I pitched a series to a company in the states before watching this show... I wish I had seen it first, would have been less embarrassing for me.
But it COULD have been much much worse.
I was asked to pitch a follow up show to a series this company had already bought and were happy with. I met with my writing partner, and we sat to come up with some ideas.
HE wanted to make a parody of an existing property... and threw out the idea "Back to the future"... LUCKILY I axed that. I said our last show was a parody, so we should go for something not so obvious.
So we came up with this concept of two guys who are recruited to be intergalactic, time travelling, multi-dimensional bounty hunters. We wrote a pilot and handed it in.
My notes back were "we like it... but it's a little too 'Rick and Morty'... can we change it up a bit?"
I told them I had never seen Rick and Morty. I got home, downloaded and watched the entire first season in one shot.
Holy crap I love this show... and I IMMEDIATELY canned our show. Yes, we could change it up enough not to be compared, but at the same time, Rick and Morty is so good, I figured I don't want to play anywhere near that arena. It's just so friggin sharp.
And man that was a close one... if we had gone into that pitch meeting with my writing buddies first idea..."It's like Back to the future! but with dimensions! we call it 'Dick and Matty!'" man... embarrassing.
Can't wait to watch the new ep tonight.