Sitcom

A little peice of a sitcom I'm working on.any thoughts?

Hand,Foot and Finger

JANE AND HARRY PUSH THEIR WAY THROUGH THE DOORS OF RECYCLED MICHAELS AND WALK BEHIND THE SERVING COUNTER.JANE TURNS ON KETTLE.

JANE:Most normal,sane souls don't drive through red traffic lights!

HARRY:Granted…But we were in a rush.

JANE:[RAISING VOICE] Now we're late and why?Because our car and the car we hit had to be towed away, and on top of that you almost got yourself arrested!

HARRY:[UNCONCERNED] Oh no I didn't.

JANEh yes you did.

HARRY:[PANTOMINE VOICE] Oh no I didn't.

JANE:[IGNORING HIM] You can't tell a policeman your colour blind and didn't know what colour the lights were,and as for that poor girl in the back of the other car.

HARRY:How was I supposed to know she was pregnant?

JANE:Well she isn't anymore is she?

HARRY:Wasn't he a cute baby boy?

JANEh yes,I'm sure that’s just the way she planned it,outside the butchers on a Saturday afternoon,with your ugly mug pushed up against the window.

HARRY:I was only trying to help.

JANE:Wel you certainly helped her out of a couple of weeks of pregnancy didn't you?

HARRY:[SMILING TO HIMSELF] I never thought of it that way.

JANE:That’s the trouble with you,you never think do you?

[HARRY SHRUGS SHOULDERS]

JANE:Are you really as daft as you look?[BEAT]Please don't answer that!

HARRY;[STILL SMILING] You have to laugh,don't you?

JANE:Just like that poor husband of hers,in fact he laughed so much he was hysterical.

HARRY:He was perfectly calm.I had everything under control.

JANE:[ALMOST CHOKING ON TEA] It’s a good job his arms were trapped that’s all I can say!

HARRY:[DISREGARDING LAST REMARK] I told him I was a fully trained first aider.

JANE:Trained first aider! They asked you to leave after the second lesson,you killed the resuscitation dummy.What was it they said?You blew into the lungs so hard,you could have forced an orange up a hosepipe.

HARRY:I've got big lungs that’s all.

JANEo did the dummy,in fact it almost floated away.

SFX.SOUND OF CLOCK ALARM.SANDRA ENTERS FROM BACK OF SHOP ADJUSTING HER CLOTHES BLEARY EYED AND CARRYING AN ALARM CLOCK.

HARRYandra?

SANDRA:Hello both.

JANE:Whats the matter with you?You look dreadful.

SANDRA:Well,you know I've been having trouble with my[LOOKS OVER SHOULDER]…Going…

[JANE SHIVERS]

SANDRA:This morning I was in a bit of a rush,and ended up taking a sleeping pill and a laxative by mistake.

HARRY:Been asleep on the job have you?

SANDRAour me a cuppa,I'll be back in awhile.

JANE:You just take your time.

SANDRA:I wish I could.

HARRY:And there she goes trotting of into the distance.

Yeah, I don't know how many scripts you've written before this, Steve, but it's got the look of a novice. In fact, it looks like one of my early scripts. Trying to get jokes (often lame ones) in all the time.

I'd recommend buying the scripts from Frasier or another comedy or viewing some of the comedy transcripts online. Scripts need sensible dialogue to set up the jokes. It has to be believable.

Main thought is that there is not much happening, instead we have the characters describing funny things that have happened. Television is a visual medium and you should be making use of that. And as David say give the good jokes room to breath, rather than smothering them with weak banter.

Sorry not to be more positive, but for some reason everyone seems to be posting sitcom scripts today...

The jokes were tired and crow-barred in. As said, it smacks of novice.

It's just lots of jokes like:

'Well, I thought it went well'
'You killed him!!!'
'Well, apart from that . . .'

Those jokes are so easy and obvious I'm afraid.

Quote: Griff @ June 3 2008, 11:21 AM BST

I have to agree with the other posters, this is lacking in all the basic ingredients of a sitcom scene. Who are the characters ? What is the situation ? We don't learn anything about either. Also, there's no plot progression in this scene - no inciting incident, no obstacles, no goals, no conflict. Just characters standing around chatting.

There are no really strong jokes, either, and what jokes there are, are recycled from elsewhere - "asleep on the job" and "orange through a hosepipe", for example, are very old variety/panto-style gags that you didn't write yourself.

There were two phrases in this that did intrigue me - "Recycled Michaels" - What is that, a charity shop, a cafe, a recycled-goods shop ? Also the slightly sinister title "Hand, Foot and Finger" which was never explained.

I think you need to go and think this one through a bit more. How long did you spend on it, including planning and writing, out of interest ?

Why not start with writing short sketches instead, and build up your comedy writing skills that way ?

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Griff is this: Correct.

I think an introductory scene would have been best. We just don't know what's going on.

And if we don't, then neither will important people.

You've got some good banter, funny lines, funny situations, and I can fairly well make out the situation.

But it's all a bit in a vacumn.

Banters the easy bit of sitcom writing, show us some more character, and plot development, thats the tricky stuff.

........................
There's a lot of what's called 'info dump' too...

JANE:Trained first aider! They asked you to leave after the second lesson,you killed the resuscitation dummy.What was it they said?You blew into the lungs so hard,you could have forced an orange up a hosepipe.

..................................

JANE:[RAISING VOICE] Now we're late and why?Because our car and the car we hit had to be towed away, and on top of that you almost got yourself arrested!

........................HARRY already knows that info, so why is she telling him?

Quote: Seefacts @ June 3 2008, 11:28 AM BST

And if we don't, then neither will important people.

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To be fair to the guy, this is something he is working on he says. Asking for help.

Quote: Marc P @ June 3 2008, 11:50 AM BST

To be fair to the guy, this is something he is working on he says. Asking for help.

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And I gave him some saying that he needs to make sure the reader knows who the characters are.

I'd post the opening personally, simply because it's the hardest bit to nail.

I think this probably is the opening.

I, too, was intrigued by "Hand, Foot and Finger" - which I'm guessing are units of measurement.

I think we should learn who characters are by what they do and how they speak, how they interract with each other. I think the easiest way to nail a chacter is to think about their attitudes. I don't see why it wouldnt work as well in this scene as anywhere else.

I also don;t think the dialogue is bad in this scene, it comes across as real people speaking, just doing it in an unnatural way, if that makes sense. I woudnt call it crowbarring, just trying to make everything as funy as possible. If it doesn't quite work it falls a bit flat - if it does work it's genius - so go figure.

A bit of judicious trimming a bit of attention to what the scene is all about and I am sure it could be a lot better for it. Fine tuning what is there and cutting away rather than adding new stuff as such. As to recycling jokes - people do it all the time - it's just hard to get away with it. The blowing an orange up a hosepipe isn't a nick - it's just an inversion of - 'You gay boy? Sir. No sir. Why I bet you could suck an egg through a hosepipe' from Full Metal Jacket or one of those Bootcamp movies. Inverting something is perfectly alright in my book - like I say you just have to make it work. Someimes a writer is too close to their own work to see things clearly - whether the comedy works or not -which is why posting here for a critique is a useful thing I guess.

Yeah I wasn't disagreeing with you Griff. John Sullivan, off course, has the odd familiar gag in his scripts. I think the intention was alright, it's just the execution with gags popping up non organically that jars