Proposal for a late night comedy/magazine show
© James Engels and David Lowe, 4 May 1998
A large black car, flanked by outriders on Harley-Davidsons, streaks through the dark, wet streets. It passes through a series of checkpoints before entering a grand old gate. Lightning flashes. A glimpse of a mysterious triangular logo in the iron work - the letters 'SMB'.
The car passes the main entrance of a huge gothic mansion and heads towards a dingy-looking fibro shed out the back, guarded by a man in sunglasses with a mic headset. From the POV of the passenger, the guard opens the car door and ushers us towards the ramshackle shed door.
Inside the shed is an incongruous-looking high-tech lift, which leads down at high speed, opening into a corridor. The corridor leads to another guarded door. This one has a combination lock like a bank vault. Inside are more Get Smart-style barred doors, which open and close until the only way forward is down, via a fireman's pole.
At the bottom of the pole is the studio set for Secret Men's Business. It looks like a cross between a Freemason's Lodge, a bloke's shed and the Bat Cave. The band kicks into gear as the studio audience cheers. The show is about to begin.
BUSINESS BEFORE PLEASURE
More politically incorrect than The Footy Show, funnier than H.G. and Roy, Secret Men's Business celebrates and satirises the strange and secretive world of the Australian male. It's a new kind of lifestyle/magazine show, recorded in front of a live audience, and drawing from other types of high energy television such as sketch comedy and game shows.
The aim is to create the perfect mix of bloke wisdom for the 90s and old-fashioned Australian stupidity, appealing to a broad, national late night television audience.
There are two hosts, one a SNAG (Sensitive New Age Guy), the other a CHOP (Chauvinistic Old Prick). Neither of them have hit middle age yet, but they haven't got a lot else in common, apart from having reached the inner sanctum of the Secret Men's Order (and being a bit lost when it comes to women). They represent the opposite ends of the bloke spectrum, and will be played as characters by actors with live comedy experience.
The SNAG wears Country Road gear, goes jogging, and drives a little hatchback. The CHOP wears whatever's practical (usually something with plenty of holes), goes pig shooting and drives an old Holden. They're far from perfect, but they've got their hearts in the right places, and each guy's got his own distinctive charm. While playing their opposing dramatic roles, the SNAG and the CHOP will also continually surprise us by challenging the stereotypes.
Think Andrew Denton and Paul Hogan, only both younger - Tim Ferguson and Kim Gyngell, Martin and Molloy, Simon Dodd and Jeremy Sims, Mark Warren and Anthony Morgan. Segments will be short and snappy, with the SNAG and the CHOP given plenty of space to indulge and send each other up. Nothing will be sacred. There will be irony, self-mockery, and understatement. The show will be unabashedly Australian.
WHAT ABOUT THE WOMEN?
There are no women on this show. At least not in the studio. Not officially anyway. Because the fiction is that Secret Men's Business is some kind of secret men's society which has been around forever, any women in the live audience will have to wear false beards or stick-on moustaches to attend, becoming honorary men for the night. For segments where women need to be women, there will be elaborate precautions, such as blindfolds and/or headphones to prevent important secrets from escaping...
SEGMENTS
Each week's show will feature a number of segments, some regular, some one-off, with a 50/50 mix of pre-taped and live material. Segments might include:
Shed of the Week. A bloke shows us round his shed. What's special about it? How does he keep his wife out? What's the story with that engine in half a million pieces? What's the view like? Men's Medicine. Blokes telling their own stories about what happened to them. From baldness cures to prostate cancer. Close shaves and personal stories, supported by expert medical people where necessary, with an emphasis on no-nonsense practical advice. Toy of the Week. Hang-gliding, jet-skiing, net-surfing, four-wheel driving, ride-on lawn mowing, fly-fishing, water-skiing... If it involves an expensive gadget which blokes want but no one really needs, we want to know about it. Bloke Cuisine. Emphasis on nutritious, easy to prepare food. Everything from traditional tucker to yuppie Eastern Suburbs-type stuff. Food for you when you're in a hurry and food to impress your new girlfriend. Blowing Stuff Up. Building demolitions, fireworks, war games and movie pyrotechnics. Great Engineering Feats. Stuff that didn't get blown up. From the Pyramids to the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Trailblazing design and the long-term ecological and human consequences of things that seemed like a great idea at the time. Weekend Warriors. Tips for stuff you can do with your kids that doesn't cost too much. Old-fashioned games and magic tricks. Being a good amateur ref. Teaching kids to swim. Inventor's Corner. Celebrating the improvisatory Anzac spirit and the unheralded geniuses in backyards all over Australia. Jobs to Die For. A day in the life of people like Penthouse photographers (focusing on the job rather than the subject), mercenaries, gigolos, parachuting instructors, cave divers, Air Force pilots, Ferrari factory workers. A counterpoint segment could be Hell Jobs... Getaways. For single dads, guys with girls, gay blokes, single guys, honeymooners... Sport. From the latest Kasparov-Deep Blue Challenge to boxing and extreme sports. Includes tips for the fixtures in the week ahead. Great Blokes in History. Biographical snapshots of famous and infamous past members of the Secret Men's Order, from Karl Marx to Charles de Groot, Skippy to Harold Holt. Car Make-Over. Before and after. Everything from amateurs fiddling about with old VWs to dedicated street machine types and the fluffy dice crowd.Another part of the show is product testing. Products relating to attracting or dealing with women will be field tested with a satiric eye; for instance an actor might be sent out into public transport or into a bar with the latest fake pheromone product and a hidden camera to record the response (before and after).
There will also be film/book/video reviews with an eclectic male slant (arty films, monster trucks, x-rated videos, opera). These will be done by our hosts.
ELDER STATESMEN
A key regular element of Secret Men's Business is the Elder Statesman/Guru section. Near the end of the show, a senior member of the Secret Men's Order rises out of the floor on a throne with plenty of dry ice and backlighting and delivers some kind of reverb-laden two minute sermon about some male-related issue, such as 'should contraception be the responsibility of the man or the woman?' It might take the form of a message to the nation or be something much less weighty - perhaps just a general rant. Always a famous Australian bloke of some kind, these guys will be different each week, unless they're very good.
Possibilities include: John Clarke, Stan Grant, Peter Brock, Graham Kennedy, Gough Whitlam, Dr Henry Yu, Tommy Raudonikis, Graeme Blundell, John Wood, Doc Neeson, Kevin Bloody Wilson, Pat Dodson, Rod Quantock, Stuart Littlemore, Graeme Murphy, Noel Pearson, Derryn Hinch, Bert Newton, John Jarratt, Andrew Denton, Ernie Dingo, Barry Mackenzie, Angry Anderson, John Singleton, Gary Sweet, Glynn Nicholas, Les Hiddins, Rex Mossop, Greedy Smith, Doug Mulray, Patrick Cook, Paul Hogan, Galarrwuy Yunupingu, Phillip Adams, Graham Richardson, David Gulpilil, Paul Lyneham, Molly Meldrum, Bob Hawke, Bert Newton, Gary Ablett, Don Lane, Reg Livermore...
The counterpoint to this segment will be Men Reflect, focusing on ordinary blokes who've been around for a while and have something sensible or worthwhile to say. This segment will consist of a single, tight shot of a man talking about whatever's important to him, possibly with his face reflected in a pool of water.
MUSIC
The Secret Men's Business house band is the dirtiest, meanest blues power trio ever assembled. They wear dark glasses and lots of leather, and they're called The Riders of the Apocalypse. They're like Stevie Ray Vaughan meets Cream meets the Jimi Hendrix Experience or Johnny Winter meets Dave Hole; bass and drums with a screamingly loud and very talented slide guitarist running the show. They play classic hard rock, blues and R&B.
There's no singer - or maybe there is but he died years ago and is just a skeleton propped up in a leather jacket (the terms of his will said he had to keep attending gigs after his death or the band would be cursed). If there's a visiting singer he/she might do something with the band, but their main role is to get the audience into the right state and then carry the emotional gear changes through the show.
GAMES
Different each week, perhaps revolving around the guests (see below). What's wrong with this lawnmower? (the audience knows what part's missing) Why won't this computer boot up? (how long will it take him to realise the monitor isn't plugged in). What's this obscure mechanical part from? (a cylinder from a '83 Monaro). There might also be more cerebral challenges such as perfume guessing (useful for impressing women), programming a VCR (a relay race), picking different beers by taste, identifying celebrity breasts, or remembering sports stats.
Perhaps our hosts have to learn a new skill each week from a visiting expert. They watch and then have to repeat whatever it is - loading and aiming an artillery gun, conducting a string quartet, juggling...
GUESTS
While outside the studio, the emphasis will always be on subjects telling their own stories. Wherever possible there will be no visible reporter. Where a story will be best served by getting someone into the studio, the hosts will share the questioning.
One possibility for choosing guests is the idea of heroes; getting people in who've done something significant and talking about it (and countering the idea that Australia doesn't have heroes any more). Contenders might include people like Tim Macartney Snape, Mark Occhilupo, silverchair, Mick Doohan, Fred Hollows (if he was still alive) and the bloke in America making Australian beer (Jabberwocky Ale). This segment could be called Champions, or Legends.
Guests will be invited to bring in some blokey object which has great personal significance for them. It might be an old fob watch which was a present from a grandfather, or a gun shell from World War One, or a shark's jaws, or whatever. This section could be called Talking Point or Conversation Piece.
Of course every guest who enters the inner sanctum will need to know the Secret Men's Business handshake and password...
DEAR LADIES
Each week three women who share a profession and/or work together (a different three each week) will be invited in for a segment called Dear Ladies or Three by Three. They might be three receptionists from a concreting company, or three elegant designers, or three journalists, or three professional actresses. Blindfolded, they are led into booths which restrict their vision. Their blindfolds are removed and they are made to wear headphones. Then, Quiz Show style, they are individually asked questions (sent in by viewers and relayed by the hosts) about female psychology or how best to act in various delicate male/female situations.
While one woman is listening to the question, the other two get music (so they can't collaborate). Only the audience will know if they all agree with each other or disagree. The questions will relate to issues of male/female etiquette, choosing birthday and anniversary presents for girls, dream analysis, sexual mysteries and gender politics. At the end of the segment there will be a quick and silly wrap-up of the results of the advice from the week before (relationships in tatters, engagements called off, people in hospital)...
Apart from musical guests, the other possibility for direct female involvement in the show is some kind of female newsreader (perhaps on rotation or on a trial basis) who does the Blokes News, possibly via closed circuit TV from another location.
ALL IN A GOOD CAUSE
Over the course of the series, the SNAG of the show has to get together with a bloke from a chapter of the Rebels or Coffin-Cheaters and build a Harley Davidson from its component parts. He's not much good at it, and looks very silly along the way, but over the course of the series he does the whole job pretty much by himself. At the end of the season the bike will be raffled off for a worthy cause.
This idea could be extended to the CHOP as well; he has to learn to do something tricky and equally unfamiliar over the course of the show; like play a reasonably difficult tune on a huge organ (like the one in Sydney Town Hall) without making too many mistakes. Again, he has the assistance of an expert tutor. The SNAG and the CHOP compete with each other to finish their respective tasks. Perhaps there is some money for a worthy cause riding on the success of both challenges.
THE AUDIENCE
Secret Men's Business will start as a cult thing, particularly if it's in a late night slot, but it has the potential to be the most talked-about thing on Australian television. It's at the right time, fitting in with the extraordinary growth of new men's print magazines, and it's got the right tone, not taking itself too seriously but with enough wisdom in it to last beyond the moment.
Unlike the various Footy Shows, it's not too parochial, and it has the potential to be popular with a broad cross-section of the Australian population at any time of year. Men will watch it because it's about them, and women will watch it to find out how men think, and then stay because there'll be little in it to offend them, and much to enjoy. The show will be relatively inexpensive to make, with most of the subject matter coming for the price of good research. Obviously much depends on the chemistry between the SNAG and the CHOP, and both men will have to be very carefully cast, as for a drama.
The most important thing, in our opinion, is that the central formula is strong, timely and potentially long-lived.
Please get in touch if you would like to take this further.
© James Engels and David Lowe, 4 May 1998
Please contact David's agent, Belinda Maxwell, at ICS and Associates, Sydney Australia, for more information.