The Patterer is a satire of today's TV news business, imagining what it might have been like if invented by a smart aleck street performer in 18th century London. Leeds Merriweather is inspired to create the Live News Performance after a chance, drunken encounter with Benjamin Franklin. He hires a zany cast of characters to pull it off and achieves fame as history's first news broadcaster, only to risk it all in a scandalous relationship with a conniving wench.