Cure for Cancer.

A short sketch I wrote some time ago, feedback anyone?

MR MORGAN ENTERS THE PATENT OFFICE

PATENT OFFICE CLERK:
Good Morning, please take a seat

MR MORGAN SITS DOWN

POC:
So what can we do for you today?

MR MORGAN:
I'd like to register a patent please.

POC:
Excellent, so what is it that you've invented?

MR MORGAN:
It's a cure for cancer.

POC:
Wow, That's amazing, I was sitting here with a bloke who has invented leg warmers for gerbils while you were waiting outside with a cure for cancer. Please tell me more, then I'll get the paperwork filled out. How did you make this marvelous discovery.

MR MORGAN:
Well I was in the supermarket and I noticed all these pills. Pills for curing headaches, pills for stopping diarrhoea, pills for stopping hayfever and stuff.

POC:
I see.

MR MORGAN:
Well my idea is to have a pill which, instead of curing headaches, diarrhoea or hayfever, It will cure cancer instead.

POC:
Great so what's in it, do you have the chemical formula?

MR MORGAN:
No, I'm no good with all that science stuff. It's definitely a pill, possibly a round one, definitely green in colour, and instead of curing headaches, diahoreah or hayfever, it would...

POC:
[interupting] .. Cure cancer. Ah, now I'm somewhat less excited about this discovery.

MR MORGAN:
Well I thought you could sort out the details and I'll pop back this afternoon.

POC:
Mr Morgan, scientists have been working on trying to develop a cure for cancer for many many years. I can't suddenly come up with it in one day.

MR MORGAN:
Ah I see, that is disappointing. Looks like I'd not really thought it through all that well after all.

POC :
Do you really think that a scientist of such immense genius that he is able to make a world changing discovery would be working as a patent office clerk?

MR MORGAN:
No of course not, that would be ridiculous.

Good idea, very good idea but some how there's some zip missing

nb perhaps you could work in that Einstein was a patent clerk?

Agree with Sooty. I really like the central idea of a man who has a bright idea without the faintest idea of how to implement it. The ending fell a bit flat for me though. Maybe you could have him come in with a series of more and more ludicrous suggestions, finishing off with something like

POC:- talking to his secretary
Wendy, I've just seen Mr Morgan in the waiting room with a large, blue wooden police box. Can you tell him I'm off ill today.

or something like that, only funnier

I think there's a whole ocean of humour oin crappy over the counter treatments for minor ailments.

You've got the setting, you've got the characters now make them sing!

Perhaps the guy could offer the patent clerk, one of his 'genius' pills, to help him come up with the cancer solution ?

Agree with the others. You need to work a reference to Einstein into the exchange because given the dire state of education not everyone knows that he was a patent clerk.

I'm just a bit hesitant to offer any further suggestions on this as there was a similar running gag in a kid's sketch show (The name of which escapes me completely but Miranda Hart was in it. Four/five years ago?) where there was a hopeless inventor character who drove the patent clerk up the wall until finally he really did invent a teleporter and I think all I'd be doing would be recycling stuff from that.

I've rewritten it and taken it in a different direction, I've had to leave out the Einstein reference as couldn't really see a way of working it in with the new ending. I think the ending is stronger now.

[SCENE 1]

MR MORGAN ENTERS THE PATENT OFFICE

PATENT OFFICE CLERK:
Good Morning, please take a seat

MR MORGAN SITS DOWN

POC:
So what can we do for you today?

MR MORGAN:
I'd like to register a patent please.

POC:
Excellent, so what is it that you've invented?

MR MORGAN:
It's a cure for cancer pill.

POC:
Wow, That's amazing, I was sitting here with a bloke who has invented leg warmers for gerbils while you were waiting outside with a cure for cancer. Please tell me more, then I'll get the paperwork filled out. How did you make this marvelous discovery.

MR MORGAN:
Well I was in the supermarket and I noticed all these pills. Pills for curing headaches, pills for stopping diarrhoea, pills for stopping hayfever and stuff.

POC:
I see.

MR MORGAN:
Well I thought that if instead of curing headaches, stopping diarrhoea or hayfever, I should make a pill which cures cancer instead, I decided that it should be round and green...

MR MORGAN PULLS OUT A LITTLE GREEN PILL.

MR MORGAN:
...so I made this in my kitchen, with a little icing and green food dye.

POC:
I'm starting to see the flaw in this idea.

MR MORGAN:
It worked on my uncle, he had cancer but one of these cured him.

POC:
Really?! you've actually tested it and it works, we could perhaps get a proper double-blind clinical trial started. Could we perhaps meet your uncle and check through his medical records?

MR MORGAN:
That might be a problem, he died of cancer.

POC:
[Getting frustrated] But you said it cured him.

MR MORGAN:
Well it must have cured him, It's called the cure for cancer pill, what else would it do. I reckon that after I'd cured him, he caught a bad strain of cancer from one of the other patients in the hospital and it was that cancer that killed him, not the original one which I most definitely cured. His Doctors disagreed with me, but what do they know?

POC PUTS HIS FACE IN HIS PALM AND STARTS SHAKING HIS HEAD

POC:
Get out of my office!

MR MORGAN:
That's what his Doctors said to me too. So you're not going to grant me a patent then?

POC:
[SHOUTING] No!

MR MORGAN LEAVES THE OFFICE.

[SCENE 2]

MR MORGAN IN ANOTHER OFFICE WITH A DIFFERENT MAN. BOTH ARE SMILING. THE MAN BEHIND THE DESK IS NODDING.

MAN BEHIND DESK:
Thank you Mr Morgan, your amazing new product will be in all the shops by the end of the week. I can see you're going to have a very bright future in Homeopathy.

Ooh that's pretty sweet, Newsrevue good

only twist for me would be the catching cancer from a patient is a bit pat

maybe it's MMR or nonorganic food. One of those things homeopaths bang on about.

Ooh that's pretty sweet, Newsrevue good

only twist for me would be the catching cancer from a patient is a bit pat

maybe it's MMR or nonorganic food. One of those things homeopaths bang on about.

Think you should keep this bit in the sketch:

MR MORGAN:
Well I was in the supermarket and I noticed all these pills. Pills for curing headaches, pills for stopping diarrhoea, pills for stopping hayfever and stuff.

POC:
I see.

MR MORGAN:
Well my idea is to have a pill which, instead of curing headaches, diarrhoea or hayfever, It will cure cancer instead.

POC:
Great so what's in it, do you have the chemical formula?

MR MORGAN:
No, I'm no good with all that science stuff. It's definitely a pill, possibly a round one, definitely green in colour, and instead of curing headaches, diahoreah or hayfever, it would...

POC:
[interupting] .. Cure cancer. Ah, now I'm somewhat less excited about this discovery.

THEN GO ONTO SHOWING THE PILL. ETC...

The premise of coming up with a cure, without actually having a cure, is funny, so there's no need to go through it so quickly. Also, without this bit (or a bit like it), the POC's mood changes too suddenly.

As others have said, it's too long, good idea, but as soon as the audience gets the fact he's not got the cure, they will want you to get to the joke asap.

I'd probably suggest an alternate ending like 'Have you considered a career in politics? we need people who can state the bleeding obvious'

Thought second version was great, really good stuff, but agree with Yacob would prefer the piece quoted from the first version to be kept in also.

It's funny. Similar to an old Peter Cook EL Wisty routine "The Plib" http://tinyurl.com/4x4ycoy

Quote: Badge @ May 31 2011, 9:19 PM BST

It's funny. Similar to an old Peter Cook EL Wisty routine "The Plib" http://tinyurl.com/4x4ycoy

View original

Oh my, that is a very similar idea.

Rather than feel dissapointed that Peter Cook had the same idea and executed it much better 12 years before I was born, I'll take some satisfaction in the fact that for the coming up with the same basic idea independently, I'm somehow on the same wavelength as the late great Peter Cook.