Thursday, January 6, 2011

This is how to fly

It’s pilot season in America – the time when networks and cable TV stations in the United States decide what new shows will go into production for at least one episode, and also when the casting for said shows happen.

Now when times are shit the sitcom responds, and as we speak apparently times are shit (I’ve been partying and drinking too hard to know if ‘apparently’ means ‘friggin’) (Probably note. Friggin isn’t really a word).

As new sitcoms are likely to be amongst the most popular new shows to at least get a pilot there is something that we must all accept.

It’s time to talk tokens.

Every sitcom has at least one token character. A character who is chosen clearly to represent a different point of view, or minority group, or personality type from the ‘normal’ citizen.

Over the years there have been many, many from the geniusly named ‘Token Black’ from ‘South Park’. To token successfully sluty men like ‘Barney’ from ‘How I met your mother’, ‘Joey’ from ‘Friends’, or even ‘Seinfeld’ from ‘Seinfeld’.

There have been token fat guys, token bitch wives, and over and over and over token characters so stupid you know they couldn’t survive the real world like ‘Woody’ from Cheers, ‘Homer’ from the Simpsons, and the four girls from ‘Sex in the City’.

Yet there is one token we have so far been cruely denied.

It’s time for the token crazy Australian.

Writers, producers, and network executives, please take into account the things you get with a token Australian such as myself:

Hard work – It’s only the seventh of this decade and I have already blogged ONCE in the past two months!

Good with animals – I lived with a girl with a cat for a year, and I loved the little cutie kitty, awwwww kitties. I miss the kitty. Can someone give me a cuddle please. Anyone. Don’t make me cuddle my pillow again….. Come here pillow, pillow, pillow…..

A real man – Nothing is as tough and manly as an Aussie, get this I went for a bush walk last week, and when I got mud on my shoes I was all like ‘It’s ok, I can put them in the washing machine, but still, (tear, tear, tear, tear) I hope my poor shoes are ok’

Please note: Tear as in tear from my eyes while crying, not as in tear a piece of paper, I mean really, who takes a piece of paper bushwalking?

Consider this:

No Australian has ever been president of the United States of America, so we’re not weighed down from the burden of being the leader of the free world.

No Australian has ever been the Grammy award winner for best new artist more than three consecutive times, so we’re not weighed down from the pressure of finding new ways to bribe Grammy judges year after year.

And

No Australian has ever walked on the moon, so we’re not weighed down by the knowledge of weightlessness.

Coincidence?......

Yes.

Yet a happy coincidence!

I mean shouldn’t all coincidences be happy, if you can’t find joy in coincidence then you may as well jump out of a building at the exact same time as a car with a mattress on the ceiling is driving by right before it crashes into a ‘I hate coincidences’ meeting.

Please note: If you run one of these meetings there is a car about to hit you, RUUUUNNN!!!

Still not convinced?

Seriously you’re not convinced even after than coercive coincidence covenant?

Ok, well what about this

In Australia it is ILLEGAL to murder someone! That’s right. This means, if you assume all laws are always obeyed, as I do, you’ll know that your token Aussie will not be a murderer.

Please note: Unless he has visited the Congo where it is legal to murder someone for lustfully looking at your goat.

Please note 2: There are no goats in the Congo; the lions ate them all.

Please note 3: It is legal to murder a man for watching a lion eat your goat, what you’re too pussy to stand up to a lion to save a goat? What kind of man are you?

Please note 4: Ha ha you’re a pussy and so is the lion in some places where pussy is slang for cat and where this also works when the cat is a huge African jungle leader.

Please note 5: That slang does not work in Australia; we respect lions WAY too much for that.

Please note 6: There is no jungle in Africa, suck on that lions, you’re king of an area you never even get to visit, you fucking pussys. (Unless you count the jungle that makes up basically all of the Congo, but counting's never fun).

Please note 7: The deadliest thing in Australia is: everything – GET ME AWAY FROM THIS, I’m going to DIIIIIEEEEEE!!!!!

Clearly the lesson is if you are responsible for the creation of a new sitcom this pilot season and you would like it to be successful, and/or include an unusual ‘token’, and/or not be all like check it out lets make fun of the pillow cuddler but not in a way that employs him - then please include a token crazy Australian.

Please note: I hate to like bring this up and all, but um, like, you know, I’m kind of a crazy Australian and all, so, um, like, um, you know, I’d be like good in your show in that if you give me a chance. If you hire me I promise to protect your entire goat-herd that you keep in the Congo

Please note 2: You have a goat-herd in the Congo? That’s fucking cool. Maybe your show could have a token Congoean goat too!!!