Pitches for Reality Shows

With the exception of the choicest episodes of Cops, I'm not a fan of reality TV. I see enough melodramatic sideshows while I'm away from my living room.


Reality show domination hurts the chances of a writer finding a substantial audience, too. Writers get to be as obsolete as rotary phone fixers when most Americans prefer watching the unscripted sloth of Honey Boo-Boo's mom and the spontaneous sleaze of Snookie to a half-hour's worth of reading. No one is required to write the mind-numbing words that come out of Honey Mom's mouth before she sneezes twice and forgets her train of thought. No one has to construct a scene in which Snookie squats on a fire-hydrant. Snookie knows damn well when to do that, without help from a snobby writer, thank you very much.

The number of people whose existences are being recorded and broadcasted is swelling. Storage Wars, Breaking Amish, Duck Dynasty, Doomsday Preppers, Small Town Security, South Beach Tow, Buying Alaska, and four-dozen shows about pawn shops have proved there is no premise too obscure and no freak too clueless to be exploited by reality TV producers.

Since I have no clue how these quirky commoners get discovered, I decided to create my own characters and premises. If imagination is going to lead to bankruptcy, hell, maybe I should at least prove I've got a keen eye for this new breed of talent—those who somehow entertain without any of the skills of a traditional entertainer.


Here are three pitches for reality shows.


1.) C.C.'s Sea World

From: C.C. Crandle

Dear National Geographic Channel,

My dolphin-smitten wife, diabetic lesbian daughter, and I run a cotton candy stand at Sea World. As you might have guessed, I'm a sexist Vietnam vet who also plays flute in a Jethro Tull cover band.

The women in my life are infuriating. First off, since dolphins are so common at Sea World, the animal trainers are becoming suspicious of my wife Hattie's ogling of the dolphins and obscene remarks about their blow-holes. They suspect the old-ball-and-chain is sure to mount a dolphin (or possibly several) any day now. To see my high school sweetheart mutate into a ticking time-bomb of dolphin lust is right up there with the biggest letdowns in my life.

I've got other letdowns, though. Take my daughter Debbie. (I used to add “please” to that request, but it only made people laugh, and when I insisted that I was being serious, they still turned me down...so I gave up on the “Take my daughter Debbie please” line.) Debbie can't keep her damn sweet teeth out of our cotton candy supply! But when I banish her from the stand for awhile 'cause she's costing us too much cash, she goes off and spends hundreds of dollars on sugary snacks with that damn credit card her mom gave her. Debbie is seriously hooked on the white zing. In addition to Graham crackers, chocolate, and marshmallows, the s'mores she cooks on the grill outside of our trailer include ingredients like Gummy Worms, Pez, Starbursts, Honey Buns, Ho-Hos, and additional marshmallows. She chugs glasses of maple syrup on special occasions. For God's sake...on her driver's license photo, she's biting the head off a chocolate bunny. I tell ya, she's more diabetic than dame!

Plus, she's dating an older woman built like a manatee who, as luck would have it, gets paid to feed manatees. You can't make this crap up, National Geographic.

As for me, maybe I'm not perfect. Sometimes I catch hell for refusing to serve cotton candy to Asians, whether Vietnamese or otherwise, but my argument is that their slanty eyes still give me the willies. The higher-ups have also warned me to stop startling everyone I see sitting on a park bench by screaming at them, “Sitting on a park bench!” But my downfalls are nothing compared to those of the poison-ladies I'm doomed to live with.

While I'm imprisoned in this concrete wasteland, all I'm asking for is the attention of your fine network to document my woes, as a cautionary tale of how not to live (with the exception of the Jethro Tull skull tattoo, which more people really should embrace).

Unhappily yours while sitting on a park bench at Sea World,

C.C. Crandle

More Stories, and Additional Stories is the name of that eBook.