CLARA'S RED FOLDER • DO NOT LEAVE BY THE TV
Naturally, there is paperwork. Lorri Horn wrote television-development material that moves Dewey's cases off the page and into scenes, stakeouts, school disasters, air ducts, snacks, and a lot more running around.
DEWEY'S POSITION
The television file keeps the same office rule as the books: grown-ups are not villains. They are simply capable of becoming problems. Dewey investigates, improvises, gets distracted by food, and sometimes discovers that the person who needs fixing is not the person he expected.
CLARA'S POSITION
Clients still crawl through the vents. Cookies still appear along the route. There is still a slide, a soft landing, an attic office, paperwork, Clara, Wolfie, and a strong possibility that an investigation will be delayed by refreshments.
PEOPLE IN THE FILE
The treatment gives the office regulars a little extra elbow room. Some of these details come from development material rather than the published books, so Clara has marked the folder accordingly.
Fifth grader. Middle child. Punny. Snack-motivated. Fairly ordinary until solving other people's problems turns out to be the thing he is very much not ordinary at.
OPEN DEWEY'S FILE →Close friend. Rock collector. Usually a rule follower, except when she isn't. Also the person whose parent problem helps launch Dewey's whole operation.
OPEN SERAPHINA'S FILE →Dewey's best friend. Funny, social, narwhal-obsessed, and an excellent person to have nearby when a plan begins to drift toward ridiculous.
OPEN COLIN'S FILE →Assistant and assistant-to-the-assistant. Clara handles far more than appointments. Wolfie handles fetch, comfort, and selected field work.
CLARA FOUND EIGHT EPISODE CARDS
The first television treatment maps eight case files around Book 1 material and Dewey's own family problem.
THEN ANOTHER DRAFT SHOWED UP
A later screenplay draft moves sixth-grade Dewey, Colin, and Seraphina through vending machines, a new principal, school rules, a dance, fantasy sequences, and the general discovery that middle school provides an unreasonable amount of material.
DEWEY: The vending machines are important.
CLARA: Of course they are, Sir.
WANT THE REST OF THE FILE?
Producers, agents, managers, development executives, and other professionally curious people can request the treatment and related materials directly from the office.
DEWEY: If somebody wants to make the show, tell them where the office is.
CLARA: I just did, Sir.
RED STAMP • IMPORTANT
The television treatment also imagines a possible Friend Problem Solver phase after sixth grade. That belongs in the development drawer, not on the shelf with the published books. The published series is still the Parent, Teacher, and Sibling Problem Solver trilogy.
CLARA: Filed under "Maybe."
DEWEY: You have a Maybe drawer?
CLARA: Several.