"Beans the Clown"

(5 Page Script, Genre: Humor)

“Beans the Clown”

Page One

Panel 1.  A close-up on a warm, colorful clown against a white backdrop.  As long as the clown appears genuinely loving and not homicidal, his appearance can be as stereotypical or unorthodox as you want it to be.  As we’re about to reveal, this panel is actually a close-up on a printed illustration being held up by someone else, so I guess you could say this panel is from a “first-person” perspective.  Dialogue is off-panel to the person holding the illustration.

1 FATHER (off-panel):

You don’t really look the same as in the flyer.

Panel 2.  Same angle and perspective, except the hands holding the illustration have lowered enough so that we can see BEANS THE CLOWN standing directly in front of us, in roughly the same pose as seen in the illustration from Panel 1.  Contrary to the printed illustration, the actual Beans is disheveled and infinitely depressing to the senses.  He is unshaven with bags under his bloodshot eyes, his expression a perpetual grimace or sneer, his clothes dirty and maybe even a little blood-stained.  Beans is at least thirty pounds heavier than in the illustration, and you might even want a fly or two whizzing around his head for good measure.  He holds a brown paper bag tightly in one hand, implying that there is a bottle of something alcoholic inside.

2 BEANS:

Damn straight I don’t!  Ain’t no artist that can render a mug like this in all its glory.

Panel 3.  Pull out so that we can see a FATHER and MOTHER glancing with concern back at the illustration in the father’s hands.  Beans gives the parents the stink eye as he drinks from his brown paper bag.  They are standing in the entranceway of a cozy middle-class home in the suburbs.  The father looks like a spineless pushover, because no confident adult would ever let Beans in his house in the first place.  The mother is similarly timid, but in a street fight, she would lay her husband out.

3 FATHER:

The party’s already begun, and we did promise Chris a clown.

4 MOTHER (whisper):

But he smells like bourbon!

Panel 4.  Beans lumbers out of the room like Donkey Kong to go find the party, utterly indifferent to the panicked expression on the mother’s face.  Beans is very drunk.

5 BEANS:

Bourbon is nature’s aftershave!  Now where the hell are these kids?

Page Two

Panel 1.  Beans has arrived in the living room, surrounded by elementary schoolers in party hats.  His arms are spread wide as he introduces himself to the unsuspecting kids, the paper bag still in one hand.  Pizza and soda are on the table in front of the couch, and some lame kids’ movie is playing on the television.  All of the usual kid’s birthday stuff is littered around the room.  The birthday boy, CHRIS, watches Beans with awe.  He has short blonde hair and wears a cardboard Burger King-style crown for the occasion.

1 BEANS:

Loaded on hooch and ready to mooch!  Make way for Beans the Clown!

Panel 2.  Chris hurries excitedly to Beans, hands raised and fingers interlocked in a pleading sort of way.  Beans looks down at the boy with big, open lips, because he needs to look like a Grade-A schlub at all times.

2 CHRIS:

Oh, wow, a real clown!  Do you do balloon animals?

3 BEANS:

Balloons?  Thanks to Philip Morris, I need an oxygen mask just to blow on hot food.

Panel 3.  Chris, a little less enthused now, puts his hand on the back of his neck.  Beans places a hand on his own shoulder, one eye wincing to denote discomfort.

4 CHRIS:

Okay, well, can you juggle?

5 BEANS:

Not since the shoulder injury.  Beans really shouldn’t have picked that fight with the clergyman.

Panel 4.  Beans spreads out on the couch, leaving no room for children to sit, and gestures toward the pizza on the table in front of him.  Chris glares at him.  His father and mother have now entered the room, and they mimic Chris’s look of disapproval.

6 CHRIS:

Don’t you do anything fun?

7 BEANS:
Hey, what do you call this?  Buncha guys sitting around eating free grub?

8 BEANS (connected):

This is the life!