A teacher sketch

Hello again, here's a short thing that I wrote, as always any comments good or bad are grasped at...

EXT. PARK. MORNING
TWO MEN ARE SITTING ON A PARK BENCH.
THEY ARE BOTH DRESSED IN DEAD MENS SUITS. THEY PASS A BOTTLE OF FINE WINE BACK AND FORTH BETWEEN THEM, EACH TAKING SWIGS.

MAN 1:
Good Luck, although of course you don't need it.

MAN 2:
Cheers mate. Can't have too much luck. (PAUSE) I'd better be going, don't want to be late, not on my first day.

MAN 1:
No, that'd never do. Oh, don't forget your... you know... this thing.

MAN 1 PICKS A VERY LONG PACKAGE OFF THE FLOOR AND HANDS IT TO MAN 2.

MAN 2:
Thanks. Here, you finish this; you were right it was too early for a Primotivo.

MAN 2 RISES FROM THE BENCH AND MAKES TO LEAVE, HANDING BACK THE NEARLY EMPTY BOTTLE TO MAN 1. IT BEGINS TO RAIN LIGHTLY.

MAN 1:
A teacher. I'm proud of you Henry.

MAN 2:
Yeah... Yeah, teaching yodelling to the under five's.

Cut to:

INT. CLASSROOM. MORNING

MAN 2:
(LOUDLY)
YO DA LAY DEE DEE, YO DA LAY DEE DEE, LITTLE OLD LAYDEE OH, YO DA LAY DEE DEE

CHILDREN:
(CHORUS)
YO DA LAY DEE DEE, YO DA LAY DEE DEE, LITTLE OLD LAYDEE OH, YO DA LAY DEE DEE

End of Sketch.

Quote: factotum @ May 16 2009, 10:41 PM BST

MAN 2:
(LOUDLY)
YO DA LAY DEE DEE, YO DA LAY DEE DEE, LITTLE OLD LAYDEE OH, YO DA LAY DEE DEE

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Very inventive to recycle a 'Knock knock' joke as the basis of the sketch, i.e.

A) Knock knock
B) Who's there?
A) Old Lady
B) Old Lady, who?
A) I didn't know you could yodel!

Also, it's refreshing to see a yodelling sketch in 'Critique' because yodelling is a form of singing which involves an extended twenty-pound note, swiftly and repetitively altering its pitch from the lost chord - usually coming from the Brighton and Hove area.

The Chuckle Brothers each have their own version of yodelling. In Croydon, pygmy singers detained in Lunar House by British Immigration use a detailed polyphonic singing, which is another form of yodelling. In classical Hip-Hop music, the singers accompany yodelling with 'ganja' or the more powerful 'skunk' - this fluctuates the yodelling tones.

For those who drink in the Ye Old Swiss Cottage, London, NW3, yodelling is how they communicate over the bar. In fact, it is the traditional style of singing in the Swiss Cottage area of London.

As a rule, human voices have two individual vocal cash registers known as the cash and carry voices; the lower pitch coming from 'Smack My Pitch Up'. The 'pitch' in question being higher when on cocaine or similar drug. Try saying this: "Yodelayeeeeoooh" with the "Eeee" coming from the local drug dealer and mixed with a few brandies - it ain't easy!

Yodelling is very much a form of popular music. Singers such as Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain and Sid Vicious all yodelled with their dying breath. Furthermore; if one examines yodelling, one is faced with a choice: either reject semantic yodellectic theory or conclude that yodelayeeeeoooh is capable of significance, given that narrativiteeeeoooh is equal to the general theory of relativiteeeeoooh. The premise of yodelling implies that narrativiteeeeoooh comes from the Swiss Alps. It could be said that a number of yodelayeeeeooohs lost in an avalancheeeeeoooh could affect world economeeeeoooh via the Swiss Banks - without which the post-structuralist societeeeeoooh could not exist.

"Yodelling is part of the absurdity of truth," says Katy Price; however, according to Joe Pasquale, it is not so much yodelling that is part of the absurdity of truth, but rather the collapse, and some would say the defining characteristic of a Sainsbury's Swiss Roll which when including yodelayitivety, can create a paradox. Therefore, in conclusion, the recycled yodellectic theme of the piece entitled, 'A Teacher Sketch' is not funeeeooo-ay-hay-lay-eeteeeeeeoooh.

Hope that helps.

yeah, erm.. thanks M. It was less about the childrens Joke and more about it being funny, to me at least, that someone would teach yodelling to children. Using the only way I know how to indicate yodelling in the written word I perhaps fell foul of the knock knock joke as sketch faux pas. But it does seem that yodelling is a topic to be explored. Bottom line, it doesn't necessarily work, as the knock knock connotations kill it, so cheers for pointing that out.
F.

I didn't really get this, but then I don't really find teaching yodelling to children funny. Maybe other people do...

For me - the give aways at the end of the first scene lessen the impact

MAN 1:
A teacher. I'm proud of you Henry.

MAN 2:
Yeah... Yeah, teaching yodelling to the under five's.

I'd just go for 'I'm proud of you Henry' and then straight into it.

It's a hard idea though - would have to be acted well for it to work

Nice invention - but the only attempted joke is at the end and I'm not sure how many people would go for it.

Or - I probably just don't get it!

For me this sketch raises too many questions to be funny.

What's a 'dead man's suit'? How did a tramp get a teaching job? Are you trying to say anyone can be a teacher these days? Even a drunk tramp? And what's with the yodelling? Is it that you believe tramps teaching yodelling to kids is funny as of itself?

Quote: David Bussell @ May 19 2009, 3:25 PM BST

What's a 'dead man's suit'?

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I thought this was a nice turn of phrase. I took it to mean a second-hand suit that's seen better days.

Quote: Dolly Dagger @ May 19 2009, 3:56 PM BST

I thought this was a nice turn of phrase. I took it to mean a second-hand suit that's seen better days.

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I guessed the same but I don't think it's a very good idea to create doubt in the first line of your sketch. Simple language and all that.

Quote: David Bussell @ May 19 2009, 3:58 PM BST

I guessed the same but I don't think it's a very good idea to create doubt in the first line of your sketch. Simple language and all that.

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I think it would have been better used as dialogue. Still I think there can be room for a bit of more poetic language in action sections, if it adds to the feel, or - as in this case - is briefer than a more basic description.

I see what you're saying (I upheld an argument on here ages back where a writer described a car cutting into traffic as "sharking") and no-one likes a script covered in wimpy verbs (or in this case nouns) but in this case I think the term is too ambiguous.

Quote: David Bussell @ May 19 2009, 4:12 PM BST

I see what you're saying (I upheld an argument on here ages back where a writer described a car cutting into traffic as "sharking") and no-one likes a script covered in wimpy verbs (or in this case nouns) but in this case I think the term is too ambiguous.

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Exactly. That's what I meant to say in my previous post.