Sunday 20 July 2008

Jinxed

As it's taken me so long to get around to blogging, there's a whole broom cupboard full of Stuff That Hasn't Been Blogged About Yet. And I realise I've never told you about the telly thing. So now, here it is:

The Telly Thing

Actually you see I haven't mentioned it because I was waiting for the Telly Thing to happen. Which it hasn't. Except that a pilot was made.


No, not that sort of pilot; the sort I'm talking about is a single episode, so that one bunch of telly people can show it to another, richer and more powerful bunch of telly people, to help them decide whether they want to make all thirteen episodes or not. That was, um, six months ago. And I've just had some news (drum roll): the big, rich, powerful telly people concerned (that'll be Nickelodeon to you and me) have...

...still not decided.

I had been waiting for news of an actual decision before telling you about it, in the superstitious belief that if I mentioned it any earlier, I would jinx the whole thing. Then I realised that me, my editor and my agent would all look like this if I waited that long:


So I'm telling you about it. And hey, who knows? Perhaps talking about it will make it happen! ANYWAY, I suppose I should mention what sort of telly thing it is. Well, first of all, it's loosely based on my Lulu Baker trilogy. I say loosely, because it's not actually a dramatisation, it's a sitcom version, and they've made quite a lot of changes. Here's a publicity image:

Note the title! I wonder whether we'll have more luck if they change it? That's Lulu on the right, by the way. And the lady on the left is Aunt Cookie. No, don't go rushing to your bookshelves, trying to remind yourself of who she is; she's nowhere to be found in the books! But in the Telly Thing, she's a sort of magical chef-type lady who springs out of Lulu's recipe book.

So there you go; that's the update. I've had a lot of readers ask if a Lulu Baker movie will be made...well, this, so far, is the nearest we've got. So no Cameron Diaz or Queen Latifah yet, alas! (see my FAQs if that makes no sense to you).

I also sometimes get asked if there'll be a film of Toonhead. And I reckon you could do something really interesting with that, along the lines of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, or Space Jam.



It's about time there was another live action/ cartoon animation movie, if you ask me.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

oh how exciting! i shall forward this to a gaggle of girls i know who loved the truth cookie! how old is the actress? i think sitcoms are the way to go btw. the male side of our family men went off over the past week for hard man adventuring and left me and nine year old mia at home. what did we do? we watched HOURS of telly - Wizards of Waverly Road in particular. we like magic and sitcoms and that sort of stuff.

please, rich and powerful telly people, make it happen!

Anonymous said...

just another comment (sorry for hogging your comments board) i have refused to buy Space jam since my boys were small (i find Bugs really irritating). as a result, we must have rented that video zillions of times, enough to buy the video several times over.

How about Pixar? Pixar should do Toonhead! They will probably re-locate it to outer space.

fionadunbar said...

Candy, re: the Lulu Baker actress (sorry, don't remember her name) – alas, at this rate she may well be too old/famous by the time this gets made (if it ever does). It's a curious thing that a 21-year-old ("Lulu")can be cast alongside a 14-year-old (who plays Lulu's best friend Frenchy)and it works just fine; you'd never know.

And I'm grateful for the comments, even if they are nearly all from the same person so far! Perhaps you should blog about my blog. And then I'll blog about yours, so you can read about it!

Anonymous said...

>perhaps you can blog about my blog

you obviously haven't seen my most recent

fionadunbar said...

Candy Gourlay said:

"please, rich and powerful telly people, make it happen!"

"How about Pixar? Pixar should do Toonhead!"

Oh, and thanks for the kind words. But serves you right re: Space Jam!

fionadunbar said...

Ah...I saw the first bit, but missed the part about my blog. Thanks!

Bookworm said...

if there is a Lulu baker show, will it be shown in the US, too? Hope so!
Your American friend,
Bookworm

fionadunbar said...

Hi Bookworm! I'm afraid I have no idea.