Sitcoms
Assignment: write one-paragraph descriptions for ten new sitcoms.
1. Rebecca is an over-achieving big-city girl who has just graduated from
FBI University, and is excited for her first assignment -- until she finds
out that it's in a small town in Iowa! She arrives to find a small office
that is disguised as part of the state Farmers' Aid Commision. Her fellow
agents are dead-enders, who don't know why they're there, and don't care.
Occasionally they get cryptic, silly orders from Washington, delivered by
(recurring character) agents from the state capital. Otherwise, they act
like the FAC, pretending to be farm experts and mostly messing things up.
Eventually she might learn to appreciate the locals, as they make more
sense than the FBI, and maybe, JUST MAYBE, she'll fall in love with a
farmboy.
2. "The Crew" are a gang of friends who have been together since junior
high, sharing good times and minimum-wage jobs. They deal with the ups
and downs of paying bills or living with parents, being hassled by the
man, and getting hired and fired from fast-food dives and gas stations.
Oh, and they're all over 50. They've been living this way since high
school, without change. They're perpetually saving up for a better used
car, thinking about going to community college next term, and trying to
borrow money from their elderly parents. They think they're still the hip
dudes from high school, and in their world, they are.
3. Man in the Moon - A very 50s-style sitcom about the first suburb on the
moon. It's not all space-this and space-that like The Jetsons -- life on
the moon is exactly like earth life, except for the gravity. They live in
houses under a big dome, with wacky neighbors and crazy bosses, backyard
barbecues and local gossip, and everyone has to wear really heavy shoes or
else they go bouncing all over the place.
4. Pete is a man with a quest, trying to recover his lost past. As a
child, he once had the perfect chicken salad sandwich at a diner. Now, he
wanders the country, searching for that diner and his missing happiness.
Along the way, he makes friends and uses his sandwich quest as a metaphor
to solve people's problems. Recurring characters include his eccentric
parents, his trouble-making best friend from grade school, and Tyrellius,
the trash-talking guardian angel that only Pete cannot see.
5. This is an office comedy, based in a cutting-edge research firm. The
main characters are all PhDs, leaders of their fields. They strive to
cure diseases, explore space, and reveal the unknown. Yet, they all treat
their jobs like boring factory work, and try to spend as much time as
possible around the watercooler, talking about who likes whom and what was
on TV last night. Hijinx involve avoiding the crotchety old security
guard, taking extra long breaks, and racing office chairs down hallways.
6. Another office comedy, set in the high-powered Wall Street world.
However, all the characters are the lowest rungs of people: floor workers,
secretaries, mail sorters. These small-timers are faced wit inequities
and indignities as they deal with the big important business people, but
they secretly control things and get revenge on the jerks who insult them.
7. A group of slightly nerdy, eccentric young people have formed a club,
the purpose of which is to make them all successful and famous. Each
episode begins with their weekly meeting, where they discuss past work and
new business. The characters are a bit Rushmore-esque -- tortured
geniuses who can't quite deal with the world well enough to make it.
8. A very successful business man quits his high-pressure job and decides
to run a store in a small town to relax and simplify his life.
Unfortunately, he finds that he sucks at it, and the local merchants are
clever and cut-throat, and the job is even more stressful than his old
one. He makes some quirky friends, et cetera and so on.
9. A family owns a bunch of talking dogs. All the characters -- family
and dogs -- are made to talk by digital manipulation of their mouths in
post-production, with dubbed-in voices. Also, whenever a person/animal
picks something up, a fake hand/paw on a stick reaches in from off-camera
to do it for them. And they are constantly wearing awkward hats held on
by strings, which they clearly did not put on themselves.
10. A rich man dies, and leaves his professional football team to his
seventeen ex-wives, who all hated football and each other. They cannot
sell it, so they decide to run it themselves, taking on the roles of
general manager, head coach, assistant coach, defensive coordinator,
offensive coordinator, head recruiter, special teams coordinator, head
trainer, team doctor, marketing supervisor, facilities manager, press
coordinator, play-by-play announcer, accountant, second assistant coach,
chief of operations, and -- in a hilarious surprise move -- quarterback!
The National Football League will never be the same!
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