Mike Show TV Deal

[Wes]

I think you may have been too busy getting fired up/torn up in The Box prior to your showdown with Andrew WK to keep tabs on the chat, but during the discussion of his TV show on the Cartoon Network, we were talking about a potentially similar show for you.

Would you be willing to consider hosting a kids' show that would feature you taking a bunch of 8-13 year olds out into a muddy field in Jersey and ordering them to dig holes? While they were digging, you would be sitting in a beach chair, critiquing their digging, sharing stories of childhood trauma and drinking. Possible titles would be "Diggin' Holes With Mike" or "Dig Your Own Hole".

Maybe "The Hole Truth"? I don't know, the title is negotiable.

Anyway, think it over, and if you should decide to pass on this, I would encourage others to use this thread to pitch their ideas to take the Mike Experience to the next, televised level.

[Wes]

Mike's lack of interest in "Camp Hole" may stem from a reluctance to work with kids, which will probably only fan the flames of those Mike/Spike rumors, but we'll move on!

"I Found This In Your House"

Think of it as a part "Hoarders", part Saw, part "Antique Roadshow" and part Funny Games. People would sign up - or more likely be signed up - for the show, and without any advance notice, Mike would arrive at their homes while they were at work or away for the day to poke around the house, looking for something that caught his attention.

The homeowner(s) would arrive at the end of the day and go about their post-work ritual until, perhaps when they were making dinner or getting ready to pay some bills, Mike would emerge from another room holding the object that he had chosen and greet them with "I found this in your house!"

After the reveal, Mike would have a chat with the resident(s), coaxing out some stories about the significance of what he'd found in their house, how they acquired it and maybe how it related to some unfortunate incident in their life and what it represents in relation to their current spiritual well-being. I'm still kind of hashing the details on this part, but the resident would be prevented from leaving the room during this segment. Maybe not literally restrained. But maybe. I dunno. This might be the kind of thing you have to play by ear.

[B_Buster]

I like your ideas, Wes, but I'd like to make a couple tweaks:

 For Dig Your Own Hole, I wouldn't restrict my observation of people digging to kids. There are more adults than we would like to believe who never lose the itch to dig. They dig holes in their backyards for pools that never materialize, they dig holes in their basements after they return to civilian life after serving in the military for reasons that are unclear (this I know from personal experience), etc. I would dangle my feet over the lips of these holes (wow!), beer in hand, and chat with these people about what they're up to.

With your second suggestion, I would like to change the title to "I Found This Guy In Your House. I Had to Kill Him." Each week I would show up at some family's house with an unclaimed body on loan from the morgue (they're not hard to find). When the family arrives home, I tell them that I saw the deceased breaking into their house, rushed into action, and, unfortunately, had to draw my weapon. The remainder of the show would be me being treated as a hero from the family and the community (full page articles in the newspaper, parades, having a day named after me, etc.). 

[JustNicole]

I was at our local library book sale today and bought a DVD based off of this review on the box alone:

'Equal measures Woody Allen and Werner Herzog, The Hole Story is one of the most original American comedies we've seen in a long time.'  Matthew Ross, FILMMAKER MAGAZINE.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0457379/

[ben]

FOT digging party in Wisconsin!  Plainfield is an hour away from Madison, maybe two and half from Milwaukee. 

[ireadashortstorytoday]

I like the Diggin' Holes idea, but i see that in the background of a more straight-up talk show. In the foreground we have Mike on a low-rider beach chair, the kind where the butt sags to the ground, and Mike's guests are seated in an adjacent futon. Still in a muddy field, of course. I'm imagining a mosquito situation and at least some of the audio being lost to the sounds of unseen highway traffic. If there's a way to encourage cats to fornicate during the program, that would really set the tone.

[fonpr]

I like the Diggin' Holes idea, but i see that in the background of a more straight-up talk show. In the foreground we have Mike on a low-rider beach chair, the kind where the butt sags to the ground, and Mike's guests are seated in an adjacent futon. Still in a muddy field, of course. I'm imagining a mosquito situation and at least some of the audio being lost to the sounds of unseen highway traffic. If there's a way to encourage cats to fornicate during the program, that would really set the tone.

Talk about "getting it".


That is so good.

[Smelodies]

TV Show?  First the man needs an official website/domain!

Like these guys.  http://scharplingandwurster.com/

[Wes]

If there's a way to encourage cats to fornicate during the program, that would really set the tone.

I think this would just naturally happen on its own.

The idea about large chunks of the conversations being drowned out by passing traffic noise is brilliant. I do think, though, that anybody Mike talks to needs to be in a hole, or digging a hole that they will be in as the show goes on, depending on how fast they can dig. Another thing to add: during the show, as Mike finishes his beers, he'd just leave his empties sitting next to his muddy beach chair, or maybe throw them off in the distance. Over the closing credits of the show, we could see footage of one of the hole diggers going around and collecting the discarded beers. This would be comforting to viewers on several levels: just a general bit of relaxing footage, assurance that the empties were being properly handled and assurance that nobody was buried in their hole after the show.

I'd also like to hear Mike, on a future Mike Show installment, get into that thing about veterans digging holes in the basement after they return from the war a bit, if that's not too personal a subject.

[buffcoat]

Just put the futon down in the hole with them!


Make the hole not wide enough for the futon though, so it's just sort of crammed down in there and is muddy.  There's a certain level of filth that underlies this whole enterprise - that's EXACTLY the sort of thing that the producers tend to forget about Season 3 when everybody's patting each other on the back.