"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. 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.