Potato Radio by Paul Knauer (PKCardinal) writing as Mr. Potato Head - Short, Comedy, Light Comedy - Isolated and bored, a man fashions a homemade transmitter that leads to an unexpected connection. 6 pages - pdf format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

So, Covid made you turn to potatoes.
Mine is socks. I know you know what I'm talking about (wink).

That's a very nice potato story. I thought there's a bit of commotion there in the middle that made me read a few passages twice but that's fine.
I found it very entertaining nonetheless.
I can see you making it. You could potatorize the ending though but your call. It's just Charlie is new to this talk and it seems strange the short ended on the talk about him. Maybe David should make sure Charlie is not a giant potato or something first.
But funny. Nice job.

This was very cute!

And original. Someone thinking of science while they are bored. Refreshing.

For me, this was wonderful in the first 4 pages, and then I think there were chances to mine gold that might have been passed up.

I think once David knows that someone can hear him, and that it's his neighbor, the gloves are off, and he can toy with him at will. And Russell would totally deserve it since he's a beer-can-throwing cretin.  And I think the end where they discuss how and why it happened kind of peters off... I think there's solid ground upon which to build a more attention-grabbing ending.

And the braces thing was reminiscent of REAL GENIUS, where they bug the antag's mouth and make it a radio transmitter and then pretend Jesus is talking to him. I would have liked to have seen something akin to that.

Anyway, nice job on writing something original, clever and entertaining.

AJR

What a oddball concept – but I liked it.  Basically just two guys connecting during the quarantine under the most unlikely of circumstances.  The radio transmitter to the teeth bit seemed straight out of a Gilligan’s Island episode.  

The writing is solid and definitely nothing to complain from that standpoint.  I think if there is anything that I feel needs re-working is the ending, which seemed like it fizzled once they connected.  I’m not sure what else you could do with it, but with something as off the wall as you were going with this, it felt too straightforward of an ending.  But other than that I was completely on board with this.
Best of luck.

I enjoyed this, you can just picture the scenes. I thought the dialogue was nice and punchy. Um, the ending was just ho-hum for me. Nice job.-A

Least virusy script I've read so far.

The boredom leading to crazy invention is a good one - but I really did laugh at any moment. Comedy is very s subjective so perhaps it's just me.

The ending did not quite land either.

Good effort on entering. Certainly a clever premise.

Well, this isn't really my preferred genre, but I really, really liked this one. Very creative, very original. I liked both characters and, of course, could relate to their boredom and mundane activities they each participate in to kill time. There's been times during this lockdown where I've been so lonely, I went down to the corner store and just chatted it up w/ the owner for a half hour or so. I'm sure we could all use good company during these times. It was cool to see these two neighbors finally connect under strange circumstances... and in a very unique way that I wouldn't have thought of in a million years. Very nice!

-- Michael

Creative use of potatoes, very creative.

It's just a bit all over the place and doesn't quite land anywhere until he connects with Russell via his fillings at the end. I think there is a lot of potential in this, you just need to decide which angle of the story to go with and stick to it rather than going off in all sorts of different directions.

That’s the one I have enjoyed the most so far - well done.

Possibly last page or so it slackened off, but I enjoyed that.

Covid related - not the strongest candidate, but actually this was about lockdown, connection with a neighbour, doing new things, so - ok - I change my mind on that.

Yeah, the best for me so far.

Well done

Fun! I struggled to keep up at certain points; it's very much all over the place. But I appreciate the wackiness of it all. A nice change of pace that held my interest and made me smile.

I'm sorry but this didn't work for me. I was struggling throughout the script to figure out what excatly is going on. But, perhaps it's just me.

Nicely written though. Creative.

I liked this one. Well written, well told. Would be easy to film too. My only complaint would be that there wasn't a whole lot about a pandemic. Other than the mention of COVID on the phone which felt sort of inserted just to fit the parameters. If it was a little more pandemic related, which would be an easy fix, I would call this one my favorite so far. Great job!

Quoted Text I liked this one. Well written, well told. Would be easy to film too. My only complaint would be that there wasn't a whole lot about a pandemic. Other than the mention of COVID on the phone which felt sort of inserted just to fit the parameters. If it was a little more pandemic related, which would be an easy fix, I would call this one my favorite so far. Great job!

This one was SOOOO not my genre, but the earnest yet quirky tone and the earnestness of the characters makes the script so damn likable. Agreed, also one of my faves... which is saying a lot considering the complete absence of bloodshed

-- Michael

Funny. A few criticisms. Why open with an establishing shot of the neighborhood instead of just going straight into David's house?

Where did he get all the potatoes. It would be funny if he went to the store and instead of stocking up on "essential" items, he's buying sacks (or just a sack) of potatoes. But that adds more characters/locations.

Russel's phone call was funny. Always though he was hearing it transmitted through his TV though.

Also didn't get the introduction of this Charlie character at the end.

A lot of it was still funny though.

My favorite so far.  It's the first comedy script I've read on the site that actually made me laugh out loud.  First thing I thought was Russell's fillings were picking up the radio waves like Laurie Partridge in the Partridge Family.  I have no real issues with this at all.  It read very smoothly and I could see the whole thing being easily filmed.  Tops.

@Arundel - We've got that many potatoes...