The Verdict
‘Law and Order’ Is Over: Last Episode Tonight
Narrator: In the criminal justice system, television exploits two separate yet equally important sources: what’s in The New York Post and what’s taught in the scriptwriting class at Yale.
Pizza deliveryman: Ya know, I once delivered to Julian Schnabel. Pepperoni and black olive.
Doorman: I bet Marcel Proust woulda ordered in a lot, too.
Pizza deliveryman: Ya, but reclusive invalids are lousy tippers.
s.d. Walking to the elevator, the pizza guy pushes the button. The elevator door opens, revealing the body of “Law and Order” producer Dick Wolfe.
Smarmy young cop wishing he were Jerry Orbach (as do we all) surveys the crime: 80 stab wounds. Usually, ten is enough to get you cancelled.
Exhausted, depressed Lieutenant now fearing her next job will be doing August Wilson plays at Dinner Theaters: He needed just one more season to break the record. Yes, he was running out of crimes. We did Leopold and Loeb six times, but we usually cast different actors. Follow the leads.
Smarmy young cop confronts elderly man at shuffleboard match: So you were worried that Dick Wolfe was going to break your record.
Eighty-seven year old James Arness beats up Jeremy Sisto. (Feel free to applaud.)
Lieutenant visits young smarmy in hospital: Jack Kevorkian is on You-Tube bragging that he killed Dick Wolfe.
Sam Waterston, in between doing commercials as the upscale Billy Mays, confronts Dr. Kevorkian: So you are going to claim that this was a mercy killing.
Kevorkian: For the audience.
From the archives: https://finermanworks.com/your_rda_of_irony/2008/07/17/eugenes-lunchtime-theater/
And let’s not forgive the historic significance of this day: https://finermanworks.com/your_rda_of_irony/2009/05/24/the-art-of-saving-souls-2/
Dear Mr. Finerman, fine script idea. Keep them coming. We need to add something for Belzer and Ice-T, just to make sure this concept is suitably awful. Oh, and then there is that Mariska Haggerty (Jane Mansfield’s daughter) that we need to throw in. You can’t throw her fast enough. Too bad we lost Gary Coleman, who could have provided some sad but comic relief a la Mr. Shakespeare. I think we need to get a little bit Mary Shelley-ish for the next episode and re-animate Dick Wolfe, maybe with various parts taken from the remains of Gary Coleman, Dennis Hopper, Jerry Orbach and whomever else from the Hollywood realm that has recently died and hasn’t decomposed too much (and who hasn’t died in Hollywood?!). The networks are pretty dependent on Wolfe’s stuff, so they may want to throw in a few bucks for the re-animation equipment, you know, the static electricity stuff. It just takes a couple of electrodes and bingo, “it’s alive!”. Then the re-animated Dick Wolfe can go on to enrich us with more generations of mind-numbing cop things, and we’ll all be better for watching his work than taking those sleeping pills that some people take to check-out for a few hours.