WHAT IS ALL MY BJ?

The simplest answer would be, we don't know.

A more complicated answer would be it's like a really weird sitcom with this guy BJ who like always gets beat up and I never know if its funny or not. Oh, and it has like no budget.

Well, the truth is it is a bit of both.

THE ORIGINS

All My BJ is a spin-off of Miami Beach's enigmatic punk-rock-pop-comedy group The BJ Experience. Most of the characters are based on the group, who is what has made BJ the "rockstar" he claims to be, both in the show and real life. However, we rarely hear of the group. The reason being, All My BJ is a sitcom/reality show which tends to focus more on BJ as a person than the group as a band. It is BJ's life that is the core, with characters coming in and out; real and false, and for no apparent reason sometimes.

The BJ Experience formed in the Summer of 1998, and then again in August 2000. From August 2000 till the end of 2002, the group enjoyed a modest but successful string of albums and wavering popularity amongst the bemused and oft confused South Florida audiences. Let's just say BJ as a singer was an entertainer and the group usually tried pulling off material too complicated and under rehearsed for their own good.

In 2003, the group went into semi-retirement and concentrated more on product, especially in the video medium, than personal appearances. One such project was called I Love BJ.

I LOVE BJ

I Love BJ was essentially the birth of what is now known as All My BJ . Many same ideas and ideologies started with I Love BJ and are apparent in the pilot episode. Beside the show's name (a take on I Love Lucy, similar to the All My Children thing), we had BJ as the main character alongside his band mates Tropical Barber and Father Bloopy, both indifferent to BJ's personal struggles. The ultimate ending comes in the form of Joshea who tricks BJ...again, for no apparent reason. Unfortunately, the idea was shelved and it wasn't until 2006 that was revived, revamped and reshot.

ALL MY BJ - The Sitcom

Early 2006 saw the team behind The BJ Experience and Dippy Films start working on episodes for a new sitcom, now titles All My BJ after the huge soap-opera All My Children. The idea was to have a soap-opera style incorporated with the sitcom format. The shows ideas were to be based largely on reality. So much reality, that the first two "pilot" episodes were not scripted and shot without much planning. The episodes created a quiet buzz, quiet enough to inspire the team to do some tweaking and tape an entire seasons worth of shows. The lack of budget and production team would be incorporated into the shows feel to make it part of its vibe. The outline of what was to become season 1 was written in one 5 hour session by Roger Houdaille and Blaise Girard. Friends were soon casted and the show began taping, all episodes at the same time in the Spring of 2006.

ON WITH THE SHOW

The constraints of working guerilla on the streets is taken carefully into consideration when writing and planning for All My BJ. "I think that works to our benefit in a couple ways at least." says Roger Houdaille. "Firstly, we don't have to worry about a big production shooting in the middle of a street [without a permit] or any of the time consuming things such as lighting or directing, hah. Secondly, this gives us an advantage as far as style and unique value of the show. I mean, the ideas we have are no good unless BJ and co. are the ones doing them. Know wut I mean? Do ya?" It is safe to say there isn't someone like BJ, at least on the same block as him, who could do the same things BJ es.

INFLUENCES

There are a lot of exciting current/recent television shows these days, many which influence the show in different ways. However, it is the classic anti-sitcom, Chris Elliott's Get A Life! and the original 80s Miami Vice that have provided a lot of inspiration to the show. There have been homages to Tom Goes To The Mayor and classic traditional sitcoms like Three's Company, Full House and of course Saved By The Bell which are kept in memory. The realistic style, which was found more on the original cut of season 1 (which had no laugh track) was taken from the BBC's The Office and stylings of the similar character driven series Arrested Development crop up time to time.

STYLE...BJ STYLE

Speaking of style, the show tends to veer away from what most people would associate with South Beach. This is on purpose, to keep things real and show things in a true light. Well, it may also be a budget issue. Most of BJ's wardrobe is provided by Banana Republic and the rest of the cast tend to wear their own clothes.

PLOT SYNOPSIS

SEASON ONE
BJ decides to enter FX Networks Always Sunny In Philadelphia competition with a sitcom based on his life. This reality sitcom idea does not impress anyone, especially his roommate The ZakMan and band mates Father Bloopy, Tropical Barber or even Professor Parkinson, who is working on his own show for the Discovery Channel about the history of nostril grooming. For the show, BJ hires an assistant who follows him around while he searches for talent. Even his best friend Charlie Cloud denies to appear in the show claiming he looks fat in the camera. Of course, all of this is taped by the shows camera. A talent scout leads BJ to encounter his nemesis and ex-band mate Joshea who apparently really wants to be on the show. As a result, Joshea appears at the end of every episode ruining BJ's life. When BJ goes on his first date, Joshea hijacks BJ's date Tattoo Baby and ends up harassing BJ on the Miami Beach boardwalk and demands to be taken to Outback Steakhouse before kicking sand in his eye. Charlie Cloud runs into BJ whose starting to work out so he can be nice and pump and make him able to deal with all the bad things (i.e. Joshea) that keep happening to him. Unfortunately, The Magic Medicine BJ gets from Cloud make his hallucinate and at one point BJ seems to be in a time warped Miami Vice flashback where Father Bloopy and Tropical Barber (whose working at the defunct Lums restaurant) tell him to quit being something he's not. When BJ returns to his apartment, The ZakMan confronts BJ on his strange behavior. BJ decides to sleep it off but after more nightmares featuring pickles and Joshea, and an annoying call from Professor Parkinson, BJ takes a whole bottle of The Magic Medicine. When Joshea who was crouched next to BJ's bed the whole time wakes him up, he reveals they were nothing more than mint Tic Tacs and that he was behind it all. With BJ's best friend on Joshea's side and the shows script ruining his life, BJ quits. Rodolfo Troncoso gets hired to replace BJ because of his previous BJ experience and degree from BJ High. Unfortunately, BJ is hanging around while they tape the show in his apartment and break in to coach Rodolfo on a restaurant scene with a hot girl that is going wrong. When he does, the show falls apart. Joshea comes in through the door surprising the two "BJ's" while they argue, leading to Rodolfo going back to the movie he was shooting across the street when Joshea wants all three to make out. This was an effort to get their two dates to pay attention to them, instead of themselves. With BJ back on board, the show comes back with a recap of an imaginary episode which ultimately ends with a pickle in The ZakMan's eye. BJ and Bloopy's roommates fall for each other when the band rehearses at Professor Parkinson's for the new The BJ Experience hardcore album. This causes tension and jealousy for The ZakMan and when BJ propositions him to leave, he does, albeit without BJ's computer. Looking for a roommates comes fast when he receives a call from a voice he thinks is Father Bloopy, who ironically kicked himself out of The CarolinaWoman's house, but turns out to be Joshea using a computer generated voice on a tape. The roommate relationship between BJ and Joshea is not a healthy one and BJ leaves in disgust when he discovers that Joshea is stealing cable. And when BJ tries to report it, he just ends up with Joshea's crotch in his face. Of course, this was all the master plot to get BJ arrested. The season end has three different endings, but each with similar outcome...BJ gets beat up by a girl.

SEASON TWO
BJ is ready and out promoting the DVD for season 1 of All My BJ. It is then revealed at Hooters that Joshea is in fact in prison for cable theft, which horrifies everyone who sees Joshea as being the best of All My BJ;second place going to Charlie Cloud. When BJ's backup plan of a restaurant called Cooters goes sour just like a deal with Puerto Rican television, BJ takes matters into his own hands, poisoning and killing his best friend Charlie Cloud. This causes even more outrage amongst the shows fans and BJ receives constant beatings. Father Bloopy, meanwhile, tries his best to come up with ideas to save the show. A 7 year-old kid becomes BJ's new sidekick until he is taken out for ice cream by Tattoo Baby. Then, to make matters worse, BJ discovers gay people and when he starts asking serious questions about the relationship between fruits and gay people, the audience switches channels only to find All My BJ is taking off even on the Spanish language network Univision. On the Guatemalan version of All My BJ, things seem quite the same except both BJ and Father Bloopy are the targeted characters, with BJ being beat up by a woman named Maika and Bloopy being sent to the seedy whore district where he dies. The English language All My BJ returns with The BJ Experience having a random show at Tobacco Road in Miami. Intense preparation make for a good concert where the group performs "Party Party Party" to an enthusiastic audience. Father Bloopy has someone pretend to be Joshea's cousin and tell BJ that Joshea is out of prison so he can rent out his apartment. When BJ catches wind of this, the season finale is on it way.