SDG here with a couple of Bad Ideas from some clueless corporate types who Don’t Get It.
First up is this story about network executives trying to think outside the box regarding new sitcoms. Hands-down worst idea, courtesy of Fox:
Jesus… The Teenage Years.
Fox brass are said to be particularly high on a project that one could dub "That ’70s B.C. Show": It imagines Jesus as a slacker teen under pressure from his parents — God and Mary — to enter the family carpentry business.
I can just imagine the pitch:
"Let’s cast someone like Tom Wopat as Joseph. Some ethnic-looking chick as a teenaged Mary Magdalene, and a comic-relief sidekick named Simon. Oh, and throw in a young Judas Iscariot whose dark future is foreshadowed by his troubled relationship with his father. And every week there can be a different crisis in Nazareth, a different miracle, that sort of thing.
"Two rules though: Jesus doesn’t walk on water, and he doesn’t put on the robe.
"Otherwise, love it."
Then there’s this story about a greeting card company called MixedBlessing promoting a new line of syncretistic holiday greeting cards:
Every December, Zack Rudman and his wife used to send out nonsectarian cards with winter scenes and generic holiday greetings.
Now, however, the Kansas City lawyer has found a variety that seems to better suit a Jewish man and an Episcopal woman with two young children as familiar with the menorah as with a manger scene.These cards proclaim: “Merry Chrismukkah!”
In related news, the company has also announced plans to introduce a new line of religious cards for its Narnian outlets, celebrating the birth of Tashlan.
Get the first story. Get the second story.
Oh and don’t forget you would have to have stars from previous Jesus films do frequent guest appearances on the series as various and sundry characters. Like say, Max Von Sydow as Herod Antipas in “a very special episode of Nazareth”.