200 Episodes, 10-15 sec Shorts,
Ready by December 2010
They're basically socks of every type and style: from traditional wool to men's ankle socks to stripy to silk. But what makes them different from regular socks is that they have little faces on the closed end (i.e. eyes, nose, mouth, hat, ribbon, etc.). Anyone with basic puppeteering skills can stick their hand inside a Sockit and create a variety of humorous expressions.
So we've got the Sokkiez, which are characters based on socks. That's also what makes this concept unique. They're not finger puppets (which have been around for ages) and they're not hand puppets (likewise), nor are they puppet-show puppets (which date back even further). Quite simply, they're s-o-c-k-s, making them (at least the talking kind) a new phenomenon.
Therefore, you must always bear in mind that these are socks, both in name and design, which means they may not have rabbit ears or dog ears – they must not resemble any animal of any kind. Instead, being talking socks, they're meant to look like human beings. They should be recognisable as socks as much as possible, but with human quirks and idiosyncrasies. That is to say, the Sokkies talk among themselves about human issues and experiences.
We’re basically looking to create a ‘Sockit World’ – a fantasy world in which anything is possible:
there are no laws, regulations or limitations. And if you don’t create or impose any of those things, both the author and the viewer will become totally confused. (‘Yes, but they weren’t supposed to fly and now they are...')… (‘But I didn’t think they were meant to have hands, and yet they do’).
In other words, if you want to create a fantasy world that’s fun and fascinating to watch, you need to be strict and consistent: this is where they live, this is how they talk, this is what they do, and that is what they can and cannot do. If you keep things simple, it’ll be a whole lot more fun!
They live where all socks live: in the second drawer of the bedroom chest. That’s where they live and interact together; that’s their home. It’s a little cramped, but that’s OK because they're allowed out during the day. The Drawer is an important part of the Sokkies' world, representing homeliness, community and security. However, life inside the Drawer has its disadvantages as well: it sometimes gets a little smelly in there. That’s why stinky Sokkies are often banished to the Third Drawer, where they are forced to mingle with the Underwear (which is no stranger to odours). Then there is the Top Drawer, which is home to the Gloves and the Mittens – garments with which the Sokkies have an ongoing feud. However, no one knows that a gorgeous female Sockit (the Marilyn Monroe of the Second Drawer) has been hot-and-heavy with a stylish suede men’s glove from the Top Drawer. Just like any sock, the Sokkies have feelings: they bicker, try
to one-up each other and joke around together. They prefer some members of their group to others and like to tease each other (a little).
One thing all the Sokkiez have in common is that they’re terrified of the Wash, which they all have to succumb to occasionally. They hate spinning around in the Machine, and they’ve all heard the horror stories about changing colour and shrinking. This may cause them to be tossed into the Rag Bag (a subject that is so traumatising to the Sokkies as to be taboo). When the Sokkies go out and about (they refer to this as ‘Stepping out of the Drawer’), their antics are always sock-related; that is to say, they always find themselves in places and situations where you might logically expect to find socks. We’ve already mentioned the Hamper, the Drier and the dreaded Rag Bag, but outside the home there’s also the Sports Bag, the Laundry Basket, the Washing Line, the Beach Bag, the Suitcase, the Shelf in the Hotel Cupboard, ‘Left in the Dressing Room’, ‘To be Dried on the Heater’, ‘In a Puppy's Mouth’, ‘In a Backpack’, and so on and so forth.
You can use the Sokkiez to produce longer videos (of 50 seconds, say). This will allow you to add some depth to the Sokkies, their world and their personalities. However, in this case we’ll opt for short, 10-second videos to be shown just before and just after advertising breaks. For the first production, we’re thinking of 200 videos, the majority of which will be set inside the Drawer.
(We’ll venture out of the Drawer eventually). In the first production, we will focus on 10 different Sokkies, with occasional appearances from a ‘Guest Sockit’. The videos will all follow the same basic script, just to keep it simple: the Sokkies emerge from the Drawer or they’re already there; sometimes they’ll simply pop out. Since you can’t really explain much about their life and background in just 10 seconds, it seems like a good idea to regularly show an intro of about 10 seconds in between segments.
The Sokkies all have the surname ‘Sok’. Their first names are ‘international’ names, i.e. names that will work almost anywhere in the world. In terms of the characters, we picked names that are already associated with the Sockit character, since many of those names are based on celebrity names. The following Sokkies are on a first-name basis with each other: Lambert Sok, Jacob Sok, Dennis and Tennis Sok, Theodore Sok, Eddy Sok, Edith Sok, Stanley Sok, Molly Sok and Victoria Sok.
Lambert is a bit of a dweeb and tends to hover around people. He sounds a bit like the ‘dim one’ in a comedy duo – a stock character with a slow, hesitant style who is often the butt of other people’s jokes. He has a habit of telling (or trying to tell) the most cringe-inducing jokes – real ‘groaners’. Example: ‘Have you heard the one about the Sockit who got caught in the rain?
He was left out to dry!’ He lives in his own little world and isn’t bothered at all by the fact that other people never laugh at any of his jokes. He fills the awkward silences by guffawing and then sighing: ‘Aaaah… It feels good to laugh.’
Our Jacob’s a moody and cantankerous little fella. He seems to be perpetually angry and always speaks in a loud voice: think Victor Meldrew in One Foot in the Grave (no pun intended).
Jacob has a habit of belching and farting, and even though he’s not interested in what those around him think, he always denies it was him, pointing the finger at other Sokkies.
Jacob has a huge chip on his shoulder, and his signature expletive is: BLUBBERY BANANAS!!
Identical twins Dennis and Tennis Sok, a pair of white tennis socks, are inseparable. Dennis and Tennis are fresh-faced and upbeat. They like to talk in sports clichés: ‘We try to push ourselves to the limit; we go in for the kill’. They like to trick people and confuse them by passing themselves off as the other. Grammatically challenged, they use ‘them’ instead of ‘those’ (‘I’d like to win one of them Grand Slams’; ‘How about them Rangers?’). As their name would indicate, they’re tennis players, and they have a habit of discussing minor tournaments on the satellite circuit in places like Tallinn and Ljubljana. When someone calls out ‘Hey, Tennis!’, Tennis always says: ‘Actually, I’m Dennis – that’s Tennis over there’ (and vice versa).
Old Theo is a snob and a half: think Eustace Tilley or the Crane Brothers from Frasier. He speaks with a la-di-dah, toff accent, looks down his nose at a lot of things (particularly Jacob Sok) and constantly reminds the others of his superior breeding. Theodore is extremely fussy and likes things just so; he’s very particular when it comes to his clothing. His weaknesses are his unrequited love for Molly Sok and his peculiar speech impediment, which makes him mix up the first letters of words. Theodore resents living in such close quarters with the other Sokkies in the Drawer, and is saving up all his money to get his own Drawer (complete with wine cellar and billiard room, naturally). Theodore does not use any catchphrases; his particular quirk is to twist letters around: ‘My beer doy... Er, I mean my dear boy…’
Eddy is a young Jamaican: bright, with a ready smile and blessed with the gift of the gab.
He speaks in a beautiful Jamaican accent. (‘Bad like yaz’) (‘All fruits ripe, mon’) (Is it 'cos I is black?) He’s also a gifted rapper (‘Been inside too long and the shoes don’t fit/They be cramping my style/cramping my style/I’m a claustrophobic mess/listen to what I have to say!’) as well as a blues performer of some merit (‘Born, bred and buttered in Montego Bay/Now I live in London Town/Smoking my life away’). Victoria adores him, Dennis and Tennis think he’s a good geezer, and Molly fancies the pants off him. Eddy has no hang-ups about his skin colour, and whenever Jacob unwittingly makes a racist remark (‘What are those jungle noises?’), he simply laughs at them. However, Stanley’s crass remarks do tend to get to him.
This female Sockit can really get under people’s skin. Although her nagging seems
well-intentioned, there’s often an undercurrent of resentment and hypocrisy to her remarks.
For example, she might ask Theodore whether he went to university, even though she knows perfectly well that he dropped out. The way she talks is reminiscent of Anne Robinson, and her catchphrase is ‘That’s what I always say’.
As we’ve seen above, Molly’s the bombshell of the Second Drawer: all baby blue cashmere, bright red lips and big blue eyes. She speaks in a squealing little-girl voice: ‘Oooh, Theodore, baby! Nooooooo!’ And: ‘Edith, darling, you look simply divine!’ ‘Darlings, I’m a happy bunny!’
Still, Molly Sok is a down-to-earth character because she says all these things in an unmistakably Geordie accent. ‘Dennis and Tennis: they’re well fit, aren’t they?Jedward, eat yer heart out!’ Although she’s far from stupid, it may not look that way. As soon as she hears a few bars of music, she’ll get up to dance, and when there’s no music playing she'll provide her own tunes. (‘Eddy get your gun’). Her catchphrase is the exclamation ‘NOO WAAAAY!’
Stan’s one nasty, mean-spirited Sockit: picture a one-man Statler and Waldorf from The Muppet Show, or Trevor from EastEnders after a particularly rough night. Stan is selfish, and whinges about everything in his Cockney accent. He tends to be blunt: ‘Why don’t yer shut it, Edith, there’s a good girl...’ His jokes – which he thinks are hilarious – are invariably at the expense of other Sokkies and are always followed by uproarious laughter – his own, of course. Even though none of the other Sokkies can stomach him, they do occasionally try to bring out his good side, since, as Edith likes to remind the others, ‘There’s something good in every sock...That’s what I always say!’ Stanley then typically responds by saying: ‘My left foot!’ He also throws around the phrase ‘To hell with the rag bag!’, which is anathema to the other Sokkies. However, Stanley's most distinct feature is his clipped, howling laugh: ‘HURRRUHHUHHUR!’
A 17-year-old sixth-form pupil, Victoria is street-smart and hides her youthful insecurity by rolling her eyes and bitching that all the other Sokkies are hopelessly out of date. She takes pride in being up on all the latest trends (along with her mate Eddy). She considers Theodore Sok a relic from a bygone era. Victoria’s catchphrase is: ‘That is sooooo last century’.
The target audience is basically anyone who watches TV adverts: the ads will be broadcast every hour throughout the day. This means the target audience is the entire English TV-viewing public. This is possible because the same rules apply to these short videos as to TV adverts:
like ads, Sokkies videos simply appear on your screen; you don’t have to go out and find them.
The humour is harmless and deliberately puerile. If you enjoy the videos, they’re like little treats:
a dollop of cream, as it were. And if you don’t like them, they’ll grow on you eventually and you’ll start to miss them when they’re not on. If you really can’t stand them, then you’re probably not much of a TV fan to begin with, and besides, the videos are so short that they’re not worth getting worked up about. Like the TV adverts, the Sokkies videos are designed to make the same impact as the immensely popular Cadbury’s ‘Gorilla’ and Budweiser adverts in the UK (or recent campaigns for KPN and Gamma in the Netherlands), with catchphrases that people will be quoting to each other in playgrounds, offices, etc. in years to come. BLUBBERY BANANAS is one of those phrases, although they all have potential to become part of the vernacular: ‘NOO WAAAAY!’; ‘AAAH… IT’S GOOD TO LAUGH’; ‘That’s what I always say!’; ‘I’M TENNIS… THAT MEANS I’M DENNIS’; ‘THAT IS SOOO LAST CENTURY…’; ‘BEER DOY…’ and ‘ALL FRUITS RIPE, MON…’.
As stated, to make clear that these videos revolve around the Sokkies and in order to show where they live, a brief intro will be shown at regular intervals. This is meant to replace the regular Sokkies videos and shows the following images: the camera zooms in on a chest with three drawers. Next, it zooms in on the second drawer. We hear a murmur of voices: wallah wallah wallah… After a few seconds, we hear a voice-over saying: ‘What's that sound? Is that coming from this drawer….?’ As we approach the handle on the second drawer, a hand reaches out and opens the drawer. We see the ten Sokkies looking up, startled. The murmuring stops, except for Molly in the corner, who has not yet spotted the camera and continues blabbing away in her Geordie accent. This is followed by the Sokkies logo, which flashes across the screen for two seconds, with Eddy’s voice booming in the background: ‘ALL FRUITS RIPE, MON…’
HERE WE ARE!
SOKKIEZ © 2010 VM&M b.v.
