Category Archives: Studio 60 on Roosevelt Avenue

Studio 60 Concludes, In a New Format!

I want to take you on a journey toward what is perhaps the dumbest creative endeavor I’ve ever undertaken.

You may recall a few weeks ago, episode 12 of Studio 60 on Roosevelt Avenue ended in a bit of a cliffhanger, with the classic two-parter stinger “To Be Continued.” For those who have been on the edge of their seats wondering how everything could possibly be wrapped up in a neat little package, wonder no more. The exciting conclusion, the one that will leave no question unanswered, is now contained in an ebook collection cleverly entitled Studio 60 on Roosevelt Avenue: The Complete Scripts. It is the first ever Scratchbomb ebook and it is now available from Amazon for the insultingly low price of 99 cents.

This ebook not only includes all 13 episodes of the only series to combine a funhouse mirror image of the Mets’ season with the golden pen of Aaron Sorkin. It also contains a foreword by the greatest and most intense televisual dramaturge of our age, a preface by the often-shackled Yo-Yo Ma, and sketches of story arcs for future, unrealized seasons. And you can read it all on your Kindle or Kindle-type app on the device of your choice this very moment for less than a dollar.

Why am I charging anything for this ebook? A great deal of time and effort went into this endeavor, both in the writing and the technical flimflammery necessary for ebook conversion. I feel this has value and that a nominal fee is reflective of that value. I know this is the internet age and we’re all supposed to get all our entertainment for free, but I don’t feel all that bad for asking money for something that took considerable hours and brain-wracking to make. If that’s a dealbreaker for you, there’s a lot of my writing in a lot of different places on the interwebs for free and you may still feast on that.

But if this quixotic publication appeals to you and you think that 99 cents is a small price to pay for it, please download! If you dig it, RT, Facebook it, give it a good review on Amazon, shout out your window at random strangers, and so on. Every little bit helps. If you don’t like it, please scream at me on the social networking platform of your choice.

If you’d like to read this ridiculous thing but don’t have a Kindle device or app, I am currently looking into what it will take to get it out there for other such devices. This will depend largely on the cost and hours in the day at my disposal, but I’m one of those weirdos who likes to figure out how to do things technically, so if there is any way at all I can make this ebook for other formats, I will. Stay alive! No matter what occurs I will find you (and accommodate your technical needs)!

For those who will purchase it, I thank you, and personally guarantee this will be the most pointless thing you will ever read. And just for the record, this Studio 60 compendium is not the massive tome I’m working on that I often allude to on Twitter. That is still a good ways away from being completed, but completed it shall be.

Onward and upward!

Studio 60 on Roosevelt Avenue: Episode 12

STUDIO 60 ON ROOSEVELT AVENUE
EPISODE 11
WRITTEN COMPLETELY BY AARON SORKIN TOTALLY ALONE AND UNDER GREAT DURESS
RELIVE THE EXCITING INAUGURAL SEASON!
PILOT | EPISODE 2 | EPISODE 3 | EPISODE 4 |
EPISODE 5
| EPISODE 6 | EPISODE 7 | EPISODE 8
EPISODE 9 | EPISODE 10 | EPISODE 11

LOGLINE: Once the nation’s best and most respected baseball GM, Sandy Alderson has been reduced to trying to revive a moribund franchise in the depths of deepest, darkest Queens. Along with his sharp-witted and adoring protégés, he fights off the seemingly endless series of controversies and crises that beset him while trying to run a sports team in the country’s most bustling metropolis, and still look fantastic while doing it. Can the pressures of such an important job crush this singularly talented and gifted individual genius?

ACT I

The office. PAUL DEPODESTA and J.P. RICCIARDI are standing near a Xerox machine as it whirs away, crumpling up pieces of copy paper and shooting them, basketball style, into a large, overflowing recycling bin.

DEPODESTA
If you could be any tyrant in history, who would you be?

RICCIARDI
Define “tyrant.”

DEPODESTA
Autocratic giant ruling his land with an iron fist.

RICCIARDI
Why would I want to be that?

DEPODESTA
Imagine you had no choice. Which one would you pick that would be the least distasteful to you?

RICCIARDI
I guess…Louis XIV. Seems like you’d be pretty far removed from most of the horror, and you could wear powdered wigs. How about you?

DEPODESTA
Abraham Lincoln.

RICCIARDI
What?! Abraham Lincoln wasn’t a tyrant!

DEPODESTA
The South thought he was. That’s why Booth yelled “sic semper tyrannus!” just before he shot him.

RICCIARDI
That’s a loophole. I didn’t know I could pick Lincoln.

DEPODESTA
Shoulda come with me on that trip to Gettysburg.

MACKENZIE CARLIN walks in, looking annoyed.

CARLIN
What are you two doing? You’re supposed to be copying all the 40-man-roster salary info for today’s meeting.

DEPODESTA
We are. And while we do, we are having a very important discussion abut tyranny, while also playing recycling bin basketball.

RICCIARDI
And I’m winning, mostly because I didn’t call Abe Lincoln a tyrant.

CARLIN
[grabbing the overflowing recycling bin] Is somebody gonna clean this thing out?

RICCIARDI
Yes, I assume somebody will. Could you put it down? I’m trying to line up a three pointer.

CARLIN
[rooting through the trash] What is this?

RICCIARDI
It’s you looking through garbage, for some reason.

CARLIN
No, this.

CARLIN pulls out something from the trash. It looks like a card. She shows it to RICCIARDI and DEPODESTA, who immediately look intrigued.

Cut to DAVID EINHORN’s office. He’s sitting on the edge of his desk with a large square of grass-covered sod in each hand, weighing them carefully. He hears a knock at his door.

EINHORN
Come in, but this better be important. I’m trying to choose grass for my dog’s new putting green.

CARLIN, RICCIARDI, and DEPODESTA enter.

CARLIN
I thought you’d want to see this.

CARLIN hands EINHORN the card. He too is immediately intrigued.

Continue reading Studio 60 on Roosevelt Avenue: Episode 12

Studio 60 on Roosevelt Avenue: Episode 11

STUDIO 60 ON ROOSEVELT AVENUE
EPISODE 11
WRITTEN COMPLETELY BY AARON SORKIN TOTALLY ALONE AND UNDER GREAT DURESS
RELIVE THE EXCITING INAUGURAL SEASON!
PILOT | EPISODE 2 | EPISODE 3 | EPISODE 4 |
EPISODE 5
| EPISODE 6 | EPISODE 7 | EPISODE 8
EPISODE 9 | EPISODE 10

LOGLINE: Once the nation’s best and most respected baseball GM, Sandy Alderson has been reduced to trying to revive a moribund franchise in the depths of deepest, darkest Queens. Along with his sharp-witted and adoring protégés, he fights off the seemingly endless series of controversies and crises that beset him while trying to run a sports team in the country’s most bustling metropolis, and still look fantastic while doing it. Can the pressures of such an important job crush this singularly talented and gifted individual genius?

ACT I

SANDY ALDERSON enters the front office through a large set of glass doors and is immediately flanked by J.P. RICCIARDI, PAUL DEPODESTA, and MACKENZIE CARLIN, who trail him as he walks through the office

ALDERSON
So what’s the bad news, chums?

RICCIARDI
A Native American civil rights group believes our stadium was built on a Seminole burial ground.

ALDERSON
Inform them there were never Seminole tribes in this area but we have the utmost respect for their ancient and sacred beliefs nonetheless. Next?

DEPODESTA
Our new third baseman wants a patch on his uniform to commemorate Jerry Garcia.

ALDERSON
If he can sew it on himself, he’s welcome to. Next?

CARLIN
The city’s board of health has traced an outbreak of swine flu back to one of our concession stands.

ALDERSON
Then I guess we’re sending out for pizza today. Is that all? Sounds like an easy day, by my standards.

CARLIN
No, there is also a huge guy in a muscle tee in your office, demanding to speak with you.

ALDERSON
We didn’t lead with that, huh?

CARLIN
Always put your best stuff last.

ALDERSON enters his office and sees JOSE CANSECO sitting at his desk, feet up, frantically mashing a cable remote and flipping through channels on a large wall-mounted flat screen. An enormous, messy meatball sub sits on the desk. CANSECO is wearing very faded zubaz and a muscle tee that stops just above a protruding gut.

CANSECO
Do you guys get the pay porn channels here? I think this girl I knew in rehab is gonna be on one of ‘em in like five minutes.

ALDERSON
By all means, make yourself at home.

CANSECO
I already have.

ALDERSON
Yes, clearly. I was being…never mind. What do you want?

CANSECO
Don’t you wish they could make, like, a buffalo meatball? You got buffalo wings and buffalo chicken sandwiches but no buffalo meatballs? How come nobody’s done that yet? I would eat the hell out of a buffalo meatball sub. I’d eat the hell out of two of ‘em. Not even blink, man. I don’t care what I do.

ALDERSON
What do you want from me, Jose?

CANSECO
Remember when we talked in the parking lot the other day, Sandy?

ALDERSON
Yes, I recall you scaring me half to death, then ending our meeting with a vague threat.

CANSECO
C’mon, that’s all water over the bridge. I’m here because I can help you, Sandy.

ALDERSON
Yes, my office was dangerously low on marinara stains. I appreciate you helping out in that department.

CANSECO
No, in the playoff hunt! If you guys wanna make a run at the championship cup, you’re gonna need a bat like mine in your lineup.

ALDERSON
You do realize that at this point in the season, we can’t add any more players, because if we did, we’d have to expose someone on our 40-man roster to waivers, which…what am I saying, of course you don’t realize that.

CANSECO
Just gimme a tryout, Sandy. Let me prove there’s still some sugar left in this gas tank!

ALDERSON
Why do you even want to play baseball again? You look like you’ve been exercising to a John Belushi workout routine.

CANSECO
Because I miss it, Sandy. The crowds, the cheers, and yeah, even the boos. I miss the way I felt when I would walk out on a baseball field—alive, truly alive. I haven’t felt that way in years, and I want to feel it again, even if it’s just once before I die. And I also have at least three exes on my ass for child support payments. They repossessed my PS3, man!

ALDERSON
Fine. I’ll call up the coaches and scouts and get them to…

CANSECO
No, Sandy, I want you to give me a tryout. Throw me some BP. It’ll be just like old times!

ALDERSON
I never threw batting practice in Oakland.

CANSECO
I mean the old times the way they oughta be!

ALDERSON
[sighs] Fine, just give me a minute.

ALDERSON skirts around the desk and grabs the doorknob for his private bathroom.

CANSECO
I wouldn’t go in there. Someone clogged it up real good.

ALDERSON
Was that someone you?

CANSECO
I’m not sayin’ nothing. I ain’t no snitch!

Continue reading Studio 60 on Roosevelt Avenue: Episode 11