It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia - The Gang Occupies Philly by Vin Conzo (Conz) - Series - The Gang crashes the Occupy Philly protests, each with their own twisted agenda. 37 pages - pdf, format 8)

let er rip

Hey, I'm a big fan of Sunny, so it's easy to read this script in their voices regardless of if you get their voices or not. The case with this script? I think you did a good job with the characters.


Some of the writing could use tightening up. A few typos here and there. Things like "It's pretty gay and A shitty benny hill sketch" don't give the reader an accurate visual

The story with Dennis and Kate reminded me of The Abortion episode where the go to pick up women. Despite that story feeling familiar it was still funny and true to Dennis.

Interesting you use the character name DOOLEY, when they mention a friend of theirs who is dead, also named DOOLEY. This bit reminded me of the bizarro episode of Seinfeld.

"He even kinda smells like Frank" How do we know this? No one acknowledges it.

The Occupy a gym line would work if it were Occupy a hotel room. Just a thought, since that kind of thing would happen.

I liked the Storage Wars bit and in the end I can see this be an episode of the show. Good job.

holy crap, Dooley, good call.  gotta change that, i just wanted a name that rhymically sounded like "Charlie."  that never even crossed my mind.

thanks.  the other things I can just omit, they don't really add much.

Hey Vin

I have been meaning to give this a read. Did the first 12 pages today and will try and look at the rest.

I won't bother with format as TV series is not my thing , but i would comment you start with three titles. My first reaction was this sounds like too many, even for TV

Question - is this your series idea or based on something that exists? Being in the UK i dont know. However, one reason i ask is that you don't introduce the characters. I have no idea what they look like, sound like etc If this is your idea maybe a some description would help. Also remember to use visual scenes to highlight the characters, get them do something or react.

Rather than all sitting together, many series have them enter separately so they can focus on that character for a moment, and how others react, which helps to define character, then move to the next one. Just a thought.

Overall this reminded me of Cheers. The gang from the pub go on an adventure. As it happens this is one of my favourite comedies. The question i would pose is how will yours be different?

I thought it flowed well, you move the scenes and characters well and there was genuine banter going on. The sexual jokes (can't remember the page) seemed out of tone of the other light hearted humour. Consistency would be essential, i imagine, for a series.

all the best

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0472954/ Always Sunny is a popular comedy series in America that I'd suggest you check out, b/c it's great.  This is just my attempt at an episode.

just for reference, here is one of their episode scripts i found online http://myspecscript.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/charlie-gets-crippled.pdf

My format is taken directly from one of their scripts.

can i get a couple more reads on this?  if you want, link me to your script and ill review it for you.  i re-wrote it, but only changed one character name and removed some curses/dusted off some doalogue, it's not a major difference, so no need to re-submit.  thanks

Hey Vin,

Gave this a look over and on the whole the writing is good, one or two nitpicks but nothing major that spoilt the read.

I have heard of this show but have never seen it sorry to say so obviously the characters were difficult for me to understand. What I mean is I had no description of them or personality traits to go by, I didn’t know them is all. I have now looked the show up since reading and it sounds like a fun show, I’m going to check out a few episodes later on I think. Frank was a good character and is written well for a personality like Danny DeVito, I have just read that his Frank character is Dennis and Dee’s father.

The story was good; I definitely had a few chuckles and liked how you entailed the ferret side story into the final act. Also enjoyed the reveal of Katie’s private area, very funny. Dee’s story is a rip off of the Seinfeld bizarro episode but it worked and the fountain played its part.

In saying that, a few of the jokes flew over my head but that’s because I’m British and had nothing to do with your writing. The Andy Reid joke for example, I had to look him up because the only Andy Reid I know plays for Nottingham Forest football club in England and I don’t think meant him! ;D

I don’t know enough about the formatting, like Bill, I thought the three titles were weird but after taking a look at the link you uploaded, this is how they do it so…don’t know what else to say really on this subject.

Overall I liked this, think you’ve done a good job.  It read quickly and gave me a few giggles along the way. Now it’s time to create your own little series and throw that down on the paper.

I’m curious what you planned for this? What is just a writing exercise?

Good job. :)

Steve

thanks, coop.

i definitely ripped off Bizarro Jerry, but I honestly think that's a storyline they can do on Sunny, which has been called "Seinfeld on crack."  Dee never wins, simple as that, and they often give her a false impression that she is going to win, only for it to blow up on her... but yea, it's heavily Bizarro Jerry influenced.

As far as the formatting, only thing that might be wrong is the act structure.  ive seen a few show scripts and they're 2 acts, but i wrote mine in 3, b/c it just made more sense to me.

I wrote this b/c someone who i consider "signifcant" "liked" a "pilot" i "wrote."  end quote.  -- anyway, they said it's always a good idea to have specs of established shows, so i decided to write a Sunny, and I plan on tackling something else.  I'm thinking Parks and Rec, but (and this is no slight to Sunny) that show is just so brilliant I'm intimidated to even try.

Hey Vin,

I’ve had a couple of friends recommend this show over the last couple of years, but I never got into it until this year, and it’s a real pisser.  It’s funny that you called it “Seinfeld on crack”, because that’s one of the first things that came to mind when I first started watching.  Both shows involved characters that are essentially narcissists.   The only difference is that the Sunny gang has no redeeming qualities at all!

Anyway, I really enjoyed this and thought you did a really good job with it.  As someone else mentioned, if you are familiar with the show, you can’t help but visualize them when reading this script.  I think that’s a testament to their having created really interesting characters, but also a testament to you as a writer as I think you really nailed them.

As some others have mentioned, I’m not terribly familiary with TV formatting, so I don’t have much to add there.  In fact, I don’t have much to add at all in the way of constructive criticism, but I did point out some of my highlights below as well as a couple of typos in case you missed them.

***SPOILERS***

P. 5 – Not a big deal, but this read a little awkward for me.  I’d consider revising.

“To their right, a small CROWD gathers around a well dressed, handsome man, BENNETT, 30. He addresses them. “

Maybe – To their right, a well dressed, handsome man addresses a small crowd.  This is Bennett (30).

P. 6 – “Fire Andy Reid! Fire Andy Reid!”

Haha – poor Andy.  They’ll be sorry when he’s gone.

P. 8 – “We’re not stabbing all these people, Frank.”

Haha

P. 14 – “He stares skyward, and feigns sadness.”

Such a dick!  You’ve nailed Dennis so far, IMO.  Such a dick.

P. 15 – “I don’t hear shit.”

Haha – nicely done.

P. 27 – Kind of had the feeling that Charlie and Mac weren’t going to do the right thing, but you played it out well.  Also, as someone else mentioned, like the idea of tying it in with the whole storage wars phenomena.

P. 28 – “Stop. Just stop. Listen, Dee. The only reason I even let you hang around us today was because I kinda thought you’d let me nail you.”

So this line kind of reminded me of the high school reunion eps where the “cool” guy said something similar about letting her hang around because he was gonna let Dee give him a hand job.  I’m not sure if that is kind of an ongoing gag or not though.  If it is fine.  If not, I’d consider revising.

P. 29 – “Jesus, you people have ridiculous timing!”

Typo – you didn’t quite underline all of the word ridiculous.

P. 30 – “Yo, them my Gordons!”

Haha – was gonna mention the Air Gordons the first time around, but got lazy.  Had to give it up for this reference though.

When first introduced to Jerry, I figured that he was going to end up scamming Mac and Charlie, so it was a “pleasant” surprise how it turned out.  You know what I mean.

Anyway, as I mentioned, I really enjoyed this and thought this was a terrific effort.   Let me know when you finish the “Parks and Rec” one as I would love to give it a read.  Honestly, I think if you can tackle Sunny effectively, then you can certainly do the same for “Parks”.

Craig

thanks a lot craig.  I'm definitely fixing that Bennett intro, good call.  I need to get rid of "to their right" anyway, that's a stage direction.

i wanted the emphasis on the "diculous" part of the word, i guess that didnt come across.

i found that no matter what i did with Dee it was reminiscent of previous Dee storylines actually.  You're definitely not wrong, maybe I can just change that line up a bit.

I'm thinking about doing an almost entirely "Duke Silver" based episode of Parks and Rec, but the idea of writing for Ron Swanson is intimidating.

Hey, I read your script and thought it was hilarious. However, I didn't like the fact that you stole for seinfeld and that’s why I can't see this being made into a real sunny episode. Although, I did find it much funnier than some of the more recent sunny episodes, so if you take out that plagiarism from seinfeld, you might have a shot at them buying your episode.

I have no idea about how the business works though, so I wouldn't be surprised if you couldn't sell it to them. I’m pretty sure you need to be an established writer, and to be an established writer you need to have your scripts produced, so it’s a vicious cycle. Overall it reads well, and I could definitely see the writing match up perfectly with the characters. What are you trying to get out of writing this episode? Is this just a spec episode or have you tried to reach sunny? I only say this because it's so well written.

Some quick suggestions

I had to look up who andy reid was, so I suggest that at the rally you have someone answer that guy who asks who andy reid is. Try to make it natural, so maybe instead of yelling all those things, you just hear one guy ask who he is and one guy answer in normal voices.

Not a suggestion I just had to tell you that I was laughing so hard when dennis said I don’t hear shit. I just had to applaud you on that.

Also, I liked the occupy a gym joke, I don’t know what that other commenter was getting at when they said to switch it to occupy a hotel, that makes no sense.

This was definitely the best fan written episode of sunny that I’ve read so far and a very funny piece of writing overall. You should enter it in some contests.

Hey, I started writing a sunny episode and I was wondering if you could give me a rough estimate of how many days it took you to write yours, its a lot more difficult than I thought it would be to get the dialogue just right.

Quoted from geotracker8 Hey, I read your script and thought it was hilarious. However, I didn't like the fact that you stole for seinfeld and that’s why I can't see this being made into a real sunny episode. Although, I did find it much funnier than some of the more recent sunny episodes, so if you take out that plagiarism from seinfeld, you might have a shot at them buying your episode. I have no idea about how the business works though, so I wouldn't be surprised if you couldn't sell it to them. I’m pretty sure you need to be an established writer, and to be an established writer you need to have your scripts produced, so it’s a vicious cycle. Overall it reads well, and I could definitely see the writing match up perfectly with the characters. What are you trying to get out of writing this episode? Is this just a spec episode or have you tried to reach sunny? I only say this because it's so well written. Some quick suggestions I had to look up who andy reid was, so I suggest that at the rally you have someone answer that guy who asks who andy reid is. Try to make it natural, so maybe instead of yelling all those things, you just hear one guy ask who he is and one guy answer in normal voices. Not a suggestion I just had to tell you that I was laughing so hard when dennis said I don’t hear shit. I just had to applaud you on that. Also, I liked the occupy a gym joke, I don’t know what that other commenter was getting at when they said to switch it to occupy a hotel, that makes no sense. This was definitely the best fan written episode of sunny that I’ve read so far and a very funny piece of writing overall. You should enter it in some contests.

appreciate the kind words man, but how did i steal from Seinfeld?  I'm not doubting it, b/c i have every scene of Seinfeld banked in my subconcious and can't figure out which i borrowed from.  Wouldnt be the first time ive written something and then realized afterwards that it had been done on one of my favorite shows.

I wrote this to pair with original stuff, just to show i can write in established voices.  I wrote another one too actually, but i hate the Dee subplot i used in it, and it can use a re-write eventually.

Quoted from geotracker8 Hey, I started writing a sunny episode and I was wondering if you could give me a rough estimate of how many days it took you to write yours, its a lot more difficult than I thought it would be to get the dialogue just right.

sorry i took so long to respond.

this took about a week.  I wrote an original pilot that was read by a manager who liked it but said in the future i should consider writing a spec too...

im a huge fan of the show, so i picked this.  I popped in a season on dvd, watched it, and went to town.  wrote down a bunch of storylines, some good, some ridiculous, "Charlie is a Rape Baby" for instance (<- only ASIP could get away with that) and decided on this b/c the Occupy crap was big in the news.  

I wrote every free minute i had and kinda breezed through it.  That's not a brag at all, i just genuinely enjoyed it

Overall, well-written.

One nitpick.... I almost think Dennis would downplay what happened to everyone else in favor of his harrowing experience, rather than stating he got off easy. I mean, he's really the biggest narcissist of the gang.

I especially liked Charlie and Mac pulling up to the hospital, but then finding out they're at the storage bin.

I would've liked the red dye to have more relevence, like a previously setup joke that comes to fruition, but it's not a deal-breaker or anything.

Otherwise, hysterical, consistent, and well-written!