by Ben Hargrave

Dear HBO,

My name is Peter Pincheloaf III and I have a clean and rad and powerful business opportunity for your premium cable enterprise. I realize that you likely are inundated with an unending stream of pitches for television shows, movies, and soft-core adult entertainment, but I would appreciate just a brief moment of your time to ask that you consider picking up my potential web series, “Spider Webs.” My pitch is below:

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(POTENTIAL) TITLES

- Spider Webs

- Spiders Be Webbin’

- Spiders Spin The Darndest Webs

- VICE Presents: You Don’t Know Jack Silk

- Charlotte’s Web Series (conflicts?)

- Webbing Crashers

- 8-Legged Freak Goop Nets

(POTENTIAL) LOGLINES

- An assortment of spiders play the hits – web hits, that is – by spinning their classic webs, set to yacht rock.

- Spiders of all shapes and sizes pinch out sticky silk strips to make kaleidoscopic nets, set to yacht rock.

- Air-breathing arthropods design beautifully macabre death traps for bugs that they capture, liquefy with digestive fluid, which they then suck up, set to yacht rock.

(POTENTIAL) TAGLINES

- There’s a new sticky icky in town.

- Welcome to the World Wide Web…Spider Edition.

- In web space, bugs aren’t capable of screaming.

- Webs can hold you prisoner and webs can set you free.

- Whoever webs…we win.

(POTENTIAL) SYNOPSIS

The year is 2017 – a time of turmoil, tumult, and tumid egos. In an epoch of divergence, one thing remains constant in fierce defiance of the dystopian reality being played out in a fools’ game of life chess: spider webs.

From the jungles of the Amazon to the deserts of the Sahara to the basements of the Kaminskis, spiders have been threading their silky yarn for over 318 million human years, which was way before dinosaurs dropped.

Experience a journey beyond space and time, and in the space up by your ceiling – the ceiling corner, I guess you’d call it – as Gilbert Gottfried colorfully narrates the stories of all spider webs that have ever existed in the past, present or days of future past. 

Each episode shines a sometimes-controversial spotlight one spider's web. With an estimated 46,000 species of spiders (with new spider flavors being discovered constantly) equating to as many possible episodes, this is a spider-web-journey that will trek ever onward on until spiders evolve long enough to destroy us.

This is all set to yacht rock.

(POTENTIAL) CHARACTER SHEET

[Limiting this to 5 because of the aforementioned number of spiders types…so much opportunity for growth here.]

1.    Black Widow Spider Web
One of the most feared of all s’webs (hot, new portmanteau) due to the Black Widow’s history in the spider terrestrial universe as being a real nasty woman whose bite can kill bugs and convince human mothers their children are dying. [Villain]

2.    Daddy Long Legs Spider Web
The patriarchy embodied in a spider web is sure to raise some eyebrows, considering this gangly-appendaged creature is an utter butthole who designs his s’webs exclusively to oppress women. [Villain]

3.    Tarantula Spider Web
The spider that makes these s’webs eats insects, frogs, and sometimes birds! And your heart will be consumed by love once you see these dazzling s’webs, designed with heart, humility, and passion for the bugs that tarantulas murder by fanging them to death. [Hero]

4.    Bagheera Kiplingi Spider Web
 When you think spider, you don’t think progressive, until you learn that this spider has evolved an herbivore’s lifestyle, much like cows. Unfortunately, Bagheera’s s’webs aren’t great because of a self-imposed, vain dietary restriction. [Sidekick]

5.    Jumping Spider Spider Web
It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s Jumping Spider’s s’webs! You’ll be jumping for joy when you see “Jumpy’s” fantastic s’webs that highlight this spider’s ability to jump real high. He also smokes weed. [Supporting]

(POTENTIAL) PILOT EPISODE

[Every episode will focus on a different s’web, making this is an ad-lib dream scenario.]

(MICHAEL MCDONALD SONG) rises slowly and sits at a humble mid-range. A montage of spiders and their s’webs fills the screen. Gilbert Gottfried’s floating CGI head crashes through thousands of s’webs in every spider habitat on the planet as he groans out, ‘S’WEEEEEEEEEBS!’ until a perpetual zoom out reveals (REAL OR FICTIONAL PLANET) from outer-space as it is entangled in a giant s’web. Gottfried’s floating head skyrockets towards the screen as the title credits appear in (COOL MOVIE) font: (POTENTIAL TITLE)

Various shots of (SPIDER BREED’S) lair as (AIR SUPPLY SONG) rises slowly until it hits a cacophonous level.

(SPIDER BREED) is vaguely mentioned by Gottfried, who cannot pronounce complicated spider names. He proceeds to – for 45 minutes to 3 hours – improvise everything he knows about that particular spider and their s’web, which, honestly, is not a lot.

BLACKOUT

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Thank you for your consideration. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t message me with questions.

Sincerely,

Peter P III

Ben Hargrave is a comedian, writer, and videographer living in New York who makes his own peanut butter (is so good). Check out his tweets @HarHarHargrave – it would mean a lot to him.