We're lazy students sitting on our arses. Maybe we should get off them this week and write that comedy....

[Milo]

Why not perform this on the internet as a real time exhibition?

I really like this idea.

[Purple Tentacle]

So who's written something then? Anything?

Show me your notes.

[fudgemonkey]

Here's a sketch I wrote while bored 6 hours ago.

Intro music
VOICEOVER: This is the first time anyone has ever done anything as monumental as this.

DAVE-I just stole a sandwich.

Sound of typing

HARRY-Oh

Huge canned laughter

VOICEOVER:That's what you won't be hearing on this.

DAVE-Anyway, the other day my neighbour started complaining about the weather again.

VOICEOVER-Boring twat.

DAVE-What?

VOICEOVER-YOu can't hear me, I'm a voiceover.

OLD WOMAN-This isn't comedy, get the remote.

DAVE-It's radio you shrunken hag.

OLD WOMAN-I'm your mother.

Dramatic horns.

Explosion of feedback.

DAVE-STOP BEING PRETENTIOUS AND POST MODERN NOW!

Dave's Neighbour-WHAT'S GOING ON HERE! Why is everyone talking in Capitals?

VOICEOVER-We all live inside some badly written script.

Huge canned laughter and music cue.

DAVE-STOP THAT!

Dave's Neighbour-You have no proof I was doing anything, and how DARE you look in my trailer. What's mine is mine! What an A hole.

CHRIS MORRIS-I'm not funny anymore. la la la la

DAVE-Stop being weird! Or at least the Daily Mail's idea of Weird!

Music cue played on steel drums.

DAVE-Anyone here ahvign a panic attack.

MILDRED-Hi, I'm new to this forum.

DAVE-Let's all be pointlessly hostile to the new guy!

VOICEOVER-All you people make me sick. Mildred, get out to fthe way.

Sound of machine gun fire.

Music cue.

VOICEOVER-STOP THE MUSIC NOW!

VOCODER OVER XYLOPHONES-No
We will not
And I inserted a clothes peg in your mother

Sound of an explosion.

MILDRED-Hmmmmm....still, less hostile than that Cookd and Bombd. Nathan Barley was great. I work for the Daily Mail.

Screams

VOCODER-I CANNOT LET YOU LIVE
YOU GAVE THE BOOSH A GOOD REVIEW

Gun shot.

Drum roll.


I apologise.

[neveragain]

Gurgh! (Shock, disdain and bitter reflection!)

I must apologise profusely for staking my place at the beginning (or near enough) of this project and then proceeding to not bother my arse one iota. However, in my defence, nimmy nim nim.. no, in my defence I have been rehearsing and now appearing in a play I was dragged into co-writing so at least I have some semblance of a reason. As does Shoulders of course.

So... sorry. Slap on wrists et cetera.

[Mister Cairo]

How is the comedy going?

Who will it be pitched to? Will we be allowed a preview?

Will you be reading out real posts or writng your own? I don't see why you couldn't mix real and fake. This board is very funny at times. I might send in some suggestions if you are still writing in the autumn.

[neveragain]

I don't know about Shoulders' progress but I've done nothing and I'm sure all involved would welcome your suggestions. Have at you!

[Dusty Gozongas]

How is the comedy going?

Beat me to it.  I only popped in for a cuppa anyway.  White, no sugar or lemming jokes.

[Why I Hate Tables]

I sent a few suggestions and various things to SHoulders, and don't know what he thought, so I'm guessing the consensus was "shite".

[fudgemonkey]

I sent a few suggestions and various things to SHoulders, and don't know what he thought, so I'm guessing the consensus was "shite".

I saw your webpage, so yes.

[Mister Cairo]

Tell me how an audio-only programme can adequately depict people posting to threads on an internet messageboard, thinking to themselves about the posts (if you were going to include that sort of thing), PMing other specific members about posts/threads; whilst keeping the audience easily informed as to what thread is being posted to, and what has been previously posted in that thread. Try to think about being blind and trying to participate in this forum - even having software which audibly read posts to you, it would be an absolute nightmare. Edit: previewing this post has encouraged me to include quoted pieces of text in that scenario.

Can't think of any submissions as yet but will PM/e-mail Shoulders?-Stomach! if I do.

I've been reading back through this thread and was debating about how to seperate posts from thoughts. You could have a clicking noise (that sounds like the noise Windows makes when you click on a link if you're speakers are on and you haven't been playing around with the sound assingments) at the start and end of a post.

e.g.

I wonder what (character) has been up to today. He said he was about to kill his neighbour for watching his children undress* I'll ask him

(click) Have you smashed in the skull of Dorset's answer to Robert Oliver**(click)

I'd better keep up the pretence. This is getting exciting.

(click) No, the queue for baseball bats was too long, I ended up sinking a pint in the Testicle and Trumpet instead. (click).

I do think there should be a "shocking " thread involving a poster claiming he will do something terrible. A real-life example is this one
http://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=5480&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0


Then you could have another sound for a PM. A secret-like sound, as only one person can read the finished PM. Not sure how the threads would work-I supose you could have a nice clear voice reading "Thread: The Lebanon Crisis. Date: Friday, May 4th. Time :4:23 am. Place: The bedroom of Ape Rapist.".

Another thread to consider should be the "wacky" unfunny post wich leads on to conflict and "black" humour***
http://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=141


*his children, not the neighbours
*a friend of sidney cooke, thankfully dead, hopefully in hell
*** not meant in a racist way, but what other word can you use?

[Mister Cairo]

I'm really looking forward to this. For pitching it, I assume you'll pitch to the BBC? Try BBC 2 as BBC 3 is full of shit comedy aimed at the morons you see around every day. You might need a bit of satire- use a post to lampoon David Cameron "His hair is so smooth it must have been washed after he removed his head from his arse".

To be honest I would be concerned about who is the audience for this thing. In the same way that Nathan Barley seemed to be soley for media wankers in Soho, I'd be concerned that a sitcom about the idiosyncracies of internet forums is far too esoteric to not only be appealing, but difficult to pitch. It would be a mistake to assume that all 14-30 year olds are familiar with the conventions of internet forums, I'm the only one of my mates sad enough to hang around on forums for example. Isn't it all a bit esoteric and in-jokey?

I've looked at many forums: Billfans (for the Bill), The Student Room (academic/teenagey), Something Awful, LoveandFriends. There seem to be a wide variety of forums with a wide variety of generes. Most major bands have forums, for example.

Have Your Say must be referenced. Please. There have been some great posts on there,easy to parody

"If I see a Muslim immigrant walking round my city one more time, I'm going to vote BNP. The New Communist Party are destroying what England was founded on. But the gay BBC won't print this, as it'll bring down their plan to introduce lesbians into all dramas. Ha!
Derek from St Clanger
Recommended by 10 people"

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Yes, I remember someone proposing a similar thing. The main problem with that would be it would get irritating. I personally think a small gap would suffice. It's important to remember that because you're hearing them, it should be similar to hearing a normal conversation. It's not intended to be too stilted or atomised.

The idea is that each poster has a distinctive voice. The main characters will be heard the most often and like any radio show they will just be recognised by their voice. For one-off characters and less regular characters I think a simple namedropping would suffice, IE- "I can't say I agree with that, PosterX."
and the names wouldn't neccessarily need to be added if they're unimportant.

The narration will introduce the titles to a topic, and introduce PM's in a hushed tone. As it's on radio, it would add the icing on the cake to have the message sound as if it's delivered in an enclosed room for the added secrecy effect.

I've also been thinking that the forum itself should be really quite small, with only a dozen or so regular members, but with frequent visits from people dropping by. This would help close the scenario in- the audience need to be given a stable scenario with some stock scenes in every episode. A small forum would allow this to happen and cement the idea that there's a little clique going on.

Cheers for your thoughts Mr. C.

RE: Why I Hate Tables

I did look at your site and it gave me a few ideas. Thanks a lot for showing an interest. The thing we're [supposed to be] working on is intended for radio though, so it'll have a different style.

Re- The project

As for what I've done, I got delayed before the summer due to bloody shitting work I had to do, and totally forgot about it. After that I've kept putting it off, admittedly and I've worked on other stuff and I wrote a sitcom pilot I had an idea for, which has just been sent off to the writers room at the BBC.  When I started the thread I wasn't intending for me to be the 'leader', but I suppose that's what happened, and naturally with no work forthcoming from me, the other people involved aren't going to be too fussed either. I think this will still work as an open project- people writing it just need to know exactly what the format will be, then I'm sure we'll have some contributions. And that's where my lazy arse comes in- I'll need to write up that to kickstart it- I'm not going to set a date or anything, but it'll come.

[weekender]

Has this failed yet?

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

You'll be the first to know if it does, I assure you.

[Johnny Yesno]

The narration will introduce the titles to a topic, and introduce PM's in a hushed tone. As it's on radio, it would add the icing on the cake to have the message sound as if it's delivered in an enclosed room for the added secrecy effect.

You could have background chatter, like in a restaurant or somewhere, for the main threads and no background noise for the pms. Thoughts, if you even need them, could be echoey or something.

[Mister Cairo]

An idea for the meet one might be to have a poster trying to get right the screennames of various posters, spending hours in front of the mirror, as then fucking them all up (with rude deviations) as soon as they get to the meet.

[Purple Tentacle]

So who's written something then?

[Mister Cairo]

I'm trying to think of stuff to submit, but I'm not actually a writer. I'd rather submit bits once people start writing and an episode structre has been fleshed out.
I might write a bit on HYS, I've posted so much in that thread.

[Purple Tentacle]

Write something about The Most Right Wing Forum in the world.

[hencole]

Film an array of posters setting fire to, and then eating shoulders stomach, inlude a canned laughter soundtrack.
Then film said posters vomiting up the charred remains into a bathtub.
Then get them to reasemble said charred remains into something resembling, but all together different to the original .
Roll credits.
Wait for cash to roll in.
Store in bathtub.

[Mister Cairo]

Film an array of posters setting fire to, and then eating shoulders stomach, inlude a canned laughter soundtrack.
Then film said posters vomiting up the charred remains into a bathtub.
Then get them to reasemble said charred remains into something resembling, but all together different to the original .
Roll credits.
Wait for cash to roll in.
Store in bathtub.

I think Ricky Gervais is planning something similar, and he does The Dance at the end.

And why charred remains? Surely its better not to overcook?

[butnut]

Hey, once this has had its hit radio and TV days, you're going to have to think big and think movies. Here's a little plot that you can work on for that day:

The year is 2040. The planet is dying. So is our hero. Given less than 12 months to live, he decides to track down all his old friends and enemies that he used to know from the internet. He gathers them together in one room for the first and last time, as they go back to... THE CHATROOM.

It'll make you laugh and cry, as you realise the 10 saddest people in the world weren't quite as sad as you first thought.

[Marv Orange]

There is only 3 us in there at the moment so'll you'll have to revise your plot.

[sproggy]

I've an idea, why not base the plot around a group of comedy writers struggling to cope with the problems of everyday life, then upset some people with hilarious consequences.

Sounds good to me.