Russian Around
There needs to be a family sitcom called “Russian Around”; it would be set in the cold war, where a bumbling Russian spy rents a spare room from a stereotypical American family, and we laugh as he fails to grasp concepts like “freedom” and “thanksgiving”, and he also fails to actually spy on anyone; but despite the strong Russian accent and behaviour, people all think he’s just a quirky friend, not suspicious at all (mostly because that would cause a sudden violent and depressing end to the series…)
My first analysis of that brainwave is “Amusing mental image, probably wouldn’t be very successful in practice”; but then I look at other sitcoms and think “oh wait, everything else is worse”. So, anyone want to invest? :P
September 28th, 2010 at 11:05 am
Man, I would watch this show all the time. Which actor were you thinking of for the Russian protagonist?
October 8th, 2010 at 10:03 am
Brilliant idea. You write it, I’ll find the contacts at the TV production companies………..
June 1st, 2011 at 3:34 pm
Fecking cool idea mate. Should get it published right away.
October 2nd, 2011 at 5:11 pm
I’m not sure how successful a sitcom would be if it got that political: I’m thinking about the excruciating scenes of that sitcom pilot where they have Hitler anachronistically living next door to a black man.
If a sitcom is based around a single premise, be it ‘angry hotelier’, ‘french resistance’ or ‘home guard platoon’, the premise has got to be like a fractal: There have to be little nuances that are deeper than the basic premise that can be examined in each episode.
Mind you, if you’re good at characterisations, you should be able to make a good sitcom out of any premise. Perhaps the downfall of that Hitler sitcom was that we all know what kind of character was involved.
Dammit, I just noticed I invoked Godwin’s Law. Sorry. :)