Characters
Owner: (Think Home Improvement’s Wilson)
Always seen as only a voice, in first person POV, in line at the Fed or SF bureaucracy, staring into a phone which fills half the screen. As the show progresses, he advances toward the window at the front. Usually on phone with Cali, Pops, or VWJG, he is a calm presence to their hectic crises. He provides calm, fatherly advice and guidance, always has the solution, but does so from a place uninformed and out of the loop. Much of Pop’s and Cali’s angst comes from scheming to keep him that way. As credits and music roll to open the show, the Owner’s phone will show three thirty-second job interviews. Two will be viewer submitted, and the third will be an incognito former TV actor made up as this week’s guest, a newly hired guide always fired or quitting by show’s end. Phone calls will be used as bumpers to convey info, and get in and out of breaks. At shows end, guest guide will be fired or quit by phone along with viewer submitted tour reviews.
Pops: (Please, please, please let Cheech wanna do this!)
Pops is the Owner’s’s dad, running around putting out fires while his son is stuck in line. …often conspiring with Cali and VWJG to fix things and keep his son out of the loop. He’s a pot smoker, dealer, grower, old school hippie. Doesn’t work for the company, always scheming to get rich with ideas that are already out there i.e. “Ride service!” (Uber!) “Social Networking!” (Facebook!) “Tour Reviews!” (Trip Advisor!) Drive a 60’s VW bug. Duuuuh…
Cali Taylor Cole: (Think Mary Tyler Moore only this time she runs things)
A major narrator for the show, she is the tour director, running the Wharf office and loading the buses. A single woman, not yet going through the change, but she can see it from here. Thus, the pace of each individual show will be based on her ‘biology’: weepy, flirty, blunt, confrontational, bored, horny, etc. The tone will be set during her phone report to the Owner’s during the opening sequence. Cali learns things the hard way.
VW Je-Genius: (“Not just because he looks like… No! No!”)
He runs the VW garage in the Haight. Always calm and just a bit high, he counterbalances Cali’s hectic crises, and the craziness at the HMHO. Always has hippie buses up on lifts. Can be McGyver when needed. Simpatico with Pops, and a focal point for the SF state of mind. Things come easy to VWJG.
Mandy & Hellie:
Mandy is another major narrator, she lives with her homeless grandma, Hellie, in an encampment near Golden Gate Park. She is a paid intern at the HMHO, with aspirations to get into Berkeley. A younger, more San Francisco, version of Cali, she darn near runs the teen center. She is only homeless because she is trying to get her grandma off the streets. She has been fending for Hellie since she was little so she is streetwise. A very talented artist, she is Picassachoo, the one who has been graffiti-ing the alleys and she painted up the hippie bus in the middle of the night.
Guide Number Two:
At the beginning of the second season, another major male narrative character will be introduced. Using audience feedback, one of the former TV star guest guides hired then fired or quitting each week of season one, will be hired on permanently. Other than the above, this character is not yet fleshed out.
–The Comedy Troupe–
(The Sidewalks of San Francisco Players)
An ensemble of versatile sketch comedians who would have much input in developing characters to fill the roles described below. …within episode and story line parameters. They would develop characters of every nationality, religion, background, race, and all of the many sexual orientations which make up the Sidewalks of San Francisco. (For example, in one show, the same actor might introduce a gay Asian female bureaucrat and a male, Chicago-accented, Sky Bus tour guide, as well as a reoccurring HMHO teen that the audience voted to keep in…
Federal Bureaucrats: at the front of Owner’s Fed line, the federal bureaucrat has no sense of humor, never resolves anything, but always charges a big fee. Always rules in favor of Sky Tours, big guys, corporations, and the bad guys.
San Francisco Bureaucrats: at the front of Owner’s SF line, always seems to be one up and laughing at Owner. Always has the upper hand, gets things done, and usually gives the Owner a wad of money or huge rebate as part of the solution. “This is where the internet payes it’s taxes!” Always rules in favor of the little guy, mom and pop, hippies, and the good guys.
The Homeless: The homeless at the Wharf prefer to drink their alternate realities, not smoke them like their Haight Street compatriots. Thus they tend to be rowdier, and more representative of out-of-town values than they are in the Haight. “I’m ashamed to live in a country that doesn’t have a hospital bed for the crazy ones. I’m proud to live in a place that takes care of them when no one else will.” …yet SF is the safest big city in America, one whose kids feel safe enough to take public buses to school. Fox News has middle America think we live in a city littered with needles and poop in the streets. “Where’s the litter? Where’s the grafitti?”
Sky Tour Guides: These will always come heavily accented: Boston, New York, Chicago, the South, Minnesota… These same guide characters, when giving Private Tours in the same episode, will don some non-pc piece of clothing, and assume a foreign accent: French, Aussie, Chinese, Mexican…
Kid: always referred to as “Kid”, he or she will man the counter at Moonstruck’s, representing the wide range of teenage kids and their viewpoints who man our registers coast to coast.
Gammy or Gamps: always referred to as such by “Kid”, this array of octogenarians will always be way slow and way hard of hearing.This character is a mouthpiece for every elderly viewpoint in our society, and the interplay between these two coworkers will highlight the diminished role this relationship plays in modern society. This is the first time in human history where often grandparents play no role in their grandchildrens’ lives. The first time in human history where grandparents and extended family weren’t the main backup for raising our kids. …the first time our Elders are seen as irrelevant rather than wise.
The Ve Dri’Vu Family: Always made up to look like they might just be coming from the same family, one that just might have ties to Al Qaeda or something else sinister. They work for the Douchebag and Loser Drive services. (“Call a Douchebag! No. A Loser is already here!) Virtually every vehicle on the road that isn’t a part of the plot is one of these: driving by, at the red light, giving you a ride. Drivers are always sinister, never speak to passengers, and actively frown upon people talking in their vehicles, yet they yell at everything going by. Bizarre podcasts on radio.
The M’elp Yu Family: Opposite of the Dri’Vu’s, the Yu are friendly, never shut up, and more Asian than Middle Eastern, …but just as politically incorrect. This family would represent the wide range of family owned businesses in a San Francisco not covered in franchises. Whether restaurant, store, or gas station, the whole family will be present. This will enable Asian values to be communicated to the rest of us, while laughing at them in a healthy way. The Dri’Vu family will do the same for Islam.
(Ending note: using a versatile comedy troupe allows for a virtually endless array of characters within non-politically correct, stereotyped parameters: (youth – seniors – vets-Asians – Muslims – homeless – substance abusers –Fox News Country-on and on. Tourist too, from every state in the country and every country in the world.) This enables every stereotype to be represented from every viewpoint, allowing each to laugh at itself as we learn to laugh along with it. Everything can be on the table, in a way never seen before.)
—Regular Minor Characters—
(These wouldn’t be represented by the comedy troupe, but by their own actor.)
Hellie: (Short for Helen/Hell on Wheels, her Army nickname) A storyline as yet undeveloped. She is Mandy’s grandma, a PTSD, Vietnam era veteran (maybe 1st Iraq War), living in the Park since she got back. She is there because she is virtually catatonic, not having spoken in years, cared for by Mandy. As a tourguide, (or perhaps just behind the wheel of a VW bus, hmmm…), she is a savant, “Best tourguide in the world!”, but we never go on her tour. A major multi-season plot line would follow her issues with homelessness, healthcare, veterans affairs, mostly seen through the eyes of her caregiver, Mandy. Again, better understand things that scare us by learning to laugh at them in a way that at least let us know what some good answers might be.
D’Vito: (new name coming. Please, please…Oh well…)This guy holds Cali’s job at Sky Tours. They play dirty, lying, cheating, and stealing. They keep the Owner in line somewhere. All employees of Sky Tours have thick ‘not from here’ accents. These would be played by the comedy ensemble and cameos.
DeHoSe Agent: A football player sized white kid, recent graduate of Quantico, all Citadel, ‘Low Country’, and FuxNews. First time living outside ‘the South’ and he is a focal point for the depiction of San Francisco that is FuxNews versus the reality. This will be accentuated through the repartee between he and the meter maid.
San Francisco Meter Maid: A teeny tiny, acid-tongued, black woman who came to San Francisco from the afore mentioned Lowcountry, sometime before the DeHoSe agent was born. “Since Jim Jones was passing the plate”, to hear her tell it. She is the voice for a black community which came to California seeking opportunity, often from places like the Lowcountry. She also is a voice for a black San Francisco that has virtually allowed itself to be gentrified out of town. Naturally she and the DeHoSe agent start out accentuating their differences, eventually to find harmony in their similarities.
San Francisco Cop: Will provide comedic counterbalance to the Fed cop who follows. He will be older, always eating something unique to the foodie culture around here. He works under a police budget that gives him access to every type of vehicle, gadget, or other assistance. Unlike Fed Cop’s stuff, his all works. From Segways to Hummers, horses to helicopters, the SF cops have it. Spends time at VWG’s garage where vehicles are worked on. Here he often runs into Fed Cop.
Fed Cop: young gung ho federal traffic cop based in the Presidio. He’s been known to give hippie buses grief. He drives a hummer with all kinds of gadgets, none of which work right. He is always eating fast food and has indigestion.
Assistant Director of HuddledMassesHippieOutreach: Always referred to as the “Ass” Director. This character is a major bad guy, running the out reach until episode two, when the new director shows up. He will be a lackey for the Brother, described in detail following. A number of possibilities exist for this character. He’s either just hired help or one of the family. If he is family, he would be Brother’s son. Whether family or employee, he will always be looking to cut corners, pinch pennies, be pessimistic and generally unpleasant, especially to the homeless teens. Republican organizer in the Haight.
The Director of HMHO: (Think Patty Hearst) The mysterious arrival of this character will be the focus of episode two. Thinking he is running things, the “Ass” Director has cut a wide swath at HMHO. This new director is an Earth Mother, San Francisco type. With her arrival comes tons of funding. Her story is that she arrived here for the summer of love in 1967, and has been living on a Humboldt County pot farm ever since. And now for the truth… (The revealing of which would play a multi-season plot line.) She was a Weatherman terrorist and has been in hiding until recently pardoned by Obama. She is an heiress and inheritor of an abandoned mansion in Pacific Heights, where she now lives as a squatter. (When she went into hiding, her brother, the Senator, was so ashamed, he shut the mansion up and moved to New York. The HMHO, Moonstruck’s, Sky Tours, and most of the Federal things in SF are run by him and his lackeys.) In the show, she reports to some shadowy board in NY, but, now she runs the teen center. The Ass Director is always scheming and plotting against her.
The Senator: This is the bad guy behind everything, though we won’t know it until well into the first season. He will be doing everything in his power to shut down Hippie Trippin’ Tours, all mom and pops, while in the process selling out SF to Wall Street and Washington. This character will never be seen on screen. But character will eventually mimic Owner: seen only as a voice, usually talking into a phone, in line somewhere.