Saved by the Gun!

I have a suggestion for a somewhat different type of reality show. Maybe a network such as Fox would be interested. Numerous bloggers as well as the NRA have long cataloged the fleeting newspaper accounts of firearms being used defensively to protect life and property.

How about a weekly docu-drama TV show that recreates some of these news stories where civilian possession of a firearm saves a life? Such reenactments would have all the necessary ingredients for a ratings hit: Drama, excitement, tension, a potential victim being stalked, a bad guy, and a happy ending!

I'm sure we could get someone such as David Codrea or Clayton Cramer for series producer.

Thank you, Jeff Soyer--I guess great minds really do think alike, or at least yours understands my inferior one :)

I have no idea how you came up with me being a likely candidate for involvement in such a program. But when I saw your post, memories from the past came flooding back to when I had just started meeting with a group of friends to dream up creative ways to promote Second Amendment activism.

This is what I came up with and introduced to the group (I needed to scan papers I pulled out of my files--I could only find a few, but not all of these in electronic format--if I still have those in Word they're on a floppy disk somewhere I couldn't locate on short notice from the clutter):
Here's a mock-up TV schedule ad I created with scissors and tape. Note I was proposing Eric Estrada as host. He was a fairly regular attendee at California Rifle and Pistol Association annual banquets at the time, along with Robert Stack and Paul Sorvino, which meant that he was not afraid to identify himself with the pro-gun community, and I just thought he'd be a natural. Note this was all in the "blue sky" proposal stage and we never advanced to the point of approaching him on this, so this was done without his knowledge or consent, and without the knowledge and consent of UPN 13, whose logo I appropriated for the mock-up:


Here's how I envisioned the program to flow:


Here's the upshot--one of our group members, who has beaucoup Hollywood contacts, went around and pitched this to several producers, none of whom showed the slightest interest. There were a lot of reasons for that, first and foremost a distaste for such things among the entertainment elite. Still, I thought at the time their love of money would be enough to overcome such transient, ephemeral things as show business principles, but that's where another dynamic came into play: The money people aren't, by and large, very creative or visionary--they play the margins and stick with known formulas, hence the preponderance of copycat programming when something new takes off. Yes, you can be sure, if a new formula works, they'll be quick to pile onto the trend while it's hot, but that's after someone else has risked his capital and reputation blazing the trail.

Simply put, we didn't have the juice to make this happen.

Could it work today, particularly with the tremendous expansion of cable channels and programming that simply did not exist back in 1997? Yeah, I think it could, but this time I'd go for a younger and hipper format--my proposal really was rooted in the dynamic of its time and my own creative limitations, but the core concept would still remain valid.

So, Mr. Studio Executive, or Mr. Hollywood Venture Capitalist: Have your girl call my girl. Let's do lunch. Love ya, baby, you look fantastic!

And thank you, Jeff. I'd have probably not given this another thought but for your post. That was a lot of fun taking this stuff out of a drawer where it's been sleeping all these years--even if just to recapture a dream from long ago for a few brief moments today.