"The Dead Bachelor" -- The Show ABC Should Have Gone With
Oh, ABC, next time choose a real winner.
What a shock! The loving couple of ABC’s “Golden Bachelor” reality dating show have announced that, reaping all the money and attention they could, they’re getting a divorce. Next time, ABC, go with a bachelor who will never change his mind, in a show I proposed last fall:
The Dead Bachelor
Int: Luxe Funeral Parlor. A flashy white closed casket stands upright on one side. SMARMY ROBERTS the show’s host, enters to huge applause.
Smarmy: Hello America and welcome to ABC’s groundbreaking new dating show, “The Dead Bachelor”. Are you aware that there are now more dead men than living in the United States? Yet only a minuscule five percent show up on dating sites. There’s a bias against dead men in this country, except in New York City, where they’re considered a catch, especially if a woman’s got a Plus One to a wedding
Our Dead Bachelor, a hard-body hunk who you’ll meet in a few minutes, is going to change all that!
But before we wheel him out, let’s meet the twenty-two women who’ll be demeaning themselves for the chance to take the Dead Bachelor home.
Here’s MINDI, a Pilates instructor and nude beach enthusiast who loves pickleball; CINDI, a fitness nut who flies her own plane, free dives to the Titanic, and is so addicted to pickleball she spent two months at the Hazelden Betty Ford Treatment Center; KIMSI a former gymnast and personal trainer who is the Captain of the pickleball team at the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center; GOLDI, who time traveled here from the East Bronx in the year 1940, stays trim by stringing laundry across the fire escape and loves eating pickles…
COMMERCIAL BREAK
Int. Funeral Parlor. Dead Bachelor still dead.
Smarmy: And now to the fellow you’ve been dying to meet. Tall, handsome, magnificently preserved, he’s a widowed white guy from Indiana. He never had a mean word to say about anybody when he was alive and he sure won’t now! Let’s give a big, Bachelor Nation hand to the Dead Bachelor, MR. PIERCE D. COLIN!!
TWO BEEFY STAGEHANDS fling open the coffin doors. Pierce’s mouth is fixed in a broad smile and he is elegantly attired in a shirtless black suit. Pierce waves to the crowd, discreetly assisted by a stagehand who yanks Pierce’s floppy arm up and down.
Mindi: Oh, my God, he is so handsome!
Cindi: You can see how sensitive he is.
Kimsi: The voices told me he would be coming.
Goldi: Oy gevalt! I never seen nobody so good-looking. Next to him, William Powell is something the cat dragged in.
CUT TO:
Ext: The funeral parlor. The Dead Bachelor, now in a sombre white disco suit, is laid out in a glass-sided casket, with a clutch of red roses in his hand. The female contestants are in practical stiletto-heeled work boots and overalls with strategically placed cut-outs.
Smarmy: (Encouragingly patting a nervous contestant on the breast.) Well, ladies, it’s now down to thirteen of you and we’ve got a big treat in store: You’re going to go on a group date with Pierce to historic Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn and dig your own graves! You’ll be coming across lots of worms and when you do, be sure to turn to the camera and eat them. And remember to squeal.
CUT TO:
EXT: Hudson River Park, Manhattan, a group picnic, one week later. Things are heating up. There are now only six beautiful contestants and one has a shovel-shaped bruise on her head. The enigmatic Pierce, his skin now a raffish gray green, is propped up against a tree as the women vie for his attention.
Mindi: Pierce, would you like a bite of my tongue…sandwich?
Cindi: Pierce, would you like to eat some tuna salad…off my ass?
Goldi: (Gazing adoringly at the unmoving Pierce.) He’s so quiet. A regular Gary Cooper.
Kimsi: (Anxious, agitated, Adderalled, addressing the camera.) This won’t work, there are too many of them.
Kimsi sneaks up on Mindi, whacks her on the head with a rock, and kicks her body into the Hudson. She contemplatively watches Mindi’s body get sucked under a Manhattan Circle Line ship. Then, as Mindi’s severed and comely left leg bobs to the surface, Kimsi turns her attention to the other contestants.)
Kimsi: Still too many. I’ve got to act. I had that special moment with Pierce when he “accidentally” fell against me in the hearse back from Brooklyn, but I need alone time to cement our relationship. He’s the one, I know it!!
Kimsi quickly looks around, then drags Pierce behind a tree, straddles him, and thrusts her tongue down his compliant, if somewhat rigid, mouth.
Kimsi: (Kissing Pierce) He reminths me uff…(Withdrawing her tongue). He reminds me of my first husband. He was a withholding prick, too. But I loved him.
CUT TO:
Ext: The door of the repurposed embalming room, now the Fantasy Suite, where The Dead Bachelor and a lucky lady can finally have quality time away from intrusive cameras.
A boom mic dangles in front of the door, Smarmy and the other remaining contestant, a visibly distressed Kimsi, are taking turns looking through the keyhole.
Goldi: (Screaming ecstatically off camera) Oy!!! Vey iz mir! Give it to me, you groise goy!
Smarmy: (Patting Kimsi’s upper inner thigh sympathetically.) As we all know, Kimsi, it was only two hours ago it was you screaming your head off in the Fantasy Suite – you’ve got to work fast with these dead bachelors. Now, you’re stuck out here listening to Pierce make love to another woman. Does it hurt? How much? Enough for you to say, storm out of here and run into an on-coming UPS truck, which, not that I’m putting ideas in your head, would make for great television.
Kimsi: (Tears streaming down her face.) It’s hard, Smarmy, I’m not going to lie. Pierce and I had something special. We didn’t need to talk. And now to hear him carrying on with that time-traveling tramp… Well, let me tell you something. The hell with the rules, I’m not going to take it!
Kimsi whips out A GUN, kicks down the door, and runs into the Fantasy Suite.
Goldi and The Dead Bachelor are stretched out on an embalming table, in post-coital bliss. Seeing the gun, Goldi leaps off the table. There’s a ferocious hair-pulling battle. The gun accidentally goes off four times.
Gun: Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Kimsi falls to the ground, dead.
A stunned Smarmy and Goldi kneel over her, as the camera tastefully zooms in on Kimsi’s nipples.
Smarmy, ever the professional, slowly rises.
Smarmy: Next week, on ABC: The Dead Bachelorette.
Hey Joyce, you missed your calling. You definitely should have gone into TV.
I can't believe ABC passed on this proposal.