The Pumpkins Disappearance by Jack - Short, Comedy - A kingdom far, far way has to live with the end of all pumpkins to carving the jack-o-lanterns and the possibility of hasn’t a real Halloween anymore! <12 pages - pdf, format 8)

Okay, this was basically pointless. The theme - carving a Jack-o-Lantern - wasn't really covered here, it was more about the search for pumpkins (a very boring search I might add). On top of that it wasn't even close to being funny.

The SUPER in the beginning pretty much covers everything, you should have just told us how the story ends right there, because the main script seemed like stuffing. The dialogue was terrible and pretty much rehashed the SUPER.

No, this didn't work for me.

Rob

I'm not sure what to make of this?! It is, I think, interesting -- fanciful even. It hasn't anything to do with carving a pumpkin, though, and the humor, while present, wasn't my style.

On a technical level, your opening SUPER should be broken into shorter paragraphs. As it is, it's nearly 20 lines long. It's text heavy and, no doubt, sees readers skipping to the next script. In any case, Sniper is right, just lose it. It's unnecessary.

About Uwesley and Rumbert, are they named after Wesley and Bert, or is this just  coincidence? If they are, why didn't you play it up?

Seth

Humm...

Lizards at Halloween in a fairy tale kingdom...

It's different, but no actual carving of the pumpkin... and no real Halloween.

The lizards were cute though.

Cindy  

Philistine cat, two lizards, Uwesley and Rumbert.

I've seen some of these carachters before. ;D

The story is out there, for sure, but kept my attention. All these carachters and a smoky swamp on top of it all. For a while I was afraid who the snake might be...

Quirky as it was, I'll raise a morrito to you.

Pia ;-)

For me, the script seems uneven and could only benefit from restructuring.  

My suggestion would be to shorten the much too long rolling credit sequence to where it ends with the “all celebrations ceased, because all the pumpkins mysteriously disappeared.” And then cut to the bored lizards in the tree complaining about how dull life has become.  

The scene with Chuck and the Smithy is kind of pointless if the writer is doing the lizard story because both first-introduced characters vanish from the narrative after the second page.

The strange thing about the Chuck scene is that it sets up a completely different story.  Chuck and the Smithy talk about how the king has offered a reward to anyone who can come up with an alternative to the pumpkin.  It’s an odd and unmotivated change to then cut to two different characters who just by chance find a pumpkin.  With Chuck you’ve set up a blacksmith and all his skills and his shop and a big reward for some crazy invention and then the reader is suddenly in the forest.  

It might be more interesting to explore the idea of a blacksmith invented hybrid pumpkin.  That would really be carving a jack-o'-lantern.

Quoted from tomson Quirky as it was, I'll raise a morrito to you.

I think it's spelled mojito, pia  :P

Forget breaking the SUPER into smaller paragraphs. It's just too bulky for what it's supposed to be. You'd be better off condensing it into less/smaller sentences that cover the same information. What you have here is basically the "long" explanation. The scene with Chuck and Smithy that follows can (should) go. You take up about a page and a half setting up for a joke about horseshoes. The payoff is weak considering how much it takes to get there.

Onto the lizards. I can't think of anything here that seemed intentionally funny, except for the belly dancing. Phrases like "philistine cat" and "shitty frogs" are chuckle worthy but only for the sake that they sound a bit odd. That doesn't really matter to me though; they did make me smile. Still, the script lacks any real jokes or gags that could beef it up in the comedy department. It also lacks any real plot. The Jack-O-Lantern theme feels as tacked on as the super itself.

Overall, this feels like the framework of something better but can't be due to the amount of filler coming from the opening scene and the lizards talking about being bored. There were a few lines that were funny in an offbeat sort of way but I think this needs a little more sense of direction.

Quoted from sniper I think it's spelled mojito, pia  :P

Not when Helio writes it.  ;)

I read it two times and I think the SSs above me are right, it lost the track when stop to tell the real story behind it. After I read it for the second time I thought the writer had smoked a no-jamaican joint, a goes off one.

I'm sorry. Maybe next contest. So that's it!

I was expecting, from your title, something exciting.

I was disappointed.
Your story does not cover the theme.
Where is the pumpkin carving?
As for the humor, well it didn’t work for me.
You told so much in you intro that the rest of the story should have unfolded into some great finale; maybe the country folks could have all been madly carving away pumpkins for the festival.

I am sure with a rewrite this story could be brought to life.

Spoilers: Parenthesis are not necessary in your story further the action and your formatting in regards to line spacing is a bit off.


My OWC Challenge rating of your script “Carving of a Jack O’ Lantern”:  3/10
Comedy Structure: 3/10
My rating of your script overall: 4/10

This one was alright, but I don't think that it fit the challenge very well, really didn't have much to do with pumpkin carving and it really didn't have much humour, well at least to me.  I did like the diabetic line, that was pretty cute.  Other than that it wasn't that funny, I did think it was imaginative though and it moved pretty quickly, but I think it failed the requirements of the challenge.

Something about the dialogue in the earlier half of this script I found absolutely wonderful and hilarious.

Other than that, it was kind of pointless and a little too weird, and I think I'm going to go with Helio in saying that it was probably influenced by...something.

Much love,
Tyler

The super at the beginning is totally pointless.  Chuck and Smithy and then Rumbert and Uwesley tell the same backstory.  I'm not at all sure what Chuck and Smithy roles are for, they don't do anything for the story except reveal some info we already know.  Many have touched on this before me, where's the pumpkin carving on the story, and also there's no explanation as to where the pumpkins have gone and why they suddenly found one.  There were one or two funny lines of dialogue but the story wasn't strong enough for me.

Well, this one was not great. Let me down becuase i was expecting some carving action to be going on. Was i out of line expecting that, i dont think so.

The humor was very limited. I got a laugh out of one or two things though. What can i say, cause i dont know.

Maybe next time.

Well everyone pretty much summed it up. I opened this up, and right when I saw that huge paragraph, I was about ready to skip but then I noticed that it was "rolling credits."

Chuck and guy, take that out. They reveal something we already know.

The adventure to the pumpkin was kind of...dull. And it took forever for the owl to get to the snake and two lizards. I kept reading and it just continued.

This wasn't really funny to me, but I could see where you were trying to be funny. I'm thinking this could be more of an animated children's show if you took out the language.

Last, but not least, and certainly pointed out the most, there wasn't any jack-o-lantern carving anywhere. There was talk, which sort of sticks to the theme, but the theme called for jack-o-lantern carving.,

And yes, I recognized at least Uwesley's name.

Sean

This was...different. Ok with the talking animals, the lizards remind of the Gieco Gecko, a popular advertising character in the US, or possibly even the now classic Frankie and Louie, the Budwieser Lizards from a few years back...

So...What happened to the pumpkins? Why didn't Rumbert and Uwesley get to the bottom of the whole "disappearing pumpkins" dilemma? This is a fantasy story-Could have had a pumpkin eating dragon or giant or something, and the lizards work it out so both sides are happy...

That being said, that huge block of scroll text could have been revealed as Rumbert and Uwesley go on thier adventure to find out what happens...

The core of this story is good- two lizards find out what happened to the pumpkins and saves halloween-, but the execution at this point is off, reading almost like a hurried first draft to try and beat the deadline...

This reads as though there was an idea, perhaps Tierny_Cat's idea about the hybrid pumpkin, which sounds novel and interesting, and then we have a long dialogue from the two lizards.  I think the bellydancing bit was supposed to be funny, but it got lost amid the life and death issue of the snake and the owl.  

I thought there might be something with getting the pumpkin back so the lizards coiuld get the credit, because the other townspeople would give them a fight, I would think, but we jump right to the knighting.  I think this could have fit the parameters if we lost the opening, went to the lizards and had more conflict around the pumpkin.  But I've been known to be wrong before and on many levels.

I'm nearing the end of the scripts and then Wow!  Another little gem.

I really "dig" this one.  It's short and sweet, the animal characters you've got down perfectly.  It's funny...

As far as little problems, I noted these:

>quite mad *lose the [quite]

-might leave out [stopping hitting] It's awkward.

>and no philistine cat with his [bullshit] lose that and similar crudeness because I'm seeing this as made for a wider audience

I love these lines:

>Disguised as what?
>A statue.

And the snake's line: with his hisssss.  Marvelous.

The title needs to be made possessive as in "The Pumpkin's Disappearance."  But I don't know, maybe something a little more memorable, like "A Lizard's Quest: Lord of the Pumpkins."

I really enjoyed the rolling credits.  I saw the star wars beginning.

Super job!

Sandra