Imagining A Cheesy 1980s Barstool Sports Sitcom
On Friday’s Barstool Radio, Big Cat, Rone, and I workshopped what a 1980 Barstool Sports sitcom would look like. It stemmed from a conversation I had with Viceroy manager Tyler O’Day at the Barstool Happy Hour last Tuesday. Big Cat said I should Winklevoss him, but I am a man of integrity so I will give credit where it’s due. We discussed how it’d be a funny idea to have a cheesy 1980s style sitcom with Barstool personalities.
On radio Friday, we established a good base of core characters, and how they’d all operate in this fictional sitcom universe. I want it to basically be a typical old-fashioned, cheesy sitcom with laugh tracks galore. The husband walks in the house and immediately unbuckles his pants and wants a beer. His wife nags him as he ignores her. The family has multiple sons, each with their own personalities. Maybe one’s a jock who bonds more with the father, while the other is the more sensitive type who the mother has a soft spot for. Perhaps there’s a daughter, and the dad dreads when she talks to boys. You know, the typical stuff.
So with all that in mind, here is how I imagine a cheesy 1980s Barstool Sports sitcom. Now it’s important to note that these are all typical sitcom characters merely portrayed by Barstool personalities. It’s not supposed to be Barstool people playing themselves.
Dave and Erika are the parents in the sitcom’s main family. They have a typical sitcom marriage. All Dave wants to do is “watch the game.” Erika, however, insists on nagging him. He always yells “Not while the game is on!” She also is always asking him to do things around the house. Dave, however, is incapable of doing these basic tasks. Yet he refuses to hire a handyman out of pride and fear of looking like less of a man.
Dave works some blue-collar job, while Erika is a stay-at-home mom. Dave always gets mad when she shops with his credit card. Here is how I imagine one interaction going.
Erika: “Can you go fix the sink upstairs?”
Dave: “Not while the game is on.”
Erika: “Do you do anything but watch football?”
Dave: “I don’t know. Do you do anything but spend my money?!?”
We then hear a loud, raucous laugh track
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The children are Team Portnoy members, plus a few others.
Young Pageviews is the oldest son. He’s the jock who always wears his letterman jacket around the house and likes to pick on his younger siblings.
Frankie is another son who lives a pretty regular life. He is seen as the most normal son who the audience can relate to. The straight man of a wild bunch.
I am another son. I get bullied a lot at school. When I get home from school each day, I walk through the door, drop my backpack to the ground, shrug, and say “Well, I’ve had a day!” I also use the double finger guns a lot. Additionally, I have a knack for dating gorgeous smokeshow women. (This is an added park of being the director/producer and getting to write what I want).
Nate is the angsty teenage son of the family. When we ask him how his day was, he slams down his bag, yells “I don’t wanna talk about it!”, and runs to his room to blast Blink-182.
Ria is the only daughter. Dave is very protective of her. In classic sitcom fashion, every time she talks to a boy or has a boyfriend, Dave gets very mad. “No talking to boys until you’re 30!” he always says, followed by a loud laugh track.
Rone is the last child in the family. He basically is like Meg from Family Guy. Everyone in the family hates when he’s around. When they plan BBQs and family parties, they try to leave him out. When the whole family is watching TV in the living room, Rone enters and the whole family leaves and says “Time for bed!” It is never explained why they hate Rone so much. Despite this, he maintains a friendly, pleasant demeanor.
Zah is our foreign exchange student. He is from Zimbabwe but studying abroad, and we are housing him. He’s dating Kayce.
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Across the street, Big Cat lives with his family. Big Cat is Dave’s brother. Big Cat is married to PFT, and their kids are Hank and Fran.
It is never explained if PFT is a man or woman. He dresses like a man, and clearly looks like a man, but he goes by “Mom” and “Aunt PFT.”
Big Cat, who goes by “Dan” and “Uncle Danny”, has a good relationship with Dave, but Erika hates him and gets annoyed by how much he comes over. Dan always comes over to “watch the game.” But he just gets drunk, eats a ton, makes a mess, and farts a lot. He loves to give noogies to his nephews, especially Nate, who runs in fear whenever he sees Uncle Danny. Following after his father, Hank also bullies Nate a lot. Uncle Danny also loves to pull on earlobes, and do the “You have something on your shirt….oops too slow!” trick.
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Erika’s brother KFC lives behind our house. He is gay married to Feitelberg and they always wear matching sweaters. They have two bichon frise puppies that they always carry around with them. Coley is their adopted son. They treat and dress him like a 9 year old even though he is clearly an adult man.
Since this is the 1980s, Dave and Dan are not very progressive. They get annoyed when they come over because Dave and Dan are always trying to watch the game. “Ugh, Nancy and Sally are coming over for dinner tonight”, Dave mutters.
Kevin and Feits always enter through the backdoor of the house. Here is one possible joke.
Dan: “Why do they always come through the back door?
Dave: “Oh, you know they just love coming from behind!”
*Loud laugh track, but the kind of laugh track where they feel guilty for laughing because they know it’s an offensive joke*
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Those would be the main families, but there are still plenty of other recurring characters.
-Francis is our neighbor who is always peeking over the fence and trying to make small talk. He constantly tries to invite himself over for BBQs but is never welcomed. He at one point actually starts to hop over the fence, so Dave and Dan have to push him back over. There are also not-so-subtle hints that he’s a serial killer, but nobody ever picks up on it.
-On the other side of the house, Kmarko and Kate live. They are a normal, married couple who want no part of our family. Unlike Francis, they always get invited over but refuse to ever come. Whenever they see us outside, they try to avoid eye contact and rush in the house.
-Large is the jolly mailman, who occasionally slacks from the job to crack some beers and watch the game with Dave and Dan.
-Smitty is the school bully with a secret heart of gold. While he is always shoving me/others in lockers, it’s only because he comes from a broken, abusive home. Jeff Lowe and KenJac are his bullying sidekicks.
-Glenny, Robbie, Gay Pat and Hubbs are Frankie and I’s friends/classmates at school who always get bullied with us.
-Liz is our teacher who actually encourages the bullying and tells me “Don’t be a snitch.” I simply have nowhere to turn.
-Caleb is YP’s burnout friend. The family, especially Erika, hates when he’s around. In one episode, he introduces us to the devil’s lettuce- MARIJUANA. This leads to a Danny Tanner style talk from Dave to all his kids about how we should “Just Say No.”
-Jared is a love interest of Ria’s character. He always wears dark sunglasses and a black leather jacket. He always rides his motorcycle over. Dave hates when Ria rides the motorcycle with him. When Jared comes over, he walks in and says, “Sup bitches, it’s Rocket.” He’s a real badass.
-Riggs and Trent are friends with Dave and Dan. They always come over to watch games, golf, and play in beer league hockey games and what not.
-Since Devlin can do impressions, he plays multiple characters every episode.
-I am intentionally leaving out all remote personalities because I actually want to film this here in NYC. But when around, Chaps, Heartland, Clem, Donnie, Reags, Dallas Braden, and others can all have roles.
And that lengthy explanation is how I envision this cheesy Barstool Sports sitcom. I would love to film at least one episode of this. I’ll write a script and we can just get like a random house in New Jersey or something to film it.
We’ll see. Stay tuned, and enjoy this possible theme song for now