Way back in June of this year (2022), I found a contest online hosted by the Ottawa International Animation Festival or OIAF for short. The contest was for people to send in their ideas for an animated tv show series idea. Only the best of the best of those ideas of course. The deadline for submission was June 30, which I made with a few days to spare. I had completely forgotten about this until somewhat recently. That's why I'm posting about this waaaaaaay into December.
Anyway, here's what the criteria was for entry:
That's pretty straight forward.
It doesn't say so in that screen grab of the contest details, but I saw on their website that the winner would be chosen on September 23rd, most likely during the festival.
Well, September 23rd came and went with no contact from the festival in any way. I'm guessing my idea didn't make the cut. But, I am wondering how much "in the running" my idea was. Could it have been a contender, or was it dismissed outright upon the first reading? I have no way of knowing.
So, in an effort to gage how this entry of mine might have fared in that contest, I decided to post it up here on my little blog. The reaction either in the comments section here or from any other social media platform I post this on should give me a pretty good notion of my shows performance under scrutiny. With that, here's what I pitched:
Bears That Give a Shit or Whatever
"What's the show's basic structure?", you ask. "How could one go about conceiving of and writing episodes for such a show?", you also inquire. Well, I'll just post what I intend to have as the show's opening narration. It pretty much sets up who these bears are and why they've been brought together to do what they do. It's posted immediately below. To get the full effect, read it in Bill Burr's voice. I would love it if I could get him signed on to be the voice of Tender Dick Bear. Here it is:
Longline: A group of selfish dysfunctional idiots must, by law, do good deeds for others much to their revulsion.
Synopsis (as told by the lead character):
“Ok, maybe you remember some time ago that there were these bears that… I don’t know… did good deeds or some shit. Yeah, they… fucking lived in the clouds and came to Earth to help people. And they were all fucking sunshine and rainbows and ‘la la la’ all over the fucking place. What were they called? Benevolent Bruins or some shit? Whatever! They’re fucking gone now.
But yeah, back then everybody thought that every fucking bear was like that… all happy and helpful with those shitty little fucking pictures on their guts. NO! Most bears were just ordinary nothing bears just living their lives and doing their own bullshit.
And THEN there’s us! Holy fuck are we a bunch of fucking dicks. Well, I’m not… well ok yah a bit… but not as much as those fucking guys. One night we’re at this dive bar and it’s crowded ‘cause there’s a game on or some shit. My bud had waaaaay too much to drink and then he starts getting into it with this guy and his girlfriend. Bud might’ve grabbed her ass or some shit but I don’t remember. I was pretty fucking wasted too. Anyway, next thing I know, I’m trying to pull my bud off this guy. The girlfriend starts kicking his balls. So then the rest of my buds start beating on her, then her buds start beating on us.
It’s not long that we’re all piled in to the fucking paddy wagon and taken to the police station. Everybody hauled in that day had done jail time before so we were all yeah fuck that shit. I can only avoid a fucking shiv for so long. So yeah, we all agreed to do community service instead. But you know what community service they have us fucking doing??!! It’s all the stuff those other bears did. Yeah! We gotta live on those stupid fucking clouds and go help people and shit. Our parole officer is a little asshole too. We hate him. He hates us. What-fucking-ever!
So that’s where we are. We were all given our names and fucking gut pictures based on who we are and what we like to do. I’m Tender Dick Bear. I’m called that because I’ve had so much raw dogging sex with so many chicks that my fucking dick is too sensitive. Getting an erection actually hurts like FUCK!!! But enough about me. Over there is Lazy Ass Bear, Dirty Slut Bear, Porn Addict Bear… um… what the fuck’s his name? Oh yeah, it’s Hack a Lung Bear. That fat fuck over there is Fat Fuck Bear. Then there’s Never Bathe Bear, Gambling Bear, Brawling Bear, Dumb Ass Bear, Junkie Bear… and over there is Bare Bear. He’s always naked and it’s fucking disgusting. There’s a bunch of other bears here with other dumb shit names like that. I’d be here all fucking day if I listed them all. But yeah, you’ll probably see those bears at some point when we help some dumbass on Earth.
Altogether, we’re called the… um… Bears That Give a Shit or Whatever.
Of course we’re only doing this until some asshole judge says we’ve… like… paid our debt to fucking society or some bullshit. The exact… like… micro-second that’s done we are soooooo fucking outta here. But until then, yeah, watch for us in your neighbourhood helping out some snivelling little shit.
Okay, that’s enough right? Everybody knows the premise now? There are no fucking dumbasses out there like ‘duuuuuuuh what’s going on?’ Maybe a couple? Aw fuckit! I’m done.”
That's the basic gist of it. It is now the internet's turn to give opinions about this project. Could it fly or would it crash and burn? Would you watch it or recommend to for someone else to watch it? I anticipate the feedback no matter what it is.
