Wider Reading | 10' O Clock Live, Just About Avoids Being Stillborn

Studio. Non-descript, moderately well-lit. Three dozen undergrads have been roped in to be the audience. Dispiritingly, they're more blandly partisan and raucous than many American audiences.

From left to right: Phil Brown, James J Harringman, Jon Ware, Sam Kinchin-Smith.

LAUREN LAVERNE:

This is actually a pretty good idea. Bremner, Bird and Fortune seems to have wandered off for good, and it was starting to feel a bit dated anyway. So an entertainment show on current affairs with a cheerfully open bent towards the youthful-liberal demographic, sketches, interviews, sarcasm…

DAVID MITCHELL:

Basically, the Daily Show.

LAUREN LAVERNE:

Yeah. Except that we don’t have any comedians with enough warm-hearted charisma to carry such a show all by themselves, so essentially we’re going to tag-team three of our best-known snarks and I’m going to sit in the corner asking straight-man questions so that they can come up with some real belters.

(Pause)
I’m Lauren Laverne.

 

DAVID MITCHELL:

And I’m David Mitchell. I’m going to do one of those rants they’ve been putting up on the Guardian, and then interview some people, engaging with the material so earnestly in my blustering-yet-impassioned way that the show actually livens up a bit.

CHARLIE BROOKER:

I’m Charlie Brooker. You know exactly what I’m going to be doing. Look at my sexy silver perma-stubble.

 

JIMMY CARR:

Jesus, what am I doing here? I’m at my best when I’m clipping off sharp, wincey one-liners or being a poor man’s Angus Deayton. I have absolutely no place on a current affairs programme. I bet they’ll give me loads of warmed-over material about paedophile Catholics.

JIMMY does an unfunny, warmed-over bit about paedophile Catholics. Also, the Pope’s a Nazi. Hahahaha. Then CHARLIE’s forced to perform a sketch about Sarah Palin that manages to be frantically uninspired, far too easy, and miss a great many possible targets, in spite of being one of the parts of the show that isn’t actually live.

DAVID gets in three articulate people with opposing views and tries to solve the issue of Goldman Sachs’ bonuses. Each of them gets to speak a single sentence before he’s forced to end the debate so LAUREN can do a shitty, pointless sketch about Sudan in which she pretends to be American in some sort of cheesy stupid American news programme or something.


JIMMY interviews BJORN LOMBORG.

JIMMY CARR:

You’re just a bit of an idiot, aren’t you? Releasing sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere? Volcano? James Bond villain?

(Pause)

No, wait – I’ve suddenly decided I'm going to try and conduct this interview seriously and try to actually wring something out of it. Dammit, this show’s going to need to find a coherent identity for each of its segments if it wants to survive, and it’s going to have to figure out what to do with me. Am I the light-hearted funnyman to Charlie and David’s grizzling snarlers? If so, why am I doing the interview about the issue that could potentially destroy our planet?

(Pause)

Anyway, it doesn’t matter because we’re out of time. More adverts!

DAVID does a rather good one of his Guardian video-blog rants and CHARLIE, shattering his established TV persona once and for all, watches some things on a screen and says sarcastic stuff about it. It’s also pretty funny. It’s also pretty superfluous, seeing as how it’s about Tunisia, which JIMMY already covered in an extended bit. Fortunately, CHARLIE is funnier than JIMMY, so we soon forget about JIMMY's bit.


DAVID interviews David Willetts and tries to have a very sincere go over tuition fees, bless him. But he doesn’t get very far before it’s time for more adverts.

DAVID, JIMMY and CHARLIE gather around a table. LAUREN, lurking quietly in the darkness behind them, tries to set them up for zingers, but most of the time they just end up talking over each other. Then it’s time to go home.

CHARLIE:

This wasn’t actually…bad, was it? I mean, it started pretty appallingly but it got a decent head of steam going towards the end.

DAVID:

Needs better writers and a more fully-formed sense of itself.

 

LAUREN:

Needs me to actually do something, not just get handed the weakest segment that could have been performed by any of you three.

JIMMY:

Quiet, you.

(Pause)

Needs to drop the whole ‘live’ thing. No audience member gives a toss about it being live – surely it could be filmed almost live a few hours before broadcast, thus maintaining its up-to-date thing while giving us a little more space to manoeuvre?

CHARLIE:

Maybe…just maybe…needs one of us to step up and fill the central Stewart role. It'll make the show have a much better focus and it'll end the desperately democratic way we keep skipping between each character to make sure everybody gets equal airtime.

 

CHARLIE, JIMMY and DAVID give each other dagger looks.

LAUREN:

Except for me.

Nobody seems to hear her. LAUREN's legs are enveloped by the ever-rising sand.

DAVID:

It might even help to get some big-name politicians onboard.

The sand is up to LAUREN's waist now.

JIMMY:

Actually, if there's one thing that this show really does need if it's going to survive, above all...

CHARLIE:

Yeah?

JIMMY:

It needs to be less Channel 4.

As the sand reaches LAUREN's head, she begins to sing 'I love you so' from The Merry Widow.

THE END.



Wider Leaking | Free Screenplay: Next Season's South Park Premiere

Editor’s note: in the spirit of transparency, we’re going to keep leaking unpublished scripts until Hollywood sorts its act out and stops making Twilight movies.


This one is the entire draft script of the first episode of the next season of classic animated comedy show, South Park. I’ve only had a chance to skim through this myself, but I think this alone should be evidence against the naysayers who argue that South Park has become stale, gloating and predictable. Nobody could have predicted this episode, provisionally titled, ‘CARTMAN TAKES A LEAK PART 1 OF 5: THE EPIC SAGA'.

SOUTH PARK ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, INT, DAY



CARTMAN is running through the hallway, knocking children to either side. The fat little bastard is panting, and clearly very excited about something.

CARTMAN:
He’s coming! He’s coming!

He finally runs out of breath, coming to a halt, in front of STAN, KYLE and KENNY.

STAN:

Who’s coming, Cartman?

CARTMAN:

You guys are not going to believe this.

(Slowly, with emphasis)
Julian Assange is coming to South Park.

KYLE:

Oh, fuck.

STAN:

(Confused)

Dude, who’s Julian Assange?

KYLE:
He’s that asshole who leaked US documents and posted them online.

CARTMAN:

Fuck you, Kyle! Julian Assange is a hero! You’re just pissed off because you know he has the files about how you Jews secretly rule the world and you invented AIDS to wipe out all the goyim.

KYLE:

Fuck you, fatass!

CARTMAN grabs hold of BUTTERS, who’s passing by.

CARTMAN:

Butters. Butters. You think Julian Assange is a hero, don’t you?

KYLE:

No, he thinks Julian Assange is a butthole. Don’t you, Butters?

BUTTERS:

(Hesitantly, as always)

Oh, gee, fellas...I don’t want to upset the government but...feels like we have a right to know everything they get up to and all.

KYLE:

No, we don’t! Butters, how could you have fallen for this narrative in which an entity which is not a hero, whose motives are in fact grubby and self-serving, gets made out to be one?

BUTTERS:

Well, uh, gee, Kyle...

CARTMAN:

Don’t listen to him, Butters. He’s just trying to stop us from finding out those Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Well, we won’t let him.

He turns, and announces to the crowded hall,

CARTMAN:
Everyone – everyone! I have an announcement to make.

(Pause; dramatically)

In the spirit of Julian Assange and greater transparency, it wouldn’t be fair for me to hold on to any of the secrets I’ve kept over the years.

(Pause)

Kenny jerks off to pictures of Sharon Osbourne.

KENNY:

(Denying it vehemently)

Mmmhmhmmmmm!

KYLE:

(To himself)

Oh, come on.

(Aloud)

Cartman! So you’re being completely transparent?

CARTMAN:

(Pompously)

That’s right, Kyle.

KYLE:

So are you going to tell everyone about that time you did a shit in the fountain at Disneyland?

CARTMAN goes very still. He seems to be trying to come up with a comeback.

CARTMAN:

Fuck you, Jew!

TOWN HALL, INT, DAY


A crowded audience. RANDY, SHARON and STAN are seated. STAN looks bored. RANDY looks excited. SHARON looks annoyed.

RANDY:

I can’t believe we’re finally going to meet Julian Assange!

SHARON:

What’s the big deal, Randy?

RANDY:

(Visibly upset)

Oh, my God, Sharon – that is ignorant. That is soo ignorant. Julian Assange is a hero!

SHARON:

No, he isn’t! He’s a rapist!

RANDY:

Oh, my God, Sharon, that is so naive. Just believe what the government wants us to believe. Just keep on believing in what they tell you. Me, I have my own opinions. I believe what Julian Assange tells me to think.

A pause for the hypocrisy of this to sink in. SHARON facepalms.

STAN:

Dad, I want to go home!

RANDY:

Quiet, Stanley! If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.

Elsewhere in the audience, JIMMY says, excited,

JIMMY:

Th-th-th-th-th-th-

(Pause)

-there he i-ui-i-i-i-i-

(Pause)

-is!

JULIAN ASSANGE steps up to the podium. He has a tortured Australian accent, acts really gay, and for some reason or another has the appearance of a man made out of straw.


The sign in front of the podium says, ‘Julian Ass’

JULIAN ASSANGE:

Hello, South Park!

The crowd goes insane.


SHARON glances to her left, where OFFICER BARBRADY is sitting. He looks excited as well.

SHARON:

Why don’t you arrest him?

OFFICER BARBRADY:

Lady, are you fucking kidding me? That’s Julian Assange! He’s a hero! He taught us to hate America again!

From onstage, JULIAN ASSANGE is beginning to speak.

JULIAN ASSANGE:

I am a revolutionary of the truth! I want to live in a world where there are no secrets whatsoever!

The crowd goes insaner.

JULIAN ASSANGE:

I have been imprisoned. Oppressed by the US. But I have an army behind me! An army of heroic Internet warriors!

QUICK IRONIC CUT TO-

BEDROOM, INT, DAY


One of JULIAN ASSANGE’s HEROIC INTERNET WARRIORS. It’s that fat guy from the World of Warcraft episode, because South Park ran out of ideas some time ago.

Yup, that's the one.

He leans back, staring blankly at the screen and clicking with his mouse. He’s very FAT.

CUT BACK.

TOWN HALL, INT, DAY


STAN looks annoyed. He stands up on his chair.

STAN:

Excuse me! Excuse me! Mr Assange! I was wondering...was it really necessary to release all those documents? I mean, American lives were endangered.

RANDY:

Stan, will you be quiet?

(To JULIAN ASSANGE)

Er, sorry, Mr Assange. My son didn’t mean any harm-

JULIAN ASSANGE waves a hand.

JULIAN ASSANGE:

Please – don’t worry about it.

(Leaning forward; gently)

Stupid little boy – do you want to be ruled by a fascist government?

STAN:

Well, no-

JULIAN ASSANGE:

Do you want an American empire with zero accountability?

STAN:

(Protesting)

But there’s no accountability, dude. There’s just you.

RANDY looks genuinely angry.

RANDY:

Stanley Marsh, that is quite enough! We’re leaving. Come on, Sharon.

SHARON:

You dragged me to this stupid meeting – now you want us to leave?

RANDY:

We are leaving, Sharon!

He grabs her roughly by the arm. She begins to struggle.


Onstage, apparently reacting to the sight of a man physically overpowering a woman, JULIAN ASSANGE looks suddenly very excited. He glances downward.

JULIAN ASSANGE:

(To his penis)

Easy there, Mr Winkle. You’ll get us in trouble again.

This would be DISTASTEFUL and LIBELLOUS if it wasn’t cutting-edge, boundary-pushing satire.


Suddenly, the doors burst open. Everyone turns.

And, standing in the doorway, is OZZY OSBOURNE.

OZZY OSBOURNE:

Where is ‘e? Where is the little fucker?

He strides down the aisle until he reaches the chair where KENNY’s sitting. He leans down and pokes KENNY in the belly.

OZZY OSBOURNE:

You! You bin wankin’ to me Sharon? Don’t even try to deny it, I ‘eard about it frough these leaks.

KENNY:

(Desperately)

Mmmhmhmhmhmm!

OZZY OSBOURNE picks him up AND BITES HIS HEAD OFF.

STAN:

(Shocked)

Jesus Christ!

Kenny, just moments before his grisly and hilarious decapitation.

KYLE turns to CARTMAN.

KYLE:

You just got Kenny killed, fatass! You and your stupid leaks!

CARTMAN:

Fuck you, Jew!

KYLE punches CARTMAN in the face. He keels over, and begins to twitch.


For some reason, everyone starts fighting.

STAN:

Everyone, be quiet!

Everyone stops fighting.

STAN:

All of you...listen. I’ve learnt something here today.

(Pause; as the gentle music strikes up)

Secrets should be kept secret. That’s why they’re called secrets. We need to trust our government to do the right thing and accept that we can’t always know everything that’s going on in the world.

(Pause)

And if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.

The crowd goes silent.

JULIAN STRAWMAN:

(Sorrowfully)

You’re...you’re right, little boy.

(Pause)

I guess I just got so caught up in trying to expose the truth...that I forgot how it’s important for governments to sometimes conceal things from us.

OZZY OSBOURNE:

(Wiping away a tear)

Let’s all go an’ ‘ave a noice cuppa tea.

For some reason, CARTMAN, still a convulsing pile of limbs on the floor, shits himself.


Everyone laughs at CARTMAN.

JULIAN ASSANGE:

Ha! What a little faggot!

Everyone laughs at CARTMAN some more.


END OF EPISODE.

A.N. If it doesn’t run to 20 minutes, we’ll stick in a subplot about Butters getting addicted to Microsoft Kinect. If it still doesn’t run to 20 minutes, we’ll include a five-minute song skit. Family Guy does it all the time.

T.P. & M.S.

P.S. If we can fit it in, I'm thinking we have a bit where Julian Assange starts jerking off to a photo of Sharon Osbourne in Cartman's bathroom. And as he jerks off, he yells,

"OH, GOD! I'M LEAKING! I'M LEAKING SO HARD! I REALLY THINK I'M ABOUT TO LEAK RIGHT NOW! OH, I CAN'T STOP THIS LEAK!"

And then he ejaculates all over Cartman as he opens the bathroom door. And Cartman blinks and says,

"Weak."