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| You want my gall bladder? Will it be on prime time? Stephen Colbert, foreground, and Paul Dinello hash out the details. (AP Photo/HO/Think Film) |
Dick Van Patten as a cannibal. A sitcom about suicide. Mr. Ed pleading for his life.
Paul Dinello and Amy Sedaris are just getting started.
The writer-actors recently adapted their cult hit "Strangers With Candy" from the tube to the big screen in a movie also starring Stephen Colbert, Matthew Broderick, Sarah Jessica Parker and Philip Seymour Hoffman.
asap wanted more, so we asked them to pitch other TV-movie adaptations. Dinello came up with four, including bloody surgery close-ups and a flying and spying nun. Sedaris went the opposite direction, creating two sitcoms out of decidedly downer movies.
Here are their pitches, in their own words:
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"THE SURGERY MOVIE" (Dinello)
PITCH: It's on Discovery, they have this show where they show operations. They'll do close-ups of having a gall bladder removed. That would be a good film.
PLOT: Whether or not the operation is going to be successful. What more of a plot does there need to be? That kind of (stuff) sells itself.
STAR: You cast a celebrity, and whether or not they need a gall bladder out, you take their gall bladder out. How about Clive Owen, because he'd look good unconscious.
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"MR. ED PLEADS FOR HIS LIFE" (Dinello)
PITCH: Isn't there a horse who just won one of the big races, was it the Kentucky Derby? But then he hurt his leg so they were going to have to kill him. I'd like to see "Mr. Ed" (1961-66) made into a movie, but with that plot. And then you could have the horse begging for his life. Because it could talk, right? He'd say stuff like "I'm fine! Get me back out there. It'll heal." And they'd keep shaking their head going, "Nah, we've gotta take him out." Then the horse would say "I've got a lot of (stuff) on you and I'm going to take it to the press."
PLOT: A lot of it would be just the horse begging for his life. There'd be good scenes of when the horse is running the Kentucky Derby, a lot of trash talking. Only Mr. Ed (would talk). The other horses wouldn't talk. They'd just take it.
ENDING: He would win their hearts in the end and they'd let him live. And then, like he'd be crossing the street or something and they'd be like "No!" A truck would hit him. It would be accidental.
STAR: Who would be a good horse? Who's got a horse face? No, I can't say that. Ah hell, we'll make it Clive Owen again. I want to cast Clive Owen in everything I do.
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"THE FLYING, SPYING NUN" (Dinello)
PITCH: It's "The Flying Nun" (1967) and they could use her for a reconnaissance mission, even though it goes against their Christian beliefs. ... There could also be a human story, before they recruit her. She hasn't flown in a while and she's having trouble getting off the ground. She's put on a little weight. There's a "Rocky"-esque thing. She's gotta get back in shape.
PLOT: She flies to like Korea or over Iran. They shoot one of the flaps of her hat and she spins out of control. They have pity on her initially 'cuz she's a nun. They torture her for a while. There's the obligatory torture. And the U.S. government, they refuse to retrieve her. They don't want to admit that they had anything to do with it. So a group of priests get together, like a SWAT team, and they go in and save her.
ENDING: They didn't realize just how violent they could be. But then when they've slaughtered a bunch of Middle Easterners or Koreans -- it doesn't matter -- they're in a van driving to some safety point, and they're sort of recounting it: "I didn't know that we had it in us. The carnage we were able to cause."
STAR: Who's the nun? Meryl Streep's too straight casting maybe. What's her face? How about Kathy Bates? Kathy Bates is the nun. Clive Owen, he's one of the priests. He's a leader of the priest strike force.
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"WACKY NEIGHBORS AND CANNIBALISM" (Dinello)
PITCH: How 'bout like if that show "Family," (1976-80) remember that show? That had like Kristy McNichol in it. And "Eight is Enough" (1977-81). They meet each other on some sort of weekend getaway, and they all decide to go on a vacation together in the Andes. And the plane crashes, and they run out of food, so then it turns into a cannibal Hatfields and McCoys. They start eating each other and pointing fingers and things escalate.
PLOT: The gang from "Family," they eat like the youngest of the "Eight is Enough." And they split him up amongst the group from "Family." And the "Eight is Enough" crowd, they're pretty upset about it. And the group from "Family" goes "You said 'Eight is enough,' as if like you've got too many. Now seven is just fine. I don't know why you're complaining. We're doing you a favor." But no one's happy when a member of the family gets eaten by your neighbors.
ENDING: Then it becomes "And Then There Were None" (1945). People keep eating each other until there's only one. And oddly enough it's Dick Van Patten reprising his role. He's the last one left. And he falls in a crevice and he starves to death. (Does he eat himself?) Yeah, why not. I'd pay good money to see an elderly Dick Van Patten eat himself.
CAST: This is like the cast of "The Poseidon Adventure." This is Hank Azaria. We'll put the Olsens in it, Blythe Danner, Emilio Estevez. The Olsens, they become like wolves.
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"SITCOM SUICIDE" (Sedaris)
PITCH: I always thought "Night, Mother" (1986) would be a funny sitcom. And each week she tries to kill herself in a different way. I really thought that would be a nice message for teenage girls who are suicidal. ... It's such a huge problem. But I think there could be a message there that could actually be quite helpful.
PLOT: Each week her mom catches her at the last moment and she ends up not killing herself. Anywhere from hanging herself, shooting herself, slicing her wrist, taking an overdose of pills, trying to throw herself in front of moving traffic. I guess I would go buy a book on ways people kill themselves and steal ideas from that book.
STAR: I would like to be. I would like to play a teenager now that I'm 45. That'd be fun. The mom, it'd be Kathy Bates.
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"SOPHIE'S CHOICES" (Sedaris)
PITCH: My other one is "Sophie's Choice," (1982) making that into a sitcom. Each week she has an incredible tough decision to make.
PLOT: You know, you can only have one pet. Are you going to kill your dog or are you going to kill your pet? She would just have to live with it. We would actually see someone with no character build character, over a season or until it got canceled.
STAR: Who would be Sophie? Tori Spelling, I don't know. I guess it would have to be someone young and pretty if you want people to watch it.
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asap staff reporter Ryan Pearson has already greenlit all of these projects at the asap studio.
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