The Sitcom Murders 2

By Nicholas Victor

MORE EXTREME HORROR - When a TV character from a sexy sixties sitcom suddenly finds herself in a 1970s newsroom, on a mission to murder the local weather girl, she realizes that she’s trapped in a TV horror show at the mercy of a deranged screenwriter.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nick Iuppa
• Release date: Jun 13, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463014561

Nicholas Victor

Nicholas Victor is a former Motion Picture and Television Studio Executive, best selling author, screenwriter, and altar boy.

Book preview

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Preview Chapters

Forward

In his book ON WRITING, Stephen King gives would-be writers a series of suggestions on how to write successful novels. Among them is one that has to do with scheduling. Write every day until you finish your first draft (with your office door closed). Then put the manuscript away for six weeks before you re-read, polish, and send it off to friends and colleagues to give you comments and advice. Then (with your office door open) FOLLOW their suggestions.

It seems like a reasonable plan. One question, though, is what to do during those six weeks when you are not working on your current novel? King says you need to KEEP WRITING but write something else. He often filled his time by writing short stories.

After I finished the draft of my first horror novel, TAKEN BY WITCHES, I set it aside and looked around for other work to do. Another writing instructor had suggested that I read King and following his example in putting together horror scenes. Having read almost all of King’s works by then, I knew what I considered the most gruesome of all King’s horror. It’s (I hope this isn’t too much of a spoiler) the scene in The Dark Tower in which the Crimson King finally murders Walter.

So, just as an exercise, I worked and reworked that scene, analyzed and dissected it, got my version of it as good as I could get it. But then what? I was looking for more exercises in horror, a chance to write scenes that were as gory and scary and terrifying as anything I could ever imagine.

That evening I watched a rerun of the Dick Van Dyke sitcom, which, interestingly enough, featured young suburban 60s housewife, Laura Petrie, left home alone while her husband and her son go off on a camping trip with their next-door neighbors. She’s all alone. To add a touch of humor, her neighbor (a dentist) asks Laura to babysit his pet parrot who has been trained to repeat the phrase, DON’T BE NERVOUS, DON’T BE NERVOUS. So of course, whenever anything scary happened in that Long Night’s Journey Into Day (the name of the episode), the bird pipes up, Don’t be nervous! Don’t be nervous, and Laura nearly jumps out of her skin.

I loved the episode and decided to build on that premise: a 60s housewife who is very used to having her whole family around in the evening is suddenly left alone with nothing but a creaky old, empty house and her imagination.

I started building on that horror premise, scene after scene, but not by adding things that were merely her imaginings. What if there really is an intruder who is trying to break into her home, who knows she is alone, who keeps coming after her.

In between drafts of my more conventional novels, I practiced writing those scenes for years. But, as I went along the scenes began to shape themselves into a story, and I found myself faced with another question, WHY would the character in a TV situation comedy suddenly be threatened by a homicidal maniac? The answer seemed obvious to me: Because the writer of the TV series had changed the show from comedy to horror.

GREAT! GREAT! I said to myself, but how could I keep it going, get the most out of the premise? The characters in my story gave me the answer themselves. When my new heroine, Lacy, finds herself nearly murdered by that maniac intruder, she gets into her car and drives across town to the writer’s home, to find out what he’s doing. She confronts the writer of her series, learns that he has indeed turned her safe little sitcom into a horror show, and then she asks him to give her some means to defend herself. Of course, he does. He gives her a new attitude, as well. She actually starts to enjoy standing up to these murderers. In fact, she enjoys becoming a dangerous murderer herself.

After ten years of writing my exercises in horror, I’ve put them together into a series of novellas. This is the second book in the series. The first is called Sexy Sixties Suburbia, and it’s summarized on the following pages.

Nicholas Victor

May 25, 2019

Book One Summary

Lacy Livingood is the irrepressible young housewife in the hit 1960’s TV show, Sexy Sixties Suburbia... the character every man in America is in love with. But Lacy suddenly finds that a madman is trying to break into her home. He’s battering the back door with an ax, threatening to murder and rape her.

Lacy is on the phone with her husband Johnny at the time, and he tells her to get out of the house and drive into the real world to see the writer of their sitcom, a guy named, Billy Edelman.

Somehow Lacy escapes from the madman, drives from her fictional TV home in Pasadena to Billy Edelman’s real home in Pacific Palisades, and there she finds Billy, now an old man with a bad back who writes his scripts on something she never even heard of in the 1960s... a personal computer.

Billy accepts the fact that he’s being visited by a TV character he has created, one who wants to know what’s happened to her pleasant little TV Sitcom. Billy explains that Lacy’s show has been off the air for years, but he’s been able to bring it back by transforming it into a horror series.

It takes Lacy a while to adjust to the idea. But when she does she says, If I have to face monsters and rapists, Billy, then you should give me the means to defend myself.

Billy agrees and adjusts the script so that Lacy is now a crack shot who actually enjoys killing.

Lacy returns home only to face two more serial killers and some skeptical neighbors who want to know what’s going on. Lacy manages to take care of the killers and then brings her friend Heather Whatnot back to Billy’s home to find out what will happen next.

Billy explains that the real problem is that TV actress Monica Pace, who played Lacy on TV in the 60s, got her own show about a TV newsroom in the 1970s. Billy says that the next episode of his horror show will put Lacy Livingood into the 70’s Newsroom where he expects her to murder Monica and the character she plays.

The new Lacy thinks it all sounds like grisly fun.

But things have gotten very complicated in the 70s Newsroom, and Lacy finds that she has to kill several other characters before she can even try to get rid of Monica. Our story begins with the current upheaval in the 70s Newsroom, where Station Manager, Bud Grimes has just been fired so that the station can have a new format and an All-Woman News-Team.

THE SHOWS AND THEIR CASTS

SEXY SIXTIES SUBURBIA

Set in Pasadena, California

(First aired – 1962 to 1968)

Starring: Monica Pace as Lacy Livingood

Created and Written by Billy Edelman

Characters:

Johnny Livingood – successful California businessman

Lacy Livingood – his sexy stay-at-home wife

Ronnie Livingood – their seven-year-old son

Dr. Mike Whatnot – their next door neighbor

Heather Whatnot – Mike’s wife and Lacy’s best friend

Teddy Whatnot – their seven-year-old son

Brad Sawtell – Johnny’s business associate

Penny Sawtell – Brad’s wife

SEVENTIES NEWSROOM

Set in Rochester, New York

(First aired – 1972 to 1979)

Starring: Monica Pace as Kathy Bright

Created and Written by Linda Maraschino

Characters:

Bud Grimes –Executive News Director, Station UWOT

Tony Touch – Station Manager

Kathy Bright – weather girl turned anchorwoman

Cindy Cova – host of a Sunday afternoon cooking show

Susan Goodrich – afternoon talk show host turned news director

Lacy Livingood – new sportscaster from another TV show

Heather Whatnot – Kathy’s weather girl replacement

Chapter 1

Grimes And Kathy

Rochester, New York

Kathy Bright walked nervously into the boss’s office and closed the door behind her. At the large mahogany desk in the center of the room sat Bud Grimes, the rather harsh, unfriendly man who had run the newsroom at UWOT for over 30 years. He seemed stunned, lifeless, hopeless, like someone who had just been shot dead and then propped up in his seat to make it look like nothing had happened.

Mr. Grimes, Kathy began, what’s wrong?

Grimes shivered and came back to life.

They’re dumpin’ me, Kathy, he answered in cold robotic words, firing every man on the news team.

Kathy sat in the little chair across the desk from her boss and looked concerned.

Oh, you don’t have to worry, Kathy, Grimes groused. Nothin’s gonna happen to you, ‘cept maybe somethin’ very good.

I don’t understand, Kathy answered softly.

Sure ya do, Kathy, Grimes continued, and for the first time she realized that he was half drunk.

It’s the 70s, he said, it’s a new world, the sexual revolution. You know what that horse’s ass who runs this place said to me?

Which horse’s ass is that? Kathy asked innocently enough.

Doooonn, talk dirty ta me, Miss Bright, Grimes continued. Tony Touch, the station manager, thas the horse’s ass I’m talking about. Know what he told me just now?

The question hung in the air as Kathy searched nervously for the right response.

They’re going for an ALL GIRL newsroom, Grimes said.

All girl?

Okay, so he didn’t say the word ‘girl,’ Grimes continued now weaving a little in his chair. They want an all WOMAN news team, run by Susan Goodrich; can you believe that?

Susan Goodrich, the afternoon talk show host?

Right! I’m out on my ass. Oh, I get six weeks’ severance, but that’s it. I have to clear out my desk and be off the premises by three o’clock this afternoon.

I’m so sorry, Mr. Grimes.

"Don’t be. It’s nothing but good news for you.

Listen, here’s what you do. Finish tonight’s weather report, then go home, take a nice warm bubble bath, or whatever the hell it is you do instead of drinking. And then come in all bright-eyed and happy tomorrow morning and go after the anchor job yourself.

But I couldn’t, Mr. Grimes!

Don’t give me that shit, Kathy. You’re smart enough. It’s what you wanted to be when you first came here, remember?

Kathy nodded.

Get out of that empty-headed hairdo and those micro-mini skirts that I put you in, and act serious. You can be the anchor and make the big bucks.

But...

No doubt in my mind, Grimes said. Now go away, will you. I’ve got a hell of a lot more drinking to do before three o’clock.

Mr. Grimes!

GET OUT! Grimes shouted as he yanked a bottle of Johnnie Walker out of his top desk drawer.

When will I see you again?

Maybe tonight, Grimes said as he splashed some scotch into his glass and downed it in one swallow. Maybe I’ll come over tonight if I’m sober enough to get there!

Please do, Kathy responded. She was almost in tears. She stood and moved to Grimes as though she were going to hug him. The big man recoiled.

GET OUTTA HERE! Grimes roared.

And so she did.

Chapter 2

Grimes Arrives

Kathy had taken a bubble bath, and by eight that evening she was dressed in the most professional outfit she could find, a navy blue pants suit, a white blouse, black shoes with only the slightest high heels, and a string of pearls to complete the look.

Excellent, she said to herself as she checked the mirror in the hallway of her little apartment.

She had put on her softest make-up, combed out her hair so she was as far as she could get from the weather-girl she had been. Kathy wanted to have a serious talk with Bud Grimes, and she didn’t want her cute appearance to get in the way.

She had a full bottle of Grimes’s favorite scotch sitting on the kitchen counter and a big pot of coffee brewing. She had also sliced up some cheese and apples and added a nice assortment of crackers and nuts in case her old boss needed some sustenance. Of course, she didn’t know if he would, or if he would even come over that evening. When faced with the loss of a job a man held for nearly thirty years, there was no telling what he would do.

By nine, Kathy had gulped down a second cup of coffee and was feeling rather wired. By ten the coffee was