David Kronke was appointed Mayor of Television after a bloodless coup in 2000. Since then, he has improved infrastructure, championed greater educational opportunities and fought for reforms that have utterly erased corruption and incompetence from the television industry. Since Mr. Kronke has ascended to power, Television is a far better place. Pencils up, scribbling furiously
LOS ANGELES (AP) – An unprecedented explosion of creative energy erupted in Hollywood on the first day after the end of the writers strike, with 77 completed scripts for upcoming television episodes coming within hours after writers returned to work, with dozens more expected by the end of the day. Showrunners were careful to attribute the burst of creativity to screenwriters returning refreshed, inspired and anxious to work and almost certainly not due to scribes toiling clandestinely during the period in which “Pencils Down” was the official Writers Guild of America edict.
In the writers room on the CBS sitcom “Two and a Half Men,” for example, no fewer than 13 half-hour scripts had been churned out before noon, with no fewer than eight featuring plotlines that had posited either Charlie (Charlie Sheen) or Alan (Jon Cryer) secretly jealous of the girl the other was currently dating. “It’s just a coincidence,” insisted series creator Chuck Lorre. “Our guys just hit the ground running. It was like magic. We’ll be able to tweak those similar episodes into making other characters envious of someone else.”
Similarly, David E. Kelley, creator and principal writer on ABC’s legal drama “Boston Legal,” had put the finishing touches on five separate scripts before his first morning coffee break. “I began writing at 11 o’clock last night,” Kelley explained. “I think it’s pretty well documented throughout the industry that I’m a prolific writer.”
Still, that didn’t explain the mysterious appearance of three fresh “Cavemen” scripts, even though ABC had not ordered any further work on the series. In each of the scripts, the main characters took offense at finding themselves mildly misunderstood by more evolved characters, and exchanged banter amongst one another expressing their irritation.
“Gee, I don’t know how that happened,” shrugged Will Speck, one of the show’s executive producers. “Maybe word didn’t get out to all our staff, all of whom are just so passionate about this project and really hoped that it would succeed given how fresh and original it was. But maybe with a little tweaking the guys over at ‘Samantha Who?’ could use them.”
“Nope – we’re good here,” replied “Samantha Who?” creator Donald Todd, who said his staff had “miraculously and energetically” knocked out scripts for five future episodes by lunchtime.
CBS, in particular, had an embarrassment of riches, with no fewer than 17 scripts completed for its sundry “CSI” series.
“It’s easier than it looks,” admitted franchise creator Anthony Zuiker. “See, what you do is, you take each main character’s droll sensibility and a sampling of his one-liners, along with the sexual perversion you want to focus on this week, the sort of graphic mutilation you want to show on the victims and a certain type of technology that will be implemented to solve the crime. Then you input all this into a computer program we’ve created, and – oh, I’ve said too much already, haven’t I?”
In semi-related news, David Axelrod, strategist for Barack Obama’s Presidential campaign, hinted that from here on out, supporters should expect incrementally less inspirational speeches from the candidate, but stressed that the impending change had nothing to do with the fact that Oscar-nominated screenwriters Gary Ross and Aaron Sorkin today had resumed work on spec scripts focusing on bristling dialogue and uplifting themes outside the political arena.