Television and movies have different origins. Movies were the result of still images becoming motion picture. Eventually, that would partially influence television’s creation. First, it branched off in a completely different direction. Movies went the route of technological innovation. Sound, colour, better cameras. Television took the motion picture camera but used it to bring radio to a visual medium. Live radio led to live television. Talk shows, sports, and variety shows dominated the early days of television. Radio serials led the way into television shows. Movies went the route of storytelling through visuals while television went the way of events.
Through most its existence, television felt smaller. It felt simpler. Those early days of scripted television didn’t have as lasting an impact. The stories always returned to their status quo so people wouldn’t be lost if they missed an episode. Movies never had that issue. You went to a two-hour movie and got a complete story. With television, you watched one episode of a twenty-four-episode season per week. You might not have the time every week for the show. Things have changed now that technology has changed. Home video and streaming have made it so that people can catch up on episodes they missed without having to wait months or years for reruns to air at a specific time on TV. Many television shows changed with the times and built stories that didn’t reset at the end of each episode.
However, there are still some types of television shows that still use those older formats. Procedural shows are still a big thing on network television, with each episode having a different crime for the main characters to solve. Medical dramas still exist with each episode involving new patients needing to be treated, though there’s more drama between the main characters than there might have been in the past. And then there’s the sitcom, that genre of half-hour comedy that has become the antithesis of television. Things change over time in sitcoms, but it’s mostly about what goofy antics the same characters can get up to each week. There may be some serialized story threads, but most episodes are simply characters getting into wacky situations without any real consequences.
The rise of home video and streaming has brought television and movies closer together than ever. Shows got more serialized, having the ability to tell movie-like stories in longer form. Movies have turned to franchises, a bigger budget version of television or serials, only with longer gaps between episodes. Then there are the weird cases where movies feel like repurposed pilot episodes of failed television shows. Certain buddy cop movies might feel like procedurals that didn’t get greenlit by a television studio. Or you have Mulholland Drive, which was meant to be a pilot episode to a new David Lynch show, only to be turned into a movie after executives cancelled the production.
A movie that might not have been a television pilot, but certainly felt like it, was Bait Shop. This 2008 comedy very much felt like a sitcom of the late 90s or early 00s. Bill Dugan (Bill Engvall) was a struggling bait shop owner who was trying anything to make ends meet. The biggest problem was that a new shop opened across the parking lot. It was a Bass Pro Shops style of store owned by popular professional bass fisher Hot Rod Johnson (Billy Ray Cyrus). The only way for Bill to save his shop was to beat Hot Rod Johnson in the local bass fishing open and take home the grand prize.
Bait Shop was an interesting movie. It wasn’t particularly good. There were a couple crazy moments, but nothing about it made me ever want to watch it again. The interesting thing was how much it felt like the pilot to a television show. Specifically, it felt like the pilot to a sitcom from the late 90s or early 00s. One of the hybrid workplace/family sitcoms, like a Home Improvement or a King of Queens. Only, you know, worse.
All the elements of a sitcom from that era were there.
The bait shop was a location that you could always come back to. Aside from the pending foreclosure, obviously, but this pilot episode that ended with Bill winning the fishing competition would change that. There was the shop part of it, with the stock and the coolers and equipment. There was the diner part of it with the bar and the stools and the tables along the wall. There was the closet and, I presume, office off to the side. You had your three separate areas. It might be a little bigger in sitcom form, but all the essentials were there.
The home life was being built out. The relationship between Bill and his wife where they loved each other, but Bill kept his financial woes a secret until she eventually found out. The relationship between Bill and his son where the son was embarrassed by Bill before coming around to his side. The relationship between Bill and his father-in-law where the father-in-law always thought Bill wasn’t good enough for his daughter. It was some basic home drama stuff that many sitcoms shared.
Then there were the supporting characters at the bait shop. The two old guys who were like Bait Shop’s version of Statler and Waldorf from The Muppets. The maintenance guy who Bill brought on even though he was too goofy for anyone else to hire. The anarchist, chaos guy who… I don’t know why he was around. The server at the diner. There was even a mailman who would quickly pop in, and a hint at a potential relationship between the mailman and the diner lady.
The basic elements of a sitcom of that era were there. The story played out like an episode of a sitcom. A rival fisherman showed up to open a new shop and Bill had to find a way to beat him and save his own shop. That could either be one episode or the entire basis for a series, depending on the sitcom. It was very sitcom-like, though. It was not unlike any episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine where the Nine-Nine went up against the fire department.
Bait Shop came out during the run of The Bill Engvall Show, a TBS sitcom that Bill Engvall starred in. I could see it being one of a few ideas he pitched to the network before they settled on the show that they made. It was a rejected idea, but Bill didn’t want to let it go to waste. He wanted it out there, so the focus was shifted from sitcom to movie. They didn’t change it enough to get rid of that sitcom taste, though.
I could be completely wrong about all of this. I don’t currently work in the film industry. I went to school for film, but never took that next step. I definitely wasn’t involved in the industry at all when Bait Shop was released. I was in high school. Something tells me that Bait Shop began its life as a sitcom idea, though. Everything about the story pointed to it.
There have been a few movies that started as television shows and a few television shows that started as movies. These two forms of entertainment have become almost interchangeable. Movies and television had different origins. Through most of their histories, they had different functions. In many ways they still do. Television has been the leading way to see live events when you aren’t live at the event. Sports, musical performances, talk shows… Television is still the way to watch those. But with the rise of home video and streaming services, television has adapted into a form of storytelling much like movies, only in a longer form and cut into smaller segments.
Now, more than ever, it has become increasingly difficult to determine what began its life as a movie and became television, or vice versa. Scripted television has basically, outside network television, become a longer form version of the same style of storytelling as film. Nearly the same level of production, for sure the same method of filming, only with more time to tell the story. The split that happened with the invention of the moving picture has come together once more.
Now it’s time for this post to split off into some notes:
- Let’s kick things off with the newest member of the five-timer’s club. Richard Riehle was in Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo, Dorm Daze 2: College @ Sea, The Search for Santa Paws, Say It Isn’t So, and Bait Shop.
- Jeff Chase appeared in Bait Shop. He was previously seen in Freelancers, The Marine, and The Fanatic.
- Three people from Bait Shop were in the Sharknado franchise. Billy Ray Cyrus was in Sharknado 2: The Second One, while both Bill Engvall and Douglas Lopez were in Sharknado 3: Oh Hell No!
- With Bill Engvall being the star of Bait Shop, it only made sense he would use a few of the cast that his Blue Collar Comedy Tour partner Larry the Cable Guy used in Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector. Those cast were Tom Hillmann, Kristin Popelka, and Randy Robinson.
- Vincent Martella played Bill’s son in Bait Shop. He was previously in Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo.
- Jesse Kozel appeared in both Bait Shop and The Summer of Massacre.
- Drop Zone and Bait Shop each featured Tim Powell.
- You might have recognized Mary Rachel Quinn in Bait Shop. Maybe not. She was in Fant4stic, too.
- Finally, Tyler Ross returned to Sunday “Bad” Movies in Bait Shop, after first popping up in Automaton Transfusion.
- Have you seen Bait Shop? Did you even know it existed? Let me know your thoughts in the comments. You can also get a hold of me on Threads or on Bluesky.
- The comments, Threads, and Bluesky are places you can also find me if you want to suggest a bad movie for me to watch. I’m always on the look out for things I either don’t know about or didn’t think about.
- Let’s end off with a look at what’s coming up. I already have my next few movies picked out. I’ve been watching and writing, which means they should come out bam bam bam pretty quickly. The next post, which might drop the same day as this one, is for Mouseboat Massacre. That will be post 557. Then I’ll get around to Beer League, which was suggested to me last year. That’s post 558 for you. Post 559 will be the next film in the Triple B series. I’ve seen Malibu Express, Hard Ticket to Hawaii, Picasso Trigger, and Savage Beach. It’s time for some Guns. Finally, 560 will be some more Amityville movies. It hasn’t been too many posts since I last dove into Amityville, but it has been a few years, so I’m getting back to it. After that, I don’t really know yet. But there’s the plan right now. I’ll update you a little more when the Mouseboat Massacre post drops. See you then.
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