America - Land of the Free and Home of the '90s Teen Comedy

Welcome to another edition of the Fred&Dan Blog! Our mission with Fred&Dan Productions and this blog has always been to make people think in ways they’ve never done before - to spark creativity and facilitate conversation in unconventional ways. A place where you can open up your email and have a bit of creativity to take with you into your day or week! 

First up, a strike update! This is actually exciting - the AMPTP (the studios) have requested to meet with the WGA (the writers) to resume negotiation talks! I was honestly not expecting the AMPTP to approach the writers first, so this is kind of huge. The strike is nearing 100 days, which if it surpasses, will mean this strike is longer than the 2007 writer’s strike.  Fingers are tightly crossed that these talks (happening today!) actually go somewhere and we see an end to the strike sooner than later. 

We are keeping ourselves plenty busy in the meantime. We are still fundraising and in pre-production for the webseries Big Oops*, we are gearing up for the second edition of our zine (expect a big announcement on that coming soon), and prepping for a website makeover. And of course, still writing! Because all of this started with writing. 

We’ve delved into the origins of our scripts Mean Streak and The Fox and The Moon. As of late, we have resurrected an old comedy script, Star Spangled Banner, and wanted to bring you along on the same journey as we did the other scripts. Welcome to our next installment in the BTS of our writing process! Weeeee! 

Star Spangled Banner (or SSB as we say to each other) is actually the second script we wrote together, and it has taken many forms in the 5+ years that we have been working on it. Recently we turned it into a TV pilot reminiscent of Never Have I Ever, and now we are trying to work it again into a feature by shaping it into a fun, campy and satirical teen romp! Our goal with this story was always to harken back to the teen movies that we grew up watching in a modern way. 

Movies like 10 Things I Hate About You, which I watched every single time I would go over to my grandparent’s house growing up (I had little limits on what I was allowed to watch, which might explain the way that I am). Or American Pie, which I didn’t discover until I was older because I always thought it was a gross boy movie. To be fair, it is kind of a gross boy movie but it’s hilarious and does speak to the teenage experience in a very exacting way. Even Superbad, which I watched the first time with my cousins when I had zero idea about the concept of “losing your virginity,” I laughed until tears were running down my cheeks. 

These are the stories we looked to and the, dare I say, vibes we wanted to emulate. 

But of course, there've been countless movies about teenagers in high school trying to figure out how to simply be teenagers, so we needed to figure out how to make ours stand out and from the others. 

We started by sharing our own stories with each other. We would go back and forth, laughing at the insane and silly escapades we found ourselves in during high school. Just like with Mean Streak, so many of our own experiences and relationships are translated right into the script. 

We also asked friends about their own experiences in high school, or things that were stereotypical to their high school at the time. For example, we heard a story of a school in the midwest (where SSB takes place) where all the guys who drove trucks parked in the back row of the parking lot, and one day when a regular sedan parked in one of those spots, they got the guy with the biggest truck to pull it out. It’s in the script. 

What was your high school “known” for? Was there one incident or experience that was just quintessential to your high school? My high school was known for the “Save Our Sports” rally my freshman year that quickly devolved into a full on mob that destroyed a local mall. Or the milk throwing incident my senior year that turned into a riot. Lots of weird shit was going down at College Park High, okay? If you have any funny stories you’d be willing to share we’d love to hear them. Who knows, maybe they’ll even end up in a script…. 

*Remember our campaign for Big Oops is still going strong! We’re 66% of the way funded with two weeks left! You can donate here and help all of our dreams come true <3