Toby Makes a Million (lost pitch pilot for cancelled MTV2 comedy series; 2016-2017)
Robert L. Hines is an American comedian and actor. He is most well known for his Toby Jones character, primarily used in the commercial parody videos uploaded on YouTube by the Chicago sketch comedy group Big Dog Eat Child; the most popular ones being "Jones' Good-Ass BBQ & Foot Massage" and "Jones' Big-Ass Truck Rental & Storage."[1] The videos have gained multiple million views on the video-sharing platform, and the Toby Jones character became a classic internet meme.
Hines eventually planned to use his character in a television series. The series was named Toby Makes a Million, and a pilot was fully made, but never released. As of February 2020, no footage of the pilot has resurfaced online.
Plot
According to Hines, the show's premise would have involved Toby Jones opening up a new business every week, selling items relating to said business, then moving onto another business for each new episode. The show's pilot revolved around the bottled water business. Hines also specified that it was not his idea for the pilot to be about bottled water, and "it was really hard to make water funny; however, we found a way and it was hilarious."[2]
Background
On January 28th, 2014, Hines released a video about a pitch for a Toby Jones television series. The video was largely forgotten about, until January 22nd, 2020, when a YouTuber by the name of "wavywebsurf" released a video on the history of Toby Jones, re-igniting interest on the television series pitch. A video interview with Hines was released the next day, in which he revealed the story about how an actual pilot for the series was made.
Production
Hines moved from Chicago to Los Angeles and shot the pilot around 2016-2017 with Asylum Entertainment.[3] The pilot was eventually sold to MTV2, who wanted to make a full series based on the idea. However, sometime during planning, everyone involved in making the show was fired during a downsize of the MTV2 staff, and the show was cancelled before it went into proper production. Hines mentions that the pilot still probably exists in a vault, not having access to it as Asylum kept it to themselves after the show's cancellation, making it unlikely to ever release.[2]
Known cast members are Ramiro Castro Jr. (executive producer, editor, and camera operator), Maggy Torres-Rodriguez (casting assistant) and Hines himself.[3][4]
Gallery
External Link
- Wikipedia page on Robert L. Hines. Retrieved 13 Feb '20
References
- ↑ Hines' official website page on Toby Jones. Retrieved 13 Feb '20
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Wavywebsurf's interview with Hines. Retrieved 13 Feb '20
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Ramiro Castro Jr.'s StaffMeUp page. Retrieved 13 Feb '20
- ↑ StaffMeUp page on the pilot. Retrieved 13 Feb '20