Tankmen: Animated Series Pilot
Preparing for this fall and my final semester, I am planning my senior project and it will be like the “pilot” of my Tankmen webseries. I will be starting the early production stages this summer (planning, writing, storyboards, and maybe an animatic) so I will have something to show to the teacher in August.
The pilot’s plot will be a Frankensteining of what could’ve been Tankmen 2.5 and 3, I wrote the synopsis:
It will open with Ted being admitted to the infirmary, he’s unfortunately in a bed next to another Tankman, who I will name Pretzel, who keeps vomiting. (I know, it’s gross but that’s what I pictured) Ted’s nurse is Bill’s widow and she has a rather visible baby bump (I love @Temorinki’s ideas). Ted is incredibly affected by the anesthesia and they were trying to get him to drink water because they found out he’s dehydrated. The nurse is coaxing Ted to drink but he just wants to sleep but Pretzel vomiting every 2-15 minutes is preventing him from sleeping (he even asks if he can he put in another room or if Pretzel can just be put to sleep too. But the nurse tells him that the infirnary is too full). Meanwhile, Steve is very sad because he didn’t celebrate his birthday. John feels suspicious because Skittles is throwing a temper tantrum, he thinks he’ll plan attack, but Skittles is really upset because he just learned his aunt and uncle are visiting and they’re bringing their new tankbaby with them and Skittles does not like the idea of having a tankbaby in the house with him (messing up his sleep, having to help babysit, and of course, changing messy diapers). Skittles gets the bright idea to leave because he is not spending a few months with a tankbaby in the house, he goes to attack the infirmary. John, Steve, and a few other Tankmen get sent to the infirmary to protect a very debilitated Ted, Bill’s pregnant widow, and ill and injured Tankmen. But Ted sees Skittles and thinks of his little brother, who is much younger than him. He tells everyone to not kill Skittles because he’s only a tankling. Skittles begins crying his eyes out and Ted has him sit down at the foot of his bed. He asks Skittles what is wrong and why he is insighting an attack on his own. Skittles says it’s because he feels he’s not respected and that he’ll have his new baby cousin in his house for a while because his aunt and uncle’s house got destroyed and he is afraid the tankbaby will keep him awake at night and he’ll be forced to take the tankbaby with him to work and change diapers. Ted tells him that he shouldn’t get mad and that maybe having a tankbaby in the house won’t be so bad. He could teach his baby cousin different things, Skittles takes that because being a private is boring. The fight is called off and everyone but Ted goes home, Ted can’t sleep because Pretzel keeps vomiting (it will be later revealed that Pretzel has a severe gastrointestinal infection). Steve comes home sad but he’s surprised to see that John really didn’t forget about his birthday, he got him a lavender teddy and the cake he wanted. He’s even more surprised when their next door neighbor, Orange Juice is there with his sister to celebrate (Orange Juice is a military pilot and is actually home). Steve has a fun birthday and sleeps peacefully with his new teddy bear. Weeks later, some documents get stolen and John and Steve chase a few enemy Tankmen, who are Diego, his baby, Maisy, and his friend, Cheese, which will lead to the 20-second snippet. With Diego holding John at gunpoint and Cheese holding Steve at gunpoint. Meanwhile, Ted, who is on lookout, on Olympus Mons (I will make it super explicit it is Mars because that’s what I wholeheartedly believe), with Milk (another military pilot), directly above him in his aircraft calls John because Commander is on the other side of Mars’ tallest mountain sending his pilots. That’s when John yells at him and hastily hangs up. After this, Diego laughs at John and says “Don’t pretend I don’t see you. I may have a son who is only 6 months old but I am older than you think.” Steve is holding back tears and Cheese says “They did cross the equator, according to faction 500, section H.89, crossing the Martian equator will lead to a death sentence. You’re coming with us!” They throw Steve and John in a caravan and drive over to the jailhouse. John harshly whispers “This is your fault, Steve. If you hadn’t gone into the office this morning, this wouldn’t have happened.” Steve says “I needed coffee, man! You drank the entire pot because you were up all night trying to figure out the plot of ‘The Matrix’. (Inspired by this) The office has coffee, besides you almost never set foot in there and the colonel and the general are always in there watching ‘My Mother the Car’, ‘The Ugliest Girl in Town’, and ‘Turn On’, why do they like that trash?! So, getting coffee from there is not hard, they’re too focused on their **** shows to notice anything.” John says “You know you’re not allowed in the office unless you’re with me and you could’ve made yourself coffee.” Steve says “I don’t know how to make coffee!!” John says “Well, you don’t know how to tie your shoes, use the microwave, and wash your hair. Sometimes I am amazed at how you’re still even alive.” Steve says “You help me!! You always have, you changed a lot of my diapers when I was a tankbaby and you help me wash my hair at night.” John says “That’s not the point, Steve. You need to learn how to do things yourself, you are 16.” Steve asks “Will you teach me how?” John says “Yes.” They get to the jailhouse and Diego and Cheese throw John and Steve in a prison cell that looks like an ancient Roman cell, it smells awful and it’s incredibly dirty. In there, are two Tankwomen, Rachel and Anna, they were thrown in the cell because they tried to advocate their rights as tankwomen. Cheese and Diego have a conversation about the name Diego named his son, Maisy and Diego concludes that his wife named his infant son, Maisy because “she’s a weird rat”. Steve says “If we’re gonna die, there’s something I have to tell you, remember that time you were looking for sandwich? I ate it.” John says “Why, Steve?! But that won’t matter, they’re probably gonna kill us next, tankwomen mean nothing to them.” Rachel says “You know we can hear you! That’s what’s not fair about our planet!!” Anna says “They don’t let tankwomen join the military or fly planes, they just view us as walking wombs and healers, but we’re capable and we want change.” John says “That’s why you’re meaningless, we need fighters, not blabbermouths!” Rachel says “Excuse me?! You Tankmen talk more than us!!” They argue, Diego yells “Shut up!!! If hear that yapping again, you’ll be next!!” John says “If we’re gonna get out of here, we’ll have to think of a plan.” Anna says “There’s no use, breaking out leads to torture, look at what happened to Sunshine.” Meanwhile, Ted was able to call Colonel Sprinkles (one of the FNF Tankmen) and he sent some back up. Milk even called backup too, they fight and Milk sends a message to Ted. “Captain and Steve have been arrested, we need to break them out.” They send some soldiers to rescue John and Steve, meanwhile, John has a plan. Steve will distract the guards while John picks the lock. They leave out the window, the tankwomen even find a window they can go out of. They start their break out but just as Steve is pretending that his leg is broken, Rachel got the keys from a guard who is sleeping next to the cell door. They unlock the door, and Anna whispers “If we’re gonna make it out alive, we have to be quiet, if this guard wakes up, we are dead meat.” They go past the sleeping guard and as they escape, they fight guards but just as they step out, Milk, Ted, and some soldiers are ready to fight. They fight off the guards and Milk gets John, Steve, Rachel, and Anna in his plane. They all fly back to their base, “You ladies really proved yourselves, how would you like to be new recruits?” asks John. “Really? But society hates us.” says Rachel. “They’ll listen to me, you’re right, tankwomen are just capable as Tankmen, plus you may be from the side we hate but you can live on our side. They won’t miss you two.” says John. “We’ll take it!” says Anna. At that night, Mars began to change for the better, tankwomen were finally being valued and being able to do whatever they want. Both military bases began accepting tankwomen to be soldiers.
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Here’s my sketch of sleeping Steve which will be in the pilot.
I need someone to write a script for now because I don’t think I can replicate the original Tankmen humor. I want the pilot to be true to the og Tankmen shorts so people can positively go to my Tankmen webseries once it releases.
