ARTISTIC LICENSE - The series
30 minute single-camera comedy

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A long line forms outside a sterile stone structure. People are arriving by the handful and patiently waiting to enter. Suddenly the bolt on the door comes free and the cattle call begins. No, this is not a casting session for reality TV, This is the Department of Motor Vehicles: paragon of government beaurocracy and inefficiency.

Inside are hundreds of three-part, double-sided forms and an endless supply of half pencils. Numbered windows and Tensa barriers form an unnavigable maze, decorated with nothing but eye charts and drunk driving statistics. But it’s not the turgid environment that earns the DMV its formidable reputation. It’s the staff.

At the appointment desk sits DON HAAS, 18, queer as a three-dollar bill and inexplicably smiling ear to ear. Of course, he would rather work in a Koreatown manicure shop, or study French cooking in Provence.

At Station 7 is ice queen JULIE FROST, A man-hating hetero girl, Julie made it to the 3rd round of American Idol, was kicked out of the house in week one of Big Brother 2, and would have been on the Real World LA, that is until the restraining order was filed, though she swears she was just delivering thank you cards… She’s currently waiting on a job as a Stewardess on Jet Blue, but in the meantime, she offers her chilling stare to the drivers-to-be at the DMV.

If you make it past stations 18, 26, and 37 you might just run into a strange man dressed like a 20’s movie director. This is DAVID MILKEN who mans the ID photo station. David is prepared to transform you from exhausted and irritable to exquisite and irresistible. With powder, props and the magic of light, David strives to make each ID photo a masterpiece.

By day, CHANG NGYUEN administers the written driving tests, but by night he is a hip-hop MC at a popular Karaoke bar. Unfortunately, sometimes he forgets which job is which. Chang is actually working illegally, but always has an excuse about his papers.

Outside, at the driving test line, two instructors spar over who gets the next victim, but it’s unclear who is worse; the always nervous and at a loss for words, coke-bottle glasses wearing JOHN SMECKLER, or drill instructor-turned-driving coach, cigar-chomping vixen BILLIE Mc GRUE.

Overseeing all of these nitwits (and quite a few others) is BRIANCA VINCENT (50), at 5’10’ and more than 300 pounds, everyone knows better than to cross the Mean Queen of San Joaquin. (her semi-pro wrestling monicker) Ironically, Brianca doesn’t drive at all, she’s a bus person and its her mission in life to make sure no one gets a license unless they really, really, really need it.

Welcome to the DMV. Please take your ticket and get comfortable; you are going to be here for a very long time. These people have the power to grant you one of the greatest and most necessary privileges in our society. Now if they could only figure out how to change the copier toner, you might be on your merry way.

Don’t count on it though, because while you’re waiting for your renewal forms and registration papers, the burning question on their minds is what’s for lunch and who’s winning the Curse Word Under Their Breath contest (for which you need at least one witness). They are finding all sorts of fun ways to make their day seem half as long, and the easiest way to do that is to make your day seem twice as long.

Sure there is the occasional Vietnam flashback at the copy machine and the case of the half eaten, and rewrapped, sandwich in the refrigerator marked Don’t Eat Me. But don’t be fooled:

Public Service was never so miserable. Or funny.