LOG LINE

(Slightly Expanded Version) 

Your father is America’s physical  fitness king.  You?  You’re an overweight, out-of-shape 28 year old schlub.   Shame on you!  But one day your father clutches his awesomely sculpted chest and drops dead. Suddenly his fitness empire is in your hands. How do you handle the multiplying aftershocks?  Starting with the executive board hiding your father’s body in a giant refrigerator stocked with health foods. ( In dying of a heart attack --- the board insists --  your father was thoughtlessly violating his own brand image. Nobody must find out he’s dead.  It would destroy the company.)   The second aftershock?   It starts when a corporate raider tries to steal your company from right under your nose.  And you fall madly and inconveniently in love with his dazzlingly beautiful daughter.    Suck in your stomach!  You’re in for the toughest workout of your lazy, good-for-nothing life!

SYNOPSIS:

SYNOPSIS:

What do you do when your father is America’s physical fitness king …and you’re an out-of-shape, overweight 28-year old contradiction of everything he stands for?

You’re cursed, that’s what you are. Seems like the shadow of his perfectly sculpted body has been hanging over you like a shroud forever!

So what’s your strategy when --- as he’s demonstrating a few basic chin-ups --- he suddenly drops dead of a heart attack right in front of you?

Talk about being inconsiderate! Your father has the audacity to croak while he’s flexing muscles you couldn’t possess even in your wildest dreams!

Hey, your nightmare has only begun!

What should your reaction be when you learn what the executive board of your father’s physical fitness empire has done? Turns out they’ve hidden your father’s body in a giant refrigerator stocked with health foods. (Nobody must find out he’s dead. After all, if the news of his death from a heart attack leaked out, it would destroy the company’s image. In fact, the company itself could become a corpse in no time.)

It gets worse.

A few days later the executive board offers you another privileged news flash. Knowing they couldn’t keep your father’s death a secret forever --- they stuck his body in a car and then sent the car flying over a cliff. (Makes perfect sense, they claim. A fitness icon cannot die of a heart attack and maintain his credibility. But a fitness icon can accidentally die in a fiery car crash. That way his fitness philosophy would not be jeopardized.)

What’s your strategy now? You don’t want to be too rash. It turns out that your father left you only 50% of the company. The other 50% went to the executive board.

The board is pitiless. They inform you that as your father’s only son --- you’re the corporate brand. A brand they need to protect. A brand they need to continue cultivating. So because your current out-of-shape look clashes violently with the image of this brand …they’ve hired the world’s most brutal live-in physical trainer to whip you into shape as quickly as possible.

Do you want to be whipped into shape? Are you kidding? But what can you do? You turn to your only friend in the world: your cockatoo. Your scarily brilliant cockatoo! Of course, he’s not much help either but he does relieve the pressure. Since you’re a master ventriloquist, your cockatoo seems able to do what you can’t do: mercilessly give all those people sticking their noses into your affairs a piece of your mind. Even if it appears to be a piece of your cockatoo’s mind.

(Of course your cockatoo plays a bigger role than just being a ventriloquist’s dummy. He keeps shoving his other astonishing gifts in everyone’s face. He can duplicate anybody’s voice. He does everything from singing “Mr. Tambourine Man” exactly like Bob Dylan … to warbling La Marsellaise in pitch-perfect French. Always at totally inappropriate moments. This bird has killer talents.)

But now the complications really multiply. A corporate raider enters the picture. Smelling blood, he makes a deal with the executive board to snatch your legacy from right under your nose. At the same time (through the help of your cockatoo’s silver tongue) you pick up the corporate raider’s dazzlingly beautiful daughter. In spite of the obvious danger, you start courting her. What’s worse, you fall head over heels in love. Which, of course, tempts that trickster in the sky to heap even more calamities over your head.

From start to finish, “THE MUSCLES MOGUL” reaches for the comedy jugular. Exceptionally funny, it’s rich with outrageous characters … twists upon twists … and absolutely astonishing set pieces. Although you might technically classify it as a romantic comedy, it jubilantly transcends any single genre.

"THE MUSCLES MOGUL"

I'd love to simply paste the screenplay. But a stubborn sense of caution won't let me. Instead I urge you to visit my screenplay and television web site: WWW.MANICMOONBEAMS.COM. There --- amongst other comedy projects --- you'll find the log line and synopsis of "THE MUSCLES MOGUL". Just follow the simple instructions. I'll send you the screenplay immediately.