American Caesar -- Reality Show Pitched in 2006

[DaveT]

June 4, 2006

Here in LaLa Land, I have wrangled a pitch meeting with Paramount (now corporately related to CBS). I've been on site at the Gower Studio once before at a schmoozing lunch organized by one of my colleagues at the American Federation of Radio and Television Artists -- she knew a guy in labor relations there and she was egging me on to "switch sides" and go for the real money. So she and I were allowed through the gate one sunny day in 2003 and I was allowed to pick up the check for lunch at the very tony restaurant where all the studio suits ate every day.

So next Tuesday, my agent and I will go through that gate in the far more exalted role of "talent" rather than the squirrelly position of union rep trying to break into the upper half of the middle class.


My idea is pure gold -- I call it American Caesar.

The bottom line about America is that civics class democracy is dead as a doornail -- but -- the silver lining is that pop democracy is vibrant, booming and profitable.

American Idol and its various spinoffs have staked out the territory. All that's left is for somebody bold enough to capitalize on the new reality.

Every week, three potential dictators will "Cross the Rubicon" -- and undergo tests of their ability to rule the American Empire. I won't divulge the specific tests that our contestants will face, but the upshot will be to see if our potential Caesars have the nerve to wield American Power like it ought to be wielded in the 21st Century. To avoid legal complications about the mass death involved, production will take place off shore in Third World Countries that are hungry for hard Viacom dollars.

Every week, the viewing audience will vote on-line or by hard wire phone line for who would make the best Caesar. The first place finisher will go on to the next round while the second place winner will be given plane fare back to the USA. The loser, will, well -- lose. This is Reality TV.



The competition will lead up to November, 2008. If the hype catches on (like I know it will) we will clobber the election returns in the ratings. And if the current social trends continue apace (like all of you know it will) our new Caesar will have a genuine mandate that will shunt the conventional "president" off into the dustbin of history where he or she will belong.

Televised democracy -- it's better than the real thing.



June 6, 2006

I know I shouldn't count my golden geese until the first golden egg hatches, but I have plans for the development of this franchise after the climax of 2008. Viacom will probably not quite yet have the chutzpah to push the logic of our show to its conclusion, and I want to establish a brand that will last longer than Ricky Martin.

So, in 2009 as the new "President" assumes office based on the "vote" in the Electoral College, our new Caesar will go on hiatus, rather than try to upstage the "real" Chief Executive.

Instead, our production company starts another series, called Big Sister. Same premise, only this time it's girls only. We'll have all kinds of ambitious women – home-wrecking babes; real life business broads who have moved to the top rungs of corporate and institutional ladders; motherly types who have stayed at home but still kept on top of the world's problems; athletic Amazons to represent the Xena faction; even some seemingly mousy office help. Each week their ruthlessness and moxie will be tested in a far jungle, and by election night 2010, we will designate Big Sister, the New Dictatress, sure to scare the piss out of what's left of the Angry White Males.

Which sets up Season Three -- Caesar and Big Sister in the Final Confrontation -- Election Night 2012!.

I'm thinking by then that the tiresome and bankrupt "Federal Government" will be pretty close to irrelevant. Once the Final Winner is selected by the viewing audience, the next move will be into the White House. Backed by a camera crew and the will of the people, Caesar or Big Sister will just roll a moving van up Pennsylvania Avenue and proceed to move in to the Executive Mansion.

If anyone gets in the way, it will be great video -- The Revolution Will Indeed Be Televised.




We have a mountain of notes ready to answer any questions that come up, and I am prepared to plow on until interrupted with a description of the jungle tests for our wannabe tyrants -- a mixed bag of confrontations shamelessly ripping off Survivor and Fear Factor, ranging from silly and light hearted to perilous and lethal.

My agent thinks I'm crazy, but I intend to pitch the sequels on Tuesday as well -- including my demented idea for challenging the results of the 2012 election with that Michael Moore style confrontation at the White House gate. Can you imagine the buzz it will create between the November election and the Janaury inaugural? I'm seeing a massive advertising/talk show blitz with the Duly Elected Dictator describing his/her plans for redecorating the White House and what wars he/she might be ready to start. I'm seeing T-shirts and bumper stickers celebrating the Televised Revolution.

On January 20, 2013 it all goes on Pay Per View -- will the Secret Service honor the 18th Century or the 21st Century conception of democracy? Will the citizenry take direct action or stay home and watch it on TV?

I am really jazzed about the chance to spin this yarn before the suits. It will be one of those post-modern moments when I try to tell corporate executives that they have even more power than they realize -- when they already figure they are the Masters of the Universe.


June 8, 2006

Just last night at dinner I told my agent that I had posted this stuff on a pissant little message board with a few dozen participants and she almost gagged on her halibut. But she calmed down and actually bought into my explanation for doing this: I'm not worried about anybody "stealing" this idea; it is infinitely more difficult to get the pitch meeting than it is to dream up this kind of scam. Contrary to what you might think, it is actually to my legal advantage to have this time-stamped publication fixed in cyberspace to document the fact that I created this concept in advance of Tuesday's meeting.

If this thing produces the multi-billions I know it will, as an outsider I will be the first one the suits try to throw off the gravy train. This thread will be Exhibit A in my Eight Figure Lawsuit if I need to file it. And by having this option, it makes it much less likely that I will have to exercise it.



Here are a few more production notes --


The mainly inaccurate comparison to Rome will fix the framework for the show. The three contestants each week will be called "The Triumvirate."

Act I of each hour will introduce the potential dictators with some biographical detail and candid interview footage, followed by the results of the previous week's voting. We will spend some time documenting the travails of the loser who has to find his way home on his own nickel. I'm expecting great footage of these humiliating encounters -- hell, we can always hire some hungry locals to fuck with the losers if they don't run into enough trouble on their own. We want to establish that something is at stake in this show.

Act II will put them into some horribly embarrassing scenario to see who maintains an Imperial bearing. Here is where we put both the Sid Caesar and the oily bodies into the mix. Nudity, local mores and a language barrier in the backwaters of the Third World will be mixed and matched each week to see who can look the part under stress.

Act III explores the edge of Reality TV. Life and death will be involved, and, for other legal reasons, I do not chose to reveal these details in this venue. For this idea to work, however, Viacom is going to have to step up to the plate.



I'm thinking that the ratings challenge to the election returns on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November 2008 will be a national hoot. Nobody will take us literally, yet, about our Caesar doing anything in the "real" world other than spend his $100,000,000 prize money. But if the real time vote tally does clobber all the "straight" news reporting on the "real" election -- as we all know it will -- the rest of the campaign will be a breeze.



The Big Sister series is the grabber. It closes the circle opened by All In The Family in 1971 -- Yes, you don't have to be a white guy to get somewhere anymore; a woman might even become an Orwellian Dictatress. We'll bring Caesar into the mix to offer color commentary as the gals fight it out for domination of the erstwhile free world. I don't see how the midterm elections can stand a chance against the Selection of Big Sister. The last event before the voting starts will offer a Miss America throwback -- we'll get some Bert Parks lookalike to MC a "Question in the Fishbowl" segment. We'll set it up with a montage of grainy kinoscope footage of real Miss Americas giving us their breathy testimony in favor of World Peace. It will be delicious.



By 2010, I expect the brand to be established. I expect major buzz as we "develop" our final series.

We'll keep it a semi-secret that Caesar and Big Sister and our production company will have decamped to some uncivilized province in a semi-civilized country. We will hire 75 mercenaries at $1 million each who will be contractually obligated to follow the orders of one or both of the contestants in order to collect their money. Once again, I don't want to create evidence of a conspiracy to do anything illegal, so I am not going to post the details of what our mercenary army with two competing leaders will do -- but by way of comparison, think of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid robbing banks in the outback of Bolivia.

We will film for four months and then edit out eight two hour segments to air in September and October of 2012. On election night, we'll show a best-of, followed by the final bloody segment and then let the contestants make their last pitch to the viewing audience before opening the electronic polls.



Looking six years down the road is not easy, of course. A nuclear war might come along and fuck up my dreams. But I doubt it.

This is the Information Age, friends -- electronic communication changes everything. The question of how to get rid of the Paper government cannot be answered by reference to 18th Century documents, procedures and habits of mind. Crane Brinton defined a successful revolution taking place when the troops refuse to fire on their countrymen. How can they fire on our Winner, when it will be clear to everybody that he or she won fair and square?



June 11, 2006

What a whirlwind of activity this week!!!

The bottom line is we signed the "development deal" this morning and I am going to drink my first ever bottle of Crystal in about an hour and a half.

The suits are going to do the Big Sister series first -- they thought it would jive better to have the women's contest in direct competition with the real election. If it turns out to be Condi vs. Hillary, we'll be able to upstage that second rate show; if it is the usual boy on boy action between the Pubs and Dems, we should have a HUGE advantage.

If and only if Big Sister hits really big, then, we will go to Caesar in the second season. And my third season concept of having it out for the Real Throne is not dead!

In fact, they are assuming that in 2012 there will be some lame ass putz trying to run for re-election. The idea will be to pitch participating in OUR show to the incumbent. It sounds bizarre, I know, and that would blow out my concept of knocking off banks in the Bolivian outback as the "real" President couldn't leave the country for 4 months of shooting (although I really don't know why not).

Nope, the early notion is to make the Third season more like the Apprentice -- instead of modeling the contest for the Next Dictator on Fidel Castro's mountain army, the current thinking is to make it more of combination trivia/lack of ethics contest . . . .

That's all too far down the road for me to worry about now. I am one of probably eventually 25 "Executive Producers" of You Are Watching Big Sister (my title idea -- the suits figure the audience won't get it, but they like how it sounds anyway.) My main concern now is learning how to play this Hollywood game on the fly, to make sure that I don't get fucked out of my share of the waste. . . .




I think what nailed it was getting CBS to be the first major network to relegate the election returns to a crawl at the bottom of the screen with a 90 second update at the top of each hour. Our fear is the other nets will blow off the election, too. We'll see.

I might be the guy who placed the final straw on the back of America's democracy.

Strange days have found us.

[DaveT]

1. By the way, this is satire -- or is it?

You know that we are at an historical turning point when satire and analysis become indistinguishable.

[DaveT]

2. Shameless self kick

because this is funny, dammit.