Meet Steve Guttenberg like you’ve never seen him before in…
STEVE GUTTENBERG (Police Academy, Three Men and a Baby, Cocoon) stars as himself in this animated head trip from Joe Frankel & Bill Gienapp — the fiscally responsible minds behind some of your safest, most inoffensive marketing content.
He is the biggest star in the South of France despite having only a cursory command of the language. His fans would trade their first-born for a single night alone with him. The high-rollers he hobnobs with are hell-bent on manipulating him. His friends don’t take him seriously. And yet… Steve refuses to be caught with his pants down.
Despite his outward naïveté, Steve is no fool and no matter what obstacles or mortal threats befall him, no matter how corrupt the circles of power that he charms his way into, he only grows more determined to make a real, lasting difference in the hope that he will one day be remembered in the same breath as Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi or Mother Teresa.
Les Characters
STEVE
Upbeat, unflappable, and entirely guileless. He is the nicest movie star to ever grace the A-list. His blind faith in humanity’s inherent goodness often opens the door to danger and personal ruin but somehow, improbably, he always lands on top.
JOHNNY 5
Steve’s robotic best friend, roommate and Short Circuit co-star is also his polar opposite. Johnny is a brooding intellectual, convinced that he is deeper, brighter and more gifted than Steve, and tortured by the knowledge that most humans don’t perceive him as their equal.
GISELE
Tough, worldly and quintessentially French, Gisele is the most well-connected bartender on the French Riviera. She reluctantly serves as Steve’s manager, despite having no interest in entertainment and she bails him out of trouble whenever he gets in too deep — which doesn’t help the relationship.
ISABELLE HUPPERT
France’s Meryl Streep frequently acts as Steve’s artistic conscience. Life imitates art when they become embroiled in their own real-life caper after co-starring in “The Bedroom Window” together.
RENE BOUDU
A small kindness from Steve rescued him from a life of poverty and put him back on top of the French film scene where he was once a major director. There’s just one catch: he promised the studio that Steve would star in a French musical adaptation of Police Academy — without Steve’s permission!
DANIEL LA POINTE
His reach extends far into France’s criminal underworld. He has several corrupt billionaires on his payroll — and Steve is on his shit-list after becoming the only celebrity to successfully escape one of his organized “soirées.”
MANN CERVANT
After Steve helps the the hunchbacked manservant escape his indentured servitude to Daniel La Pointe, Boudu takes Mann Cervánt in with the promise to put him in pictures…but their devil’s deal becomes an illicit mirror image of Steve & Johnny’s friendship when Boudu uses him as more than just a butler…
Steve is invited to a dinner party at an opulent French chateau, where he is wined and dined by the mysterious Daniel La Pointe and several of the world's most famous billionaires. Steve has rarely felt so validated...until the horrifying truth is revealed: he has inadvertently stumbled into a "most dangerous game" scenario and the billionaires intend to hunt him to the death for their own personal amusement.
What follows is a phantasmagorical chase through a hedge maze and a haunted forest, as Steve is pursued by laser drones, long-range rockets and even a remote-control clown operated by none other than iconic British TV star Dame Edna (long believed to be deceased). Steve escapes with the help of his robotic best-friend Johnny 5, and his well-connected manager Gisele, only to realize that he accidentally posted a TikTok telling the world that he was dead...and the underwhelming internet tributes that follow force him to contemplate his legacy in a new light.
Le Pilot
EPISODE 2
The Steve Guttenberg Fund
With the world in mourning after his alleged death, Steve appoints Gisele & Johnny the reluctant co-chairs of a new charity in his name and hits the casino — disguised as a Spanish race car driver — where a random encounter with a child in France's Make-A-Wish Foundation compels Steve to risk his life by racing in the Grand Prix at Le Mans. Meanwhile, Gérard Depardieu looks for proof that Steve is still alive.
EPISODE 3
Short Circuiting
Steve hits the Cannes Film Festival where he dodges Elon Musk & Jeff Bezos (disguised as Jean-Claude Van Damme) but complications ensue when the real JCVD arrives. Gisele tries to divert Van Damme away from Steve on the red carpet. Johnny attacks Musk & Bezos to protect Steve. Warren Buffet accidentally kills Van Damme, thinking he’s Steve.
EPISODE 4
The Bedroom Window, Part Deux
Steve witnesses an attack from the bedroom window of Isabelle Huppert’s apartment and the victim bears an uncanny resemblance to him. Bong Joon-Ho has Johnny arrested after mistaking him for a stalker. Huppert volunteers to masquerade as the eyewitness to the attack (so Steve can continue to play dead), but she gets such an intense grilling from the police that Steve’s conscience compels him to reveal he’s still alive.
EPISODE 5
Here’s Johnny!
Steve scores the lead in Paul Verhoeven’s erotic re-imagining of the Arsene Lupin book. Gérard Depardieu woos Johnny into appearing in his own rival Lupin production in the hopes of turning him against Steve. With Steve now “alive” Gisele must deal with allegations of fraud against The Steve Guttenberg Fund.
EPISODE 6
Ménage à Five
Steve struggles to interpret Verhoeven’s mercurial direction. Johnny is queasy about performing a ménage à trois with Depardieu behind Steve’s back… but the graver implications of his Faustian deal become clear when he gets dragged on one of Depardieu’s coke-fueled rampages across Provence. Gisele considers selling her bar and moving to Italy.
EPISODE 7
Cyrano de Guttenberg
Steve hosts a climate change telethon and steps up his personal security after receiving an anonymous death threat. Johnny kills Mark Zuckerberg, mistakenly thinking that he sent the threat. Depardieu crashes the set and accuses Steve of not speaking French. Steve turns the tables by giving an impassioned speech (in French) that we later learn was fed to him by Johnny.
EPISODE 8
The French Connection
After soliciting him incessantly for most of the season, Boudu convinces Steve to appear in Police Academy: The Musical on the condition that Johnny is cast as Commandant Lassard, but the production is suspended when Johnny is arrested for murder. Gisele uses surprising connections within the government to help Johnny, revealing that she may be more than just a bartender.
EPISODE 9
The People Vs. Johnny 5
Johnny stands trial for the murder of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg. Steve learns about Johnny’s rival Lupin production. Gisele suspects that Gérard Depardieu triggered Johnny’s homicidal streak.
SEASON FINALE
It Isn’t Shakespeare
An Interpol agent with an uncanny resemblance to David Cronenberg attempts to recruit Steve. Gisele tells Johnny she loves him. Steve reluctantly agrees to be a spy on the condition that Johnny is pardoned and set free.
At season’s end, Johnny and Steve prepare for a move to London where Steve will be stationed undercover in a production of King Lear at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre and tasked with preventing an attack on the royal family.
