New Show Idea: Rejected by Fox!!

As many of you know, Dan and I occasionally get to pitch movie ideas to Hollywood studios. Sometimes they write us big checks because there is a small faction of entertainment insiders who recognize that with the complex juxtaposition of images, music, and content afforded to today's viewers thanks to the Interwebs, the average content consumer has a greater, more fundamental appreciation for Surrealism than at any time in human history. Our country, for instance, managed to not self-destruct when that kid with the hair on American Idol made it to the finals or whatever. The only possible explanation is that Surrealism has taken root in the mainstream. Therefore, while you haven't seen this movie yet, or this one, rest assured we'll be on somebody's screen somewhere sooner or later. And we're not talking just on YouTube, either.

We thought, this morning, that our first big mainstream conquest would come by way of a TV show, which we pitched over lunch to executives at Fox, called WHEN SURREALISM GOES WRONG!

Here's the idea: We wanted Fox to go back to their roots -- before they were the Reality TV Network, they were the Lamentable Clip Show Network, which aired such bastions of good-ole'-fashioned entertainment as "When Animals Attack," "World's Most Shocking Moments: Caught on Tape," "World's Funniest Party Disasters," and of course "Real Stories of the Highway Patrol." So we're bringing that back, but with a Surreal twist. The twist is, it's Surrealism going wrong, so NOTHING SURREAL ACTUALLY HAPPENS, and then, at the end of each episode, Dan and I run out and go "Dammit! We screwed up again! Crap!"

One episode we pitched, for instance, was thirty minutes of a locked down shot of pedestrians in New York City, and occasionally, a voice would come on and say things like "Ok, now watch the woman in the green blouse...Wait...wait...oh, and...gah. No!" And the woman would walk offscreen without doing anything of note. Another was documentary footage of clowns getting dressed for the circus, and, again, the voice would come on saying something like "Now, this is the part where the gorilla comes in wearing a suit of armor and tells everybody to get the hell out...(nothing happens)...or, wait. Maybe that was on a different tape."

When we told them that the season finale would be an extended episode offering ninety minutes of dead air, they politely told us they weren't interested. And, by "politely told us they weren't interested," I mean they surmised we weren't really janitors, asked us where we got those uniforms, and had us chased from the premises by some of those zombie dogs from I AM LEGEND, which are apparently on loan from Warner Bros. and remembered our scent.

It's too bad. It would've been compelling TV.

Vince out.