In which I combine attorneys and knives, probably opening myself up to a lawsuit.

Two bits I just experienced:
1. While watching the channel 4 news (famous in my family for giving yesterday's news today), I just saw a story on an accident that nearly kept me from getting back into Oakland last night. It was then followed by a commercial for a lawyer who promoted himself by saying "Just call 1-800-I-GOT-HIT". I wish I was kidding. It put in my mind the bit from a Carl Hiassen book, where the protagonist's ex-wife has shacked up with an attorney, famous throughout the Miami area for his billboards that said "If you've been in an accident then SOMEBODY OWES YOU MONEY!"
2. While browsing through this weeks TV Guide, I came across the fact that there are two dozen new reality shows in development. (If anyone happens to know which circle of Hollywood Hell that those "in development" are consigned to, and if it's above or below those consigned to "hiatus", let me know.) Since they took my notion of I'll Eat That, and turned it into the inferior Glutton Bowl, I figure I should post up my other old idea. It's so bold and daring in its simplicity, I think it would really have a shot. Here's the pitch.

We call it "One Million Dollars, and a Knife." or $1M&K for short. We take ten demographically diverse people, and put them in a room, we see them go through the normal routines of an evening's party. The thing is, it's perfectly normal. But at some random moment, one million dollars drops out of a hole in the ceiling, and out of another hole in the ceiling, a knife drops. You don't know which hole gets which, and there's more than just the two holes. At that point, it's perfectly simple. Get out of there with as much money as you can.

I think the project works because it is the absolute distillation of the reality programming genre. Risk of suffering versus reward of money. It's cheap to produce, you can stretch out the tension of the drop over several episodes, and you've got nice promotional tie-ins: "Tonight's knife is a meat cleaver, by Henkel. It's high carbon steel and stain free, and you know how important that can be. A Henkel meat cleaver, tonight's knife."

Yes, I'm kidding, unless of course Fox wants to put it in development. I'm just doing my job watching us take one more step towards The Running Man.