In the middle of the night, a couple is sleeping in their bed. There is a clatter noise outside. The husband barely stirs, but the wife rolls over and says it’s the raccoons again. The husband grumbles and gets out of bed. He gets a baseball bat on his way out the back door. The husband walks over towards the trash cans wielding the bat and starts to yell at the possible raccoons. The trash cans that were clattering suddenly stop. Suddenly two seven foot tall raccoons stand up from behind the cans and cross their muscular arms. The husband stops in his tracks as the raccoons stare him down. The raccoons go back to digging in the trash, but the husband starts to yell again and wave his bat. The two raccoons look at each, and then back at the man. They violently knock over the cans and walk right up to the husband until they’re right up in his face. One of the raccoons pushes the husband’s shoulder and smiles at the other raccoon. The second raccoon lightly punches the husband’s arm which causes the raccoon to smile even wider. The first raccoon gets ready to hit the husband again when the husband swings the bat, hitting the raccoon in the stomach. This causes the raccoon to hunch over while the second raccoon laughs. The husband then hits the second raccoon and yells at them to leave. Neither raccoon finds this amusing. They give each other a look of agreement then both jump the husband.
Battle ensues.
The husband clatters two trash can lids together and yells at the raccoons. The two raccoons scramble back into the bushes.
This is pretty solid. It gets a little confusing just before "Battle ensues," but I think it's mostly because of the nature of writing out visual gags. If we go forward with this one, we'll be able to work that stuff out more easily in a sketchbook.
ReplyDeleteThe only other thing I'm no longer sure about is the trash can lids... It seemed really funny when we were talking about it the other day, but I don't know if it will translate to people who weren't part of that conversation. We can work on the ending more as we go.
I'm also intrigued by the wacky warner bros feel this has. In my head it was more like Samurai Jack, sort of humorously melodramatic action insanity. It's so interesting the way all of our heads go in different directions when given the same starting point!
The most interesting part of this story is the Racoons being unnaturally large. We have to play up this aspect more. I want the husband to have the reaction "Holy f***ing S***, I think I'm gonna need a bigger bat" when the racoons appear and I want the audience to go "Holy f***ing S***, I think he's gonna need a bigger bat". I think there could be a lot of comedy to that scene. The moment the husband realizes these aren't the average nocturnal pests could really be punched up with some knock-out facial expressions and body language. I think it would be way funnier if it was less of a well-matched fight and the racoons really did let this guy have it. I want to have a scene where quite a lot of ruckus is going on outside and the wife is still soundly sleeping through it and then when the husbands drags himself into bed, covered in claw and bite marks she says something like "Did you take care of the racoons?" and you can still hear the trashcans outside and the husband says something like "No I think they may need a womans persuasion." or "No, maybe you should go have a try dear."
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