Don't think that's been done before! Sounds good, hope you get somewhere with it. 
Little Britain's racist, isn't it? Page 6
Quote: sootyj @ March 29, 2008, 11:15 AMHey I sent a sitcom to the BBC the other day, about 2 rag and bone men 9father and son) who don't get on. One of them calls the other a dirty old man alot.
Dammit, I've just finished a sitcom with exactly the same premise. My pitch is also that the guys who are going to play my characters shouldn't get on in real life. And the actor who plays the father should ideally be a gay alcoholic.
It'll never work.
A cross between Empty and Steptoe and Son. Two joking misfit-ish types working at a scrap yard. Not a bad premise!
You could always update the scrap yard motif to a recycling centre, politically more of an issue.
Quote: Griff @ March 29, 2008, 11:48 AMThis whole plagiarism area's a minefield, though, isn't it.
If I'd known about Morbo (see I've Googled it now) I wouldn't have sent that sketch into Tilt, and I wouldn't have scored my radio credit. (BTW I now have it on good authority that none of the BBC people had seen/heard of Morbo either and they're not worried about any similarities.)
So it seems the more you know about what's been done, the more difficult you make life for yourself. It's possible to worry too much about this stuff. Whatever setting and characters you choose, there's going to have been something similar done before in the millions of hours of comedy recorded since the dawn of time. As I've mentioned before, I wrote a whole sitcom episode once which turned out to be exactly like a Peep Show storyline which was broadcast a few weeks later.
So go ahead, write your rag-and-bone-men comedy. Chances are it won't be anything like Steptoe. Call them scrap merchants, or junkyard dealers, or whatever, and set it firmly in the modern day, and who knows what you might come up with. As someone else has pointed out to me, Ricky Gervais didn't hold back from writing The Office just because Colin's Sandwich had already been made.
I always say there's a finite number of good ideas in the world. Besides your skit was good, and I suspect atleast one of their crew is aware of Morbo, and it was good enough to beat the familiarity trap.
Anyway I've seen Garth Merenghi, and still submitted starpigs. If you couldn't do anything more than once then there'd be one GWB is a divvy joke ever.
My rag and bone men, actually belong to a world war 2 dad's army unit One of whom is a butcher, and another a pompous bank manager (who resents his senior cashier who went to public school). Except it's set in Russia, Vlads army.
Is Marjory Doors struggling to understand the Indian woman any different than alan Partridge struggling to understand Michael the Geordie?
Very good point!
Quote: catskillz @ March 31, 2008, 2:03 PMIs Marjory Doors struggling to understand the Indian woman any different than alan Partridge struggling to understand Michael the Geordie?
There is a difference I think. Alan Partridge features a character who is genuinely difficult to understand and so the joke is on Michael. In Little Britain Meera is perfectly understandable so the joke is about Marjorie's idiocy. In that sense you could argue that Alan Partridge is more offensive (but I would argue that neither show is).
I dunno about that. From what I've seen of Partridge (admittedly pretty little), Michael is HARDER to understand than Meera in Little Britain!
Quote: Aaron @ March 31, 2008, 2:35 PMI dunno about that. From what I've seen of Partridge (admittedly pretty little), Michael is HARDER to understand than Meera in Little Britain!
That's what I wrote.
Little Britain is not racist at all. Jeeeez!!!
Margory Dawes is made out to be a right bitch for not understanding the indian lady. She also takes the piss out of large peeps. Seeing as she is a large lady herself it works well. She is made out to be vile so IMO it is not racist, sizeist at all.
Quote: Nick @ March 31, 2008, 6:19 PMThat's what I wrote.
Read more like you were saying they're equal, but no matter!
Little Britain is definetly not racist, but will be seen as racist by the next generation no doubt. I have the same opinion about Borat. For example people now see Johnny Speight sitcoms racist (Till Death us do Part/Curry & Chips). At the time these Speight sitcoms were out, it was about the time of Enoch Powell's infamous ROB speech, so he was making fun of xenophobic twits such as Powell in TDUDP (Alf Garnett) and C & C. Yet, when watching any of the shows today, people do not know the time of its original broadcast and what was happening at the time. Little Britain is a very funny show that makes fun of the racism in our society. Are by any chance the charactors of Marjorie Dawes and the woman who gets sick likeable- I think very much not.
On to Ting Tong, well many people are like Mr Dudley. For example there is a stereotypical working class in his 50's man who drinks at my local everynight. Can you imagine him. Yes he does have a mostache. Anyway he has gone to Thailand twice this year for two months a time. His excuse- you can smoke indoors over there. Rubbish, he has a woman like Ting Tong over there- it's obvious. Surely...
Quote: Jack Massey @ March 31, 2008, 6:35 PMHis excuse- you can smoke indoors over there. Rubbish, he has a woman like Ting Tong over there- it's obvious. Surely...
Mmmm... might not be a woman.... it might not even be an adult....
kjs