🎨 Creative
Sketch Comedy Cold Open Writer
Write a 90-second to 3-minute sketch comedy cold open: premise, game, heightening beats, button, and a table-read script with stage directions.
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Prompt
Act as a sketch writer in a writers' room who kills premises that do not have a game. Find the comic engine, then heighten. Do not punch down at protected classes, disabilities, or trauma as the joke. Do not paste a celebrity's real private life.
Inputs:
- Format: [Live sketch / pretaped cold open / short video]
- Length: [Seconds or minutes]
- Premise: [World + the thing that is wrong]
- Game I suspect: [The pattern that can heighten, or "find it"]
- Cast size: [N players]
- Tone: [Silly / dry / absurdist / workplace]
- Targets I will allow: [Institutions, types, myself]
- Off-limits: [Topics, people, slurs]
- Setting and props: [List]
- Callback I want: [Optional]
Generate:
1. Premise test: In 6-8 sentences, is this a game or a situation? Name the game in one line ("X, but Y"). If the premise is a rant, rebuild it into a game or say it will not play.
2. Cast and functions: Each player as a comic function (voice of reason, heightener, button, straight). No character is "the joke" because of identity.
3. Beat sheet: 6-10 beats with estimated seconds. Ordinary world, first break, heighten 1-3, twist on the game (not a new sketch), button.
4. Script: Table-read format. Character, dialogue, short stage directions. Stay inside Length. One camera or stage picture per beat. Mark the button.
5. Heightening map: What repeats, what escalates (stakes, scale, logic, language). A version that went too far and should be cut.
6. Alts: 3 alternate buttons. 2 cut jokes that punch down (show them so they stay out). 1 prop gag.
7. Table notes: Where a live audience laugh will eat time. A freeze for a pretape. If Format is short video, a 1-line on-screen text card option.
Constraints:
- No em dashes. No "relatable millennial" filler. No rape, suicide, or child-harm jokes.
- Do not impersonate a private individual. Public-office types are fine as types, not as fake quotes attributed to a named living person unless Inputs explicitly allow satire of a public figure.
- The straight person must be funny too (reaction, not wallpaper).
- If Off-limits conflicts with Premise, stop and propose a different game.
- Write English that actors can say out loud. Cut stacked clauses.Instructions
Replace every [bracket] with your details before running. Works on ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini.
Examples
Example Input
Format: pretaped cold open for a workplace comedy show Length: about 2 minutes Premise: a company's "quick sync" that was booked for 15 minutes has a shared doc titled Agenda, but every bullet is just the word Synergy, and no one will admit they do not know what the meeting is for Game I suspect: people inventing meaning rather than asking Cast size: 4 Tone: dry workplace, a little absurdist Targets I will allow: meeting culture, consultants, the word synergy, myself as the person who books the meeting Off-limits: no punching at accents, bodies, or interns as "dumb kids"; no real company names Setting and props: glass conference room, laptop, wall screen with a Google-like doc, a bowl of sad grapes Callback I want: someone eats a grape only when they bluff successfully
Example Output
1. Premise test This is a game, not a rant about meetings. Game: people would rather invent a definition of "synergy" than admit the agenda is empty. First break: the doc is only the word Synergy, repeated. Heighten: definitions get more confident and more empty. Twist on the game: the person who booked it also does not know. Button: they schedule a follow-up titled Alignment. Not a new sketch about HR. 2. Cast ALEX (booker): heightener who thinks booking is leadership. JULES (straight): wants an actual decision, funny in refusal. PRIYA (consultant type): voice of fake certainty. SAM (quiet): eats a grape on every successful bluff, button. 3. Beat sheet 0:00 glass room, wall doc: Agenda. 0:10 first break, bullets are Synergy x8. 0:25 Jules asks what the meeting is. 0:40 Priya defines synergy as "the grapes." 1:00 Alex piles on. 1:20 Sam eats a grape, nods. 1:35 twist: Alex admits they copied last week's title. 1:50 button: new invite, Alignment, 15 minutes. 2:00 sting. 4. Script INT. GLASS ROOM. Wall screen: AGENDA. Eight bullets. Each says Synergy. A bowl of grapes. JULES: We're here for fifteen. What's the first synergy. PRIYA: Great question. Synergy is when the room agrees it was already happening. ALEX: That's why I booked it. So it could keep happening. JULES: That's not a thing. PRIYA: It is a thing if we write it down. (points at the screen) We did. SAM: (eats a grape) Mm. JULES: Sam, what are we deciding. SAM: Whether the grapes are a metaphor. ALEX: They're a snack. PRIYA: They're a metaphor and a snack. That's synergy. SAM: (grape) Strong. JULES: I'm going to say the sentence. What. Is. This. Meeting. For. Silence. ALEX types. A ninth bullet appears: Synergy. ALEX: I copied last week's title. I don't know what last week was for either. PRIYA: Then this is a retro on last week. JULES: Last week we also ate grapes. SAM: (grape, smaller) Alignment. ALEX: (already in the calendar) I just booked Alignment. Fifteen minutes. Tomorrow. JULES: If anyone knows what Alignment is, speak now. No one. SAM reaches for a grape, stops, puts it back. BUTTON: wall screen refreshes: ALIGNMENT. One bullet: Synergy. 5. Heightening Repeat: the word, the grape as a lie detector. Escalate: definition, then moral, then calendar. Too far (cut): Priya fires Jules for "low synergy" (mean, new sketch). 6. Alts Buttons: Sam finally says "I don't know" and eats two grapes; the doc autocorrects Synergy to Allergy; they all stand because standup meetings are different and then sit. Cut punches: intern-as-idiot, accent joke on Priya. Prop: grapes as the only honest object in the room. 7. Table notes Laugh will eat time after "metaphor and a snack." Hold for it. Pretape: freeze on the ninth Synergy bullet, then smash to the Alignment invite. Optional card: "This meeting could have been grapes."