...He's supposed to say...

My phone rang early this morning.  

I happened to be up because I had to pee like a racehorse coming in last and the cat seized the opportunity to hit me up for early breakfast.  I let the answering machine pick it up, as I screened.  Yes, I have an old school answering machine connected to a landline connected to a phone like the above.

So, after the robo-greeting I hear an older woman's voice:
"Hello.  I hope I have the correct number.  I'm calling Mr. Christopher Reidy on behalf of Teena Fay.  Miss Fay asked me to forward you the following message: I-Y-S-S-S-S.  I'm not quite sure what that mean as Miss Fay was in a rush but--"
I snatched the phone from it's cradle.
"Hello?  Yes.  This is Christopher Reidy."
Oh, hello Mr. Reidy.  Yes, as I was saying, she told me to tell you "IYSSSS" and wanted you to tune-in to something called English Teacher.
Oh, do you mean the new show about a gay English teacher that airs on FX/Hulu; or, in other words DizzneyTV?
I don't know sir, I have no idea what any of this means. I'm just relaying the message. I take it English Teacher is a television show of some kind?
Yes.
Well, that's nice.  But I don't watch much TV other than Hoarders, The Golden Bachelorette and that show about the heavy Southern girl who seems nice but really doesn't so much, once you get to know her.
Wait a second...you sound really familiar.  Are you an actress?
I used to be.
You weren't in All That Jazz by any chance?
As a matter of fact I was...
The Script Lady!
That's me.
(Chris imitates flat, emotionless affect) "...he's supposed to say: 'I don't want to die.  I want to live.'"
You got it.

You know, you really made the most of your moment.
Thank you. A lot of my stuff was cut out.  Well, if there are no more questions--
Oh, there are more questions!
I suppose I can't say Miss Fay didn't warn me. 
Did she tell you what "IYSSSS" means?
No.
Do you want to know?
Not really.
Oh, come on!  As a fellow artist: one whose work I know was wrongfully relegated to the outs and trims bin...
Well...oh, all right.  Let me put you on hold while I get some coffee.  The office is dead today anyways...
A CLICK and then:

Okay, I'm back.  What does IYSSSS stand for?
It stands for: "If you see something, say something."
Oh, like on those posters at Amtrak stations and airports?
Kind of.
Are you in danger?
I don't know if danger is the right word.  Maybe jeopardy?
Now hold on.  Are you that fellow Miss Fay said was possibly, well, if not paranoid then perhaps in need of mental wellness treatments?
You mean, am I crazy?
Yes.
Can you define crazy?  I mean, aren't we all a little crazy--or at the very least, neurotic to some degree?  Neuroses is considered a mental "illness" isn't it?
Mr. Reidy, I'm not a therapist.  But you're the fellow who thinks the entertainment industry is tracking your every idea and stealing them for use in projects that you are receiving no credit or monetary compensation for, yes?
I do have OCD and I think that is officially a mental illness.  So I guess I'm mentally ill!  You know what?
What?
I'm gonna own that. I AM MENTALLY ILL!  You know, it feels really great to just say it and get it out there and off my chest!  WHEW!  What a feeling!  I'm a MANIAC!  Ma'am, I'm gonna play a song now.  I'm gonna put the phone next to the speaker and dance to it.  I invite you to join me!

Okay, I'm back.  Sorry that took so long; I had to find my leg warmers.  Did you dance?
I may have shimmied a bit in my chair.  Tapped my toes anyways.  That's from that movie with that girl, oh, what's her name?
Jennifer Beals.
Oh yes!  She was charming.
She and I were both born on December 19th!
Really?
Yes, along with Edith Piaf and Mike Lookinland, TV's "Bobby Brady"!
That's nice.  So, what did you see and what do you have to say about it?
Oh, I'll get to that in a minute.  I just looked you up on IMDB.  So you go by two names, I see: Minnie Gaster and/or Minnie Gordon Gaster.
That's my names. Don't wear them out.
So what else have you done?
I did a touring company of You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown.
​You mean this?

Is that you on the bottom right?  Because I can't seem to find any pictures of you--or any real information for that matter...
I can neither confirm or deny.
'Cuz that lady in the upper left looks wicked familiar.  And is that Gary Burghoff to your right?  I bet he played Linus!
I can neither confirm or deny.
Linus was my very favorite of the Peanuts.  I totally identified with him.

That's nice.  So, tell me about this Math Teacher show.  Now I'm curious.
It's English Teacher.
Okay.  Is this the part where you accuse that show of acquiring what you consider your IP?
That's one way to put it.  And let me say up front that I am no longer actively looking for these "acquisitions."  I am simply now reporting them when I see them--IYSSSS; or, I should clarify, moments when I feel I see them.  I'm now calling them EYEBROW RAISING MOMENTS or ERM for short. As in, "Errrrmmmm, did that show just have a drunk chick singing about her titties?"
I don't know; did it?
I'm gonna say, "yeah." And I invite anyone who feels I am mistaken to contact me.  Send me an email. Write a comment. Get a cease and desist notice in the mail!  But before we move on, let's look at your scene from All That Jazz!  It comes at the 2.00 minute mark in this mini-compilation video.  And you made the thumbnail!!!

That was fun.  So, about this French Teacher program?
English Teacher.
Whatever.  You're supposed to say: "This is what that show stole from me," now, right?
Now "stole" is your word.  I prefer "homaged."
I don't think that can be a verb.
I do.  So, let's look at the trailer for English Teacher so we're all on the same page.
​Fine.

Well?
Well, what?
What do you think?
About what?
Oh, right, I have to tell you what I think they homaged.
Go on...
Okay, here we go again.  So, about two years ago, I launched a series of blogs called "Let's Write A Screenplay!" wherein I proceeded, in a somewhat "classroom" setting--now that's ironic--
What's ironic?
That the script I wrote as a kind of class ended up homaged by a show set in a school.
Can I ask you something?
Sure.
What exactly is irony.  I've never been really clear on that.
I don't think anyone has.
Not even that Canadian girl?
What Canadian girl?
Atlantis Marinette.
Oh, especially her.  And what's up with all these Canadians all over the place  Go back to Canda, eh, yah hosers!  Am I right Minnie?  Oh, can I call you Minnie?
I'd rather you didn't.  I believe Leland Palmer may have been Canadian.
Been?  She's still alive.
What has she done lately? 'Cuz in this business, you're only as "alive" as your last project.

We're getting ahead of ourselves; but she gets a passport in perpetuity!  She was teriff in that movie--and then she disappeared.  Let's take a look!

But to answer your earlier question; irony is defined thusly:

Now, see I don't think what you're describing is "irony."  You're saying that a show about a school that stole your script about a teacher is "deliberately contrary to what one expects."  I don't know about you, but the first thing I expect in this business is theft.  Deliberate theft and nothing contrary about it, honey.  
Again, your word Minnie Ma'am.
Well, why the hell do you think they invented red script pages and that Steven Spielberg has a cone of silence in his office?  I think Aeschylus would agree that only irony here is your naivete.
And maybe Annubis Marionette...

So, you wrote this script online, like it was an online class.  What was it called?
Cheeseheads.
It's about a teacher and it's called "Cheeseheads"?  That seems odd.  Are his students none too bright?
Well, he lives in Green Bay, Wisconsin and his family is kind of obsessed with the Green Bay Packers.  Like most of the people up there are.  They call Packers fans "Cheeseheads."  
Oh, because of the state's cheese industry.
Exactly.  And fans of rival teams tried to disparage them by calling them this; but the Packers fans turned it around and embraced the would be insult as fun nickname.  They even wear hats in the shape of cheese wedges.

Cute.  So this English Teacher character wears a cheese hat?
No, English Teacher is set in Austin, Texas.
I would think you probably couldn't get much different than Green Bay, Wisconsin and Austin, Texas.
Right; but that's not really the point.
Are we going to be getting to the point at some point?
Ms. Minnie, I like your style!  I'd like you to look at this promotional poster for the show.
We're on the phone.
Just go with it.

What's that book he's looking at?
I don't know, I can't quite make out the title...oh, it's the Scarlet Letter.
Is that ironic?
I don't know yet.  It is, however one of my very favorite novels, which I've mentioned in my blog.  Let's take a look!

Are you saying he got the idea of an English teacher reading The Scarlet Letter from your blog.  I'm pretty sure that book is standard issue for English classes and has been since about the year after it came out.
Oh, I absolutely agree.  I'm just making an observation.  Speaking of Demi Moore--
We weren't.
Remember when she made a movie of it in the 90's and said that not that many people had read the book? And they gave it the Zalman King treatment?

Who is Zalman King?
​He was an actor who became a director of soft or semi-hard-core erotica.  Here he is playing a DJ on Charlie's Angels!

And you know it's a shame.  That story doesn't need any ginning up.  I mean they already had Gary Oldman.
Mr. Reidy, you're straying again.
Right, so the English teacher in my sitcom is gay and African-American.  In fact, I went so far as to suggest casting this actor to play him:

And why wouldn't you?
Well, he's currently busy playing a character on that show, Emily In Paris.
Never saw it.
Neither have I.  Let's take a look!

He's over dressed.
He's overdressed?  What about her?  It's like Sex and the City all over again but in Paris.  With even more clothes.  Oh, and the same producer.  That explains a few things.
Now that show I used to watch.  But then it started to  look like the girls wandered into Vogue's sample closet when the lights were out and got dressed.
I know, right!  It was distracting.  I mean Coco Chanel must've been spinning!  And I'm sure, like, Emily is an intern or something but still manages to pull together a dozen haute couture outfits per episode.
Back to Cheeseheads.
So, Lucien Laviscount would've been playing my English teacher "Colton Mitterand."  He teaches English at a Green Bay high school.  He's gay and at the beginning of the story, his older sister confesses to him she's a prostitute.
That doesn't happen every day.
There's also a scene in his classroom where he's assigning the class A Separate Peace to read and they start whining and then whining again when he tells them they can't read it on their phones, because nowadays kids do everything on their phones.  Wanna see the scene?
​Do I have a choice?

What's the takeaway here?
Well, the English teacher in English Teacher is gay.
But he's not African-American.
No; but hold that thought.  I wanted to set up a dynamic between the teacher and the students that was comedic without being insulting.  Like, yeah, maybe the kids may be a little lacking in their grasp of historical events and disconnected because of technology; but he is trying to connect with them because he actually likes young people.
Yeah, I got that.
Well, it's a major dynamic of English Teacher the TV show.
I'm not really convinced, however, that this show has homaged you.
Yeah, I know.  I'm not trying to convince you.  I'm just telling you my interpretation.  You called me.
Fair enough.
So, early on in English Teacher, which has thus far aired eight episodes, they introduced another teacher.  A would be love interest for the English Teacher.  This is him:

He's overdressed.
I know, right.  They got him out of his clothes faster than you can say Dimmesdale.
He looks a lot like your English teacher.
No comment.
I'll admit, that's quite a coincidence.
But it's only a coincindence Mini.  Theere are a few other things I should mention.
I did mean to ask you about the person singing about their titties.  Can you elaborate?
I sure can!  
Well, before you do that; can you tell me anything about the man reading The Scarlet Letter?
Let me do a little research and I'll get back to you.
Maybe you better do it an second blog.  We have may reached the Attention Span Outerlimit.
Sounds good.
Call me on Monday.  I've gotta run.  There's a sale on sheets at Bloomingdale's.
Can I just say one more thing?
Sure.
The English teacher on English Teacher mentions he grew up in the 90's but the show is top-loaded with 80's songs.
F'rinstance?
F'rinstance, "Maniac", from Flashdance.  I've written at length about Flashdance in my blogs.
Now that's just a coincindence Mr. Reidy.  Pure and simple.  Everybody loves that movie.  I mean, what a feeling, right!
Right.  Take that passion...
Make it happen honey.  Make it happen.
CLICK

Please see: ...He's supposed to say...Part 2 for the second half!


CFR   10/27/24