Put on your mitts, 'cause we're pitching ideas

We had a pitch meeting at a studio (which shall remain nameless) today, and I think it went pretty great. Here’s the idea:

So there’s this guy, right? We’ll call him Chuck. And he’s swimming in this vast ocean of soup –that’s not imagery, we mean honest-to-God corn chowder – but he’s running out of energy, because corn chowder’s thick stuff, and he sees this buoy nearby. He swims for it. But when he reaches the buoy, it turns into a jug of milk. And the milk says “Things are not as they appear, no?” before it turns into an albatross and flies away, landing in the boat of an old sailor. So Chuck drowns.

Or at least, he goes under. Chuck’s freaking out. He’s gonna die. Because you can’t breathe in corn chowder. Matter of fact, you can’t breathe in any kind of chowder. So he decides he’s had enough, he’s made his peace, and he opens his mouth to swallow the lethal chowder...and nothing happens. He doesn’t die. He can breathe, even. But it’s getting dark as he descends, so he lights a match, starts moving toward these ethereal, singing voices. And then his match goes out. Darkness.

Chuck opens his eyes, and he’s in bed. He gets out of bed, puts on his slippers, brushes his teeth, eats two waffles, two strips of bacon, drinks a cup of OJ and a cup of coffee, little bit of cream, two sugar cubes (that’s right, he still uses cubes), gets dressed right after breakfast because I guess he’s one of those guys who showers at night, and then Chuck goes to work. He’s some kind of analyst, and he sits in a couple of meetings, that kind of thing, wraps up his day, sits in rush hour, makes it home where he takes his dog for a walk, watches a movie on cable, orders Chinese in, and turns in early.

But suddenly Chuck wakes up, and he’s surrounded by these mermaids. They live in the chowder, only it’s not chowder anymore, it’s regular water, but it’s murky. Chuck’s bound, but he meets a friendly fiddler crab who cuts him loose, even though it means death to do so. Chuck gets free and does battle with the Mer-king, vanquishing him, and breaking the magic spell that held all those Playboy Playmates in the (figurative) bondage of undersea slavery. So Chuck and the now fully-legged Playmates suddenly find themselves on a Polynesian island paradise, attended to hand and foot by helper monkeys. The Playmates are very, very grateful for Chuck’s bravery as we fade out.

So that’s the pitch. The whole movie’s a dream, but it’s got this “awake sequence” in it, which is backward from how it usually works, and I think we made a pretty good case for this being “the next big thing.”

Our agent said we should hear back by Monday.

Vince out.