A doodle became a television pilot

The first version of Dad vs Dragon lived on a scrap of paper in a Melbourne café. I was drawing a birthday card for a friend, gave the dragon a huge belly and added tired-looking glasses. It looked like a dad assembling flat-pack furniture. That mismatch made me laugh. How I turned a doodle into a television project took a chain of small decisions, each less exciting than the drawing.

A cartoon gave me a character instantly; the pilot needed a voice, a world and a conflict that could survive after the first laugh. Making it watchable meant learning how an idea moves through producers, writers, directors and performers.

The joke in the margin

I treated the sketch as a character, not a concept. Pinned above my desk, the dragon raised one question: what does he want? The answer was to belong, while his fire frightened the neighbours. That gave the drawing an emotional job and stopped it being merely a silly shape.

A cartoon lets me change a shape instantly. Television requires me to defend every choice in a room full of adults. In the script, the dragon wears a polo shirt, and the dad claims the smoke is from his barbecue. Recognition did half the work; dialogue did the rest.

Publishing George vs Dragon in The Dandy taught me that recurring characters need a reliable rhythm. Boo!, Carrotty Kid and Bad Grandad each found a different comic voice, while readers recognise the joke before it arrives. Television works similarly, except performance and timing replace the panel.

Building a world around the joke

I built the pilot around familiar routines: council bins out front, a school run, a weekend barbecue. In Melbourne, the dragon’s fire could scorch the verge beside a tram stop; in Sydney, he could cause trouble outside a suburban station.

The humour came from social embarrassment rather than destruction. The dad is embarrassed by the dragon; the dragon is embarrassed by his dad-bod silhouette. Each character has something to protect, creating recurring friction without a conventional villain and leaving room for unexpected tenderness.

My cartooning background helped me create characters quickly, but I had to write around what pictures cannot explain. A raised eyebrow works in a panel; on screen, actors need dialogue that identifies motives. I treated each visual gag as a question: what would this character say if the joke continued?

Turning pages into a pitch

For the pitch, I wrote a short script with a cold open, a clear problem and an ending that shifted the premise. I timed the pages as if they were a programme, leaving space for pauses and reaction shots. It had a television shape rather than a stack of comic strips.

I received early feedback from Deepali Gupta, whose notes pushed me to sharpen the central problem instead of piling on gags. Making the council visit the trigger gave the dad something to hide, the dragon something to fear, and the audience a reason to stay.

I studied the Australian market instead of copying an overseas route. Comedy at the ABC, SBS and Network Ten, and platforms such as Stan, each meant a different tone, budget and audience. I matched the project’s tone to those audiences and stopped relying on vague promises.

Finding collaborators who speak television

A producer asked where the recurring laugh came from. A director asked what the dragon did with his hands. A script editor wanted fewer jokes in the first minute and more awkward silence. Their questions exposed the gap between what I could draw and what television could stage.

Development moved between Melbourne and Sydney, over coffees and shared documents. An Australian producer checked the schedule against long-service leave and public-holiday rates, then confirmed our crew’s obligations under the Fair Work Act.

I brought thumbnails, floor plans and reaction shots to every discussion. The room could see where a scene lived before arguing about its words. The dragon needed all three to communicate his personality.

Testing the joke with an audience

A table read exposed where the writing leaned on explanation. The audience laughed at the council officer but went quiet when the dad repeated the dragon’s name. I removed the line, moved the reveal earlier and let the character be known through action.

We designed the family comedy around a PG target, leaving the final classification to the Classification Board once the episode was cut. Early discipline kept the humour broad without flattening the characters.

A dad bod review of my own helped me see the drawing as a character study rather than a punchline. The round shape suggested vanity, comfort and fear at once. Keeping those qualities together gave the dragon an identity that a pitch slide could not carry alone.

What changed on the way to production

The pilot needed reaction time, clear geography and a supporting character who could challenge the dad. We simplified the dragon’s fire, gave the dad a dry neighbour and moved the climax to a quiet council car park.

The finished shape was smaller than my pitch, but easier to perform. Its recurring question stayed simple: can a family protect an embarrassing secret without causing a public incident? That question could carry an episode, a series and a world.

Stage	Doodle	Television project	Purpose
Character	Dad-bod dragon	A dragon trying to fit in	Makes the silhouette meaningful
Setting	Blank page	Suburban Australian street	Grounds the fantasy
Story	One visual gag	A dad hiding him from the council	Creates a repeatable problem
Format	Picture for friends	Dialogue-led pilot	Tests timing and performance

Keep drawing and keep pitching

The process taught me to keep looking at ordinary scraps of paper. A meeting note can become a character, a script and a television project. The important part is noticing what makes an image funny and giving it a reason to continue.

Send me a cartoon, strange drawing or half-formed premise using the contact details on my site. Follow my work and share it with a producer or performer.