CHARLIE THE CHRASH CAN
I've been forced to conclude that this one wouldn't work if it was animated - it would have to be a live-action sitcom, for the very reason that the main character works in animation and therefore something would have to distinguish reality from what is, in-universe, animation. So it's a live-action sitcom with a lot of animation in it.
The Style
A single-camera live-action comedy. Animation of many different forms and varieties appears as the cartoons and video games that the main character acts in. There are musical numbers in every episode - initially as songs played by the eponymous band, but eventually becoming more fantastical.
The First Episode
We open on a CGI scene of a goblin fleeing through a dungeon. He is captured by two women, a warrior and a priestess; the warrior starts beating up the goblin while the priestess periodically heals it so it doesn't die and they can continue beating it up. Zoom out to reveal this is taking place on a TV screen, and is part of a video game being played by two young women - C.J. and Marie - in a small, old-fashioned house. The TV, for whatever reason, is mounted behind the couch, requiring them to lounge around on the couch rather awkwardly.
Seth approaches and demands to know what they're doing. They explain that they're torturing the goblin for the joy of hearing its goofy cries of anguish - Seth, it transpires, is the voice actor who provided those noises.
The doorbell rings and Meredith appears, all ready for a date. Her date is... some guy. She introduces him to everyone around, explaining who they are and what they do: Natalie, who is busily typing on her computer in the dining room, is a freelance writer; she barely acknowledges the existence of anyone around her. Danny, sitting in the chair in a corner of the living room tuning a guitar, is explained to be a new friend, who put together the band they all play in. Danny pontificates about the many small songwriting jobs he's had over the years.
Meredith then moves on to C.J. and Marie, explaining that they've just had a sitcom picked up, which C.J. writes and Marie stars in; and finally there's Seth, who is Natalie's husband and a voice actor. "What's a voice actor?" the guy wonders. Everyone tenses up as Seth stands up dramatically and makes a speech: "You ever seen a cartoon? Ever played a video game? Have you ever noticed that there's talking in those things? Voice actor." The guy doesn't understand, even when C.J. and Marie oblige Seth by continuing to beat up the goblin. Meredith hastily ushers her date out of the house.
The second half of the episode follows... some sort of narrative thread. Our setting is revealed: the Vancouver skyline, subtitled "Quincy, Illinois". We see a day in the life of Seth at work, of C.J. and Marie on the set of their show, and of Meredith dating that guy (who, yes, will have a name when this episode actually gets written). Natalie and Danny are neglected by the narrative for this first episode; they're definitely present, we just don't follow them quite yet. There's a musical number in the midst of the episode: all six members of Charlie the Chrash Can playing a song while scenes from the three actual plotlines go by.
In the end, Meredith breaks up with the guy; I'm not sure of the circumstances. It shouldn't be for anything particularly major, but I don't want it to be funny either; it just has to be that the relationship has come to an end and it's very sad. The episode ends with Meredith at work, revealing her to be a hospital nurse rather than an entertainer as all the others are, and the whole group comforting Meredith over the breakup. It ends with Natalie saying that she thought he was a bit of an idiot, which is her only line in the episode.
The Setting
As mentioned, the setting is a city which is clearly Vancouver but is identified as Quincy, Illinois. The fictional Quincy is a recently-discovered hub of low-budget entertainment productions.
The Characters
Our six main characters play in the titular garage band, Charlie the Chrash Can, as a hobby. All but one recently moved to the fictional Quincy and live in very close proximity.
Seth Sage: A voice actor. Very pompous and full of himself, seeing his craft as the peak of performance, other voice actors like him only grudgingly, and even his friends find him a bit of a chore. His seeming love for himself is a mask for his very deep insecurities, as he doesn't believe himself to have an identity beyond the performances he gives.
Natalie Ahlquist: Seth’s quiet and withdrawn Swedish wife, a freelance writer. His opposite, she balances him out by listening to his troubles, and he too is the only one who truly understands her social needs. The least successful of the cast, she struggles more than the others with the cutthroat nature of freelance work.
Meredith: Seth and Natalie’s roommate. Unlike the creative pursuits of the others, she works as a nurse. Rather than being work-focused, her plotlines are generally about her pursuit of a husband. She is the one most likely to have a love interest of the week, though keen-eyed viewers might notice that unlike most sitcom characters she's never mentioned as having slept with a significant other, as it's eventually revealed she's waiting for marriage. A sympathetic and reliable friend, Meredith often finds herself entangled in weird showbiz plots against her will.
Christina "C.J." Kelley: A totally cool hipster girl, college friend of the main three. Stand-up comedian, improv performer, and head writer of the sitcom It's-a Me, Marie! She is the source of most of the snark in the series, often ribbing on the others. She writes the sitcom to be as tacky as possible due to caving in to demands from executives, which makes her somewhat embittered with her career and often in search of something fresh to stimulate herself.
Marie Nilsson: C.J.’s Danish best friend, the co-writer and main star of It's-a Me, Marie! She and C.J. live in the same duplex as the main three, on the other side. Like C.J., she is not satisfied with the direction the sitcom has taken. A prolific character actress, she takes on an exhausting amount of auditions and roles of all sorts.
Danny Ringo: A musician. Most of his compositions appear in cheap cartoons, and it is he who founded the titular band, which is named after a tiny flip-top garbage can he used to operate as a ventriloquist dummy to serve as his childhood band's lead singer. He is the only one in the group who hasn't known the others since college and does not live in the same apartment building, and as such he's somewhat of a mystery.
Supporting Cast
Rolf and Inka: The non-specifically European married couple who run the Mochalotive, the local coffee shop where the cast hang out.
Voice Actors: My hope is to cast many professional voice actors as exaggerated versions of themselves, as Seth's long-suffering but tolerant and kindly colleagues. Some of the main cast see them as celebrities, others as merely Seth's co-workers. Many episodes feature at least one voice actor and their screentime is full of references to their best known roles.
The Further Story
Meh... nothing really. Not yet. It's a fairly episodic sitcom, not very heavy on the story arcs initially. It's a sitcom, so it's more about the humor of the premise than it is about the story. But there will definitely be some stories in there.
One last thing that ought to be mentioned is the series' episode-titling scheme: every episode title will include at least one word which has a "tr" sound in it which is written as "chr", as in the "Chrash" of the series' title. A few episode titles I definitely want to use in the future include "Keep on Chruckin'", "Road Chrip", "Chrick or Chreat", and "Full Creative Conchrol".
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