Dead n' Gone by Lexalicous - Short - Because of a stupid lie, Maurice Hailey is believed to be dead. How is he going to life? 12 pages - pdf, format

A sitcom featuring back and forth arguing, a ridiculous lie, a gullible landlord – standard routine and ending. The dialogue was a tad forced and spelling/format errors slowed down the read. Felt rushed.

Too bad the funeral parlor was a separate location, that might have been fun to see.

Well...we've got a comedy here.  There is some humor on display, but for me, it plays out like a TV sitcom skit from the early 70's, that's rather stale and outdated.

The writing itself is full of problems...all over the place.  Terrible spelling, grammar,  and punctuation on display that I would think any spell checker would catch.  I just don't get it.  I mean, seriously, "livingoom"?  Over and over..in Slugs, in action prose...so many other ridiculous mistakes.  Way too many wrylies being used.  Way too many other issues that shouldn't be here.

Congrats on completing an OWC entry.

I thing grade man hit it on the head with the sit com description. I liked the fact it was humour when so many are not. It just wasn't my type.

If I'm not mistaken they say he's dead once before to the landlord? But that's ok?

All the best and well done for entering.

So much for anonymity, Lexalicious.  Yeah, this one was like a weak Three's Company episode.  You could have called Radcliffe Mr. Furley.  The old fake beard and accent, amazing how many times that fools people in a sitcom.

I think you could have had some fun with this idea if you executed it differently.  Way too much expository dialogue at the beginning.  Took too long to get to the fake death idea.  

The grammar and spelling was...rough.  Punctuation was also a big problem because...

MAURICE
Well, in this letter it says they
gonna give us 10.000 dollars.

Ten bucks ain't much payoff from life insurance.  Just goes to show you what a difference a comma makes.

I didn't have much problem with the urban "Eubonics" too much although it does get a bit tiresome reading it on the page. I didn't mind the sitcom-ness of the piece. Took me a minute to get a grin, but it worked in that regard.

Do I think Mr. Radcliffe is a nasty fellow who needs to be lied to? All I know is, he's cut them a lot of slack for outrageous lies and other delays on rent. What was it? A full year's back rent? Marice, a bum, doesn't pay. Alisa, for what we know, doesn't pay the rent or even part of it. She can make excuses for her Andy Capp like husband; what's her excuse?

But it's sitcom-y. I'll roll with it.
Until the In-Law calls.

That In-Law (who hates Marice, of course) mentions his death.
When did Alisa lie to her mother?

I dropped out on p7, when he's getting on a disguise and they are talking about "his funeral" why?? I'll tell you why. It was established that they only lied to Mr. Radcliffe, not anyone else that I'm aware of AND the fact that no bodies were recovered and the passenger list is gone

You lost me, pure and simple.

Thank you!!!!!!!!

I have tears in my eyes. You know, if you watch a feature comedy, sometimes there might be only a couple of jokes that really make you laugh out loud. This one got me to laugh out loud and to the point of tears.--

I thought you was an emaciated
woman, why don't you look for a job
if you're so crazy about it?
ALISA
You mean emancipated..

--That one got me for some reason. I'm still laughing. That and the Mormon one were great. And there were a few other ones too. I mean, I think they were really funny. To do that in a short, man, that's pretty darn good. You have some real talent for humor.

Now, the story: Are you mad? Were you drinking when you wrote this? The woman tells the landlord to go away, her husband's on a ship to China; then the ship hits...an oil rig!; then they hold some kind of funeral for him...man, you were smoking some good stuff, Charlie.

This made me laugh too, though it was not your intention:

Alisa, wearing a pyjama,

WTF; that brought the tears right back to my eyes. I laugh actually seeing it again now.

Well, Lex, on the bright side: you are one funny bastard. You know how to come up with jokes, you have a real talent for that. So there has to be some way to make a career out of that talent. But your overall story needs to be maybe run by someone with some common sense. I like you work, though, buddy, I'll watch for future stuff! God, I really needed that laugh, thanks.

Thanks to kev I was expecting that to be really funny and was disappointed that I didn't get a single laugh out of it.

It was an ok stab at a sitcom and it wasn't that it wasn't amusing, just not laugh out loud funny.  

Plus I think there was a bit of stereotyping going on and that's going to be hit and miss.

I thought this was a bit silly.  It came off as a first draft script for me, which is more acceptable with OWC scripts but....

The script seemed very disorganized.  I got the impression that you wrote it as it popped in your head and you submitted it without looking back.


Phil

Sorry Michael. Maybe those jokes just hit me right. Maybe I'm in a good mood because the pats won. The writing and the story itself are all over the place here, as I said in my review. But I found some of the one liners to be funny. I like the Three Stooges too.

You don't have to apologise for your sense of humour.    I was just surprised I didn't find it as funny as you did, which was why I mentioned it.

The spelling and grammar is a mess, there's inconsistencies galore, and most of the stuff in here doesn't make sense but I enjoyed it simply because it was so crazy.  Definitely felt rushed and read the same way but there is some funny sitcom stuff in here.  As I also said, there's some unbelievable things going on, such as the ridiculously gullible landlord (12 months of no payments?  And he falls for it again?  Eh).  

But it was enjoyable.  Light hearted, some good punch lines (especially the last one), and it had a fun goofiness to it.

Good job.

Greg

This one fit the OWC rules without a hitch.
However, the nature of the contest prohibited a good scene.
Despite some format/grammar snafus, the pages read pretty well.
I think seeing Maurice at his funeral could’ve been funny.
Overall, the sitcom style humor didn’t win me over.
But, I’m pleased to see some light attempts for the OWC.

Regards,
E.D.

I absolutely loved the line:

>MAURICE Well, how much more of a finish can
you have than bankruptcy?

I felt like I was right there in Maurice’s head and I got a sense of his character. Really funny!

You had some typos, but this was really really good IMO. You had me laughing a whole lot and put me in a really good mood!

Very very entertaining.  

Sandra

I agree with the Sitcom allegory (is that the right word?) but I didn't actually see any comedy here. It might be an English thing - this is the sort of thing that would turn up in an episode of Steptoe and Son, Rising Damp or Only Fools and Horses (70's British Sitcoms - Youtube them) One bit made me chuckle (Emaciated vs. Emancipated) but the rest was just too ridiculous. There was a coffin but no body?
Daz

I don't get how "everyone" knew he was dead?

Didn't she only tell the landlord that he was on that ship to get out of paying the rent?

I also think that the landlord accepted her excuse too easily after 12 months of nonpayment of rent. Seems like he would have an eviction notice in his hand.

I didn't find it very funny, just silly. I did smile at the end when she went after him with a bat though.

Congrats on finishing the OWC

Cindy

Read it.

Some spelling and grammar errors (some may have been on purpose maybe) lol

The story is kinda enjoyable, could look okay on film I suppose. To bad Red is gone, he would be great in the role.

Good job on getting it done.

As I go:

Page 4:  I have almost had enough of "Tyler Perry's Dead n' Gone".  Sitcoms are repulsive, leave 'em for their equally repulsive medium.
Long time getting to the premise; it could be summed up pretty quickly that she lied to avoid paying rent.

Thoughts:

Gah.  Sitcoms.  Not my cuppa tea.  Stereotypes.  Also not my cuppa tea.  Y'know it's the darndest thing, but none of my black family members talk like that.  

Thanks for the read.

Sorry, didn't like this one. The writing made it really tough to read, and all the dialogue at the beginning felt like nothing but exposition.

Good effort, tho

I got the sitcom vibe with this one as well. Would probably have to have a laughter track though for people like me, it just wasn't my cup of tea. Not so bad that I hated it or anything, just the humour wasn't my type of humour. Different people like different things and all that.

Another one where I'd like to see the numbers written in dialogue, but again that may just be me.

Also while reading the dialogue for Alisa I thought she sounded Jamaican. Was just wondering if that was how it was meant to sound?

Ultimately it kind of just passed me by.

Arty.