Drew, first off, thanks to you and everyone else who has taken a look at California Kidds. As for request to kill off Stella Kidd, who reminds you of one of your ex-girlfriend's mothers, let me just state that...
... NO character is safe!!! :)
You never know... she could have a heart attack when she learns that her favorite handbag is a knockoff.
LOL.
Corey -- it's wonderfully written, and you have a great voice. it goes at breakneck speed, which is awesome.
As I read it though, I have the same problems that I had with the bible -- that the mom is much too empowered, at the cost of the dad being a wuss.
It does the story a great dis-service, in that it makes it yet-another-men-are-weak 'family' story. I'd challenge you to try to do something different, and make California Kidd's have a distinctive voice.
In the pilot, the Dad is shooed into the corner of the bed by the mom, then he can't make toast without his tie getting into the toaster, then he doesn't know that his tie is on fire etc. None of the noise wakes the mom until the -daughter- sneezes, and then he's just there to take the tissues out of the mom's hand, etc.
But don't kill her. Keep her strong. But make him strong -too-. Makes for a much more interesting situation -- too many stories cheapen out by using weakness of one character to illustrate strength of another, and that's just lazy writing IMHO.
I'm with you on this as far as the bible is concerned, but I still think the biggest problems you have in the script stem from a fairly weak and shallow bible that then carries over into the script.
In other words, because you read the bible first, you take what you learned there about the characters and read into every action that happens in the script. For example, if I told you that Sam was a strong character who works his tail off for his family because he loves them, and will do anything his family needs in order to make them happy... Then he doesn't seem weak in the script at all. He is working hard and the circumstances are creating a mess of things. He never gives up until the job is done. That is not the trait of a weak character.
As for the mom coming down after Tay sneezes. That is to show that she might be superficial at times, but there is no handbag in the world more important to her than her family. She is NEVER rude to her husband or to her kids.
Finally, as for not noticing that his tie is on fire... dude... this is a cartoon and I'm gonna Chuck Jones it whenever I can. That doesn't make Sam weak... that makes him a cartoon character IMHO. It's gonna happen to everybody in the script from time to time.
The NEW bible will explain all of this in a much more poetic way. I really feel like I let a strong script down by posting such a weak bible. That will be FIXED. And hopefully, Amazon will take a look and see that there is more to this family than a funny fast-paced script!
Thanks for the post, Laurence! Your feedback was great stuff, man.
