MOVIES & LYRICS: How GREASE Inspired "Sin Wagon" by The Chicks

Movies & Lyrics is our new blog series that takes a glance at the influence of screenwriters on musicians and songwriters. With each new post, we’ll take known songs and examine how a particular turn of phrase or thematic element was inspired by a film (and specifically the film’s screenplay).

What is a “Sin Wagon”?

While you won’t find a formal definition in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, you can find context clues in this script excerpt:

The above is a scene from Grease — Screenplay by Bronte Woodard; Adaptation by Alan Carr; Based on the Original Musical by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey.

It’s the rockin’ 1950s. Danny gets a little too close for comfort to Sandy in his car at the drive-in movie theater. In a departure from the stage show, Sandy proclaims she’s not going to stay with Danny anymore in this SIN. WAGON.

For Grease’s Sandy, a “Sin Wagon” is something to hightail it away from. Fast.

For Natalie Maines, avid fan of Grease and lead singer of the country trio The Chicks (formerly known as Dixie Chicks), the phrase held gravitas. Enough gravitas to scrawl down in her notebook of song ideas.

The cinematic influence on songwriters/musicians knows no constraints of genre. This week we look at how a beloved movie adaptation of a classic Broadway musical inspired a song on a watershed album in country music.

Fly, The Chicks’ sophomore album, came out in 1999. In the nearly 25 years since its release, its songs of liberation, irreverence and general raising of hell have influenced countless artists both in and outside of the country music sphere. Fly is the album that made Taylor Swift want to take up songwriting.

The Chicks—Natalie Maines and instrumental virtuosos/sisters Martie Maguire and Emily Strayer —have origins in Dallas, Texas as a street corner bluegrass band. The band’s bluegrass sound became somewhat buried when they initially went the big label/commercial route. “Sin Wagon,” the eighth track on Fly, brings it rollicking back.

So, as presented in Woodard and Carr’s screenplay, what is a “sin wagon”?

As established earlier, for Sandy, a sweet, innocent musical theater character, a sin wagon is the devil’s playground, something to get away from.

But a sin wagon as imagined by Natalie Maines in her notebook and turned into a song with the help of her co-writers, Stephony Smith and bandmate Emily Strayer, is something entirely different.

The first time I heard it, it was like hearing punk music for the first time—acoustic, twangy punk. At times, it seemed almost too potent. “Sin Wagon” is a reclamation of sorts, a reclamation of personal agency, of sexuality. Furthermore, it’s a reclamation of a hard bluegrass sound. It seems to be the tale of a woman on a bender. The lyrics are below:

He pushed me 'round
Now I'm drawin' the line
He lived his life
Now I'm gonna go live mine
I'm sick of wastin' my time
Well now I've been good for way too long
Found my red dress and I'm gonna throw it on
'Bout to get too far gone

Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition
Need a little bit more of my twelve ounce nutrition
One more helpin' of what I've been havin'
I'm takin' my turn on the sin wagon

On a mission to make something happen
Feel like Delilah lookin' for Samson
Do a little mattress dancin'
That's right I said mattress dancin'

Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition
Need a little bit more
Of what I've been missin'
I don't know where I'll be crashin'
But I'm arrivin' on a sin wagon

When it's my turn to march up to old glory
I'm gonna have one hell of a story
That's if he forgives me
Oh, lord please forgive me

Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition
Need a little bit more of that sweet salvation
They may take me
With my feet draggin'
But I'll fly away on a sin wagon

I'll fly away on a sin wagon

Perhaps the song is sung by the bad girl, leather jacket-wearing, cigarette-smoking version of Sandy who chooses to literally fly off into the sunset in the “sin wagon” with Danny at the end. After all, “I’ll fly away” is iterated twice at the end of the song…

Either way, it’s inspiring to think the phrase started in a screenplay…

Until next time!

MOVIES & LYRICS: Nas' "The World Is Yours" and Oliver Stone's "Scarface"

Movies & Lyrics is our new blog series that takes a glance at the influence of screenwriters on musicians and songwriters. With each new post, we’ll take known songs and examine how a particular turn of phrase or thematic element was inspired by a film (and specifically the film’s screenplay).

Rapper Nas’ lyrics feel like cinema.

In them, there’s more than poetry. His rhymes contain painstaking detail of places, of people, of specific street corners, of small transactions, of every human emotion, from blowhard confidence to the lowest depths of despair.

Nowhere is this more true than on his 1994 debut album Illmatic, a canonical work in hip-hop and widely regarded as one of the best albums of all time.

According to Nas himself, in his youth, he loved movies and wrote screenplays (in addition to rhymes, of course). Though he ultimately pursued rapping, there’s no question about the filmic influence on Nas’ artistic sensibility.

This week, we look at a Nas song inspired by this excerpt of Oliver Stone’s screenplay for Scarface (1983), an enduringly controversial and popular film remake about a Cuban refugee who arrives during the Mariel Boatlift in Miami and moves from poverty to power, becoming a malevolent (and ultimately doomed) drug lord:

“THE WORLD IS YOURS” is a significant phrase in Scarface. Here in the script, Stone takes care to give the words their own line—and he bolds and underlines them. Young, fictional Tony Montana drinks them in.

We see the words a second time when Tony marries Elvira, the wife of his former boss Frank Lopez. Tony has made “THE WORLD IS YOURS” the catchphrase of his… uh… business operation.

Finally, we see “THE WORLD IS YOURS” reflected in the pool after Tony’s downfall when he’s shot to death in his own pool. A real aristotelian ending for an anti-hero.

The appearance of the phrase adheres to the storytelling convention of rule of three. In the script we see “The World Is Yours” examined from multiple vantage points.

No one needs this blog post to plumb the influence of the gangster film genre on rap and hip-hop. There’s plenty of great literature and scholarship on this topic. For decades, MCs have espoused their reverence for everything from The Public Enemy (1931) to The Godfather Trilogy and especially to Scarface.

A cadre of rappers, in their lyrics (and in Houston rapper Scarface’s case, in name), have tended to equivocate themselves to Tony Montana’s sheer violent outlaw power. Nas himself on the track “NY State of Mind” asserts: “I'm like Scarface sniffin' cocaine / Holdin' an M16, see, with the pen I'm extreme / Now, bullet holes left in my peepholes / I'm suited up with street clothes, hand me a .9 and I'll defeat foes.”

It’s on another Illmatic track that Nas takes a sublter approach. “The World Is Yours” is a song less about emulating Scarface and more about finding inspiration in his mantra.

Just as the phrase “THE WORLD IS YOURS” resonates with Tony Montana, it also resonates with Nas.

The song “The World Is Yours” (co-written with Pete Rock) is a moment of weightlessness and optimism amidst otherwise brutal subjects as Nas holds a metaphorical and unrelenting camera up to his young life in the rough Queensbridge public housing development in Queens, New York. This track comes right after “Life’s a Bitch” where the refrain is “Life’s a bitch and then you die.”

Here, producer Pete Rock’s sampling and looping of Ahmad Jamal’s “I Love Music” feels like sonic equivalent of magic realism. Some of the lyrics:

(It's yours)
Whose world is this?
The world is yours, the world is yours
It's mine, it's mine, it's mine—whose world is this?
(It's yours)
It's mine, it's mine, it's mine—whose world is this?
The world is yours, the world is yours
It's mine, it's mine, it's mine—whose world is this?

I sip the Dom P, watchin' Gandhi 'til I'm charged, then
Writin' in my book of rhymes, all the words past the margin
To hold the mic I'm throbbin', mechanical movement
Understandable smooth shit that murderers move with
The thief's theme, play me at night, they won't act right
The fiend of hip-hop has got me stuck like a crack pipe
The mind activation, react like I'm facin'
Time like Pappy Mason, with pens I'm embracin'
Wipe the sweat off my dome, spit the phlegm on the streets
Suede Timbs on my feet makes my cipher complete
Whether cruisin' in a Sikh's cab or Montero Jeep
I can't call it, the beats make me fallin' asleep
I keep fallin', but never fallin' six feet deep
I'm out for presidents to represent me (Say what?)
I'm out for presidents to represent me (Say what?)
I'm out for dead presidents to represent me

Whose world is this?
The world is yours, the world is yours
It's mine, it's mine, it's mine—whose world is this?
The world is yours, the world is yours
It's mine, it's mine, it's mine—whose world is this?
(It's yours)
It's mine, it's mine, it's mine—whose world is this?
The world is yours, the world is yours
It's mine, it's mine, it's mine—whose world is this?

It sounds like the kind of hope you can only find in New York City. (Is it coincidental that Oliver Stone is from NYC too?)

That’s the thing about Illmatic. It’s never one emotion at once, which is a good lesson for writers of all kinds to take in. It’s grief and a little hope as you “spit phlegm on the streets” with “Suede Timbs on your feets.”

A chant, an incantation perhaps, to be held and examined by all and from many angles.

THE WORLD IS YOURS.

Until next time…

MOVIES & LYRICS: Bruce Springsteen's "Nebraska" and Terrence Malick's "Badlands"

For screenwriters, inspiration can take many forms. For some, it's poetry or other forms of literature. For others, it's music or theater or TV shows or the work of certain filmmakers.

But what about the influence of screenwriters on other artists? 

For this new blog series, we're taking a fun look at the influence of screenwriters on musicians and songwriters. With each new post, we'll take a known song and examine how a specific turn of phrase or thematic element was inspired by a film (and specifically a film's screenplay). 

This week, we'll start subtle and slow with the title track of Bruce Springsteen's haunting, understated 1982 album Nebraska. "Nebraska" the song was never a huge, propulsive radio hit... but it's a very cinematic place to start. 

Bruce Springsteen has never been shy about sharing the influence of certain films and filmmakers on his songwriting and album conceptualization. In addition to being a John Ford fan, the Boss was greatly influenced by Terrence Malick, particularly Malick's directorial debut, Badlands, which was released in 1973 (coincidentally the same year as Springsteen's own debut album Greetings from Asbury Park).

Springsteen's songs and Malick's films have some commonalities—like outsiders looking to transcend or just bust out and hit the road from their small, sad and confining towns. And, of course, it's all done with poetry and lyricism.

Recorded as a series of demos on a 4-track cassette recorder by Springsteen alone in his home studio, Nebraska the album deals with regular, down-and-out characters (a lot of criminals and murderers) many of whom face intense crises or reckonings over the course of the songs. Nebraska is one album Springsteen never toured to promote because the subject matter is bleak. 

The first track on the album, the title track "Nebraska," is based specifically on Badlands. 

Badlands, the film, was Terrence Malick's first as a director. It tells the story of a young couple on a crime spree across the midwest in the 1950s. The film is loosely inspired by real-life spree-killer Charles Starkweather and his girlfriend Caril Ann Fugate. 

Listen to the track and see this excerpt of page 5 of Malick’s screenplay where characters Kit and Holly meet for the first time.

Holly twirls a baton on her front lawn... It's one of the first things we see in the film, as well as the lyric that opens the whole album. 

I saw her standing on her front lawn just twirling her baton
Me and her went for a ride, sir, and ten innocent people died
From the town of Lincoln, Nebraska, with a sawed-off .410 on my lap
Through to the badlands of Wyoming I killed everything in my path
I can't say that I'm sorry for the things that we done
At least for a little while, sir, me and her we had us some fun
Now, the jury brought in a guilty verdict, and the judge he sentenced me to death
Midnight in a prison storeroom with leather straps across my chest
Sheriff, when the man pulls that switch, sir, and snaps my poor head back
You make sure my pretty baby is sittin' right there on my lap
They declared me unfit to live, said into that great void my soul'd be hurled
They wanted to know why I did what I did
Well, sir, I guess there's just a meanness in this world

It's interesting to note that Springsteen was also inspired by the work of author Flannery O'Connor. The last two lyrics of "Nebraska" when the title character is about to be executed for his crimes and the authorities ask him why he did what he did, he says cagily: "Well, sir, I guess there's just a meanness in this world." The lyric bares a resemblance to the last few lines of the character "The Misfit" in O'Connor's short story "A Good Man is Hard to Find," where he talks about "No pleasure but meanness." 

It's a good reminder that art is a crucible where numerous influences can coexist. 

“Nebraska” isn’t the only track on the album with the mark of Badlands on it. The final track on the album “Reason to Believe” opens with lyrics about a man standing over a dead dog and poking it with a stick. The very same image opens Badlands.

With Nebraska and, indeed, all of his music, Bruce Springsteen is an inspiration for many a writer of film and television. His songs appear on countless soundtracks. The song "State Trooper" from Nebraska is featured as the end credits song in an episode of The Sopranos.  In his songs, there's a vibe. The same vibe can be found in the pages of Terrence Malick's Badlands screenplay. 

This second draft of Badlands is available to read in the WGF Library. Search our catalog to see what other scripts we have and make an appointment to visit us and find your inspiration.

Until next time!

TV FORMAT FUNDAMENTALS: HALLMARK CHRISTMAS MOVIES

With the holiday season upon us, have you been watching Hallmark Christmas movies? With wine (or eggnog) in hand have you said confidently aloud to yourself, “Hey! I could write one of these things!”?

Well, if you’ve made this proclamation, you’re not alone. We know because every December, we get a bevy of requests around the library from patrons wanting to read Hallmark Christmas scripts to study the formatting and see how it’s done.

If you’ve ever had the holiday-time burst of tenacity to say, “Hey! I could write a Hallmark Christmas movie!” and want a deeper glimpse at the structure and conventions, we’ve created this primer for you.

As many an online publication or TikTok account are quick to point out, there is a definite recipe for these movies. With nearly 40 of them produced every year plus a stalwart and passionate viewing audience, Hallmark Christmas movies are a serious business. Some writers make fruitful careers writing primarily Hallmark Christmas movies. While many feature writers can languish in years of development waiting for their rom-com script to get made, writers of Hallmark Christmas movies see their dialogue spoken, their tinsel-y worlds realized, their work produced.

This post is part of our ongoing “TV Format Fundamentals” series whereby we breakdown the act structure and elements of different script TV formats. Information presented here is based on looking at the handful of Hallmark scripts we have in the library and from talking to friends who’ve written Hallmark Christmas movies. For further reading, check out this article by Tom Nolan for Written By in 2019.

While we won’t break down a full script in this post (it would make it too long), we will offer pointers along the way. It’s part of how we’re making script information accessible beyond our WGF Library doors. Plus, it’s the holidays and this is fun—so grab that eggnog glass and let’s go.

Hallmark Christmas movies have a history that goes all the way back to the beginning of television. Perhaps knowing the history can help a fledgling Hallmark Christmas movie writer better understand the contours of the format… the recipe. To know where you’re going, it’s best to know where you’ve been.

What we now know as the “Hallmark Christmas movie” is descended from the Hallmark Hall of Fame. Hallmark, the greeting card company, used to sponsor radio shows like Radio Reader’s Digest in the late 1940s, then moved to sponsoring the television program Hallmark Television Playhouse.

Hallmark Television Playhouse began on Christmas Eve 1951. The inaugural broadcast featured the first opera ever written for television, Amahl and the Night Visitors. Later in the 1950s, Hallmark Television Playhouse became Hallmark Hall of Fame. Like a lot of nascent television, these programs were essentially filmed versions of classic plays. Lots of Shakespeare.

Later still in the 50s, Hallmark Hall of Fame evolved into television movies that aired 4 to 8 times a year. As a greeting card company, Hallmark wanted to sell cards. These prestigious TV films — based on novels or plays and starring top-level actors — aired around the major holidays to keep GREETING CARDS at the top of the audience’s mind. Check out UCLA Film & Television Archive’s book Hallmark Hall of Fame: The First Fifty Years next time you’re in the library.

Hallmark Hall of Fame continues even to this day — except now the movies don’t air on the major networks like CBS or NBC. Rather, they air on the Hallmark Channel, which began in earnest in 2001. Hallmark and The Jim Henson Company became co-owners of what was then a Christian cable channel, The Odyssey Network. Their aim was to make a network anchored by family friendly and family oriented content.

With emphasis on family values, optimism and not taking on particularly heavy, political or controversial subjects, Christmas movies quickly became a staple of the Hallmark Channel’s programming. With these movies, Hallmark stays true to the original modus operandi of Hallmark Hall of Fame — to sell us on Christmas… the mother of all greeting card holidays. (That’s why they make Valentine’s Day movies too.)

FORMATTING

Hallmark movies are made for television NOT streaming. This means commercial breaks factor heavily into the script structure and formatting.

Remember from previous TV Format Fundamentals posts, act breaks in a TV script typically denote where the commercial breaks are. Scripts from the heyday of Hallmark Hall of Fame on network TV are broken into three acts. This works well if you’re using traditional three-act movie structure:

Later in the 1980s and 90s, the scripts gained additional acts, bringing the total to six:

Current scripts for Hallmark Christmas movies have NINE ACTS. Watch any current Hallmark movie and you’ll probably clock eight commercial breaks. Looking at the Hallmark scripts we have in the library, the first act is the longest, sometimes totaling as many as 30 pages.

In the first act, we meet the main characters. Hallmark Christmas movies are rom-coms most of the time, so we meet the characters in their day-to-day lives; we learn their dreams and aspirations (and, of course, their feelings on Christmas), then they meet each other… and probably don’t like each other. The following eight acts run 8-12 pages. These smaller acts pile on complications and higher stakes for the couple and their belief in Christmas magic until the inevitable happy conclusion where lovers unite, families come together and Christmas is gloriously saved:

If you’re wondering how the act breaks look on the page, it’s just as if you are writing an episode of network TV. At the start of any new act, you put ACT TWO at the top of the page and END OF ACT TWO at the end. Most of the time, text is centered and CAPITALIZED, but we’ve seen act breaks on the left-hand side of the page and bolded, so we’re guessing you don’t have to feel totally beholden to the act formatting.

OTHER THINGS TO CONSIDER:

Hallmark Channel knows its audience. They don’t hide that they make movies mostly for suburban women in middle America (even if they’re not the only people who watch them). The movies follow a certain trajectory and rarely stray from it. In the present day, the form has been pushed a tiny bit forward in terms of casting and trying slightly different storylines…. but if you’re looking to blow-up tropes, this might not be the type of movie you should endeavor to write.

Either way, you’ve got to know the tropes to break or conform to them:

• FEMALE PROTAGONISTS. In the great Written By article by Tom Nolan, writer Robin Bernheim explains: “The most standard story is girl-meets-boy not boy-meets-girl.” The lead is typically a woman with a white collar job, whose profession puts her at odds with her former small-town life, etc.

• CLASSIC ROMANTIC COMEDIES. Know them. Breathe them — the movies where the two main characters are totally at odds with each other and totally wrong for one another. When they’re together, it’s instant banter and chemistry. Another thing that’s been re-iterated to us is that both characters should have a viewpoint on Christmas. This is another place where the two leads can diverge. One might LOVE Christmas; the other might HATE it. Of course, the one who hates it will come around by the conclusion of the story. If they love or hate it, they’ve also got to have a good reason for it.

• CONFLICT. Where does it come from in Hallmark Christmas movies? It usually bubbles up around the lead character’s commitment to family or small-town values vs. her commitment to her career or “big city values.” As in any great romantic film, these values are often embodied by her potential suitors, e.g. a small-town carpenter vs. a big city lawyer. This is an over-simplification, of course, to make a point.

• THEME. A Hallmark Christmas movie is no place for cynicism. Despite accusations of being cliched or cheesy, the movies resonate because they’re one place in our divisive world where togetherness and tradition and fun are guaranteed. Think of older classic Christmas films like It’s a Wonderful Life and The Bishop’s Wife. It’s all about heart and miracles and family.

• CHRISTMAS! CHRISTMAS! CHRISTMAS! If you look at a script for a Hallmark Christmas movie, there’s hardly a sentence in the description that doesn’t mention tinsel or scarves or ice skating or snow. If you think you’re talking about Christmas too much, you’re simply not talking about it enough. Remember: the whole point is to pump viewers full of Christmas joy — to literally sell them on the greeting card holiday.

• HAPPY ENDINGS. Duh.

Well, we hope this year — or next — when you proclaim that YOU could write a Hallmark Christmas movie that this blog post jumpstarts the process of shaping your idea.

Until next time, CHEERS! Happy writing and happy holidays!

TV FORMAT FUNDAMENTALS: ANIMATED SITCOMS

Here in the WGF Library, our aim is to help you hone your ability to study TV shows (and their scripts). After all, it’s through this rigorous study that one hopefully becomes a better, more thoughtful writer. With this in mind, we jump back into TV Format Fundamentals, a blog series that explores the background, elements and style of a handful of scripted TV formats.

This week we're looking at animated sitcoms.

As we’ve explored in previous installments of this series, sitcom stands for “situation comedy.” In our post about multi-cam sitcoms, we defined situation comedy as “shows in which a specific group of characters find themselves in a new, ridiculous situation with each episode. The humor occurs as the characters struggle to get out of that situation.”

To peer closely at the DNA of the animated sitcom, we must go all the way back to the origin of the live-action sitcom. Families—biological families, chosen families, workplace families, school families—are the most fertile ground for situation comedy because you have a group of characters that are naturally always together to get into “situations.”

In developing their seminal animated Stone Age series THE FLINTSTONES (the first animated sitcom to air in primetime, CBS 1960) producers William Hanna and Joseph Barbera took great inspiration from THE HONEYMOONERS (which aired a few years prior).

On Wikipedia, THE HONEYMOONERS is described as such: “[the show] follows New York City bus driver Ralph Cramden, his wife Alice, Ralph’s best friend Ed Norton and Ed’s wife Trixie as they get involved in various schemes in their day-to-day living.” You don’t have to look too hard to see how THE FLINTSTONES follows this template almost exactly. Its logline could be: the show follows Stone Age construction worker Fred Flintstone, his wife Wilma, Fred’s best friend Barney Rubble and Barney’s wife Betty as they get involved in various schemes in their pre-historic day-to-day living.

THE JETSONS, the futuristic counterpart to THE FLINTSTONES, which premiered in 1962 (also on CBS), seems to draw on FATHER KNOWS BEST (1954-1960) for inspiration. Both shows feature a hapless father, his spendthrift wife, a hip/boy-crazy teenage daughter (or two) and a genius young son. Note that while the show may take place far into the future with flying cars and robot housekeepers, its characters reflect staunchly 1950s stereotypes.

We mention all of this to illustrate how animated sitcoms are firmly entrenched in the conventions of their live-action counterparts. The difference is just animation. 

So, what does this mean for the way animated sitcom scripts are structured and formatted? 

Both THE FLINTSTONES and THE JETSONS predate formal act structure in their scripts, but if you watch the shows on HBOMax and pay attention to the commercial blackouts, you'll notice a distinct three-act episodic structure. Before the first commercial, the problem of the episode is introduced, i.e. Fred, Wilma and the Rubbles get invited to a fancy gala, but fret because they're not fancy enough for said gala. Between the first and second commercial, complications ensue as the characters prep for attending the gala, then after the second commercial, they actually go to the gala. 

Sometimes episodes begin with a short cold open that previews what the episode will be about… but each episode contains three distinct acts — a beginning, a middle and an end — much like a feature screenplay.

Over the years, the act structure for animated sitcoms hasn’t changed much. THE SIMPSONS, FUTURAMA, FAMILY GUY, AMERICAN DAD and KING OF THE HILL all use three simple, straightforward acts.

Some animated sitcoms utilize a four-act structure. Examples include BOB’S BURGERS and THE GREAT NORTH. The first act is the setup, acts two and three feature complications and higher stakes, then act four wraps everything up:

In prepping for this post we found one animated sitcom that uses two-act structure. That show is CENTRAL PARK. The easiest way to understand two-act structure is that the characters get into trouble in the first act and struggle to get out of it in the second:

A lot of cable and streaming animated sitcoms use the classic three-act structure, but add a cold open in most episodes. Examples of this type of structure include BOJACK HORSEMAN, ARCHER and HARLEY QUINN.

Finally, you might look at the scripts for a streaming show like BIG MOUTH and see no act breaks nor a cold opening. As we’ve discussed in previous posts in this series… just because act breaks are not specified in the scripts pages does not mean the writers are not thinking about act breaks.

Most animated sitcom scripts are formatted with double-spaced dialogue, much like multi-cam sitcom scripts. Then, the description is single spaced. Oftentimes, scene headings and sound effects are bolded. This is generally the case with animated series, but should not be taken as sacrosanct. Some shows — like BOJACK HORSEMAN — single space their dialogue and IT’S OKAY.

In live-action sitcoms, emphasis is usually on the timing or physical comic abilities of the actors. Animated sitcoms work best when the creators take full advantage of the animation. If the main character isn’t an anthropomorphic horse, if Homer’s wife doesn’t have three-foot high blue hair, if the Flintstones have a dog as a pet rather than a dinosaur, why would you make the series animated? Great animated shows take full advantage of animation where you can present out-of-this-world scenarios and jokes. Something to consider when you’re developing an animated show.

CASE STUDY:

FUTURAMA “Pilot”

Written by David X. Cohen and Matt Groening

If sitcoms are foremost about a family or group that can run into countless funny “situations,” a great sitcom pilot is about meeting our primary group of characters and setting up the world or overarching “situation” they’re in. A pilot script that does this particularly well is FUTURAMA (1999), which is why we’ve chosen it as our case study this week. In addition to introducing its central gang of misfits with pathos and wit, the pilot does a great job establishing the three-act structure it will use in subsequent episodes.

FUTURAMA is about a good-natured slouch named Fry, who works delivering cargo planet-to-planet nearly 1000 years in the future. His crewmates include Leela, a cycloptic alien (or so she believes herself to be at first) and Bender, a foul-tempered robot who drinks heavily. The pilot is where we meet them and the far future that they inhabit.

COLD OPENING

While many other FUTURAMA episodes don’t include it, the pilot features a brief cold open. It’s where we meet Fry, a New York City pizza delivery boy who (it appears) would rather be playing video games than delivering pies. He lives in the year 1999. On the first page, we see him get made fun of by a kid. Ouch! This starts to pique our empathy.

Over the course of the cold open, we watch Fry on New Year’s Eve get dumped by his girlfriend and delivery a pizza to a cryogenic laboratory where he calls out that he has a delivery for “I.C. Weiner.” Aww poor guy. He walked right into it. He also trips right into a cryogenic tube as New York City counts down to the new millennium.  

And, like Dorothy emerging from her tornado-spun Kansas house into the world of Oz, Fry emerges from his cryogenic slumber into a New York City 1000 years in the future. End of Cold Opening.

ACT ONE

After the cold opening, the first act begins on page 7 as Fry begins to figure out where he is and what’s happened to him. The year is 2999 and Fry believes he’s been given a fresh start. By the way, characters seeking a fresh start are a fantastic way to open a television series because it means right from the get-go the character is in pursuit of something.

Fry’s hopes for a new start 1000 years into the future are dashed when he meets Leela, a one-eyed alien, whose job it is to “chip” him with his permanent career assignment, which is – much to his horror – delivery guy… even 1000 years into the future. Fry also finds out from Leela that he has a great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great nephew, a haggard old man by the name of Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth.

Fry manages to evade Leela and her chip implanter for the time being. As you can see, Leela also lands in a cryogenic tube. However, Fry has mercy on her and sets the timer for 5 minutes. It’s a favor he does for her that will later be paid off.

On escaping Leela, Fry goes in search of his nephew, Farnsworth. He finds what looks like a phone booth, but it’s really a “suicide booth.” He ends up stepping inside the suicide booth with one very unhappy robot named Bender. We break for commercial wondering if Fry will survive this horrific ordeal, then onto…

ACT TWO

Act two begins on page 20. Spoiler alert: the suicide booth proves ineffective. The act begins with Fry and the robot, Bender, unscathed. Now what are they gonna do?

Meanwhile, Leela has to report that Fry got away from her. Her boss insists that she track him down and implant him with that chip. After all, it’s her job.

As Leela gets harangued by her boss, Fry and Bender go for a drink and get to know one-another. Think again of THE WIZARD OF OZ… Dorothy meets the Scarecrow, then she meets the Tin Man. Fry learns that Bender is a robot who is very dejected with his lot in life.

Given that he is unhappy himself with the prospect of being a lifelong pizza deliverer, Fry empathizes with Bender and the two become friends.

Their bonding is interrupted when Leela shows up at the bar in pursuit of Fry! As Fry and Bender see her and run away, Leela calls for back-up! The two hide in a museum, specifically in the “20th Century Gallery.” The show’s creators obviously have great fun with the museum, making it a testament to “the past” which is really our present (or it was our present in 1999).

Leela’s back-up comes in the form of two police officers, Url and Smitty. They all reach the 20th Century Gallery just as Fry and Bender are being attacked by the heads of former U.S. Presidents.

Url and Smitty draw what look like light sabers and plan to brutally attack Fry and Bender.

Leela presumably feels bad for Fry and Bender and tries to get the officers to back off, but they make fun of her (which makes us feel for her). She kicks and punches enough at the officers that Fry and Bender are able to make an escape.

They then find themselves in a back room of the museum where the only escape is a small window with bars on it. Bender doesn’t believe he can destroy the bars. While he’s a “bender” it’s just not what he’s programmed for.

Act two ends with Bender summoning his courage and ripping out the bars, but subsequently destroying his arms in the process. Note that act breaks or commercial blackouts almost always end on a question… Will they successfully escape? End of act two.

ACT THREE

Act three begins on page 32. Having escaped, Bender and Fry walk around the ruins of old New York City. This makes Fry sad. What he’s lost in traveling so far into the future starts to weigh on him.

At this moment that Leela catches up with them, chip implanter in hand. Fry just wants to be left alone… but it seems Leela understands Fry more than either of them realizes.

Rather than implant Fry with the career chip, Leela decides to quit HER job. This leaves our new trio directionless and without a clear plan. It’s here that Fry remembers his great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great nephew Farnsworth… and it’s off to see the Wizard… er… the Professor!  

It’s New Year’s Eve again… 2999.

Fry finds his Uncle and introduces himself.

Professor Farnsworth has a spaceship but lacks a crew to fly it. As it turns out, Leela knows how to fly a ship. Leela, Fry and Bender agree to be Farnsworth’s crew… but what exactly will they be doing out there in space?

At the end of the episode, Fry is essentially back where he started, a delivery boy with a newfound crew and family. Pilot episodes are critical for getting an audience on board with the show's central characters. Here, we empathize with Fry, Leela and Bender as they are all misfits or misanthropes wanting a little something more from their existence. Who can't relate to that? We want to follow them through all their foibles and hijinks. The pilot also facilitates a perfect setup for new situations to arise with each new episode AND establishes the three-act structure through which those stories will be told. The script ends on page 46 (but keep in mind that the dialogue is double-spaced).

If you want to talk more about animated sitcoms, make an appointment to visit the WGF Library or e-mail us at library@wgfoundation.org. Until next time, happy writing!