Robert Glenn Plotner, one of LB’s students, has been working like a sonufabitch on his own lilve-action self-created TV/web series, LET’S GET SPUNKY!
How’s it going? Hey, glad you asked. Here’s what RGP has to say:
“Let’s Get Spunky!” is a twisted spoof of classic television that combines both a reverence for the early TV years and a love of smartly demented humor.
The germ for Spunky came from “Unquote,” a literary piece I wrote for my then webzine “Seriously Disturbed Humor.” One of the made-up quotes attributed to various celebrities, politicians, and historical figures in “Unquote” was a line from a purportedly lost “Leave It To Beaver” episode, “The Beav’ and the Bikers” in which a psychotic Eddie Haskell threatens to teach Theodore the real meaning of the word ‘Beaver.’
The key insight was that it would be hilarious to play with the modern (sometimes political) nostalgia for an imagined America that never really existed within the context of a classic TV series, especially one in which the very meanings of words changed in relation to the present.
I wrote down the seed thought, put it in my idea file, and only took it out after years of frustration and near misses. I had determined to find the one project that excited me the most, a show I would love if I discovered it on television, and self-produce it as a test pilot.
That’s the brief history of how the little orphan pilot with a whole of Spunk set out to conquer the world and find himself a home — preferably on a cable network with a bold taste for original comedy. Hopefully there’s more of that plot to be written so that Spunky doesn’t end up sniveling under an overpass and getting befriended by “Breaking Bad.”
The sizzle reel is above, and here’s the full pilot, which all of us at TVWriter™ – especially munchman – truly enjoyed:
Robert says he’s eager to know your responses. He may even mean it. So fire – gently – when ready via Comments below.