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Networks' comedy pilots reflect recessionary times (Laughing all the way to the boarded-up bank)
Reuters ^ | 2/20/09 | James Hibbard

Posted on 02/21/2009 11:41:10 AM PST by 1curiousmind

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - A group of friends gets fired on the same day. Troubled cops check into a halfway home. A Wall Street executive loses his job and has to reconnect with his small-town family.

Laughing yet?

Those are a few log lines for next fall's TV pilots -- the comedy pilots.

Networks are looking at recession-friendly ideas for their new half-hours, with many projects embracing characters in crisis and avoiding office settings.

CBS' "Waiting to Die" is, according to its description, a "buddy comedy about two simple guys who are happy with their life, no matter how bad it might look from the outside." Fox's "Two Dollar Beer" is about a blue-collar couple in Detroit who "deal with the reality of their long-standing roots in this community slowly becoming less relevant as the rest of the world passes them by."

Groups of single, perky young people seem to be waning. No more friends with benefits -- they're now friends with unemployment benefits.

(Excerpt) Read more at uk.reuters.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: comedy; sitcoms
I'm sure Freepers could come up with better. Although the "Two Dollar Beer" one sounds like my life!
1 posted on 02/21/2009 11:41:11 AM PST by 1curiousmind
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To: 1curiousmind

Peppered, I’m sure, with the usual leftoid slants that will continue to push reasonable society away from their propaganda screens.


2 posted on 02/21/2009 11:45:13 AM PST by chuck_the_tv_out
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To: 1curiousmind

OK, here’s a crazy idea for a comedy - a crazy coke-snorting Kenyan comes to America - Eddie Murphy is slated for this part - and using crazy communist inspired OBEY imagery as a joke, becomes president.

The show deatures him & his crazy wife (who is always going on random rants about whitey keepin’ her down, like “daaaaaaamn!!!”) and their crazy exploits, hoping no one finds out about his Kenyan birth certificate, which he keeps under his bed


3 posted on 02/21/2009 11:48:35 AM PST by chuck_the_tv_out
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To: chuck_the_tv_out

I think that one ran last fall. :-)


4 posted on 02/21/2009 11:52:19 AM PST by 1curiousmind
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To: chuck_the_tv_out

I was thinking something along the lines of a bonafide tax cheat being put in charge of the IRS.

But then I realized that it has to have at least a shred of believability.


5 posted on 02/21/2009 11:56:56 AM PST by 1curiousmind
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To: chuck_the_tv_out

-that sitcom will be a hit, with millions, I’m sure.


6 posted on 02/21/2009 12:08:14 PM PST by FBD (My carbon footprint is bigger then yours)
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To: 1curiousmind
Ok, I'll try.

An update of "The Producers". The main character is a blend of a Madoff/Stanford and the dozens of other Ponzi titans yet to be uncovered/confess/kill themselves/flee. He is made sympathetic and comical somehow, much like a bigot was made so with Archie Bunker.

The focus is more on the absurdity of anyone actually investing with the central character, and the "investors"--a hodge podge of politicos, wall street big shots, Hollywood dunces, etc.--are made to look knuckleheaded and stooge-like a la the Nazis in "Hogan's Heroes."

The central character is named Walter Golden, and the show is called "Golden's Fleece." He pals around with his primary enabler who is the senior audit partner at London-based Kingsfield, Hart & Ford, PLC (all rich and snobby sounding names that happen to be right out of the Paper Chase). In fact, the firm has only one employee--Monty Ford, a chronically drunk, womanizing and twice professionally-disciplined accountant, who boasts that the firm has done the tax returns for the Royal Family going back to Victoria (not sure they even have to file returns).  The interplay between Golden and Ford is the primary non-sight gag comedy (kind of a riff on Tom Hanks and the other guy in "Bosom Buddies").

Only the audience knows that Golden and Ford are flim-flam artists, which is half the fun. To distance itself from reality TV, in "Golden's Fleece", Golden and Ford only take investments from rich creepy people. Like the Duke Brothers in Trading Places. Or Leona Helmsley. You get the idea. We are kind of rooting for these people to get fleeced and it makes Golden and Ford seem a little more Robin Hoody.

Of course, the series will have running regulars like the ineffectual and easily distracted SEC enforcement officer (think Schultz from "Hogan's Heroes"), the constantly frustrated whistle-blower (think the EPA guy in "Ghostbusters"), etc.

Oh--and I love the thing about Stanford moving his HQ to Antigua so he could be knighted. We absolutely have to steal that--just too precious. So it will be Sir Walter Golden, and the company HQ will be on some exotic island where knight status can be conferred.

Ok, somebody else jump in with ideas. Maybe for the starring roles? This could be fun (unless you invested with Madoff or Stanford, in which case you should not play).

7 posted on 02/21/2009 12:11:16 PM PST by Zebra
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To: chuck_the_tv_out
OK, here’s a crazy idea for a comedy - a crazy coke-snorting Kenyan comes to America - Eddie Murphy is slated for this part - and using crazy communist inspired OBEY imagery as a joke, becomes president.

The show features him & his crazy wife (who is always going on random rants about whitey keepin’ her down, like “daaaaaaamn!!!”) and their crazy exploits, hoping no one finds out about his Kenyan birth certificate, which he keeps under his bed

I like it, but there's just no verisimilitude. I mean, nobody would believe that anything remotely like that could ever happen. ;-)

8 posted on 02/21/2009 12:15:42 PM PST by Allegra
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To: 1curiousmind

Anyone remember “Carter Country”?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075489/


9 posted on 02/21/2009 12:16:40 PM PST by Crawdad (Barack Obama- Economic Arsonist)
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To: Allegra

“no verisimilitude. I mean, nobody would believe that anything remotely like that could ever happen”

that’s true. it would be a hit with stoners though.


10 posted on 02/21/2009 12:17:13 PM PST by chuck_the_tv_out
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To: 1curiousmind
CBS' "Waiting to Die"

Yes, I know.

11 posted on 02/21/2009 12:34:08 PM PST by 6SJ7 (Atlas Shrugged Mode: ON)
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To: 6SJ7

Lamont, you big dummy!

12 posted on 02/21/2009 1:28:52 PM PST by Wally_Kalbacken
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To: 1curiousmind

13 posted on 02/21/2009 1:29:52 PM PST by mowowie
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To: 1curiousmind

I remember not too long ago a draft pint of Bud was $1.10 at my favorite haunt (well, the late 80’s anyway).

Now it’s over 3 bucks for a glass of the yellow P water.


14 posted on 02/21/2009 1:36:06 PM PST by mowowie
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To: Crawdad

I remember it.
I was a little kid then.
i remember watching it at my aunts Cape Cod house one night and another night painting the inside of granny’s porch.
It was on about the same time as BJ and the Bear, Sheriff Lobo, Dukes of Hazzard, Barbara Mandrell Etc.


15 posted on 02/21/2009 1:39:44 PM PST by mowowie
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