Pilot # 2"Shaye and The Raggamuffin Gang"
I thought this Pilot would definitely be picked up for the Fall Schedule, even though it took place in the late '30's! I played Carmelina Hooper a Nurse who really liked poor kids. It was kind of like Our Gang only this time the kids had all these different psychological problems. One of the kids who was named Potato Sac liked to dig holes and sleep in them! Another one liked to burn his arm with cigarrettes and still another could barely talk and walk due to the fact his mother drank 2 quarts of vodka everyday she was pregnant with him. I help the "gang"to overcome their different problems by forming a softball team, I was Coach Carmelina. In the Pilot episode I learn about these poor "raggamuffins"who live in the empty lot across from where I work. I make friends with them when I save "Jitters"after he eats a dead cat and becomes real sick. The kids and I become a "family" and start helping neighbors and putting on shows for sick people. This episode ends with one of the "gang" being run over by a milk truck and dying in my arms as I sing Amazing Grace. It was a real old fashioned tear jerker. I liked the cast of kids and loved playing Carmelina. I thought that this show could be the exact thing this country need right now...wrong!I was told by one of the Producers that when they tested the Pilot with an audience people were laughing.Some of the younger members of the audience screamed names out at the screen calling the troubled kids "tards"! I was so amazed by how jaded these kids were, some as young as 5! When "Lazy eye" gets run over the audience burst into laughter and applauded! That just goes to show that one can never predict an audiences reaction. I told the producers to sell it as an comedy about the future,but I could see in there eyes that "Shaye and The Raggamuffin Gang" was already history. Luckily they had a few more ideas and wanted me to star in them all!
Pilot # 3"Sister Mary Choke and Dump"
The next 2(!) Pilots we shot back to back real cheap hoping the gritty reality would help sell them. The first of these cheapies was "Sister Mary Choke and Dump". It was about a Nun who lived in the Dominican Republic. When Mary was a young girl she was attacked by a serial killer and left for dead in a filthy alley. Mary was not dead though and when she came out of the coma she had "psychic powers"! Among her powers was the ability to perform surgery with her bare hands! Sister Mary C.D. also found that she could see a persons future by pinching their arm. Mary also became quite a prankster after the coma and was known by the villagers as the "fun Nun". In the Pilot we see the story of how S.M.C.D. became "the healer of Domingo",shown in a very cheap flashback scene. The rest of the episode is scenes of S.M.C.D. using her "powers". Among the scenes we see S.M.C.D. pulling a brain tumor from a sick boys head, telling a rich man, after pinching his arm as a good luck gesture,that his house will burn down and all his stuff will burn with it, and finally seperating conjoined twins with nothing more than a wire! All the "surgery" was done off camera because there was no money for effects and the flashbacks were just black and white pictures! The best scene in this Pilot was a heartfelt bongo lesson given to me by an appreciative father whose child I had just saved by pulling a tumor from its brain. Everyone who saw the episode loved that scene so much, especially the part when I kick the father in his shins after he tries to grab my boob.
Pilot # 4"Lady of the Manor"
The Producers hoped to sell P.B.S. this Pilot since everybody spoke with an British accent. I wore that crazy dress, rented from a costume shop,through the whole episode. It shot entirely at a mansion owned by a rich relative of one of the Producers. I played a mental patient who suddenly seemed to travel through time to England circa 1880. It was the basic "fish out of water" story. I speak of microwaves and crimping irons as the dry Brits look on in amazement at this interesting stranger. I captivate them all so much that a Prince wants to Marry me! Even though I can be lucid at times the fact remains that I was in a mental institution before traveling through time. The mental illness makes itself known during a party,when I suddenly curl up into the fetal postion screaming "what have you done to my baby?". The Brits become frightened of me and want to burn me at the stake thinking that I am a witch. The Pilot ends with a cliff hanger as they surround me with lit torchs as I scribble randomly on the marble floors of the ballroom with a piece of coal. To my amazement this Pilot nearly did see the light of day. P.B.S. was seriously considering buying the Pilot plus 6 more episodes. They finally declined to pick it up due to their belief that the "time travel"element was too farfetched for the P.B.S. audience. The Producers told the P.B.S. guys that the character never really travels through time, since she is a mental patient the whole thing is just a delusional fantasy in a warped wackos mind. P.B.S. really disliked that angle for some reason I forgot what it was though. The best part in this Pilot was the above mentioned "what have you done to my baby" scene. I am glad I did not have to do 6 more episodes, because that dress had to be pinned and stapled onto me it hurt the whole time I was in it.
Pilot # 5- 6