What was it?
Lovely ideas for sitcoms... Page 2
Has there been one set in an old people's home?
A mischevious care worker puts Viagra in the medication of the old folks.
An octegenarian woman grows dope in the greenhouse and gives it to her grandson in return for booze.
A poker night results in a man losing his articial hip and glass eye. He crawls back to his room looking like a pensioner version of the end of Terminator.
Their weekly entertainment includes a hypnotist show.
Waiting for God
Quote: sootyj @ September 20 2011, 10:21 AM BSTHow about a sitcom set in an abbatoir, where the manager is a serial killer and keeps sneaking his victims into the bone crusher?
League of Gentlemen. Well close anyway. Brisk the butcher.
Quote: andyblacksheep @ September 20 2011, 3:51 PM BSTWaiting for God
Ok. Thanks.
Quote: Nigel Kelly @ September 20 2011, 3:30 PM BSTHas there been one set in an old people's home?
A mischevious care worker puts Viagra in the medication of the old folks.
An octegenarian woman grows dope in the greenhouse and gives it to her grandson in return for booze.
A poker night results in a man losing his articial hip and glass eye. He crawls back to his room looking like a pensioner version of the end of Terminator.
Their weekly entertainment includes a hypnotist show.
As Andy says Waiting for God although the storyline you suggest looks more like something Charley and I were working on.
Has there been a sitcom and/or romantic comedy that goes along the lines of:
Steve and Laura are just the perfect couple. But there's more to them than meets the eye: Laura is a mind sucking parasite AND Steve's best mate's ex!
I would call it LOVE SUCKS...
Remember there's nothing new under the sun and the devil is in the detail (see, even that sentence had two cliches in it before we begin). Sometimes the high concept of a sitcom or comedy drama will, indeed, prove to be its unique selling point, but more often than not it won't. Look at some popular sitcoms and ask whether it's the one-line description that's funny or the execution.
A guy & a girl share a flat. He's gay. Is it Will & Grace or is it Gimme Gimme Gimme?
Some people on a spaceship, one of them's a robot. Is it Red Dwarf or is it Hyperdrive?
It's a family, they live in a house together, the kids are quite funny, the Mum & Dad are put-upon. Is it Outnumbered or Roseanne? Or is it My Family or Life Of Riley?
It's set in an office, the boss isn't very good at his job. Is it The Office, or is it The Peter Principle?
A criminal goes into hiding in the countryside. Is it the excellent Grass by Simon Day and Andrew Collins, or the less-inspiring Green Green Grass by John Sullivan?
Some young people share a flat. Is it the excellent Fresh Meat, the marvellous Peep Show or the of-its-time genius Young Ones? Or is it the also excellent Big Bang Theory? Or the really rather good Girls On Top? Or... dammit, is there a bad flatshare comedy? Quick, someone.
In the 10-and-a-bit years of The Sitcom Trials we've seen hundreds of permutations of dozens of ideas (including more bad student flatshare scripts than you will ever want to read) in a seeming infinity of locations. The last Manchester final had sitcoms set in a Cold War checkpoint, on a stake out with an assassin, in a psychiatrist's, in a struggling small cinema and in outposts at the North & South poles; and the last London final had a team of superheroes, Edwardian explorers, a flatshare when one guy could time travel, an office comedy and two guys hiking. It is never the location that makes it funny, it is always the writing.
Kev F The Sitcom Trials
Some new writers spend far too long trying to think of a setting first.
Their time would be much better spend inventing brilliant, memorable characters first.
Quote: sean knight @ September 18 2011, 4:21 PM BSTYou could have a scene where a young lad wants to buy condoms but never directly asks for them and the woman behind the counter tries to drag it out of him. Then put subtitles underneath showing what they really want to say.
It's just about crazy enough to work.
What a class idea!
Has their been a sitcom set inside a sitcom?
Quote: bigfella @ October 13 2011, 2:03 PM BSTHas their been a sitcom set inside a sitcom?
Extras? I didn't see it so I can't be sure. Seinfeld had that going on too, as did Curb.
Wasn't that recent Anglo-American thing with Bloke From Friends a sitcom within a sitcom?
Quote: Mikey Jackson @ October 13 2011, 4:20 PM BSTWasn't that recent Anglo-American thing with Bloke From Friends a sitcom within a sitcom?
Extras.
No - Extras was Ricky Gervais.
It was called something similar = Mangan and that girl off Green Wing.