Local Hero by Peashooter Parker - Short, Comedy - A teenager discovers he's from a long line of superheroes with quite unusual powers and a famous arch nemesis. 6 pages - pdf, format

Writer,

Not bad. Some funny moments with the butt cheeks at the beginning. Gotta admit I got a little lost with all the VO and stuff. Maybe that was just me. Overall, a little disjointed and really not for me.

Steve

The V.O kills his thing quicker than an old peashooter.

Not sure what's going on really and I don't find it very funny.  There are attempts at humor and I appreciate that, but it doesn't work for me or hold my interest, remotely.

I'm out on Page 2.

Okay, I slogged through it. Had to re-read a couple of places where I'd get lost. Like, I'm not sure who gets "Clocked" with what.
Sorry but I didn't care for it much.

Liked this!  Needs to be tightened a little but quite fresh and original.

7 laughs out of 10

This was pretty good. I thought Son was Daniel maybe I have to read it again why you interchanged between the 2.

Either way the VO didn't bother me and comedy wise, it wasn't too bad.

Good job on entering

A family of supers with a secret - good. A reluctant hero - good. But something in this didn't work for me.

The actual hero part was a tad week and in effect didn't really affect his life. You need to you use your nose shooter if you don't want to etc

The spiders then seemed a tad weird and completely different and unconnected.

Minor point but I couldn't see why the girl next door would scare him about a mystery tattoo on his butt?

The pea scene with the drunk lad was an opportunity that wasn't fully used, IMO.  Why not a muscle boy moving in on the pretty girl across the fence. At first he misses and something happens - eg goldfish bowl behind bursts - but eventually nails him , or her etc

By the way the VO works fine for me in this scenario.

Got potential.

Well written for the most part - Just couldn't get into a peashooter as a Superhero.

No idea what the spiders have to do with anything in this, and that element seemed a bit confused.

But I did like the Stan Lee gag, made me smile.

Nice try

I feel like a broken record.

This didn't work for me either.  It just wasn't funny.  It did have 2 funny lines, which is something, I guess.  Nice try for entering.

I wish I could add more, but, I agree with what everyone said above.

Dan

This was just silly.  Not in a good way.

I particularly didn't care for the part where the VO breaks the 4th wall and describes Stan Lee.

The story droned on and on and on and then it ended.  There needs to be a story for me to get into it.

Congrats.

Jordan

This was pretty weird, and the comedy just wasn't really for me.

Make sure you don't put any dialogue you want in the description e.g. the girl asking him what's wrong. If she has a line, format it properly as dialogue.

Few errors here and there. A pet peeve is when people use common phrases but don't know the correct words - it's 'intents and purposes' not 'intense and purposes'.

Lots of butt exposing, and Stan Lee are positives. The rest is a little all over the place with the VO over reliance especially. Still I had a smile on my face pretty much through the read.

Messy but I still quite liked it

Pages one and two, had me cracking up. Hilarious. I think the end falters somewhat, but definitely has lots of potential with the right investment of creativity. A consider. Nice job.

The writing is fine except for one or two moments of clunkiness. I like the idea of a superhero with a useless/stupid power as well. But this was too cute/juvenile for me. It's not even *that* useless, as apparently it works out for him in the end.

Not a fan of the V.O. Pretty generic/bland. No real jokes to speak of. Just exposition. I feel like if you're gonna use V.O., you need to come up with a compelling, unique voice for your character, i.e. even more compelling and unique than everything else, since V.O. is so vulnerable of sinking into cliche.

All the ass seemed a little cheap to me. I feel like I've read one or two other scripts thus far involving images and references of body parts that are supposed to be funny, where the only gag is said body parts basically existing, not doing anything. I don't think the tattoo's enough. Lots of people have tattoos on their ass.

Not for me.

Quoted from James McClung Lots of people have tattoos on their ass.

Sounds like you've done a little research into this area.

A weird take on a family of super heroes.  I don't think the voice over works all that well since it basically tells us what's happening on screen.  Therefore, not needed.  And the spiders are only there for Lee which isn't enough.

This one dragged for me.  The concept is solid, as a young slacker reluctantly accepts his newfound powers.  But the discovery of the powers all comes through V.O.  And the kid just rambled from one thing to the next.  Stan Lee's appearance didn't help with the scattered feel of the narrative.  

Feels a bit rushed, could do with tightening up and I think you struggled with the 6 page limit but meets all the requirements of the owc imo. From some of the wording I suspect this is from a fellow Brit so some of the humour may not translate well but I got it.

I think this should win an award purely for being the only one (I've read so far) to feature a Stan Lee cameo.

-Mark

For me, the V.O. approach does not work. I read the whole thing and didn't care for the guy... guess it's just a hard challenge this time.

Nonetheless, some interesting powers in the game here I think

This had some neat ideas, but it seemed like way too many plot points being crammed into the space. I think there’s some humor in a hero who has two absurdly random and unconnected superpowers. I also think there’s humor and natural conflict in a hero whose phobia prevents them from using their superpowers, but the script never really capitalized on that potential. If it had focused on a few of its better ideas rather than try to fit an origin story into six pages, it probably would’ve gone down easier.

Peashooter Parker,

Wasn't crazy for this one. The V.O. was a bit messy and the gags failed to tickle my funny bone, although there were quite a few, so good one for that. It got a bit confusing and definitely needs a tidying.

Best of luck.

Glenn.

Similar reaction as others. The story didn't grip me. I wanted more from the super powers, or maybe used in a more creative way. The dad's backstory with Stan Lee has a bit of edge. I can see the humor, although it's not my brand of humor. Good try, just didn't hit me quite right.

Not the best title. But I've often come up with worse myself.

Er, some of the VO needs a little work. I think the idea of it was right, though. First page works well, in me humble.

The Hemsworth line made me laugh out. This was particularly annoying, as I was trying to be very quiet. No, I was in my own house. Yes.

Peas? Garden peas? Eh? Okay. It's original. I'm fairly sure I can say that without fear of contracdiction. Peas? Alright then.

I was still trying to be quiet on page three. This script didn't help. By now I'm giggling. This tends to get worse before it gets better. My giggling I mean. I suspect this script might do the opposite. What?

I'm stopping now as I keep having to type everything twice after I've corrected it. Oh bugger.

EDIT: Finished it now. I quit trying to laugh quietly. I'm hopeless, at being quiet I mean. I am.

The short screenplay, this one. It is funny and surprised me. As far as this OWC challenge goes - it did the job. Nuff said.

Apart from I may read and comment on the others later. I may not. Er, if you don't care then carry on. Today I shall be mainly procrastinating. Again.

Hopeless. Well, sometimes.

R

R

I like the writing, well painted, but the story not so much. It was curious, like circus freak curious, and not funny for me. The VO I am not hot on but for this I think it works ok.

That was...odd, but in a good way! Did I miss why the family crest was so important? Perhaps a spider tattoo. Many bad ass individuals have spider tattoos. I digress. The unusual power of shooting peas was clever and a funny visual (the rabid fire shooting at the teen punk especially) but nothing as cringing as watching thousands of tiny spiders erupting from his pores, attacking Stan the Man himself...Not sure why the sink caught on fire, however.

Hey I see tge type of humour you are going for here and I quite likes it. Would have been a consider from me. I liked the fact that your atory has a beginning middle and end.

A lot of passive writing though which is an east fix. But try to avoid it in future work.

The spider thing doesnt come together fpr me - he wanted to find what type of a hero he was but ended up to be just like his dad. If I understood correctly - you could let is know he ended up like his father. Another easy fix.
Nice job!

I loved the fourth wall breaking VO in Deadpool and one of my favourite comedy films is Mystery Men. Local Hero was an attempt to merge the two – have a guy develop ridiculous powers which somehow turn out useful at the end and have him do a running commentary aimed directly at the audience throughout.

Some liked it, some didn’t which is fair enough. I enjoyed writing it and I do like it, well I would wouldn’t I!

Thanks for all the reads and feedback. It was all very much appreciated.

-Mark

Just read it again and I still laugh out loud at the Dad poking his ass into his son's face. Even the unzipping sound makes me giggle.

I'm the type of guy that can laugh with my kids at Dick and Dom sitting in a restaurant whilst intermittently shouting 'bogies!'.

To be honest, I appreciate many, many forms of comedy. It depends on the time of day, I suppose.