Meet Steve Guttenberg like you’ve never seen him before in…
STEVE GUTTENBERG (Police Academy, Three Men and a Baby, Cocoon) stars as himself in an animated head trip
created by
Joe Frankel & Bill Gienapp.
In the 1980s Steve Guttenberg put butts in the seats and food on the table for a great number of Hollywood filmmakers and studio executives.
He starred in some of the biggest movies of the decade… and then something happened that nobody saw coming…
…he moved to France and became the most celebrated actor in Europe.
He became the poster boy for fragrances, sports cars & telenovelas.
He played the great roles from Cyrano to Lear and the Marquis De Sade.
He lived more like a god than a man…
… until now.
Les Characters
STEVE
Steve carries a seemingly bottomless cup of good will for all and never passes up an opportunity to help someone. His guilelessness and blind faith in humanity’s inherent goodness often puts him in danger, but no matter how craven, self-serving, or outright depraved the people he meets, Steve remains hilariously upbeat, un-jaded and unflappable.
JOHNNY 5
Steve’s best friend and former Short Circuit co-star is everything Steve isn’t: sensitive, brooding, intellectual and a hopeless romantic. It irks him to no end that, despite Steve’s comparatively inferior intelligence, he succeeds at everything while Johnny is marginalized for not being human.
GISELE
Gisele has no ambitions other than to tend bar at Café Ennui and to stoically withstand life’s many indignities. Steve’s sunny, extroverted nature is an affront to her cool, French fatalism. She doesn’t want kids. She’s all but given up on love, and she denies her feelings for Johnny by cycling through a series of passionless relationships.
ARNAUD
Nobody likes Arnaud. He is crude, churlish, coarse. He has no style. No culture. No refinement of any kind. No qualms about leaning on Gisele to settle his bad debts and shoulder his many proclivities. Why Gisele is dating him remains a mystery. In truth, the only person who can find any good in Arnaud’s borderline-criminal personality is Steve.
LA POINTE
Daniel La Pointe’s passion for dragons earned him the nickname: “The Komodo Dragon.” His reach extends far into France’s criminal underworld. His friends in the billionaire elite give him infinite resources. For two decades he has successfully eluded capture, despite being number one on Interpol’s most wanted list. Only Steve has seen La Pointe’s real face and lived, and now La Pointe is determined to bring him down at any cost.
KINSKI
Steve was only six when he saw Klaus Kinski in Aguirre The Wrath of God and decided to become an actor. For years he voraciously followed the infamous actor’s career - and then he died, just as Steve was coming to prominence. It was Steve’s great regret that he was unable to help Kinski overcome his violent rages and addictions… and it’s therefore doubly ironic when Kinski reveals he’s still alive and steals the lead role in Steve’s passion project.
THE STUDENTS OF ENNUI
The “students” are a group of like-minded marxists, revolutionaries and beatniks who sit around and daydream about toppling the capitalist system. Gisele is initially non-plussed when they decide to make Café Ennui their home base, but learns to accept them when she realizes they mainly just take steps to install pay phones and trash receptacles in under-serviced neighbourhoods.
MANN CERVÀNT
After Steve liberates him from indentured servitude to Daniel La Pointe, Mann gets a second lease on life and signs up to become a revolutionary with the students of Ennui. But, when your whole life has been spent as a hunchbacked, feral manservant to a megalomaniacal despot, you’re liable to misread the room. It isn’t long before Mann takes the revolutionary principles of the students too far — setting off bombs, bumping people off, and forcing Steve to question whether rescuing Mann was actually a good thing.
Le Pilot
Steve is invited to a dinner party at an opulent French chateau in the woods where he is wined and dined by the world's most famous billionaires. Everyone from Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk to Alice Walton and Warren Buffet is in attendance and Steve has rarely felt so validated... until the horrifying truth is revealed: he has inadvertently stumbled into a "most dangerous game" scenario and the billionaires intend to hunt him to the death for their own personal amusement. What follows is a phantasmagorical chase across the grounds of the estate, as Steve is pursued by laser drones, long-range rockets and even a remote-control clown operated by his mysterious host, Daniel La Pointe.
Steve escapes with the help of Johnny, Gisele, and a few other allies, only to realize that he accidentally posted a goodbye video telling the world he would soon be dead… and the underwhelming internet tributes that follow force him to contemplate his legacy in a new light.
EPISODE 2
The Steve Guttenberg Fund
With the world in mourning after his alleged death, Steve appoints Gisele & Johnny the reluctant co-chairs of a new charity in his name and hits the casino — disguised as a Spanish race car driver — where a random encounter with a child in France's Make-A-Wish Foundation compels Steve to risk his life by racing in the Grand Prix at Le Mans. Meanwhile, Gérard Depardieu looks for proof that Steve is still alive.
EPISODE 3
Short Circuiting
Steve hits the Cannes Film Festival where he dodges Elon Musk & Jeff Bezos (disguised as Jean-Claude Van Damme) but complications ensue when the real JCVD arrives. Gisele tries to divert Van Damme away from Steve on the red carpet. Johnny attacks Musk & Bezos to protect Steve. Warren Buffet accidentally kills Van Damme, thinking he’s Steve.
EPISODE 4
The Bedroom Window, Part Deux
Steve witnesses an attack from the bedroom window of Isabelle Huppert’s apartment and the victim bears an uncanny resemblance to him. Bong Joon-Ho has Johnny arrested after mistaking him for a stalker. Huppert volunteers to masquerade as the eyewitness to the attack (so Steve can continue to play dead), but she gets such an intense grilling from the police that Steve’s conscience compels him to reveal he’s still alive.
EPISODE 5
Here’s Johnny!
Steve scores the lead in Paul Verhoeven’s erotic re-imagining of the Arsene Lupin book. Gérard Depardieu woos Johnny into appearing in his own rival Lupin production in the hopes of turning him against Steve. With Steve now “alive” Gisele must deal with allegations of fraud against The Steve Guttenberg Fund.
EPISODE 6
Ménage à Five
Steve struggles to interpret Verhoeven’s mercurial direction. Johnny is queasy about performing a ménage à trois with Depardieu behind Steve’s back… but the graver implications of his Faustian deal become clear when he gets dragged on one of Depardieu’s coke-fueled rampages across Provence. Gisele considers selling her bar and moving to Italy.
EPISODE 7
Cyrano de Guttenberg
Steve hosts a climate change telethon and steps up his personal security after receiving an anonymous death threat. Johnny kills Mark Zuckerberg, mistakenly thinking that he sent the threat. Depardieu crashes the set and accuses Steve of not speaking French. Steve turns the tables by giving an impassioned speech (in French) that we later learn was fed to him by Johnny.
EPISODE 8
The French Connection
After soliciting him incessantly for most of the season, Boudu convinces Steve to appear in Police Academy: The Musical on the condition that Johnny is cast as Commandant Lassard, but the production is suspended when Johnny is arrested for murder. Gisele uses surprising connections within the government to help Johnny, revealing that she may be more than just a bartender.
EPISODE 9
The People Vs. Johnny 5
Johnny stands trial for the murder of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg. Steve learns about Johnny’s rival Lupin production. Gisele suspects that Gérard Depardieu triggered Johnny’s homicidal streak.
SEASON FINALE
It Isn’t Shakespeare
An Interpol agent with an uncanny resemblance to David Cronenberg attempts to recruit Steve. Gisele tells Johnny she loves him. Steve reluctantly agrees to be a spy on the condition that Johnny is pardoned and set free.
At season’s end, Johnny and Steve prepare for a move to London where Steve will be stationed undercover in a production of King Lear at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre and tasked with preventing an attack on the royal family.
