The Rocky Robot Show Pitch Day

Hello there

Okay second try at this post (Patreon went down when I first wrote it and deleted the whole thing.  It was brilliant and just what I needed).

Just a little catch progress report on the pitch for The Rocky Robot Show today.

As you shall know, if you heard Cabin Fever or saw the Bounty Hunter box video , my co-writer/assistant Jon, travelled up to my dwelling at the end of last week to help with finally getting these pitches for The Rocky Robot Show sent off.

I say 'help' - make no mistake - he travelled up to stand over me and make sure I did it.

The thing is, it's not that I've been lax as such, more that I've just not found the time to actually get the final parts of it done. The pilot episode has been done a while, the bespoke pitch reels have been done a while (although I did have to re-edit them the other night because I couldn't find the ones I did), the pitch page has been done a while, the episode guide has been done a while, everything has been done a while. But putting them all together in one package? Printing them out on posh paper and burning the dvd's? A hurdle too far that has been for me. All it took was for me to think I was too tired so I would do it "tomorrow" and, before you know it, we are another month passed.

So, genuinely, I needed Jon sat beside me pushing me through. He was finding all the addresses and going back and forth into the art room to feed posh paper into the printer, as I sat here firing it all off. I know I charge ahead on my own, but it's sometimes a proper relief to have another pair of hands nearby. I just wish he would lower his voice a bit when he is shouting at me...

Here Jon is working really hard:

That's how I found him after I had been working my fingers to the bone upstairs.

In case you don't know, the pitch contents have been (mostly) written in character, as though the puppets from the cartoon are pitching it themselves. There's been a long and arduous discussion about it, where I've done plenty of opinion u-turns, but we finally settled on a tone. It's really not the done thing in television pitches, but we have decided to chance our arm. I think it's just the right side of acceptable, but there remains a high risk of stuff getting immediately tossed in the bin for not being done "correctly". The argument, we have concluded, is that any company doing that is not the right fit for this show. Genuinely subscribe to that. On the other hand, if somebody does go along with it, we know that they are absolutely on the right wavelength.

(There is currently a caveat in place that if the ones we have sent all get completely rejected without discussion, then we will do the next round properly).

Let's take you through the pitch doc though...

These are the DVD "cases" that contain a disc with a bespoke animated pitch for each company, along with the full pilot episode. The links to online versions of them are all safely in stock, to be sent in a couple of days (Jon is doing that, along with a hilarious email from Rocky, which we wrote in the garden and laughed about loads).

and with our resident model showing it off...

This is the printed out proper pitch document, on the posh matte photo paper we went out to buy on Friday. I'm not sure that it entirely comes across here, but the colours really do pop in real life. If you've been around long enough, you'll recognise this as a later version of the pitch document I asked for feedback for on here a few months ago. I followed most all of that feedback, so if you think it is rubbish then it is technically your own fault. I will be further blaming you if it all becomes dead in the water.

Incoming spoiler filled doc of future episodes (Part 1)

All these episodes are written completely, which we are pretty proud of. Originally this document contained a full synopsis of each ep, but we decided to pare it back to just "blurbs".

Incoming spoiler filled doc of future episodes (Part 2 - with bribe info)

On the actual document the contact details are all intact, but I'm not risking one of you using the details to do a brilliant joke pretending to commission it.

As I mentioned in Cabin Fever, I was laughing a lot about putting some Pringles into the envelope and then saying that they were all intact when they were packed. Jon correctly pointed out that there may be a worry that it is anthrax or something, so I reluctantly conceded. I do think the idea of enclosing a "not bribe" is very inline with Rocky though, even if it is gargantually unprofessional. I'd also like to point out that this is my personal money as well, nowt from Jon or Rob. I expect this to be taken into consideration when the first million comes in.

We had the idea to have an ongoing allusion that there had already been some talks with Pixar, that didn't go well. These are hammered home on the emails that Jon is sending on. I don't know why that makes me laugh so much.

Finally, here is Rocky's own written pitch cover letter. Which is, let's be honest, ludicrous. He's an absolute nightmare, and it is definitely the robot causing trouble not me. I'd have done this all properly myself.

There we go, that's what has been sent away to professional production companies. Really, really could go either way this...

And after all that work, and a very full day of organisation, I was still kind enough to make Jon a coffee for his drive back:

There’s only so much maturity you can fit in a day. He is a lovely looking lad though.

Hope your week has gotten off to a great start. I'm off to begin a vicious course of strong antibiotics, which tells you how mine has begun.

Much love to you over there

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