Mr Mondeo Man (Northern comedy sitcom)

Hi all I'm completely new to this forum so hello!

I'm from a Yorkshire background and there's nothing more I love than the Yorkshire dialog and how conservative and strong minded Yorkshire people are.

I've been considering a sitcom for a number of years based a lot off my family and people who I know.

This is a brief insight on what it will be:

Gerald Baldwin is the main character. He is a stocky build and has aged terribly due to smoking all his life since a young age. In 1993 he was made redundant from the collieries and ever since, he has been doing odd jobs to 'top up' his pit pension.

In 1994 as a treat from his redundancy money and also claim money from his so called 'vibration white finger' he bought a brand new Ford Mondeo when they had just came out, which he still uses as of today which is still his pride and joy. His grandson is a university student and he comes back to live with Gerald during the summer. Gerald doesn't agree to academic studies and further/higher education and has a strong opinion on the modern generation that they 'don't want to work' often calling his grandson 'thick & lazy as shit'

Gerald is not up to date with modern technology despite thinking he is. He still thinks that having electric windows and colour coded bumpers on his Mondeo is revolutionary as of today. Gerald lives a very scheduled life. Everyday at 8.30am he calls in at the local petrol station and puts in £5.00 worth of diesel a 'gallon' as he calls it to get the fuel gauge off of the fuel light despite it coming on as soon as he gets back home. He hates getting interrupted in the evenings whilst living his scheduled life of watching the ITV news at 6, followed by Emmerdale etc.

He enjoys going to the carboot on Sundays, irresistible of buying cheap unnecessary second hand items 'bargains' as he calls them. He always likes to keep things clean and he doesn't understand the definition of an individuals opinion and likes to think he's right all the time.

Gerald is very tight with money. He always moans about his heating bill and wears a big coat whilst watching TV in the winter refusing to put the central heating on "put a jumper on if you're cold" as he always quotes.

He always boasts about his car being a one owner which is him and only having 47,000 miles on the clock despite it being over 20 years old. This is purely the fact that he hates driving far and rarely strays out of his local town.

He gets wound up and aggravated over the smallest things in life as he doesn't have anything better to do. For example, his son cutting the grass too close to his car and it getting grass over it. His next door neighbors cat making a mess on his lawn and he absolutely hates getting cut up by other drivers.

Another interest he has is going to Benidorm in the winter season. He hates flying and thinks that the call sign 'TOM3558' on the departures board is the aircraft type he is flying, often kicking up a fuss at airport. He also tends to panic, for example: His Benidorm flight check in time is at 14:00pm and Gerald gets up at 5:00am despite living 40 minutes away from the airport.

So there's just a few scenarios and overall characteristics of Gerald Baldwin aka Mr Mondeo Man.

Cheers

Have you written any scripts or sketches involving this character?

Quote: Wowk @ 1st May 2015, 1:13 PM BST

Hi all I'm completely new to this forum so hello!

I'm from a Yorkshire background and there's nothing more I love than the Yorkshire dialog and how conservative and strong minded Yorkshire people are.

I've been considering a sitcom for a number of years based a lot off my family and people who I know.

This is a brief insight on what it will be:

Gerald Baldwin is the main character. He is a stocky build and has aged terribly due to smoking all his life since a young age. In 1993 he was made redundant from the collieries and ever since, he has been doing odd jobs to 'top up' his pit pension.

In 1994 as a treat from his redundancy money and also claim money from his so called 'vibration white finger' he bought a brand new Ford Mondeo when they had just came out, which he still uses as of today which is still his pride and joy. His grandson is a university student and he comes back to live with Gerald during the summer. Gerald doesn't agree to academic studies and further/higher education and has a strong opinion on the modern generation that they 'don't want to work' often calling his grandson 'thick & lazy as shit'

Gerald is not up to date with modern technology despite thinking he is. He still thinks that having electric windows and colour coded bumpers on his Mondeo is revolutionary as of today. Gerald lives a very scheduled life. Everyday at 8.30am he calls in at the local petrol station and puts in £5.00 worth of diesel a 'gallon' as he calls it to get the fuel gauge off of the fuel light despite it coming on as soon as he gets back home. He hates getting interrupted in the evenings whilst living his scheduled life of watching the ITV news at 6, followed by Emmerdale etc.

He enjoys going to the carboot on Sundays, irresistible of buying cheap unnecessary second hand items 'bargains' as he calls them. He always likes to keep things clean and he doesn't understand the definition of an individuals opinion and likes to think he's right all the time.

Gerald is very tight with money. He always moans about his heating bill and wears a big coat whilst watching TV in the winter refusing to put the central heating on "put a jumper on if you're cold" as he always quotes.

He always boasts about his car being a one owner which is him and only having 47,000 miles on the clock despite it being over 20 years old. This is purely the fact that he hates driving far and rarely strays out of his local town.

He gets wound up and aggravated over the smallest things in life as he doesn't have anything better to do. For example, his son cutting the grass too close to his car and it getting grass over it. His next door neighbors cat making a mess on his lawn and he absolutely hates getting cut up by other drivers.

Another interest he has is going to Benidorm in the winter season. He hates flying and thinks that the call sign 'TOM3558' on the departures board is the aircraft type he is flying, often kicking up a fuss at airport. He also tends to panic, for example: His Benidorm flight check in time is at 14:00pm and Gerald gets up at 5:00am despite living 40 minutes away from the airport.

So there's just a few scenarios and overall characteristics of Gerald Baldwin aka Mr Mondeo Man.

Cheers

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Now, one gets glimpses of your lead character here, but I'm not sure that you haven't just eluded to certain views or things which might occur, rather than construct a full character.

So let's say, you have a fair idea of your main character.
However, you are missing the overall set-up.
What are the wider circumstances under which he interacts with people?
Examples: home guard, prison, running a corner shop, living together, etc, etc...

What is actually the setting of this Yorkshire Gerald?
Yorkshire in that regard is not very specific.
Next, whom does he interact with and how?

Let's take Mainwaring as a template.
What is his individual relationship with Wilson, Jones, Fraser, Walker, Pike or the Warden?
See where I'm going here?

With whom does he interact? What is their character? What it his relationship with them?

Now before you misunderstand me, I'm not asking for a description of every such character here.
I'm just trying to point out that right now we have one character (although perhaps not as precisely sketched as you might think) in an unknown setting, interacting with unknown people.
We don't have him in a scene as such. We know how much petrol he gets.

Keep going. I suspect you have a much greater idea about this vehicle than you've really communicated here.

But right now from where I'm standing there is not that much to go on from what you've told us so far.

Just to repeat much of the already excellent feedback on here but it seems like a concept worth going with. It's just very difficult to visualise without a script and a clearer idea of the characters' relationships. Unfortunately, that's the hard part...

It reminds me slightly of 'Til Death Do Us Part in the sense that it explores the generational gap - something that I think would be even more relevant in today's society.

I also know a guy who makes a similar claim about his crap car and the mileage.

Good luck!

(And that's from a Lancastrian)

Look forward to seeing a script, looks interesting. Welcome to the forum.