Gone With The WHAT? or REALITY BY BORIS - Zany Comedy reprinted by request (heh, it's still rerun season!)

I got one of those self-help books for Christmas, and I’m beginning to realize why I’m not getting very rich.  (For one thing, I’m not writing self-help books.)  It is patently obvious that nobody is going to get wealthy writing humor for newspapers unless they roll up the paper and whack somebody over the head with it during the course of a bank robbery.

So I’ve decided to switch media here and become a screenwriter.  I’m a natural.  I can sit in those funny collapsible canvas chairs just as well as the next guy, and besides, I know hundreds of unbelievable plots: I follow Washington politics.

So here goes: for my first screamplay <sic> I’m going to do something made for TV; specifically one of those romance-suspense-action-thriller-northern-southern-civil war epic-type things, maybe a miniseries.  It would have everything – sex, violence, sex, betrayal, sex, revenge, sex - and maybe even some dialogue.  It would star a ravishing but thoroughly spoiled female lead, maybe called Sapphire.  Here’s a preview:

Sapphire flings herself up the sweeping staircase, catching bottom of skirt on knob of banister.

Sapphire (yanking at fabric):  Go away, Rot!  Just go away!

Rot:  I’m going, I’m going.  But one last thing, Sapphire honey, I’ve got to know.  How do you manage to go to the bathroom with that bloody hoola- hoop attached to your skirt?

Sapphire (rolling downstairs on her side):  Don’t go, Rot!  Please don’t go.

Rot (doffing hat):  Frankly Sapphire, I don’t give a hoot.

(From outside, several barn owls hoot.)

I predict a blockbuster.  But just in case, I have a second one planned.  It’s a 1960s historical spy flick, based on the true-to-life adventures of very bad people who might possibly be Russian.

First Spy (possibly named Boris):  Gee comrade, do you theenk perhaps we are raising peeples suspicions speeeking English with Russian accent?

Second Spy (also named Boris):  Especially seence it is very BAD Russian accent, comrade?

Okay, so it needs a bit of work, and maybe some more sex.  I’m thinking of calling it Czech-mate. And if we bring it forward to modern times, the possibilities are endless.  What about a ‘Spy of the Month’ reality series?  Boris could live in an LA frat house with nine other comrades named Boris, and the survivor…

Or I could go back to writing for newspapers.

TV TRAVESTY! (reprinted with permission)

Thanks to Mark from Hamilton (aka the Hammer) for requesting this repeat humour column, one of my personal favorites.  Reprinted with permission.

Okay, so it’s rerun season.  Does that mean we have to settle for absolutely brainless TV?  Are we doomed to watching mindless nighttime reruns of Friends and Family Guy on sixteen different channels in forty languages?  Of course not!  We can watch mindless reality shows!

But for those of you who are sick of reality and long for some realistic sex and violence on television, this is for you.  In the lofty traditions of Dallas, Dynasty and Desperate Housewives, make way for…            TRAVESTY!

Note the originality of the plot.  (Hey, it’s rerun season!)

INTERIOR.  A pink frilly bedroom.  Daytime.  An attractive young woman in full makeup and Victoria’s Secret underwear reclines on the bed, moaning fatuously.  An older man kneels by her side, wringing his well-manicured hands.

Lance:  “Tell me April, I gotta know.  Is the baby mine?”

April (in bed):  “Oh Lance!  Oh Lance! <sob!> …what baby?”

Michael enters the room.

Michael:  “April honey, I’ve got something to tell you.”

April:  “No - <sob> - not-“

Michael nods.

April:  “You?  And Lance?”

Lance:  “OH-MY-GOD”

Michael:  “And your mother’s been hit by a beer truck, and the boutique has burnt down.”

April (standing up in bed): “THE BOUTIQUE?”

Michael:  “We saved the clothes, but the jewelry was a meltdown. Sorry.”

April (clutching throat):  “I can’t take it anymore! This is too much for one day.”

Michael:  “And it’s only 8 a.m.”

Lance (clearing throat):  “About your mother…”

April (collapsing on bed):  “OH-MY-GOD, MOTHER!  She hated beer.”

Lance:  “I have something to tell you…”

April (to director):  “Do I faint now?”

Lance:  “…she’s actually not your mother…”

Michael:  “WHAT?”

April:  “You mean-“

Lance:  “Yes.  I am”

<gasps all around>

Michael:  “That trip to Sweden…?”

Lance:  “Yes.”

Michael:  “LANA?”

Lance:  “Yes.”

Michael:  “But didn’t we…?”

Lance:  “Yes.”

Director (to April):  “You can faint now.”

Everyone faints.

Stay tuned next week for more riveting drama, when April asks the question, “How do you tell if blue cheese is bad?”

TV TRAVESTY!

Okay, so it’s summer.  Does that mean we have to settle for absolutely brainless TV?  Are we doomed to watching mindless nighttime reruns of Friends and Family Guy on sixteen different channels in forty languages?  Of course not!  We can watch mindless reality shows!

But for those of you who are sick of reality and long for some realistic sex and violence on television, this is for you.  In the lofty traditions of Dallas, Dynasty and Desperate Housewives, make way for…            TRAVESTY!

Note the originality of the plot.  (Hey, it’s rerun season!)

INTERIOR.  A pink frilly bedroom.  Daytime.  An attractive young woman in full makeup and Victoria’s Secret underwear reclines on the bed, moaning fatuously.  An older man kneels by her side, wringing his well-manicured hands.

Lance:  “Tell me April, I gotta know.  Is the baby mine?”

April (in bed):  “Oh Lance!  Oh Lance! <sob!> …what baby?”

Michael enters the room.

Michael:  “April honey, I’ve got something to tell you.”

April:  “No - <sob> - not-“

Michael nods.

April:  “You?  And Lance?”

Lance:  “OH-MY-GOD”

Michael:  “And your mother’s been hit by a beer truck, and the boutique has burnt down.”

April (standing up in bed): “THE BOUTIQUE?”

Michael:  “We saved the clothes, but the jewelry was a meltdown. Sorry.”

April (clutching throat):  “I can’t take it anymore! This is too much for one day.”

Michael:  “And it’s only 8 a.m.”

Lance (clearing throat):  “About your mother…”

April (collapsing on bed):  “OH-MY-GOD, MOTHER!  She hated beer.”

Lance:  “I have something to tell you…”

April (to director):  “Do I faint now?”

Lance:  “…she’s actually not your mother…”

Michael:  “WHAT?”

April:  “You mean-“

Lance:  “Yes.  I am”

<gasps all around>

Michael:  “That trip to Sweden…?”

Lance:  “Yes.”

Michael:  “LANA?”

Lance:  “Yes.”

Michael:  “But didn’t we…?”

Lance:  “Yes.”

Director (to April):  “You can faint now.”

Everyone faints.

Stay tuned next week for more riveting drama, when April asks the question, “How do you tell if blue cheese is bad?”

Like this humour?

ROWENA THROUGH THE WALL is NOW available on Amazon.com and Smashbooks!  $3.99 (ebook).  Trade paperback coming in July.