Bob McCarty Writes

From the “I DON’T LISTEN TO HOLLYWOOD!” department: Believe it or not, ABC television is prepping to air pilots for two new television comedies based upon “recent Wall Street carnage and the sad toll it’s taken on that once-mighty warrior, the investment banker.”

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The sad toll it’s taken on that once-mighty warrior, the investment banker?  That’s sure to jerk a tear or two from the eyes of each and every American who has lost a job, seen the value of his investment portfolio (a.k.a., “nest egg”) plummet and/or had his plans for retirement permanently changed for the worse!  But I digress.

In an Advertising Age article yesterday, it was revealed that the Walt Disney TV network hopes Americans will be able to laugh about the scariest recession in recent memory.  In the same article, a question was raised:  Would advertisers be willing to take part in such potentially perilous merriment?

Below is how the pilots were described in the AdAge piece:

One is an untitled project starring Kelsey Grammer, who plays a Wall Street millionaire unhorsed by the collapsing economy and forced into a “Mr. Mom”-like role at home with the family he hardly ever saw. The other is “Canned,” a pilot about several younger Gen X friends fired from their lofty perch at an investment bank.

“While we’re defining them as ‘bankers’ in the pilot, you experience them as that only in the very first scene, at the bank, where they get fired,” said Peter Traugott, an executive producer of “Canned.” “After that, it’s really about young people who’ve been forced to take stock of their lives, and who ask, ‘Did I even like what I was doing? Is this what I want to do?’”

I, for one, would rather watch paint dry or grass grow than watch Hollywood attempt to put a comedic human face on the current financial crisis.  That said, I predict that both of the Wall Street-focused comedy pilots will fail miserably, only to be reemerge the following season, thanks to a bailout from Congress.