A work-in-progress from
Hysterium Productions,
Already Been Chewed News is a news-show satire presented as live with no political commentary, instead focusing more on the characters (the show's crew). The pilot, which is almost done, filmed on a shoestring budget and (unfortunately) looks it.
The characters:
- The anchorman and showrunner is Seth Leonardson, who is constantly frustrated with his staff, who is largely unequipped to report the news or be on television in general. He thinks he's the Only Sane Employee, but in practice is more of a Cloudcuckoolander.
- His main field reporter is Jenkins, who is ever timid, eager-to-please and battling stage fright.
- The other reporter is Nicholas Calixtro, an overconfident Large Ham and former Shakespearean actor whose stories are often insignificant. The first episode implies his overacting is compulsive.
- Danae Patelington, the world news reporter, is a British pop-star burn-out who sees her job as beneath her and often goes on tangents or answers her phone in the middle of a segment.
- Former Sargent Lilo Garcia, a war correspondent who is so far behind the times he landed in Vietnam instead of Iraq because he thought the former war was still going on. The series sole story arc is his attempt to reach Iraq.
- Mae Alon is the resident interviewer and debate moderator, a bipolar woman who used to be a sunny morning talk show host.
- Rounding out the cast is Sunny Daze, an incompetent meteorologist who tries his hardest but obviously has no idea what he's doing.
- And occasionally chiming in with a quick snark is Rebecca, whose job is less that of a director and more to keep everyone from going batshit insane.
And then there's the producer, Earnest, who is occasionally comes up with new ways to make the show more appealing and pull in more money. He seems to legitimately care about the program, but unfortunately interrupts the live broadcast to introduced his newest
Zany Scheme or lament its failure.
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