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The new TV program generator
by Ed Wank Sep 1, 2004

[this is satire] The new fall TV season is upon us. Have you ever wondered how television executives come up with concepts for new programming? Actually, it’s pretty simple. They use tools remarkably similar to the “new show generator” outlined below. Choose three numbers, 1 through 10, then read the phrase that corresponds to each number in each category. For example — if you picked, say 7-5-2, your hit show would be about a 3-foot-tall bachelor opening a casino in a doctor’s office. Get it?

Part 1: Characters
1) Siegfried and Roy’s trained lions
2) Joey from Friends
3) Two brothers who are both cosmetic surgeons
4) A single dad and his 15 sons
5) 16 strangers
6) Donald Trump
7) One 3-foot-tall bachelor
8) 12 high-maintenance women
9) Paula, Simon and Randy
10) A nun who can fly

Part 2: Situations
1) Opening his/her/their own medical practice
2) Competing for a million dollars
3) Having singers audition for him/her/them
4) Trading places with a mom
5) Opening a casino
6) Opening a restaurant
7) Trying to become (a) professional boxer(s)
8) Attempting to become lead singer(s) for INXS
9) Moving in with Amish kids who are far from their homes
10) Talking incessantly about sex

Part 3: Locations:
1) In a trendy New York coffeeshop
2) In a doctor’s office
3) In a hospital emergency room
4) Stranded on a tropical island with only rice to eat
5) In a town whose high school has been overrun by vampires
6) In a radio station in Seattle
7) Upstairs from Fred and Ethel Mertz
8) In a German POW camp
9) In a small Alaskan town
10) In a bar in Boston

Wank & O’Brien hold forth each weekday morning on Real 97.1.

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