TV Plot Pitches

Nothing’s new, so I readily admit that these TV plot pitches I developed while walking from Penn Station to work this morning may have already been piloted, suggested or exhausted, but I figured I could at least capitalize on my unfamiliarity with TV shows past and present for your entertainment.

1. Cheers proved barflies were a goldmine of sitcom hilarity, while The Office showed white-collar comedy, like white-collar crime, often pays off. Why couldn’t a show be dedicated half and half, like Law & Order: the characters work during the day, then hit the bar at night. Dramacomediarama!
2. Why is it that television kids have to be “cute”? I think it’d be fun to gather a bunch of older-than-their-years child actors often typecast in serious, hard-bitten roles (assorted Culkin, Dakota “Jodie Foster” Fanning and that kid who saw dead people and then got charged with drunk driving) to enact a courtroom drama or gritty detective show where there’s never any recognition made that they range in age from 12 to 18.
3. A bunch of arcade-game characters from the ’80s move into a boarding house. Hilarity ensues! Pac-Man can’t stop eating and chain smoking because he insists ghosts are after him. Donkey Kong goes on malt liquor benders and hurls furniture at people. He harbors a grudge against Mario, who has a mean Italian temper and a serious case of plumber’s crack. And nobody likes Tempest because he’s always knocking stuff off the mantle. Wait, make that a haunted house.