UPDATE (11/19/23): Hocking Hills is now Everly Heights. I’ll keep this page up for historical reasons, but visit the official Everly Heights website for up-to-date info and ways to get involved.
GENRE: Drama
LOGLINE: When a podcaster gets hired as a consultant on a reboot of his favorite 90s TV show, he fights to make the sequel the fans have been waiting for.
Read Fanboy here: https://everlyheights.tv/stories/fanboy-comedic-adventure-feature/
Fanboy is probably the most personal script I’ve ever written. It’s a synthesis of all the years I’ve spent pursuing my passions. The main character hosts fan podcasts as I did for several years with Universe Box. He moves to Los Angeles to work in a creative field, just like I’ve done three times (most recently this summer). He grew up in an abusive household, just like I did. I’m just saying there’s a lot of me in this story.
Most prominently, the 90s show he’s hired to help with is Dogboy Adventures, the book series I wrote 4/5ths of seven years ago based on the screenplay that got me representation the last time I lived in Los Angeles. I used Dogboy as the show for three reasons:
- I came up with the “fan podcaster turned pro” concept years ago, back when I was a fan podcaster. I even gave it a dry run earlier this year on The Fakist. Sadly, when it came time to do it “for real” on Fanboy, I couldn’t use a show I watched growing up since I don’t own the copyrights to any of those shows.
- The story I was telling in Dogboy Adventures was mostly done, minus the last story River of Time. I’ve had an outline for the last book on my computer for years, so it would save me from working up a whole mythology for the “show within a show.” I already had a rich mythology laying around.
- I hear from readers every few months asking when the last Dogboy book will come out. I’ve changed directions professionally, but I thought it would be a nice way to give them some answers about what happened after that crazy cliffhanger in Book 4.
I started writing Fanboy right after we got settled in Los Angeles this summer. While I was giving the outline a final polish, my friend and former SoCal roommate Brett Cain passed away. It hit me hard, and I struggled to find a way to honor him and his importance in my life. I decided to create a “mentor” figure for Jeremy modeled on Brett. “Brother Joseph” guides his old college friend through his first big Hollywood challenge and sings Brett’s songs in a few key scenes. Brett gave me a blanket license to use his songs in my work years ago, but my hope is that if Fanboy ever gets produced some royalty payments will go to his family.
I haven’t worked in Hollywood since the mid-00s, so the showbiz side of Fanboy is informed by my decade-or-so in corporate media. I’ve worked with executives at all levels over the years, so I funneled that experience into the script. Francisco and Lily’s machiavellian dynamic is something I’ve seen over and over again in boardrooms and corner offices, so it was fun to explore it in fiction.
While all my stories are personal in one way or the other, Fanboy feels like the most personal thing I’ve ever written. It’s a little scary, since I put so much of myself into Jeremy and his journey. Don’t worry. He’s not too much of a Mary Sue.
Read Fanboy
http://HockingHillsScripts.com is a collection of TV pilots and screenplays I’ve developed to showcase my strengths as a writer and build a branded portfolio of my work.
Find out more about Hocking Hills Scripts here: https://billmeeks.com/introducing-hocking-hills-scripts/