In the proud tradition of the scab Duke boys, Coy and Vance, we'd like to do our part to resolve the current Hollywood labor strife.
Now, we realize that our television writing credits are few and far between. In high school, Joe served as a script editor for The Charmings. And Tom claims to have been the brains behind Small Wonder, though, in reality, he merely served as the personal assistant to Emily Schulman.
Regardless, we're looking to break back into the biz. To get started, we decided to give ourselves a little homework assignment, hoping someone in the industry will recognize our work as rising to the level of two unscrupulous, meagerly paid, moderately talented scabs.
Our first mission was to pitch a classic series revival, create a spin-off, and come up with endings for the final episode of Lost.
Joe's pitch for a revival: Even More Growing Pains
Mike Seaver is all grown up with a family of his own. The charming and mischievous youth who stole the hearts of a generation has matured into loving fundamentalist Christian dad. Unfortunately, Jason, Maggie, Carol and Ben are nowhere to be found, as Mike has been forced to sever all ties with his secular humanist/Darwinist family. Oh, but there's a twist. His teenage children, Abraham and Sarah, are godless heathens. Laughs soon follow as we watch Mike continually lecture his kids about the lie of evolution in anticipation of his signature weekly comedy bit--pulling out that hilarious old crocoduck picture.
Tom's pitch for a revival: M*A*S*H
Based in modern day Iraq, this re-imagining of the classic sitcom features the familiar cast of characters battling the agonizing horrors of war while dealing with a whole new host of zany problems. In the pilot episode, we'll be reintroduced to:
• Klinger, played by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, an enlistee who's been stop-lossed three times and schemes to finally win his discharge by training for years to become a militarily indispensable Arab linguist, and then giving handjobs to Iraqi cab drivers in full view of his C.O.
• Radar, played by Dick Cheney, whose savvy horse-trading wins the camp a new print of the latest Rita Hayworth picture in exchange for 80 worthless suits of Interceptor body armor.
• Father Mulcahy, played by William G. Boykin, the company chaplain, who continually claims that the United States will win the war because God is on our side and that, despite all appearances, Jesus has not actually abandoned us, but is simply resting his eyes.
Joe's pitch for a spin-off: Hello, Newman
10 years after the country said goodbye to Seinfeld, the gruff but lovable Newman squeezes back onto the small screen. In the pilot, Newman is called into his supervisor's office. He fears the worst but soon discovers that he's actually getting a promotion. It turns out that the only way his boss could get rid of him was by making him postmaster to a small town in upstate New York.
We catch up with Newman before his first day of work as he looks for apartments in the picturesque little burg. When he answers a "room for rent" ad, he's surprised to discover that his new landlord is Jerry's Uncle Leo, who recently inherited the house from his aunt. Later we find out that the mayor of the town is J. Peterman, who ran for office after his catalog went out of business. And the town's Buffalo Crazy Wings franchise, where everyone hangs out, is owned by none other than Elaine's ex, David Puddy. At the end of the pilot we see Newman, Uncle Leo, J. Peterman and Puddy all sharing a beer and wings, toasting what we can only image is another 175-episode run.
(Note: In the second season, the title will be abbreviated to Newman.)
Tom's pitch for a spin-off: Joanie Loves Whoever Has $8 or a Vial of Crack
Erin Moran makes her long-awaited return to television, reprising her role as the sassy Joanie "Shortcake" Cunningham from Happy Days. Featuring a weekly cavalcade of ABC's hottest stars visiting a trio of street smart, fast-talking, down-on-their-luck prostitutes, it's The Love Boat meets Alice meets Pretty Woman meets Erin Moran giving blow jobs in Arby's bathrooms for moist handfuls of loose change and crack.
Tom's pitch for Lost: Final Episode--"Give Us This Day Our Daily Confusion"
After a truly mystifying two-hour finale, during which Hurley suddenly realizes the numbers are his successive pants sizes from his first semester of kindergarten, Sun gives birth to a child who looks suspiciously like the frosting guy from the airport Cinnabon counter, Ben uses the Dharma Initiative's Apple IIs to calculate the real-world odds of this many hot people surviving at the same crash site, and we see a flashback where it's revealed that the major characters were all once Burt Reynolds' partner on Win, Lose or Draw, Bob Newhart wakes up in bed with the backwards-talking dwarf from Twin Peaks and the president of the Writers Guild of America. The WGA prez glares at the camera, flips off the American public, and goes back to sleep. Bob turns to the dwarf and says, cryptically, "You should wear more tank tops."
Joe's pitch for Lost: Final Episode--"Father Forgive Me"
FADE IN:
The remaining survivors gather on the beach one last time as they come to realize their world is ending. They gaze at the sky with a new understanding. Now they can see through the clear blue sky and past their hidden reality.
As the camera pulls away, we see the entire island and then the ocean--then the planet, the solar system, the Milky Way, and a rapidly blurring, scattered constellation of galaxies. Finally, we see we are in the eye of a young boy. He closes his eyes tightly and tries to go back there, tries to picture it again, to force his thoughts back to the beach, to the safety of his imagination.
From the force of his closed eyelids we see the tears streaming down his cheeks. The camera pulls back a little more, just enough to reveal that the boy is lying on his stomach with half his face buried in a pillow, his lip quivering. Finally, as the camera pulls still farther away, we see the priest on top of him.
FADE OUT.
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