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Confessions of an
11-year-old Screenwriter
INT. LIVING ROOM- NIGHT
Jen sits on a couch taking notes as she watches “I Love Lucy.” In front of the TV sit TWO SMALL CHILDREN, glued to the screen and laughing hysterically. The little boy laughs louder and then his younger sister looks at him adoringly and laughs along to show she’s hip enough to get the joke.
ADULT JEN (V.O.)
It beat the hell out of fractions. My New alma mater was Nick at Night. TV time became research time and I put the skills I thought I’d never need from biology class to good use. My laboratory was my living room. Friends, family and the kids I babysat became test audiences. I studied when they laughed and why they laughed to try and find the secrets of comedy.
Jen watches the screen to see the loaf of bread Lucy was making turn into a disaster.
INT. JOHANS KITCHEN- NIGHT
We see Jen sitting on one side of the dinner table opposite her mom. At the two ends of the table sit her DAD and 14 year-old BROTHER. Her brother is still wearing his karate uniform from practice. The family starts chatting indistinctly as they pass food along to each other and begin dishing it up on their plates.
Jen’s brother hands her a bowl of mashed potatoes and her face brightens.
JEN
Potatoes!
She gets up from her chair and runs out of the kitchen.
ADULT JEN (V.O.)
I decided to use an idea from an old “I Love Lucy” episode as the basis for my “Seinfeld” script and mix a little bit of Mary Richards’s horrible dinner party experiences from “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” into the mix. It was stealing, but Shakespeare did it too.
The trick for “Seinfeld” was figuring out a way to make it fresh and interesting enough to of fill 20-30 blank pages of daunting, white computer paper.
INT. COMPUTER ROOM- NIGHT- CONTINUOUS
Jen sits at her old, small Macintosh computer and begins typing.
CU of computer screen as the keys CLICK and Jen writes, “Seinfeld Episode One: Potatoes.”
ADULT JEN (V.O.)
Potatoes.
In smaller letters below the title, she writes “by Jenny” then shakes her head and changes it to “Jen” and then goes with “Jennifer Johans.”
ADULT JEN (V.O.)
(Con’t)
In the first episode I wrote, Jerry decides to invite everyone over for dinner to watch an interview he just did on t.v. promoting his idea for “the show about nothing.”
There’s a BZZ sound as Jen stops typing and starts swatting at a mosquito flying in the room. She gets out of her chair to try and capture it but it’s no use.
JEN
I hate bugs.
She returns to her seat and resumes typing.
ADULT JEN (V.O.)
While planning everything out, Kramer mentions he was having a problem with bugs in his apartment but volunteers to make mashed potatoes. Then Kramer remembers that he doesn’t know how to cook. He borrows a box of Instant Potatoes from Jerry, takes it to his place and starts mashing.
Jen laughs aloud as she types.