The Presenters Box Set

It’s been two years since I put the final bullet into The Presenters’ body. For those who are new here, The Presenters was an animated sitcom idea I developed in high school. For 4 years, I would come up numerous ideas for episodes/story arcs involving the Howardson family, his best friend Tom Flouderman, and his boss, The Editor. I felt like it was about time to revisit the series for a nostalgic retrospective to see just how unproduceable this series would’ve been. For the first time, I’m compiling all 3 seasons of The Presenters in a single post, but I’m also including “commentary” on every single episode except those I’ve already written about. With that hasty introduction done, let’s begin!

Season 1

P101-The Goddamn Pilot 

We are introduced to Harold and his family, 15-yr old son Hal and 38 yr old wife [Blank] Howardson, a quirky yet relatable bunch. An unexpected occurrence at Harold’s job causes Harold to get the opportunity of a lifetime.

P102-The Dinner Party 

Harold, a week into getting his new job, invites his only friend, Tom Flounderman and his boss known as the Editor, to his house for a dinner party. When neither Tom nor the Editor can show up, he hastily invites three random workers who pretend to be his new friends.

Commentary: This episode was meant to heavily highlight Harold’s insecurity, but most of the comedy would’ve been from Harold’s family’s interaction with the randos visiting his house. It was going to begin with a cute scene of Harold choosing between two different styled ties, hoping not to make a bad impression while his wife tells him, “You're 40.”

P103-The Double Date 

When Hal’s double date hits an unexpected delay, Harold and his wife take advantage and go on the double date instead. The date goes well until Hal and his mother get to an unexpected emotional breakthrough and discuss their feelings at an ice cream parlor. Meanwhile, Harold and Hal’s date, Shelley, go to a movie theatre and practice tongue kissing techniques.

Commentary: This is a weird idea that I can’t believe I wrote down. Shelley is a reference to a short story I wrote in high school.

P104-Abbey Road 

Harold gets a new assistant named Abbey Road and is oblivious to Abbey’s undying affection towards him until Abbey kidnaps Harold and locks him in a closet to be a part of a ménage a trois with Abbey and the local chess champion.

Commentary: This episode is very similar to Curb based on how a small incident grows larger in scale although the kidnap angle would’ve needed something quirky about it to be funny which is why I included the chess champion in the plot.

P105-The Therapist 

Harold begins his therapy sessions, discussing his many problems with nail polish and picture frames, until the therapist rudely interrupts him and mentions he is falling in love, and Harold tries to help him out. 

Commentary: Harold’s issues with nail polish and picture frames are based on potential ideas I had for a stand up routine in high school. The idea of Harold’s therapist having problems of his own was partially based on In Treatment, a well-made HBO series that was on the air at the time. The ending was going to be the therapist talking to Harold about how he almost asked out one of the women in the bar, only to inadvertently cause the bar to burn down, killing his date in the process. 

P106-The Car Accident 

Harold gets into a car accident and is forced to walk down the 405 while trying to remember how the accident happened, trying to deliver an important package to the closed post office, and trying to deliver a gallon of milk for his wife.

P107-The Teaching Job 

Harold’s wife finally gets the teaching job at the local elementary school, and after some ‘advice’ from Harold, she begins her job. After two weeks in her seemingly blissful career, she winds up in the middle of a love triangle with the bisexual 1st grade teacher and the 4th grade teacher who’s been struggling to come out of the closet.

Commentary: This was the first episode to feature Harold’s wife in a prominent role. I should mention that I had a weird idea for a running joke that Harold’s wife’s name would be censored every time it would be mentioned.  I don’t remember how I came up with the love triangle idea except that I might’ve been trying very hard to comment on a topical issue. 

P108-The Book Tour 

Harold reaches unprecedented levels of success when his first animated short is posted on YouTube and is critically acclaimed by everyone. When the publicity tour is announced by the animation company, Flowers United, he is all but excited when he realizes he will be interviewed by Reader’s Digest. But he first must have an interview with Cosmopolitan which he is all but nervous about.

Commentary: This episode demonstrates how little I know about animation as a career, especially with the amount of wonderful animators on YouTube that get very little press attention. I made Reader’s Digest Harold’s favorite publication since I was both reading and collecting Reader’s Digest at the time. I remember when the library was throwing out old editions of Reader’s Digest, I made an effort to pack in as much copies as I could in my backpack, never reading a single one. They’re probably rotting in my Dad’s garage right now. The Cosmopolitan interview would’ve been very awkward since the interviewer would randomly insert questions about Harold’s sex life.

P109-The Assistant 

Harold is approached by Hal’s ex-girlfriend, Kiki, for a job during the summer and after being baffled by her ignorance towards animation, gets Kiki a job as his wife’s assistant. The choice unexpectedly ruins Harold’s reputation and his sex life.

Commentary: This was one of the last episode premises I came up with for Season 1. Unfortunately, I can’t remember exactly why Harold’s sex life would be ruined by Kiki. I probably just thought that would be a funny idea.

P110-The Funeral 

The family heads out to Michigan for Harold’s best friend’s funeral. Harold decides to change his eulogy into a standup routine that offends nearly everyone at the funeral.

Commentary: The episode begins immediately in Michigan with Harold reminiscing his friend’s life while still remarking on his questionable decisions to become a daredevil dying in the most funny way possible. Harold’s choice to try a standup routine would be meant to be an offensive tribute to his best friend for making impulsive decisions. Harold’s family would be run out of the funeral and forced to hide in an abandoned car in an elaborate parody of Night of the Living Dead.

P111-Impact at Mach 5 

Harold goes back to his old middle school to visit his art teacher. He listens to the selection of music offered by the class and is appalled. He promises to create a new mix for the class, which he enlists his friend Tom to do. Tom downloads a sound file called Impact at Mach 5 which ends up being an audio clip of a publicized sex tape.

Commentary: A really problematic idea that would work best as a short webisode instead of a 22-minute episode. The takeaway would’ve been the horrified expression on the art teacher’s face as she heard the moans and groans emitting from the speakers. This was based on how my high school art studio had a collection of student-made CDs that we would listen to while making our art pieces. A perverted tribute to simpler days.

P112-A Trip with Mr. Hanks 

Harold goes on a bus trip and winds up sitting next to his favorite actor, Tom Hanks and they have a long conversation about their lives.

P113-Pause, Go Get the Batteries 

Harold gets fired from his job due to an intense rivalry with renowned animator Reni Danlau, and Hal suddenly begins failing his classes. All goes well until a good-intended trip to Home Depot leads to a halt in the family’s future plans.

Commentary: Reni Danlau is based on someone from high school that I had a random aversion to, something about her demeanor bothered me for some reason.  

Season 2

P201-The Director 

The worst director in recent history begins filming his sci-fi epic of a city on the verge of being swallowed up by a black hole(a small one, however). After catching one glimpse of Harold and his co-workers in a childish argument about exit signs, he immediately hires them for the movie.

Commentary: I don’t remember if the director had a name originally but he was based on Uwe Boll, an infamous director who’s made awful films about video games. I always thought that film premise was one of the funniest ideas I ever came up with and wish that people can start photoshopping fake posters for this film. “ A Wrinkle in Time”, oh wait…that’s already a movie.

P202-The Dead Best Friend 

Harold, working on a long shift at Flowers United, suddenly sees his dead friend (buried in Season 1's The Funeral) right in front of him. Harold becomes horrified and tries to curse away the evil spirit, while the best friend tries to convince Harold that seeing him is worthwhile.

Commentary: I came up with this idea when I was working alone in the art studio in a late afternoon. When I’m sure I’m alone, that’s when I can improvise minutes of dialogue aloud. Sometimes I get weird ideas like dwarves calling someone a butthole, and sometimes I get something different. It was going to begin as an immediate parody of found-footage films like Paranormal Activity and play around with the idea of ghosts being able to talk back and argue that they shouldn’t be discriminated against for being scary. The second half was going to be a more existential discussion about the very meaning of life. The death of my professor, Antonio Candau, has inspired me to revisit this idea in a short film that’s still currently in the pre-production phase. 

P203-Animatorcide 

Harold's failure leads to a spiraling depression that leads to him making minimalist remarks of perfection. Since every animator at Flowers United knows about the mythic "animatorcide" that killed a famed animator, they keep a close eye on Harold to make sure he doesn't try to use it.

Commentary: This is already more serious in tone than previous episode ideas and I wonder how well it could’ve worked without hard- shifting into melodrama. Animatorcide is based on barbicide, the blue liquid barbers have that reportedly have been used for killing themselves. 

  

P204-The Writer 

When the studio realizes that their television program is on the verge of cancellation, they group together all of the writers for a show-changing brainstorm session. One writer isn't amused by the idea, curses everything in existence, and then quits. Harold goes on an impossible journey to replace him.

Commentary: I just wanted one scene of someone saying, “Fuck you. Fuck your mother! Fuck your father! Fuck your kids! Fuck your grandkids! Fuck the paint chips on your house! Fuck your fish that you won in a carnival! Fuck everything! I quit!” The scene would’ve been 2 minutes long. 

P205-A Weird One For Sure 

Hal finally gets his driving permit and drives around Los Angeles for two hours, celebrating. After a while, he drives in an unfamiliar neighborhood, and in a panic, drives in reverse into a homeowner's garage while the homeowner is still at home. The homeowner takes Hal in as a hostage until Hal is able to pay for a new garage door.

Commentary: I’ve heard many, many stories of people’s experience driving in high school and I had to do my own take on it. This is the first episode to heavily feature Hal as a character and would’ve shown him to be the polar opposite of his father. In actuality, Hal is based on my brother Gary Rodriguez. The hostage angle, in hindsight, seems to be very ridiculous which is probably why I went with it.

P206-The Cameo Spot 

Harold gets the opportunity to work on another channel to increase his notoriety. Unfortunately, it requires a cameo on a television program he hates with a star he despises. When Harold tries to switch places with Tom and fails, he gets into a childish argument with the star and accidentally exposes the star's homosexuality.

Commentary: Around this time, I was watching a lot of Disney Channel. They would always feature the “hit” pop artists and their sitcoms would be the most formulaic material since Full House. I thought it would be funny if an awkward character like Harold was forced to interact with the hyperactive Disney Channel-like machine. Of course the person Harold would argue with would be based on Justin Bieber. It couldn’t work with anyone else, surely. 

P207-Wellesian Connection 

Harold meets an ambitious voice actor who notices Harold's stress and suggests he tries some weed. Harold refuses and sees the actor's vocal performance, only to realize he's become attracted to the actor's voice.

Commentary: At this point, I wanted to highlight different aspects of the animation process with this episode focusing on voice-work. The idea of someone falling in love with someone’s voice was inspired heavily by Morgan Freeman’s God voice which can move mountains if it really wanted to. Wellesian Connection is a direct reference to director and really sad Hollywood story, Orson Welles.

P208-A Nightmare Someone Else Had 

After a long and frustrating day, Harold daydreams about meeting up with famous figures from horror movies(Chucky, Jason Voorhees, Alien(as a joke)) that ruined his childhood. It leads to a therapy session that the nightmares remorsefully give him.

Commentary: At the time, I hated horror movies with a passion and it all stemmed from my childhood experiences dealing with my fear of Chucky, the star of the Child’s Play films. When I would be taunted constantly by kids in elementary school calling me a baby for being scared of a doll that fucking kills people, I would go home to a father who warned me that Chucky is hiding under my bed and waiting to strike. Good fucking lord, no wonder I had to go to a therapist in 5th grade to finally deal with all this. This episode would have properly dealt with my childhood trauma while also poking fun at my own admittedly heightened hatred of the horror genre. I’ve since watched the first Child’s Play and want to watch more, just to see how much more ridiculous the series gets.

P209-Wait, Say That Again? 

Harold, who decides to walk in on the animators working, meets Arlill Rodriguez, a 25-yr old animator brimming with possibility. When Harold recalls their first meeting, he begins to realize that it might be a reincarnation of him, a theory everyone dismisses. Harold's suspicions are heightened when Arlill refuses to open the door for him.

Commentary: This episode is more meta than I can handle. This only becomes more complicated considering that Arlill was my American name that I used instead of Arley since, for whatever reason, Arlill is easier to pronounce in English, only to find out that Arlill was, and had always been, my birth name. This is on top of considering how the character of Harold was meant to be an exaggerated version of myself that exists in The Presenters universe. It’s so meta that I’m creating a dimensional paradox as I type this up.

P210-Flowers United Inc. 

Harold is woken up by a sudden phone call from The Editor. The Editor blames Harold of not being a team player, so Harold is forced to leave his house early to go to work. Arriving, he's surprised to see that no one is there except the Editor who sits in his disorganized office. Harold works on the filing while the Editor regales him on a tale of just how Flowers United was established.

Commentary: Considering The Editor’s name, you can already imagine exactly what his personality is like, and yes, it is a carbon copy of J.K Simmons’ performance as J. Jonah Jameson. Like “A Weird One, For Sure”, this episode was meant to expand on The Editor’s character by unveiling how exactly the startup animation company came to be. In general, it would’ve been a parody of the Walt Disney origin story although The Simpsons’ send up of that is much funnier than anything I could’ve done. I vaguely remember one conversation between The Editor and one of his associates talking about how roses are whores and tulips are like the Virgin Mary but I don’t know how that would’ve fit with the rest of the episode.

P211-The Bartender 

Harold slips out of the office one day, and sneaks into a bar where he meets a bartender who hates people but wants to become a barber. The bartender's existence fascinates Harold and Harold gives him his contact information. After a week of no replies, the bartender begins stalking Harold.

Commentary: This is one of the earliest episode ideas I had but I thought the audience needed more time with Harold as a character for the idea to work.  Given the somewhat absurd setup, I’m not sure how I could’ve ended the episode.

P212-The Awkward Conversation Between Two Boys 

Harold notices his son Hal is finished with his homework and is now watching TV. Harold uncharacteristically walks up to Hal and begins asking him about every aspect of school, including awkwardly enough, Hal's past romantic experiences which Harold can recite from memory and in consecutive order.

Commentary: Very similar to “A Trip With Mr. Hanks”, the episode would begin familiarly with the Howardson family talking at the dinner table. Harold’s wife would encourage Harold to try to talk earnestly with his teenage son, and Harold would begrudgingly walk over to the living room. The rest of the episode would focus on a single conversation between Harold and Hal. This episode would be a challenge of its own to attempt to both develop the characters and create an entertaining conversation that could last 20 minutes. I don’t know if any writer could pull this off with gusto.

P213-The Sandwich 

Harold meets up with Sarah, an old friend from high school who wants to break out as a voice actress. As they're having lunch, Sarah suddenly leaves in a hurry. She leaves her sandwich behind, completely untouched, and Harold becomes tempted to eat it. He slowly slides the plate towards his side.  Looking left and right, he takes a bite and has an orgasm. Harold wonders if it was the fact that she made the specific order or the sandwich itself that made his body react so strongly.

Commentary: I had a very long crush on someone called Sarah in high school and only her transferring to another school was enough to eventually get over it. This episode was my twisted way of both dealing with the crush and riffing on cafe scenes in general. A very Seinfeld-esque idea.

Season 3

P301-The Secret to Human Interaction 

Harold discovers his wife has been drinking to alleviate her stress of being married to him. When he notices how much easier it becomes to talk with her, he applies this knowledge to become more sociable and irritable.

Commentary: I thought that it was weird that after 2 seasons, I hadn’t dealt with alcoholism yet. My family has had a very long history of alcoholism so I wanted to have an entertaining premise that never became an after school special about alcohol. There would always be a running joke of Harold talking about how he doesn’t know why his wife ever married him and this episode would finally answer that question while also dealing with Harold’s insecurity head-on. I always thought that if I ever started drinking, I’d be an angry drunk. Turns out I’m an offensive drunk. Make of that what you will. 

P302-When Harold "Somethinged" Marcy 

Harold tries to become more open with the writers at Flowers United and befriends one of the main writers, Marcy. After Harold inadvertently damages Marcy's reputation, Harold tries to apologize by pretending to be Bruce, her "secret" admirer.

Commentary: The series still had not introduced a comic foil for Harold yet, the Squidward to Harold’s Spongebob, but I thought it would be funnier if Harold inadvertently bothered Marcy or offended her accidentally. Marcy doesn’t really have much of a personality beyond that, though. I loved her as a character, however, so I tried to come up with episode ideas involving her, none of which ended up in the final version of Season 3. The title is a reference to When Harry Met Sally.

P303-Cannibal Kittycat Killers 

Harold's parents drop by much to the dismay of The Howardsons. Harold unpacks his parents' luggage and finds a stolen Francis Bacon of kittens being mutilated. Harold rushes to his car to return the painting while his parents chase after him.

Commentary: This idea was co-written by Gary and was the very last episode idea we came up with. We were struggling to fill up the season with 13 episodes and just went with any crazy idea that seemed “Presentersy”. We hadn’t introduced Harold’s parents yet and rather than just make fun of my parents’ personalities and shortcomings, we instead decided to make them insane master thieves.

P304-The Contradiction 

Hal gets accused of being a slacktavist at his high school. In a moment of desperation, he decides to live like a homeless person for 1 whole week.

Commentary: Slacktavism is a common criticism people have of activists only working through social media but not actually doing anything substantial. Examples include change.org and their petition format, and the Ice Bucket Challenge. I do notice this when people have an important issue they want to address but first they must raise awareness of the issue in many ways including, most notably, colored ribbons. The description doesn’t adequately explain why Hal makes his choice. A big mistake on my part.

P305-A Trip to Route 666 

Harold, in a Dante's Inferno-like journey, has his atheism challenged by none other than the devil himself who enjoys elaborate dance sequences. 

P306-Academic Viewing 

Harold goes to the Sundance Film Festival and drags his son Hal along with him. While Harold "researches" the animated films on display, he discovers Hal's obsession with exploitation films. 

Commentary: Structurally, this episode would be very typical despite pairing up Harold and Hal again. This would be another episode that would revel in the film references and heavily parody the selection of films that are usually shown at Sundance. Many of us can relate to the first time we had to talk to our parents about masturbation (unless you were the lucky few who got away with it) and I wanted to have this moment in the series but with exploitation films in place of masturbation.  

P307-Acceptance 

With the holidays quickly approaching, Harold wishes to brighten up his cowokers' spirits by inviting them to a "Coexist" dinner. His curiosity gets the better of him when he accidentally riles up everybody's stance on their respective religions.

Commentary: This episode feels very Curbish especially with the promise of a loud argument between everyone. Cynical people can definitely find something ridiculous and patronizing about Coexist (and Coexist bumper stickers), but with this being the holiday special, it would’ve ended with a positive outlook on the issue and everybody hugging their issues out…unless the test audiences were instead looking for a huge brawl to break out. 

P308-Harold Meets a Time Paradox 

Renowned performance artist Daniel Plainview visits his newest exhibit at the local art museum. Harold anxiously meets Daniel and as a sign of good faith, criticizes Daniel's work fairly although Daniel takes the criticism very personally. 

Commentary: Who saw There Will be Blood?! Yeah, I did, too. After seeing DDL’s mesmerizing performance, I had to include his character in the show somehow and came up with this ridiculous idea of Daniel Plainview existing in modern times. Now I can make my own milkshake reference! I wanted to go beyond that and make Daniel a threatening character to Harold, going so far as to vandalize Harold’s desk and interrupt Harold’s presentation.    

P309-The Council 

Harold learns of a supposedly good animated film called The Council which has been banned for nearly 50 years for its approval of bisexual polygamy. Harold and Tom plan a public screening of The Council while his wife and his son, Hal, unbeknownst to him, try to sabotage the screening.

Commentary: Bisexual polygamy. Has that ever happened? Animation is no stranger to controversy and this episode would be a love letter to every controversial issue animation, as a genre, has ever faced. It would’ve included references to the Censored Eleven, war-era propaganda cartoons, Ralph Bakshi’s entire filmography, and other notorious shows like South Park and Family Guy. The episode would also make its own stance about free speech except nothing on the level of South Park’s 201. I didn’t have a real reason that Harold’s family would try to delay the screening. I just thought that would’ve been an interesting conflict to have.  

P310-The Motivational Speech 

News of Flowers United getting into a financial crisis depresses everybody. A well-intended motivational presentation has the opposite effect on everyone, including The Editor who decides to pursue his life's dream of becoming a controversial issue.

Commentary: Everything about this episode seems very lazy but necessary in parts. This is very similar to the last season of the Larry Sanders Show but in this case, everything happens very suddenly and has the illusion of building up to something huge. 

P311-Harold Howardson's Wife 

After two and a half seasons, Harold's wife embarks on a journey to find out what her actual name is or at least to beat up the censor who's been bleeping out her name.

Commentary: The strangest running joke in sitcom history is finally addressed. This began very lazily at first since I didn’t know what Harold’s wife’s name should be so I decided it would be bleeped out although the characters would speak normally as though nothing was different. It would be the only information that would be deliberately kept from the audience although others could perceive it as an unnecessary draw for controversy. I felt that, since this was the last season, it would be worthwhile to finally name Harold’s wife while also giving her a full-fledged episode. It would’ve been another challenge to continually break the fourth wall without being obnoxious about it.

P312-Presenting This Man and His Comedy 

Harold performs at a comedy club and debuts his 20-minute routine. 

Commentary: I put this episode at the end of the season because I knew how different it was going to from any other episode and how difficult it would be to execute an animated comedy special. As it turns out, comedian David Huntsberger was able to successfully kickstart an animated comedy special so this proves it can be done!

P313-Nazi Sensibilities 

In a desperate attempt to save Flowers United from bankruptcy, The Editor begrudgingly approves the production of Nazi Sensibilities (NS), Harold's ambitious short film. Notice of the studio's closure creates a lot of tension during NS's production and everyone but Harold, Tom, Marcy, Reni, and The Editor decide to abandon the project. Meanwhile, Hal is transferred to a private boarding school for his academic excellence. Harold and his recently named wife, Elizabeth, prepare Hal's luggage and drop him off at the airport. As Harold and Elizabeth return to their home, now lacking of their son and his possessions, Harold gets a phone call from The Editor. The phone call prompts Harold and Elizabeth to have one more conversation together.

Commentary: Both the longest description and the longest episode, this one would’ve tried its best to wrap up the entire series in a satisfying way which is a nearly impossible task. Thinking about it now, it doesn’t make much sense to approve an expensive animated project when your company is almost bankrupt. The tone for this episode also seems to be more serious than even “Animatorcide” and I can only imagine how suffocating it would be for a comedy to be deadpan intense on its last run. I also think that Hal going to boarding school is a lazy way to introduce more conflict for the Howardsons. The final conversation between Harold and Elizabeth was a callback to the experimental episodes of the series like “My Trip With Mr. Hanks” and “The Awkward Conversation Between Two Boys” and felt like an appropriate end for the series, even if the lead up to it wasn’t. The final shot would’ve been Harold and Elizabeth, sitting on their couch, embracing each other closely as the camera moves back slowly until cutting abruptly to black. 

Happy holidays, everyone.

For more Presenters stuff, check out the “Mental Notes” about unused episode ideas. If you want to check out a brief web-series that wasn’t just an idea, check out Awkward Arley on my YouTube channel, Arscribs Inklets!

"Mental" Notes: The Presenters Napkin Notes

With the end of the series, there were many unused ideas that weren't quite right for the series or were just terrible ideas that weren't worth developing, or were ideas that made perfect sense to me but little to anyone else. Ideas highlighted in bold are previously intended episodes that were dropped in the last minute. Consider this as an unaired forth season.

The Animated Soap Opera(Intended Season Arc for Season 2) Harold wants to prove his chops by doing something nobody(for many reasonable reasons) has ever attempted. The project nearly destroys Harold. 

The Intervention(Season 1) Harold admits to everyone that he has never tried a single drug in his life. Everyone tries to convince to do so. Meanwhile, Harold argues with a girl in the street who tells him that a viral video of his "high" voice was the funniest thing she's ever seen.

The Presentation(Season 3) Harold, on the eve of a large presentation, begins hyperventilating upon the sight of hundreds of heads and bodies assembling in the same room. he's been drinking a bottle of water, which sloshes back and forth on the walls. As more people greet him and wish him luck, Harold ignores them and instinctively taps his bottle. Reni, normally obnoxious, approaches Harold and wishes him luck. Harold mentions to her how uncomfortable he feels. 'Is it me?' "Not this time. There's too many people here; I'm getting claustrophobic." 'I think you can just leave now, I'm sure no one will mind.' "You think so?" 'Yeah.' "Hmm." Instead, he sticks around and has, arguably, his most enjoyable conversation all day. "Yeah, I think I'll slip out." 'Alright, well...Nice talking to you,then.' "Same." Harold leaves, giving a small wave to Reni and swaggering the last drops of water.

Friends with Stupid Faces(Season 2) Harold gets invited to his friend’s house for a get-together, but once he realizes what the occasion is, he bails(He doesn’t want to see a reality TV show like Keeping Up with the Kardashians.) Upon walking to the nearest bus stop, he decides his behavior was childish and walks back, just when the bus stops next to him. Harold signals for the bus to move on, but the bus driver insist Harold comes, going so far as to offer a free bus ride. Turns out that nobody has been on the bus for the past weeks and the driver desperately wants to have a conversation with anyone, even a loner. Harold leaves, despite, and walks back, wondering why the driveway has one car instead of two. Harold knocks on the door and in the same instant, it opens. Harold learns that they left, since they began wondering why they were watching the show. “It’s just bitches slapping each other. It’s Bitchslap: The Show!” Harold apologizes and insists in calling the guys back just as one of his friends makes the signal to get the bucket.

The Substitute Teacher(Season 2) Harold temporarily gets a job as a teacher(gets the chance to try teaching an art class, but being despised by everyone for being a product of the media[despite Harold being an avant-guarde animator]). Meanwhile, he tries to buy an expensive marble for his wife's marble collection and ends up buying it three times(montage musically surrounded with Mozart's Piano Concerto), angers a student who mentions she has a boyfriend casually during class("Don't you think that's a hoity-toity comment?"-Harold), and begins questioning the ethics of holding the door open for people.

The Note(Season 1) One friday afternoon, Harold receives a note from an unknown source. Perplexed by the complexity of the short 5-word note, Harold embarks on a short journey, trying to discover the note's origin. Harold sees Tom and asks him, "hey. Tom" 'what's up?' "can you read this?" 'hmm...is this a treasure map...description?' "no, i found it right by my folder. It's the weirdest thing i've ever found." 'Huuuuuuuh. well, whatever it is, i wish you good luck on your unnecessary journey.' "ya, thanks, asshole." Tom leaves and Harold goes off to the nearest wall, taking some charcoal with him and inscribes the message on his notebook. For some reason, the note paralyzes Harold's thinking process and he ever does for the rest of the week is attempt to figure out what the note means, if anything.

Centripetal Force(Season 3) Harold tries to help a homosexual friend enter the dating scene. His co-workers, friends, bosses, and loved ones believe Harold might be a closeted homosexual. They test Harold's masculinity by telling Harold to sit in a chair for an hour and stare at "Michealangelo's David", while she, Tom, and the Editor count the amount of times when Harold looks at the testicles.

"Face" Value(Season 3) Harold has a conversation with a good friend of his, only realizing later that he had mistaken her for someone else. The incident confuses Harold and makes him act like he's been violated.  His friend Tom, unaware of the underlying seriousness, tries to convince Harold otherwise.

Are You Wearing Blue Lipstick?(Season 3) Tom watches the Dark Knight again and becomes inexplicably obsessed with the Joker's personality. Meanwhile, Harold meets up with a sensitive, old friend and accidently brings up the "blue waffle".

The Night Out(Season 3) Tom, Marcy, and Harold's wife go out to a new club opening in the city while grumpy, unhip Harold stays at home, lamenting on a night lost.
Harold is asked by his best friend Tom to go with him and his girlfriend, Marcy, to a club. Harold hesitates but decides to go. At the club, Harold is stimulated by the multitude of colors and sensual behavior and decides to sit down where he is harassed by a group of beautiful women. After five minutes, he sneaks out and finds his car. He pulls off his traffic ticket and starts his car. Moving the stick to drive, the car shoots off incredibly fast and causes uncontrollable mayhem in the city. The car pulls out a portal gun and creates 2 portals that cause the car to drop into the river. In a panic, Harold hastily tries to break the windows but can't and sinks into the river.
"That would never happen."
"Says who?"
"The laws of physics."
We're back in Harold's house, where he is sitting across his wife, arguing about why he shouldn't go to the club.
"Let's not forget about the beautiful women. I could cheat on you!"
"Harold."
Ultimately, Harold decides to switch places with his wife who goes to the club instead while Harold stays home and reads a book. The camera closes in on Harold as he pops open a book.
"Chapter 1..."
A quick cut and we're back at the club, one of the trendiest places in the city.

The Job Interview(Season 3) Harold considers leaving Flowers United after getting an offer to join Pixar. On the day of the interview, Harold, after realizing what a horrible candidate he is for Pixar, convinces Tom to go to the interview and impersonate Harold.

Patty, Just Patty(Season 2) Tom Flounderman goes through a brutal divorce, and looks upon Harold for necessary guidance that Harold doesn't provide. In an achingly long week filled with burden and court disputes, Tom finds hope when he meets a 15 year old girl named Patty and begins a romantic relationship with her.

-Harold talks w/ one of his friends though it’s in the guise of an argument.
“I hope you fall down the stairs!”
‘I hope you get in a wheelchair!’
While he speaks, Mary from writing has been listening and is horrified.
“What’s wrong with you?”
‘Oh, Mary, hi!’
“Wha-What the hell was that about?!”
‘Oh, that? That was nothing. We were just having fun.’
“You think belittling others is fun?”
‘Only when you get creative. Like, um…I hope you get in a car accident and survive! Stuff like that.’
“You’re sick!”
Mary runs away, leaving Harold confused and observant_“Heello. Welcome to my…lo-cation.”

-Harold is taken hostage by a group of babies.

-Episode called You're Jealous! which satirizes the most overused emotion in sitcoms

-A unorthodox christmas special where everything goes wrong with Harold and his family during the two days before Christmas, call it the "Death" of Christmas.

-an episode that similarly to Seinfeld's The Chinese Restraurant, only takes place in the movie theater during the sneak previews

-Harold behaves unusually dickish one day, bringing confusion and death threats to the studio.

-An idea for a prank goes horribly wrong when Harold upsets a writer who quits in a huff. The prank involves a recording of a normally-level headed writer swearing like an Italian gangster.

"Mental" Notes: The Freshman Years (Pt. 2 of 2)

Check out The Freshman Years, Pt. 1, to see the initial background information about these posts. More information about the ideas will be posted later in the comments. Thank you and enjoy.

(1) An idea for a short film: Longtime artist Frank Tecran reaches his creative limits and falls into a deep depression that concerns his wife, Marion. After much discussion, Frank decides to return back home to his childhood home at Cleveland,Ohio. Despite the arrival of a new baby underway and the amount of stress used on finding a new home in Cleveland, Marion reluctantly agrees and they move back within two weeks. The trip reinvigorates Frank and he announces to the world his next project which he prematurely states as his masterpiece. Unsurprisingly, the whole town keeps open eyes and ears at the prospect of a new tourist attraction that could reinvigorate its popularity. The work is finished after many months and the whole city sits patiently at its unveiling. Frank makes a heart-breaking speech about new opportunities, and allows one tear to escape just as he pulls away the cloth. Excitement turns into confusion and disgust as Frank reveals a larger than life rendering of the David's phallus. Despite the numerous amounts of complaints and death threats placed on Frank, he unabashedly defends the reputation of his statue and of himself although he does try to make it more...publicly presentable.
"What if I tied some balloons at the end of it?"
'That's a terrible idea.'

This idea would be particularly difficult to pull off, not just in the scale, but in how it's meant to be a light-hearted dramedy about a man who's suffering from depression. Also, with the statue, it's meant to be an ongoing plot-point and joke which may or may not pull the audience out of the depressing outlook cast on by Frank Tecran. At this point, the statue unveiling seems to be a pivotal moment in the short but what could be done for a follow-through? Much like my other ideas, I came up with this one while I was walking to class. It seems that my best ideas usually come from a stroll. That or the bathroom. I think if I wanted find a good resource for pulling off a dramedy with difficult subject matter, I'd try to watch 50/50 or Dr. Strangelove. The name Frank Tecran has nothing to with anything, it just sounded professional, and Marion is a good wife name; I don't have any evidence to back me up on that.

(2) A 5 minute short film. Music: Hang On Little Tomato(Pink Martini)-The short begins with a small film festival coming to an end, just as the lights turn on. Everyone starts packing up their things until only three people are left. Arley(tentative name) takes a chance to ask the two guys if he can go home with them. He gets disappointed when they say they also walked here. He sees three sandwiches on a platter, and asks if he can take them. Since he doesn't want to to carry the sandwiches on a platter, he decides to wrap them in newspaper, packs his things and leaves the building, while bidding his two friends goodbye. He carries the sandwiches in both hands, tempted to juggle them, and walks in the darkness. He gets worried by the lack people around him until he sees a couple walking not far from him. (The music is cued here) He runs up behind him, but tries making as little noise as he can. Once he's two feet away, he slows down his steps comically, and proceeds walking behind them. He smiles at the couple holding hands and applauds them for daring to walk in the dark at such a late hour. The woman turns back and sees Arley behind them, but turns back as if she saw no one. He keeps his distance and observes the two lovers and their embracing company. The two walk down some stairs, and try to jump over a few steps together which Arley doesn't do. It's been two minutes and Arley is still behind them. He watches their hands again and begins thinking about his own experiences, all of them a fragment of his imagination. He grows sadder(a cue for the music to slow down, only the piano plays, ala Up) and decides to take a different path when a fork in the road appears. He watches the couple again, and walks alone into the darkness.

This is pretty much a word-for-word retelling of what actually happened to me one night in college. I know from the description of walking behind this couple that I seem to act like a stalker, but it was about 10pm when I left the film screening and I was walking alone for almost 3 blocks in a street known for having muggings so when I saw this couple, I didn't hesitate in following them. I knew both of them so they weren't in any real danger. For the short, I would actually try to make it completely silent, with only a few gestures and cues that tell the viewer that it's late and no one can drive me home. In an unusual way, this short is meant to be a music video for the delightful song "Hang On Little Tomato" by Pink Martini, although it quickly takes on a depressing tone once the music slows down and our protagonist begins to imagine how lonely he feels. With absolutely no respite to happy-go-lucky couples, I am jealous of every happy couple I've ever seen, and I blame this on my own shortcomings and impatience in looking for someone I'd like to go out with. To be frank, the only primary reason, as of now, that I'd want to go out with anybody is to get to kiss them on the mouth. I know, it's a very selfish goal but you can't help but wonder what it feels like, and sketches or depictions on TV/movies are a distant portrayal of what must be an unforgettable experience. I've been very cynical about kissing, describing it as "moist palms pressing against each other," but I can't help but continue to wonder about it, who the lucky gal could be. I wouldn't even mind kissing a guy on the mouth, but only a peck and only for a moment. It would be tricky to recreate those emotions for the short film but it would an intriguing challenge. It would probably be difficult to find a couple willing to be depicted this way. Last thing, Pink Martini is a multi-lingual group that I believe is still active today; a really good friend of mine introduced me to them after I asked her how I wanted to expand my musical tastes; she's graduating today and if she ever reads this comment, I wish her the best of luck in college and in the future.

(3) A short story/one-act play about a high school student who behaves pleasantly in front of everyone only to hope that they will vote for him as the Salutatorian, even though he actually is quite resentful towards everyone. His hopes are dashed when his best friend recommends to him to vote for the obvious choice instead of him; he learns who the Salutatorian is at an all-school assembly and reveals his true personality publicly to everyone. His chances for a spiritual redemption come by when he learns about the school's upcoming coffeehouse showcase and starts brainstorming a fake-salutatorian speech.
"That's not funny."
'What isn't funny? It's a bike chain and a sledgehammer.'
"But what does that have to do with love?"
'It's a thinking man's joke.'
"Is the thinking man in a vegetative state?"

I was going to work on this idea last summer but it ended up being a little too personal for me to complete. I came up with the idea shortly after a good friend of mine told me to vote for someone else as the salutatorian rather than myself as is stated in the plot. We(by we, I mean, Harvard-Westlake) have an annual event called the coffeehouse, an event meant to demonstrate everybody's talents, whether it be singing, poetry, awesome instrumentals, or in my case, stand-up. I performed in 2 coffeehouses, which I will post on the blog on a later date, and was writing my material for the third. I kept changing ideas from a normal stand-up routine that made fun of Prom and nail polish (info of which can be found in "Another Comedy Routine, 9/19/11") and a fake salutatorian speech that would be comical, dramatic, and nostalgic. The fake speech, even though I thought about it constantly, wasn't completed on time and I had to drop out. The quote in the description about a bike chain and a sledgehammer was, in fact, my original material for the second coffeehouse meant to be an ambigiuous analogy for love. I told the idea to my therapist who told me where's the joke? I didn't know. If I was ever going to return to this idea, it would be much later on, after I've become more comfortable with filmmaking and with dialouge-driven scenes.

(4) A guy, Jake, enters his room after shaving his beard, only to discover his room has been invaded by dwarfs. The conversation goes back and forth in strangeness as Jake discovers he's a butt-wipe who cares about the human race, and the seemingly harmless dwarfs have committed genocide of the gnomes. Needless to say, it doesn't resolve itself very well.

This is the result of waking up early in the morning and having no one to talk to while eating breakfast in the dining halls. Just like the invisible dogs idea, this idea resulted from just imagining a guy who discovers dwarves in his room. The jokes were achingly corny and I got bored with the idea while I was thinking about it and decided to go to ridiculous extremes such as accusing the dwarves of killing off the neighboring gnomes. Rather than learn a lesson, Jake decided to kick out the dwarves for their crimes against humanity. It's fair since the dwarves called Jake a butthole most of the time. Needless to say, this is not an idea I'll revisit anytime soon.

(5) A parody of weddings as a plot device, featuring a mouse who pulls his dead fiance all the way to the altar. The animated short begins with the customary wedding march played by an organ that slowly "disintegrates" into a record player version. Many different camera angles of the church, until the mouse comes into the church.

Parody might be the wrong word to use for this admittedly disturbing criticism of weddings. Specifically, this targets weddings as a last resort for sitcom/movie ideas in how an event known to evoke strong emotions in others. If there's any recycled idea I get tired of, it's when weddings somehow get involved in soap operas and one of two things happen: either the wedding goes off without a hitch and the bride and groom are written off the show OR wither the bride/groom are (GASP) killed by the bad guy!!! It's also meant to be criticize the perfection depicted in high-scale weddings by replacing the bride and groom with mice.

(6) A story about a famous celebrity, beloved by practically everyone, who is preparing for his 'coming out' routine where he reveals his hatred for humanity.
"I hate everyone. I want everyone to die in a fire."

People, at times, can be absolutely appalled by someone's behavior, regardless of how harmless the act seems to be to the person. Others, like psychologists, are fascinated by such behavior, myself included. The idea would be a very short film chronicling the rise of this celebrity and ending with his first standup routine that tears apart the very community that brought him to prominence. The quote I posted is very harsh but would be the celebrity's opening joke in the routine. The short would end with everyone in the audience becoming speechless as the celebrity leaves the mike on the stand on the center of the stage and walks off.

(7) Imagine someone who is able to view another person's mistakes via special glasses. The mistakes can be displayed as a black or shadowed movement that parallels the "normal" movements. A theory regarding whether or not we make more mistakes than we're aware of.

This idea came about after a conversation I had with a close friend at Starbucks. I tried to imagine a visually appealing way to track every single mistake we could ever make on account of trying to figure out every single mistake we've ever made, be it simple ones like skipping out on brushing our teeth or serious ones like potentially ruining a very close relationship with someone. Since there is no accountable way of measuring just how many mistakes a person can make, it's somewhat interesting to imagine the mistakes we do count are the ones we know we've done. I also thought about the things we say being wrong and how that could be represented with the "shadow" versions, either that the wrong words would become highlighted in black and becoming visible. Needless to say, this is an incredibly difficult idea to explain with words alone.

"Mental" Notes: The Freshman Years (Pt. 1 of 2)

With this post, I premiere my new column, "Mental" Notes. It's meant to be a public way to flex my brain lobes during an intense period of writer's block. "Mental" Notes, although it is meant to be a type of public forum, won't have the same kind of grammatical attention as other posts will, as it's meant to be a stream-of-consciousness form of brainstorming. "Mental" Notes won't be a weekly column, and there's a chance two posts of "Mental" Notes might follow the other on the next day or have a space of a month without another post. 

College was a wonderful experience, at least during the first weeks. After that, it became increasingly difficult to get inspired enough to write anything so any idea that would cross my mind, I would immediately type it via Evernote, even if it meant getting certain details to be very specific or vague enough that I could recall it later that night. I would continue to complain to everyone I knew how most of my ideas were either repetitive, blockbuster-ish, nonsensical, or just terrible, although everyone still wanted to hear about it. If anything, the only thing holding me back this year was my own self-criticism. There were several projects that I've been working on for weeks, Semaphore being one of them, but the writing process has been such a pain that these once entertaining projects have now become a burden, one I wish I could just do away with. Despite my negativity, I plan to finish Semaphore this summer. In fact, every single time I type anything, it feels like I'm just regurgitating someone else's ideas and passing them off as my own. Maybe I'm facing reality at this point, realizing that since I'm in college, I have to think about a likely career which at this point is being a writer, but that's as ambiguous a career as you can get. Now that I've bored you all with my incessant negativity, let's get to the point. The following ideas are some of the bright points of my wallowing, obscure beginnings as a writer in college, the few times when just considering how an idea could work have been a joy to figure out. Since I acknowledged it, one thing I will work on over the summer is improving my outlook on life. Whether it'll make a difference by the end of the summer, I'll have to see. I'll post more information about the individual ideas in the comments. Enjoy!  

(1) An average, normal day at Case Western Reserve University goes on as a junior takes a break from studying to read his favorite short story by Ray Bradbury. All is well and peaceful until a car drops from out of nowhere right into the middle of the street. The care lands nose-first and scrapes along for a few feet until stopping and dropping its back wheels onto the street. The junior looks away from the book and rushes over to the car. After struggling to open it, he uses his book to smash open the window, and opens the door with the door handle. He looks around for a second to see if anybody is inside when his entire arm is being held up a loud, growling noise. A dog leaps from the car and starts attacking the junior.
"This is what I get for saving your life?" he retorts as he slips off his jacket and drops it, which the dog continues to chew on. The junior cautiously enters the car, and notices something in the back. There are a stack of paint cans that cover most of the back seat. When the junior touches the can, all of them collapse on him and the junior is completely drenched in paint. After checking the labels, he's relieved in knowing that the paint is non-toxic but astonished when he realizes what year the cans are from: 2100(The current year is 2011). One of the dogs waits in the front of the car, shaking nervously, until it sees the junior approaching him carefully, and finally embracing him energetically with many licks on the cheek. The dog who attacks him tries again with the junior grabbing the dog's body and forcing it to behave properly. The dog gets half its body doused with "future" paint, as a result, so other people only see its backside instead of its front. The junior doesn't realize he's invisible until he notices a curious police officer paying no attention to him as the officer investigates the crash. The officer bumps into him and gets frightened, claiming that there's something in the car that can't be seen. The group of students try to approach the car but the officer threatens to punish anyone who does. The junior sees the dogs leaping out of the car and tries to follow them. The crowd screams in horror at the sight of the attacking dog's hind legs and tail.
"Where are you going?" says the junior to the dog. "Come on!" he picks up the two dogs and runs away.

One morning, when I was walking to class, a quick scene played out in my mind that involved a car landing nose-first and dragging itself on the road for about 8 seconds while the hapless college student can only watch. From that point, ridiculous plot points kept making more connections to the idea until reaching the conclusion that the car was part of an experiment that went wrong(not horribly wrong, mind you). At one point, during the original draft, I made an unnecessary joke about that the paint cans covered by the shroud resembled a corpse, scaring the junior to fall back on the car horn. To be fair, the plot is rich enough that I could consider it for a short story in the future, but far too advanced and technologically demanding for a short film.

(2) An R-rated movie for kids. A poorly timed music festival goes horribly wrong when riots threaten to destroy the entire city. The riots end after a week but the effect on the city doesn't. No one dares to try to leave their homes in fear of looters and graffiti artists. Two brothers, 13 and 8, do the unthinkable and go to the site of the music festival. They notice a banner that has been ripped from its pole but is still in pretty good shape. They go back home and try to make a kite of the banner. At the same time, a powerful gust of wind takes the two brothers, working in the garage, out of it, and into the skies, all 1000 feet of it. Hanging on tightly, the brothers begin fearing for their lives until they get high enough that they are able to see beyond the city and are amazed at the sight of it.  Brothers paragliding across the country using many large fabrics to get to their destination. Later on, they improve the design of the first banner, are able to find a second banner, and begin a ludicrous cross-country journey around the US. A frightening moment: bullies start chasing the two brothers and obtain a weapon to try to pierce the fabric.

This idea came about in a vivid dream I had one night. It began with both me and my brother running away from a manic who's shooting at us. A few bullets pierce bits of the fabric that we're holding. The maniac starts reloading bullets, just as my brother and I notice a steep drop ahead of us. At that moment, two of the maniac's cronies drop in from nowhere with automatic machine guns and RPG's. We have no choice but leap from the edge. We let the fabric unravel, open up, and the wind currents miraculously carry us into the skies. The maniac pulls out his own fabric (from out of nowhere) and chase us. The dream skips the chase and ends with my brother and I flying next to some hot air balloons. The background, about the ruined music festival, was included afterwards for the concept. This is a concept I'd love to return to in the future, possibly when I have a large enough budget to film it. 

(3) A man watching television is verbally assaulted by the television personality(TP) he's watching. After a few seconds of futile insults, the TP starts hurling glass bottles at him(that don't break)-(the man has difficulty reacting to the bottles hitting his head, only being able to slur out an inaudible word) until, finally, the man decides to turn off the TV and go for a walk. He opens the door, and takes a step, and falls 10-15 feet in a ditch that surrounds his house. For the next few minutes, the man struggles to pull himself out of the ditch despite his broken bones.

3) This idea came to mind shortly after a ridiculously long study session. I was walking back to my dorm, and an image of a man, whose fluids have been replaced by rancid toxins, watches an increasingly boring program. It was one of my many inspiring daydreams that temporarily replace reality with an unusual premise. It becomes a problem when I act out the scene in real-time to people in passing. The idea for the man to fall in the ditch was a way to surprise the viewer in my hallucinatory fantasy. Shortly after, I preceded to watch an entire web series, CrackedTV, from beginning to end…and it was still Wednesday.

(4) A college student, upon realizing he's becoming less and less social, decides to overcome his fear of greeting everyone while walking by deciding to embarrass himself and say "Ripe figs" repeatedly while walking in numerous tones(whispering and shouting).

After a brainstorming session about programs to consider airing on the college television station, I thought about an unusual PSA that encouraged people to say "Ripe Figs" as a way to break the ice in the college community. I would be the unfortunate guinea pig in the skit for Case Jackass (a show that sounds exactly like what you'd expect) and says "Ripe Figs" in a large crowd of people while someone would be filming from a distance. This is still currently a "private" idea but would be worth a shot as an abnormal experiment or at least a conversation topic for the cynics at Case Western.

(5) A short story/short film describing your trouble with making mac and cheese in college. It'll be called "Mac and Cheese".

This was my idea for my first short film before writing Semaphore. It would've starred myself as the hapless college student who forgot to practice making mac and cheese before coming to college. It would've been a combination of slapstick, visual gags, and exaggerated facial expressions (just like every other comedy). It was based on my actual first attempt at making mac and cheese one Friday afternoon when I was too lazy to head over to the dining halls which was a 2 minute walk from my dorm. I followed the instructions very closely but still made the mistake of drowning my macaroni in boiling hot water, causing the individual pasta pits to mend into a clump of fabricated greed. I poured the cheese on it and ate it, clump and all. It was the most embarrassing thing I'd eaten up to that point but I only had to wait two days for more disgraceful examples of sustaining myself in college.

(6) A short "foreign" film about someone who is with his friend, but then cuts his lips deeply. Done with gibberish and body gestures.

After writing the first draft of Semaphore, I took a walk and had this scene play in my head. It was supposed to be a heightened example of gestures being a way to express emotions coupled with buckets of blood pouring out of the lips (because that's funny, right?) Overall, this was more of an amusing thought than something I would consider making.

(7) Possible idea for a Spanish short story: the tale of a rat who survives a nuclear blast.

After I took Introduction of Spanish Literature, I realized that I didn't give enough attention to the Spanish culture as I should have all these years and in the spirit of the work of Julio Cortázar, I decided to write my own short story in Spanish. This was the first idea I considered. To be fair, it never went beyond this sentence and a quick little sketch I drew to visualize the impact, but it would've been a combination of prose and poetry, giving an impression of the explosion but never explaining where/why it happened. The rat would've been an interesting analogue for the aftermath of the blast. For some reason, I'm inspired by explosions, the look, sound, and feel of them, and like Hollywood, it's something I tend to heavily abuse during my daydreams.

Ideas That Will NEVER Happen: Vol. Cuatro

What's this? Another project from 7th grade that went unfulfilled? Almost. Let's start from the beginning...

The Idea: A long time ago, when making drawings brought out encouragement from my parents, rather than shameful silence, I began work on my first and only graphic novel that I've ever completed: Sonic the Hedgehog vs The Dark Emerald: An epic adventure in 4 parts! The comic follows the adventures of a blue, anthropomorphic hedgehog as he is, once again, forced to stop everything he's doing to destroy Dr. Robotnik's latest creation, a gigantic(and lazily drawn) Mecha Sonic with rectangular eyes and noses. An epic 10 page battle rages on until Sonic single-handedly annihilates the machine with his spin jump. Ready to chase after Dr. Robotnik, Sonic uses the seven chaos emeralds to transform into Super Sonic. The emeralds merge into Sonic's body, only be expelled out of it, launching Sonic a few feet away. The emeralds merge into a large emerald that becomes darker and darker. Dr. Robotnik, in his floating mobile, chuckles endlessly at his diabolical plot of "pretending" to lose only for Sonic to use the emeralds haphazardly. Keep in mind that I (and probably many other dedicated fans) came up with this idea long before Sonic Unleashed. The dark emerald communicates(through some unusual way) to Sonic that it plans to obliterate itself from within the core of the earth, cause a powerful energy surge that will spread across the entire planet and cause hundreds of years of darkness. Of course that's what it'll do. After laughing hysterically and spitting at Sonic's face, the emerald flies off and Sonic runs after it. An elaborate chase sequence involving lasers, clouds, and planes occurs and a direct hit at the emerald causes it to shrink. The emerald flies off to the nearest volcano while Sonic and a horrifically drawn Tails head off to Tails' laboratory to design an unfashionable shrinking suit that's impervious to lava. A few pages later, Sonic chases after the emerald again, all the way to the deepest part of the ocean where, after a young blogger decided that drawing the lava suit was simply too much trouble, decided Sonic can proceed in his adventure able to breathe underwater. Another dramatic battle goes on that leaves Sonic bruised up until he remembers the six chaos emeralds, still in his possession somehow, begin glowing and fire a rainbow-colored laser at the dark emerald, that just arrived at the core of the earth(if this doesn't make sense, blame my 10 year old self for learning about the 42 presidents instead of the layers of the earth). The dark emerald's power diminishes dramatically(seems to be a trend 'round here) until it self-destructs, launching Sonic out of the ocean and onto an island. Sonic, in a few panels, recovers and smiles triumphantly towards the sky, thumbs sticking out, hubris assured. If only my love of nonsensical plots continued to this day, I'd have finally finished my goddamn screenplay.

Why this will never happen: The story, to my ten year old self, is as convoluted yet endlessly entertaining as any summer blockbuster but even for a property like Sonic the Hedgehog, the only places a plot involving a floating, talking dark chaos emerald would be suitable is in fan-fiction or the comic book series. It's been really great trying to recreate this story from the original drawings that are, unfortunately, long gone, but it does show how quickly ideas can flow when they have a chance to be revised in anyway, and although the overall plot doesn't make sense, at least the transitions from one scenario to another make sense. Having said that, this relic from an ancient time will remain that way since, due to college, cynicism, and some bouts of depression, making a story like this would involve a ridiculous amount of time I simply don't have right now. Oh right, the other reasons. Um...SEGA already has a stable of ideas/plot-lines for Sonic's next video games but even they won't try to write a plot as farfetched as a dark emerald...but if they do, I was the one who called it.

Ideas That Will NEVER Happen: Vol.III !!!

Take a look, if you'd like, at a past life of mine: Making comic strips. This was my second pet project in 7th grade. Over the course of the year, I made 120 strips, 23 of which I ended up posting. This was a time that I realized that becoming a success on the internet would be far more difficult than I ever could've imagined. I was a temperamental guy back then, so a day with little or no hits would devastate me, enough that I gave up on posting more comics until September of 2008 when I planned to reboot the comic strip only to give up again after a small reaction from the new comic. Looking back, these comics were terrible and ill-inspired and yet, I did notice an amount of progress in the comics, as the creative process became more intuitive, certain choices were made for the comics to look more presentable, and even the immature humor became much better. Unfortunately, outside obligations(such as school and...) forced me to abandon the comic strips for good.
And now for the matter at hand, what these comic strips have to do with an impossible idea:

An R-rated feature-lengthed film based on the "popular" webcomic. Movie poster advertisements all over would feature Sonic, Shadow, and Kirby hidden in the darkness with a tagling saying, "The Darkest Comedy Ever." The jokes, profanity, and gratuitious content are at unspeakable levels of filth. The plot of the movie is that an alien is creating duplicates of popular characters that have better personalities than the originals. Sonic, Shadow, and Kirby team up to destroy all of the clones before it's too late, and insult Kirby's weight the whole way through. This is the ending: After the amount of chaos that has happened in the past 90 minutes, the movie cuts to this strip. The audience gets a chance to read it until the camera starts pulling away from the computer screen on which the strip is displayed on. People notice that it's a low-tech computer that may've run Windows XP at some point. The camera pulls away further, revealing an abandoned room that has one computer still running. Going back further, the camera moves out of the house, through the doorway, and reveals an enitre city completely devoid of life. The camera stops moving back as soon as it's able to see the entire skyline and begins fading out as soon as one of the buildings collapses.

Why this will never happen: like it or not, my comic strip is probably really similar to other video games comic strips that have self-referencing characters and violence, and each of them have the same low chances as mine to get noticed by a movie studio. Also, the movie tries to throw as much inappropriate content as it can in the 90 minute runtime with a goal of breaking the Guiness World Record for the amount of profanity in an animated movie(currently held by South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut) which, one, is an incredibly short-sighted goal, and two, would sacrifice the quality of the story to make lots and lots of terrible jokes. Also, it just wouldn't suitable for an adorable character like Kirby to be in a movie this raunchy, and the guys at Nintendo would probably agree. Although this movie and comic strip was insane as it was, I look forward to making a new comic in the near future, if and only if I have the time and patience to do so.

Ideas That Will Never Happen: VOL. 2!!

What you are about to read will never happen. It doesn't matter how much money you contribute, how many brilliant minds you stuff into a cramped room to make the idea comprehensible, it will NEVER happen. Though the mind is free to create whatever scenarios it can, even it is fully aware of some ideas that poison the mind and endanger it. This is one of those ideas.

In 7th grade, I began work on my most ambitious project to date: Spongebob Squarepants in an adventure through time!!!! (Spongebob: Trapped in Time!!!). Originally written to be the next bestselling novel, this version is the film adaptation. Our hero Spongebob retreats away form society when a mistake at the annual fry cook games costs him the gold spatula and a life of happiness working at his favorite job. Nearly everyone in Bikini Bottom insults Spongebob for his mistake, and so, Spongebob decides to stay in his pineapple until it rots. Just when all hope is lost, his friend Patrick encourages Spongebob, through much comical complication, to experience the outside world again. Reluctantly, Spongebob does until waltzing into Plankton's clunky restaurant, The Chum Bucket, where he and Patrick uncover Plankton's latest diabolical device, a time machine! Plankton goads the two bestest buddies to go into the machine, only to be teleported back in time, back to the days of Ancient Egypt. Spongebob's adventure takes him on a rampage with a flying car of the future, getting swallowed by a Sphinx, makes him and Patrick the last ones remaining when the Titanic splits open, accidently kill a few gladiators and lion fish in Rome, wonder about their lives as they run away from the battle happening in Gettysburg, and inadvertently cause the end of the universe which, since it's a Spongebob movie, they somehow repair and make it back to the present. The adventure features an impressive combination of classic cel animation and CGI(Computer Generated Imagery) in the designs of the future buildings of Future Bottom and the Titanic, as well several other set pieces such as the kickass flying car, and the Sphinx which somehow comes to life and has functioning organs. It's a PG-13 rated flick so it features intense cartoon violence that might frighten a tot or two, some profanity, and a few low-brow jokes.

Why it will never happen: The idea, although practically understandable for standard saturday morning cartoon fare, is far too ambitious to ever be produced. Imagine me, in 7th grade, lacking of any kind of friends, rushing home every day after completing his homework, booting up his computer to write the next chapter of the Spongebob epic that would cement his place in history. Even with that kind of determination, it would never be picked up by anyone, and trying to make a blockbuster film of this degree would require a budget larger than for the making of Tarzan, the most expensive animated movie to date. It's also a fairly risky feature in trying to tell a coherent story that mixes in high-speed dramatic thrills, suspense, and pitch-perfect comedy all in one. It's also risky for even being more violent than a regular animated movie and for being more risque. Also, even with Spongebob, the market film companies are chasing after these days are CGI features, leaving the cel animation features to be left in the dust. The reason I would ever write a story like this was because of my disappointment of the promise of a Spongebob special(Dunces and Dragons) that ended up only being 30 minutes long. The movie would run for about two hours, again something almost unheard of for an animated movie, but if the Spongebob creators were risky enough to make a character like a walking, talking sponge, then maybe this idea might work. It's such a large idea that I will spend more posts talking about it, but in the near future.

Ideas That Will Never Happen: VOL ONE!

What you are about to read will never happen. It doesn't matter how much money you contribute, how many brilliant minds you stuff into a cramped room to make the idea comprehensible, it will NEVER happen. Though the mind is free to create whatever scenarios it can, even it is fully aware of some ideas that poison the mind and endanger it. This is one of those ideas.

This guy vs this guy.

In a CGI, 15 minute short film. For those who have played Sonic Unleashed or Bioshock, you might have some idea how this could've worked. Shortly after completing his latest adventure, Sonic decides to retire from the adventure business. Making his hasty decision, Sonic heads back to Central Park(since every movie has to take place in New York), Sonic recalls the first dash he ever had. I'm not a fan of Sonic's voice work so he would be silent the whole time. He remembers the people he accidentally bumped into, the first time he ran across the park's pond, and at sunset when he slowed down for a moment to see the changing colors across the skyline. His retirement ends shortly when he sees an advertisement for a travel agency offering a cheap trip to Greece. Forgetting his own speed and sudden lapse into poverty, he rushes over to the closest agency and asks about the lowest price. He steps into the agency, a few seconds pass, and the door flies off the handle as Sonic dashes into a nearby dumpster and hides, waiting for the police to pass. Sitting in the dumpster makes Sonic realize how uncomfortable it can be to be a blue, anthropomorphic hedgehog, especially in an enclosed space, and decided to run all the way to Greece with his own two feet. He becomes a notorious "freak of nature terrorizing the defenseless citizens" and is up for capture by the government. His only crime is to accidentally blast past a five-year old holding a dollar bill. Such impeccable speed causes the dollar to slip through the boy's hand and drop right into Sonic's. With the first dollar he's ever owned, he buys an ice cream cone from the only person who's intrigued by his existence. He bids a quick farewell to the vendor and runs off. His trip in Greece is fun until he hears a rumbling beneath his feet. Looking back, the ground cracks and crumbles until an enormous drill blasts from the ground and spins quickly. The drill chases Sonic's tail until poking Sonic and stopping him momentarily. Sonic tumbles to the ground and grabs onto the drill, spinning him at ridiculous speeds until releasing him in a burst of blue light. The drill stops and recedes back into the ground. Sonic, running at top speeds, runs away from the mysterious being chasing him and dodges every obstacle he approaches. Shortly after, the drill reemerges and chases Sonic. Sonic approaches a gap, grabs a pole, and changes directions. The being unexpectedly crashes through the ground and reveals its entire self. It is a Big Daddy from Bioshock. The Big Daddy grabs onto the edge and hurls itself back onto the ground. Sonic is far away from the BD so the BD runs towards him and activates its rocket shoes. The BD approaches Sonic and reaches for him with his molded and rugged hand. Sonic dodges it, breaks a pipe, and hurls it at the BD's helmet, sticking it. The BD removes the pipe and uses it to swing at Sonic. Sonic narrowly avoids the BD's close swipes until the ground below him breaks and Sonic and the BD falls into the sewers. At this point, my 10th grade mind turns off and goes back to studying for a test.

Why this will never happen: First of all, the most unlikely paring of characters and the amounts of contracts for each character to appear in the film. Second, it's a short film that would require the cooperation of a major film studio to finance the film. The fact it's a CGI film would also complicate the cost. Third, the Sonic I'm describing doesn't exist in modern society or at least in SEGA's society. Making Sonic silent would anger the existing voice actors, and reduce the interest of younger fans who don't understand the beauty of a simple foot-tapping gesture compared to some saying, "Gotta get movin'!" Fourth, I've never played Bioshock and don't know what the Big Daddy's role in the game is. For the short film, you can infer that Big Daddy is a government experiment made to capture Sonic. I don't know if this is completely contradictory to the source material, but for that reason alone, the inclusion of the Big Daddies wouldn't make any sense. Also, admittedly, the scenario I've described isn't very convincing, but believe me, it would be one of a hell of a production if it ever existed.