6th Grade Fashion Police

I haven't been updating this blog as pitch season seems to have passed. As such, I haven't been putting together new pitch packages. However, I do have some less-developed ideas I'm going to post about a little here. To start, here's "6th Grade Fashion Police".



The 6th Grade Fashion Police are three preteen girls who think they've got beauty all figured out. Now, they take it upon themselves to push their skewed concept of good fashion upon their classmates and fellow citizens.

The three girls are:


Michelle- is the founder of the 6th Grade Fashion Police, and she won't let you forget it. After years of being picked on and ridiculed, she's come to the decision that everyone else is wrong and she simply knows something they don't. Pushy and stubborn, she rules the girls with an iron fist and crusades with determination to beautify anyone within grabbing distance with her personal sense of style. Unfortunately for those within said grabbing distance, Michelle's sense of style is completely bizarre and contains such arbitrary rules as "Patches are the new awesome." and " If you can't cuff it, I won't wear it".



Janey- While also a product of a picked-on early childhood, Janey would rather hide in a corner and attempt to disappear completely rather than be proactive about it. However, she's Michelle's second-in-command to be supportive to her longtime friend. Whine as she might (and whine she DOES), she does find that the job brings out her inner Martha Stewart, and she enjoys being handy. Sometimes, Michelle and Janey's respective unusual fashion senses clash, often causing Michelle to belittle her.



Hunoz- Michelle couldn't be more proud of herself for discovering this specimen. Hunoz, while of only slightly below-average intelligence, never speaks a word of English, opting instead for a series of grunts. The real workhorse of the trio, Hunoz does her best to follow Michelle's (numerous) orders. However, being a little... different in the head, Hunoz often botches the tasks at hand in bizarre ways. Sometimes "Get the door." sounds like "Play in traffic." to Hunoz.

Frog Raccoon Strawberry part 3: Animatic!

Ok, folks, here's a chance to see one of these crazy ideas in semi-action! Here is an animatic for a proposed pilot episode, Trainiac. It's all the brilliant handiwork of John Berry! If you like this, check out his awesome cartoon, "Evil Josh & Billy" at http://eviljoshandbilly.keentoons.com/ !

In case you don't see anything below, check out http://www.moobeard.com/strawberry.swf

Frog Raccoon Strawberry part 2: Stories

Here are some stories that John Berry and I came up with over the phone. We got very in-depth, so there's more to read than usual, but I hope you'll all enjoy it!


We Do Meteor Right- Strawberry and Marissa are out enjoying parsnip smoothes until Marissa suddenly warns of a comet hurdling toward their town.
Strawberry- "Oooooh! Did you use your amazing otherworldly mental powers to sense that?"
Marissa- "No. It's right there." *Points toward obvious comet in the sky*
Strawberry decides to stop the comet because a comet once slapped her uncle. After summoning her leaping powers, she climbs to the top of the comet where she realizes she can steer it. She briefly considers driving it into the US Mint (visiting town for one day only!) since a penny angered her earlier that day, but she instead steers it into the world's largest marshmallow chicky (visiting town for one day only!) so it would land softly. Instead of splattering all over, the meteorite brings the chicky alive into a giant marshmallow monster. It tries to eat people, but they just fall through it's body and come out all goopy. Strawberry sticks it's foot in a car that's been basking in the heat all day. Despite the fact that only it's foot is inside, the chicky monster melts very slowly do it's doom screaming loudly and annoying the townspeople for days.


Pop Idle- Strawberry's frog suit is being dry-cleaned, so she has to wear her moose suit in this episode. Pippi Possum challenges Strawberry to a singing competition. Strawberry agrees because it sounds like fun, but she insists on going out for an ice cream sandwich first. At this point, there's a very long drawn-out scene (all one shot) of Strawberry eating an ice cream sandwich very slowly in the foreground while Pippi, in the background, gets progressively angrier... followed up by a slightly shorter scene of Strawberry eating the wrapper while Pippi bonks her head repeatedly into the wall. Strawberry, Marissa, and Pippi all converge at the local self-contained auditorium (visiting town for one day only!) Oddly, other competitors just kinda showed up. Judging the competition are Washed-Up 80s Singer, Way-Too-Nice Lady, and Marissa with a moustache and a top hat (which is enough to fool Pippi). When Pippi gets on stage and performs, she hits a very peculiar sour note. Marissa warns Strawberry that there's an avalanche nearby.
Strawberry- "Oooh! Did you use your uncanny alien avalanche-sense?"
Marissa- "No. Pippi hit an avalanche note."
Strawberry runs off to the local avalanche, much to Pippi's immediate protest. She runs after and gets in Strawberry's way, but Marissa discreetly uses her telekinetic power to move out of harm's way. Strawberry tries to summon her inner-frog, but since she's wearing a moose suit, she can only summon her inner-moose and she uses her hyper-antlers to contain the falling debris.

RoboTot- In his giant playpen lair, Slippery Weasel is watching his windup TV thingee that plays music (anyone know what you call those things?) when it shows (somehow) a commercial for "Baby's First Mecha". Slippery calls to order it on his baby phone (It says "Haw Haw! Numbers are fun!" when you dial it, but it actually works). When it arrives, the first thing he does is bring it to Strawberry's house to gloat about all the stuff he's gonna wreck with it. Horrified, Strawberry runs to Marissa's house to ask if she can borrow a mecha. Marissa acts offended at first that Strawberry would assume that she'd have one just because she's an alien, but then her parents yell at her in their native alien language and make her lend Strawberry one of the mechas they keep in their garage. There's a green frog-looking one, but Marissa warns that it's stuck on the all-60s-protest-singer radio station. Strawberry chooses it anyway. She starts really enjoying the music and dances around in mid mecha-battle causing Slippery to get the upper-hand. Just when he's about to destroy her, a Baby's First Mecha representative arrives and takes Slippery's robot away. Since he's under 18, he's not allowed to order things over the phone.


Big Fat Pain in the Future- Strawberry wants to test some theories she has. She combines weight gain powder with slim fast and, as she theorized, they cancelled each other out and disappeared. She tries this with several other things (pasta and antipasto, creamy and chunky peanut butter, accordions and bagpipes, nooks and crannies) and they all do the same, but the reaction has left a giant vortex in Strawberry's kitchen. A giant, robotlike version of Strawberry comes out of it. It claims that it's Strawberry Extreme: the one who will take over the reigns as Frog Raccoon Strawberry in the distant future. Despite having a deep, gravelly voice, it insists that it's a woman. They try to watch TV together, but Extreme wants to watch only rubbish and makes dumb future-centric commentaries.
Extreme: "In the future, the hamburger eats YOU! HAAAAAHAHAHAHA!"
In an attempt to get Extreme to leave, Strawberry tells her that she's tired and that the noisy vortex is going to keep her awake. Extreme simply presses a button and eliminates the vortex. Since she can't get rid of Extreme, Strawberry lets her rent a room upstairs.

There's one more story idea, "Trainiac", but rather than summarize it here, I'm going to make another post later with John's hilarious animatic for it!

Frog Raccoon Strawberry part 1

Ok, some of you may know I wasn't planning to make a pitch for this one for a while because I didn't know how to explain it. Well, things started getting a little clearer a few months back when John Berry (http://jeibi.deviantart.com), creator of the world's awesomest internet cartoon series, "Evil Josh & Billy" (http://eviljoshandbilly.keentoons.com/) surprised me with a short Strawberry animatic that played just as I imagined the show should go. I was overjoyed! Still, I had put the show on the backburner since I didn't want to pitch it without finishing a pilot with John. Well, this week, I'm going to have a chance to pitch it to a studio (which I'm not naming on purpose) who I think will really like this idea, so today I called John and we did some more development over the phone.


FROG RACCOON STRAWBERRY: Strawberry Fields is a raccoon girl in a frog suit living in a human world. A bit touched in the head, Strawberry uses her supposed "inner-frog" abilities to stop disasters and protect herself and her home turf from her enemies.


Strawberry Fields- Strawberry is a raccoon, but she truly believes she's a frog trapped in a raccoon's body, so she always wears a frog costume. Strawberry, as you can imagine, is a very rediculous individual and enjoys unusual activities like sipping parsnip smoothies and reading the newspaper aloud in pig latin, but she often finds a sense of duty within herself when events in her (often recent) past motivate her to get involved. "A comet hurdling toward the town?! A comet once slapped my uncle!" In the face of adversity, Strawberry calls upon her "inner frog" powers that she only assumes she has. In fact, it often seems like she's making up powers frogs wouldn't even have.


Marissa Leepthrokk- While her parents are aliens, Marissa was born here on Earth. She's an Alien-American. Marissa is a very low-key person and wants to stick out from the crowd as little as possible. She has some superhuman abilities and futuristic technology around her house, but she tries to keep all that a secret. She hangs around Strawberry for a few reasons: For one, anyone seems normal next to Strawberry. Secondly, Strawberry has such strange interests, being her friend naturally means interesting new experiences.


Pippi Possum- Pippi is an obnoxious young possum who's determined to be Strawberry's arch rival. Pippi periodically challenges Strawberry to competitions in an attempt to show her up, though Strawberry, being mindlessly cheerful, is completely undeterred. Pippi secretly finds Strawberry's antics fascinating and sometimes makes up lame reasons to tag along.


Slippery Weasel- Few people know this, but babies with facial hair have special powers. In Slippery's case, he can teleport from place to place and levitate at will. Slippery is a very evil baby, but since he has no friends, he brags to Strawberry about his plans. In the end, though, he IS a baby. He lives in a giant playpen lair filled with items that look and act like toys, but are functional.

Let me know what you think! Stories coming very soon!

Ralph & Bichael part 2; Stories

Soooo... I changed the name of the show to Ralph and Bichael since apparently "Bikey" is deragatory British slang. Anyway, here are some story concepts.

Hike & Save- Ralph and Bichael go to the grocery store. Ralph asks Bichael to get a jar of Pickled Atechoke Lungs that's very high on the supermarket shelf. Ralph hands Bichael a grappling hook and he climbs up. It's so high up that the top of the shelf is covered with snow and Bichael gets attacked by shelf goats.



Clone Alone- A local hippie/mad scientist accidentally drops his new cloning ray out of his apartment window and duplicates Ralph. Suddenly there are two Ralphs ordering Bichael around and they're giving him conflicting demands. Eventually, the Ralphs have a power struggle and fight each other.

OctoPanda- Ralph and Bichael are secret agents on a rescue mission. The Bond girl they save sees how Ralph orders Bichael around and confronts them about their friendship. That leaves the three having a deep discussion while dodging ninjas.



Random P. I.- Ralph and Bichael are the new assistants to Brick Duckbill, a detective platypus. Brick has watched too many old detective movies and narrates his every move aloud and everyone can hear him. Despite having the proper gruff demeanor, Brick is an awful detective and can't deduce his way out of a paper bag. Bichael eventually finds a crucial clue while doing his errand boy work and Ralph convinces the guilty party to confess with his powers of persuasion.

(Hey Arica, I used your froggerton photo. I don't think you'll mind, but let me know if it's a problem!)

Ralphy Panda and the Half-Baked Ditz- Ralph and Bichael are students at a wizarding school. Ralph found a neat new spell written in the margins of his textbook and he uses Bichael as his guinea pig. When it turns Bichael's head into a frog, Ralph struggles to guess the spell that will turn him back to normal changing him into various strange things in the process.



PandaRangers: Lightweight Rescue- Ralph and Bichael are Panda Rangers.They start bickering inside their giant robot leading it to beat itself up.

Ralph and Bikey part 1

I made a pitch to a studio the other day (I'm keeping it anonymous on purpose, so please don't ask, ok?) and while I had brought everything with me, the only show I ended up pitching was Riley Raccoon because they were looking for creature comedies only. I realized, OOPS! I ran out of creature comedies! I'm saving Caffeine and Johnny for later, I don't want to pitch Frog Raccoon Strawberry without John Berry, and I don't really know what to do with Brick Duckbill yet. So, I decided to take a Red Panda (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Panda) character that I'd been sketching and quickly develop it into a show.



The show is called Ralph and Bikey! Ralph and Bikey is about the off-kilter adventures of two red pandas: Ralph, the charismatic and persuasive one, and Bikey, the gullible and naïve one. They live in a super-cartoony animal universe and have strange experiences ranging from a cloning experiment gone awry to exploring alien civilzations, and scaling massive supermarket shelves like a mountain.

***
That's really as concept-y as it gets! Said network wants something VERY character driven, so I'm going to let them drive it completely without any recurring plot or even setting so the boys can take it wherever they want. Here's some more about them:



Ralph R. Panda- Red Pandas by nature are animals who specialize in laziness. Ralph is no exception and he likes to use his cool demeanor and fast tongue to convince others to do everything for him, especially Bikey. Ralph is kind of like that older kid you knew when you were in school who would try to snow you all the time because you were young and dumb. Ralph likes Bikey a lot and they've been friends since they were both kids, but that doesn't stop him from making him do the dirty work.



Bichael Firefox- Despite being an only child and currently a young adult, Bikey was born to be a little brother. He's often confused, and as such, easily lead by Ralph's fast talk. Bikey often takes on whatever task Ralph wants him to do, until he inevitably fails and they have to work as a team.

What do you think, folks? Do you guys like this kind of show? Leave me lots of comments! Story ideas coming real soon!

Dunbar and Opie part 2: Stories

Here are some Dunbar and Opie story ideas Shannon and I have come up with.



Botherly Love - It's the first day of school and Opie's first day of High School! Dunbar has been asked to give the student body a tour of the school. In the process, he manages to embarrass Opie with stories of his youth, though he doesn’t mean any harm. Opie attempts to get his revenge by telling the entire school horrible things about Dunbar over the loudspeaker, but since everybody already knows Dunbar is a huge dork, it’s to no particular avail. Still, Dunbar gets the hint and tries to make it up to Opie by getting Diane to introduce him to her spooky little sister, Lady Dunsinane. Meanwhile, Leon goes to his first day of the second grade. Leon is under the impression that he is a Space Ranger and is not at school, but on the planet Tettenbaum. He makes it his mission to exterminate Ralph Orglesnirtion, a particularly bratty, stuck-up fellow student. Leon believes that Ralph is a spy from the planet Torgon.


Nevermind the Babies- Momula and Superdad want to go out for the evening, and don’t want to leave the kids home alone. Since Dunbar is ridiculous, Momula hires Diane to babysit, despite the fact that she’s Dunbar’s age. Dunbar tries to make the best of it and score with Diane, but she takes her job seriously and he follows all of Momula's orders. Opie gets sick of this rule-following stupidity and duct tapes everyone to the wall. Meanwhile, Superdad and Momula enjoy a romantic evening at the mud baths and reminisce about how they first met.


Spooky Girl – Raven spots Dunbar playing Bust-A-Booty (Disco Polka Edition) at the local arcade and is instantly smitten. He’s scared to death at the first sight of her and runs away. The next day, she spots him at school and chases him all over the campus. Dunbar tries to distract her by getting her interested in Opie, but she couldn’t care less. After school, Opie gives in and plays baseball with his friends. Opie, by now driven to distraction by Raven’s beauty, tries to get her attention when she chases Dunbar outside. When she sees him in a dirty baseball uniform, she’s convinced he’s a jock and she’s even less interested. Meanwhile, Momula sends Superdad out to do some errands so he won't catch her stalking hapless victims.


Merry Sunshine- Opie starts talking to Lady Dunsinane about how he needs a real woman in his life. She takes it as an insult, so out of revenge. She sets Opie up on a blind date with the extremely cheerful Brittany. It's torture for Opie, just as she hoped, but she also gained new competition for Opie’s affection. Meanwhile, Raven takes Leon and her little sister, Gina to Aloyisius Ground Beef's (a Chuck E. Cheese-like taco restaurant) in an attempt to find out all she can about Dunbar. All she learns is that Leon is insane.


Trip Over the Fantastic Lights- Dunbar volunteers himself and Opie to decorate for the school dance. While the boys hang streamers, Lady Dunsinane and Brittany each plan ways to get Opie all to themselves. Similarly, Raven’s plans a Dunbar trap for the dance. Momula and Superdad chaperone the dance... and several of the kids leave without their blood. Opie plays a song for Raven, but Dunbar thinks it sounds too empty, so he tries to "help" with his accordion. Finally, the villainous Cyberlad tries to bomb the dance, but is defeated by Superdad in a smash-up battle that wrecks the gym.

Working For the Weak End- It's Bring-Your-Son-To-Work Day! Opie goes out vampiring with Momula and Dunbar goes out superheroing with Superdad. Meanwhile, Leon is smitten with a classmate named Gina. He seems to think that she's a Torgonian slave girl. Ralph and Gina get put together in some sort of group assignment and Leon thinks he has to save her from his clutches. Leon is teamed up with Elbert, the son of a psychiatrist. He finds Leon absolutely fascinating.


Exquisite Dead Guy- Opie says something to make Lady Dunsinane angry again, so she takes a walk through the graveyard to clear her head. A ghost follows her out. At first, she's thrilled, but as soon as the ghost starts to speak and she sees what a timid soft-spoken spirit he is, she's disappointed and irritated. She refuses to listen to him even though he needs her help and her help alone in order to move on to the afterlife. Meanwhile, Dunbar and Opie buy a hamster and Opie tries to train as his minion of the night.

Defeat Man: Empty Warrior- The makers of “Space Ranger Magazine” decided to publish an article explaining how to make a time portal as a gag. They didn’t think in a million years any kid would actually try to make one. Leon builds one and pulls Defeat Man from certain doom in his own dimension to Earth. Leon drags his new, depressed friend all over town to thwart imaginary dangers. The family doesn’t want to accept him at first, until they each figure out ways they can find him useful.