It is the year 20XX, and things are still stupid. Sam Mustafa, low-level exec working on Brut-Stobel's Sniper Cola, learns too much about how the soda is made and gets a bullet in the back for the trouble. Reduced to a brain in a jar in a forgotten corner of society, he dreams of reclaiming his life, his body, and his modest salary. Until then, he essentially works as a coffee filter thanks to his jar's complicated nutrient solution.
His coworkers include Moose, whose antidepressants work by making him think sitcoms are real, Honey, an ex-cyborg assassin who just wants to live a quiet life now, and Emily, who is... essentially just a cyberpunk version of me, the writer. Actually, looking back on this, all the characters feel like parodies of me in some way. Except for the cyborg assassin, I guess.
Cyber Cafe is something I'm deeply proud of. I'm a big fan of sitcoms as an art form, and getting to produce one for the web was a dream come true for me. I'd love to revisit it someday.
I write a lot of spec scripts just to get jokes out of my head, but I hear conflicting opinions about the efficacy of putting them online for the world to read. Still, if any of these sound like a fun read to you, pop me an email and we'll see if I can provide you with some PDFs.
A Gentleman's Gentleman - The CIA installs a puppet dictator over a fictional former Welsh prison colony that is, and always has been, at war with a neighboring former Welsh prison colony. As the new boss slaughters each and every member of the former government, the Presidential mansion's head butler tried to keep his, well, his head. He keeps a stiff upper lip and faithfully maintains peace amid chaos, despite the new boss's mistress becoming sexually fixated on him, despite the new cook openly plotting to poison the new boss, and despite his distaste for the new President. But it will all be worth it if he can survive long enough to find evidence to exonerate and free the former President - the butler's one, true love.
The Whitechapel Explorers Society - Victorian England wasn't as white as you may think. Even at the height of colonialism, people of all races lived, loved, and even - despite the barriers posed by racism - thrived in the British imperial core. This pilot explored a cross-section of this forgotten Britain through the lens of the fictional Whitechapel Explorers Society, a kind of humane bug trap for the oddballs, crackpots and outsiders of London. It contains a man named Horsparsleigh, which is a fake name I made up and fell in love with. Just look at it. It's so silly! "Horsparsleigh." Comes in special Blackadder Multicam and Animated variants. The Animated version has a talking Jackelope, who I adore, but talking animals are, admittedly, an acquired taste. Not literally. Don't eat talking animals.
The Last Resort - The greatest assassin in the world, a poisons expert, gets his last job - killing the mafia don who killed his mentor. Finish the job and he gets everything he ever needed: Freedom from his mysterious employers, vengeance for his mentor, and back pay to the tune of a fifty million dollar investment fund, totally clean. He's installed at the hotel restaurant at the mafia don's favorite island resort, alongside a kill-crazy sous-chef he's meant to train. But when he rediscovers the joy of cooking, and falls in love with the don's niece, he finds himself struggling to finish the job.
Scale Model Student - Animated children's show about tiny little gnomes who live in your school - borrowing things from you, you might say - finding an abandoned toy robot and refitting it with advanced technology to fly it around like a Gundam. They meet a VERY lonely trans girl and help her patch things up with her best friend, who never knew what to say. Oh, and the immortal King Arthur works as a janitor, secretly keeping an eye on the tenuous, mystical seal on humanity's collective belief in magic that locked away all the monsters of the dark ages. The Breaklion will never be cut!
Ladyfingers - Here's a classic farce - like Frasier, I love Frasier - about the queers and burnouts who gather around a small-town anarchist book shop, cafe, and community hub. I once had a general meeting about this script where the producer simply could not fathom that an anarchist business could operate without, I don't know, committing acts of mass violence, I guess. "I don't know what to tell you," I said. "I worked at one through college and they seemed to do pretty well, although the biscotti had more anise than I usually prefer." She didn't like that.
Dying Up Here - A stand-up comic closes up a bad set with the funniest of all possible closers: The ceiling collapses and a piano falls on her head. She is miraculously resuscitated, but the demon assigned to torment her in Hell follows her back to life. Of course, knowing Hell is real and you're damned already, no take-backsies, has a powerful impact on your personal morality - almost as much as it does to fall in love with a hot priest struggling with his vows.
Cigarettes and Unicorns - A teen sitcom starlet wants nothing more than to escape her syrupy-sweet typecasting. Her songwriter wants nothing more than to be Bruce Springsteen. Sadly, the engine of Hollywood and their own ineptitude prevent them from escaping the all-consuming tendrils of the Fresney studio system.
Hitler Auditions - Based loosely on an old forum post. A struggling actor takes a job playing Hitler, only to find that he's required to keep the moustache between shoots. The only apartment that will take him is a 3 bedroom with two other Hitlers - one ashamed of who he's become, the other, concerningly, delighted about it. They don't like to talk about where their ex-roommate went when he vacated his bunker-- sorry, bedroom. His girlfriend says she doesn't mind the moustache... Why doesn't she mind the moustache?! For my money, the best characters of this script are the popular jock bullies in the apartment across the street, who all get typecast as different religious icons.
It is the year 20XX, and things are still stupid. Sam Mustafa, low-level exec working on Brut-Stobel's Sniper Cola, learns too much about how the soda is made and gets a bullet in the back for the trouble. Reduced to a brain in a jar in a forgotten corner of society, he dreams of reclaiming his life, his body, and his modest salary. Until then, he essentially works as a coffee filter thanks to his jar's complicated nutrient solution.