Little Rental House in Jersey

Title: Little Rental House in Jersey

Elevator Pitch: A century after the events in TV's Little House on the Prairie, it is 1977, and the Wingate family, like the Ingalls' of "Little House", is leaving their Wisconsin home, not for the American frontier in a covered wagon, but for the (fictional) New Jersey town of Lindendale in a station wagon, so Dad can follow his Broadway dream as the rest of the family cope with tough, fast-talking Jersey.

Series Overview: As they start their new lives in New Jersey suburbia, Dad, a theatrical director who used to run a regional theater in Milwaukee, teen daughter, Audrey, (obsessed with ballet), Mom, (obsessed with Audrey's ballet career), and, younger daughter, our narrator, Debra Wingate, bravely face a new frontier of their own.

In this nostalgic half-hour, one-camera comedy (loosely based on the author's childhood), Dad's about to start rehearsals in NYC for a new show he is directing, while the rest of the Wingates must adjust to arrogant neighbors, white-label groceries, and clothes from a thrift store. Debra and Audrey must cope with new schools and begin to explore the wonders of nearby Manhattan, though it's a bit ragged around the edges in the late 1970s. It's the disco era in America, and the Wingates are trying to adapt and keep going, or, as The Bee Gees put it, "Staying Alive"!

Main Characters:

DEBRA ("DEB") WINGATE: twelve-year-old narrator, fan of the "Little House" books and TV show, wants her family to be more "normal" like the families on TV.

AUDREY WINGATE: fourteen, serious about her ballet training with little time for TV or hanging out with Deb.

SHIRLEY ("MOM") WINGATE: thirty-eight, stressed out, worried about affording life in New Jersey, but glad to be close to NYC for Audrey's ballet career. She and Dad met when they were both actors in NYC fifteen years before, but Mom is over that life and hopes Dad has a backup plan in case the Broadway show flops.

LARRY ("DAD") WINGATE: forty-two, stressed out, but confidently pursuing his dream of getting a show on the Great White Way. He hasn't counted on the nonsense and annoying characters he must deal with to get financial support and to please producers and erratic, flaky actors.

MISS DAISY: fifty-seven, owner and sole teacher at Audrey's new Lindendale, NJ storefront ballet school

FRANK LEMON: sixty-four, producer of Larry's Broadway-bound play

Pilot Plot Synopsis:

We begin with a shot of a scene from the series, Little House on the Prairie on a 1970s era TV screen. We see that it is Debra Wingate, sitting on the floor as she and her grandmother both enjoy the show. Debra gets a call on the kitchen phone from her older sister Audrey, on a break at ballet camp. They talk about how unfair it is for their dad to move the whole family halfway across the country just so he can open a play he is directing on Broadway.

Next, we see Debra and Audrey in their family station wagon, with Larry, their dad, driving. His wife, Shirley, the girls' mother, is already at their new house supervising the professional movers. The car radio plays hits from 1977, such as, "Go Your Own Way", by Fleetwood Mac, or "Best of My Love", by The Emotions. As Audrey jabbers away about New York City ballet schools, Debra reads her worn copy of Little House on the Prairie, by Laura Ingalls Wilder. We hear Debra's voice narrate, in words not unlike the first words of that book:

"In 1977, when all the moms and dads of today were children or maybe not even born, Dad, Mom, Audrey and Debra left their house in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It was over one hundred years after Pa, Ma, Mary, Laura, and Baby Carrie left their little house in the big woods of Wisconsin. They were going to the prairie in a covered wagon. We were going to New Jersey in a station wagon. "

Thus, the Wingate family adventure begins. When the three Wingates in the car get to their new rental house in tree lined New Jersey suburbia, Shirley, wife and mom, meets them at the door. Audrey and Debra are appalled at the smallness of their shared bedroom, when they each used to have a larger room of her own.

They are bewildered by the "no name" brands of food in the kitchen. Shirley explains to them that they have to save money while their dad "isn't earning a paycheck". Dad has to collect unemployment while his play is rehearsing.

Despite the family's lack of funds, Shirley has bought new tights, leotards, and ballet slippers for Audrey to cheer her up about starting dance lessons at a new dance studio. Shirley has bought nothing for Debra.

The new school year will start in a few weeks for the girls, but already their lives have changed, and not for the better:

Because they cannot afford a fancy New York ballet school yet, Audrey enrolls in a storefront school, "Miss Daisy's Dance Studio". It turns out "Miss Daisy" is an aging egomaniac who talks endlessly about how she was "almost a Radio City Rockette". Even Audrey can see that Miss Daisy's dance technique is worse than her stories.

Shirley, worried that her daughters don't have enough clothes for the new school year, wanders into a thrift store and is immediately sized up by the Lindenwood power moms who run the store. These PTA moms assume Shirley wants to volunteer at the store, not buy clothing there. They already know Shirley is married to "a Broadway director". What can Shirley do? She doesn't want to embarrass Audrey and Debra, (or herself), so she signs up to volunteer that day, and sneaks out clothes at closing time.

Larry's producer is already complaining that there are not enough "leggy chorus girls" in his show, a musical version of Aldous Huxley's 1932 dystopian novel, Brave New World. This production is ahead of its time, based on a serious novel rather than what is succeeding on Broadway in 1977, such as, A Chorus Line and Annie. Some of Larry's actors don't understand the seriousness of the subject matter of the show, thinking it is a drugged out hippie musical like Hair.

Meanwhile, our underachieving narrator, Debra, is the only happy Wingate when she discovers they get twice as many TV channels as they got in Milwaukee,! They get both New York City AND Philadelphia channels! What about New Jersey channels? Apparently, there's no such thing.

Debra can relate to the state of New Jersey now. She feels lost and invisible among egos the size of New York and Philadelphia in her family. But she'll always have a TV show to watch!

This episode ends with a family trip to sweltering New York City in mid July. Only Shirley stays home to unpack more boxes. Larry takes Audrey and Debra to Macy's, Central Park, and the Staten Island Ferry. As they drive away from the city to go home, Debra looks behind them at a strange sight: New York City's lights have all gone out. The buildings are dark against the setting sun. It is the famous New York City Blackout of 1977.

As they pull into the driveway of their little rental house in Jersey, Shirley opens the screen door and shouts, "Debra, what did you do? Did you pull out some plug in New York? The whole city has no power!"

"Mom really cared for all of us, in her way," narrates Debra. "She just thought it was hilarious that New York City lost power the first day I ever set foot there. It's kind of funny, but she never said funny things like that about Audrey."

Debra then half-quotes Laura Ingalls from Little House on the Prairie: "If I had a remembrance book, I surely would write about all our adventures that summer of 1977, but I'd leave out just one thing--what a bitch Mom could be sometimes."

Roll credits.

Scenes from Next Week's Episode:

Audrey and Debra start school in September 1977. The girls at Debra's middle school are snobby, wanting to know where her "French jeans" and clogs are.

Audrey's new high school is full of feathered-hair Charlie's Angels wannabees. They want to know why Audrey hasn't made out with a boy yet.

While Shirley volunteers at the thrift store, the PTA moms pressure her into volunteering at the schools.

Larry's producer pressures him into casting his young trophy wife in Brave New World, The Musical.

Debra falls for a boy in her class who is nice to her, but is the "boyfriend" of one of the mean girls.