TV Pilot Season's "Black List” of Best Unproduced Show Pitches


Hollywood - For the first time in its history, the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences has released its own version of the “Black List,” a compilation of the hottest unproduced pitches for new television shows.  Inspired by the motion picture industry’s December list made famous by film executive Frank Leonard, the ATAS Black List is put together from the suggestions of hundreds of TV execs, each listing up to ten of their favorite pitches that are awaiting a green light.  ATAS hopes its own list will do for television what the feature film list did for Diablo Cody, Nancy Oliver, and numerous other now-produced film writers.  Here’s the 2011 list, just in time for the mid-pilot, pre-summer, post-winter, mid-cancellation season.

Young Show Runners in Love by Jason Tidepool and Marnie Sullivan.
A sitcom following the adventures of two twenty-something graduates of the New York Film School who trek to Hollywood to create ‘revolutionary television” based on writing about the people they know best—other film school graduates.  After one pitch, they sell their first series, Ennui, and complicate things by falling in love—with each other.  Oh, and they’re both guys.  “Brokeback Mountain meets Mad About You”  (CBS/Paramount)

Reverse Mortgage (Reality Show)
Five elderly couples in fragile health compete to see who can live till the end of the term of their reverse mortgages, sold to them by a quintet of fired The Apprentice contestants.  (Oxygen/TARP Productions)

Narcocorrido Idol by Anonymous
The stakes are high as competing Chalinillos vie for international stardom performing in front of a panel of warring drug cartel leaders.  (Telemundo/Escobar Associates)

The Safety Network (Improv)
Randomly selected members of Congress are stripped of their medical plans and bank accounts, exposed to dengue fever, and challenged to find treatment based only on the services of county-funded hospitals.  Comedy.  (Universal/Beltway Solutions)

iMedfly (Tween Comedy)
When a middle class Chicago suburb's high school experiences a thousand-percent increase in pregnant girls, the U.S. Departments of Health and Agriculture join forces,  enrolling six gorgeous, sterilized teenagers to eradicate the problem.  (Nickelodeon/iRadiated Productions)

Dumpster Chef by Ben Hall
Unemployed food writer and problem drinker Jake Hale creates imaginative and haute meals from the back alleys of restaurant row in major U.S. cities, selling them for loose change to passersby.  (Food Network)

Jeff Hitler by Conrad Hunt and Zeke Timmons.
Adolf Hitler’s happy-go-lucky teenage brother escapes occupied Berlin in a time machine and ends up in 2012 working at a Kinko’s next to a Chabad house in Silverlake, California.  Unable to afford an apartment himself, he takes on a roommate—an orthodox Jewish memoirist.  Together, they face the comedy-rich world of employment, dating, and conflicting Saturday schedules.  “The Odd Couple meets Triumph of the Will.” (A&E/Eastside Productions)

CSI: Middle School by
In another extension of the mega-popular forensic detective franchise, three hard-boiled 8th graders solve crimes in their school’s science lab.  “Relevant themes such as bullying, childhood obesity, locker desecration, vandalized vending machines and cafeteria food poisoning are explored via an abundance of yucky DNA evidence.” (Disney Channel/Ashley Tisdale Productions)

Live: The First Annual YouTube Awards
Favorite YouTube celebrities celebrate the nascent and lightning fast viral art form.   Presenters may include the Mentally Unstable Hand Model,  “Chocolate Rain” guy, lonelygirl15, the “Charlie Bit Me” boys, a choir made up of 9/11 conspiracy theorists, Talentless Girl Singing Mariah Carey, Chris the Hysterical Britney Spears Fan, Unwashed Loner With a Computer Cam and an Axe to Grind, a tribute to Ted “Golden-Voice” Williams, and a cavalcade of people who don’t know shit but have a lot to say.  Three videos will be posted at the start of the show, and the creator of the first one to reach 1.5 million hits before it ends gets a slot on The View.  Hosted by Randall, off-camera narrator of “The Nastyass Honey Badger.” (FX/drkdggler14 Presents)

Warlocks (Reality Show)
A 13-week series in which Donald Trump, Ben Bernanke, Chuck Lorre, Suze Orman, Les Moonves, and Disney’s Robert Iger, dressed only in jeans and t-shirts, are blindfolded and driven to Compton, then released to find their way to a Beverly Hills Starbucks—with no smart phones and 48 cents in their pockets.   “The Great Race meets Lord of the Flies.”  Hosted by Charlie Sheen. (Warner Bros./WTF Productions)

Law and Order: STD by Pepper Bender and Andy Conda
In another spinoff of the popular crime series, female LAPD officers from a special sexually transmitted diseases unit follow the outbreak of various exotic, unpronounceable maladies in the Chatsworth, CA based pornography industry.   Who-dun-it meets who-got-it.  (Viacom/DownLow Productions)

The Bin-Ladens by Mike Shugler and Devon Parks
In this dramatic mini-series, the family of the most hated man in the world takes up residence in a gated community in Virginia, trying to conceal their identities while tending to a mysterious and seriously ill cousin, known only as “Ned,” in the basement play room.  (HBO/Fifth Pilot Productions)

Covered by Enoch Shigler and Ty Hendricks
A Sopranos-inspired drama that pulls away the shroud of mystery surrounding the upholstery industry.  (HBO/Levitz)

Comments

  1. I'm not sure why some these shows remain unproduced. Many would seem to have a built-in audience.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Charlie, I hope you sent these in a sealed, self-addressed envelope.

    ReplyDelete

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