Ficees the Gleerak goes to School SKETCH

This was my submission to 2525. I can only assume they failed to read it or were put off by it's inherent awesomeness.

NARRATOR:
It's a Monday morning at School Station 0100-0011-0100-1100-0100-1111-0100-1110-0100-0101 and class 58972 is in session. That's 'clone' spelled in binary, you know. Enrolled due to an administrative error, the new student, Ficees, does not look like the other students. They have very different diets.

CL468
Arnold, Sir, someone's covered my imprinter with nutrient paste!

ARNOLD
Oh, for the sentimental attachment of Alan Turing... Fine, CL379 when you've finished let CL468 use your imprinter.

SOUND FX
DOOR OPENS

CL458
Look! It's a Gleerak!

FICEES
Hello, I am Ficees. Sorry I am late, but there are no signs anywhere and I was running down every corridor...

ARNOLD
Did you not automatically download the schematics upon embarkation at this station? Did you successfully calibrate your implant to search for networks? Perhaps you connected to the wrong one. You should be connected to 0100-0011-0100-1100-0100-1111-0100-1110-0100-0101-lowercase school. Not 0100-0011-0101-0101-0100-1110-0101-...

FICEES
My implant is region encoded to the Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy...

ARNOLD
I see. You'll need to update your firmware. For now please find somewhere to your ergonomic liking in which to remain stationary and attentive.

CL379
Sir, why is there a Gleerak joining our class?

ARNOLD
Under the governing laws of this sector a school cannot refuse a student based on his, her, or its genetic code.

CL402
But Gleerak's are stupid inferior creatures!

ARNOLD
CL402, keep your mouth line taut.

CL402
But its true!

FICEES
Hey!

ARNOLD
CL402, your protein intake for tomorrow will be reduced by 10%.

CL402
Aw man, I'm gonna fall behind.

CL468
Don't mind 402, Ficees. The eugenicist for his batch was syphoning off ASPM genes to teach a mouse Cantonese.

CL402
Shut up 468! Your eugenicist was so fat when she left the station the gravity disappeared!

ARNOLD
Clones! Cease bickering! The next eugenicist-related libel will result in half rations of sucrose for a week.

FICEES
Clones? You guys are clones?

CL379
Uh, yeah.

CL392
I'm not.

CL402
Shut up, 392.

FICEES
This isn't the Chinese Language One School?

CL468
No, that's the next station over. Just follow the crumbs of the mouse, Ficees.

FICEES
Oh dear.

SOUND FX'DOWNLOAD COMPLETE' CHIME

ARNOLD
New information has been imprinted. Discuss amongst yourselves the merits of the assimilated arguments.

FICEES
I'm sorry, I've made a mistake. I should leave.

ARNOLD
That is no longer possible, Ficees. You've been imprinted with sensitive information that cannot be allowed to leave this station.

FICEES
Huh? But this is just strategy for getting out of a foxhole under attack by a very specific formation on a planet with a theoretical atmosphere...

ARNOLD
It is nonetheless proprietary information and remains the property of the Clone War Corporation. I myself was a passing weather satellite uploaded in error with the clones' lunch menu, which led to my confiscation under the Proprietary Information Secrets Special act of 2487.

FICEES
I can never leave?!

CL402
Until a war breaks out or someone needs your organs.

FICEES
What about the fat eugenicist? She left!

CL468
The eugenicists have clearance.

FICEES
And the mouse!

CL468
The mouse left with the eugenicist.

CL402
The eugenicist left with the mouse more like.

ARNOLD
CL402! Say goodbye to your sucrose!

CL402
Oh come on!

FICEES
Please, is there nothing I can do?

CL468
You could try brown-nosing the eugenicists, Ficees.

SOUND FXWAR ALARM

CL468
Oh, never mind.

FICEES
Huh?

ARNOLD
Good luck clones. Recollect your training.

VOICE
Clones 001 to 12,367 and Ficees the Gleerak, report to bay area A for battle deployment. Clones 12,368 to 24,735, report to bay area B for battle deployment. The result of your conflict will determine the new space borders of the colonies of Hyperion and Titan.

FICEES
Oh come on!

Hmmm, I suspect that it is TOO far out.

And have you thought how tedious it would sound if all that binary stuff was actually read out on a radio show?

They had planet eating aliens, time travel and blind dates with an alien colony, I don't think corporate war clone schools and normal sized aliens is any more of a jump.

And they could speed up the binary jokes in editing (if needed be), or just doing it in beeps, given that the characters speaking were both robots.

Not enough funnies for me I'm afraid. Over complicated.

There's an absence of funnies, hook or story.
I have no idea who anybody really is or why I should be caring about them.
It's just a random collection of supposedly amusing ideas that stays around too long.
You really need to be thinking beginning, middle, end and a character that the reader/viewer can identify with.

Is it really that complicated? An alien accidentally enrolls at a school space-station for clones, having mistaken it for C.L. ONE, the nearby Chinese Language school, which, incidentally, is run by a mouse that was an experiment run at the station by one of the eugenicists who used to run the cloning program; realises his mistake, is unable to leave due to copyright law, and before he can find another way off the station, is deployed for a CLONE WAR because it's actually a military school for the CLONE WAR COMPANY he's accidentally arrived at. And his name means shit in English.

See, simple.

Nope it's just muddled and there's no hook for the reader or viewer.

It's not actually all that complex just poorly written.

Too complicated for me. I think you've concentrated on getting too many fufurustic/scientific terms in rather than gags. I had to give up half way through as it was too baffling and I couldn't understand what the sketch was about. Like Sooty says, a clear beginning, middle and end are very important.

Beginning: Ficees the Gleerak enters the classroom.
Middle: Ficees the Gleerak tries to leave the school.
End: Ficees the Gleerak is leaving the school!

Which bits are hard to understand? I'm sincerely baffled as to how any of it is hard to follow. The introduction tells you its a school (space) station, tells you Ficees is a new student, tells you its a clone school...

You're a mediocre writer but you seem to enjoy it and take a pride in it
That puts you ahead of most writers
Well done

Sigh, so you don't understand why it is all-over-the-place and confusing?

Quote: JaPi @ 25th January 2014, 7:24 PM GMT

CL468
Arnold, Sir, someone's covered my imprinter with nutrient paste!

ARNOLD
Oh, for the sentimental attachment of Alan Turing... Fine, CL379 when you've finished let CL468 use your imprinter.

View original

Adds nothing to the sketch, just an excuse to throw Alan Turing's name in. Leaves listeners thinking WTF is an IMPRINTER.

SOUND FX
DOOR OPENS

CL458
Look! It's a Gleerak!

FICEES
Hello, I am Ficees. Sorry I am late, but there are no signs anywhere and I was running down every corridor...

Why name a character FICEES, it isn't clever, just makes listeners think he is shit.

ARNOLD
Did you not automatically download the schematics upon embarkation at this station? Did you successfully calibrate your implant to search for networks? Perhaps you connected to the wrong one. You should be connected to 0100-0011-0100-1100-0100-1111-0100-1110-0100-0101-lowercase school. Not 0100-0011-0101-0101-0100-1110-0101-...

As mentioned before, the binary is tedious and actually just indicates a lack of real understanding of binary.

FICEES
My implant is region encoded to the Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy...

Obscure astronomical reference. Pick something more obvious, preferably with a joke in the name.

ARNOLD
I see. You'll need to update your firmware. For now please find somewhere to your ergonomic liking in which to remain stationary and attentive.

Far too wordy & no joke, try something like, but funny:

You need to update your brain.. Take a seat.

CL379
Sir, why is there a Gleerak joining our class?

ARNOLD
Under the governing laws of this sector a school cannot refuse a student based on his, her, or its genetic code.

CL402
But Gleerak's are stupid inferior creatures!

ARNOLD
CL402, keep your mouth line taut.

CL402
But its true!

Pointless, racism with no jokes.

Etc etc.

You're knackered now. Bill is the only techno who might have understood it

Quote: billwill @ 26th January 2014, 9:40 PM GMT

Sigh, so you don't understand why it is all-over-the-place and confusing?

View original

No, and I still don't.

Adds nothing to the sketch, just an excuse to throw Alan Turing's name in. Leaves listeners thinking WTF is an IMPRINTER.

It tells you who the characters are, gives you an idea of the way they assimilate information (which is important later in the sketch), and has a joke about how a computer might say "for the love of god." There's also humour in the idea that no matter how advanced school equipment gets, it'll still be easily vandalised by some chewing-gum equivalent. An imprinter imprints. I expect an audience to be able to infer that from the name.

Obscure astronomical reference. Pick something more obvious, preferably with a joke in the name.

It's a galaxy outside of the milky way. That's all you need to know to understand the implication that in the future, technology is region coded to galaxies rather than continents. In order to understand the joke you need a background in having ever owned a DVD, Blu-ray player or games console. You don't need to have any foreknowledge about some distant galaxy. Also: it is an obscure astronomical reference, which can be funny in and of itself.

Why name a character FICEES, it isn't clever, just makes listeners think he is shit.

Why not name a character Ficees? It's an alien sounding name and allows for the various jokes about fecal matter. Part of the brief was to write in the style of Little Britain. Hence the base humour.

As mentioned before, the binary is tedious and actually just indicates a lack of real understanding of binary.

As rebuffed before, IF reading out the entire number as quickly as possible isn't funny, they could sort it out easily enough in the edit without losing anything. This is a script for a radio sketch, not the finished product.

Far too wordy & no joke, try something like, but funny:

You need to update your brain.. Take a seat.

The character is a robot. He has a way of speaking. What you've done is taken what he said, and translated it back into basic english. Thanks.

Pointless, racism with no jokes.

It's not racist to have a character make anti-alien race comments and then be rebuffed for them. I think it is funny to have a character debase another for being stupid and inferior, and getting his immediate comeuppance by being made inferior himself. But you end the quote before the punch.

Etc etc.

Um, yeah. Sigh all you like, I still don't understand how this is all over the place and hard to follow just because you didn't like some of the proper nouns and identified a character as racist..?

Anyway, that's my critique of your critique, which was all over the place and failed to address why my sketch was hard to follow. So now I sigh at you! HA.

Ok basically any kind of narrative writing you do needs to have a narrative, with sketch comedy in particular. So man wants money back for dead parrot, shop assistant refuses to accept it's death.
Where as there maybe twists, it starts it finishes it has a story.

Scifi sketches because they contain hard to engage with concepts, usually have a hook for the audience. In the case of HG2G it's that everything that happens is observed by the last human and an Alien whose spent so much time amongst humans he's almost human,

Now your sketch has neither it has random ideas loosely connected and no hook. Nothing that an audience can truly identify with.

That there are no funny lines or characters is really a side issue.

No hook, no narrative, no structure it just doesn't work.

I mean Noel Fieldings show had some sort of identifiable hook and narrative.

The narrative is 'Character accidentally enrolls at a Clone School and becomes stuck there.' It has its story beats of:

arrival ("Hello, I'm new.") - realisation ("This isn't right!") - complication - ("I can't leave?!") - resolution ("I'm going to die?!")

The hook is the hook of the show it would have aired on; ie. 500 years in the future what is it like and how does it compare with today?

Without knowing where it supposedly becomes unconnected or hard to follow, I'm just going to assume it's a brilliant sketch, and the right audience for it just hasn't turned up yet. Yep. Yep yep yep.