"Will this shit fuck you up?" -- another $1e6 idea from your braintrust

Proposal: Probably not suited for network television, "Will this shit
fuck you up?" is a show of hijinx and self-directed satire where our
hosts, Mick and Mike, answer the title question every week regarding
common household substances.

The pilot starts out with a brief
discussion that drugs are just chemicals and that our household and
common environs contain "literally dozens of chemicals" that can
potentially get you "high".  They affect the attitude that they have
no real skill or idea of what they're doing as hosts.  Or is that part
of the illusion? the audience is left to wonder.  Through continuous
watching, the subtlety realization comes to the
discerning viewer that the "joke" is meant to cover
up the sad truth that while they are play acting this farce, Mick and
Mike live horrible lives and their drug addiction conscripts them to
this show where they essentially mimic and belie the immense suffering
of street junkies to a target audience of middle-class caucasian 18-24
y/o whose brush with the tabboo of drugs has given rise to the myth of
the burn-out as a modern-day Oriental (sic) ascetic.

Mick and Mike moved to their "lab", as they call it, but that really
looks like a really trashed room from the day-rate hotel of some band
of junkies.  Strewn about one can make out a bunch of lighters, IV
needles, bits of foil, glass pipes of various varieties, unguessable
clumps of white powder, burnt spoons, black char, crumpled up pieces
of paper, plastic baggies, containers of bleach, acetone, methanol,
etc, stained clothes, and just about any other artifact of druggie
lifestyle.  But there is a microscope (never used) and a continuously
lit Bunsen burner in a markedly delineated clearing on the otherwise
cluttered coffee, and a "Lab Book" (title written in permanant
marker with poor lettering), which Mick and Mike consult from
time to time, looking confused but then speaking with great authority
thereafter.  Season two, if it pitches, will add a face-down body of
possibly a mid-40s 1980's-era Metallica fan, replete with denim jacket of
decades of accrued patch work and long greasy hair. The body will never be
addressed or acknowledged in any way.

Every entrance to the lab features Mick and Mike donning lab coats and
giving what feels a mandated speech regarding safety, including
shot-in-the-dark stories usually having no bearing on lab safety.
From the pilot:

Mick: "Safety is ... important!"

Mike: "Yeah, no joke."

Mick: "This is like totally fucking serious man."

Mike: "Totally."

Mick: "If you, like, fuck up, man? They are going to be dragging your
body from a burning house."

Mike: "And that is why we always put on our safety goggles."

Mick: "Always put that shit on!"

Mike: "Those safety goggles can save your life man.  For realz."

Mick: "And like the lives of your family.  And, um, friends."

Mike: "Yeah, save your friends lives man."

Mick: "And your cat or dog or shit."

Mike: "Your parrot or something."

Mick: "Or a hamster. Or...ferret."

Mike [laughing]: "Ferret man?! Are you fucking-"

Mick: "We're getting distracted again.  But that's because this is so
important man. You can't fucking forget."

Mike: "Like maybe tell 'em what could happen."

Mick: "What could happen?"

Mike: "If they forgot."

Mick: "Oh yeah, right. Like if you forget to put on your safety
goggles..."

[silence]

Mike: "Like...there was this guy I know.  And he was walking home in
the projects. And he thought he saw some meth, right?  But he was
tweaking so he was like super-paranoid.  So he didn't want to carry it
so he bent down, picked it up and ate it.  But guess what?  It wasn't
meth.  It was broken glass."

Mick: "Woah!"

Mike: "He was dead like instantly."

Mick: "That shit will fucking do that to you."

Mike: "Yeah.  You don't mess with that shit."

Mick: "Did he have his safety goggles on at the time?"

Mike: "Why no he didn't Mick."

Mick: "That's right.  And that is why it is so important that you
always wear your safety goggles when working with chemicals.  Or you
could end up like Mike's friend."

Mike: "He wasn't my friend, man.  He was a total dick."

Mick: "You don't fuck with chemistry."

Mike: "I was glad when he died.  I thought it was funny."

Mick: "I would rather face down like a whole biker gang with like
knives and shit than fuck with chemistry.  Okay? So take safety precautions."

Mike: "For realz man."

Following the lengthy announcement, the hosts' safety goggles remain
strapped about their head at their hairline.

The lab is really the heart of the show.  Each week, one or more
common substances are considered for "Will this shit fuck you up?", in
which the host tries to imbibe the substance by a particular mean --
smoking, injection, insufflation, oral ingestion -- and then review if the
susbstance candidate did indeed get them high.  The chief
entertainment appeal of the show is that while donning a video persona
of a junkie, the actual junkie nature of Mick and Mike when coming to
the details of preparation and consumption of chemicals really comes
through. The pilot's substance: plastic.  Mick and Mike freebase (the
method of the week) plastic to see if it will "fuck them up".

After the explanations and preparations are done, but before they have
freebased very much plastic, Mick and Mike introduce a regular feature
of the show: "From the streets". In this segment, a guest is
introduced who generally stays for the rest of the show unless Mick
and Mike piss them off too much or they wander away due to
innebriation or withdrawal. Their history, which reads like
testimony from an NA meeting, is presented as resume qualifications
for being on the show.  There is generally tension between the guest
and Mike and especially Mick due to the resentment of being forced
into the public eye for generally a life of regrets including the
unmarketable skills of how to survive as a junkie; this is
paralleled in subtext by Mick and Mike's own roles, but they being
paid employees and in a different though more insidous and direct
economic trap, and so to garner their social status, Mick especially
feels empowered by making the guests feel awful about their own lives.
While it is occasionally implied by guest or host that there is some sort of
compensation given to the guests for their appearance on the show, it
is never addressed outright or named, which considering setting, can
only be interpreted as the exchange of controlled substance of some
mediocre amount but sufficient to hook the guest.

The pilot's guest is Tyrone Black, a heroin junkie from downtown
detroit.  The initial conversation centers on what all substances
they've done, Mick and Mike pointing out, often wrongly, what type of
drug it is and factoids (which may also be flawed) about the
drugs. Mick tells Tyrone about the show while he listens
skeptically. Then Mick asks if he think plastic will fuck them up:

Tyrone: "Shit...I don't know.  Why would ya wan a be doin that?"

Mick: "What if its like heroin but better?"

Tyrone: "Its fuckin plastic! You put that shit in yo lungs and they
gonna get all fucked up.  Yo be lucky you don't have a heart
attack."

Mick: "So you don't think it'll get you fucked up?"

Tyrone: "I think you a damn fool.  I think it will fuck you up, jus'
not in the way you be wantin'."

Mick: "A skeptic!"

Mike: "I mean...it might fuck you up."

Mick: "Yeah, you were betting 'for'.  I was undecided.  I mean, what
about the cough syrup? That fucked you up."

Mike: "That -seriously- fucked me up."

Mick: "You couldn't remember what you were wearing."

Mike: "Yeah, and that doesn't even make sense."

Tyrone: "You's a bunch of assclowns.  Can I go now?"

Mick: "So you like mainline shit.  How about you mainline some plastic
so we can compare to freebasing?"

Mike: "Yeah, that's like science and shit."

Tyrone: "I ain't puttin' no plastic in my veins.  I got enough
problems."

Mick: "Come on, man!  We're not fucking with you or anything.  I got a
spoon right here...I'm heatin it up for you.  And what's this?  A
clean needle?"

Tyrone: "Fuck this shit. I'm leavin'. If I see either you bitches on
the street...you gettin' stabbed."

[Tyrone storms off]

Mike: "And if I see you on the street I'm gonna stay clear of the
puddle of urine where you pissed yourself.  'Cuz you're a junkie."

The guest plays the otherwise unfulfilled role of a tether between the
escapist fantasy/nightmare platform and reality.  The guest may point
out directly things that Mick and Mike are under contractual
obligation not to talk about, such as the stupidity of herein
freebasing plastic.  As a bridge between social contexts, it casts a
light on the interaction of guests (junkies and other drug users) and
hosts (junkies who have betrayed their social order, though in some
non-obvious manner, for more junk, which in a very large part is
junkie social order).

The second half of the pilot returns to Mick and Mike freebasing
plastic and experimenting with/refining techniques for doing so.  It
is this portion of the show that really captivates the audience due to
the high energy and the line between play-act and reality (and 'play-act
casted as reality' v reality, etc) becomes blurred, as their junkie
selves shine inevitably through any polish affected, intentionally or
otherwise, for production.  This feature creates an intensity where
the audience is mesmerized by the experience presented from drug
culture as Mick and Mike try vaporizing the plastic, shredding to tiny
pieces and smoking through a glass pipe, dissolving in acetone, etc.,
all with trade talk which our polls indicates has hypnotic-type
retention on viewers of all age groups.

The pilot ends in a manner where the show often ends on a "successful"
experiment.  Mike, having constructed a pipe whereby the plastic can
be made to smoke in a manner slightly less dirty than outright burning
it, is, apropos the title, "fucked up". Mick proceeds to join him,
cheering him on.  Mike passes out while Mick quickly trends toward
incoherence. Since research indicates that characters acted
innebriated has high appeal in what people wish to see more of in
shows, even past the incoherent stage we expect high retention and
also a suitable, if bleak and unpunctuated, wrap-down for such
episodes. We do not anticipate audiences to characterize this as bleak
comparative to existing media; nor is it less punctuated.  While it is
generally a faux pas to end a question-centered show without a verbose
answer, we expect that while the hosts never repose the question and
address it, their exchanges as exemplified by:  `Mike: I am high right
now;  Mick: I am so fucking high right now!`,
repeated several times in variants, will be explicit enough to
provide closure the answer to the audience.

Often during the show, Mick and Mike (typically Mick) will answer
unpresented voices off-set and more rarely address off camera.  It
will be clear from context (for a discerning viewer) that these voices
belong to those to whom Mick and Mike are contractually obligated
to. This provides an additional "character", which for a show with
guest is merely three characters (although we do expect to have group
guests as pertinent) is a boon.  It is evident from the one side
presented of these interactions that (quotes herein from Mick) that
those off-camera think of Mick and Mike as "fuck-ups" and that Mick
and Mike think of them as "assholes". This will also boost the sense of
isolation upon which both the appeal and art ride for this project:
the vast majority of the audience will be led to believe that they are
laughing at the idiocy of these two people/characters irregards of finding them
enteraining and possibly identifying with them, whereas in fact they
are in fact on the same side of the bars as Mick and Mike, just in a
different part of the enclosure. Viewers may pick up on some level the
control executed here, but will dismiss it as presentation.

The show exists on multiple levels.  On the level that will reach
audiences, "Will this shit fuck you up?" is Entertainment, and another
in a long line of "in your face" brashness giving credence that yes,
Entertainment can still become more base and be amusing.  While the
subject matter and the speech and lewd language are too "adult" for
a portion of the e.g. American population, it should fare well where
adult is no longer considered novel, combining the appeal of reality
shows with an market traditionally considered far afield: the drug
alterno-culture and its afficiadoes which is becoming rapidly
mainstream with marketability. On a high level, the show is
illustrative of control and sadness, a profound self-inflicted satire
made hideous by its execution.