Blue Cat Screenplay Competition 2020

“Crankey Village” presents very amusing and fertile ground. A comically dysfunctional and rag-tag nursing home could provide seasons worth of shenanigans, some of which we get a glimpse in this pilot. Unruly staff and residents alike, sex and drug-related hijinks, botched announcements and community events, and comically untimely deaths all make their presence known. We get an eclectic cast of characters —equally as important as the situational material in which they find themselves. Our curmudgeonly titular lead, Luella Crankey, earns her reputation in the story as a “Cruella de Vil” incarnate. She is over-the-top extra, from her fashion choices to her attitude to her “management style”. There are shades of a female Ebenezer Scrooge and Mr. Lahey from “Trailer Park Boys”, which surely could be more fleshed out, empathized with, and even reformed over the course of a show run. We get hints that she is set to become a more sympathetic character over time already with the knowledge that she is a widow who often finds herself “communicating” with her dead husband, Fred, by way of an old car air freshener. Rounding out the cast is a fun mix of younger staff members and outright gonzo residents. Luella’s son, Arthur, provides a mellow counterbalance to his much more erratic mother. Leonard’s observations of the shenanigans around him are a consistent source of comic relief. Estrelita pops off the screen with her confidence, competence, and humor. G’ma provides some of the best humor with her dry humor and pervasive zipping around the home, scamming people over their cell phones. The promiscuous Mrs. Salazar literally takes no prisoners with her wild reputation and equally wild rendezvous.