Congratulations on Getting Your Show Green Lit!

There are too many reality TV shows, but damned if that’s ever going to stop TV producers from making more.  Quite the contrary: the raw number of reality TV shows is perceived not as a marker of an oversaturated market, but rather as demonstration of the virulent sustainability of reality television as art form.

That doesn’t mean that any show can be greenlit.  America’s Sternest Jamaican Mothers, for example, was passed on, thanks to lackluster early demographic responses and a lackluster pitch.  Improv Battle was also cancelled, after it was revealed that every winning troupe was actually just an iteration of a UCB collective that was taking a break to work on other projects.  So You Think You Can DJ Your Sister’s Wedding, Fart Hunters, Beer Snob Intervention.  All intellectual abortions, dead before they even had a pilot.  You don’t want that to happen to you.

So you’ve done your market research.  You’ve got your target audience, and you’ve got your hook.  Today you’ll make your pitch. Smash cut to:

A Hollywood conference room where an obese man in an ill-fitting suit stares at an old school cathode ray television on the sort of AV cart you’d expect to find in a high school.  The ancient TV plays your pilot on a VHS cassette.  When it finishes, he strokes his chin(s).

“Interesting,” he’ll all but moan.

“We think we’ll get a good portion of the people who are interested in Tri-State area marital relations as a guilty pleasure, as well as people who are interested in Tri-State area marital relations in a genuine fashion,” you’ll proudly announce.  He’ll nod.

“I can see real conflict between the Russian mob wives and the moderate Jews from New Jersey as the series progresses,” he’ll say without looking at you or your partner.  Your partner will nod.

“We specifically chose families who are intermarried with bad blood. Grandparent feuds, that sort of thing.”

The executive will act as if he didn’t hear anything (your partner is a woman) but process the information all the same.  After a few moments of making beeping and booping sounds with his mouth and kneading his fingers, he’ll stand up, extend a stubby hand your way and inform you:

“We’re very interested in continuing Brisket Wives as a project.  Let’s get started.”

Congratulations on Getting Your Show Green Lit!