I’m a Jinius

I love when writers can weave interest rates, murder, and Raymond Carver into a story.

Read Andy Borowitz’s piece Greenspan and Simpson: On Writing in The New Yorker.

I registered for this television writing class and thought I’d practice my sketch comedy skills. And in honor of my love for the show LOST and the Food Network, I’ve decided to write a scene where the Food Network personalities are stuck on the island of Lost. Enjoy.

Scene: Ext. Beach. Day

Plane crash on the beach. There’s a passenger airliner burning on the shore. There are flames and smoke spewing from the plane. We hear the roar of the engines. We see people screaming and crying. We see ALTON BROWN of Good Eats surveying the entire scene. His left arm is bleeding. He sees MARIO BATALI and runs over to him.

MARIO
(sitting on beach and wailing)
My clog! Ah, mama, my clog is missing! My clog!

ALTON
Mario, are you okay?

MARIO
I’ve lost my orange clog. I’ve had it for years!

ALTON
I’m sure we’ll find it somewhere. Maybe it’s hiding in the burning fuselage or tucked under the wreckage. Look, do you know how to sew?

MARIO
Alton, I turn pork belly into pancetta for a living. I don’t make patchwork quilts.

ALTON
(Picks up a coconut off the ground and tears a sliver of fur from the shell. Pulls out a fork from his pocket) I’m gonna need you to stitch this cut on my left arm. I can’t reach all the way back otherwise I’d do it myself.

MARIO
I slice meat! I don’t sew it back up!

ALTON
Just do it! Now !

Mario does an outline of the cross in the air and tries to stitch up Alton. We hear a scream from the ocean. Closeup on flailing body. It is PAULA DEAN.

PAULA
Help, y’all!!!! Help me! Where are mah boys?! Help me, Jaime! Bobby! Billy Jean!

ALTON
I can’t go in there with this cut. Although the sodium would probably sanitize it– I can’t really take the risk right now. Mario, you’re gonna have to save Paula.

Mario runs into the ocean and tries to rescue Paula. Soon we hear two people screaming. Mario is drowning.

MARIO
Ayudo! Ayudo! Mamma Mia!

Out of nowhere, we see Anthony Bourdain racing across the water and rescues a gasping Mario and Paula. All three are back on shore.

PAULA
Tony, thank you dahhhling. Mah whole life flashed right before mah eyes, y’all. I didn’t think I was gonna make it.

We hear someone shouting in the distance. The person gets closer. It is Rachael Ray, the most popular yet reviled woman on the Food Network.

RACHAEL
Are you guys okay? I was knocked out for a while there but then Barefoot Contessa came over and poured some EVOO all over me and I woke up.

ANTHONY
(muttering) Huge plane crash and not even one casualty.

RACHAEL
Did you say something, Tony?

ANTHONY
(lighting a cigarette) Nope.

RACHAEL
You sure you should be smoking with all that fuel everywhere?

ANTHONY
You sure you don’t want me shoving that bottle of EVOO up your ass?

ALTON
Listen, guys, we’re gonna need to focus and stick together. We’re gonna be losing daylight soon and we need to set up camp and evaluate the food situation.

MARIO
Speaking of Barefoot Contessa, where is Ina?

Camera pans to Ina sitting at the edge of the shore. She is alone and looking out to the sea. Alton runs over to her.

ALTON
Ina, are you alright?

INA
My Jeffrey. I can’t seem to find my Jeffrey.

ALTON
Oh, Ina, I’m sorry. It was a horrible crash. It’s a miracle that we all survived. And that all our cooking utensils are intact.

INA
I know my Jeffrey’s on this island. Somewhere. I can feel him.

ALTON
Ina, when people suffer post traumatic stress disorder they sometimes delude themselves into—(Ina takes out a stick of butter from her pocket and starts smothering it on her hair.) Ina, what are you doing?

INA
The butter keeps my hair conditioned. If you mix this with a little bit of sea salt it makes just a wonderful pomade. Afterall, Alton, just because we’ve crashed on a deserted island doesn’t mean we still can’t look fabulous.

ALTON
Hey, c’mon, the gang’s calling us.

(Alton grabs Ina’s hand and they walk over to the group.)

MARIO
So we’ve discovered track marks leading from the sand up into the woods over there which leads me to believe that these prints belong to wild boar. I say that a couple of us go into the woods, catch us some wild boar, and I’ll make a nice wild boar ragu for dinner. Maybe make some tagliatelle out of those bamboo shoots.

RACHAEL
You guys, in the time it takes you to go into the forest and catch a wild boar, I will have made a delicious and healthy meal in less than thirty minutes. I’ve gotta oyster and coconut stewp and some seaweed shellfish sammies. Try saying that 10 times! (Laughing hysterically to herself)

ANTHONY
If I strangled you and buried you in the sand, I bet no one would ever find you.

RACHAEL
Do you wanna piece of me, Bourdain? You’ve been hating on me for years! You’re just jealous that I make more money than you.

ANTHONY
If you make more money than me then how can you eat three meals on $40 a day? Have you ever heard of tipping??? And is there any way you can control the volume of your voice? I’ve heard air strikes in Beirut that were more pleasant.

PAULA
Just quit it, y’all. We need to keep it togetha. Now where are Emeril and Bobby? Has anyone seen’em?

INA
Maybe they’re on the other side of the island. With my Jeffrey.

ALTON
Okay, here’s the plan: Mario, Anthony– you try to catch the boar. That will last us a while and we can use all the parts for stews and casseroles and save the bladder and inflate it and later fly is as an SOS balloon. I’m gonna need the rest of you to help build a shelter while I try to figure out a filtration system to purify the sea water.

PAULA
How long do you think it’ll be till the network finds us? I need to get back home. My daughter in law is havin’ a baby shower and I made sweet potato bawwwls.

ALTON
I wish I knew, Paula. Till then, we’re gonna have to figure out how to get through tonight.

INA
Well, I’m sure we could create a lovely thatched roof using those bamboo shoots over there. And if we gather enough leaves and sea shells I can assemble a lovely decoupage for our dinner table.

ALTON
And we should look through the wreckage and see if we can find any suitcases that might have food and medical supplies.

ANTHONY
Especially vicodin. (Staring at Rachael) Something tells me I’m gonna need some pain killers.

(All of a sudden a loud roar is heard throughout the island. The group huddles together. They hear foot steps that sound like they belong to a dinosaur. The entire island is shaking from the foot steps. Anthony looks up and sees THE THING)

Anthony
Jesus Christ. All my years of traveling and I’ve never once seen anything like that.

And scene. Stay tuned to find out what happens.