re considering a pitch for next year entitled What The F*** Do You Want?!
“Before we begin our presentation, we’d like to ask the panelists a question: What the F*** do you want?!? Because, oh, man, we can give it to you!”
Now, if you’ll excuse us, we gotta go sneak into The Hollywood Reporter party and bolt down some sweaty cheese and a couple free drinks before anyone realizes that it was we who called the folks at The Hollywood Reporter “dusty turds.” (See our review of Tourgasm from last month.)
More updates to come. We’re busting them up into smaller components and posting them when we can!
Thanks for reading!