This has been a weird week.
I just got the internet back and I’m sitting down during a brief lull in
my life to try some games I haven’t had a chance to fully explore yet (like the
atrocious Payday, which has so far proven middling in every sense of the word). So instead of writing about games, I’m going
to pitch a bunch of webseries ideas to everyone. I think we (you) should make one or all of
these.
Go on.
Do it.
Pitch One: Some Bullshit with Puppets
People fucking love puppets, right? Like, more than they love each other. More than they love real people. Avenue Q was a thing that people got
into. Wondershowzen was big back in the
day. Muppets? Who doesn’t still love Muppets? Puppets are less expensive than giant CGI
creatures, they’re cute, they’re fuzzy, they make normally irrational women
calm and prone to dating nerds. They’re
a tentpole of forming a quiet, sane community in this mad world we’ve generated
for ourselves.
So what the internet needs, what it really really needs, is
some bullshit with puppets. Preferrably
puppets who make dirty jokes, possibly racist jokes, and live in a world where
they are more or less recognized as normal.
If you can turn that into an observation on race, all the better. We don’t really need any more details here:
this pitch is solid as is. Some bullshit
with puppets. Cut, print, watch the
money roll in.
Pitch Two: An Implausible Series of Escalatingly Absurd
Dates
This might seem very similar to David Wain’s superlative “Wainy
Days” webseries, which is still trickling out fresh episodes today. It’s not.
This is a man bereft of charisma and a cycling group of implausibly
attractive women with no comedic talent engaging in Howard Stern-esque
antics. Want to make a webseries where a
woman shouts “Put it in my pooper?” and then hear a studio laugh track sound
that your cousin used pro-tools to rip out of an old episode of Home
Improvement from Alluc? This is the show
you should probably make and then kill yourself for making.
If it goes on way too long and your charisma-less lead
engages in really uncomfortable makeouts with his co-stars, all the
better. If these go on way too long as a
“joke” that keeps happening to no real effect, perfect. If you sleep with all the women who are hired
to be the “dates,” bonus. Generally,
just try to imitate David Wain and miss every mark he hits and you should be
fine.
Oh, and be sure to set it in either New York or LA. Preferrably New York.
Pitch Three: Working in a Zany Office
Ever worked in a boring old office? Don’t worry, most of the people who are going
to watch this won’t have either. Be sure to include all the great characters we
all know and sort of despise: zany boss, zany co-workers, hot girl you fantasize
about in a way that borders on pathetic.
Part of the appeal is that you can expand this over time. You can add characters like black guy, Indian
girl, guy with glasses, tech support guy, friend, other friend, black friend,
platonic girl friend, non-platonic girl friend, and so on. Also maybe someone can have a band or
something so you can leave the office, we don’t know. We’ve never worked in an office.
On that note, be sure to never specifically say what the
office your webseries is based in does.
That is death to a series like this.
Pitch Four: A Straight Man and an Absurd Foil Live Together
and Have Problems
Remember Perfect Strangers?
Good! Most of your viewing
audience won’t either. Suffice it to say
it was fucking fantastic. Kinda. We don’t really remember. But it played on the idea of a hilarious
straight man trying to get his life together paired with a hilariously absurd
foil who just can’t do anything right who has been tossed in with this sorry
bloke and forced to muddle his way through.
This can be combined with almost any of the prior concepts
and expanded on endlessly, but for optimal delivery be sure to have your
straight man and absurd foil live together in a somewhat difficult to
understand situation that cannot withstand scrutiny. If you know any minorities, try to make the
straight man a minority. That’s hip now,
right? Or are minorities out this
year? We honestly don’t remember. The key thing is: don’t worry about anything
except clearly delineating the normal character from the wacky character. Oh, and be sure to make the wacky character
lovable. That’ll take you a long way.
Pitch Five: Something with Orcs
Orcs are big, right?
We don’t usually go outside, so we don’t know exactly what’s been
happening in popular culture over the last decade, but those Lord of the Rings
movies seemed to get nerds pretty excited, and nerds love the internet. I’m pretty sure that Zelda webseries had an
orc in it or something. Moblin? What the fuck’s a Moblin? Fuck you.
Orcs, man. Something with
them. I don’t know. Figure it out, nerds.
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