(no subject)

[skygiants]

I have several booklogs to catch up on, but I just finished rereading Diana Wynne Jones' Magicians of Caprona, her extremely funny Chrestomanci-verse Romeo and Juliet riff about the children of two feuding Italian wizard families, and now I can't stop coming up with imaginary episodes of an imaginary sitcom about what may be the funniest subplot in the book, Marco Petrocchi and Rosa Montana’s double fake identity rival families timeshare marriage, i.e.

episode 6: Marco and Rosa just want to have a date night to themselves, but it’s hard when both families want them to babysit – and gets even harder when an unsupervised Lucia Montana leads the Montana children in an unexpectedly powerful spell that turns half the adult Petrocchi temporarily into geese, including Marco! Can Rosa hide her goose husband from her family and will they ever make it out to dinner in time for their reservation?

episode 12: Rosa’s fake sister Jane Smith is throwing a party, and accidentally invited both Rinaldo Montana and Alberto Petrocchi! Not only do Rosa and Marco have to keep track of who knows them as which false identity, now they also have to make sure that Rinaldo and Alberto never catch sight of each other or there’s sure to be a magical duel. But as they’re frantically juggling illusion spells, Jane’s event gets increasingly out of hand – can they calm things down before the Duchess takes the opportunity to arrest some of the strongest young spellcasters in the city for partying too hard?

episode 17: Determined to win over the Petrocchi aunts, Rosa volunteers to spend a day ‘learning Italian cooking’ with them, but has increasing difficulty holding onto her British persona. Meanwhile, Marco has aunt-in-law problems of his own when an innocent comment at the Montana dinner table accidentally reignites a long-simmering recipe feud. But nothing compares to the shocking revelation that Great-Aunt Francesca Montana and Great-Aunt Giuliana Petrochi have the exact same ‘secret’ bruschetta recipe – worked out together during a secret doomed love affair forty years ago?!

Please feel free to provide more episode summaries in comments if you feel so moved. As a reminder, the main players this sitcom has at its disposal are:

Rosa Montana & Marco Petrocchi - young, in love, clearly both think of themselves as the voice of reason for their entire melodramatic families which is truly hilarious given that they are both living out elaborate secret double lives
Mario Andretti - a hardnosed Italian building contractor who is playing 'Marco Andretti's' fake brother for the Montanas; I think it is funniest to imagine him with James Gandolfini energy
Jane Smith - a flirtatious British art student who is playing 'Rosa Smith's' fake sister for the Petrocchis
Rinaldo Montana - Rosa's worst cousin, diet Tybalt; hates the Petrocchis even more than anyone else, Big Suspicious of Marco, Big Crush on Jane
The Duchess of Caprona - evil, plotting to destroy the city, secretly a giant devil rat in disguise, but, I want to be clear, for the purposes of this sitcom about wacky family hijinks her machinations can only ever be a B-plot
Various Magical And Dramatical Aunts, Great-Uncles, Cousins, Etc., including but not limited to the actual child protagonists of The Magicians Of Caprona

Comments

[sophia_sol]

as with most sitcoms I would find this sitcom too stressful to watch if it existed, I'm pretty confident, but I am DYING with delight over thinking about this entire premise, and every single episode summary is perfection

[nnozomi]

the above exactly expresses my feelings!

[skygiants]

a couple more good episode summaries from friends over on Tumblr now too!

[skygiants]

The thing is I would write these as fics but I really feel the premise needs more slapstick and visual comedy than one can convey in text! Best Left To The Imagination

[petra]

I would watch this show so hard.

[skygiants]

I think it's a surefire hit tbh, a network should hire me

[qian]

I don't actually remember Magicians of Caprona well enough to play (CLEARLY I need to reread), but I love everything about this post!

[skygiants]

It's still a banger imo! Many, many jokes that I'd forgotten until I hit them and started laughing aloud from the double whammy of present enjoyment and remembered enjoyment from decades ago

[ceitfianna]

Now I want to reread this one, which I always remember fondly except for the creepy puppet show bits. The rest is just family drama.

[skygiants]

I really enjoyed the reread! Simply a consistent delight

[lacewood]

I don't remember the book well enough to suggest sitcom eps but I hope the Duchess of Caprona's evil plots are ONLY ever revealed in the ending credits slide show explaining how the latest hijinks thwarted her, complete with a "IF IT WASN'T FOR THOSE MEDDLING KIDS" (who weren't even trying to meddle... in HER business)

[skygiants]

YES PERFECT. End of every episode: a quick montage ending with the Duchess of Caprona shaking her fist at the heavens. She does not understand how Andretti Construction Company keeps thwarting her evil schemes but someday she'll figure it out!

[vcmw]

I feel strongly there is a magical cats episode where an entire basket of magical kittens is somehow lost (at a food market? or a food festival?) and Rosa and Marco are each somehow supposed to be involved in finding the lost kittens but they are constantly being interrupted by members of each family who either are looking for ingredients for complicated meals or attempting to visit/present things at the festival. There's a chase scene like one of those scooby-doo scenes as they run in and out of market stalls chasing kittens and trying to update their disguises based on which relatives they (literally) run in to.

[skygiants]

YOUR STRONG FEELINGS ARE ABSOLUTELY CORRECT. This is one hundred percent the vibe. Benvenuto is there and thinks the whole thing is incredibly funny, and Tonino keeps asking why he's cat-snickering and Benvenuto is like 'do not worry about it.'

[landingtree]

This is a thing of beauty.

diet Tybalt

*cackles*

[skygiants]

Tybalt, if Tybalt was a poser who spent all his time desperately trying to make his ten little cousins think he was cool --

[vass]

I can't remember much about The Magicians of Caprona (and I'm increasingly suspecting that my reading comprehension on a plot level when I was a kid was actually really bad and that is particularly biting me in the arse re DWJ's oeuvre) but this sounds absolutely delightful.

[skygiants]

I would say that it rewards a reread! I zoomed through it in a morning and had a truly amazing time, the jokes are really all simply on point.

[hilarita]

Episode 4: Marco is over at the Montana casa, and the younger cousins are having fun saying outrageous things about the Petrocchi. Marco has to deal with his tendency (as the protags of TMoC) to say that the Montanas did those things too, but in the end he's coming out with the most outrageous tales of all!

[skygiants]

PERFECT. (Over at the Petrocchi house Rosa's doing it too, I think by the end of the episode they're just one-upping each other with who can come up with the most ridiculous ones, and that's Romance.)

[scintilla10]

This is delightful!! :D

[skygiants]

Thank you! I keep thinking about it!!

[mneme]

That's glorious (but, yes, need to reread to play). Ep 17 has IIRC some echoes of a "feuding Italian families" plot in the Phryne Fisher mysteries tv series (and probably the books, but still haven't read the books).

[skygiants]

It is very funny to me how DWJ took every 'tragically feuding Italian families' trope from all of 16th century drama and made it lighthearted hijinks!