Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Celebrating the Stupid (#1 in a series?)


some ideas are just so stupid they might actually work. then again. . . . was recently leafing through some old sketch/workbooks and came upon this. now it must have been something i thought had something (validity?) because i spent the time to spell it out on a whole page..
my only notes were on the preceding page..."comedy skit..wetnurse horse - old female horse feeds a different starving foal each week. Hilarious. But play it serious?"
and this . . .
"si-nop'sis : The McMiller's live on a farm in Battletown, Kentucky with their horse, Esmerelda"

hmmmmm.

i can see the pitch .."you see it's like Lassie meets My Friend Flicka meets Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman meets Mrs. Ed. It's an in your face drama which exposes one of the major issues of our time - Starving Baby Horses! Did you know that for every starving baby horse in the world there are 327,ooo tons of oats! Why are these baby horses starving??!! and what can we do?
two words . . .Wetnurse Horse. That's all i'm saying.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I like the idea of Wetnurse Horse saved by a Fictitious Deity (a Deus ex machina if you will, or perhaps won't)...the Wetnurse Horse can be a character of A Fistful of Honesty. It goes something like this: Lonesome Stranger comes into town (sorta like Shane) and meets Esmerelda, who owns the Wetnurse Horse. LS is unable to love, until he sees WH giving milk unselfishly to starving foals and is seized by a change of heart--before the town badass, Pistolwhip Harry, attempts to steal Esmerelda and WH away from LS. It all wraps up with a gun battle and a badge thrown in the dirt.

Wait. I think I've seen this movie before.

That's all I'm sayin'...

BTW, it's easy to make up your own Fictitious Deities! Here are the steps:

1. Pick a culture (Aztec, Hopi, Greco-Roman, South Boston)

2. Co-opt a previously used deity (Thor, Aku-Aku, Persephone)

3. Give 'em a provenance or special power.

4. Shake 'em up. Thus:

Whipi-Dipi, patron god of Shampoo and Fine Hair Products.

Anonymous said...

Psychotropics. Oh what they do for otherwise seemingly legitimate screenplay pitches!

The Wordman said...

nice turn on the High Noon format, Mike.

my only addition would be, give Wetnurse Horse the power to fly.

that way, she (sort of Michael Landon in "Highway to Heaven" _and_ "Little House on the Prairie" melded with Supercow -- "¡Supercow al rescate!") can travel around the Wild West dispensing bovine widsom and gallons of wholesome lactic nutrition to the ignorant, the oppressed, and the four-hooved on the range.

you know, they're saying superhero stories are the big thing now. and the lead would work literally for hay. it's something to consider...

tl

Anonymous said...

Or...
Each episode begins with Wetnurse randomly transported back in time, (but somehow its usually in the 1800s when there were lots of horses), where Wetnurse encounters a horse in need. And not until she solves the dilemna can she return.

-HB