The Jeffrey Porch - Comedy Skits

I have written skits for people from time to time on spec, though my rather pathetic claim to fame is a stolen TV comedy that was among the top ten shows for a while in the early nineties ( I have been forbidden from naming it) and some skits that arrived via a little known comedy troup on late night television - which I encountered as I sat up into the wee hours with a beer. But both did a better job with the material than I would have managed to concentrate at that time in creating, so I am complimented by the outrage, as any self-flagellator would be.

What follows here is therefore more a matter of making a place holder for my own amusement, pieces of skits and concepts that I like but which have never gone anywhere. As always, they are copyrighted, though in retrospect, that didn't do much good. The ony difference now is that I have an attorney or two who has been paid enough that he will now take me seriously and bite someone if I ask.

TWO AND A HALF MEN (part of a spec that I tried to float)
SPORTS AND RELATIONSHIPS
EXECUTIVES WHO STAY UP LATE
RELATIONSHIP SHORTS

TWO AND A HALF MEN (back to top)
TEASER
SCENE A
FADE IN:
INT. CHARLEY’S HOME - DAY
(Charley, Kid, Allen)
CHARLEY SITS AT THE PIANO WORKING UP ANOTHER DITTY.
CHARLEY
(HAVING TROUBLE) No one knows your toilet, why must they even try? Overuse can spoil it, and you’re never dry...
HE POUNDS THE KEYS AND DROPS HIS HEAD.
KID
(FROM BEDROOM) I can’t find clean underpants!
CHARLEY
(INSPIRATION! UP-TEMPO:) Someone stole my skivvies/what’s the deal with that?/If they’ve already put them on/I don’t want them back!

ALLEN HUSTLES FROM THE BACK ROOM TOWARD THE KITCHEN.
ALLEN
I’ll get your underpants from the laundry room, just brush your teeth. (SEEING CHARLEY AS HE PASSES) I don’t like mothering you but you’re not ready yet and we’re going to be late.
ALLEN DISAPPEARS IN HIS FRENZY TO FIND THE LAUNDRY.
CHARLEY
(TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE) My mother lies over the ocean/my mother lies over the sea/my mother lies about pretty much everything/especially about having had me.
ALLEN COMES BACK OUT, CURIOUS, DANGLING THE SHORTS.
CHARLEY (CONT’D)
Don’t aim those, they might be loaded.
ALLEN
Are you depressed?
CHARLEY
About not having talent, youth, money, friends, hope, meaning, purpose, sex? Don’t be ridiculous.
ALLEN
Think of all the options you have.
CHARLEY
Yes, when I finally run out of money, I can move in with you.  Oops, wait a minute.
ZACH APPEARS IN THE HALL IN HIS UNDERPANTS.
CHARLEY (CONT’D)
These rocks don’t lose their shape, skivvies are a boy’s best friend...
FADE OUT.



SPORTS AND RELATIONSHIPS concept (back to top)


A skit about a show entitled:

        “You Bet Your Strife” or “Jeopardized” or “ESP-NONE”

CONCEPT
Contestants are couples who have been pursuing terribly destructive relationships. They appear on the show in their underwear and, as they lose, gradually put on items of wedding apparel.

Should both show a willing ignorance consistently, they will  be married at the end of the show and win twenty thousand dollars of legal services for their impending divorce.


RULES
Winning will require sane, healthy answers to the questions about their relationship and its possibilities, at the end of which the winner is allowed to leave with his or her dignity intact. The other “former” partner will stay on the show and take on yet another contestant (aka. potential suitor) who, though a complete stranger, very likely is as familiar as the original lover.

SHOW
Questions are put to them by friends, in shadow, who have warned them against the relationship. 

The questions usually are along the lines of “Do you remember the last person you said was ‘incredible’ and things were changing now?’ or “What did you say was your absolute, uncompromising standard for ‘deeply sensitive and good listener?’ Or they simply challenge inflated promises or shameful compromises the contestants have made.

Contestants both stand precariously inside a twelve foot gerbil wheel. Rather than signaling their desire to answer by pushing a button, male contestants are required to bash their foreheads through dry wall; women either clear their voices or read a magazine, announcing “I suppose so,” or “It’s up to you.”

The show takes place on a large soundstage with an adult-sized McDonald’s obstacle course artfully designed so that crawl spaces shrink progressively and rope ladders are pre-stressed to dump heavier, too-anxious contestants into flaming rivers of Hollywood lava.  Contestants who advance to the second round without being married are timed as they negotiate, shouting out their answers.

The one who has answered the questions sensibly must still make his or her way through the course, consisting of a water sluice: A Giant Relationship Clown spewing Margaritas at you as you slide through...
A Money Pit - a huge, high-speed ATM that threatens to take your card or  refuse your ID number if you fail to perfectly complete the code while you are drunk and needing to get laid.

From there, a quick workout in a facsimile of a GOLD’s Gym with other beautifully chiseled - yet arrogantly self-referencing - relationship cripples as they gaze into mirrors to see who is watching in the hopes of beginning their next disaster. Should the contestant manage not to look...

...they are winners!... provided they manage, lastly, to sprint over to and attend an on-stage therapy session of lifetime relationship headcases in record time, after which they  are rewarded with gas money and must make it to their car before the former partner (Now BIG LOSER) can catch them and guilt them out of leaving by prostrating themselves.



EXECUTIVES WHO STAY UP TOO LATE:
Skit with whiny, bitchy yups on the phone, slamming phones, throwing papers...”Where’s my repoooort, Diane!  I want my REPORT!”

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RELATIONSHIP SHORTS (back to top)

SERIES OF QUICK CUTS MEANT TO RESEMBLE THE WORST OF HAUGHTY  ITALIAN FILMS. ALL WILL WEAR SUNGLASSES. YOU MAY WANT SOFT BLACK AND WHITE TONES, LIKE A CALVIN KLEIN AD. SUCCESSIVE SCENES DONE IN TABLEAU.

#1: Static profile of a man in  a Harley tee shirt, chain wallet, a tattoo and a cigarette over his ear; beside him, a woman in stylish attire and heavy makeup placidly staring over a broken-fenced wasteland of scrap, debris and discarded steel objects littering a Detroit factory yard.

Voice over:     “She wanted to know there was something beyond this. She                        said she found my friends puerile, my laughter unnerving,
                my drinking stupefying, my lovemaking bestial, my                                       conversation callow.

                “I, on the other hand, was thinking that callow spelled                                 backwards is “wollac.” But I couldn’t tell her that then.


#2      Shot over a woman’s shoulder, FULL on speaker’s face. He is smoking.

Voice Over:     “We smoked like mad. We smoked until the sky was another                        color. I loved her ferociously. I indicated my fondness by                              switching nostrils in a suggestive manner. But when she                                 placed her cigarette between her breasts, I was momentarily                     distracted. This was not behavior to which I was accustomed.”


#3:     Slovenly, slack-jawed couple, nonetheless in sunglasses, watching               television in their den. Out the window, scene of furious war in full           tilt. The woman’s head inclines slowly toward her mesmerized                    husband.

Voice Over:”We wrestled with our lives. We felt ourselves resonating in
                time. I was fond of flapjacks. ‘What of chance?’ I wanted to                    shout at him... But his name. What was his name?”






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