“Kyla’s Claymated News Segment”
Pitch Treatment
By Edmund Janas, Brego.com
Logline:
An 8-year-old girl named Kyla (voiced and animated by Leslie Jones) recreates the week’s major news stories through a series of delightfully unhinged claymation vignettes, delivering the harsh realities of current events through an authentic childlike lens of boundless imagination and play.
Synopsis:
Each week on “Kyla’s Claymated News Segment,” the rambunctious 8-year-old persona of Kyla is brought to life by the wildly talented Leslie Jones, who voices and animates her freewheeling comedic antics. Kyla (established as Michael Che’s faux-niece) opens by recapping the headlines in her trademark lively, rambling way. What separates her take is how quickly it devolves into loopy nonsense as the segment transitions into homemade claymation setpieces.
Here, Kyla physically inhabits the news, acting out real-world events beat-by-beat through her distinctly young, gloriously illogical point-of-view. The persistent juxtaposition of grave subject matter with silly, absurdist clay humor is a constant source of comedic dissonance.
Kyla’s roleplaying captured through Jones’ expert physical comedy skills teeters between moments of startling mature insight and bursts of aggressively random reverie. One second, she’s distilling the profundities of a political scandal by having two lumpy political figures incessantly bash into each other. The next, their bodies melt into ice cream swirls because…kid brain!
The segments capture the beautiful messiness of a child’s creativity, full of impulsive breaks in character, tangents about her latest obsession, and reckless plot abandonment. They always conclude with Kyla’s anti-climactic childish sign-off (“And then they were Smuuu-shed!”) as her tiny attention span reaches its limit.
Ultimately, Leslie Jones’ uproarious embodiment of “Kyla’s Claymated News” is an inspired vessel for satirizing current events through the radical honesty and unvarnished hilarity that only an 8-year-old mind could provide. By channeling the newscycle’s inanities and tragedies through Kyla’s joyously deranged claymation realm, perspective is everything.
Comparable Comedic Inspirations:
The bold innocence of Lily Tomlin’s iconic Edith Ann character voiced by an adult
Leslie Jones’ ability to fully inhabit over-the-top personae like her beloved “Ghostbusters” role
The anarchic, cult appeal of classic adult-driven Gumby claymation
In a cluttered media landscape, “Kyla’s Claymated News” would be a vital weekly oasis of disarmingly original laughter and highly relatable childlike escapism. Her hyper-creative retellings of harsh realities cut through the noise to remind us of the simple joys of unfettered play and imagination.
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