Script Files

The Harlem Angels

Short version:
A Hip-hop "Highway to Heaven."

Longer version:
THE HARLEM ANGELS, a singing group of three bright, beautiful, and talented younger teen-age girls from Harlem, who, on the pinnacle of break-through success are killed in a car crash on their way to give a performance. The situation is further complicated by the presence of Eddie Ex, an inner city Hip-Hop record entrepreneur and owner of EX Records. Both his street name and the name of his company are Edwin's misguided attempt to link himself to the "hip and commercial cachet" of Malcolm X. Eddie blew his opportunity with both THE HARLEM ANGELS and their teacher/manager, Miss Robinson, when he made a disingenuous attempt to help them in their music career. He believes THE HARLEM ANGELS' unexpected death has cost him any chance with Miss Robinson or of recouping his investment. After all, he says, "They ain't Tupac, Michael Jackson, or even Prince.” His self-serving gesture of giving Miss Robinson the master DVD and tearing up his contract is his unknowing, one charitable act.


Ironically, as a result of THE HARLEM ANGELS' tragic end, Miss Robinson, now controls their recording rights. She is then, unknowingly, thrust into an “angel-aided” heroic act which provides a platform for some local interest in Miss Robinson and the music that she feared would never be heard. Due to the interest, their first and only DVD/album/recordings slowly, but surely, gets more and more publicity. The music then gets picked up by a legit record company, and goes to #1 on the charts, more readily and more widely distributed than it would have even if Eddie had not decided to shelve it -- which was what he had intended in the first place.

She accidentally, and unwittingly, first “summons” her late charges when she drops the original and precious DVD and gently rubs the dirt and dust from it, praying it hasn’t been damaged. She does not learn, until later, that this is the same as rubbing a “magic lamp” to summon a genie. However, now devastated by their loss and feeling guilty from the profits she is making from THE HARLEM ANGELS' posthumous success, she seeks to mollify her pain by helping "turn things around" for troubled individuals/families, etc. in Harlem.


However, Miss Robinson, learns that money alone is not the answer. While depressed and melancholy, perhaps frustrated at taking on a humanitarian task that is more than she can handle alone, plays a song from THE HARLEM ANGELS' DVD and is surprised to find that, along with the rubbing of the DVD, she has summoned THE HARLEM ANGELS who have "come back" to help her in her quest to be a force for positive change. Miss Robinson comes to realize that whenever a situation is beyond her own single effort all she needs to do to summon the help of THE HARLEM ANGELS is to play a song from their DVD (or other tracks from their unreleased material) and they will be there.

The girls sometimes rely on un-earthly powers as well as the powers of kindness, logic, truth and self-determination, (sometimes expressed through song) with a little help from their previous (and continuing!) hard-earned learning skills and education, natural talents, raw energy, and good looks.

  • Seth R. Greenky
    Writer
    "If I Spent The Night With You"
  • Project Type:
    Television Script
  • Genres:
    Tween, Young Adult, Fantasy, Comedy, Dramedy
  • Number of Pages:
    48
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • First-time Screenwriter:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Writer Biography - Seth R. Greenky

A Manhattan dad used his mixed-race daughter's hellish year in public school to develop a whimsical TV pilot he calls "A Hip-hop 'Highway to Heaven.'" He was inspired to help by inventing a creative way to encourage learning when his daughter, whose mother is black, switched from private to public school in the seventh grade. He says, "her grades suddenly dropped when she was told by her so-called new friends that she "talked white," and if you got good grades you were "being white." At one point she told her father, "I don't need no good grammar 'cuz I know I be smart." In a bid to help her, he devised an ongoing story about a young rap trio who speak, and rap, grammatically correct English (with a mad beat), but die in a car wreck on their way to a gig. They return as spirits to help their former teacher inspire young students and performers. Apparently, it did the trick. His daughter enjoyed the stories so much, she turned herself around, graduated early, and started college at age 17. Greenky wrote the tale into an inspirational, comedic, and subtly self-worth-building script, that was put on the New York City Department of Education's website and made available to all teachers as curriculum for English Language Arts.

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Writer Statement

The goal of THE HARLEM ANGELS is to put forth positive, intelligent, and empowered multi-cultural role models in an early prime-time, cross-over, live action (and/or animated version for a younger audience), half-hour (or one hour) dramedy with music. A sort-of Hip-Hop "Highway To Heaven."

A trio of funky, urban, apparitional spirits with an educational bent help their former teacher help others regain and redeem their earthly lives, while the young spirits earn their angel wings.