Author: Witney

There he is. He’s a fat guy. Not just bulky or beefy, but fat. Kind of bilious. He talks about food nonstop. He sweats and cackles. He’s the funny sidekick. He’s the cantankerous judge. He’s the cigar-chomping capitalist swine. He’s the chubby army General. When he’s not falling over for comic effect, overeating, or sweating profusely, he’s scheming to overthrow some underdog.

I’m surely not the first critic to point this out, but fat people get the short end of the stick when it comes to popular entertainment. When they’re not buffoons or sidekicks, they are villains or perverts. It’s so very rare that you will see a fat character whose weight is incidental. There are so few fat heroes. Every once in a while, you’ll find a show about a chubby woman who learns to celebrate her body, but those are shows where her weight and image are the subject of the drama. Rarely will you find someone who is fat and the rest of the world seems o.k. with it (You’ll be equally hard pressed to find characters that are incidentally gay, but that’s a whole ‘nother essay).

 

In that spirit, I have trawled the trenches of my mouldering pop culture imagination, and come up with a list of the top ten incidentally fat hero characters in movies and TV. Not one of them wears Hawaiian shirts.

 

10. Hugo “Hurley” Reyes

from “Lost” (2004-2010)

Hurley (Jorge Garcia) is listed low on the list because he served as “Lost’s” comic relief character. What’s more, he was often mocked for his weight, and was seen as a comic object. But, I am assured, Hurley was given a surprising amount of backstory for a previously comic relief character.

 

More importantly, Hurley was the pragmatist of the series. Whereas all the other characters in “Lost” were constantly brooding on a beach, deciphering magical codes, or fighting Smoke Monsters and whatnot, Hurley seemed like the only one aware of the practical mechanics of being lost on a desert island. Locke may be out there hunting beasties and unlocking multi-dimensional razzmatazz (I never made it very far through “Lost”), but Hurley was fishing, playing games, and doing ordinary things to keep his sanity. If it was any of us on that island, I think we would behave more like Hurley than we would Jack.

 

He makes a vague show relatable, and it’s rare for the fat character to have that power.

 

 

9. Mario

(1982 – present)

Mario is a chubby little Italian plumber who actually is more like Mickey Mouse than an actual dramatic character; he serves as an image and as a mascot more than he does a human being. His wide-eyed smiling face has graced our video game consoles for decades now, and his side-scrolling exploits educated us on the social mechanics of video games – a mechanic that has grown into its own subculture.

 

Mario is not a manly hero type. He does not have bulging muscles and big weapons. He is not the typified masculine ideal. He is friendly and colorful. His most devastating weapons are flowers and mushrooms. He wears a cap, and has a comic mustache. Here is an image of purity and goodness. An image of action and heroism. And he’s a little fat guy.

 

What a boon to fat little Italian guys the world over. Mario may not have much to say in terms of humanity, but that a fat man became the central icon of all thing related to video games is a hugely progressive step that is too often ignored.

 

 

8. Silent Bob

from “Clerks” (1994) and others

Silent Bob (Kevin Smith) is a fat sidekick and a stone loser who hangs out in front of off-brand convenience stores in New Jersey to chain smoke and deal marijuana. He seems to be the enabler for his hyperactive friend, Jay (Jason Mewes), who chatters at strangers, begs, and invents new ways of being profane.

 

But, here’s the thing: When Silent Bob does speak, it’s to give some practical advice. All of a sudden, this previously quiet, glassy-eyed fat stoner revels himself to know something about love and life. Kevin Smith is funny, but when he gets down to the emotional stuff, he starts to resemble Richard Linklater. If you haven’t seen the films of Kevin Smith, I don’t want to reveal what he says, but the story he tells at the climax of “Chasing Amy” provides not only the title, but the emotional center of the film.

 

He is mocked for his weight, but, thanks to his calm silence, he is seen as a laid back and almost Zen character. A grunge Buddha, if you will.

 

7. Ghost Dog

from “Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai” (1999)

Jim Jarmusch’s “Ghost Dog” is a weird, weird movie. Forest Whitaker plays the title character: an assassin for hire who lives on a rooftop, communicates by carrier pigeon, and is constantly quoting from Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. He calls himself Ghost Dog, and often stops the movie to give lessons on The Way of the Samurai. He’s a fat man with wicked sword skills, and a careful, intelligent demeanor.

 

He’s also clearly off his rocker. Ghost Dog’s only friend is the man who sells ice cream at the park, and neither of them speaks the other’s language. The bad guys want to hire him, and are baffled by his appearance and his insistent peculiarities. He can talk to children, though, and even lends his copy of Ryunosuke Atukagawa’s Rashomon to a 12-year-old, in order that they may learn some lessons.

 

Usually when a movie character has this many idiosyncrasies, and they’re fat, they’re seen as a freaky, basement-dwelling expert who aids the hero. In the case of “Ghost Dog,” he’s the main character, and we get to see what a weirdo badass he is. I admire the filmmakers with the courage to stay with the freaks.

 

 

6. Max Bialystock

from “The Producers” (1968)

Max Bialystock (the indispensable Zero Mostel) skirts the line between buffoon and villain. On paper, he does indeed resemble the typical comic fat guy, obsessed with sensual matters, wealth and food. But, here’s the thing, thanks to Mostel’s brilliant comic portrayal, and director Mell Brooks’ insistence that he’s an underdog, Max Bialystock comes across as a guy we want to be around. He’s a cheat, a criminal, a lech, and he’s frequently sweaty and greasy, but he still comes across as lovable. He’s the guy we want to win.

 

Max is a fat guy. He has a double chin and a big ol’ gut. His sidekick Leo Bloom (Gene Wilder), though, never brings up his weight. The film never usues his fat as a crux for jokes. He is incidentally fat. At one point Leo becomes enraged, and calls him fat. Later, he apologizes for doing so. It’s rare that a fat character get so much screentime, so much brains, so much character, so much sympathy, and so much villainy. “The Producers” is one of the best comedies ever man, and it’s largely thanks to Zero Mostel’s performance as the funny fat guy.

 

 

5. Roseanne

from “Roseanne” (1988-1997)

“Roseanne” was a notable sitcom in many small ways. For one, it took the characters seriously, and didn’t reduce them to shrill cartoons (a la “Married with Children”). Another, it was about the trials of blue-collar working-class types without reducing them to heroic archetypes or depressing wastoids. It featured some stellar comic actors (including John Goodman), and a funny – if little known – fat comedienne in Roseanne Barr.

 

Roseanne was seen as a wise mom and an open-minded person with her cross to bear. Andshe was a big fat woman. This was not a chintzy Hallmark version of female empowerment that you see infecting all corners of the feminist movement. This was a story about a smart woman who used her mind and her attaitude to move forward in life. She was incidentally fat.

 

Roseanne may have been annoying to many people (the parodies and complaints are numerous, and perhaps not all illigitimate), but she served to open a lot of doors in terms of incidental fat visibility.

 

 

4. Buck Russell

from “Uncle Buck” (1989)

John Candy is probably one of the exemplars of the funny fat sidekick characters. His roles in films like “Stripes” and “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles” almost codified the goofy, blubbery whack-job for a generation. I admire Candy and think he is a hugely talented comedian, but, when looked at in the right light, the bulk of his roles were devoted to cute, fat visual gags.

 

But then came John Hughes’ “Uncle Buck,” and he set that persona on ear. Uncle Buck was indeed a buffoon; He had been ostracized from his family, and was seen as the noisy, obnoxious one that everyone dreads having over for Thanksgiving. But, when set the task of looking after his nieces and nephews, he became one of the best protectors that a child could ask for. When a clown shoes up drunk for his nephew’s birthday party, Buck punches his lights out before he can talk to the children. When his niece’s teacher picks on her, he takes the niece’s side, and badmouths the principal (“Here’s a quarter. Go downtown and hire a rat to gnaw that wart off your face!”). He even happily threatens to circumcise a badgering boyfriend.

 

But despite the tough actions, Buck is always seen as lovable, and I buy it when he makes pancakes that are four feet across. Uncle Buck is a fully-realized fat guy with gumption and power and a sense of humor.

 

 

3. Fat Albert

from “Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids” (1972-1985)

“Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids” may be shoddily animated, and very occasionally poorly written, but it still does stand as one of the first children’s shows to feature black characters in something other than a “token” role. It had kids who were able to use their smarts and resourcefulness to have fun with the garbage at hand. These kids were sort of a dark mirror to the blueblood snottiness of shows like “Richie Rich” and Johnny Quest.” the Cosby Kids could – and did- make their own fun without extreme wealth or fantasy gadgets.

 

And the hero of the bunch was an enormously fat guy named, well, Fat Albert. He was called fat, but none of the kids used the word pejoratively. He would usually be the saintly, angelic character who would interject with worlds of wisdom, and perhaps some life lessons. He was not used as a comic foil, nor as a tyrant. Fat Albert was a funny, friendly teacher.

 

 

2. Marty

from “Marty” (1955)

Marty (Ernest Borgnine) serves as the archetypal hope object for hopeless fat man everywhere. Sure TV is overrun with dumpy guys who have hot wives (“The King of Queens,” “According to Jim”), but I always saw those pairings as visual juxtapositions more than comments on the fat guys’ romantic savvy. Marty is about a guy who lands a sweethearted young woman through his charm and his honest need for love.

 

Marty is a funny looking fat butcher. He calls himself ugly. “I don’t know what women want, ma,” he says at one point, “but I know I ain’t got it.” I think most of us awkward geeks can relate to that sentiment. When he and Clara (Betsy Blair) manage to go on a date, they are, of course, drawn to each other’s mutual loneliness, but, more than that, are genuinely drawn even more to each other’s mutual charms and goodness.

 

Marty proves that even lonely fats guys can find love. This is required viewing for every outsider in the world.

 

1. Tracy Turnblad

from “Hairspray” (1988)

Most comedies about freaky people take on a objective quality that distances us from the comic subjects. What I like about John Waters’ films is that he has a very clear, very open, and very forceful love of eevry single one of his freaky characters. John Waters is not trying to find shocking things to present to you; he has a vested interest in shocking things. There are those of us in the world who just have less popular intrests, and John Waters is the pop of such thinking.

 

In 1988, John Waters made “Hairspray,” which was a PG-rated tribute to his favorite dance programs of the early 1960s, all lived through the eyes of a spunky fat teenager named Tracy Turnblad (Ricki Lake). Tracy is obsessed with fashion, hairdos, and The Corny Collins dance show, which she would race home from school to see. She dreamed of being on the show, and would work hard to get on it. And, here’s the thing, she actually did get on the show because she’s a good dance. She attracted the eye of the hot young stud because she’s cheerful and smart. Her weight is brought up, but, just like Max Bialystock, by a bitter character who has resorted to cheap shots.

 

And if Tracy wasn’t enough of a fat empowerment object for teenage girls everywhere, Waters also treats us to a scene in which Tracy and her equally fat mother (Divine) go to a big-and-tall women’s clothing store, where they can be dressed like plus-size queens, all the wihile being lavished with attention and donuts by the store’s enthused owner. This is a universe where placating phrases like “big is beautiful” are jettisoned, and big actually becomes beautiful. Finally, finally, finally, fatness can be an incidental descriptive term, and not the center of some dramatic phoniness.

 

 

Honorable mention: Sammo Hung

Sammo Hung is one of the best kung fu action film stars of the ’70s and ’80s. His filsm never hit as big here as they did in his native Hong Kong, but, watching them, you finally see what a talented athlete and funny comedian the man is. He’s also a fat guy. He has a double chin and a round face. He’s often cast as the buffoon, but still manages to be the center of his films, and, most importantly fights well along with the bad guys. His weight is often a comic point, but he squelches that by being such a badass.

 

 

Witney Seibold is a hard-thinking writer living in Los Angeles. He has worked in movie theaters most of his life, and has probably seen more movies than you. He reads old books, and talks about them perhaps too much. He has written over 700 film reviews and essays for his website, which can be accessed here: http://witneyman.wordpress.com/

Genre entertainment is loaded with all kinds of snarling, flexing, badass types whom you don’t want to get upset; Try testing Hannibal Lecter sometime and see how far you get. The risk of upsetting some of your favorite superheroes could have dire consequences. Fight well next to Wolverine, and he’ll be a good friend. Turn your back on Damian Hellstorm, and you’ll find yourself suffering in Hell.

 

But this is not a list of the tough guys who will kill you or beat you up if you piss them off. This is a list of the quiet, strong authority figures that you don’t want to be disappointed in you. Sure, being punched in the solarplexus by a badass would suck, but that’s nothing compared to the crushing embarrassment and withering shame brought on by the stern glare of someone you actually admire. There are few actually admirable authority figures in genre entertainment, so when a good one comes along, we fans tend to entertain fantasies of serving under them in some capacity. We imagine being quick, smart and efficient under the coveted tutelage of these whipsmart masters. And, as doubt creeps in, we start to feel that we have the capacity for screwing up, and, worst of all disappointing them.

 

Here then, is a list of the best leaders in geek entertainment.

 

10. Klaatu

from “The Day the Earth Stood Still” (1951)

From space, a warning and an ultimatum. Klaatu has traveled many lightyears to land on Earth. He is silent and imposing. He is 78 years old, but looks like he’s in his mid 30s. He is calm and egalitarian. He knows the childish folly that mankind is capable of, and has come to Earth, like a doting parent, to warn us how dangerous it is to mess around with all these silly nuclear weapons we seem so fond of.

 

Thanks to Michael Rennie’s fantastic performance in Robert Wise’s seminal sci-fi classic, Klaatu comes across not as a bully or a tormentor, but as a bemused older sibling, chucking at humanity in a combination of worry and vicarious nostalgia. There is a great scene in which Klaatu, led by the 10-year-old Bobby (Billy Gray), finds the home of a renowned physicist. The physicist is not home, but Klaatu sees some of his calculations on a blackboard. Klaatu puts on an expression of amusied pity, and then, very simply, corrects the mathimatical errors.

 

Here is a man with a stirring intellect and an enlightened attitude. Worse than Gort, the killer robot he has at his disposal, you don’t want to see Klaatu shake his head in pity at you.

 

 

9. Ms. Frizzle

from “The Magic School Bus” (1994-1998)

As kids, most of us felt kind of ambivalent about school. We liked going because we liked our friends and we liked recess and we liked learning stuff. But then, we disliked going because we couldn’t sleep in, or be on a permanent vacation, and we often resented our parents and teachers for forcing us to do hard stuff we didn’t want to do. I think, though, we can all relate to the experience of having a wonderful teacher that seemed smart and energetic, and actually wanted us to learn stuff. For this teacher, you began to feel, you will not fail.

 

We never really saw Ms. Frizzle upset on the little-watched PBS educational program “The Magic School Bus,” which ran for four seasons back in the ’90s. She was the wild-haired, oddly-dressed hippie chick who would frequently take her elementary school students on magic school bus rides which could allow them to gather empirical evidence from, say, the surface of the sun, or inside the nucleus of a carbon atom. She was a free-wheeling, high-spirited teacher who was eager to share the secrets of the universe with children.

 

If I’m going on magic school bus rides, and I’m going back in time to observe dinosaurs, or shrinking down to talk to ladybugs, I had better get a good grade on the next quiz. I would hate to see the crestfallen expression on Ms. Frizzle’s face.

 

8. Perry Mason

from “Perry Mason” (1957-1966)

The world’s best defense attorney, Perry Mason, played by the smoky Raymond Burr, is a man who can crack just about any case. Indeed, watching “Perry Mason” as a child, I wondered why his hometown even bothered having a police force, as the town’s defense lawyer seemed more adept an solving crimes and any detective. Perry Mason, with the help of his friends Paul Drake and Della Street, would investigate missing details, and would inevitably find them. I didn’t just want to meet Perry Mason. I wanted to work as his detective.

 

 

But his detecting skills were nothing compared to his diamond-sharp gaze. In episode after episode, Mason would cross-examine, quietly chipping away at the party he knew to be guilty. His steeltrap intelligence just waiting to close unnoticed around his prey. Inevitably, the guilty party would have a noisy, teary confession under oath, and all would be revealed. It”s rare that you get this level of psychology in TV crime dramas anymore.

 

 

If I were working with Perry Mason, I would do my best. If I screwed up, I would know I would have to endure that smoky glare, a pair of pursed lips, and the knowledge that he wouldn’t trust me for a while.

 

 

7. Buckaroo Banzai

from “The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension” (1984)

I’ve talked about this film just recently, and you’ve likely all seen it multiple times, so I won’t go into too much detail, only to state out the outset that Buckaroo Banzai is a racer of cars, he his trained in Japanese swordplay, he is a fully-qualified brain surgeon, he is well-trusted by the president and is often enlisted into secret missions, and he fronts a wacky, aloof rock band called the Hong Kong Cavaliers. He’s a big star, and has his own fan club and comic book. Screenwriter W.D. Richter essentially tried to create the coolest person alive in Buckaroo Banzai, and, thanks to the cool-as-a-cucumber performance from Peter Weller, he largely succeeded.

 

Buckaroo Banzai is a bit too laidback to really get mad at any of his charges, and would probably joke with you, and try to help you improve long before he gave up on you. But, with a man who is that smart and that cool, you just know in your heart of hearts, that it’d be hard to live up to his expectations. I would be in constant fear of not being accepted into his ultra-cool circle. Buckaroo Banzai would not really be too upset with you, but seeing his circle, you would just know you could do better.

 

Once you’re in, though… wow.

 

6. Capt. Nemo

from Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1869)

In the movie versions, the star of Jules Verne’s sci-fi classic is often seen as a cocky blowhard and a grizzled adventurer. In the original novel, though, Nemo is one of the steely-eyed, honest-to-goodness misanthropes who has used his engineering know-how and technical excellence to actually create a beautiful new way to sustain his life.

 

Throughout the book, our main character, Prof. Pierre Aronnax is fascinated by Nemo’s grand creation, the self-sustaining submarine The Nautilus. He is drawn to the ship’s fuel, its function, and how easily it can traverse the huge underwater portions of our planet. But, more than that, Aronnax is drawn to the mystery of Nemo, and why he has decided to shut himself off from the world in the fashion he has. Nemo is, at once, alienating, misanthropic, bitter, hurtful, exciting, classy, intelligent, cosmopolitan, and, at times, even friendly.

 

Nemo had a crew, and you just knew that these people were the best and the brightest, and people Nemo could trust. If any of them died in the line of duty, Nemo would give them a proper undersea burial. Nemo demanded the best from you, and you were only ever interested in doing it. If you messed up, you would not be punished, but you may be relieved from duty for a few days which is, in this case, probably worse.

 

 

5. Roger Ebert

(1942 – )

Whether you agree with his opinions or not, it can be pretty much admitted that Roger Ebert serves as the elder statesman of film criticism. He is one of the longest-working film critics in this country, and has probably seen more movies than any other living person. As he has aged, and has survived all manner of health maladies, Ebert’s style has only become more calmed and open, and, as his ‘blog proves, he has become all the more open with expressing himself. He is a staggeringly intelligent man.

 

While all we film geeks (especially those of us who write film reviews as a hobby) have fantasies of interviewing – or perhaps even working for – our heroes, I think each of us would adore sitting down and shooting the breeze, or at least trading letters with, this hugely popular, Pulitzer-Prize-winner.

 

And here’s where the delicate balance comes in: What if you’re chatting with him, and you find that his opinion doesn’t match yours? I feel I’m a good enough film critic that I could openly and succinctly defend my opinion, but I have the feeling that Ebert would be able to give me some very good reasons as to why I was outright wrong. Not that he would necessarily do such a thing, but my insecurity would leave me in fear of it.

 

4. President David Palmer

from “24” (2001-2010)

While Joel Surnow’s ultra-pumped, time-coded spy thriller is, admittedly, a right-leaning show, it has the curious habit of stuffing itself full of stalwart, decisive and admirable presidential candidates from the left. We have seen several presidents on the show, and each one of them has been a clear-thinking, hard-working, proper leader type who is only occasionally given to mild corruption, and is mostly a leader worth serving under (Gregory Itzin’s sniveling, sinister president Logan notwithstanding).

 

The best of the “24” presidents was easily president David Palmer (Dennis Haysbert). A tall, deep-voiced authority, David Palmer was constantly tempted to compromise his principals, and to break the law. Since this is “24,” there was, of course a good deal of coverups in his presidency, and, as it later turned out, his wife (Penny Johnson) was more corrupt than he could ever hope to stand, but Palmer always shone through as a moral beacon in this swirling, 24-hour vortex of violence.

 

Surely these presidents are mostly just wish fulfillment; most of us can only dream that our presidents are that honest and hard-working. But, as wishes go, David Palmer is a man I would vote for.

 

3. Prof. Dumbledore

from the “Harry Potter” novels and movies.

Professor Dumbledore is an old man, who has accumulated a vast store of magical knowledge and hard-edged experience in his years. He knows talent when he sees it, and is eager, like any good professor, to nurture his charges into adulthood. If he selects you as a prize pupil, he will give you bonus lessons, and certain glimpses into the extended world of magic that students of Hogwart’s don’t ordinarily get to see. He once gave a student a magical device that allowed her to travel back in time, merely so she could attend more classes; he knew she wouldn’t abuse the power. Well, she did a little bit.

 

So if he trusts you, and you prove to be a good student, you’ll be granted to some of the most fascinating and cool knowledge passed down by generations of magicians. However, if you prove to be incompetent, or given to evil behavior, he’ll drop you like a hot potato. He’ll lavish his attention on someone else. It would be a petty race amongst students to see who can curry favor with the headmaster, but isn’t that a dynamic present in every British boarding school?

 

Dumbledore is the man you don’t want to piss off. Your grade, and your prode, depends on it.

 

2. The Doctor

from “Doctor Who” (1963 – 1989, 2005 – present)

The Doctor is an ancient alien, the last of his kind, who traverses the universe in a time-traveling spaceship. He has seen a lot, and knows a lot. He is intimately familiar with Earth’s history, as he has a thing for humans, and our ability to adapt and improve. He’s fond of Shakespeare and Dickens. He is, however, very lonely, and often deigns to take companions along with him on his space travels, mostly so he can share the wonder with someone. Of course, he gats into all kinds of scrapes, usually involving the fate of the entire universe, but he always manages to stay ahead of the game, mostly because he’s very, very clever.

 

The doctor is energetic, and appreciates wit and intelligence. He seems to select his companions based not on their booksmarts, but how openminded they are, and how well they can think clearly in a pinch. If you are clever and eager enough, The Doctor will show you all kind of wonders and joys and adventures. You may have a hand in his next save-the-universe scheme.

 

But if you are not up to snuff… well, no matter who has played the doctor (and there have been 11 actors over the decades), you would just see the crestfallen disappointment on his face. He would be like a betrayed parent, not so much angry at you, as untrusting of his own choice to bring you along. Oh the guilt. Oh the horror. The Doctor would not kill you, but he would, effectively, break up with you. I would love to travel with the Doctor, and I would be sure to be on my best behavior.

 

 

1. Capt. Jean-Luc Picard

from “Star Trek: The Next Generation” (1987-1994)

The best captain of any Enterprise, Capt. Picard (Patrick Stewart) is a level-headed, calm, egalitarian leader who trusts anyone, is eager to help, and is a stringent stickler for proper etiquette. No raucous blowhard, Picard has the smarts and the tenacity to run the largest starship in Starfleet. He drinks tea, reads old books, and likes classical music. He can quote Shakespeare, and encourages his staff to explore their passions. This is a man who is, effectively, smarter and classier than all of us. Sure, he may not often join the senior staff in their weekly poker games, preferring to spend time alone, but his aloofness is befitting of his position. What would we have if we had a Starfleet captain who got into fistfights and shagged a lot of women? Oh wait. We’d have Capt. Kirk.

 

Capt. Picard was the ultimate leader who forced you to become better. He wouldn’t do it with jokes or friendliness, though. He would just expect it from you. He’s reached a level of authority where average Joes no longer dick about with buttons, but works with a highly professional crew who are all expected to be at their A-game at all times.

 

If you mess up in front of Picard, he wouldn’t just sneer in disappointment, but you just KNOW he would remember it. He wouldn’t mock you about it, or bring it up in front of you, but he would take every screw-up into consideration when considering your next promotion. He’s a hard man to impress, but he still manages to get you to want to impress him.

 

Would I make a good Starfleet officer? Probably not (in the universe of NextGen, you’re expected to pass basic calculus in the 4^th grade). But having a leader like Picard would make me want to try.

 

My personal empirical observation contradicts that “Avatar” became the most successful movie of all time. Surely it is a beautiful film, and the special effects were just as good as they got credit for; what’s more, James Cameron proves that he is the master of a certain kind of popular filmmaking that appeals to huge audiences, and is effective in a fashion preferred by most filmgoers (if it wasn’t already obvious with “Titanic” back in 1997). But I, personally, don’t know anyone who actually went to see the film in theaters more than once. Surely most of my friends and family did manage to see it, but none of the people I talked to were duly gushy about it. Many critics liked it; Roger Ebert gave it four stars and compared it to “Star Wars.” A few of the critics in the L.A. Weekly called it a legitimate game-changer. But now, less than a year later, few critics continue to cite it (other than to reference its enormous box office receipts), and only a few of my friends have expressed an interest in purchasing a home video copy of the film.

But, for the unseen masses – the ones who did see “Avatar” multiple times, the ones who sparked reports of suicidal thoughts about not being able to live on Pandora, the ones who were eager to dress as a Na’Vi the following Halloween – Fox has released a superdeluxe, three-disc DVD and Blu-Ray version of the film, which contains three different cuts of the movie, a long making-of documentary, the requisite commentary tracks, and nearly an hour’s worth of deleted scenes.

I watched the longest available cut of the film (which added 18 minutes to the theatrical cut), which adds a new beginning, and has a few incidental 30-to-90-second scenes of Pandora’s fauna and ambiance along the way. I have to say that the longer cut does little to change my opinion on the film; I saw “Avatar” as beautiful, but, like most critics, professional and otherwise, found the white-man-goes-native story to be a bit oversimplified, the military characters to be too brutal and cartoonish, the Na’Vi as too perfect, and the film at large lacking a good deal of real humanity. It was a fine example of pop filmmaking: gorgeous, of average intelligence, exciting, effective, and frustratingly un-complex.

The new opening actually adds considerably to the film. In the original cut, we see our hero Jake (Sam Worthington), the crippled marine drafted into an avatar-driving project, already on a spaceship, set to land on Pandora. We learn his story in a voiceover. In the new cut, we meet Jake when he’s still on Earth, wheelchair-bound, and alcoholic. We see the Earth has become overcrowded, and, as Jake observes in a barroom, humankind has simply begun to ignore the rules of simple decency, choosing to abuse each other openly in public, and thinking nothing of politeness or etiquette. Sam, despite being in a wheelchair, picks a fight with a surly drunk, and gets thrown out of the bar, where he is confronted with two shadowy spooks who spirit him off to a factory-like mortuary where his twin brother’s body is being held. The coffins are all made of cardboard, and the bodies are all incinerated on the spot.

This opening provides a hugely important story element, and it’s baffling why Cameron chose to cut it from his final film. By seeing Earth as a rough-and-tumble, dirty, polluted hellhole, it stands in stark juxtaposition to the Eden-like Pandora. Indeed, “Avatar” would have probably been a stronger film had we seen more of Earth’s unhumanity, rather than just having a cartoony evil drill instructor type (Stephen Lang) and an equally cartoony corporate wonk (Giovanni Ribisi) representing the worst of humankind.

The other thing added to the extended cut are a few scenes where Grace (Sigourney Weaver) talks about a Na’Vi girl who, after learning English and bonding with her teachers, decided to rebel against the human oppressors; there’s a scene in an abandoned school where Jake, Grace and Norm (Joel David Moore), inside their Na’Vi avatars, find disused books (among them, Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax, how subtle) and, mysteriously, bulletholes. Nothing is outright said about what happened, but we do get the feeling that this spoken-of Na’Vi girl reacted toxically to the human presence on Pandora. We learn a bit later that his girl was the sister of Neytiri (Zoë Saldana). Again, this slight subplot reveals a lot about the inhumanity of the characters without resorting to melodramatic villainy.

All the gorgeous special effects and weird story elements are still intact. If you loved the film, the new footage will only be some icing for your cake. If you disliked the film, your problems with it will not be solved. Jake, for instance, is still given a direct assignment by his superiors at the film’s outset, and becomes so preoccupied learning how to ride dragons and romance a Na’Vi native, that he never bothers to say, just once – not in passing, not sternly – that his bosses are going to come into the woods in a few months time and mine the everloving tar (or unobtanium, as the case may be) out of it. What’s more, we still don’t know what unobtanium is used for. If it were a source of fuel, or provided the cure to some horrid disease, at least we would know the bad guys’ motivations. Heck, even if it was only a good ore for making jewelry, at least we’d know what was going on. Nope. Unobtanium is still opaque.

The 45 minutes of deleted scenes provide the most interesting aspect of this new set, though. Many of the scenes were never completed, so most of the shots were included with the special effects deleted. In some cases, just backgrounds are missing, and we can see the greenscreen. In a few cases, we only see the actors in their SFX motion-capture suits, before they were digitally transformed into Na’Vi. Each of the scenes is only a few minutes long, but each one provides a small little bit of non-narrative incident that would have immensely fleshed out the film’s overall personality. We see scenes where characters introduce themselves, or sit at a table having a meal. We see short walks, and longer version of earlier conversations. I understand that, especially with a three-hour-long film, pacing is vital to making the film work, but I feel that including these extra little conversational bits would have made the film all the more interesting.

The deleted scenes include a lot more of my favorite actor from the film, Joel David Moore in the role of Norm. In the final cut, Norm plays like an intelligent sidekick who tells Jake some of the Na’Vi trivia he should know. In the deleted scenes, we learn that Norm was a vitally important character to the avatar project, and it was Jake who was to serve as the sidekick. I like that dynamic much more, and I like seeing Moore pushed forward a bit. What’s more, we get a curious subplot about his playful love affair with the crackerjack pilot Trudy (Michelle Rodriguez).

One deleted scene which stayed thankfully omitted was Jake’s spirit journey, or whatever it was. In order to join the Na’Vi tribe properly, he had to go through a drug-induced ritual, similar to drinking the Water of Life in “Dune.” Jake had to eat a worm, and then get stung by a bug, and he started having violent hallucinations about the oneness of the planet or the power of Gaia or something. The sequence takes about five full minutes. This scene looks less like a spiritual journey, and more like one of the goofy, brain-melting comic sequences from “Xavier: Renegade Angel.”

If you know any “Avatar” fans, by all means, buy them this set as a Chanukah gift. It comes in several cardboard sleeves, and is laid out like a book, so its satisfyingly heavy to hold, and glossy to touch. The package itself, though, just like the film, is all gorgeous surface, and doesn’t contain anything too deep.

From what I understand, there was some sort of worldwide sporting event last moth involving teams from San Francisco and Texas or something. As I am, like you, a huge geek who pays closer attention to movies than to any sort of televised sporting event (the Olympic Games notwithstanding), I couldn’t tell you the details of this event, nor who won it. Ask me about the films of Akira Kurosawa, and I have you covered. Ask me about the Super Bowl, and you may as well be speaking in Sanskrit.

 

The sports that have stayed with me more are the imaginary ones; the ones you see your favorite characters from various films and TV playing. The games that some hardworking screenwriter invented in a fit of creative pique, and that some actors and directors had to actually play on a set somewhere. These games, for their novelty, for their creativity, and for their magic, are just itching to be played. How many of us, for instance, have wished we could play mid-air rugby on flying broomsticks? A certain brand of geek may sit to play a role-playing board game versions of these sports, be we all know what’s really involved: we wish would could play along for real.

 

In that spirit, I have compiled a list of ten of the greatest imaginary sports from pop culture. N.B. I have excluded video games from this list, as an entire list can be filled with ultra-violent and/or wacky games that you can yourself play, albeit in a virtual, digital form. This list is reserved for games that you wish you could play.

 

10) Mindgame

from “Sliders” (1995-2000)

 

Quinn Mallory (Jerry O’Connell), the hero of “Sliders,” has invented his own portable quantum-leaping widget that allows him to skip about merrily from dimension to dimension. Quinn was, at least on paper, described as a science nerd who was never appreciated for his intellect. In one of the better episodes of the show, Quinn found himself in an alternate dimension where intellect is prized over “cool,” and brains are nurtured over brawn. Punk rock-types blasted Vivaldi from their boomboxes, and the junkiest form of action fluff available in the local mass media was written by Dumas.

 

And, most notably, the world’s most popular pastime was a sport called Mindgame. This was a sport played on 6-by-6, light-up grid. There are two alternately colored teams who would have to handle a ball and avoid getting tackled. While they dodged and ducked their opponents, and passed the ball to their teammates, the players would have to answer multi-part trivia questions, such as “Name all of Jupiter’s moons, in order of their proximity to the planet!” or “Carry out pi to fifteen decimal places!” The player to answer the final part of the question claimed a square on the grid. The colored squared were then played like that old boardgame Othello, and they could “flip” their opponent’s colored tiles to their own by surrounding them.

 

This may sound complicated on the page, but watching it in “Sliders” made it very clear to understand, and made all the viewers want to play. Finally, the geeks would think to themselves, a sport that needs you to be smart.

9) 43-Man Squamish

from MAD Magazine (the June 1965 issue)

 

Most organized college sports seem too big, too elitist, too well-moneyed, to allow the average Joe to participate. MAD Magazine, with that beautifully chaotic logic they have, invented a new sport for the masses called 43-Man Squamish. A sport so chaotic and convoluted and confusing, that it finally puts everyone at a discordian equal.

 

Letsee if I can sum it up in a cogent fashion: 43-Man Squamish was played on a five-sided field (called the Flutney). The teams consisted of one right inside Grouch, one right outside Grouch, four Deep Brooders, four Shallow Brooders, five Wicket Men, three Offensive Niblings, four Quarter-Frummets, one Full-Frummet, two Overblats, two Underblats, nine back-up Finks, two Leapers and a Dummy. Players are issued gigantic hooked sticks (Frullips), which they use to prevent opponents from carrying the ball (a small, soft, spongy Pritz stuffed with bluejay feathers, carried in the mouth) into their endzone.

 

There are, of course, extra rules on how to begin a match, who is a qualified referee, what kind of sticking is and is not permitted, and which players came earn points. There are sudden death rules, and intentional losing permitted under certain circumstances.

 

This article became so notorious, that several colleges actually formed their own college-backed Squamish teams, and attempted to play some merry bonspiels with one another. While the sport never caught on in any significant way, I wish I had the gumption to start my own organized Squamish team during my college years. Or, at the very least, sneak over to a neighboring college, and watch the Squamish people training for the big match. The fictional sport would have leaked temporarily into reality.

 

8) Whackbat

from “Fantastic Mr. Fox” (2009)

 

Wes Anderson’s “Fantastic Mr. Fox” was one of the best animated films of 2009 (and, for my money, should have won the coveted Academy Award over Pixar’s “Up,” but I digress). It was warm and, very literally, fuzzy, and managed to make funny and palpable, the ultra-mannered irony of Anderson’s idiom. The dialogue was funny, and the animation was great.

 

Ash (Jason Schwartzman), the son of the title character, sees himself as an athlete, and longs to match his father’s accomplishments at his school’s sacred game, whackbat. Ash, sadly, is easily shown up by his cousin Kristofferson (Eric Chase Anderson) after only the briefest of rundowns from the school’s coach (Owen Wilson). Here’s how it works: There’s three grabbers, three taggers, five twig runners, and a player at Whackbat. Center tagger lights a pinecone and chucks it over the basket and the whack-batter tries to hit the cedar stick off the cross rock. Then the twig runners dash back and forth until the pinecone burns out and the umpire calls hotbox. Finally, you count up however many score-downs it adds up to and divide that by nine.

 

Whackbat is essentially a kid-friendly, woodsy, delightfully confusing version of cricket (which, as most Americans would likely agree, is a pretty confusing game to begin with). That it involves flaming pinecones only works in its favor. I’ve always wanted to attend a proper cricket match. But, since seeing “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” I think I’d like to play whackbat equally fervently.

 

7) Blurnsball

from “Futurama” (2002)

 

Baseball, you have to admit, is as boring as mom and apple pie. By the year 3000, according to the whipsmart prognosticators over at “Futurama,” baseball will evolve and change, and be refreshingly doctored up. It’s about time, too.

 

Blurnsball resembles baseball in that it’s played on a diamond, and a pitcher tries to throw a ball past a batter, but it’s the little changes that make the game worth it. For instance, the blurnsball is now tethered to a long elastic band, and allows the fieldmen several chances to catch it. The runner can now ride a minibike around the bases, and, if they hit the ball into the Diamondvision screen, they can unlock the multiball mode, and hit several balls very rapidly. Then a giant tarantula bursts out of the bullpen onto the field. Robots are not allowed in the game. Nor are women.

 

If you look at a basketball player, they’re usually trim and athletic. You look at a baseball player, and they’re usually beefy and beergutted; just look at Babe Ruth and compare him to Dr. J. Baseball is an odd game in many ways, and it’s strange that it’s been declared The National Pastime. Thank goodness the people at “Futurama” thought that the game would eventually change into a pinball madhouse of monsters and explosions. I’d be more likely to watch blurnsball.

 

6) Death Race

from “Death Race 2000” (1975)

 

I love sci-fi films that feature a new, imaginary sport, game, or TV show that everyone – EVERYONE – is really, really into. The show on “The Running Man” is a good example. According to Paul Bartel’s 1975 classic, the entire world, now jaded by constant war, and desensitized to spectacle violence, will be glued to their TV once a year to watch a several-days-long, cross-country car race called, what else?, Death Race. Death Race is enthusiastically sponsored by several American corporations, odds are given on the air, and bets are openly placed.

 

The racers are a ragtag bunch of gimmicky luchador types, each with their own specialized vehicle (which, incidentally, were designed by William M. Schmidt, who designed the TV version of the Batmobile, and the Monkeemobile). There is the Death Race reigning champion Frankenstein (David Carradine), Machine Gun Joe Viterbo (Sylvester Stallone), Calamity Jane (Mary Woronov), and Nero the Hero (Martin Kove), amongst others. Each driver is assigned an assistant who will aide them in navigation and mechanics, and, should the situation call for it, have sex with them.

 

And – and here the coup de grâce – points in Death Race are tallied by how many pedestrians you can run down and kill during the course of the race. Able-bodied people are worth more points that children. Old ladies fetch a handsome sum. Pets, if I recall, are not worth anything. And you only get full score if the people are properly dead, and not merely maimed. So many people watch Death Race, and follow the sport so passionately, that some elect to stand in the middle of the road and martyr themselves to the various drivers in order to drive up their score.

 

The film eventually goes into tut-tutting mode, but we all have to admit, I think, that “Death Race 2000” is na exciting film, a funny film, and a great premise.

 

5) Pyramid / Triad

from “Battlestar Galactica” (1978, 2004)

 

In the 1978 series, the sport was called triad. In the 2004 series, a similar – indeed nearly identical sport – was called pyramid. Either way, this looks like something I would have tried out for in high school, as it seems to combine elements from three or four different sports.

 

The rules to triad and pyramid are never explicitly explained at any point in either series, but we do see it being played from time to time, and we can intuit the rules as best we can. There are two teams who must, like in basketball, throw a ball through the opposing team’s goal (which is a small hole in the wall). They are allowed to tackle one another, and they wrestle a lot. They wear padding and helmets, and cavort about on a small, triangular field. Why is it that in real life, all playing fields are square, but in fiction, all playing fields are much more interesting shapes?

 

This one gets a nod because it is associated with the geek spasm that is BSG, but also because it closely resembles a game that some peers of mine made up in elementary school called Killer Rugby. Any game that you can make up as a child, and also participate in while flying about aboard a future spaceship is a good sport.

 

4) Kosho

from “The Prisoner” (1967)

 

“The Prisoner” is an excellent sci-fi TV series that bares no comparison to anything that came before it. Perhaps “The Twilight Zone.” It was about an unnamed ex-spy (series creator Patick McGoohan) who has been drugged and kidnapped, and placed in a bizarro, candy-colored Village somewhere in the world, where he is openly spied upon by a friendly cadre of shadowy figures who are tying to ascertain exactly why he quit his job. No one has names in The Village, and our hero is known only as Number 6.

 

The Village is a friendly place where you can relax on the beach, participate in local elections, and eat your favorite foods (Only very occasionally are you drugged or brainwashed or suffocated by the rubbery security rovers that drift about the place like spooky giant balloons). The Village offers a gym where you can go work out and, here’s the kicker, engage an opponent in a kosho match,

 

Kosho, featured in a few episodes of “The Prisoner,” is an actual martial art that Patrick McGoohan invented specially for the show. Somewhere in the world are written rules are a scoring system for this strange, strange sport. Kosho is played on two trampolines that the two players bounce on like children leaping from one bed to another in a hotel room. In between the two trampolines is a small pool of water. Knocking your opponent into the water seems to be the way to win. You are allowed to push, but not to grab, and you can dangle from a high-flung chainlink fence that surrounds the court, if you like.

 

This bouncy, high-flying sport seems implausible and difficult to work and, as a consequence, really, really fun to play. It also looks like it would be a decent workout, as you’re constantly bouncing. Ironically, kosho did not catch on the same way Squamish did, even though McGoohan did indeed, from what I understand, intend it to catch on as a real event. Perhaps someday…

 

3) Ender’s Game

from Ender’s Game (1985)

 

Orson Scott Card’s seminal, Nebula-Award winning 1985 novel contains an ironic, ultra-violent sport that all readers of the book would either happily watch in large groups, or merely play themselves. No longer restrained to the dull rules of Earth-bound physics, Ender’s game is a series of training simulators that involve fighting techniques and learning to operate in zero gravity. The rules and specifics of these games are a little too complex to describe here, so I will merely encourage you to reads the book (or the entire series of books) yourself.

 

It has been recently revealed that Card is himself a homophobe, and a vocal advocate of the National Organization for Marriage, a right-wing political group that seeks to halt gay marriage in the United States. It’s disappointing to learn that his politics are so anti-human after he wrote a book that is so compassionate to the wartime actions and sins of a duped recruit.

 

All of this merely eschews the fact that he wrote a very good sci-fi book, aand that the games featured in it are undeniably cool.

 

2) Quidditch

from Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (1997)

 

Rugby is an exciting game in itself. It’s like American football, but without padding, muddier, and far more brutal. It’s like combining a game with a good, healthy punch-up. I’ve seen some televised rugby matches, and the player seem to hate each other with a mortal passion. At the end of the day, though, the players, no slightly more bruised, tend to make up and get a pint together. Despite the violence of the game, there aren’t as many fan riots as, say, English football.

 

But imagine, if you will, playing rugby, complete with tackling and body checking, while soaring through the air on a broomstick. Quidditch. What an exciting game. You have to throw a ball (the Quaffle), past a goalie, through one of three suspended goals. Each goal is worth ten points. The opposing team had to either intercept the ball, or merely knock you off of your flying broomstick. Awesome already. And then, to trip you up further, there are a pair of evil, cursed balls (called Bludgers) which soar about under their own magic, trying to tackle every player.

 

Further still, there’s an X-factor in the game in the form of the Golden Snitch, which is a flying magical ball about the size of a handball. If a player manages to catch this difficult-to-see flying ball, that team is awarded 150 points, effectively ending the game.

 

There was some worry in 2001 that special effects had not advanced enough to properly envision Quidditch on the screen in “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.” Luckily, they were good enough, and watching the Quiddich match in the 2001 movie only made fans want to play the game all the more. Any game where you’re allowed to fly is a good game in my book.

 

1) Calvinball

from “Calvin and Hobbes” (1985 -1995)

 

In Bill Watterson’s famed comic strip, his hero Calvin was a bitter, imaginative 6-year-old boy named after the philosopher John Calvin (1509-1564), who taught a Christian philosophy of complete self-denial and divine predetermination. Hobbes was Calvin’s stuffed tiger toy that could speak to Calvin and play when others we’re looking, and was named after essayist Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), who was an early pioneer of social conctract-ism, and felt that life was solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short. Neither of the characters lived to their namesakes’ philosophies.

 

Watterson was a bitter man who started his comic strip with an air of playfulness, but quickly pushed it into a darker territory, where Calvin, a 6-year-old, mind you, would begin ranting about how life was unfair, and how the only person who understood him was his imaginary friend, Hobbes, who would even be outraged and horrified at the little boy’s actions; Calvin would frequently rail against his public school, his uptight parents, political minutiae, and the sorry state of the environment, and only be met with vitriol and hated; he was an unhappy little boy and the strip was frequently dour. It’s also one of the better comic strips that has ever been published, pioneering new levels of thought in the funnies, and all kinds of organic Windsor McKay-inspired visuals that are all but absent from most strips in the funnypapers.

 

Occasionally, though Watterson would fondly remember that his hero was indeed a 6-year-old, and would write accordingly, most notably when he openly and wonderfully when he invented Calvinball, Calvin’s favorite sport. It is played in teams of one, and black masks must be worn. There are all manner of balls, flags and bases involved. The score can change at a moment’s notice. The rules are invented as you go along. The only concrete rule of Calvinball is that no rule can be used twice, making for a constant barrage of creativity from the players. If you step in the secret spot, you have to sacrifice your flag and sing the “I’m Very Sorry Song.” If you hit someone with the blommer, you have to go back to the penalty box until the score shifts laterally to the inverse goalzone, and you get a free pass back to the tree.

 

This is the sport that every six-year-old played and every six-year-old wanted to play. It is a freewheeling, inventive childhood anarchy that manages to boil gameplay down to its very essence. Reading about Calvinball only invokes every single game you played as a child, and makes you hungry for the halcyon days of childhood play. Calvinball is one for the ages.

 

 

Honorable mentions:

 

 

Creebage from “The Monkees”

 

Mornington Crescent from “I’m Sorry, I Haven’t Got a Clue”

 

Foodon battles from “Fighting Foodons”

 

Perrises Squares from “Star Trek: The Next Generation”

 

Baseketball from “Baseketball”

 

Moopsballs from “Orbit”

 

Rollerball from “Rollerball”

 

Whatever that giant robot battle was in “Robot Jox.”

 

Alien fistfights in “Arena”

 

Witney Seibold is a hardworking non-athlete living in Los Angeles, a city with no organized football team. In non-Olympic years, he spends his months writing articles for Geekscape, and very occasionally posting film reviews on his website, Three Cheers for Darkened Years!, which has about 700 articles that he has collected over years of film writing. You can visit his site here: http://witneyman.wordpress.com/

 

I heard an un-exaggerated statistic recently that about 98% of all films produced by major Hollywood studios in the last two years were either sequels, remakes, or stylistic throwbacks. I’m sure I’m not the only one to be annoyed by the recent spate of cynical, money-grabbing Hollywood remakes that have infected this country in recent years.

 

I have nothing against sequels or remakes in principle – I love most iterations of Batman, for instance – but we’ve reached a point where the producers’ intentions have become all too clear, and the plundering of the nostalgia chest has become utterly shameless. For instance, did we really need a remake of “The Shaggy Dog?” Or three CGI-animated features films about the Transformers directed by King Douche himself, Micheal Bay?

 

This is not just a rant about the sorry state of Hollywood genre entertainment, though. This is actually a roundabout complaint that the films I love are never made into the franchises I want to see. For every instance I wish there would be another Tales from the Crypt theatrical feature, Hollywood puts out another “Pirates of the Caribbean” film. I don’t want to see sequels to “Saw.” I want soe of the promised, failed franchises to come back.

 

In that spirit, here is a list of the top ten best films that should have mushroomed into full-fledged franchises.

 

10) “The Golden Compass” (2007)

Directed by: Chris Weitz

 

A gorgeous, scary children’s fantasy feature based on a wonderfully gripping novel by poetic atheist Philip Pullman, “The Golden Compass” was the underrated genre film of 2007. It took place in a world where people’s souls existed in the forms of talking animals, and featured a young girl named Lyra (Dakota Blue Richards) who discovered a grand conspiracy by a wicked woman (Nicole Kidman) to sever children’s spirit animals from their bodies. It was equal parts Dickens, Roald Dahl, Harry Potter, and H.P. Lovecraft for good measure. The Oscar-nominated special effects were eye-popping, and it was complex without being overcrowded. It also featured Sir Ian McKellan as a talking, alcoholic polar bear, whicyh is just badass.

 

The film ended with the promise of a sequel, and indeed, Philip Pullman has completed two other books to finish off this epic (The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass), multi-dimensional story. Sadly, “The Golden Compass” bombed at the box office, not least of which because of the very slight anti-church and anti-God massages peppered throughout; many Christian groups spoke out against “The Golden Compass” as a film.

 

I’m not exactly sure how the second and third films could have been made, as Pullman gets increasingly preachy as the series progresses, until the point where we have two 12-year-old children very literally killing God, and rejecting the church. But I would have loved to have seen an earnest attempt to film the entire story. I suspect it would have been preachy, bugnuts crazy, campy atheist proselytizing, but that’s a film I would love to see.

 

9) “Return to Oz” (1985)

Directed by: Walter Murch

 

In 1985, if I recall correctly, there was a mild firestorm of skepticism surrounding Walter Murch’s 44-years-after-the-fact sequel to the classic “The Wizard of Oz.” How could anyone, much less a first-time director, possibly match the wonder and classic, halcyon gorgeousness of one of the best films of all time? As it turns out, not very well; “Return to Oz” was not a box office success, and slipped out of theater relatively quickly.

 

The children who saw the film (and I am amongst this group) held the film dear to their hearts and an endlessly imaginative, gorgeous fantasy film that are rarely produced anymore. As a result, it is held to be something of a cult classic today, beloved by people of a certain age. What’s more, “Return to Oz” holds up upon re-visitation, and is just as startling, scary and weird as we remember.

 

Murch’s approach was brilliant; rather than trying to make his film look much like the 1939 classic, he returned to the literary images and W.W. Denslow’s and John R. Neil’s famous illustrations from L. Frank Baum’s original books. The result is astonishing. It really captures the innocence of the books, but also the weirdness, and the dark, uncomfortable feelings that Baum peppered throughout.

 

Baum wrote 14 Oz books, all of which are ripe material for crazy, gorgeous children’s films. I wish that Murch would have returned time and again to Oz.

 

8) “The Rocketeer” (1991)

Directed by: Joe Johnston

 

It fairly astonishes me that Joe Johnston’s “The Rocketeer” did not warrant a sequel. It was a superhero film that was part “Flash Gordon,” part “Indiana Jones,” all under the brighter, more fun aegis of Disney (as opposed to the stifling, overexposed, ultra-marketed version). This is another film that people of a certain age hold dear to their hearts, as it was nothing but fun and enjoyable as a child, and, like “Return to Oz” holds up remarkably well upon re-visitation.

 

It followed a handsome pilot named Cliff (Bill Campbell), and his accidental discovery of a German-made jet backpack that lets his soar through the skies. He is a reluctant hero, but, thanks to the hard work of his mechanic buddy (Alan Arkin), the love of his foxy girlfriend (Jennifer Connolly), and the villainous machinations of a slimy heavy (Timothy Dalton), he is forced to fight for justice.

 

Just look at the costume design for the titular hero – a swoopy, art-deco helmet, leather jackboots, a double-breasted leather jacket, and a rocket pack – and tell me that’s not a cool enough image to warrant sequels. I think too much time has passed, and the cast would be beyond a sequel to a fair success they made 20 years ago, but I’d still love to see another Rocketeer film. A 1940s-set, swashbuckling actioner. I guess I’ll have to wait until “Captain America” comes out for that.

 

 

7) “Super Mario Bros.” (1993)

Directed by: Annabel Jankel and Rocky Morton

 

I’ve mentioned “Super Mario Bros.” in the pages of Geekscape before (in this article: http://www.geekscape.net/top-10-most-amazing-pieces-of-fictional-footwear.html), so I won’t go on too much about how I, fancying myself a serious critic of cinema and its artistic impact on human culture, will defend this weird-ass, video-game-based, special-effect trainwreck of a film (with de-evolution guns, flying boots, Dennis Hopper, and sentient fungus) as one of the more entertaining films of the 1990s.

 

I will mention that, as many of us probably know, the film ended with a promise of a sequel. The last scene of “Super Mario Bros.” features Daisy (Samantha Morton) bursting into the New York apartment of the Mario bros. (Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo), sporting a gun and a panicked expression. “You guys are never gonna believe this!,” she shouts. Cut to black.

 

For those of us who earnestly love this film, this was a marvelous tease, and left us hungry for more. Sadly, the film was lambasted by pretty much everyone, flopped at the box office. Even at the time, I defended “Super Mario Bros.,” and tried to get my friends to admit that a sequel would be a good idea. No one agreed with me then. I can only assume that, as time has passed and as the cult has grown, there will be more people who have come over to my side, and secretly wished there could have been a whole series of “Super Mario Bros.” movies.

 

6) “The Incredibles” (2004)

Directed by: Brad Bird

 

If there can be three “Toy Story” films, and there is a planned sequel to “Cars” in the immediate works, why cannot Pixar, that stalwart CGI animation studio that is more consistently of quality than any other studio in the country, revisit their spy-flavored superhero family film “The Incredibles?” Superhero franchises are kind of a no-brainer, as the superhero is a proud tradition of the serialized comic book. It’s a pity then, that an animated superhero film like “The Incredibles” has fallen by the wayside, while big-budget pieces of crap like “Spider-Man 3,” “Catwoman,” and “The Incredible Hulk” got made.

 

I was not on the immediate bandwagon of “The Incredibles;” I thought it was a very good film, and I enjoyed it immensely, but I wasn’t one of the critics who worshiped at its alter. As someone who read superhero comics all through his high school years, I found the conceits to be fun and enjoyable, but not terribly original. That said, I would still have loved to see these same characters – superpowered middle aged parents and their hyperactive superpowered children – have more adventures as a family. I think I’m not alone in this.

 

Plus it would give a chance for hipster history buff Sarah Vowell to do more acting, and for Brad Bird to reprise his role as the hilarious, Edith-Head-inspired Edna Mole.

 

5) “Mystery Men” (1999)

Directed by: Kinka Usher

 

And speaking of superheroes, what conversation would be complete without a mention of the vastly underrated 1999 superhero comedy “Mystery Men?” A clever movie with a talented cast of deadpan comic actors, “Mystery Men” is another one of those funny films that was too weird to live, and too rare to die. It featured a group of second-rate superheroes with names like The Shoveler, The Spleen, and The Bowler who had to band together to rescue their city’s star superhero, Capt. Amazing from the wicked clutches of Casanova Frankenstein.

 

First of all, just check out this cast: Janeanne Garofalo, William H. Macy, Paul Reubens, Ben Stiller, Hank Azaria, Greg Kinnear, Lena Olin, Eddie Izzard, Geoffrey Rush and Tom Waits. While it would be a Herculean effort to reassemble such a high-calibre cast of edgy comic actors, comedians, and Tom Waits, for a sequel to a film that critics thought was too twee, overdesigned and overstuffed with characters and incident, I feel it would be worth it to see some of these quirky weirdos in action again. I thought the original “Mystery Men” is an underrated comedy classic, and should be held in high esteem in wider cult circles.

 

Again, a superhero franchise is a no-brainer. And, again, of all the superheroes that have had feature films, and feature sequels, why not give “Mystery Men” a chance. I mean, heck, it’s better than “Batman & Robin,” right?

 

Well, if the characters’ creator, comic books writer Bob Burden, ever gets his way, then we’ll be seeing a live-action Flaming Carrot feature film sometime in the future, and I await that day just as enthusiastically.

 

4) “Devil in a Blue Dress” (1995)

Directed by: Carl Franklin

 

Walter Mosley wrote a whole series of books to feature his laidback, hardworking 1940s L.A. private detective Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins. In 1995, the first of the books, Devil in a Blue Dress, in wich Rawlins first discovered that he was fairly good at detective work, was adapted to the big screen in an equally laidback, minor arthouse hit. It starred Denzel Washington as Rawlins, and Jennifer Beals in the title role, and it was jazzy, smoky, and refreshingly adult. It was a mystery, like “Chinatown,” or “L.A. Confidential,” that was about cosmopolitan and intelligent grown-ups behaving like grown-ups.

 

I don’t want to give away any of the elements of the story, suffice to say that Easy Rawlins uncovered the appropriate mysteries, and brought appropriate justice to the bad guys. The film ended with Rawlins musing quietly to himself that he might become a legitimate private investigator. This is a series of films I want to see. Washington would be game, I’m sure, and the first film was popular enough – amongst critics and audiences – that it could be made. This is one of those films that could have limitless sequels, and still be fresh and fun.

 

What’s more, Don Cheadle would be able to return in the role of Mouse, and supply an utterly hysterical and audaciously ultraviolent sidekick to counterbalance Easy’s easygoing attitude. Let’s get these two back together, eh?

 

3) “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World” (2003)

Directed by: Peter Weir

 

Again, I know I’ve talked about this film – extensively and ecstatically – many times in the past. Indeed, you can read my full-length essay on it here: http://witneyman.wordpress.com/2008/02/21/master-and-commander-the-far-side-of-the-world/. That said, I’ll try not to spend too much time waxing rhapsodic about the glorious adventurous poetry of the film, and indicate instead why it warrants full-fledged franchisehood.

 

The 2003 Peter Weir film, about the resourceful maritime Capt. Jack Aubrey (Russel Crowe) and his best friend, the ship’s stern and practical Dr. Maturin (Paul Bettany) was based on a series of novels by Patrick O’Brien, who wrote them in the 1970s. There were 20 books in the series, and the first film was based on the first and the 10^th; Peter Weir’s idea was to drop us, in medias res, into these sailors’ lives in order to forgo that tiresome origin story, and get to the good parts of the epic.

 

The film was quaint and humane and glorious. It captures the adventures of the sea, the intelligence of the crew, and the historically accurate, real-life travails of life on a Napoleonic warship. The film was, most notably, not about a single story, but felt more like a slice of life. The film did have a story arc, but it wasn’t necessarily completed by the end of the film, implying that life would continue.

 

Even if it was similar to the first, and it was mostly shots of sailors in a cramped area, learning the various details of command, and how to navigate a great frigate around the vast oceans, a sequel to this film would have been spectacular, and a grand chance to revisit these characters and to live this life. Plus, some of the books featured the irascible sexual conquests of the lead characters, which would have added a rompy element to the prceedings that would be welcome. Like the Easy Rawlins film, the “Master and Commander” films could have been numerous and unending.

 

2) “The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension” (1984)

Directed by: W.D. Richter

 

I love this movie. It’s weird and off kilter and way, way cool. Peter Weller, in the title role, is one of the coolest mothers to ever grace a movie screen, and his battle with interdimensional space aliens is a wonderfully whacked out affair that has secured the film an enormous and intensely devoted cult since its release in 1984.

 

The film was a minor hit back in the day, and the filmmakers even had plans for a sequel; the credits infamously promised a forthcoming sequel called “Buckaroo Banzai Against the World Crime League.” That title was evocative enough to have fans buzzing for decades. Every time a list of dream projects was assembled, The World Crime League was mentioned. To this very day, there are rumors about reassembling Peter Weller (now 63), Jeff Goldblum (58) and Ellen Barkin (56) and finally making the film, or at least converting it into a TV series.

 

I’m not sure how viable the property is any longer, and I’m pretty certain that the cartoon punkrock sensibilities of the 1984 original could not be recaptured in this day and age, but, well, call me a hopeless fanboy, I’d love to see someone try. I mean wouldn’t you?

 

1) “Demon Knight” (1995) and “Bordello of Blood” (1996)

Directed by: Ernest R. Dickerson and Gilbert Adler (respectively)

 

The two “Tales from the Crypt” feature films, despite being hosted by our lovable rotting Crypt Keeper (voice of John Kassir) didn’t really capture the wicked tone of the old 1960s EC comics, nor the gut-wrenching morality tales of the HBO TV series. What they did do, though, was open the door to a delirious form of fun, gory horror comedy that is all to rare in this day and age. Both “Demon Knight,” featuring William Sadler righteously fighting off a demonic Billy Zane, and “Bordello of Blood” about Dennis Miller infiltrating a brother populated by foxy vampire women, were action-packed, cheeky, horrific, fun, campy, and represent a glorious level of practical gore effects that has, rather sadly, passed.

 

While there were already two of these films (and a few straight-to-video sequels), I still feel that this is a franchise that was sadly cut short. These two films were so much fun and showed so much promise that I was hoping for at least seven more to keep my appetite for gore and action-horror-comedy slaked throughout the decade. It was not to be.

 

“Tales from the Crypt” was a powerful TV show at one point during the 1990s, and it seemed like every well-known actor appeared on the show. It had the clout of Robert Zemeckis behind it, and it attracted all manner of talented performers, writers and directors who would happily slum in the troughs of gore for one week. Just imagine if it still had the same clout today. “Tales from the Crypt” would have the power to take any one of your geek dreamcast fantasies, and bring it to life.

 

Well, one day, I’ll finish my “Tales from the Crypt” screenplay about the Boy Scout werewolves, and the franchise will be resurrected. Until then, we’ll have to make do with re-watching the two films that managed to get made, and laughing in giddy gorehound ecstasy at the flaming entrails being dragged behind a half-nude, gutted vampire hooker.

 

 

Witney Seibold is a happily married man living in Los Angeles, where he watches movies, reads old books, and merrily fosters unpopular opinions. He maintains his very own ‘blog, which is even updated from time to time, where you can read nearly 700 reviews that he has written over the years. Visit it here: http://witneyman.wordpress.com/

Hey zed-heads! Halloween is right around the corner, and in honor of ZomBCon, taking place in Seattle this weekend, here’s a short list of tracks to get you to shuffle on over to the dance floor. I tried (with moderate success) to limit song selections to those that reference actual zombies, not metaphorical ones. So while ‘Zombie’ by the Cranberries might sound like an obvious choice, the songs are less about being metaphors for decades of political strife and more about undead things that eat brains. Speaking of which…

1) Re: Your Brains – Jonathan Coulton

So good, that even though it’s not by the Midnight Riders, the Valve folks STILL included it in the Left 4 Dead 2 soundtrack. It’s the timeless story of Tom and his zombie co-worker Bob trying to negotiate a compromise on eating the eponymous brains, using office-style execuspeak. Bob does plead his case very reasonably; while he won’t concede on the brain-eating, he does offer the assurance ‘No one’s gonna eat your eyes.’  And he makes a valid point about the long-term viability of the mall as a base of operations.

2) Thriller – Michael Jackson

While the lyrics itself could be broadly interpreted to talk about pretty much ANY monster, zombies get singled out for specific mention. ‘The dead walk’ and ‘grisly ghouls from every tomb’ can’t really refer to much else, and the video makes no bones about it (pun most definitely intended). And oh yeah, it’s easily one of the greatest classic pop tracks of all time, showcasing Jackson at the height of his creative prowess, intentionally being genuinely creepy (as opposed to the unintentional creepy of later years).

3) Dead Man’s Party – Oingo Boingo

Before he became the musical voice of Tim Burton, Danny Elfman was the maestro behind a fun little 80s band called Oingo Boingo. Featured in, of all things, Rodney Dangerfield’s Back to School, Dead Man’s Party is about a shindig being thrown for the recently deceased. No one sounds too happy to be there, but it’s still a party. With a song like this, it’s easy to connect the dots in the Elfman career trajectory from O.B. to T.B.

4) Zombie Dance – The Cramps

Twangy, thumping, short and sweet, Zombie Dance is a surf-rock style look at the undead prom. The consensus offered is that while zombies feel the beat, they’re not mobile enough to do much about it. As always, being stiff is the enemy of good dancing.

5) Zombie Prostitute – Voltaire

Not sure which is worse, compounding prostitution with necrophilia, or necrophilia with prostitution. But Voltaire’s song skirts that question by just going ahead and getting it on. The protagonist is lonely, and when a sign on a nearby cemetery directs him to ‘a tomb of ill repute’ he goes right for it. While the pro in question isn’t exactly in the best of shape (copping a feel on a girl literally falling apart has bad consequences), our hero still goes ahead and enjoys himself, but ultimately learns that living death is in fact an STD that he will doubtlessly pass on to others as a zombie gigolo.

6) Zombie Jamboree – Kingston Trio

This is an old-style calypso song recorded by the Kingston Trio (and by others, including Harry Belafonte), which they credit as coming originally from Trinidad. These are the classic voodoo style magical zombies, one of whom is out to make the narrator her husband. He runs for it, but if nothing else, zombie women are persistent.

7) We’re Coming to Kill Ya – Zacariah

A weird, seemingly untenable combination of hip-hop and country line dancing, this song still somehow works. Maybe it’s the naturally homogenizing effect of zombies that makes it work. After all, zombies take anyone from anywhere and make them into more zombies. Leave it to them to reconcile disparate musical tastes into a coherent whole.

8) Conversation 16 – The National

Yes, I know I said I’d stay away from zombies as metaphors in the songs for this list. But in this song, as part of their usual look at the uncertainty and dissolution of relationships, the narrator turns into a zombie AS the metaphor. So there. Plus it’s got a fantastic chorus.

9) The Living Dead – Phantom Planet

If there’s any song from this list that I would love to see on The Walking Dead soundtrack, it’s this one. Nothing else seems to capture the crawling despair of a zombie apocalypse; alternately haunted and crashing from section to section, it perfectly captures the desperate struggle and ultimate futility of trying to stay alive.

10) Nobody Likes You When You’re Dead – Zombina and the Skeletones

Being a zombie would probably SUCK. Zombina and the Skeletones get this; the narrator of their song, a former beauty queen turned zombie, whinges quite effectively about how everyone is repulsed by her and no one wants to hang out with her. Specifically: ‘Just ‘cause I’m biting on your head, there’s no need to be impolite. And if I had eyes, they would surely cry.’ So being a zombie and being a teenager aren’t that different, after all.

11) If You Shoot the Head, You Kill the Ghoul – Jeffrey Lewis

New York anti-folk singer Jeffrey Lewis pays reverent homage to the original Night of the Living Dead in this rollicking little number. It imparts the one bit of information that every movie buff and gamer already knows as gospel, but it’s such abrasive fun that it comes off as rocking instead of redundant.

12)  All My Friends Are Zombies – The Priscillas

With the lyrics and tone of The Waitresses, the thrumming confidence of The Donnas, this is a fun one. While being accosted by a gross gun-wielding grannie, the narrator’s friends are all killed. But they don’t stay dead. Pretty fun for a song where your friends get massacred and turned into brain-sucking ghouls.

13)  A Hard Day’s Night of the Living Dead – The Zombeatles

While lacking the pep and polish of the original Beatles, the Zombeatles aren’t bad in a clunky, lounge act kind of way. It’s just kind of sad that they can only typically make it through half any given verse before they forget the lyrics and just go ‘Braaaains…!’

Quick. Name eight films by John Carpenter.

Wow. Not bad. Now name the subtitles of each of the “A Nightmare on Elm Street” films.

Good job. Good job. Now name the first three Coffin Joe movies.

… Really? No one?

The horror genre would not be what it is today without the pioneering auteurs listed below. We may all love “Halloween,” but where would John Carpenter be without the enterprising spirit of the put-upon author Val Lewton? “Tales from the Crypt” is one of the finest television shows ever produced and is based on one of the sickest and most enjoyable comics ever written, but I think that great old lurid magazine owes a lot to the hard work and sick imagination of José Mojica Marins. And where would we be without the outre interests of Tod Browning?

The following list is a collection of some of the most vital and enterprising names in the world of horror schlock. Some of these names may be familiar to you. Some may not. Either way, these are ten important men who have changed the world of horror movies, and should be learned by every young horror fan.

N.B. While I encourage comments and lambastations one whom I have left off of this list, I think it should be understood that I’m not going to mention some of the better-known horror icons in the world. John Carpenter, I’ve mentioned. Wes Craven. Dario Argento. William Friedkin. Tobe Hooper. James Whale. Peter Jackson. We know these. Let us delve into the names that either aren’t as well know, or still require closer examination.

 

1) Mario Bava (1914 – 1980)

 

Mario Bava is, along with Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci, one of the forerunners of that wonderfully schlocky brand of Italian Eurotrash gore films. He made 37 films from 1963 to 1979, which ranged from murder mysteries to sci-fi superspy films (his “Danger: Diabolik” was featured on “Mystery Science Theatre 3000”), but it’s his horror films that he is best known for, and what I like best. There’s something about his style that really grabs me; he makes horror films in exactly the way I like.

When I was in college, I rented Bava’s “Black Sunday” (ostensibly based on a story by Nikolai Gogol), and I was hooked. A woman had a spiked helmet clamped around her face in the first scene. I didn’t need much more. From there it was to his dreamy sci-fi freakout “Planet of the Vampires,” and his infamous “Twitch of the Death Nerve.” His films are wonderfully sick and weird; they feature torture and witches. What’s more, they are Italian, meaning they have that protracted, dubbed, ESL dialogue, that keeps many horror film deliriously on edge.

 

2) Tod Browning (1880 – 1962)

 

Yes. We all know “Dracula” (1931). Everyone knows “Dracula.” “Dracula,” Browning, and Bela Lugosi taught the world what vampires looks like, where they live, how they talk. It can even be argued (perhaps) that the 1931 film was even more influential to the vampire genre then Bram Stoker’s original 1897 novel. So perhaps Tod Browning doesn’t need special attention.

But, I think we need to take a closer look at Browning for his seminal 1932 follow-up “Freaks” and how it, essentially, destroyed his career. “Freaks,” you see, was not a mere director-for-hire studio horror cheapie like a lot of the films from the famed Universal stable. It was actually Browning’s passion project that he was allowed to direct after the worldwide success of “Dracula.” Browning was not just a working director, but a man who, like any good Goth that followed him, an obsessive horror fan, who was a big reader of ghost stories, and studier of the occult.

“Freaks” is well-remembered by horror fans the world over, but few appreciate the sacrifice it represents; “Freaks” was a bomb upon its initial release, and Browning was only allowed to direct a few films thereafter (some of which are actually good; be sure to see “The Devil Doll” and “Mark of the Vampire,” which, even though a clear “Dracula” rip-off, is still enjoyable). Gone were the ubiquitous projects of his silent days. “Freaks” is a simultaneously exploitative, horrifying, campy, and twisted film that every horror fan should see. Browning is a director every horror fan should know.

 

3) William Castle (1914 – 1977)

 

William Castle was the ultimate Hollywood showman. You know him. If you don’t, you need to. He made some wonderfully humorous and chilling horror films, that were genuinely scary, in a square kind of way. Films like “House on Haunted Hill,” “13 Ghosts,” and his classic “The Tingler” were monster films that played like adolescent versions of Alfred Hitchcock. Suspenseful, melodramatic and unendingly entertaining.

But, and here’s what Castle will always be remembered for, there were Castle’s famous film gimmicks. Castle had already worked as a director-for-hire in Hollywood for about 15 years before he released his famous “Macabre,” which featured the gimmick of a life insurance policy in the lobby. Just in case you died of fright. “The House on Haunted Hill” featured “Emergo,” which has a real-life skeleton floating across the theater. “The Tingler” had, of course, “Percepto:” the famous wired vibrating theater seats to buzz at choice moments throughout the theater. Scream! Scream for your lives! I have decided that, had I a time machine, I would go to the Sermon on the Mount, the first performance of The 1812 Overture, and the premiere of a William Castle film.

Castle had such business acumen and showmanlike wherewithal that he came up with some of the most innovative advertising gimmicks in film history. He represents a lost era of self-salesmanship where a man with brains, gumption, and no small amount of creativity, could force himself into the pop consciousness. Only John Waters has approached the glorious horrific joy of William Castle.

 

4) Lucio Fulci (1927 – 1996)

 

You have not seen extreme horror Euroschlock until you’ve seen Lucio Fulci’s 1981 classic “The Beyond.” You have not seen what a zombie movie can be until you’ve seen his 1979 “Zombie” (a.k.a. “Zombi 2”), with it’s famous tag line “WE ARE GOING TO EAT YOU.” “Zombie” was part of a zombie trilogy. Lushly photographed, weirdly acted, and possessed of some of the most effective and disturbing gore effects this side of “Cannibal Holocaust,” Lucio Fulci’s films bore into your mind like a maggot, and lay eggs there.

Working almost exclusively in the horror genre, Fulci was a hard-working, conversational, and friendly man who made scary jokes and told dirty stories. Not all his 56 films are classics, but each one I’ve seen is way, way bloody, very disturbing, and each was a breakthrough in practical effects. Just watch the scene in “The Beyond” where spiders eat a human head. Or the infamous wood shard scene in “Zombie,” where Olga Karlatos gets impaled in the ugliest possible way.

For the cynical teenagers in the world who think that “Saw” is extreme, and the brutally unpeasant remakes of the modern age are actually brutal and extreme, go back and watch a few Fulci films. Learn what real horror is.

 

5) Frank Henenlotter (b. 1950)

 

Frank Henenlotter was an NYC kid who spent his youth amongst the grindhouses and horror festivals of 42^nd street; his obsession with horror film started early, and he likely worshiped at the alter of William Castle. When he started to make films of his own in the early 1980s, he made a colorful brand of rubbery, super-bloody, and admittedly sick monster films that cannot really be compared to anything. Covered with a patina of grime, possessed of no small amount of camp, and always expressing some really unsavory sexual themes, Henenlotter was not afraid to go to some really sick places – indeed he seemed to have a genuine interest in it.

While his first film, “Basket Case” is known as a schlocky, low-budget classic, I always felt he is defined more by his one-two punch of “Brain Damage” (1988) and “Frankenhooker” (1990). “Brain Damage” was about a milquetoast everyman who falls in with a little black slimy, smooth-talking alien parasite who injects drugs directly into our hero’s brain in exchange for twisted murders. The scene in which the alien forces itself down a woman’s throat in a twisted mirror of fellatio can pretty much encapsulate what Henenlotter is all about.

“Frankenhooker” is a lot more fun, and features a hero who, using a combination of goop, electricity, and tragic longing, resurrects his dead girlfriend using the parts of old prostitutes. It’s a wonderfully funny film with some great looking rubbery flesh effects, and a sense of humor that its markedly of itself.

Henenlotter fell out of filmmaking in 1992, and them triumphantly returned in 2008 with a film called “Bad Biology,” a psychosexual freakout about a pair of people who rape people to death, and the explosive consequences when these two try having sex with one another. One woman has, I think, 16 clitorises. Test your limits. See a Henenlotter film.

 

6) Lloyd Kaufman (b. 1945)

 

Make your own damn movie. Lloyd Kaufman was one of the founders of New Jersey’s prolific straight-to-video B-movie house Troma, and is responsible for producing some of the wackiest horror and genre movies to grace video store shelves. “Sgt. Kabukiman, NYPD,” “The Toxic Avenger,” “The Class of Nuke ‘Em High,” “Teenage Catgirls in Heat,” “Rabid Grannies,” “Tromeo & Juliet,” “Cannibal! The Musical,” “Killer Condom,” “Monsturd.” The list is endless.

 

More than merely introducing the world to some wacky, oddball horror films, Lloyd Kaufman actually has a healthy and helpful attitude toward independent filmmaking, as preached in his books. He feels that, rather than trying to get backing from studios (who would, presumably, alter your vision, toss your script, or merely beat down your ego by rejecting you), that you should make your own movie with your own money, expect no payback, and let the film speak for itself. Kaufman feels that, if its striking enough, it will be seen.

 

But Kaufman is far from being a dull film-school lecturer. He’s a wild, carnival barker, who cackles and jokes through each one of his strange outings. He has a wild grin, a checkered bowtie, and an earnest eagerness to make an ass of himself. Go, Mr. Kaufman. Go.

 

7) Herschell Gordon Lewis (b. 1929)

 

Lewis was one of those schlockmeisters who, like Browning and Henenlotter, had a vested interest in the sickness of his films. While each of his films was traditionally “bad,” – they featured bad acting, stretchy conceits, echo-y sound, and bad-looking sets – the best of them had huge amounts of gooey gore that was unseen in films of the time. When a woman got chainsawed in a Lewis film, we got to see real entrails flying into her face. When someone bled, they bled buckets. And when someone went crazy, they went really flipping crazy.

His classics include “Blood Feast,” (1963) about an Egyptian killer who cuts up women, “The Wizard of Gore,” (1970), about a man hypnotist who cut up women by remote (?), and “Two Thousand Maniacs!” about an entire Southern town who cuts u a group of visiting Yanks. He was also responsible for a whole slew of 1960s nudie cuties, and “Monster a-Go Go,” which is, according to the people at “Mystery Science Theater 3000,” the worst movie ever made.

Lewis has been compared to Ed Wood, which is, I think, a little unfair (his films are of better quality and more straightforward in their shock tactics), but is accurate in how passionate he was about his materials. Like Henenlotter, he took some time off filmmaking, only to return in recent years, getting his hands bloody all over again: “Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat” came out in 2002.

 

8) Val Lewton (1904 – 1951)

 

Val Lewton (nee Vladimir Leventon) was not a horror guy. He started as a hard working author, landed jobs writing numerous pulp novels, magazine articles, and even porn stories until he finally broke through as a Hollywood screenwriter-for-hire and producer. He was asked to write a film called “The Body Snatcher,” (1945), which led to “Isle of the Dead” the same year. In the early ’40s, Lewton stepped up to producing, and began handling monster films exclusively.

He didn’t want to make horror movies though, feeling they were beneath him. When he produced “I Walked with a Zombie” (1943), he decided to rewrite the Jane Eyre story for zombies. His literary know-how and sophisticated, adult sensibilities must have clashed with the horror film he was expected to make, but he managed to elevate his films, rather than letting them drag him down. He teamed up with french director Jacques Tourneur and made the classics “Cat People” (1942), “The Ghost Ship” (1943), and “Bedlam” (1946).

Here is a man who knew how to make movies. He was a classy man who took his work seriously, even though he didn’t necessarily want to take part. He had a healthy relationshipwith his wife, and made many minor hits. This is a breed of horror film that has fallen by the wayside: the horror film for grown ups.

 

9) José Mojica Marins, a.k.a. “Coffin Joe” (b. 1936)

 

Imagine if the Crypt Keeper were a real person, but who dressed well, was a cannibal, but still hosted his own TV show. Even then, you may not picture just how weird and twisted and glorious Coffin Joe is. José Mojica Marins was born in Brazil in 1936, and lived in a movie theater for most of his youth. He always had an affinity for horror films, which was only fertilized by his growing atheism. By the time he started to make movies, he had adopted a TV horror host personality, Zé do Caixão (Coffin Joe), complete with long, claw-like fingernails, an undertaker’s top hat, a spooky beard, and a cape. He was the director and star of all his films, and he played the supervillain who would tease, torment and kill his charges, but not before railing against God for not existing.

The Coffin Joe movies are brilliant and lurid and leave you with a hurtful pit in your stomach. They are cheap, but are only the more disturbing for it. Ike Rob Zombie’s films, they derive most of their power from the low-fi shock of the kills. What’s more, you could never tell where Marins ended and Coffin Joe began. How much was a character, and how much was him?

His films got more and more disturbing as time passed as well, stretching even to 2008 with his “Embodiment of Evil.” In interviews he was mellow and playful, sometimes dipping into weirdo territory.

If you can track it down, I encourage you to see his first two films, “At Midnight I will Take Your Soul” (1964), and “This Night I Will Posses Your Corpse” (1967), which features one of the most vivid and Sirk-ian colorful vision of Hell I have seen in any movie. If ever there was a horror icon waiting to be discovered in America, it’s Coffin Joe.

 

10) Richard Matheson (b. 1926)

 

Preceding Rod Serling by a few years, Richard Matheson was one of the early master of the twist-ending horror story, having penned classics like I Am Legend, What Dreams May Come, and Button, Button. He’s a calm, hardworking, all American man from New Jersey who has been in the business for decades. He’s the kind of imaginative, old-school film-and-TV men that has more stories to tell than you do, and who can causally write an intriguing story with a flick of his wrist. I saw him in a live interview once (after a screening of “The Incredible Shrinking Man”), and he seemed like such a pragmatic soul. Looking over his résumé, you can see why.

Matheson has written several Poe adaptations, 16 “Twilight Zone” episodes (and the movie), and episode of “Star Trek,” “The Omega Man,” “Duel,” the TV movie of “The Martian Chronicles,” and countless others. I can list few screenwriters who were as prolific, much less as consistently great. To delve into the career of Richard Metheson is to get a capsulized history of American genre entertainment.

Some of his adaptations haven’t worked so well (2009’s “The Box” was a self-indulgent headtrip from Richard Kelly), but everything he touched was a classic, even if it wasn’t. Start in the 1950s, and movie forward. Take the journey. Learn.

 

Witney Seibold watches a lot of movies, reads a lot of books, and is trying to write with a bunch of friends watching “The Big Lebowski” behind him. He loves horror movies, old books, arcane knowledge, and stupid jokes. He once worked as a professional film critic, and these days, like everyone else with computer access and two opinions to rub together, maintains his own ‘blog, where he reviews films, analyzes classic films, and writes other amusing articles on more trifling things. You can read it here: http://witneyman.wordpress.com

 

I think it’s a fair assertion to say that most readers of this website are huge, huge fans of horror movies. We are the kinds of people who will go well out of our way to uncover some unusual, unheard of slasher classic, and share its glory or its mediocrity with the world. It’s this drive that drags us to hard-to-get-to advance screenings of, say, “Hatchet II,” or “Devil” just so we can posit where such a film stands in the horror film canon.

Very occasionally, though, our path to bloodlust will be barricaded by some arty snot who feels that they can make a film about death, blood, fear and mayhem, and somehow wedge a good amount of original artistry into it. For those of us raised on slasher films, I have to point out that banality and unoriginality is a large part of the genre’s charm, and we don’t necessarily need the ambition involved. For some of these films, the originality can be bracing and grand. For others, it can be a chewy, over-photographed miasma of half-thought-out, blood-soaked navel-gazing. Either way, the Pretentious Horror Film may be considered a sub-genre unto itself, and deserves a moment of hazy reflection.

In that spirit, I have compiled this list of the ten most pretentious horror films. An important note: My use of the word “pretentious” is not necessarily a negative use. I will indicate whether or not each film is merely pretentious, or if it is a good film as well.

 

10) Death Bed: The Bed that Eats (1977)

Directed by: George Barry

Is it Good or Just Pretentious?: It’s just pretentious.

 

A flimsy premise if ever there was one, George Barry’s lost bizarro classic is about a bed that, well, eats. Evidently, hundreds of years ago, a demon deflowered a young woman on this bed. When she rebuffed him, the demon cried tears of blood onto the bed, and bingo, you have a bed that wants to eat people. The eating is represented by a truly strange special effect: an acidic yellow foam oozes up out of the mattress, and we see people (and wine and apples and chicken) sink into this yellowed nether-region where they are dissolved. We hear the bed chewing on them. The bed then deposits its waste back on the bed (empty bottles, stripped chicken bones), the people none the wiser.

It’s not a very threatening monster, a bed that eats, so the director has to go through all kinds of weird machinations to get people to lay down on this bed. For instance, the bed can control the house it’s in by locking doors, and directing potential victims’ progress. It can grab people with its extended bedsheets.

Here’s where the pretense comes in: Watching the bed from the afterlife is an early victim, credited only as “The Artist” (body of Dave Marsh, voice of Patrick Spence-Thomas), who waxes rhapsodic about the Baudelaire-eqsue nature of the bed, and his place in its schemes. He broods like Byron, trapped in a wall-hanging etching on the opposite wall. He muses on each of the victims as they are eaten. And, inexplicably, he manages to gain possession of each of the victims’ indigestible elements: he owns rings, jewelry, pins, cigarettes, etc. I wonder if he also gets pacemakers or tracheotomy rings.

A film with poetic musing on its own machinations is bad enough, but a film with poetic musings on a Death Bed is eye-rollingly weird.

 

9) The Hunger (1983)

Directed by: Tony Scott

Is it Good or Just Pretentious?: It’s certainly pretentious, but it’s not all bad.

 

Most people of a certain age know this film only for its appearance by a somnambulist rock star David Bowie, and, more importantly, for its notorious sex scene between Catherine Deneuve and Susan Sarandon. What most people don’t seem to remember is just how needlessly arty “the Hunger” really is. Every single scene of the film is slowed to a maddening pace, and every single shot is filtered through three layers of soft focus, and strange spotlighting that looks like the “Total Eclipse of the Heart” music video on steroids.

The story involves a vampire named Miriam (Deneuve) who lives off of a single victim for many years. When she tires of her boytoys, she discards them, and they begin to age rapidly. Her current boytoy is John (Bowie), who has just passed his expiration date, and to curtail his aging process, contacts a doctor named Sarah (Sarandon) to help him. Sarah sees John, but is more taken in by Miriam, and Miriam begins working on Sarah to make her the next in her line of vampire playthings.

In 1983 the homoerotic subtexts were, I’m sure, slightly more daring than they are today (despite the lesbian vampire being an old film trope going back to the late 1960s), but, watched today, the sex scene is just another run-of-the-mill lesbian sex scene. Well, o.k. As run-of-the-mill as a sex scene between Sarandon and Deneuve can be. Which is, I admit, way, way sexy. It’s just too bad that director Scott had to go out of his way to make everything ultra-saturated, misty and dull.

 

8) Stay (2005)

Directed by: Marc Forster

Is it Good or Just Pretentious?: It’s just pretentious.

 

I’ve seen this film, and I still couldn’t tell you what the hell goes on in it. It’s one of those obnoxiously oblique affairs that posits that the entire film’s proceedings perhaps take place in a dream, or are maybe a flashback, or maybe it’s just the thoughts of a dying man, or perhaps it’s just the fantasies of a suicidal mind… by the time the end rolls around, and the final revelation (such as it is) is given, you’re either unsurprised, or you don’t care. Either way, it’s not going to reveal everything, and leave you confused as hell.

So Ewan McGregor plays a shrink named Sam, who is treating the depression of a college student named Henry (Ryan Gosling). Henry has implied that he’s going to commit suicide on the one-year anniversary of his parents’ death, which is only a few weeks nigh. Sam begins following Henry around as a preventative measure (antidepressants are never discussed), and finding weird darkened corridors, and mysterious, sinister people following him. What? Sam also begins having a romance (or sorts) with the half-asleep Lila (Naomi Watts), who may have some insight into Henry’s plans.

There’s an implication that Henry can resurrect the dead, as evidenced in a scene with the blind Dr. Patterson (Bob Hoskins), who may or may not be Henry’s dead father. As the film progresses, reality itself begins to unravel, and the hallucinations only begin to increase. The film’s ending offers no solid explanations, but there is a maddening double-back that’ll have you gritting your teeth.

Films where reality falls apart can be great (“Jacob’s Ladder,” “In the Mouth of Madness,” “Videodrome”), but they are also the easiest films to get wrong. “Stay” is, I feel, one of the films to get it the most wrong.

 

7) Santa Sangre (1989)

Directed by: Alejandro Jodorowsky

Is it Good or Just Pretentious?: It’s good.

 

I love the films of Alejandro Jodorowsky. I love his dirty, surreal, mad carnival universe, and I love his bizarre obsession with spirituality. His “The Holy Mountain” is one of my favorite movies, showing a long string of colorful, imaginative vignettes that explore the nature of religion, but are mostly just visually striking.

In 1989, Jodorowsky made the excellent horror film for grown-ups, “Santa Sangre,” a film that Roger Ebert included on his Great Movies list. This NC-17 rated mindfuck features a young boy growing up in the circus, who witnesses his fat, horrid, knife-throwing father having an affair with the tattooed lady. His mother (Blanca Guerra) is absent, as she has started a bizarre cult around an armless saint, whose blood she keeps in a sloshing impluvium under a big top. When the mother finds out about father’s affair, father cuts off her arms, and then is killed himself.

Fast forward to the present, and the boy (now played by Jodorowsky’s son Axel) has escaped from a mental asylum to start an oddball stage act with his armless mother, where he mimes her hands. There are mimes, retarded people, bleeding elephants, transvestite wrestlers, and a mute contortionist. The is a horrific merry-go-round broken down that appeals to both the senses and to the intellect. It’s bracing, weird, and delightfully off-putting.

Some audiences may have trouble penetrating the images to get to the emotional meat of “Santa Sangre,” which earns it a spot on this list. Either way I encourage you to find it.

 

6) Carnival of Souls (1962)

Directed by: Herk Harvey

Is it Good or Just Pretentious?: It’s just pretentious

 

Most people know this film by name, but have not necessarily seen it. It’s one of those films you see for sale on video everywhere, thanks to an unfortunate copyright mix-up, and its subsequent lapsing into the public domain. While it’s a moody film with good organ music and some good atmosphere, “Carnival of Souls” is one of those maddeningly vague films, like “Stay,” whose horror stems entirely from a vague twist ending that you can either predict, or just be disinterested by.

Candace Hilligoss plays the weak and waifish Mary Henry, who plays organ at the local church, and who has no friends. She’s one of those shy, bookish types who, when they appear in horror films, are destined to have either a horrid end, or the secret to defeating the monster. In “Carnival of Souls” it’s the former. Mary accidentally drives off of a bridge, and emerges from the water, seemingly unscathed. Soon thereafter, she finds herself irresistibly drawn to an abandoned carnival populated by… are they ghouls? Maniacs? Anyway, she is chased by screaming mobs of weirdos whenever she goes there.

Why doesn’t she just stop going there? Well, she finds that The Answer To All This can be found there. The answer to what? Well, to something, I’m sure. You get no points for guessing early on that Mary is dead, and what she’s experiencing is a preview of the afterlife.

Surreal carnival imagery only sometimes works (see “Santa Sangre,” or “8 ½”), and when it’s done badly, it’s done really badly. Throw in the incessant organ grinding, and you’ve gone a yawn-inducing public domain classic.

 

5) Antichrist (2009)

Directed by: Lars von Trier

Is it Good or Just Pretentious?: It’s good.

 

“Nature is Satan’s church.”

Still depressed after the death of their four-year-old son, a woman, credited only as “She,” (Charlotte Gainsbourg) has been taken to her country cabin by her ingratiating and patronizing shrink husband He (Willem Dafoe) in order to rehabilitate. He keeps poking and prodding into her personal fears and feelings, hoping to reach a catharsis, or perhaps just to torment her, or perhaps just because he doesn’t know any better. She begins to go slowly mad, and starts seeing death and Satan everywhere around them, sometimes just in her mind, and sometimes with odd hallucinations. It’s not long before he, too, is hallucinating; he sees a dying fox feasting on its own entrails. It turns to him and speaks. “Chaos reigns.”

Understanding von Trier’s staggeringly disturbing psychological horror film hinges on how well you can jibe with clinical depression. The fear of therapists, the equating of death and sex, the hatred of your own body. This film can be alienating or moving, but it he way, it’s going to shake you and disturb you, and even depress you. And, by the time the sexual violence erupts (and the film does indeed have a lot of sexual torture and a lot of blood), you’ll be clutching your gut.

There are a lot of slow-motion, black and white scenes set to opera music, and one of the first shots of the film is an extreme closeup of two people’s genitals in the act of coitus. Lars von Trier, while having made an effective film, has also undeniably, made one that can be accused of being needlessly arty, a bit indecipherable, and even, perhaps, disturbing for the sake of it. Only sit through it if you have a strong stomach and an open mind. Even then, it may not be enough.

 

4) Flesh for Frankenstein (1973)

Directed by: Paul Morrisey

Is it Good or Just Pretentious: It’s good, in a campy sort of way.

 

From the Andy Warhol stable, and featuring a wonderfully bizarre performance from powerhouse cult actor Udo Kier, “Flesh for Frankenstein” is one of the funniest, goriest, weirdest, most unknowable horror films to come from the 1970s. To call the film “strange” doesn’t really scratch the surface of just how batshit crazy and gloriously campy the film is.

“Flesh for Frankenstein” features a twisted baron Frankenstein (Kier) who wishes to make a master race of resurrected monsters by mating a female zombie to a male zombie. He has his fmelae zombie already, and spends some of his free house having sex with her corpse while he fetishistically feels up her exposed internal organs with his free hand. He and his sidekick Otto (Arno Juerging) take to the streets to find the perfect male counterpart, constantly arguing over who has the best features. I giggle whenever Kier criticizes a man’s “nasum.”

The baroness Frankenstein (Monique van Vooren) has been carrying on with a handsome stableboy, played by the godly handsome and rock-stupid Joe Daallesandro. If you don’t believe in a supreme being, look at Dallesandro’s ass and get back to me. Their clunky tête-à-têtes are hilariously protracted.

Oh, and did I mention that this film was originally released in 3-D? Yeah, it features a climactic scene in which a character is speared through the back, and their liver ends up floating right in front of your eyes, perched on the end of the spear. What a great moment in cinema history.

 

3) Nadja (1994)

Directed by: Michael Almereyda

Is it Good or Just Pretentious?: It’s just pretentious. Well, it’s kinda fun.

 

“I’m receiving a psychic FAX!”

Produced by David Lynch, this experimental vampire film resembles an ambitious student project that somehow managed to rope in a professional, big-name cast and get a nationwide theatrical release. It’s a confusing and occasionally gross affair that I am actually kind of fond of, despite its opaqueness and sleepy-eyed acting by the lead actress Elina Löwensohn, in the title role. I assume the title refers to the seminal surrealist work by André Breton, but, having read Nadja, and having seen the film, I can’t really discern any direct connection. It’s more like a surrealist riff on the old Dracula story.

Nadja is a broody vampire (the worst kind) living in New York with her dysfunctional vampire family, her high-end New York wardrobe, and her bizarre Eurotrash accent. Nadja is also kind of pansexual, and requires “familiars” just like Miriam in “The Hunger.” She has set her sights on a local author (Galaxy Craze, her real name), who is not gay, but will be by the time Nadja is through with her. There’s a romantic/weird sex scene in which Nadja feeds Galaxy her own menstrual blood. Galaxy’s husband Jim (Martin Donovan) is only concerned.

Eventually, though, the film just becomes the usual Dracula story, as when Prof. Van Helsing (Peter Fonda) shows up to claim that he’s going to kill Nadja and her clan. It’s implied that Van Helsing may also be Dracula! Holy shit! There’s a Renfield character! And is that Jared Harris! And that’s David Lynch himself as a mortuary’s receptionist!

This is a film that starts serious, turns way-too-poetic-for-its-own-good, and ends on a campy note. This can be fun, in a weird way. Also, Almereyda shot large portions of “Nadja” on a PixelVision camera, that commercially available toy that lost Fisher Price so much money back in the mid 1980s, and recorded film onto ordinary audio cassettes. That’s a neat idea.

 

2) Gothic (1986)

Directed by: Ken Russell

Is it Good or Just Pretentious: It’s pretty good.

 

What list of pretentious horror films would be complete without a film by Ken Russell? In 1986, Russell took his particular brand of surreal, lush, bourgeois erotic hedonism, and applied it to the single most significant night in the history of horror fiction: That wonderful evening in 1810 when Percy Shelley, his girlfriend Mary, Lord Byron, Claire Clairmont, and Fletcher all met in a secluded mansion to write horror stories as part of a wager. The world ended up with Frankenstein, or; The Modern Prometheus, the first science fiction novel, and one of the finest horror stories ever written.

To get to the novel, though, Ken Russell posits, each of the brilliantly broody poets and novelists had to go through a stupefying and hallucinatory series of traumas, that all centered on their greatest fears. Mary (Natasha Richardson) has dreams of Fuseli’s Nightmare on her chest. Shelley (Julian Sands) dreams of vermin. I think Byron (Gabriel Byrne) does as well, but is a bit more controlled. Poor Claire (Miriam Cyr) goes mad when she has a vision of a knight with an enormous codpiece (a motif reused in Russell’s own “The Lair of the White Worm”).

Another film that is mostly hallucination, “Gothic” is almost a trifling way to handle the lives of important literary figures. Why explore their genius and true fears when we can have a goofy phantasmagoria of bloody rape and weird creatures? And where did all these fears string from? Well, there’s some historical evidence to back this up, but evidently Mary had recently miscarried, and all the world’s fears spring from dead infants. Or something.

Ken Russell. Thank you.

 

1) Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)

Directed by Francis Ford Coppola

Is it Good or Just Pretentious?: It’s really effed up.

 

If you want a horror film that is loaded with a dozen weird performances, bogged in hideously overdesigned costumes and sets, paced like a large slow dog that’s hopped up on Red Bull, and budgeted higher than your average Hollywood action blockbuster, you kneed look no further than Coppola’s swirling, bloody garbage disposal “Dracula.” this is a film that everyone has seen, and has a weird cult following. It’s a bad movie, but, like some of Gilliam’s films (I’m looking at you, “Tideland”), has that wonderful trainwreck quality that is ineffably magnetic.

After an introduction, where Dracula (Gary Oldman) stabs a bleeding cross, and imaples hundreds of people, we meet Harker (a yawning Keanu Reeves) who is trapped at castle Dracula by topless vampire women. He bleeds from his nipples and some women are connected at the vagina. Dracula is sometimes an old man (with a butt-shaped pompadour), and sometimes a young man (with a two-foot top-hat), and can walk around in the sunlight. Sometimes he’s a rubbery bat monster, and sometimes he’s a wolf man. Dracula is after Mina (an equally yawny Winona Ryder), and her buddy Lucy (Sadie Frost). This is all from the original Bram Stoker novel, but this film is only using Stoker as a springboard for over-the-top protracted weirdness.

Lucy eats a baby, if I recall. Anthony Hopkins plays Van Helsing, although he has an accent much like Dreyfus from “The Pink Panther” movies. No one merely speaks lines in this film. They either recite bombastically, or merely scream. The cast is rounded out by Cary Elwes, Richard E. Grant, Monica Bellucci, and, get this, Tom Waits as Renfield.

This is one of those bizarre, high profile, pretentious Hollywood failures that everyone hates, but are always fascinating to watch. This is actually a rather good bad movie. Anyone who has seen it can attest for it’s chewy, money-wasting pretentiousness. It tops the list.

 

Witney Seibold is a polite and dashing writer living in Los Angeles. When he’s not writing, he’s watching movies, reading old books, and nurturing his growing disapproval of young people today. He nonce worked as a professional film critic for a local newspaper, and now maintains his own ‘blog (which can be accessed at http://witneyman.wordpress.com), where you can read the nearly 700 articles he has published to date, some of which are professionally written and genuinely insightful, despite the typos. He likes comments, positive and negative, and encourages you to leave some.

It’s October now, and the demons are out in force. We’ve all (presumably) chosen our costumes, and we’re all ready to celebrate the equinox with candy and pumpkin-flavored soda. Most importantly for the geek set, we have planned our attack of the Dario Argento retrospective at the local arthouse, decided which of the William Castle films we want to see (“The Tingler” with Percepto is a must), and are now resolute in sitting and watching all of the “Halloween” movies in a row.

While the slashers and beasties are always a sure bet come horror season, I’ve always kind of admired the Demon as a monster. Your zombies and vampires are all well and good, but when a Demon shows up in a movie, you know you’re in for some serious Satanic stuff. No mere creature hellbent on rending you into a pile of quivering viscera, the Demon was an agent of Satan himself; a being physically composed of all things foul and evil. They have scary faces, wicked, unshakable intentions, and, I bet, breath that could knock over a train. There are silly demons to be sure (Jason Lee, anyone?), but there are some flipping terrifying ones as well.

In that spirit, here is a list of the ten scariest demons from popular culture.

 

10. Black Roses

from “Black Roses” (1988)

 

Mill’s Basin is a sleepy little town where the parents are all squares, and the teenagers are desperate for some subversive entertainment. Imagine the teens’ glee when the world’s most popular metal band, Black Roses, decides to play there. Black Roses (composed of members from real-life metal band King Kobra) would play nice, calm, unoffensive rock ballads for the parents, and then earsplitting demonic black metal for the teens.Black Roses, it turns out, were actually a band of demons who were using the power of their metal to transform the teenagers into long-necked killer monsters.

“Black Roses” is essentially a dated scare film for adults, that posited that the demonic messages in their childrens’ heavy metal records were actually, well, demonic. While the premise is hokey, and the film only holds up as an endlessly fascinating piece of propaganda, the demons themselves are actually terrifying. There is a scene in which a teenage girl, under the demons’ influence, tries seducing her father. When he rebuffs her, she begins to sprout big, chunky, scary teeth. Pretty soon, her topless body has a long-necked creature face.

I saw this film as a kid, and the sight of a topless woman with a stretchy monster head gave me nightmares.

 

9. Azazel

from “Fallen” (1998)

 

What is a demon but a fallen angel? What does a fallen angel look like? Like everyone, it turns out. In Gregory Hoblit’s underrated 1998 thriller, “Fallen,” a cop (Denzel Washington) oversees the execution of a serial killer (Elias Koteas) he apprehended, only to find that, soon thereafter, other murders begin occurring with the dead killer’s exact MO. After some investigation, our hero learns that the dead killer is actually an ancient demon named Azazel who can transfer itself from person to person merely by touch. This is a particular problem when Denzel tries shooting a person he knows to be possessed, and finds that Azazel can merrily float into another person nearby.

This transference also makes for one of the scariest chase scenes in the movies: The film’ heroine (Embeth Davidtz) is being pursued down the block by Azazel, who is merely transferring itself through a crowd. The thought of a bodiless, playful killer that can hide itself inside any person you know… well, I don’t know about you, but that scares me a lot.

 

8. Darkness

from “Legend” (1985)

 

Ridley Scott’s 1985 fantasy film is kind of a confusing affair, rife with many different ancient stories and mythologies, all mixed into a clunky miasma of weirdness and overwrought melodrama. But the film’s images, if taken individually, are stunning and gorgeous and, in the case of Tim Curry’s heavy metal demon Darkness, utterly terrifying.

Tim Curry is a fantastic actor, who, with his used-car-salesman-from-Hell voice, wicked grin, and alchemical screen presence, adds character to any project merely by appearing on screen. Dress Curry in an eight-foot tall demon suit, complete with red skin, satyr hoofs, and three-foot-wide blackened horns, and you have a legitimate movie icon that will blow the terrified pants off of any child unfortunate enough to be viewing, and leave a nightmarish stamp in the imaginations of the adults.

“Legend” doesn’t really hold up over time. Darkness, however, is one for the ages.

 

7. Angela Franklin

from “Night of the Demons” (1988)

 

As a teenager, I was never invited to these parties, but the movies informed me (indeed, assured me) that my peers were always gathering in abandoned barns, warehouses, disused mental asylums, and creepy old houses for purposes of drinking copious amounts of beer and fucking. I always envied those teens who were living lives of unsupervised hedonistic abandon. That is, until I realized that the sexually active, alcoholic teens who were so cool at school were also secretly being picked off, one-by-one, by some horrid night beast.

“Night of the Demons” does little to vary from the usual formula of teen slashers; it’s scary, but merely competent. But the film’s villainess, Angela Franklin (Mimi Kinkaid) is a truly terrifying invention. Angela is a human character who is possessed by a demon. However, rather than just going on a frenzy, and murdering her friends with blunt or sharpened objects, she dances and seduces all of them, making them all think that everything is o.k. She spreads her evil into her friends, and mutates their bodies, leading to one of the most unusual special effects scenes in history: a topless teen girl spreads lipstick on her chest, and then, surreally, pushes the tube of lipstick into her nipple, where it vanishes.

The killers in slasher movies are always scary because you never know their motive. Angela’s motive is particularly opaque, and, hence, incredibly more sinister.

 

6. The “Night of the Demon” Creature

from “Night of the Demon” (1957)

 

Jacques Tourneur’s classic monster flick, out of the Val Lewton camp, is one of those creepy, dread-inducing affairs that, like “Cat People” before it, got most of its creep mileage out of not showing the creature. This not only makes the monster scarier in our minds, but usually makes for a monster money shot to stay burned into our minds for time immemorial.

Dana Andrews plays an American professor attending a Black Arts symposium in London, where he chooses to investigate the so-called supernatural death of a wicked cult leader. His investigations leads to a gibbering Bedlamite, and ancient tome in an unknown language, and mysterious bits of cursed parchment appearing on his belongings. It’s not long before he intuits that a legitimate demon is following him around, wreaking havoc.

Lewton was a masterful producer of film, and while he wasn’t so pleased to work on monster film, gave it his all, hiring talented directors and actors, and actually coming up with good conceits and stories to go along with them (his “I Walked with a Zombie” is, famously, the same story as Jane Eyre). What’s more, he actually put effort into making a nice-looking monster for this demon film. It only appears briefly, but, momma, what a scary creature.

 

5. The Various Demons and Imps of Jack T. Chick

from Chick Publications (1960 – present)

 

Jack T. chick practices a particularly vitriolic and utterly bizarro version of Christianity that posits, in the simplest possible terms, that God and Satan are in constant direct conflict over how many souls they can claim, and it’s up to you, dear reader, to memorize your King James Bible (no other version will do), abstain from drugs, wild sex, rude behavior, vanity and Halloween, and guide as many souls as you can into heaven without the aid of those wicked Jews, homosexuals, Catholics, Masons, or bikers before one of those naughty demons tempt you into trick-or-treating, and claim you forever.

Jack Chick expresses his views in an urgent series of small comic books, that he has been writing for the past 50 years. I would often find these Chuck tracts littering the ground behind the Rose Parade on New Year’s Day in Pasadena, CA. They featured oversimplified moral dilemmas in which someone was tempted by a demon (to be mean to friends, to sacrifice a cat, to be gay), and they were guided away from the demon by some dully pious do-gooder. Since Heaven and Hell featured so heavily in these tracts, dead children were a regular occurrence.

I am a more laidback churchgoer, so I can’t really jibe with Chick’s self-righteous, hateful version of Christianity, but I can say that the demons he drew were actually, very often, scary little imps. While his message was about extreme piety and the teachings of Christ, he clearly had a lot of fun drawing the monsters and demons and creatures in Hell. There is one panel, I recall, of Satan, relaxing in a flaming cave, watching an episode of “Bewitched,” pleased that witchcraft was spreading on Earth. I love that drawing. All the monsters were creepy and silly and fun and, yes, even scary.

 

4. The Engineer

from “Hellraiser (1987)

 

 

“Hellraiser” is one of my favorite horror movies. I love the fleshy coneits, the intimate story, and the copious amounts of blood. “Hellraiser,” and its sequel, “Hellbound: Hellraiser II” have always looked exactly the way I want horror films to look, and the monsters are monster that shaped my imagination. The story involves a wicked woman (Claire Higgins), who kills men to feed to her skinless incubus ex-lover, under the nose of her callow American husband Larry (Andrew Robinson). Larry’s twentysomething American daughter (Ashley Laurence) is living in London, and will eventually be the one to catch wise.

Also floating around these proceedings is a magical puzzle box that can summon a group of leather-clad, supernatural S&M demons called cenobites. The cenobites are iconic movie monsters for the ages, and the lead cenobite (Doug Bradley) became so popular, that he appears in all seven of “Hellraiser’s” sequels, under the new nickname of Pinhead (so named after the nails sticking out of his scalp).

But I will not focus on the cenobites here, choosing instead to examine a monster that terrified me much more upon my first viewing of “Hellraiser” on TV back in the early 1990s. There is a scene in which Laurence is idly playing with the magical puzzle box in a hospital room, and unwittingly, solves it. Before her, the wall opens. She peers into the opening, and sees a darkened corridor ahead of her. Cautiously, she enters the opening. The corridor is long; it seems endless. She sees a figure ahead of her. She leans close to make out what it is. It is a living this. It’s hanging upsidedown in the corridor. It’s hind legs cling to either wall, and its large, beastly head dangles down near the floor. It lurches toward our heroine, reaching with creepy claws.

This upsidedown monster, who I later learned was called The Engineer in the screenplay, gave me a sick, wrenching feeling in my gut, and, I found, was a lot scarier than the relatively human-looking cenobites.

 

3. The Nightmare

By John Henry Fuseli (1741 – 1825)

 

Eighteenth century European painting may not be a usual subject in the pages of Geekscape, but I have little doubt that most of Geekscape’s readers are unfamiliar with this painting.

John Henry Fuseli was born in Switzerland, and moved to England at age 20. He learned how to paint from his father, a famous landscapist, and was a big fan of William Shakespeare. In 1779, he was commissioned to paint a scene from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” and a career was born, painting darkened scenes of fairies, imps, and other magical creatures. His works are dark and astonishing.

But, most notably and famously, he painted two paintings in 1781, both called “The Nightmare.” It featured a white clad woman, prostrate in sleepy agony, with a demonic imp resting on her chest. The imp’s horse, wild-eyed and ghostly, looks on. This is base don the old myth that nightmares were caused by crouching beasts, who would sit on your chest in such a fashion.

This imp causes nightmares in more than one way, as I had nightmares about it. The image of the grinning little monster was enough to send me into cold sweats. To this day, I find the image to be startling and wickedly scary. When I think of demons, I usually think of that little guy.

 

2. The Devil

from “The Exorcist” (1973)

 

And where would a list of demons be without the ultimate embodiment of all evil, Satan himself? And what better place to find Satan, than inside the innocent body of your twleve-year-old daughter?

I don’t think I need to recount the story and famous images from what is still, to this day, one of the scariest films of all time, only to say that the deep demonic voice (Mercedes McCambridge) grumbling from deep within the previously delicate, pre-sexual body Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair) explores the fears we all have of change, of sexuality, of losing control of our loved ones, and of the presence of evil in everyday life.

“The Exorcist” is quiet and terrifying, mostly thanks to William Friedkin’s surprisingly mellow direction, and the team of actors and effects wizards who made a demonically-possessed little girl seems palpable, real, and scary.

(Do not – I repeat – Do NOT try to tell me that the demon possessing Regan is actually and ancient African demon named Pazuzu. “The Exorcist II: The Heretic” doesn’t count. That demon is The Devil).

 

1. That Fucking Clown

from “Poltergeist” (1982)

 

Tobe Hooper’s “Poltergeist” was released in 1982, back before there was a PG-13 rating, and, since it bore the imprimatur of Stephen Spielberg, many parents felt it was perfectly o.k. to bring their young children to it. Surely, they thought, the man responsible for making “E.T.” wouldn’t scare the younguns too badly.

What followed those thoughts was the traumatizing ruination of a generation. Wicked ghosts, a giant carnivorous tree, creepy electrical surges, closets spouting monster mouths, outright monsters, a guy pulling off his own face, JoBeth Williams swimming in a muddy bog with moving skeletons. This PG-rated film was, for children, the single most horrifying thing imaginable.

And, worst of the lot – and I’m sure you remember this thing – there was Robbie’s clown toy. The clown toy was already scary at the film’s outset, before the demons and monsters started showing up. Robbie would have to creepy across the room, and throw a jacket over the clown just so he could get to sleep at night. The image of the horrifying clown was already a promise for death and bloody hurt.

But then, Tobe Hooper delivered on that promise, and had that creepy monster spring to life late in the film, and try to strangle poor Robbie in his bed. I think I can pinpoint the single moment that thousands of children were, suddenly and violently, emotionally crippled. I certainly was. To this day, in my 30s, I still feel a pang of fear when I see that horrible abomination. You do to. That fucking clown has ripped so much to shreds.

 

Witney Seibold is a fearful little boy living in the body of a thirtysomething man in his apartment in Los Angeles. He sees many movies, reads many books, and constantly revisits the horror films that gave him nightmares as a child. He is also something of a writer, having written nearly 700 reviews for his old newspaper, and his thriving personal ‘blog, Three Cheers for Darkened Years. You can read his lengthy essays on classics film, his Series Project analyses, and his astute, professional reviews at http://witneyman.wordpress.com

Within the next few weeks, the world will not only play host to the new Blu-Ray edition of Claudio Fragasso’s “Troll 2” – that infamously horrid and incredibly enjoyable Z-grade monster cheapie embraced by Alamo Drafthouses and angelheaded hipsters alike – but also a DVD edition of child actor Michael Paul Stephenson’s documentary “Best Worst Movie,” all about the making of “Troll 2” and its unexpected cult following. I’m glad we’re getting to see “Troll 2” in such a deluxe package; it kind of throws into stark relief that gap between the high-quality sound, crisp images, and in-depth extras usually associated with the Blu-Ray medium, and the crappy films pressed onto it.

Many people the world over feel that “Troll 2” is indeed the best worst movie ever made, what with its over-the-top bad acting, its protracted ESL dialogue, its unusual conceits (vegetarian monsters that turn you into plants before eating you, elements like supernatural hand grenades, baloney sandwiches and a young boy’s urine, all used to save lives), and its clunky, low-fi, low-tech filming technique. And while I do enjoy and defend “Troll 2,” I do feel that there are better worst movies in the world.

When you watch a bad movie, its often just a forgettable and sometimes even painful experience. But, as the initiated know, some movies can be so bad, they move into the realm of hugely entertaining. Experienced viewers can often reach a plane of acceptance, where they cease to see the story or characters onscreen, and begin forming complex external narratives involving the filmmakers and screenwriters and their earnest need to entertain audiences with the weird-ass object in front of them. And it is that earnestness that we lovers of B-movies latch onto. Pretty soon, you find yourself enjoying a bad film in spite of yourself, and actually being having a sincere love of a bad movie, making it a really good bad movie.

Here then, are the ten weirdest, most protracted, most earnest, and most enjoyable bad movies around. This was a tough list to whittle down to ten, as there are dozens of obscure bad movies highly loved and dearly protected by their respective audiences. I hope this list either includes some of your favorites, or, at the very least, introduces you to some new classics to add to your collection

 

 11. “Rockula” (1990)

Directed by: Luca Bercovici

 

Ralph LaVie (Dean Cameron) is one unhappy vampire. He’s hundreds of years old, but is still, gulp, a virgin. His mother (Toni Basil) (!) is always bringing men home, which doesn’t make him feel any better. His best friends Chuck (Susan Tyrell) and Axman (Bo Diddley) offer him some solace, but he dreads his future of chastity. You see, thanks to some protracted curse, Ralph is destined, every 20 years, to fall in love with the reincarnated soul of his One True Love, only to have her bludgeoned to death by the reincarnation of a rival, wielding a hambone. Another broken heart, another tragic death, another 20 years of sexlessness. He’s been doing this for four centuries.

This time around, he meets the woman of his dreams in the form of Mona (Tawney Fere), who is a nightclub singer, and seems to be under the thumb of a surreal, Dragula-driving cemetery wonk played by Thomas Dolby (!). Thanks to the encouragement of his friends, Ralph decides to pursue Mona, and, in order to impress her, he forms a rock band called Rockula. Watching the vampire-themed vampire numbers is a mind-numbing experience.

And if you’re not screaming in delighted insanity at this point, “Rockula” throws in the added conceit of Ralph’s own alternate personality, which he talks to through mirrors. Oh yes, vampires can see their reflections in this film. Ralph’s mirror persona is, predictably, the opposite of him, and cavorts about through the looking glass, confidently making out with a string of hot women.

This is a weird, weird movie. It features some legit rock stars turning in some beatufully over-the-top performances, some odd songs (including a rap number), and Bo Diddley wearing a bee costume. Teetering on insanity, “Rockula” will stir in the bowels until you either digest it wholly, or regect it disgustingly.

 

 10. “Shark Attack 3: Megalodon” (2002)

Directed by: David Worth

 

For the last decade, there has been a long string of winky, cheap animal-attack flicks to grace the lower shelves of video stores, or the wee hours of programming on The Sci-Fi Channel (I refuse to call it “SyFy”). And amongst all the Sharktapi and Boas fighting Pythons, all of the d-list celebrities who are cearly slumming for paychecks, the crown jewel – indeed the golden standard – is probably 2002’s “Shark Attack 3: Megalodon,” starring “Doctor Who’s” John Barrowman, and a shark that can eat entire rafts of people whole.

“Shark Attack 3” is almost not even notable; it features all the usual bad acting, strange dialogue and incredibly cheap special effects that are de rigueur for the genre. Anyone who has seen “Jaws” knows exactly what to expect; you need not have seen “Shark Attack” parts one or two. This is one of those films where you begin predicting, despite yourself, who is going to die next, and what ironic twist will be involved in their death.

But there’s something imminently watchable about “Shark Attack 3.” You may be predicting the story, but you’re still eager to see where it goes. It contains naughty words, a few bare breasts, and some beautifully cheap money shots of the shark. Director David Worth has made dozens of B films in his career from “Kickboxer” to “American Tigers” (where Cynthia Rothrock played herself) to “House at the End of the Drive,” so he knows what he’s doing when it comes to exploitation animal attacks. “Shark Attack 3” is cheesy and dumb and predictable and incredibly fun.

 

9. Godzilla vs. Any Other Monster (c. 1960 – c. 1995)

Directed by: Various Japanese Men

 

The first “Gojira” (1954, directed by Ishiro Honda) was an enormous worldwide hit, became a pop cultural marker, spawned the kaiju genre, and even, like so much Japanese entertainment at the time, served as a clever metaphor for the atomic bomb. It is well beloved by millions of people the world over (this critic included), either in its original Japanese form, or its 1956 American “Godzilla” form, with footage of Raymond Burr edited into it.

As a piece of cinema, though, it has to be admitted by even the most hardcore of fans, that “Gojira”/“Godzilla” is rather shabby. The science is unwieldy, the monster is cheap looking, and the film’s somber tone clashes seriously with the sheer goofy image a guy in a rubbery monster suit stomping around on a miniature Toho set (I always wanted to be the guy in that suit, didn’t you?).

And, what’s more, Godzilla became so popular, that sequels were inevitable, and the gigantic stompy, firebreathing monster somehow transformed into a hero figure that would defend Tokyo from other marauding stompy, firebreathing monsters. This is an odd idea, and, as thousands of late-night television viewers can attest, deliriously enjoyable. There’s almost a dream logic to some of the later “Godzilla” movies, and you find yourself kind of understanding why Godzilla is fighting a life-size robotic version of itself (as in 1974’s “Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla).

The crown jewel in the kaiju genre, though, is still 1968’s “Destroy All Monsters,” in which Godzilla, Rodan, Mothra, King Ghidra, and a host of others engage in a spectacular all-monster battle royale. This is probably the best fight in cinema history, and should not be missed.

 

8. “Jason X” (2001)

Directed by: James Isaac

 

The slasher genre is one that is often celebrated for its cheesiness and predictability. A great slasher film like “Halloween” or “Scream” can serve as a scary and moving mark of cinematic horror. A bad slasher film, though, can be just as enjoyable. Horror hounds the world off know the genuine thrill of a good kill and some well-placed nudity, despite the oddness of the setup, the fatuousness of the script, or the incompetence of the acting.

I feel the slasher genre reached its most ridiculous with 2001’s “Jason X,” the tenth film in the undying “Friday the 13^th” series. Jason Voorhees, Crystal Lake’s very own teenager exterminator, has somehow survived the events of the previous film (“Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday”), and, thanks to some machinations by David Cronenberg, has found himself cryogenically frozen. He awakens 500 years in the future, aboard a spacecraft. From there, it’s back to the usual business of shoving various blunt and/or sharpened objects through the heads and abdomens of everyone in the vicinity, but with the surreal setting of a futuristic space-faring vessel.

Jason in space? …the Hell? And is that an android trying on nipples for the first time? And is that a space station that looks like a city skyline? Did Jason just freeze a woman’s face in liquid nitrogen? And, oh man, are those medical nanites going to reconstruct the immortal Jason with a spiffier physique and mask? “Jason X” seems to blend the most ridiculous elements of sci-fi, slashers, and superhero movies into a stew of gorgeously stupid entertainment.

The “X” is pronounced like the letter, by the way, and not the number ten.

7. “Dreamcatcher” (2003)

Directed by: Lawrence Kasdan

 

Oh gosh.

Story goes that Stephen King, when he wrote the novel Dreamcatcher, was doped up on painkillers following a traumatic bus accident. There was a scene in the book in which one of the characters was sitting on a closed toilet, trying to reach a just-out-of-arm’s-length toothpick that he had dropped. The character, Beaver, needs toothpicks to relax. And why does he need to relax? Because there’s a snake monster in the toilet beneath him. He cannot rise for fear for setting the monster free. Stephen King has said in interviews that he feels this is the central scene of his book, and the subsequent film based on it. Let’s write a book about fear and vulnerability. And where are you most vulnerable but when on the toilet? And how does one exploit this fear to its fullest? Put a monster in the toilet. Done and done.

What’s most baffling about “Dreamcatcher” is the amount of hugely talented people who were roped into making it. It starts with a book by King, which is often a good place to start a movie. The screenwriter is William Goldman, who wrote “Chaplin,” “Misery,” and “The Princess Bride.” The director is Lawrence Kasdan, who made “Wyatt Earp,” “The Big Chill,” and “Body Heat.” Morgan Freeman is Morgan Freeman. And I have a great deal of respect for Timothy Olyphant.

There’s a lot here, so follow closely: So we have a quartet of male friends (Olyphant, Thomas Jane, Jason Lee, Damian Lewis), who meet annually in a woodsy cabin to reminisce about their retarded pal Duddits. The four of them share an incredibly close bond, and spend a lot of the film repeating and re-repeating protracted in-jokes. Why are they so close? Well, it turns out that Duddits, when they were boys, imbued them all with psychic powers. They’re not exactly mind-readers, but they can all intuit feelings, find lost objects, etc. Yes, the premise is that a magic retard gave our heroes superpowers. One of the four friends, Jonesy, spends some of his time in a metaphorical memory library inside his own head. He get to see it literally, though, as he ambles through the Borges-like structure, filing his memories.

Oh, and while the four psychic friends are vacationing in their cabin, an alien spacecraft lands nearby. The aliens are also psychic. They reproduce by feeding you their eggs, and spewing, fully formed, out of your anus. How attractive and filmable. The alien mother possesses Jonesy , and speaks with a British accent. And the military is there, led by a sadistic Morgan Freeman with big crawly eyebrows. Pretty soon, we have to track down the psychic retard from before, now played by Donnie Wahlberg, and find out how to defeat the psychic aliens, who are bend on world domination.

At a thudding 136 minutes, “Dreamcatcher” plays like four different Stephen King stories all mashed haphazardly together. It’s a gloriously stupid and hubristic affair, sparked by the most unstable of ideas, and played to its logical extreme. There are few more spectacular train-wreck-like failures than “Dreamcatcher.” Each protracted twist is just another cackle of incredulity. Revisit this film.

6. “Butterfly” (1982)

Directed by: Matt Cimber

 

Ah, to be Pia Zadora. Her ultra-rich boyfriend was so enamored of her kewpie face and girlish good looks, that he insisted on producing film projects for her. She was young and naïve, and felt that she could easily pull of acting, even though her only acting credit to date was a bit part in “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians” (1963). Many people give grief to Zadora for her performances in this film, and in “The Lonely Lady” (not to mention “Voyage of the Rock Aliens”), but she gives a performance that is so fierce and energetic, that I found it hard not to be wrapped up in the shrill, unseemly, oily sincerity of it.

Zadora plays Kady, a slutty desert belle, who arrives on the doorstep of a stoic local miner named Jess (a very good and very game Stacy Keach), claiming to be his daughter. He finds himself drawn to the flighty weirdness and forced flirtiness of her personality, and it’s not long before he starts ogling her undressing, and giving her inappropriate massages in the bath. Yes, dear readers, “Butterfly” is an incest thriller. Keach is hugely concerned with his attraction to this girl who is most likely his daughter, but events lead to some pretty unexpected places. Eventually there’s a trial.

Here is a film that deals with a taboo subject like incest, but in the most hokey and melodramatic fashion, a hokiness that is only compounded by Zadora’s passionately odd performance. Add to this a cameo by Orson Welles, and you’ve got yourself a camp classic with camp thatlasts for weeks.

5. “Santa Claus” (1959)

Directed by: René Cardona

 

This film should be familiar to fans of “Mystery Science Theater 3000.” For those of you who haven’t seen the film without the comedy commentary, I encourage you to do so; you will discover a film that is so terrifyingly odd, that you will commit sins during the year, just to ensure that this horrifying Santa Claus does not visit you.

“Santa Claus,” is a Mexican children’s film that repurposes the myths of Santa for some pretty surreal ends. The film’s director is best known in Mexico and Cuba for directing various El Santo movies, “Wrestling Women vs. The Aztec Mummy,” “Night of the Bloody Apes,” and “Doctor of Doom.” The actor who plays Santa in this movie is José Elías Moreno, best known for playing scary heavies in gangster movies and mad scientists. His American equivalent would be, I suppose, John Malkovich. Or perhaps Robert Davi.

The film takes place in Santa’s floating crystal palace, which sits in the clouds above the North Pole. He has no elves, but a rainbow coalition of slave children from all over the world (the scene in which the children sing and dance to their native music is hilariously racist). Santa gives some of the most disturbingly lecherous looks to the children. These children use a series of bizarre spy devices to peer in on the children of Earth, and judge of they are worthy for gifts.

Santa, however, faces a challege this Christmas: Satan himself has dispatched a demon (professional dancer José Luis “Trotsky” Agurrie) to tempt the world’s children, and, when that doesn’t work, use magical spells to trip up Santa on his mission. Santa and Satan do indeed come into direct conflict, and do a real battle of wits. There are even close calls, where it looks like Santa will lose. This is not an ironic cutesy battle like when Jesus and Santa fight in “The Spirit of Christmas.” This is a frank abttle of good and evil.

There are robot reindeer, who cackle maniacally. There are dream sequences where dolls come to life. There are weepy moments of poor children praying for their drunken fathers. This film is like the nightmare you had on Christmas Eve after drinking too much red bull, and reading too many Jack Chick comics.

4. “Plan 9 from Outer Space” (1959)

Directed by: Edward D. Wood, Jr.

 

Thanks to National Lampoon, Edward D. Wood, Jr., for about a decade, enjoyed the title of Worst Director of All Time. His opus magnus, “Plan 9 from Outer Space” became a sought-after camp celebration, and a byword for horrid filmmaking. In 1994, Tim Burton directed a biopic about Ed Wood, and his work was introduced to a new generation. Sure, there were teams of people who watched “Plan 9” in order to laugh at it and dismiss it, but there were just as many of us who found Ed Wood to be a passionate and loving director who had a genuine interest in the films he was directing. Pretty soon, the earnest appreciators of Ed Wood became legion, and “Plan 9 from Outer Space” became a sincere and righteous classic for the ages.

We all know the film and its foibles. Bela Lugosi, who died during production, plays a dead scientist who was resurrected by space aliens bent on world domination. Tor Johnson, a mountainous wrestler, played a resurrected cop. TV horror hostess Vampira (a.k.a. Maila Nurmi) played the doctor’s zombie wife.

Yes, the day and night scenes shift unexpectedly between each other. Yes, the fly saucers are clearly off-the-rack models hanging from wires. Yes, the use of stock footage is clashing and obvious. The dialogue is ill-thought out, and delivered with a theatrical bombast (“Future events such as these will effect you in the future.”). The aliens are alternately fey and ingratiating. Plan 9 itself seems like an unlikely way to take over the world. But through all of this, you can actually get the feeling that Wood was making something he loved; something he felt was important.

Indeed, isn’t that what this list is all about? We lovers of bad film aren’t people with bad taste in movies. We are just more interested in the filmmaker’s sincerity. And no bad filmmaker was more sincere than Ed Wood.

3. “Showgirls” (1995)

Directed by: Paul Verhoeven

 

“Showgirls,” like “Plan 9 from Outer Space” was often dismissed in popular culture as a punchline. In “Scream 2,” a character claimed that it was the scariest film of all time, and even Joe Eszterhas, the film’s own screenwriter (and greasy, overpaid pervert), made fun of it in a later screenplay. But those who mock and dismiss “Showgirls” as “just another bad film” are surely missing out on what is one of the most rewarding and hilarious camp experiences in cinematic history.

“Showgirls” is an amazing, amazing film. Joe Eszterhaus and his strange Martian women. Verhoeven’s unflagging faith in his finished product. The odd multi-dimensional dialogue. Gina Gershon’s cartoon panther woman. Elizabeth Berkeley’s fierce, Pia Zadora-esque performance. The bare-faced – almost bold – use of misogyny. The brutal, cold, masturbatory views of adult sexuality. The sheer overpowering cattiness (which makes it little wonder that this film has a huge queer following).

It’s a film that plays like the mutant, untalented child of “All About Eve” and the Russ Meyer canon, after being raised – Chauncey Gardner-style – on nothing but made-for-cable skin flicks and Douglas Sirk movies.

If you can track it down, be sure to read the essays in Paul Verhoeven’s coffee tale book that he released with the film back in 1995. There is no doubt in any of the actors’ or creators’ minds that they weren’t making the most mature and daring piece of cinema ever put to film (Well, I’m convinced that Gershon knew what ind of film she was making, and maybe Robert Davi, but everyone else was deadly earnest).

2. “Dangerous Men” (2005)

Directed by: John S. Rad

 

“Dangerous Men” started filming in 1984, and was halfway completed when, for reasons unknown, production stopped. Production resumed in 1994(?) and was largely completed. The film’s writer/director/producer/photographer/executive producer John S. Rad personally financed a theatrical run, and it played for two weeks in three arthouses around Los Angeles. I, I am proud to say, was one of the few who got to see “Dangerous Men” on the big screen during its theatrical run back in 2005.

The story of the film is impenetrable. A woman witnesses her fiancee being murdered by biker toughs. She then tries seducing the leader of the bikers in an extended ploy to kill him. She then goes on a crusade to kill all the dangerous men she encounters. There’s a weird, weird “comic” scene in which she forces a would-be rapist to strip at gunpoint, and run off into the desert in the buff. The film, oddly, stays with the stripped man for an undue amount of time, as he prances and whines to himself.

But then that story string is abandoned and new characters are introduced. The heroine’s heretofore unheard of brother begins tracking down a new villain by the name of Black Pepper.

How can I describe the surreal universe in which this film takes place? A bar’s exit seems to lead to a mountain pass. A woman clenches a knife in between her buttocks as a concealment measure. A fortysomthing belly dancer has a three-minute dance number. A cop flashes his badge, and it clearly says “Policeman Police.” The footage of the cop cars is from the 1960s, the background establishing shots are from 1984 (An L.A. Olympics billboard is clearly seen). One character has a calendar on his wall that says its 1994. The film quality is clunky and weird and poor.

And yet, like the best of bad movies, you can sense the joy and tenacity John S. Rad had in his heart that allowed him to complete such an oddball project. This film is not on home video and, when I saw it, did not have an entry on the usually thorough Internet Movie Database. If you live in Los Angeles, “Dangerous Men” does occasionally pop up as a midnight show at The Cinefamily (http://www.cinefamily.org). If you can, go.

 

1. “The Apple” (1980)

Directed by: Menahem Golan

 

Holy flying Christ, this is, in my humble opinion, the grandaddy of them all. An over-the-top, relatively big-budget, all-but-forgotten musical from 1980, a banner year for bad or weird-ass musicals (it also saw the release of “Xanadu,” “Can’t Stop the Music,” “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” and “Forbidden Zone”). This is a film that will melt your face off and make your brain explode. But, like the cenobites from “Hellraiser,” will make you feel a sweet, almost sexual pleasure from every prick of pain.

From the Cannon canon, and directed by the man behind “Enter the Ninja,” “The Apple” is a sci-fi disco Bible musical for the ages. The film takes place in the far-flung future of 1994, when the world will be ruled by an evil corporation called BIM, run by the suavely satanic Mr. Boogalow (Vladek Sheybal). BIM controls the world using pop music, currently represented by Pandi and Dandi (Alan Love and Grace Kennedy). During a Eurovision-like song contest, BIM’s power is temporarily threatened by the loving sincerity of Alphie and Bibi (George Gilmour and Catherine Mary Stewart), a folk duet from Canada.

Mr. Boogalow quickly signs Bibi into the BIM fold, and Alphie flees to continue his own brand of whiny folk rock. It’s an Adam & Eve metaphor, don’t you see? There is a song about controlling others, a song about sex, and a song about taking speed. The music is loud and fast and professional… and oddly enjoyable. Soundtrack records were handed out at the 1980 premiere and, the story goes, audiences were so outraged by the film, that they hucked their records at the screen. I imagine those records are valuable collector’s items these days.

I don’t want to give away the ending, but there is a deus ex machina that is quite literal. Indeed, I’m heistant to share any more details of “The Apple” with you, as I feel it should be experienced as a whole, as freshly as possible. Please see this film.

Another note, when MGM put out their DVD of “The Apple,” they reportedly contacted Menahem Golan about possibly recording a commentary track, or perhaps just doing an interview. Golan claims not to have remembered directing it.

N.B. The personal love of certain great bad movies is, I understand, writ large in the hearts of its fans, and I cannot cover every single one of them. Below are other great worst movies that are all worth research and perhaps viewing. I include them as to not seem remiss.

“The Wicker Man” (2006)

“The Room”

“C Me Dance”

“Southland Tales”

“Gigli”

“Standing Ovation”

“Formula 51”

“Night of the Lepus”

“Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”

“Attack of the Killer Tomatoes”

“Street Trash”

“Leprechaun 4: In Space”

“Elves”

“Teen Witch”

 

Witney Seibold encourages you to watch more movies. He himself works in a movie theater, where he runs a projector, sells popcorn, and tries to be genial to the customers. He reads a lot, and has impeccably good taste. When he’s not reviewing old, bad movies, he’s writing reviews of current movies on his personally maintained ‘blog, which can be accessed here: http://witneyman.wordpress.com/

After last season’s shocking finale (Spoiler Alert), Dexter’s friends at Miami Metro, including his sister, will no doubt be taking a long hard look at our favorite serial killer, whose days of freedom may very well be numbered.

What’s a wound up killer to do? Knowing Dexter, make hay (and blood slides) while the sun still shines. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the new pressure of his situation caused Dexter to reach further and higher in terms of scope. Here’s a list of the kinds of folks he might like to get his hands on assuming time (and co-habiting the same fictional universe) would allow.

Gus Fring
As Seen In: Breaking Bad
Criminal Activities: Illegal drug manufacturing (specifically methamphetamine), sales and distribution; money laundering; multiple counts homicide
Criminal Persona: squeaky clean drug kingpin
Community Impact/Body Count:  Substantial. While Gus himself hasn’t killed that many people or been directly responsible for a high number of deaths (that we know of), his spearheading of the drug trade has doubtlessly ruined a lot of lives. Behind that yummy, greasy chicken is a man with a heart of ice.
Degree of Difficulty: High. Gus is a master criminal. He is circumspect and cautious, in charge of a vast criminal enterprise that crosses state and international borders. Taking him by surprise would be difficult. But part of his success lies in blending in, being perceived entirely as a law-abiding businessman and community leader. In that respect, his defenses may be compromised and present an opportunity to get close enough.
Appeal to Dexter: Gus is no doubt responsible for a lot of suffering; but the real appeal, the thing that would cause Dexter to sit up and take notice, is how Gus manages to hide who he is and what he does in plain sight. In that respect, they have a lot in common.

Tony Soprano
As Seen In: The Sporanos
Criminal Activities: Multiple counts of: grand larceny; racketeering; fraud; pimping; tax evasion; money laundering; loan sharking; illegal gambling; grand theft auto; aggravated assault; obstruction of justice; murder; murder as part of an ongoing criminal conspiracy
Criminal Persona: mafia capo
Community Impact/Body Count: Heavy. Between everything he’s stolen, and the bedrock of violence and murder on which his criminal enterprise is founded (which, incidentally, goes back in his family at least one generation), Tony is directly responsible for a great deal of suffering. He profits on human misery, and as a higher-up in the organization, profits on the misery caused by his numerous subordinates. He’s killed or arranged the deaths of many, including his own friends and family.
Degree of Difficulty: High. Tony didn’t become the head of a crime family by being soft or stupid. He’s survived multiple assassination attempts, and is usually surrounded by friends and family. Abducting him for a little alone time would be difficult; best chance to snag him would be going to or coming from his goomar.
Appeal to Dexter: Tony skates out of trouble routinely and with comparative ease. But even more offensive, he pretty much commits multiple felonies on a daily basis. The life he has built is based on flouting the law, and on violating the order that Dexter craves to impose, where the guilty get punished.

Francis Dolarhyde
As Seen In: Manhunter
Criminal Activities: murdering and mutilating entire families; setting fire to reporters
Criminal Persona: fetishistic serial killer
Community Impact/Body Count: Dolarhyde targets only families, murdering them, subsequently mutilating them (by inserting pieces of mirrored glass into their eyesockets), and (in the cases of adult female victims), molesting their corpses. He moves from state to state committing his crimes, using a complicated M.O. to locate his victims and elude the authorities. The psychosexual emphasis of his crimes, and his inclusion of children amongst his victims is particularly heinous.
Degree of Difficulty: Moderate. While Dolarhyde understands very well how to elude authorities, someone like Dexter could probably stalk him undetected. However, Dolarhyde’s psychological instability and paranoia will make him difficult to approach. He’s good with guns, and while it may seem like an obvious move to sneak up on his house while he’s blasting Inna Gada Da Vida, he’s probably laying in wait with a shotgun for whoever comes calling.
Appeal to Dexter: This one is a no-brainer. Dolarhyde kills completely innocent victims, including children. While at one point his romantic relationship causes him to try to curb those impulses, he’s gone way too far for too long to have a fate other than drifting up the gulfstream in multiple Hefty bags.

Jeff Kohlver
As Seen In: Hard Candy
Criminal Activities: child molestation, kidnapping, rape, and murder
Criminal Persona: pedophile
Community Impact/Body Count: Jeff is responsible (and, if you believe him, only partially responsible) for the kidnap, rape and murder of a teenaged girl. He’s not exactly Pol Pot, but nonetheless this is the kind of crime that sticks in everybody’s teeth.
Degree of Difficulty: Low. Jeff is the kind of soft hunter who stalks weak/naive prey, the idea that someone could be sizing him up for a kill is unlikely to occur to him. He hides his incriminating shit in a rock garden, for fuck’s sake!
Appeal to Dexter: This guy is Dexter’s bread and butter. The crime isn’t directly attributable to him, so it’s unlikely the justice system will ever catch up with him; he’s rationalized away his own guilt; and, based on his chat room transcripts, he’s clearly looking for a new ‘girlfriend.’ Dexter would look on killing Jeff as community service.

Patrick Bateman
As Seen In: American Psycho
Criminal Activities: animal cruelty, kidnapping, rape, murder, desecration of a corpse, cannibalism, attributing Huey Lewis, Genesis and Whitney Houston with cultural significance
Criminal Persona: yuppie mass murderer
Community Impact/Body Count: Depends. Most of New York (or his immediate social circle, anyway) seems oblivious to Patrick’s crimes. He largely targets people no one will miss: homeless people, prostitutes. Those he murders amongst his own social circle are either not missed or mistakenly attributed as alive, often mistakenly identified as other people. Living in a satire makes things easy, though frustrating; the one time he seeks to confess, his own attorney doesn’t believe him.
Degree of Difficulty: High. In great physical shape (1000 stomach crunches a day), and usually armed, Bateman, while often picking weaker/unprepared victims, is crazy enough and lethal enough that nothing less than complete surprise would be required. Given his social circles, anyone approaching him who doesn’t belong would stick out like a PB & J on the table of one of those haute cuisine restaurants he routinely overspends at. Still, he doesn’t seem to notice the ‘little people’ that much; pose as a doorman, taxi driver, or delivery boy and he probably won’t know what hit him.
Appeal to Dexter: If anybody deserved to die based on musical taste alone (Whitney Houston as the world’s all time greatest R & B artist? REALLY?) it would be Patrick. If anybody deserved to die for being an effete, elitist, style and status obsessed snobbish asshole totally out of touch with the world at large, it would be Patrick. The facts that he likes to dissect girls and is utterly insane are just gravy.

Jason Dean (aka JD)
As Seen In: Heathers
Criminal Activities: murder, forgery of suicide notes
Criminal Persona: the ORIGINAL trenchcoat mafioso
Community Impact/Body Count: JD casts great ripples in small ponds, by murdering popular assholes, then forging their suicide notes to get away with it; this has the unintended consequence of upsetting the natural order of a high school, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. Eventually, though, he’ll get tired of that bullshit and want to take out the whole institution in one big nihilistic bang.
Degree of Difficulty: Moderate. JD pretty much always packs heat (granted, sometimes the loads are blanks), has a decent skill for improvisation (of the no rust build-up variety) and a facility with explosives (like father, like son). His single greatest weakness, though is himself; feeling alone and unloved, what he wants most is a partner in crime. That, more than anything else, makes him sloppy.
Appeal to Dexter: Another case of ‘there but for the code of Harry…’ who will no doubt remind Dexter of himself. The temptation to remodel JD to be more like himself would no doubt be strong, but JD is far too self-centered for that to ever take. Given the scale of JD’s ambition, correction of the more permanent variety would be called for.

Detective Alonzo Harris
As Seen In: Training Day
Criminal Activities: drug use/possession, grand larceny, bribery, extortion, abuse of police authority, murder, attempted murder
Criminal Persona: the LAPD’s answer to King Kong
Community Impact/Body Count: Alonzo is a blight on the LAPD. Deeply entrenched, a political animal who knows full well exactly how to work the system, Alonzo uses it to get everything he can for himself. He’ll take what he wants from whoever he wants, and he’ll either buy or kill whoever might get in his way, whichever’s cheaper or more expedient.
Degree of Difficulty: High. Like others on this list, Alonzo didn’t get as far as he has without having good instincts to protect his own well-being. He’s a cop, which automatically raises the difficulty, and worse, he’s a crooked cop who surrounds himself with other crooked cops that have just as much to lose as he does. On the other hand, being such a ruthless, greedy bastard has engendered quite a lot of ill will, both inside the department and out. If he were to go on a one way boat ride, chances are no one would look too hard for him.
Appeal to Dexter: Alonzo’s the kind of hypocrite that would be almost impossible to resist. Outwardly projecting himself as a man of the people, part of the thin blue line between order and chaos, Alonzo in actuality is responsible for causing as much, perhaps more crime than he stops. Bad enough in and of itself, but abusing the department to the point where he commits murder and gets away with it is inexcusable. That earns him a one way ticket to being a blood slide.

Karen Crowder
As Seen In: Michael Clayton
Criminal Activities: obstruction of justice, perjury, murder, attempted murder
Criminal Persona: corporate button pusher
Community Impact/Body Count: Karen’s pretty selective in terms of who she kills and why; it’s always to the benefit of her clients. When her clients are soulless conglomerates who make carcinogenic herbicides, and the victims are key witnesses in lawsuits, it’s safe to say that the impact she creates is overwhelmingly negative.
Degree of Difficulty: Low. While the corridors of power she occupies during business hours are undoubtedly secure enough to protect her, after hours she’s probably protected by nothing better than a burglar alarm system and double pane windows. The obfuscation of the corporate world is her best protection from detection, and retribution. The idea of someone seeking her out and holding her accountable for the things she has done would probably never occur to her. But it would occur to Dexter.
Appeal to Dexter: Out of all the people on this list, Karen is the most removed from killing an actual victim. To her, murder is as simple and as bloodless as making a phone call. Which means that she’s due for an education as to how messy murder really is (hence all the obligatory cling-wrap), and who better to educate her than Dexter?

Henry Morrison (aka Jerry Blake, aka Bill Hoskins)
As Seen In: The Stepfather (the original, not the crappy remake)
Criminal Activities: establishing multiple false identities, murder
Criminal Persona: Father Knows Best-style psycho
Community Impact/Body Count: Henry’s a pillar of the community in his own mind; it’s everybody around him in his immediate family who needs work. But they’re probably hopeless. Better for him to slaughter the whole bunch (children and pets included) disappear, and start clean somewhere else. Wash, rinse, repeat; leaving multiple corpses, distraught relatives, and shaken communities in his wake.
Degree of Difficulty: High. Henry knows how to blend in, and he knows how to get when the getting’s good. If he even catches a whiff of suspicion off of someone that he can’t allay, he’ll kill them rather than take a chance. If the heat still comes too close, he’ll slaughter his family, alter his appearance, and move on without hesitating. The trick for someone like Dexter to get his hands on Henry would be to get close enough to sniff him out, without alerting him and getting killed himself, or causing unintended collateral damage with Henry’s current family.
Appeal to Dexter: There are a number of odd correlations between Henry and Dexter. Henry’s pathology revolves around an obsession for the family life and connections that Dexter feels so incapable of understanding or needing for himself. But like Dexter himself, Henry is hollow inside; his obsession is only for the superficial aspects of that life, and once he realizes that it’s not going to be sustainable, he unleashes his own ‘dark passenger’ on the family he once so desperately craved. The sight of someone so out of control, who could unleash that anger and violence on his family, on children, would no doubt gain him the attention of Dexter’s own ‘dark passenger.’

Anton Chigurh
As Seen In: No Country For Old Men
Criminal Activities: murder for hire; murder for professional honor/reputation; murder to fulfill a threat to someone already dead; murder because a store clerk might remember his face; murder because the victim lost a coin toss; trying to single-handedly bring back the Prince Valiant haircut
Criminal Persona: walking death to anyone who hears his name or sees his face
Community Impact/Body Count: Did you miss the walking death comment? Seriously, this guy is a killer’s killer. Hire him and he’ll kill your target along with however much collateral damage might get in the way, free of charge. He’ll walk up to someone in broad daylight and punch a hole in their skull with a compressed air gun because he needs to switch to a new car. Killing is all he does; he’s like a shark. Only with guns. And on land. And with that haircut.
Degree of Difficulty: Nigh impossible. Always armed, difficult to surprise, and possessed of more experience in murder than everyone on this list combined. Displays little fear, tremendous resolve, and skilled improvisation-setting a car bomb to steal medical supplies when injured, strangling a cop holding him captive with the handcuffs on his wrists – you get the idea. One shot would be pretty much all you get, if you can even get close enough to him to try.
Appeal to Dexter: Chigurh is truly the biggest fish in this pond. Not killing him guarantees death for someone else, and given how prolific and proficient he is, it wouldn’t be long until that happened. Difficulty be damned, trying to kill him is pretty much obligatory. Chigurh is all ‘dark passenger,’ the epitome of killing without restraint or remorse. He’s got to go.

This new season of Dexter should be killer.

 

 

Someone’s been leaving food around, and it’s attracting owls. And I, for one, am tired of cleaning out those owl traps.

Zack Snyder, The same fellow who cobbled together the overrated, gay-coded, loutish and bombastic “300,” and the overwrought superhero epic “Watchmen,” has recently directed an animated action film about warlike tribes of owls called “Legend of the Guadians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole.” At the news, I was partially fascinated (part of my brain felt that this film could resemble a Jim Henson film), and partially weary (really? Owls?) But even before I could finish rolling my eyes, the thought occurred to me that owls have been flying around my subconscious for years.

 

I, your trusty pop culture naturalist, donned my khaki shorts and my pith helmet, and took to the field with my notebook and my binoculars to compile the following journal of the owl in films, TV, comics and video games. I have dissected the owl pellets, and reconstructed the following rodent skeletons. I admit that what I just wrote was a weirs metaphor.

 

Without further ado, lets nuzzle into this set of hooters.

 

Woodsy Owl

from the USFS safety commercials (1970-present)

hootus pullutus

 

This is a rare species of owl found in littered parts of North American forests. Large and box-like in appearance, Woodsy appears to be flightless. Woodsy appears to children, and offers advice in the form of catchy rhyming slogans like “Give a hoot! Don’t pollute!” The children always, without fail, take his advice.

 

Woodsy is clearly an ally or adjunct, or perhaps just a direct imitation of Smokey the Bear, whose confrontational slogan “Only YOU can prevent forest fires” was actually effective in curtailing the number of accidental wildfires in wooded areas. But whereas Smokey was stern and threatening, Woodsy appears to be wacky and flightly and even kind of goofy. It’s a good idea not to litter, but Woodsy lives for litter. What a surreal life he must lead.

 

In 2006, Woodsy was either replaced by an heir, or went through a dramatic molting process, as he appears differently now, and even has a new slogan: “Lend a hand! Care for the Land!” I prefer the old boxy Woodsy.

 

Mr. Owl

from the Tootsie Pop commercial (1970)

cornu syruppia

 

Ostensibly wise – he wears a mortarboard – this greedy bastard lives on the candy stolen from curious children.

 

Well, the only appearance of this rare breed of bird was on a recurring television commercial for Tootsie Roll’s Tootsie Pops. A young boy approached an elderly turtle with an absurd philosophical dilemma. Perhaps it was a complex metaphor for some oblique political issue, or perhaps a Zarathustrian flight of poetic fancy, but the boy asked the turtle how many licks it would take to reach the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie pop. The turtle proclaims that he does not know, as he has always bitten through the hard candy shell. The turtle recommends that the boy ask Mr. Owl. Mr. Owl is eager to help, and decides to use the scientific approach to the dilemma by licking the Tootsie Pop himself. He counts three of his licks before he – perhaps unconsciously – bites the candy and swallows it whole. He returns the candy stick to the boy, and the boy leaves dejected.

 

Like a protracted fable by Aesop, this commercial bore its way into the minds of a generation, and kids, to this day, wrestle with the boy’s odd philosophical dilemma, and must face Mr. Owl’s cruel Satyricon.

 

The Great Owl

from “The Secret of NIMH” (1982)

creepi as heckus

 

The rats of NIMH are an interesting specimen in and of themselves, as they are a race of intelligent rodents with language and a working familial society. But, always present in their imaginations, like a aristocratic philosopher king, the rats had an ersatz ruler in the form of the gigantic and terrifying Great Owl. Rats would brave the forbidding knotted tree fortress of the Great Owl, risk being eaten, and ask for advice. The Great Owl would scowl, and offer cryptic riddles and harsh observations to aid the rats in the most rudimentary possibly fashion, then take to the sky to hunt the rat’s brethren.

 

Few children who managed to see this owl escaped the scenes without being utterly terrified, and perhaps kept off balance by the odd advice given. The Great Owl speaks with the voice of John Carradine.

 

Bubo

from “Clash of the Titans” (1981)

Bubo bubo

 

 

Bubo is the only one of its species, as it was created by a divine being.

 

Desmond Davis was a film director who chronicled the adventures of Perseus, and his clash with Zeus, Hades, and a gigantic kraken. Along his many adventures, Perseus (Harry Hamlin) is aided by the Gods of Olympus in varying ways, the most notable of which was a mechanical owl Bubo, constructed by Hephaestus, and fashioned after the divine owl owned by Athena. Bubo was a cute little bugger who would hoot and squeal more often than offer any practical help. To be fair, Bubo did lead Perseus to the home of the Stygian witches.

 

Bubo is also a resilient little machine owl, as, in 2010, he managed to appear on the big screen again, albeit briefly, to help a new Perseus (Sam Worthington) clash with some new Titans. Story goes that Sam Worthington hated Bubo, and threatened to leave the film if Bubo was anywhere near a running camera. Bubo, tenacious little bird that he is, managed to remain.

 

Storm Owl

from “Mega Man X4” (1998)

Hooti sigma

 

The Storm Owl, like Bubo before it, is actually a robotic creature possessed of artificial intelligence. But whereas Bubo was intended to help, the Storm Owl was created to destroy you. Part of an evil army of robots led by wicked android lord Sigma, the Storm Owl was built for battle, equipped with air blowers, lasers, and an ability to cause storms. In video game parlance, the ability to start storms may be commonplace, but that damn Owl managed to make it all the more difficult.

 

In my research, I found the need to destroy the Owl, and steal its power. I always did well with the early “Mega Man” adventures, but as the games progressed, they became more and more difficult and oblique, until, by “Mega Man X5,” I wasn’t even fighting real animals anymore. What’s a Spike Rosered?

 

Some may complain that the Storm Owl was a bland knockoff of “Mega Man X’s” Storm Eagle. This is a valid argument, so I will only defend by saying that the Owl was more interesting to look at, and was harder to defeat. Plus, it has the advantage of not being associated with something called a Kuwanger.

 

Larry King

from “Larry King Live” (1985 – present)

Caller goaheadus

 

This flightless, featherless species of North American owl, fond of suspenders, and possessed of a protracted sense of humor, has been masquerading as a man since the mid 1950s when he started appearing on Florida radio stations an interviewer. Preferring to hunt at night the King Owl would appear on late night call-in radio programs, starting in 1978. By 1985, the King Owl had achieved media clout, and began appearing on a call-in interview CNN program.

 

The King Owl prefers multiple mates, and has claimed seven mates in his life. When not on television, The King Owl roots in the the rafters of the television studio, where he preens, and plucks eider down from his abdomen.

 

Charlie Owl

from “The New Zoo Revue” (1972-1977)

Costumus baggius

 

Unseen for decades, Charlie Owl became the archetypal owl for a generation of children. He was friends with two humans, Doug and Emmy Jo (Doug Momary and Emily Peden), who would sing and dance, and talk to the creatures of the woods. While Henrietta Hippo and Freddie the Frog were fun-loving types, eager to play games, Charlie was a dour and serious soul, who refused to joke, and took his status as the group’s intellect very seriously. He also wore a mortarboard, which seemed to be common amongst many species of pop culture owls. He was an inventor by trade, and even had an elevator equipped in his tree.

 

Charlie the Owl faded into obscurity, and I have not observed him for many years. It is rumored that co-star Chuck Woolery arranged a job for him as an associate producer on “Wheel of Fortune,” but this is unsubstantiated. Charlie is endangered, presumed extinct.

 

Hooters Girls

from Hooters Restaurants (1983 -present)

Buffalowing leanoverus

 

Hooters Owls provide several distinct services to the average, overweight, lecherous American male. They bring in a steady stream of crappy buffalo wings and deep fried pickles chips, they offer a delightfully un-challenging menu of greasy American standards, and they are invariably possessed of exactly the kind of body that readers of Maxim are so fond of.

 

Hooters kind of baffles me. How is it they can get away with so transparent a name? Is it only because “Fuddruckers” was taken? Can you really be fired as a Hooters Girl if you gain too much weight? Do the women have to write their measurements on their job applications? And is the promise of a hot woman in bright orange short shorts and a tight, tight white t-shirt really enough of a draw to brave the crappy food? Perhaps it is. Hooters tries to deflect their obvious lecherous interests by sponsoring numerous charities and gold tournaments, and encouraging athletics. I think we all know what’s really involved.

 

All I know is, thanks to these famous sexy birds, men all over the country have wanted to have sex with owls.

 

Owlman

from DC comics (1964, 1990)

superhero nihilus

 

Originally orchestrated to be a Batman villain (as owls feed on bats), Owlman was kind of a forgettable DC character. However, in the 1990s, DC repurposed the character for great effect: In a parallel universe, there is no Bruce Wayne, but only Bruce’s older brother Thomas who, when he saw Bruce get killed, became the superhero vigilante Owlman. He is essentially the same as Batman, lurking about in shadows, eluding the police, and scheming against him enemies, although in this universe, he works for a powerful superhero syndicate.

 

Owlman has gone through several incarnations over the decades, but his most recent seems to be the most interesting to me. Evidently, in “Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths,” the ordinary DC superheros find themselves in a parallel universe, fighting their doppelgangers. Owlman is played by James Woods, and, very practically, seems to have an existential crisis when he learns of the parallel universe. Why do anything if there’s another version of you doing similar, and even better, things in a parallel universe. It takes away your uniqueness. Owlman then goes on a crusade to make sure he is the only Owlman out there, and builds a device called the QED. Look out Nite Owl. Aside from Thanos in the Marvel universe, I can’t think of many other supercharacters that are out-and-out nihilists.

 

Owl Jolson

from “I Love to Singa” (1936)

Jazzi mammius

 

Music Professor Fritz Owl eagerly awaits the hatching of his owlets, eager to teach them music, and see was talents they have. He is stringently anti-jazz, feeling that it it’s all too hotcha for him. Too pop. All of Fritz’s owlets hatch literally playing instruments, or singing beautiful baritone arias. One of his chicks, though, Owl Jolson, hatches singing jazz. “I love to singa! About the moona and the June-a and the springa,” he sings. Fritz is very upset, and tries to get him to sing ballads, but Jolson will have none of it. Owl Jolson ends up running away from his oppressive father to audition for Jack Bunny. Eventually, when Fritz sees how much Bunny loves him, returns to his side, and comes to terms with his son’s jazz-singing ways.

 

This was one of Tex Avery’s earliest cartoons, and seamlessly riffed on the careers of Al Jolson, not only following the story (kind of) of the revolutionary “The Jazz Singer” (1927), but took its central song, from Jolson’s “The Singing Kid” (1936).

 

In addition to riffing on jazz conceits, and giving those of my generation a classic jazz education, this is a hilarious cartoon, that is slightly more anarchic than the Warner Bros. Cartoons that preceded it. Avery established himself as a creative force in the cartoon world with this film. The cartoon also experienced new life in the first episode of “South Park,” when space aliens landed in the titular town, and transformed people into performing jazz singers.

 

Where is Owl Jolson today? Still enjoying life in reruns. You can even watch the cartoon here: 

 

 

Witney Seibold is a writer living in his own little world. He’s been known to write weird articles on owls from time to time. He can, however, write film reviews, essays, and maintain a Series project. For his more sane stuff, visit his movie review ‘blog: http://witneyman.wordpress.com/

 

It’s likely that many of Geekscape’s readers were amongst the letter firestorm that attempted to keep Joss Whedon’s series “Dollhouse” on the air. Certain Trekkies recall with dismay that “Enterprise” lasted only four seasons, instead of “Star Trek’s” usual seven. There is an endless list of sci-fi and fantasy television shows that were popular amongst the geek crowd, but not popular enough to stay on the air. Some lasted a long time (“Red Dwarf”), but never achieved mainstream success, others not so much (“Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman”), but each is fondly remembered by its respective cult members.

This list is, however, not that list. What interests me much more than the cult hits, are the television shows that were of interest, of high quality, possessed endless potential, and were canceled to no fanfare, and garnered no cult. The lost shows. Seeing as I was an enormous nerd as a child and teenager, my Magellan-like forays into late-night television exposed me to some pretty wild stuff. I was one of the only kids my age to have viewed multiple episodes of “Night Flight,” and I constantly re-watched my VHS copy of “The Incredible Crash Test Dummies.” I was not interested in joining an established cult; I was much more interested in finding and forming my own.

The following list is the list of the best geek-themed TV shows that have been lost or forgotten through the halcyon mists of memory. The ones that you may have heard of, but probably not, and were actually really good. Such a huge quantity of geeks are fans of “Firefly,” that it’s almost not a cult anymore. But mention the following titles to the initiated, and their eyes will light up.

N.B. Because I am the age that I am, this list is heavily skewed toward my own teenage years. I encourage you to suggest other shows that may, perhaps, be out of my own window of experience.

 

10.  “Special Unit 2” (2001)

Ran 19 episodes

 

“Special Unit 2” hit the airwaves about the same time “Enterprise” fired up, and was largely ignored. It featured Michael Landes and Alexondra Lee as a pair of Chicago police officers who have been inducted into the police department’s secret paranormal unit. Yes, like “Kolchak: The Night Stalker” and “The X-Files” before it, “Special Unit 2” was another practical investigative approach to supernatural problems, but it was possessed of a clever streak and a sense of humor that make it particularly notable. Boogeymen, trolls, witches, and bigfeet were all apprehended, and merely arrested and thrown in prison. I like that. The cops were often joined by their informant friend Carl (Danny Woodbine), a lecherous, alcoholic gnome. Potentially insufferable, he was actually quite funny.

What’s more, it made Chicago look like a labyrinthine network of pipes, passages and esoteric alleyways that let to secret enclaves and hideouts; it made me believe that monsters and secret cops really could be lurking about. Well, it at least made me want to believe.

 

9. “M.A.N.T.I.S.” (1994)

Ran 22 episodes

 

Mechanically Automated Neuro-Transmitter Interactive System, to answer your first question. “M.A.N.T.I.S.” ran on Friday nights, which is usually a horrible time for TV shows. Nonetheless, it managed to run an entire season before getting the boot. This was a pity, as “M.A.N.T.I.S.” seemed to capture the joyous superhero spirit that had not yet become mainstream.

The show followed a paraplegic scientist, Dr. Miles Hawkins (Carl Lumbly), and his tech-head best friend (Roger Rees) as they invented, developed and put to use, the exoskeleton-like M.A.N.T.I.S. harness, a helmeted armor that could send brain signals directly to various parts of the body, bypassing a damaged spine. This allowed our hero to walk again, but also gave him superhuman strength, a special night-vision attachment, and darts that could paralyze (and freeze) bad guys.

So  when he was fully-equipped, he would, naturally, take to the night in his supercar, called The Chrysalid, and fight injustice in all its forms, mostly in the forms of an evil industrialist (Andrew J. Robinson), while having to – like Batman – elude the police. As the show ran on, other, wilder crap started to sneak in (like monsters and the like), but the early episodes were way fun.

The show was developed by Sam Raimi, fresh off of “Army of Darkness,” and Sam Hamm, who wrote Tim Burton’s “Batman.” It was possessed of Raimi’s manic sense of humor, but still noir-ish enough to be kind of dramatic. I recall many a cheery Friday night watching “M.A.N.T.I.S.” all alone.

 

8. “Brimstone” (1998)

Ran 13 episodes

 

Ezekiel Stone (Peter Horton) is a good cop who was killed in the line of duty, and who went to Hell. Rather than a mere eternity of suffering, however, The Devil (a gleefully good John Glover) enlists his investigative abilities to help him track down 113 wicked souls who have managed to escape Hell’s clutches, and who are now roaming free on Earth. After a 15-year absence, Stone returns to Earth, and gets started. A few rules: only the evil souls can hurt him, and, in order to send them back to Hell, he has to destroy their eyeballs.

This seems like one of those shows that is a little too high concept to actually work, and that rarely lasts (“Reaper” anyone?) But the producers actually made a really well-done, slam-bang action show that was magical and fun, not too angsty, and offered a supporting role to Lori Petty.

And then there’s John Glover in the role of The Devil. I have always admired John Glover, ever since I saw him in “Gremlins 2” as a child. I loved him as the identical gay twin brothers in “Love! Valour! Compassion!” As The Devil, Glover is just the right mixture of evil, smarmy, weary, and intelligent. There have been few actors to play The Devil so well. Glover deserves more work.

 

7. “Time Trax” (1993)

Ran 44 episodes

 

This show, developed by “Star Trek: The Next Generation’s” Harve Bennet, actually managed to hang around for two full seasons, but, oddly, I never hear it mentioned in geeks’ conversations; it seems to have slipped past most of our memories. Surely not because it’s a bad show; indeed, it’s actually really clever. It’s essentially the same setup as “Brimstone,” but with a sci-fi bent: a supercriminal from the 22^nd century has invented a time machine and has been selling one-way tickets to the 20^th century to dangerous criminals in need of an escape. Policeman Darien Lambert (Dale Midkiff) travels to the 20^th century to apprehend the future criminals, and send them back to the future.

From there, it’s a matter of blending into the 20^th century, hiding the fact that his heart rate is accelerated, that he can sprint for hours on end, and that he is occasionally having conversations with a holographic British schoolmarm nicknamed SELMA (Elizabeth Alexander), who is projected from an iPod-sized computer he keeps in his pocket.

Midkiff, in the lead role, was a little too much of a pretty boy, but he held his own, and the show’s fish-out-of-water premise actually worked. It may sound a bit protracted on the page, and it is, perhaps, one of those shows that would not hold up upon re-visitation, but I recall it with delight.

 

6. “Likely Suspects” (1992)

Ran 9 episodes

 

This one I have managed to revisit (thanks to the wonder of bootlegged internet recordings), and I assure you that it can indeed stand the test of time. This was a late-night detective sitcom that featured Sam McMurray as the central experienced homicide detective, and, well, you the viewer as the rookie cop who helped him on his cases. That’s right, the show was filmed entirely in the first person, with the viewer as an active member of the proceedings. The show was careful to have some characters talk to you personally, and you even got to offer critical inspiration for the lead detective (I recall one episode where it was implied that the viewer has drawn a smiley face on a foggy window, which is, I admit, exactly what I would have done when presented with that same foggy window).

What’s more, the murders on “Likely Suspects” were never run-of-the-mill stabbings or shootings or poisonings; this was not a hard-boiled world of ultra-dark criminals, but almost a whimsical world of silly people who would commit murders in creative ways. One woman was electrocuted with a hot tub and a bug zapper. One victim had meat flavoring mixed in with her perfume, and then was locked into a tennis court with some hungry dogs. Yikes. One was baked to death in a sauna.

I miss it.

5. “Remote Control,” (1987) “Rock & Roll Jeopardy,” (1988) “Beat the Geeks” (2001)

Ran four seasons, one season, and two seasons respectively

 

 

In the early days of MTV, when pop music carried more cultural currency, and music videos were actually still in regular television rotation, “Remote Control” offered a laidback, Gen-X antidote to the ultra-mannered game shows and blandly materialistic non-games that were stinking up the airwaves at the time. Its contestants would sit in easychairs, answer pop culture trivia off of a haphazard “Jeopardy”-like wall of televisions, and were encouraged to playfully banter with the host, Ken Ober. At the show’s halfway mark, snacks would rain down on the contestant’s heads. This is a show that didn’t take itself seriously, but still required trivia chops to play. I know no one who watched this show who didn’t want to be on it. What’s more, celebrity guests like Adam Sandler, Kari Wuhrer and “Weird Al” Yankovic would occasionally show up. What a fun show.

On VH1 at the same time was an unexpected spinoff of “Jeopardy” called “Rock & Roll Jeopardy,” which was nothing but music trivia. Jeff Probst hosted, and the guests were often people from the music industry. I saw an episode featuring Michael McKean as a contestant. For a kid like me, who knew nothing about pop music, and am only now, in my 30s, learning some of the important stuff, the show seemed bootomlessly cool, and the contestants, supergeniuses.

 

And what geek worth his or her salt can forget “Beat the Geeks” from Comedy Central? The contestants would face off against a panel of pop trivia experts (Andy Zax for music, Paul Geobbel for TV, Marc Edward Heuck for movies), and would be asked increasingly difficult questions, while the Geeks themselves had to answer already near-impossible questions to match. It was a show that took the concept of geek snobbery to its logical extreme, and made it fun and playful. But not cynical; what I liked about the show is that the players and contestants and hosts were actually smart, and that was celebrated. Comedy Central viciously axed the show after two seasons.

 

I have to mention that I actually work for one of the Geeks these days, and I can only assure you that by including it on this list, I am not brownnosing; my thoughts are sincere.

 

4. “Nowhere Man” (1995)

Ran 25 episodes

 

A spiritual child of “The Prisoner,” “Nowhere Man” starred Bruce Greenwood as a war photographer who snapped the wrong photo. After taking a picture of a mysterious scene of war torture, Thomas Veil found himself, in the span of a single morning, stripped of his home, his wife, and his identity. No one seems to remember who he is, and now he must take to the streets using his intuition and resourcefulness to uncover what was going on in that picture, and who is responsible for his erasure.

It’s a dangerous balancing act, pulling off a show like this. If you go too far in one direction, you have a thuddingly dull show, where the mystery is artificially extended and protracted beyond credibility, leading to a feeling of being jerked around. You lean too far in the other direction, you give away too much, and the show will have nowhere to go. But “Nowhere Man” managed to give us a taut mystery that stretched over every episode, which still having the grace and efficiency of episode autonomy.

 

Here’s a cute homage I liked: In one episode, Thomas Veil found himself infiltrating a mysterious gated community to look for clues. In the community, the denizens were given numbers instead of names. Thomas was fittingly given the number 6, which was, no doubt, a reference to Patrick McGoohan’s Number Six in “The Prisoner.”

 

3. “Friday the 13^th: The Series” (1987)

Ran 72 episodes

 

This is another one of those shows that actually ran long enough to be noted, but no one seems to discuss it anymore for some reason.

“Friday the 13^th: The Series” actually has nothing to do with the 1980 feature film, any of its 11 ½ sequels, or Jason Voorhees. It was, in fact, a lot more clever: A pair of young investigators (Jack Marshak and Micki Foster) and a kindly old man (Ryan Dallion) ran an antique shop in an unnamed big city. On the main floor were all the usual tchotchkes, but in the basement was a collection of magical, cursed items that they had accumulated. At the outset of every episode, an everyman would find one of the cursed items, and discover that it could imbue them with some power or wish, usually in exchange for human lives. They would begin killing others to gain more power, and it was up to the little-seen heroes of the show to find the cursed object, and spirit it back their antique shop.

This makes for a series that was scary, featured a largely new cast each week, hundreds of interesting kills, and had a steady stream of really cool, wicked objects. As a film buff, one of my favorite of the cursed objects was an 8mm movie camera that would kill whom it filmed, and eventually cause the filmmaker to become a werewolf. There aren’t a lot of horror series in the world (“Tales from the Crypt,” “Tales from the Dark Side” and “Monsters,” were all on cable), so I’m grateful for when comes along.

 

2. “Family Dog” (1993)

Ran 10 episodes

 

Created by Brad Bird, and designed and backed by Tim Burton, this animated family sitcom, all told from the perspective of the family dog, was one of the funniest and most clever comedies my teenage eyeballs had the pleasure of viewing. It was very high concept at the time (“The Simpsons” was crying out for imitators), and, I recall, had a very ubiquitous TV advertising campaign. The characters were well-designed and the dialogue was snappy and offbeat.

And yet – and we’ve all heard this story before – the ratings just weren’t there. Critics praised the show, and many of my peers expressed a huge interest in it, but Fox wasn’t getting the numbers they wanted, so they started rescheduling it, putting it in really bad time slots until it slipped unobtrusively from the air after less than a season.

These days it’s near impossible to find, but if you have the gumption and the wherewithal, I encourage you to track down some of the rare VHS tapes that Fox put out back in the day. If you do, you will rediscover a goofy little show that was telling edgy, silly and daring jokes long before “Family Guy” made such things gross and of dubious intelligence.

 

1. “The Edge” (1992)

Ran 19 episodes

 

I will state this uncategorically: “The Edge” is the funniest sketch comedy show since Monty Python’s Flying Circus.” No sketch comedy show since has managed to capture the hilariously naughty, anarchic spirit of “The Edge.” Well, maybe “The State.” “The Edge,” however, has that particular fashion of gleeful cartoon chaos that one usually feels when watching “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure” but whacked out on stimulants.

 

It featured a cast of funny comic stars, and a few not-yet-famous comedians. Julie Brown (remember her?) was the erstwhile hostess of the show, and it featured Wayne Knight, Alan Ruck, Jennifer Aniston, Kevin Nealon, Paul Feig, Tom Kenny, and others. It featured quick one-liners (What Prince is doing RIGHT THIS MINUTE), and in-and-out sketches that never outstayed their welcome. Like any sketch comedy show, it did bring back some recognizable characters, but you can tell they were kind of riffing on the idea of catchphrases and mascotry.

 

The show’s one running gag was that, at the outset of every episode, after a brief, friendly introduction, the entire cast would, all at once, be horribly killed in some fashion. In the first episode, the set fell on them. An announcer claimed that the show was pre-recorded, so this was not a problem. Every episode since had them feeling increasingly nervous about their impending dooms. It was a surreal and grim joke that had me rolling on the floor.

 

Add to all this animated bumpers by veteran animator Bill Plympton, and you have a bona fide classic.

 

Why is this show not available on home video? Why has it been consigned to obscurity the way it has? This was a brilliantly funny program, and a bizarre object of its time. It’s long overdue for reconsideration. Well, if “The State” can get a DVD box set after 15 years off the air, maybe “The Edge” will after 20.

 

 

Other shows I encourage you to investigate:

 

“Broken Badges” (1990)

“Danger Theatre” (1993)

“The Incredible Crash Test Dummies” (1993)

“Heil Honey, I’m Home” (1990)

“They Came from Outer Space” (1990)

“NightMan” (1997)

“Black Scorpion” (1995)

“The TV Wheel” (1995)

“Platypus Man” (1995)

“Pryde of the X-Men” (1989)

“Defenders of Dynatron City” (1992)

“Black Books” (2000)

“The Inside” (2005)

 

 

Witney Seibold spent a lot of time watching TV as a teenager, yet never managed to see anything popular. He eventually drifted into the world of movies, where he became a professional film critic, a wonk in a movie theater, and a haughty snot. He lives in California, where he spends most of his time taking baths and shooing that cat out of his apartment. You can read his hundreds of film articles on his ‘blog: http://witneyman.wordpress.com/

 

 

            These shoes cost 300 dollars. These shoes cost 300 dollars. These shoes cost 300 fucking dollars. Let’s get ’em! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCF3ywukQYA

 

            Not that I have a foot fetish (I promise you, I don’t, kind of), or any more than the usual male’s interest in high heels, but I do seem to notice, in films and television shows, when a character has donned some really cool-looking footwear. Who amongst us hasn’t longed to own a pair of flying robot boots, or just a pair of really cool Mystery Men-style painted kick-‘n’-stomps with indestructible rubber treads and laces all the way up to your knees? And who amongst us didn’t salivate when Barb Wire threw her high heel into that guy’s face?

 

            O.k. Perhaps none of us. But that I remembered a goofy violent scene from a middling and forgettable superhero flick from the mid 1990s, I think, only reveals my credentials in compiling and contemplating a list of the ten coolest boots, shoes, kicks, togs, sandals and slippers to ever grace our minds.

 

10) The aquarium pimp platform shoes

from “I’m Gonna Git You, Sucka” (1988)

 

 

            Before Keenen Ivory Wayans was making insufferable comedies like “White Chicks” and horribly unfunny spoofs like “Scary Movie,” and even before his landmark television sketch comedy show “In Living Color,” he made a somewhat amusing spoof of blaxploitation movies called “I’m Gonna Git You, Sucka.” It dealt a lot with the ridiculous tropes and fashions of black culture in the 1970s, and was peppered with all kinds of cutesy film references; I was especially amused when Wayans was forced to cauterize a hangnail in the midst of a battlefield. It wasn’t nearly as amusing as some of the genuine blaxploitation movies in the world, but it was harmless.

 

            But the scene everyone remembers is when a long-incarcerated pimp, Flyguy (Antonio Fargas) takes to the street after a fifteen-year absence, wearing the pimpiest of pimp outfits, to announce his return to the world. He wears a banana-yellow, polyester jumpsuit, with giant flare bellbottoms, zebra trim, an enormous hat, and, most notably, a pair of platform shoes. The platform shoes are so high and so elaborate, that they actually contain real goldfish, swimming about inside the platforms themselves.  If that isn’t glitz, if that isn’t taste, I don’t know what is.

 

            The shoes, sadly, break out from under him, and he tumbles to the ground, all to the mockery of the people around him. Like The Tower of Bebel, the fish-filled platform shoes became a sign of hubris.

 

9) Magical sneakers

from “Like Mike” (2002) and “Slam Dunk Earnest” (1995)

 

 

 

            As a kid, especially if you are of Generation Y, sneakers were a vitally important part of your wardrobe. Reebok released The Pump, and Nike released Air Jordans, and your character was judged over what make and model you wore, and even which brand you selected (Reebok kids were never as cool as Nike kids). This persistent branding of children only bred a subculture of kids who would commit murder to obtain sneakers. Good job, Nike and Reebok.

 

            But we all had the fantasy. That somehow, by putting on these shoes, you would be imbued with newly-found sportsman’s talent you didn’t know you had. The shoes would be the magical catalyst, releasing you from your awkward athletic ineptitude, and catapult you into the high-powered, high-moneyed world of sports superstardom.

 

Two films dealt directly with this fantasy. Neither was very good, but they knew the childhood mindset I describe. In 1995, Earnest (Jim Varney),  hick pitchman-turned-movie-star, starring in his seventh feature film “Slam Dunk Earnest,” was visited by an angel (Kareem Abdul-Jabbar), who granted him a pair of magical sneakers, turning him into a basketball dynamo. Of course, he lands a spot on a professional NBA team. In 2002, rapper-turned-actor Bow Wow found a pair of discarded sneakers on a telephone wire, etched with the initials “MJ,” presumably Michael Jordan. Sure enough, the sneakers imbue the 14-year-old boy with Jordan’s talent, and he too is enlisted to play on a professional NBA team.

 

            This is little more than little boy fantasy wish fulfillment, but then, couldn’t that be said of most any action film? Wait… Are they the same pair of shoes a decade apart?

 

 8) M. Bison’s flying boots

from “Street Fighter” (1994)

 

 

            I did find it a bit odd that a movie called “Street Fighter” featured no actual street fighting. But never mind. Titular fidelity was clearly not on the minds of the filmmakers. This film is much maligned, but I appreciated its economy of storytelling, and strange terminal audacity. This may only be because I watched it immediately after seeing the stirringly mediocre “Double Dragon.”

 

            Jean-Claude Van Damme plays a soldier in a UN-type military force, who must infiltrate the castle hideout of a wicked dictator named Bison, played with cackling glee by veteran stage actor Raul Julia in his final film role. Even though the film is peppered with dozens of characters, films of this ilk dictate that all the drama must be resolved by a simple fistfight between the hero and the villain. So yes, we’re treated to Van Damme pummeling Raul Julia, who also, to his credit, happens to be adept at martial arts. Their subsequent climactic battle takes place in the middle of a giant techno-laboratory.

 

            But then, just when you think things can’t get any more ridiculous, Bison flips on his magical flying boots, and begins making soaring punches at our hero. For this wondrous moment, the film goes from being a ridiculous, video-game-based action flick, to a deliriously ridiculous camp classic. Man, I love those boots. Flying boots show up in films here and there, but rarely with the glorious cheesiness depicted here.

 

7) Nike’s Air-Cheladas

from “Mystery Science Theater 3000” (1988-1999)

 

            As most of Geekscape’s readers probably know,  the outset of every episode of the cult comedy’s show’s first six seasons, show creator/comedian Joel Hodgson would exchange his idea for a new invention with the very same mad scientists who imprisoned him in space. Many of these inventions were practical (a Daktari stool), some were impossible (The Car-Tuner), and some were just downright cruel (the chocolate bunny guillotine). But they were all pretty dang funny.

            During the midst of the aforementioned sneaker craze, when Reebok was thinking of new ways to put air pockets in shoes, and other companies were thinking of ways to put lights in shoes, Joel had the brilliant idea to put food in shoes. The centerpiece of this high-tech cross-training shoe is a shock-resistant chamber of deliciously spreadable portwine cheese. Why not? Cheese would surely dampen the impact of your stride, and, once you’re done jogging, you can spread it on a snack, hence undoing all your exercise. There aren’t nearly enough products in today’s oversaturated markets that combine both food and clothing. Maybe The Pleasure Chest has a few things, but surely those are enough to sustain you. The Air-Chelada is a beautiful product.

 

6) The Flubber-padded basketball shoes

from “The Absent-Minded Professor” (1961)

 

 

            Prof. Ned Brainard (Fred MacMurray), while, well, absent-minded (he’s missed his wedding a few times already), managed, in a fit of scientific serendipity, to invent an odd brownish, molasses-like substance that he nicknamed Flubber. It was a supper rubbery substance that actually gained momentum as it bounced. The scientific implications of such a substance are staggering; here is a a man who can spontaneously create energy. The energy crisis would be at an end, should Flubber be used properly.

 

            But Brainard ends up using the Flubber the same way I think most of us would use it: to help his friends win at basketball. He makes specialized sneakers that allow his school’s basketball team – formerly wimpy and untalented – to win a high-stakes game against their longtime rivals. The players can jump hundreds of feet in the air, and make slam dunks from above the rim. Not only is this a gloriously irresponsible way to use a miracle of science, it looks way fun. I wish I had some Flubber shoes.

 

5) M.O.Pe.D.s

from “Motormouth and Killpower” (1992)

 

 

            This one wins the obscurity award.

 

            “Motormouth and Killpower” was a 1992 comic book title from Marvel UK, the British-only offshoot of Marvel Comics. They were responsible for some convoluted but entertaining titles such as “Death’s Head II,” “Hell’s Angel,” and “The Mys-Tech Wars.” For fans of non-canonical comics featuring frequent guest spots from Spider-Man, and a healthy dose of mythological weirdness, Marvel UK is the place to go.

 

            Motormouth, née Harley Davis, was a just another foul-mouthed British grrl-punk living in violent destitution on the streets of London, when she was selected by a shadowy government organization to test out a DNA-based matter transporter that they called Mind-Operated Personal Dematerialization, or MOPeD. It was essentially a pair of magical sneakers that could, on a whim, transport you to alternate realities. It was like wearing controllable Quantum Leapers. Plus, since it was based on Harley’s DNA, no one else could use them, giving them a natural theft deterrent.

 

            Motormouth was already pretty damn cool (what British punk grrl isn’t?), but giving her quantum leap sneakers only upped her cool quotient. Indeed, when a muscle-bound assassin, Killpower, was sent after her, he was so taken with her character that they became friends instead. In this age where almost every comic book is being considered for a feature film, this is one title I could actually muster some enthusiasm about.

 

4) American Maid’s high heels

from “The Tick” (1994)

 

 

            The Tick, our stalwart hero, while going on patrol through The City with his nervous but trusty sidekick Arthur, would frequently run into other defenders of justice, and, between foiling bizarro plans for world domination, become fast friends with them. He was especially fond Die Fledermaus, The Sewer Urchin, and, the most efficient of the bunch, American Maid (Kay Lenz).

 

            American Maid was a good crimefighter, often one step ahead of The Tick, and eager to get into fights. One of her signature moves was removing her spiked, high-heeled shoes, and flinging them at bad guys, pinning them to walls. You may argue that there is nothing special about those shoes, and it was the flinging that made them notable, but I would like to argue that those shoes were most certainly specially designed, weighted, and sharpened to fulfill their function as crimefighting weapons. I picture American Maid in her secret hideout, practicing, while she shapes, reshapes and meticulously designs these special high heels for both optimum throwing potential, and sexy fashion power.

 

            Like Batman’s little bat-shaped throwing stars, you’d be pleased to be struck down by one of American Maid’s high heeled shoes.

 

3) Stompers

from “Super Mario Bros.” (1993)

 

 

            Say what you will, I will defend this movie. I think it is wild, creative and fun. I think it’s off-the-wall and incredibly enjoyable. I may have written essays on the brilliance of Ozu (http://witneyman.wordpress.com/2007/09/28/tokyo-story/), or deconstructed the religious significance of Bergman’s “The Seventh Seal,” (http://witneyman.wordpress.com/2007/05/10/the-seventh-seal/) but I will put my critical reputation on the line to defend “Super Mario Bros.”

           

            And one of the reasons I would have to say, however shallow this may sound, was those awesome-ass, heavy metal flying boots that Mario and Luigi got to wear. They were capable of floating you short distances, yes, but they seemed heavy and standoffish; the wearers of Stompers were not only able to fly, but were way, way cool.

 

            When you put on a heavy pair of boots, and you begin clomping around the dancefloor, you somehow feel tougher, bigger, taller, more powerful. A good outfit can make you feel sexy and strong, but a good heavy pair of metal, kick-ass, flying boots can make you feel fucking invincible.

 

2) Pee-Wee Herman’s platform shoes

from “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure” (1986)

 

 

            And if you need cool shoes that make you feel invincible and powerful, and make you cooler on the dance floor, look no further than those large, white platform shoes worm by Pee-Wee Herman in that famous barroom scene in “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure.” Pee-Wee is a 98-pound, mincing man-child who could be knocked over by a stiff breeze. He’s not the kind to get in a fight. When he finds himself in the clutches of an angry mob of horrible Hell’s Angels, his only recourse is to charm them. He makes a last request that he be allowed to perform. He borrows a pair of incongruously beautiful platform shoes and gets up on the bar.

 

            What follows is one of our childhood’s most memorable dance sequences, as Pee-Wee cavorts and stiffly shimmies in front of the toughs to the strains of The Champs’ 1958 hit “Tequila.” And while he swans about, merrily breaking beer mugs, our eyes never leave the rhinestone-encrusted beauties gracing his feet. What great, classy shoes. Magic shoes that deflect anger and make you awesome.

 

1) The Ruby Slippers

from “The Wizard of Oz” (1939)

 

 

            Of course, the most famous and most notable film shoes are The Ruby Slippers from “The Wizard of Oz.” Once belonging to a witch, and now gracing the feet of pretty Kansas girl Dorothy Gale (Judy Garland), these shoes are dainty, pretty little things that every girl coveted, and every boy envied. In addition to adding spunk and magic to an otherwise dowdy life, The Ruby Slippers were also possessed of an ineffable magic power.

 

            But Dorothy was such a gentle soul, that she never thought to use the slippers, or was even interested in learning how they worked. She was far more interested in accumulating friends, asking favors, and generally being polite and calm. When the slippers finally were used for magical purposes, they were only used to send Dorothy back to Kansas, where she could live in bliss with her extended family.

 

            Legitimate film icons, the Ruby Slippers have graced the consciousnesses of generations. The actual props used in the filming of the 1939 classic are currently on display at The Smithsonian Museum. Few shoes have that distinction.

 

Honorable Mentions:

 

The Red Shoes from “The Red Shoes”

Christmas Shoes from the NewSong song

Glass Slippers from “Cinderella”

The skates from “L.A. Story”

The Coyote’s Rocket skates from “Beep, Beep”

Richard Greico’s wall-walking shoes from “If Looks Could Kill”

Lisa’s Mechanical tap shoes from “The Simpsons”

Hermes’ sneakers from “Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief”

The Really Big Mutant Shoe from “Freaked”

Gravity boots from “Star Trek VI” and “Star Trek V”

The Kinky Boots from “Kinky Boots”

Those magnetic prison boots in “Face/Off”

Lil’s shoes from “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me”

Sherilyn Fenn’s sexy shoes from “Twin Peaks”

Stilt Man

Bamboo Boogie Boots from “Futurama”

Anything the Leningrad Cowboys wore

The “Bayonetta” witch’s gun shoes

Lisbath Salander’s shoes from the end of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”

Elton John’s megafeet in “Tommy”

Maxwell Smart’s telephone shoe.

 

Witney Seibold is not a foot fetishist living in the western portion of the United States. He writes a lot, reads a lot, and occasionally talks to other people. He can whip up a mean batch of cookies. When he’s not being erudite, he maintains his very own ‘blog, where he comments on films of the day, writes extended essays on classic films, maintains a Series Project, and makes only a few typographical errors. Read it here: http://witneyman.wordpress.com/

 

  

It’s easy to count the number of times we’ve watched a film, read a book, or seen a play, and thought to ourselves “I would love to go there.” Indeed, some would argue that the function of much drama is to allow the reader to feel like they are temporarily part of a new environment, a new place they can project themselves into. Some of the places and environments in films, books and TV are so enriched, so convincing, so alluring, just so very cool, that they even stand outside of the characters and stories on the screen. We begin to entertain fantasies about visiting.

There are many, many fictional places I would love to put myself into. It was actually really hard to whittle this list down to ten, so I’m giving myself a bonus four. Even then, I had to omit some of the more esoteric ones, like Castle Blandings and Inverness Mansion (which would have won the obscurity prize; kudos to you if you yourself get it). An ancient place like The Land of the Lotus Eaters was also very alluring. The Castle Anthrax was on the short list, but, for reasons I don’t care to elucidate, didn’t quite make the cut.

Here, then, are fourteen wondrous places to visit:

14) The Double R Diner

from “Twin Peaks” (1990-1991)

 

They got a cherry pie here that’ll kill ya. Living in a town like Twin Peaks is probably a dodgy experience at best. When you’re not being hounded by the pseudo-psychic out-of-town Feds, abused by the local law enforcement, or accumulating a patina of sin-soaked grime at One-Eyed Jacks, you’re probably having elaborate dreams of The Man From Another Place, and disturbing visions of whispering little boys in papier-mâché masks. But, luckily, Twin Peaks features one of the finest diners west of the Mississippi. You’re finally in a place that is relaxingly off-beat, and has some of the finest coffee ever brewed. I’m not even a coffee drinker, but I desperately want to try a cuppa the RR’s finest.

 Plus, you have the advantage of possibly chatting up some doomed, cocaine-addicted high school honey who is working as your waitress.

 

13) Elijah C. Skuggs’ Freek Land 

from “Freaked” (1993)

 

 

When visiting Santa Flan, that cute little politically corrupt Central American principality, be sure to trek deep into the woods. There, you will find a hidden amusement park called Freek Land, run by the oily amateur bio-engineer Elijah C. Skuggs. Freek Land is like a cross between the Double Deuce from “Road House,” and a Hieronymus Bosch painting. Biker toughs populate the place, and there are frequent brawls, all set to L.A. Hardcore punk music. There are midway attractions like dwarf clowns that fart your weight, and a Heavy Petting Zoo. Then, when you’re done with the fighting, there’s a main attraction of hideous mutants with enormous noses, sock-puppet heads, and worm bodies who sing, dance, give you beauty tips (from Mr. T as the Bearded Lady), and perform scenes from “Richard III.”

True, you may be kidnapped and mutated and forced to perform, but surely that’s a good way to go.

This is a place that not only offers you the best seedy, cheap-ass show imaginable, but will probably lend to your street cred. Going to Freek Land is something to brag about.

 

12) Hogsmeade 

from “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” (2009)

 

Imagine you’re going to Hogwart’s School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. You’re already way ahead of your peers there. You’re secretly a magical being who can levitate, float around on broomsticks, and play one of the best sports ever invented, Quidditch. You get to sleep in a castle, own a pet owl, and take magic-themed classes that actually sound interesting; I would much rather have taken Defense Against the Dark Arts 101 than Intro to Calculus.

But then, as if you needed a break from such a magical place, there are occasional off-campus trips to a local town called Hogsmeade, which is like a cross between a wizard child’s amusement park and The Universal Citywalk. For one day, you can run free, unfettered from the rules of your teachers, drinking pumpkin juice, buying scads of magical candy (yes, some of the candy moves), and trying out honey ale. Treats and candies are great in and of themselves, but add magic to them, and you have unadulterated bliss.

Also, seeing as we’re talking about the 6^th film in the Harry Potter series, you’d also be able to visit the newly opened Weasley Joke Shop. I have halcyon childhood memories of visiting my local joke shop and getting silly string, wax lips, hand buzzers and the best fake dog poop money can buy. But, again, adding magic to a usual joke shop brings prankstering to genius levels. This is a shop I must visit.

 

11) Pee-Wee’s Playhouse 

from “Pee-Wee’s Playhouse” (1986-1991)

 

Pee-Wee Herman is a squeaky, prancing man-child who somehow managed to build a playhouse that incorporated his every fantasy. It is a surreal world of talking furniture, wish-granting genies, conscious robots, and the wackiest group of nosy neighbors imaginable. Pee-Wee’s Playhouse looks like a living diagram of those fantasy clubhouses that 10-year-old boys would sketch out together on the lazier of summer days; Like a really cool backyard treehouse taken to the infinite power; Like a child’s every unconscious thought and surreal dream-logic connection brought terrifyingly to life.

When first entering the Playhouse, it’s possible that the color and npise and living furniture may frighten you beyond belief, but it’s not long before you begin to realize that prancing about this weird-ass childhood subconscious is actually a happy place, where all the mutant denizens are unbelievably cheerful, and unendingly pleased to be there. It wouldn’t be long before you’ve become part of the game, screaming at the word of the day, and making ice cream soup for Cowboy Curtis and the Cowntess. For one day, I want to surrender my identity to the insanity of Pee-Wee’s Playhouse.

 

10) Toontown

from “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” (1988)

And speaking of childhood insanity, whose inner child hasn’t fantasized about living inside a Tex Avery cartoon? Well, thanks to Robert Zemeckis’ 1988 blockbuster, we can imagine it all the more easily. Set up as a seedy ghetto of Los Angeles, Toontown is where all the dejected Toons go. The film may set up Toontown as a wrong-side-of-town sort of place, but is actually a frenetic and aggressively cheery place where the citizens sing and dance 24 hours a day. Or perhaps not. The nature of reality seems to change with every street. And all the tenants of Toontown are, of course, cartoons. And, as you’d expect, the lives of cartoon characters are never laidback or relaxed, and explosions, stories-long plummets, and falling anvils are de rigueur. Being able to live the humor and chaos of a Warner Bros. cartoon short for a few brief hours would be the vacation of a lifetime.

Plus, who doesn’t want to possibly meet Jessica Rabbit?

 

Honorable Mention: The Ink & Paint Club

If over-the-top weirdness isn’t your bag, you can still visit cartoons at The Ink & Paint Club. Toon revue. Strictly humans only. You can sit back in a classy, secret speakeasy, have a strong drink, buy cigarettes from Betty Boop, and watch the various animated musical acts on stage. And here, you’ll definitely get to see Jessica Rabbit.

 

9) The H.M.S. Surprise

from “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World” (2003) and the Aubrey/Maturin novels by Patrick O’Brien (1970-1999)

 

 

O.k. I know you’re at war. I know the battles are dangerous. You could possibly get a shard of wood through your arm, a hole in your skull, or a cannonball through your chest. It’s possible you’ll have to be cut loose to die in a storm, go stir crazy from the monotony, or just commit suicide. Indeed, there will be no sight of women for months at a time. But to me, it would all be worth it to serve under the tutelage of Capt. Jack Aubrey, eat some of that delicious pudding, and build up my biceps working out on deck, taking in the sea air, hoisting and pulling to my heart’s content. The romance of working on a maritime warship (which is, I admit, one of my stronger little boy fantasies) is at its most romantic in Patrick O’Brien’s long-running series of novels, and the subsequent 2003 Peter Weir film based on them.

I realize this is strictly a sexless male fantasy, working and sweating during wartime but, dammit, I want to go sailing. And if I can do that while potentially visiting the Galapagos Islands, making homemade agave, scouting jungles for carvable trees to make into female mastheads… sign me up.

And if I do get a hole blown through my skull, I can take comfort in the fact that the ship’s doctor knows how to handle that.

 

8) Championship Vinyl

from “High Fidelity” (2000)

 

 

As record stores have been vanishing across the country, finding a good one is like discovering a lost pirate gold mine. As anyone who grew up collecting records, tapes and CDs can attest, finding the pirate gold was a transcendent experience. Finally finding the rare record you were looking for. Being the first to have the CD. Flipping through out-dated music catalogs, hoping against hope that something might still be in print, or possibly affordable. Music hunting used to be a blood sport.

And then there was always that music store. The second-hand local shop that smelled romantically musty, and was staffed by bitter, socially awkward music nerds who knew more about rock ‘n’ roll in their little fingers than you could in four brains. Approaching them was a risky business, as revealing any sign of gaucheness would result in ostracizing and mockery. And with every mockery you suffered came the resolution to learn more about music. These nerds forced you to be cooler.

There are countless music shops in old movies and TV shows, but the best of that music store was clearly Championship Vinyl from “High Fidelity.” not only was the staff as perfect as it could have been – Jack Black as the noisy asshole, Todd Louiso as the shy obsessed one, and John Cusak as their put-upon manager with such a deep passion for music, one must stand in awe – but they seemed to carry all the records you didn’t know you couldn’t live without. This is the store I want to walk to on Sunday afternoons and waste my wages on. Not to mention the concerts they occasionally host.

 

7) Sweet Puttin’ Cakes

from “homestarrunner.com” (2007)

 

 

All you have to do is think about mini-golf, and all of a sudden… you’re there. Magically transported by the will of the place. And it’s as every bit as messed up as the cartoon on which it’s based.

Strong Bad, a masked wrestler who answers e-mails from his fans, once created a cartoon (within his cartoon) that was bizarre and crazy and pointedly non-sensical (it featured muttering helicopter cows, an evil wheelchair, and Strong Bad himself with a Casio keyboard for a head). The power of this cartoon was so strong, that it somehow managed to become part of Strong Bad’s universe, and, magically sprouted its own miniature golf course.

No ordinary miniature golf course, this one seemed to warp space and time. It had impossible hazards, a few deceptively easy holes, and a dimensional portal at the end of the 18^th. Mini-golf is fun enough, with its chintzy multi-world decoration, and little-kids-run-wild gameplay antics. But I would adore playing mini-golf at a place that is in its own dimension.

 

6) Milliways

from The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams (1980)

 

 

If you’ve done six impossible things this morning, why not round it off with breakfast at Milliways, the restaurant at the end of the universe?

The science is a little dodgy, but Milliways is located right at the end of the universe. Since it exists largely outside of time itself, you can go there many times, and never run into yourself. This temporal rigmarole also allows you to make reservations after you’ve already left, and invest the money you’d need for your check ex post facto. This is essentially a free trip to the universe’s best restaurant.

The food is sublime. They have most anything you can imagine, and, if you have trouble deciding, the food itself will introduce itself, and convince you what to get. You an order a pan-galactic gargleblaster, and sip cautiously. You might see a political dignitary or two, and perhaps even a few rock stars.

And then, just as you’ve settled in, and desert is being pondered, the big show begins. A protective screen in the ceiling opens, and you can witness, from the comfort of your table, the destruction of the very universe itself. A unique experience, no doubt. Then you can slip back into your time-traveling car, and go back to work the next day, knowing you spent the night well.

 

Douglas Adams could always turn a phrase well, and managed to, in that inimitable British style of his, invent the most spectacular dinner show imaginable.

 

5) Yubaba’s Bathhouse

from “Spirited Away” (2001)

 

 

Hayao Miyazaki is one of the most imaginative film directors in the business, and in all of his films, he manages to make gorgeous palpable environments which almost incidentally feature dragons, witches, beasts and gods. If asked to choose a vacation spot somewhere in the man’s mind, I would definitely choose Yubaba’s Bathhouse from “Spirited Away.”

Humans aren’t typically allowed, but there are a few here and there, and I think braving the prejudice would be worth it to lower myself into a large, hot scented bathtub in a relaxing painted room, sitting blissfully under a cool stream of water from above. The rooms are all lush and spacious. I would be served by a professional staff, and could even get a massage and a meal if I wanted. It also doesn’t hurt that the bathhouse is populated by ghosts, monsters and minor deities. I’d relax in the water, have my feet pumiced by a twenty-fingered woman with red stripes on her face, ask the frog steward to bring me a glass of wine, and chat up an eight-foot tall turnip beast.

If my bones aren’t jellied after such an experience, I can’t think of anything that would do the trick.

 

4) Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory

from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl (1964)

 

 

If you want to view paradise, simply look around and view it.

When you’re a child, there are few things you would rather do than eat candy. You may distract yourself with water slides and mini-golf, but candy is the ultimate goal of it all. And what better way to celebrate candy, than go to the source? Willy Wonka’s marvelous factory is a literal living garden of oddball candies, free for you to gorge yourself on. There is a river of chocolate, lollipop trees, gummi bushes, and God knows what else. There are square candies that look round, gum that tastes like a four-course dinner, and everlasting gobstoppers.

And when you’re not gleefully stuffing your face, you can stand in awe of some of the strange machines located throughout the enormous, labyrinthine factory. Big steaming, pumping marvels that are, somehow, producing some of the tastiest treats that a child can dream of. You can visit the machine that shrinks chocolate bars. You can chat up an Oompa-Loompa, and learn all about Loompaland. You can even ride in the great glass elevator, which can take you home at the end of the day. Provided you ever wanted to leave.

Just stay off the boat.

 

3) The Garden of Earthly Bliss Drive-In and Pizzeria

from The Snarkout Boys and the Baconburg Horror by Daniel Pinkwater (1984)

 

 

This one may be obscure, but stick with me on this…

Daniel Pinkwater is one of my favorite authors, and his book, The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death, is probably one of my favorite young adult novels. It’s about a group of 14-year-old kids who, for the first time, discover that there is an entire active world of nightlife that goes on when the rest of the world is asleep. They sneak out of the house to see double bills at the Snark theater, eat exotic hot dogs, listen to crazies make enthused speeches in Blueberry Park, and end up involved with a detective and the world’s most dangerous criminal.

In the book’s 1984 sequel, however, Pinkwater outdid himself, and created The Garden of Earthly Bliss Drive-In and Pizzeria. Get this: It’s a drive-in theater. We’re already ahead. The screen is as big as two football fields. The projectors are specially made for the drive-in by a German manufacturer, and do not scratch the prints. The stereo speakers you hang on your doors are of the highest quality. Classics are shown every night.

At the center of the drive-in is a fully functional pizzeria, staffed by some of the most skilled chefs of Italy, who fire-bake the pizzas to your exact specifications, which you got to order through your drive-in speakers. When the pizza is done, it’s delivered directly to your car by a pizza robot.

If you don’t want to watch the film, or you’re just bored waiting for it to begin, The Garden of Earthly Bliss Drive-In and Pizzeria also features a fully loaded amusement park, where you can go on Ferris wheels, waterslides and roller coasters.

If I died when I was 10, I would have gone to The Garden of Earthly Bliss Drive-In and Pizzeria.

 

Honorable mention: Beanbender’s Beer Garden

from The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death (1982)

 

 

Just as alluring would be Beanbender’s Beer Garden, a bar made up of a circle of disused train cars. It’s a wild, warm Bohemian place full of homemade beer, baked potatoes, burning bonfires, and live music every night. Where else can you enjoy a nice crisp potato and watch Darmawati, the performing chicken?

 

2) Risa

from “Star Trek: The Next Generation” (1987-1994)

 

 

If travel and communication technology can advance to the level they have in “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” why not the pleasure technology as well? No mere beach resort, Risa is an entire planet devoted to giving you the best possible vacation. The weather is stringently controlled to give you the best beach resort holiday it can, but can also provide something more rough, if a hike or a horseback ride is more your bag. The hotel suites are private bungalows unto themselves, and the food is exotic and freely forthcoming. There are daily shows of all kinds. Huge areas are age controlled, so if you don’t want any kids running around, you can take comfort in the fact that the kids are on the other side of the planet.

It may be a popular tourist destination, but Risa strikes me as being decidedly un-touristy.

What’s more, Rise is the ultimate cruising destination. Horny species from all over the galaxy come to schmooze, flirt, and get laid. There’s even a statue-based, easy-to-read hanky code, depending on what you’re into. The sexual energy is everywhere. And consider this: If Risa can get the stalwart and curmudgeonly Jean-Luc Picard laid, it can get anyone laid.

But if you just want to relax on the beach drinking Romulan Ale and chatting up odd people from distant planets, you can do that too.

 

1) Halloweentown

from “The Nightmare Before Christmas” (1993)

 

 

Halloween is my favorite holiday. It’s a wicked celebration of autumnal briskness, edgy darkness, wicked fun, and, of course, eating lots and lots of candy. It’s a great time to watch scary movies, and celebrate those things that frighten you, but still, ineffably, draw you towards them. Plus, you can dress up as whatever you have the gumption to dress up as.

And where better for a Halloween lover to visit than a magical town where it’s Halloween every day? Henry Selick’s gorgeous movie, imagined by Tim Burton, encapsulates the Halloween spirit for many people, and perfectly exemplifies what a living embodiment of Halloween would be. We have a scary, dark, twisted town populated by creatures, vampires, mummies, swamp monsters, mad scientists and skeletons, but somehow it’s a friendly place, and the fear is all inflicted purely out of fun and celebration. You can trick-or-treat every night, and plan how to frighten children every day. And, as evidenced by the town’s star citizen Jack Skellington, you can even find love with a kindred spirit.

It’s a creative world unto itself, Halloweentown, and would be a place I would have trouble leaving.

Check out Jinni.com, the new decision engine that chooses shows to watch FOR you.

Witney Seibold is a dashingly handsome and incredibly well-read young genius living in Los Angeles. He has seen more movies than you, and his opinions are probably more valid than yours. He has written hundreds of film reviews, starting with his college newspaper, stretching into a now-defunct weekly newspaper, and finally settling on his own, personally-maintained ‘blog, replete with all the critical accoutrements of a dashingly handsome young genius writer. You can read more of his writings here: http://witneyman.wordpress.com/

Where would the world of cinema be without goop? I recall a time in my youth, sitting in a theater seeing Paul Verhoeven’s 1991 classic “Total Recall,” and utterly freaking out when a gooey, mutant psychic alien baby lurched disgustingly from the dripping abdomen of a living human being. The mutant psychic alien baby was, in itself, freaky enough, but the detail that really got to me was the transparent slime running down its lumpen features.

The Freddy worm in “A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors.” The monster in “Alien³.” That guy in “From Beyond.” The Gremlins. That tar creature in “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” The Whitney creature in “The Relic.” Melting Nazis. That gooey guy in the attic in “Hellraiser.” Every single one of The Garbage Pail Kids. Every episode of “Double Dare.” Even that awesome He-Man toy with the green slime accessory (actual warning on the package: “Don’t use The Slime Pit with Grizzlor”). There is slime on all of our childhood memories.

Yes, in the realm of practical special effects, we have goop to thank. Thank you goop. Thank you for leaving a revolting patina of stubborn grime smeared haphazardly all over our imaginations. But what goop is the best? What slime sticks to our ribs the heartiest? Well, here I am, your humble critic, here to analyze the various goops, glops, and oozes that defined a generation.

(Please, please, please don’t write in asking about my standards for selection. Trust me; you don’t want to know the details)

 

10) The “I Come in Peace” stuff

from “I Come in Peace” (1990)

 

A huge wicked white-eyed space alien (Matthias Hues) has come to Earth on a mission. He has a special device that can, from a distance, inject copious amounts of heroin directly into your heart. Then, just when you’re plummeting through your “Trainspotting” nightmare spiral, he stabs you in the heart with this wicked alien knife thing, and sucks the very living blood from your body. This adrenaline-soaked blood, it turns out, is a high-priced illegal narcotic back on his homeworld.

That’s pretty damn cool. A liquid superdrug made from heroin-soaked human blood. I’m not into drugs, but if I were to try one, that one would be high on my list (or am I just being twisted?). There was a similar conceit in the 1982 psychedelic cult film “Liquid Sky,” but we didn’t actually get to see the aliens making the drug in that film. In “I Come in Peace,” we get to see the entire drug-making process in exquisite detail.

 

9) Seth Brundle’s vomit

from “The Fly” (1986)

 

Ever wonder how flies eat? If you’ve seen David Cronenberg’s 1986 hit “The Fly,” you’re sure to remember. Burned into my mind is the image of a scab-encrusted Jeff Goldbloom, merrily holding a powdered donut, smiling hungrily, and then spewing forth a bilious glob of off-white bile directly onto it. He then looks up, self-consciously, and admits, “That’s disgusting.” Yes, Jeff. Yes it is. He then explains, later in the film, that flies break down their food with a vomited corrosive enzyme, then suck up the acid-melted meal. Gross.

And, to make matters all the more wonderful, during the film’s climax, when he is being attacked, Seth Brundle corners an adversary, and vomits onto his hand. The vomit eats the guy’s hand off. This is an enzyme to fuel all our most wondrous nightmares.

 

8) Dilophosourus poison

from “Jurassic Park” (1993)

 

Why did the dinosaurs escape their pens? The nerdy, fat computer hacker turned the electrified fences off, that’s why. He wanted to steal some dinosaur embryos for himself, the selfish bastard. And we know he’s a bad guy because he’s fat. Don’t you wish that there were more characters in movies that were merely incidentally fat, and not fat as a character discriptor? But I digress.

Dennis Nedry (Wayne Knight) manages to accidentally stumble into a dinosaur pen, and runs into a dilophosaurus, a species of dinosaur equipped with poison sacs, allowing it to spew superloogies. He insults and berates the dinosaur. The dinosaur reacts by squirting a thick, black viscous ooze right in his eyes. We were told earlier that this oozy poison can cause paralysis and blindness and death. The poison itself is scary enough, but that it came from a flipping dinosaur only makes it scarier/cooler/grosser.

The dilophosaurus poison, I have learned, was made of black ink and KY Jelly. Which, in mind mind, is strangely perfect. Nut then, my mind, I admit, can be a dark and odd place to be (I mean, heck, I have a top-10 secretions list in here).

 

7) The various Deadite fluids from “Evil Dead 2”

from “Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn” (1987)

 

It’s always cool when monsters bleed; we’re given a brief glimpse at the creature’s vulnerability. When the monster bled in “Predator,” the human finally realized that it could be harmed, and became more resolute. Sam Raimi, however, had no such interest when his monster bled in “Evil Dead 2.” When Ash (Bruce Campbell) manages to shotgun his own disembodied, demon-possessed right hand, it does indeed bleed a little; A single trickle of blood runs out of the hole where it was hiding. Then a slow, steady stream of blood. Then a gush. Suddenly, the blood fires out at Ash like a firehose, coating his whole body. The blood turns black! Holy shit! Ash spends a good few seconds being blasted by a huge powerful stream of ooey gooey blood.

Then , just as suddenly, the bloody blood reverses flow, and supernaturally sucks back into the wall, leaving Ash coated, and the audience delightfully off balance. This is a surreal moment in a strange movie. It seems for a moment like the monster is either injured or dead, turns into a wonderfully disgusting orgy of gore, and ends with the realization that the demon hand may have just been playing a bizarre supernatural prank on Ash. Bravo.

 

6) The Water of Life

from “Dune” (1984)

 

“Dune” is a weird film based on a weird book. It’s bogged down with all kinds of surreal jargon, impenetrable religious rites and pseudo-spiritual ranting. But if one can get lost in Herbert’s labyrinthine prose, or Lynch’s shamed adaptation, you can find yourself getting kind of caught up in the epic morass. If you don’t know “Dune,” I warn you, I’m going to use some strange words:

The Fremen harvest the Water of Life from the liquid exhalations of the drowning shai-hulud. The Water of Life is poisonous, but can be survived. If a Fremen Reverened Mother bodily processes the Water of Life, it can be extracted from her body as the narcotic used in the sietch tau orgy. If a man survives drinking the Water of Life, it will proves that he is the Fremen mahdi, the Kwisatz Haderach of the Bene Gesserit mythology. Paul “Muad’Dib” Atreides could survive it, thanks to his experience with the gom jabbar.

I’ve read Dune and seen the film, and I still couldn’t exactly decipher what this means, but, I tell you, that magical blue worm fluid (that looks more than a little bit like Barbacide) sounds like it packs a punch. And that you have to go through such an arduous process to get it… well, that makes it cooler.It’s like the world’s strongest booze. And it’s secreted by desert monsters.

 

5) Slurm

from “Futurama” (1999-2003, 2010)

 

This is the only ooze on this list that sounds like it’s delicious. In the year 3000, the most popular soda product is a green fluid known as Slurm. Slurm is sweet, ubiquitous, and highly addictive. It’s made on a faraway planet, deep within a Wonka-like wonder factory.

Or is it? After some investigation, it is revealed that Slurm is actually excreted out of the pulsating waste vacuole of a grimy, overfed, bloated roundworm. It has to be massaged out of the worm’s anus-like aperture. Directly into the can. And then you drink it. It’s bright green, unadulterated sweetened worm waste. And you drink it. The worm waste. You drink the worm waste. Good God, if I don’t want to drink me some of that.

I guess this was appetizing enough, and Fox has decided to market Slurm for consumption here in the 21^st century. It’s no longer available, but check it out: http://www.amazon.com/Futurama-Slurm-Energy-Drink/dp/B001BZCBA0

 

4) Black Alien Oil

from “The X-Files” (1993-2002)

 

This is no mere goo. This is a viscous, slippery oil from space, lousy with extraterrestrial bacteria. Its origins are shrouded in mystery, and even its function seems to change. What we do know is that there is a shadowy cadre of government spooks who have been kidnapping people, and pouring this ooze onto their faces in underground slave-harvesting farms. The ooze seeps into their facial orifices, and swims creepy across their eyeballs. They are then, somehow, mind-controlled agents of the alien conspiracy.

When I think of the government controlling my mind, I usually picture it working something like that.

But then, in 1998, when “The X-Files” movie was released in theaters, the black alien oil changed function. If it festered in your face for too long, it would grow and seep throughout your whole body, and eventually take the form of an alien fetus, growing in your abdomen. So what we have is essentially a slippery, gooey, living mind control oil that can, if left unattended, become space alien semen.

And you wonder why I want to write about goop.

 

3) Ectoplasm

from “Ghostbusters” (1984) and “Ghostbusters 2” (1989)

 

It turns out that when you die, you still get something of a physical form. You can move furniture, emit light, and basically haunt your old haunts. The only downside is you leave a slick, translucent mucous all over everything you touch. You pass through a wall, and a large, moist dripping snot spot is left behind you. On the plus side, you can smear ooze all over the people you don’t like, as happens to Peter Venkman (Bill Murray) in that famous scene in “Ghostbusters.”

This is a revolting looking stuff, this ectoplasm, that is only slightly thicker than breakfast syrup. It doesn’t seem to come off your hands very easily, and can be produced in massive quantities.

In “Ghostbusters 2,” the ectoplasm gets the star treatment, transforming into a psychic unguent residue that is produced by negative emotions. You can yell at it, and it gets pissed off. You can play music, and it dances. And, in a scene which is thankfully left offscreen, you can have sex with it. You can’t say that about too many secretions.

Or can you?

 

2) Regan MacNeil’s vomit

from “The Exorcist” (1973)

 

When little Regan MacNeil became sick, her symptoms didn’t seem to match any known disease or mental illness. She would become violent. Her voice seemed to change. She started speaking languages she may not have known before. Her head could twist backwards over her shoulders. Her skin began to fester and flake off. She would exhibit violent sexual behavior toward others and toward herself. And, most shockingly, she would spew forth enormous quantities of horrific green vomit from deep within her throat.

William Peter Blatty’s 1971 novel is a classic, and William Friedkin’s 1973 film version is, to this day, one of the best and scariest films ever made, using silence and calm to offset the sudden moments of violence and shocking horror. It also, not incidentally, implied that The Devil is doing active harm to human beings in this modern day and age. Most of us saw the film when we were perhaps too young to have seen it, and that pea-soup barf shooting out of Linda Blair’s 12-year-old face is enough to make us have nightmares for years.

The pea soup barf is the second bast secretion of all time.

 

1) The various oozes from “Alien”

from “Alien” (1979)

 

One of the best movie monsters ever invented was the creature form Ridley Scott’s “Alien.” It was a bony creature that looked like a vicious aspic with teeth. And, if you managed to break its tough hide, it would bleed a bright yellow fluid that could eat through metal. That’s right, it’s a creature so very indestructible, that it’s very blood is molecular acid. Acid blood. Pretty cool, and way creepy.

There was also the shiny patina of slime coating the alien. It always looked wet. Was it sweating? Was its slimy, slick sweat also dangerous? It’s gross to think about.

 

“Alien” also featured a scene in which an android had its head ripped off, and a mysterious white liquid sprayed from its every mechanical wound. What was that milky stuff? Coolant? Fuel? Android blood? Later on, when the damaged android is allowed to speak again, it does so through a gurgling pocket of that crusty, dried white fluid. That’s a pretty good secretion.

 

Honerable Mention) Whatever is inside Torgo’s knees

From “Manos: The Hands of Fate” (1966)

 

Torgo is a stuttering, Tourette’s inflicted, filthy little ur-man who wears dirt-encrusted burlap clothing, and has a beard that looks like it still contains desserts from 15 years ago. And, to make him all the more terrifying, filmmaker Harold P. Warren decided to give him big knees. The intention was to make Torgo a satyr, with goat legs hidden under his pants, but the effect made it look like Torgo had enormous lumpy cysts on his thighs. Try contemplating the exact color, quantity, and consistency of Torgos infected fetid pus. O the horrors of the imagination.

Other famous secretions:

The ooze that comes from the Mugwump’s head in “Naked Lunch.”

The floating pink Klingon blood from “Star Trek VI.”

The copious amounts of petroleum jelly in The Cremaster Cycle

The living blood sample from John Carpenter’s “The Thing”

The blood-like battery fluid from “Short Circuit 2”

The “hair gel” from “There’s Something About Mary”

The Stuff from “The Stuff”

The living snot-based mucous clone of The Tick from “The Tick”

The brain juice from “Puppet Master II”

When he’s not writing about unguents and oozes, Witney Seibold can be seeing gadding about town, smiling quietly to himself, seeing bizarre cult movies at funky local arthouses, thumbing through record shops, and writing aricle for his own personal ‘blog which has over 650 articles posted to date, some of which are actually worht reading. You can read more here: http://witneyman.wordpress.com/

I am a SyFy addict. But like any addict I am always looking for the next high, and a new better high with flavors of the old ones is the best. So it’s time to spin off some wonderfulness into hopefully long lived series that do what I need: satiate my hunger for shows about people solving problems caused by AI malfunctions and unearthed manuscripts that human kind was never meant to read. 

But hey, don’t think I’m just a “Top 10” writer. It’s just a phase I am going though, like your sister did in college. In truth, I was planning on writing an in-depth article detailing all of the named artifacts in Warehouse 13, but that seemed like it would take a while to research, so I put this one together to hold you kind readers over while I finish it (editor’s note: We. Can’t. Wait.).

Geekscape readers who are also Warehouse 13 watchers can be helpful by sending me reports on artifacts they think I might have missed: Sax@Geekscape.net.

So here we go, a list of 10 exciting spin-offs that I want to see come from the existing episodic SyFy shows. If while reading this you find yourself thinking “Well, this shit is impossible!!!” just remember Angel had FIVE SEASONS! Some of these might still be a little far fetched, but hey, you hire a comedian to write, you get some hyperbolic farce!

Fargoville

 

We all love Fargo as director of Global Dynamics in Eureka, but as this is something we all know can’t last more then a season. Still his recent changeover from bumbling comedic character to bumbling heroic character has made him a much bigger part of the Eureka cast. So lets imagine he looses the job at GD. Suddenly everyone in America holds their breath. Does this mean he has to leave Eureka? Well the answer is yes, but its not without a silver lining. The government is starting a new genius colony someplace else, like Alaska, or under the ocean, and they need someone to make it work. So the plucky and surprisingly likeable Fargo is off to help a new Eureka (of sorts) spring up in a place that had no previous frame of reference. Who will he meet? Who will he love? Will the Eureka cast come visit? And more importantly will anyone respect the mousy Fargo in this new local? Welcome to Fargoville… population YOU!

 

Warehouse 12

 

We already know that Warehouse 12 was in England between 1830 and 1914. Or at least you would know if you explored the Warehouse 13 website as religiously as I do. We also know that H.G. Wells was an apprentice member of a team here. So there’s our core for a new (old) team in a new (old) warehouse. The pilot episode could have the existing team travel back in time to play a part, and put a very important factoid the Warehouse 12 teams collective head… It’s going to end, and end badly in less then 50 years. Think of what the dynamic would be like if the Warehousers KNEW when it was going to end. Time travel ruins everything. Anyway the new (old) team is a great reflection of the old (new) team and that makes both shows more interesting. Just like the Scoobies were made more interesting by their new frame of reference against the Angle Investigations team. Oh and Jamie Murray (Wells) was fantastic in Hu$tle and super super hot all day long, so I’m not complaining about an series with her as an anchor.

 

The “Real” Ghost Hunters

 

No, this is not a strange mash-up of SyFy mutli-show dynamo Ghost Hunters and the fantastic 80’s cartoon The Real Ghostbusters, but that’s a GREAT idea too. No this is the first fully scripted and fictional version of the now famous SyFy mainstay. Either the existing cast, or newly hired actors look for ghosts in the same dreary famous locations but this time they find them. Well, uh,  find them as provided by post-production editing. I know it breaks the shows concept in half, but it also brings the charm of Paranormal Activities (and Blair Witch) onto the small screen in an established format. A show like this is going to come out soon anyway from somebody, so we might as well brand it with the people and procedures we’re used too from Ghost Hunters. My only strong problem with it is that “real” should be for the original Ghost Hunters, and this should be the one strangely without the moniker. Its kind of like calling your decorative rubber fruit company “Real Fresh Fruit”. It’s a lot of hate mail, and confused people, is what I am saying.

 

Stargate Rescue

 

You might need a seatbelt for this one, so buckle up, this one is heady. So as SGU is clearly starting to move away from its dependence on Earth backup stories (or should at least), lets launch a rescue effort from the home team after the lost souls on Destiny. To make this work lets have a communication stone malfunction strand any of a dozen good characters on Earth, but not in their own body. With the newfound drive on a man (or woman) who needs to get back not only to his friends, but to his very own body, the government commissions and builds Prometheus 2, a huge ship capable of previously unheard of jumps from system to system. Captained by… oh lets say Cameron Mitchell and a couple of notable scientists from other Stargate series. Matthew Scott (of SGU) would be my pick for the body displaced second in command. Meanwhile back on Destiny whoever has his body has to deal with that, so the series are tied together. Crossing over and back with each other is already prewritten into the concept. The rescue team of course has to deal with whatever they jump themselves into along the way, but in a different way then Destiny. While the SGU crew goes where destiny tells then, the Prometheus 2 COULD stay a little longer someplace and help, but at one expense in their quest to reach the Destiny? Not enough cool for you in one plot? What if Matthew Scott has jumped into someone very different from him… a slight scientist, a woman, carrot top? It writes itself. Plus the chance to un-mothball some old SG cast is something we shouldn’t pass up.

 

The Really ODD Couple

 

This romantic dramedy crossed with science fiction epic could also be called “Clargo”. Guessed it yet? Warehouser Claudia Donovan, and Eureka mainstay Douglas Fargo, try to give up their beyond reality world and settle down together in quite obscurity. But, either because of constant exposure to GD experiments or Warehouse artifacts, it seems the world of the supernatural is not done with them. Can their budding (or maybe off-again/on-again) romance survive the fact that they are plagued by werewolves and mad scientists? Can they keep a white picket fence, would they want one? Think Indiana Jones meets Hackers. Hell I’d watch it right now if it were on. Plus the fans are crying out for it after the famous crossover.

 

INNER-space Astronauts

 

This one is easy. It’s the same great show Outer Space Astronauts but instead of space, it all takes place in Martin Shorts body. It stays with the shows animation theme of being a mix between live action, animation, and computer generation. Of course the whacky antics of the crew end up causing no end of trouble for Martin, who has to deal with rapid personality and physical changes as they probe deeper and deeper into his inner workings. What did I never notice until now how gross that concept is. Anyway this would be hilarious.

 

New Haven

 

It’s a little early to be creating Haven spin-offs, but I think if the show survives it’ll start to make people ask the question I’ve been asking from episode one. If these people pretty much ALL have these powers, then why is it always a surprise when it happens? I mean, its clear they all know this is how the town works, and all of a sudden people are just flabbergasted that these things take place. Even if this was kind of a new thing (which the show makes CLEAR it is not) it’d still be pretty common knowledge at this point that people in town can control the weather or make their dreams reality and all that. Also in the latest episode this woman completely changes into a different woman every Friday and just kind of walks it off… I mean REALLY! Sorry… just ranting here. If you wonder why X-Files and Fringe always travel to new places it’s because you can’t get away with having vampire-shape shifter-werewolf-zombie-magic user plagues every week and having nobody notice in the same small Maine town. Ok… so about this spin-off. Lets imagine after a while some folks from Haven want to move someplace else, the reason is inconsequential. Once they get there though, they need to stay under the radar and avoid showing their powers. Because the folks in this new Haven are not “part of the team” and don’t know about their secret abilities. So what’s it like for a bunch of super humans in a town of regular folks. Look for the chief of police to anchor this spin-off as the leader of the transplants who just wants people to control themselves and not break the façade of normality. Also he and the newspaper guys are the only people on that show I like.

 

The Ripper Chronicles

 

Here’s your Sanctuary spin-off. I know I love this idea, but I don’t know exactly where to go with it. John Druitt aka Jack the Ripper has temporarily gained control of his fractured teleporting brain, but not enough to seek his full redemption from the Sanctuary. Instead he travels the world exploring his own struggle as expressed in the minds of killers everywhere. Think Dexter meets Kurt Wagner. Also Bigfoot can play a part somehow because it’s the same actor. Amanda Tapping will appear but only in a series of strangely tacked on tight clothes in the rain sequences.

 

Nearscape

 

This is the one I’m really hoping comes out of this article (editor’s note: me too!!!). Somebody tell somebody… or something! Anyway… the idea here is an alternate timeline and story of Farscape.  This hinges on the idea that it IS a fully alternate timeline and not say some sort of distorted dream sequence where everyone remembers how it “used to be” someplace in the back of their head. I hate those plots (Sorry House of M). Ok so Nearscape is about a world just like our own where astronaut John Crichton is suddenly sucked into a wormhole… only to come right back out where he started. The world is in an uproar over the existence of wormholes but things seem pretty much normal after John touches down. But slowly over time the greater Farscape universe starts to pay a visit. The whole time of course humanity is using the inspiration of Crichton’s flight to up its own technology and become a space faring planet. By the time Scorpious and the Peace Keepers arrive it’s a battle to see if Humans are going to have a big effect on the galactic politic, or not. Peace Keeper spy on earth? Officer Aeryn Sun. Who falls in love with Crichton? Well you guessed it. As much as this re-envisioning of Farscape charms me… It’s not a true spin-off and worse… its simply not Farscape. How about we spin this off from Farscape: FARSCAPE! Bring it back people. It was great. The comics are good too btw.

 

Greystone

 

Last but not least is Greystone my Caprica spin-off. Well… its not a spin-off. Greystone is just Zoe Greystone (Alessandra Torresani) walking around an posing and walking about whatever the writers feel like talking about. Why? Because I think that’s what most people are tuning into Caprica to see anyway. Don’t get me wrong it’s a great show, with a well written plot and some amazing deep interplay. But Alessandra Torresani is just flat out too hot for school and makes it very hard to pay attention. Hell James Marsters is on this show, and he’s one of my favorite actors (and Spike from BTVS in case you’ve lived in a cave for the past decade) but whenever he’s on screen I’m always whispering “hurry it up”. Its strange to like a show as much as I do and also like watching the main character just sit around and think about being stuck in a robot. That sentence probably didn’t make sense if you don’t watch it. It’s a good marketing technique though. I remember watching the pilot episode and when Lacy is taking Daniel Graystone into the Holoband and mentioning that her and Zoe used to use the “group sex rooms” before they got tired of it. Zoe and Lacy in group sex rooms? Well there’s an image that sticks in your mind. What sticks in your mind you want to see more about, thus about 3 more episodes of Caprica watched before I finally got addicted to the plot and characterization. So lets spin off the amazing Zoe’s less then plot driving moments and move Caprica to concentrate on plot, then wait until the next time slot to just watch Alessandra Torresani drink coffee or something. It sounds horrible I know, but you know it would be their highest rated show. Oh and check this out (at least the first 3rd… you’re welcome):

So there they are. In the ten I probably only suggested 6 real spin-offs but I think my point is clear: We want more of what SyFy is currently airing.

Just add some more Star Trek re-runs and a few movies about anything crossed with a shark and I’ll still be addicted. More from your SyFy Addict later kids… send me those W13 artifact finds!

There is a new television series on the air called “Shit My Dad Says” which is based on a Twitter feed. Two failed sitcoms, “Cavemen” and “Baby Bob,” were adapted from ad campaigns.

Adapting books, plays and musicals into film is a tradition stretching back to the earliest days of cinema. Indeed, one of the earliest film shorts ever made was famed stage actor Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree mime-reciting a monologue from Shakespeare’s “King John.” It was filmed in 1899. Adapting a play to the screen seems almost natural; they are both dramatic media. Adapting a book is a bit more of a stretch, but both books and filmed media are used as storytelling devices.

But its happened many timed before that non-dramatic media, non-storytelling media, or even non-media have been adapted to the screen. The ability of certain producers to bank in on a well-known name or property seems to know no bounds. The need to “bank in” will never die. Especially in light of the list below, which compiles some of the least likely books, plays, or other properties that have been adapted into movies or television shows.

 

10) “Naked Lunch” (1991) (adapted from the 1959 novel Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs)

 

 

The way I heard it: Famous Beat author (and notorious heroin addict) William S. Burroughs locked himself in a seedy apartment for several days, took copious amounts of junk, and typed madly, nonstop, at his typewriter. He would manically create strange short stories with no beginnings or ends, and toss completed pages over his head into a huge unorganized pile. After a few days, his associates Jack Kerouac and William Ginsberg went looking for him, and found him half dead next to this drug-induced manuscript. They treated poor Burroughs, and collected his pages, assembling them the best they could. Kerouac suggested that Burroughs publish his ravings under the title Naked Lunch, implying that Burroughs’ psychotic heroin-laced rambling was like staring at bare, plain reality. Lunch was stripped bare of its pretense.

I have read Naked Lunch, and it seems to me to be unfilmable. It was a weird book of misplaced and enormously paranoid conspiracy theories, unconnected sexual fantasies, fantasy creatures, and a general musing on the philosophical entropy of the soul. None of this stopped David Cronenberg in 1991, however, and he made what is one of the strangest pieces of cinema ever put to film. Green monstrous mugwumps, characters that die and are mysteriously resurrected, centipedes disguised as humans, and metamorphosing typewriter creatures, all brought on by a stone-faced exterminator (Peter Weller) injecting bug poison. The finished product some surely something to behold, but I am baffled as to how someone could read the Burroughs novel and think “This ought to be put on the big screen!”

 

9) “Clue” (1985) (adapted from the 1949 board game, created by Anthony E. Pratt and published by Waddingtons, now owned by Hasbro)

 

While playing board games, it’s tempting to form narratives in your mind. Various conflicts and struggles begin to appear, and the ultimate winner seems either like an unstoppable menace, or an underdog who overcame adversity. “Cluedo,” later “Clue” was a murder mystery game in which you must travel about the board making accusations, and revealing cards in the hands of your opponents. It is a household staple.

In 1985, famed filmmaker John Landis and director Jonathan Lynn released a very funny locked room farce featuring some rather talented comedians (like Madeline Kahn, Michael McKean, Christopher Lloyd, and Tim Curry) a complicated murder mystery plot, and – most cleverly – multiple endings to be released in multiple theaters. They named their characters after the pieces in the board game, explaining that names like Col. Mustard were, in fact, aliases, and the ultimate goal of the film, just like in the board game, was to discover who committed the crime, in which room, and with what weapon.

I think we can all agree that it’s very, very strange to try to write a screenplay based on a board game, but stranger still is how good this film is and how well it is loved. “Clue” remains, in my mind, one of the best comedies of the 1980s. Would I have thought to make a film of my board game experiences? Probably not. But thank goodness someone did it the way they did.

 

8) “Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story”(2005) (adapted from the 1767 novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne)

 

Reading Laurence Sterne is an ecstatic experience. Sterne, using comic frustration as his launching point, uses the language of English to deconstruct and tear down the very structure of English itself. He uses a distracted narrative to encompass a whole new sub-narrative of comic asides, and a general lack of focus to enwrap the reader in a fascinated cloud of surreal joy. Sterne is unabashedly literary. It is of and about its own language and structure as a novel. Many literary critics call it a post-modern novel that was written before there was even a modern to be post to.

Michael Winterbottom, that wholly unpredictable British director, decided to, out of a whim or out of a bizarre challenge to himself, direct a film version of this literary labyrinth. His approach was actually ingenious: rather than merely adapt directly what was on the page, he decided to show the struggles of a film crew trying to film a film version of Tristram Shandy, making the screenplay not only a whimsical musing on the Sterne text, but also a reflection on the nature of filmic adaptation. The film is actually kind of brilliant, and actually manages to capture the spirit of the novel, if not the literal word.

But reading Sterne is eternally of itself, and could never be adapted. Of all the books to adapt, Winterbottom chose one of the oddest and most challenging.

 

7) “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” (movie, 1990. TV series 1987, 2003) (adapted from the 1984 comic book by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird).

 

The Ninja Turtles are so familiar to us of a certain age, and so beloved, that it’s easy to forget just how whacked out weird the property is. Our standard for “normal” now resides somewhere around a quartet of mutated sewer turtles who are experts in ninja weapons, are named for painters of the Italian Renaissance, eat pizza, and chatter teen cliches of the day.

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, as I understand it, began as a parodic trifle of Eastman and Laird, who self-published a comic book back in 1984. A toy licenser was so taken by the weird title, that he offered to make toys from it. The toys grew and grew. Petty soon, the Ninja Turtles were appearing everywhere, and even mushroomed into a long-running cartoon series, a few live-action feature films, etc. etc. The train is still rolling.

This weird-ass little college prank became one of the dominant marketing forces of its time, and became a defining property for a generation.

 

6) “Pac Man” (1982) and “Saturday Supercade”(1983) (adapted from various arcade games)

 

Adapting films from video games is unfortunately very common these days (unfortunate because there are so few good films to come from such an effort), and its clear to see why studios keep trying it and fans keep demanding it: modern video games are hugely complex endeavors that feature hours-long complex external narratives, interestingly designed characters, and conceits that are cribbed from genre films anyway.

But putting video games onto the screen was tried, as some of us may recall, back in the early 1980s with several truly bizarre and occasionally horrifying cartoons shows like “Pac Man” and “The Saturday Supercade.”

“Pac Man” was depiected as an anthropomorphic yellow sphere monster that would eat power pellets, joke with his wife and child, and defend his power secret from a sinister bald-headed goon with bumbling cadre of colorful ghosts at his disposal. The show was obnoxious, unfunny, and ran for far too long. How anyone can come up with this grating “Flintstones” lift-off from the video game of “Pac Man” is beyond me.

“Saturday Supercade” a few steps further, and featured an entire rotating cast adapted from five different video games. There was “Donkey Kong,” about a fellow trying to return an escaped ape to his zoo, “Donkey Kong, Jr.” about Kong’s son on the trail of his father (and never the twain shall meet). There was “Pitfall,” which was a standard jungle adventure. And, oddest of the lot, was the one-two punch of “Frogger” and “Q*Bert.” Frogger, previously a pixilated from making its way across a busy highway, was now a lazy-eyed investigative reporter. Q*Bert, previously a snork creature with no arms and a phallic nose, who would leap about on color-changing cubes, was now an Archie-type small-town malt-shop hero who could fly on manhole covers, and did battle with reptilian greasers.

If there’s no story in our game, and there are no characters in your game, hell, why not make ’em up?

 

5) “Mission to Mars” (2000), “The Country Bears,” (2002) “The Haunted Mansion” (2003), “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl” (2003) (adapted from rides and attractions at Disneyland)

 

When I think of amusement park rides, I often feel that they are antidotes to movies and TV. No longer must we feel beholden to following a narrative, investing interest in character, or merely even paying attention. A ride is intended to whip about your body, and give you a new, different kind of show. But the hardworking marketeers at Disney clearly don’t feel the same way, and felt that they could take the names of some of their better known attractions, and spin stories from them. Seeing as the premise of a ride is so thin, it gave the various filmmakers involve great creative license. The results, then, are decidedly mixed.

“Mission to Mars,” which was already a kind of film, only with a screen in both the ceiling and the floor rather than on a wall, became a somber-yet-kid-friendly version of “2001,” and was directed, bafflingly, by Brian DePalma. “The Country Bears” features some of the most terrifying bear suits ever filmed, and lets Christopher Walken give one of his strangest performances. “The Haunted Mansion” is just a mess, and did nothing to help the flagging career of Eddie Murphy, and “Pirates of the Caribbean” is a perfectly decent 90-minute thriller stretched into 150 minutes, and was, as you probably know, an enormous hit, spawning several sequels.

The mechanical antics of animatronic people is all well and good if you’re in a floating log, drifting through darkened tunnels. Why they got films out of this, I’ll never know.

 

4) “Rubik, The Amazing Cube” (1983) (adapted from the Rubik puzzle, invented in 1974)

 

Wow. Just wow.

You remember the toy. It’s still in wide use today. A cubic puzzle with six sides, nine square facets on each side, was to be twisted an manipulated until all the colored sides matched. It is notoriously difficult, and remains a top-seller in toyshops nationwide. How can we base a TV show on this puzzle? Hm…

So, get this: A magician loses his enchanted Rubik’s Cube. A quartet of children finds the cube, solve it, and, voila!, a small elf-like blue face appears on the cube, and squat blue feet grow out of its base! Holy shit! That thing is flipping terrifying! But no! It’s your friend! It will cast spells and aid you in your adventures! But when it’s dropped, it gets all mixed up again, and you have to solve it to get your monstrous little imp back!

I’m going to pass on my complaints about adapting an effing toy into a TV show for the time being, just so I can rant about how scary the cube monster is, and how unsettling the premise. Rubik looks like a mutated dwarf cemented into a box, and his little kid voice only adds to the fright. Watching the show only made me glad that I wasn’t very good at solving Rubik’s Cubes. I wouldn’t want that thing to aid me on my adventures.

 

3) “The Garbage Pail Kids Movie” (1987) and “Garbage Pail Kids” (1989) (adapted from the line of 1985 Topps trading cards)

 

I just learned this, but one of creators of the Garbage Pail Kids trading cards was none other than Pulitzer Prize winner Art Speigelman, the creator of “Maus.”

By 1985, the insufferably lovable Cabbage Patch Kids were riding high as the must-have toy for Christmas. A group of executives at Topps decided to parody the craze in a series of trading cards they called Garbage Pail Kids, which featured Kewpie-faced cherubs who were mutated or sickened in creative ways. Like Basil Woolverton drawings, or Chas Addams cartoons, the Garbage Pail Kids seems blissfully pleased to be sickos, mutants, or, at the very worst, merely doomed. As a child, I knew of no one who didn’t have their own stack of Garbage Pail Kids at school, and they invented a subculture unto themselves.

In 1987, longtime TV director Rod Amateau (“Gilligan’s Island,” “Lassie,” “Mr. Ed”) directed a feature film version of the trading cards. How do you depict Kewpie-faced cherubs in a live-action film? Amateau made them into rubbery-face animatronic aliens who arrived on Earth to smear snot on things, vomit, pee, eat fingers, and teach 12-year-old boys very important lessons about growing up. The film is so bad and so bizarre, that it simply must be viewed as an object. Your jaw will be on the ground.

The entire purpose of the Garbage Pail Kids trading cards was to shock and disgust. Surely it was counterintuituve to make such revolting misfits into the heroes of a movie. In 1989, the crest continued with an animated show. It’s a weird, weird show.

 

2) “Space Jam” (1996) (adapted from a series of Nike commercials)

 

 

We all love the Looney Tunes. They are some of the best films in cinematic history. But sometime in the early 1990s, when Warner Bros. Stores were opening in malls across the country, something hackneyed, overcommercialized, and overexposed happened to the beloved characters from the Chuck Jones, Friz Freling, and Bob Clampett shorts. They become corporate wonks; symbols for how something good can be corrupted. In the mid 1990s, Bugs Bunny, Marvin the Martian, and all the rest, began appearing television ads for Nike’s brand of Air Jordan’s, which were specialized and overpriced sneakers. Basketball star Michael Jordan could be seen interacting with Daffy Duck for the first time. Which I suppose is no more painful than those Daffy/Speedy Gonzalez cartoons from the 1980s.

But then the nadir hit in 1996, and “Space Jam” played in theaters. Yes, we have a movie based on a commercial. What’s more, director Joe Pytka seemed to direct his film as if it alluded to the TV ads, effectively making the movie an advertisement for the advertisements.

And oh how painful the film is. It involves space aliens stealing talent from NBA players, and the Looney Tunes recruiting Michael Jordan to play in a basketball tournament with the aliens, who want to destroy Earth, and I’m going to stop before I vomit onto my hands. It was bad enough seeing my beloved Looney Tunes misused in such hyperkinetic, paper-thin commercials for sneakers. It’s only exponentially increased when stretched to feature length. Note to producers: use ads to promote products. Use films to tell stories. Never mix the two.

 

1) “Mac and Me” (1988) (adapted from McDonald’s restaurants, founded in 1940)

 

 

This film should be kept far out of the hands of children. What is ostensibly an “E.T” rip-off is actually a protracted, calculated commercial effort from the ad men at McDonald’s to promote their restaurants. Ronald McDonald, the restaurant’s clown mascot, appeared in the film’s previews, and in the film. The film’s climax takes place largely inside a McDonald’s restaurant. Coca-Cola products play a large role in the narrative (indeed, the same role that Reese’s Pieces played in “E.T.”).

Yes, one would be tempted to say that this is merely a commercial, and not adapted from a previous property, but I argue that watching this film is the cinematic equivalent of eating at McDonald’s. If a restaurant could have a kid-friendly fantasy story, this would be it. If it could have a character, it would be Mac. If it could have a human protagonist to act as its face, it would be the ultra-whitebred wheelchair-bound Michael. If it could have a soul, this greasy, dripping, unctuous pile of rennet would be it.

Mac is a pale, sleepy-eyed gremlin that can fit through vacuum tubes, and has his mouth permanently frozen into an “o.” He has spindly limbs, pointy Yoda ears, and an enlarged stomach. Imagine, if you will, a species that evolved eating nothing but McDonald’s food, and you’ve got Mac (special thanks to William Bibbiani for the preceding joke).

Adapting is a tricky practice, and should be used with care. It can produce some great films (“The Godfather” leaps to mind), and it can produce cynical money grabs (“Transformers” leaps to mind). I suppose any source is fair game, but, writers, when you find yourself in front of your computer or typewriter, and you’ve been asked to create a narrative for Wooly Willy,

Finnegans Wake, or T.G.I. Friday’s, I elect you put down the bottle of Bushmill’s , go outdoors, take a deep breath in, and decide if the job is really worth it.

 

Witney Seibold is a genial fellow living in Los Angeles. He worked as a professional film critic back when people used to read real newspapers, and now, like everyone with computer access and two opinions to rub together, maintains his very own ‘blog. You can read more of his stuff, comeplete with righteous indignation, snobbery, and a handful of typographical errors, at this site! http://witneyman.wordpress.com

If you were born anytime after the late 1960s, chances are, you, like me, grew up worshiping the Gods of Saturday Morning. You probably had a similar worship schedule to me. You would awaken far earlier than you would on a school day, you would not bathe, nor change out of your nightclothes from the night before. You would fill enormous bowls of easily-prepared cold breakfast cereal, you would race into whatever room the TV was in, and you would spend a good two to four hours laying or sitting prostrate, perhaps wigging from an unduly strong sugar rush, hungrily imbibing the offerings from whatever TV programmers felt you should be consuming. They probably didn’t know it at the time, but those TV programmers were shaping our pop consciousness.

But there were dangers and pitfalls. As we have likely learned as adults, we often had pretty crummy taste growing up, and revisiting some of these prized memories can result in embarrassment at the least, and utter horror at the most. Sure, some of these cartoons easily stand the test of time; “The Ren & Stimpy Show” is still pretty brilliant, I’m very fond of “Tiny Toon Adventures,” and, of course, anyone can get behind Warner Bros. animated shorts from the 1940s. However, if you grew up with them, I implore you not to go back and watch “The Transformers,” or “Inspector Gadget.”Why, why did we watch the 1980s version of “Alvin and the Chipmunks?” How did the bizarro sci-fi/dark ages mash up that is “He-Man and the Masters of the Universe” make any sense to us as children? And how can any generation answer for “Scooby Doo?”

Despite their weirdness, though, many of these shows are remembered with fondness and no small amount of nostalgia. I did watch all of the above mentioned shows on a regular basis, and did have a good time with them. I may be afraid to revisit them today, but still have nothing but affection for my Saturday Morning worship.

But the dark side of this fondness and nostalgia are the Horrors. The Dark Ones. The supporting characters that were so out-of-place, no obnoxious, so very grating and abrasive that, even as a child, you wondered why they were inserted into the show. The screeching, cutesy nightmares that were borne of bad ideas, and are now the fuel for rancor and nightmares. I, out of mere pique, and to have a little fun, have decided to compile a list of the ten most annoying animated characters from years past.

(First, a ground rule: The character cannot have been intentionally annoying. A lot of my friends like to cite the squealing, cooing, animal-torturing Elmyra from “Tiny Toon Adventures” as a really obnoxious character. Well, indeed she was annoying, but she was engineered to be that way; she served as a villain on the show, and, in that capacity, was a flying success (and even kind of brilliant, in a way). Others might site the protractedly weird characters from some of The Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim lineup. Again, they are designed to be kind of off-putting. No, these characters must stand out in stark contrast to their surroundings. They must have been clearly created to entertain, only to achieve the opposite effect. They must induce in the viewer, a terrifying need to smack them in the face and light them on fire).

 

10) Needle from “Conan the Adventurer” (1992-1993)

 

“Conan the Adventurer” (not to be confused with the 1997 live-action series of the same name) was a pretty flimsy show that was, like many of its peers of the 1980s and 1990s, merely trying to bank on an established property, this case the 1982 Arnold Schwarzenegger film. Its premise was spare, but familiar: Conan, a muscled warrior of the Dark Ages, would wander the countryside battling despots, thieves and evil wizards. The show lasted 64 episodes (which is a lot for a single year’s run), and is largely dismissable and forgettable. I spawned its own spinoff called “Conan and the Young Warriors.”

But, we still have Needle. Let us not forget Needle. You see, our hero Conan had in his possession a magical shield with a phoenix crest. At a whim, the crest itself could spring bodily from the shield and fly about, aiding Conan. But, rather than be a poetic soul, or a thorny badass, Needle was a squeaking, parrot-like, anachronistic comic relief character, who would bitch and whine about his sidekick status in between begging for pomegranates. He referred to himself in the third person. Needle wasn’t quite as obnoxious as some of the other heavyweights on this list, but he did manage to rob an otherwise hardworking television series of any dignity it may have had.

 

9) Gurgi from “The Black Cauldron” (1985)

 

In the mid 1980s, the Disney feature animation studio was suffering both in quality and financially. In the notebooks of many an animation historian, the nadir could be represented by “The Black Cauldron,” a bare-faced imitation of “The Lord of the Rings” with a bad script and unmemorable characters. While the film looks fantastic, has a neat-looking villain, and is even possessed of some truly scary skeleton monsters, the film is kind of clunky, the story predictable, the boyish hero a kind of non-entity, and the conceit of a magical, fortune-telling pig a little hard even for little kids to buy.

But the film really begins to fall apart when our boyish hero, while out on a walk in the woods, meets the monster named Gurgi. Gurgi is a creature with the body of a monkey, the fact of a terrier, and the voice of Donald Duck’s less comprehensible brother. He longingly aches for food, and repeatedly calls apples “munchies and crunchies.” He lies, steals, and gives puppy dog eyes. He is the worst combination of conniving and adorable. The instant he appears, you hate him. Then you get the sinking sensation that he’s going to be with us the entire movie. Disney is known for its pusillanimous sidekicks, but Gurgi takes that cake.

If he were just an annoying sidekick, that would be bad enough, but he’s involved in a convoluted double bluff that earns him a spot on this list. During the film’s climax, the titular cauldron (which contains the soul of an evil sorcerer) can only be sealed if someone willingly sacrifices themselves. Gurgi, in a rare moment of introspection, begins to realize that no one likes him and throws himself into the pot. This is tragic, but it’s an ambivalent tragedy, as the audience clearly wanted him dead. But then the film, assuming we liked him, bothers to resurrect him. It’s one of the worst favors a bad film could have done.

 

8) Mindy from “Animaniacs” (1993-1998)

 

When you think about it, there’s nothing intellectual about “cute.” Cute is an emotional, gut reaction to stimulus. Studies have even proved that little of the brain is activated when presented with something that is merely adorable. And we all know what it’s like. Give me a good book, and I’ll devour it. But give me a basket of kittens, and I’ll put the book down to play with them.

But I object the sinister calculation of some filmmakers and TV designers when they deliberately try to make something that is adorable for its own sake. The most horrid offender of this phenomenon I can think of would be Mindy from “Animaniacs.”

Mindy is a one-joke character. She is a girl of about 4, who, when her parents are not looking, would blissfully flee her restraints, and go on merry adventures in the neighborhood. She only seems to dimly perceive the world about her, as she is often wandering into extremely dangerous scenarios, often at risk to her very life. The only thing protecting her from certain doom is the hard work and loyalty of her unappreciated pet dog Buttons, who is often trampled in her place. I’m tempted to make a martyrdom analogy. Buttons would then safely return Mindy to her cradle, only to be admonished for touching the baby. That poor dog.

Mindy is such a bland and blissful character that she is quickly nailed as a studio calculation. The insistent repetition of her cutesy catchphrases doesn’t help either. Mindy falls in the same camp as a lot of the Disney stable; they may have started as a real characters, but are now a bundle of orchestrated clichés and adorableness that appeal to your cute gland and give you cavities. As for me, I just want to slap the adorable off of that kid.

 

7) The Chipmunks from “Alvin & the Chipmunks” (1983-1991)

 

In the 1960s, Ross Bagdasarian thought to speed up the vocal tracks of his background singers, and bill their now-squeaky voices as the singing chipmunk act of a hard-working record producer. As a novelty record, I will proudly defend Alvin and the Chipmunks. “The Christmas Song” has become something of a standard, and even some of the recent Chipmunks albums have occasional merit (The Chippettes singing Missing Persons’ “Destination Unknown” is a bizarre pleasure).

But in the 1980s, when cartoons were all based on previous properties or toys, the Chipmunks were resurrected and mutated and made into bizarre horrors.

I have no problems with the squeaky voices, or even with their base character traits, necessarily (despite their blandness and broadness). I do, however, have a deep-seated objection to the very concept of flattening out the Chipmunks. The weird sitcom-like family dynamic, paired with the strange, mutated, 10-year-old-boys-with-big-round-peach-heads design they were given makes “Alvin & the Chipmunks” into a screechy, mental sunburn. If you can find footage of Alvin dressed as The Tooth Fairy somewhere on this great big Internet of ours, you’ll know what I’m talking about.

 

6) Slimer from “The Real Ghostbusters” and “Slimer” (1986-1991)

 

“Ghostbusters” (1986) is often considered one of the genre tentpoles of the 1980s, and today is still possessed of a wickedly creepy sense of humor rarely seen in modern films. I, like many my age, hold a strong affection for the film.

Oddly, though, the name “Ghostbusters” had already been claimed by an obscure 1975 sitcom (and, subsequently, Filmation’s 1986 cartoon), so when it came time to adapt the 1986 film for Saturday morning television, the title “The Real Ghostbusters” had to be used. They used stylized versions of the movie characters (careful not to make caricatures of the original actors), and even included a “sidekick” ghost that hung around with the titular ghost hunters. This was Slimer, a blurburing little glob of snot that smeared ooze over everything it touched, ate copious amounts of junk food, and didn’t really speak English. Slimer was supposed to serve as comic relief, but offered little more than squeaks and gluttony jokes.

The green ghost in the “Ghostbusters” movie, on which Slimer is based, wasn’t really properly named, as it was just a gluttonous spirit haunting an old New York hotel. The scenes with this ghost were so impressive, though, the nickname of “Slimer” was already floating around on the lips of the films’ fans. I posit this is not good enough reason to include a character in a TV adaptation. If you must adapt a show, please, cleave closely to the source material. Or diverge in interesting ways. Don’t give is this pabulum comedy relief duties.

 

5) Rhom from “Johnny Cypher in Dimension Zero” (1967)

 

Thanks to the hard work and steely resolve of stalwart animation historian Jerry Beck, I have been introduced to this obscure little oddity from the 1960s. “Johnny Cypher in Dimension Zero” was a sci-fi serial that played on TV in between longer programs, and featured some of the corniest dialogue and weakest characters in animation history. Johnny Cypher himself was a space-faring superhero who could transform into a miniature whirlwind, and bore his way through spaceships, deflect lasers, or perform whatever heroic tasks the situation called for. Johnny flew about space in his very own ship with his would-be girlfriend, and his squeaky alien sidekick Rhom.

Rhom. It’s hard to describe exactly what Rhom is. He’s an alien creature of some sort, with big, almond-shaped wasp eyes, and the physique of a human infant. It’s unclear if he was a character included to dispense space wisdom to Johnny, or if he was comic relief. Either way, listening to Rhom’s voice is a test of your mettle. Just looking at him gives one a strange queasy feeling. When you’re not wondering what the hell Rhom is, you’re gritting your teeth at his annoying, annoying “cuteness.”

 

4) Orbity from the revival of “The Jetsons” (1985, 1987)

 

Sitcoms (along with soap operas) are notorious for introducing new characters when ratings begin to slump after several successful years. Two words: Cousin Oliver. Or a better example: what was the name of The Fonz’s girlfriend?

In 1985, Hanna-Barbera decided to revive their popular 1962 series “The Jetsons” about a typical American family living in the future. They would fly about in jet cars, give orders to their robot maid, and push buttons to perform even the simplest of household tasks. The teenage daughter would gossip, the young boy would calmly do his homework, the wife would, well, also gossip, and the husband would go off to work every morning to be berated and belittled by his corporate masters. The dog could talk.

The revival was modestly successful, and ran for 41 episodes. In 1986, the show was taken out of production, only to make a last stumble onto the air in 1987. This time, though, the show’s producers decided to introduce a new pet into the Jetson household in the form or Orbity, a fuzzy little alien beast with big eyes, spring-loaded legs, antennae, and fur. Orbity would change colors like a mood ring, and squeal a lot. The household already had a cute talking pet, so it was unclear as to why Orbity was brought into the show. Maybe the producers felt they needed new blood to distinguish the revival from the original. Whatever the reason, we were inflicted with Orbity for far too many episodes, having to suffer through its every little quirk and superheroic deed. Orbity unduly changed the dimension of an already one-dimensional show.

 

3) Spritle Racer and Chim-Chim from “Speed Racer” (1967)

 

“Speed Racer” was the first television series to introduce the concept of Japanese animation to American audiences. It’s one of the most shoddy and simplest TV series ever conceived, but it was possessed of an enjoyable manic kookiness that has it surviving into the present as a cult hit. Indeed, in 2008, the series was adapted into a big-budget live-action film.

The premise was paper thin: Speed Racer is a race car driver who, with the help of his family, manage to win many car races. There are corporate wonks, cheaters, and wicked villains who would do Speed in, but Speed wins the race every time (and I guess he’d have to with a name like that). Speed would flirt with his would-be girlfriend Trixie, banter with Mom and Pops Racer, and scold the mischievous machinations of his little brother Spritle and Spritle’s pet chimpanzee Chim-Chim.

Is it possible to describe just how abrasive little Spritle really was? Or the sickening confusion one feels when watching Chim-Chim? Spritle was shrill, screamy, and shallow. Chim-Chim was jumpy and unpredictable. The pair was known for hiding in Speed Racer’s trunk during dangerous races, meaning they would also intentionally be putting their own lives in danger on a regular basis. To me, Spritle came across as slightly mentally retarded. His antics were queasy and horrifying. “Speed Racer” was silly enough without a “cute” little brother, so his presence was also extraneous.

Die, Chim-Chim, die.

 

2) The Great Gazoo from “The Flintstones” (1960-1966)

 

I have to admit, I am no fan of “The Flintstones.” The sloppy parody of “The Honeymooners” set during the Stone Age, complete with unlikable characters and a healthy dose of canned laughter, never appealed to me. I admire the show as a cultural turning point, and I appreciate how it pioneered animation to a broader more mainstream audience, but watching the show itself is a less than rewarding experience. The women are all status-obsessed, gossiping biddies, and the men are all dumb, squat, lazy oafs. I guess that’s fair, though, seeing as we are, technically, seeing a portrait of primitive man.

But then, sometime in the show’s final season, the producers came up with the stultifyingly absurd idea to write in a large-headed, floating green space alien with magical powers. The Great Gazoo is a banished alien who lands on Earth. The Great Gazoo is weird enough, but putting him in the Stone Age pushes on the membrane of surreality. He would smugly assert his superiority over the cavemen creeps he found himself amongst, and then vanish.

What? What the Hell? A green space alien, banished from his home, sent to Earth to mock cavemen, give them brontosaurus racing tips, and swan about, lording his superior powers over people who are barely smart enough to get about town? Even if your fevered mind can come up with some sort of mildly reasonable explanation for his presence on this show, one surely cannot get past his croony smugness.

 

1) Scrappy Doo from “Scooby Doo Where Are You!” (1968 ~ 1978)

 

The heavy-hitter. The paramount. The pinnacle of all things horrifying and obnoxious in the world of cartoons. Scrappy Doo is the golden standard by which we compare all other annoying animated characters. Watching Scrappy Doo is akin to taking off your gas mask in a bunker full of tear gas. Why, oh why did Hanna-Barbera create such a grating personality?

The various “Scooby Doo” series, famously following a rogue cadre of teenagers who solves mysteries with their talking dog, were inexplicably popular in the 1960s and 1970s, and have become something of a cult classic, and a well-known staple of popular culture. However, back in 1970, when the show’s rating began to drop, and ABC threatened to cancel the show, Hanna-Barber did what most anyone would do, and introduced a new child character into the scene. This was Scooby Doo’s little bipedal cousin Scrappy Doo.

Scrappy not only walked upright, but seemed to speak better English than his uncle. He had an enormous dog head, but his body was small and spindly. He was a confrontational little bastard, who would charge into danger and offer to fistfight anyone or anything he encountered. And shivers still run down my spine when I think of his screaming his catchphrase “Puppy power!”

No. Just no. Scrappy was immediately reviled by Scooby Doo fans, and the show went off the air shortly thereafter. However, thanks to the enterprising budgeting of the studio, “Scooby Doo” managed to stick around in one iteration or another of many years, and Scrappy Doo somehow managed to stay alive in bits and pieces. It’s like the universe was trying to remove him, but his supernatural abrasiveness kept him alive.

Annoying child? Check. Late-in-the-series addition? Check. Squeaky voice? Check. Catchphrases? Check. The single most obnoxious cartoon character in the history of animation? Check.

What are some characters you hate?

(N.B. I noticed that many of the characters on this list were voiced by hard-working voice actor Frank Welker. Welker has been working in the business since the 1960s, and his voice has come to represent an important part of my childhood. He is a talented man, and can do things with his voice that few voice actors are capable of. He should be admired and respected. That he voiced many obnoxious characters shoudn’t reflect on his talent; for every annoying character he was behind, there were hundreds that were dynamic and fascinating because of him.)

 

Witney Seibold is a genial fellow living in Los Angeles. He worked as a professional film critic back when people used to read real newspapers, and now, like everyone with computer access and two opinions to rub together, maintains his very own ‘blog. You can read more of his stuff, comeplete with righteous indignation, snobbery, and a handful of typographical errors, at this site! http://witneyman.wordpress.com

No matter what film or TV show you’re watching, the word of the day is going to be verisimilitude; that is, every film, no matter how fantastic or whacked out or imaginary, is going to claim to be the real world. Genre films (sci-fi and fantasy in particular) may imagine an alternate version of Earth, but they are still based in a grounded reality of some sort.

 

And nothing can pull you out of that film’s reality better than the pop culture within that universe. If you’re watching a romantic comedy, and the characters are talking about, say, “Jersey Shore,” then you know it’s the real world. But when you see an episode of “DJ Laser” playing in the background of “Robocop,” you begin to realize that this film is one small nudge away from actual reality. Some call it the “555” effect (as in, all fake telephone numbers begin with 555, which serves as a clarion call for the film’s falseness). The proper German term is verfremdungseffekt.

 

In the spirit of that ecstatic state of pop culture half-truth, I have compiled the following list of the best films-within-films and TV-shows-within-TV-shows to ponder and enjoy. Here are the shows we like from inside the shows we like.

 

10) “Satan’s Alley”

From “Tropic Thunder” (2008)

Ben Stiller’s “Tropic Thunder” was about a group of actors, filming a jungle mayhem film, who find themselves in real peril by real bad guys. The film opened with the sad career trajectories of each of the struggling, would-be players, including limp action films like Ben Stiller’s “Scorcher VI,” and unfunny raunch comedies like Jack Black’s “The Fatties, Fart 2.”

 

The crown jewel of this set of fake preview, though, was a so-called “prestige” picture, featuring Robert Downey, Jr.’s Kirk Lazarus in a film called “Satan’s Alley,” which was a hyper-stylized weepy romance about 18^th century Irish monks in gay relationships. In an episode of “South Park,” a character once observed that all indie films are about gay cowboys eating pudding. When “Brokeback Mountain” was released in 2005, all bets were off, and Stiller wrote this savvy and funny parody preview for “Satan’s Alley.”

 

Call me weird, but I’d love to watch “Satan’s Alley.” It seemed to me to be the right blend of earnest romance, gay exploration, and outright lurid sex. Let’s see the pretentious, hard-working thespian in bed with Tobey Maguire, shall we?

 

9) “La Fin Absolue du Monde”

From “Cigarette Burns” (2005)

As part of the notorious “Masters of Horror” series, the indispensible John Carpenter directed a film that he considered to be a quick one-off, but that I feel is a rather good, and a wonderfully twisted way of showing how far cinema can go, and how dramatically it can affect people. It was called “Cigarette Burns” (after the visible cue marks one sees at the ends of film reels, a term invented for “Fight Club”), and it was about a mad film collector (Udo Kier) who hires an investigator (Norman Reedus) to track down the world’s rarest film, a short called “La Fin Absolue du Monde,” or “The Absolute End of the World.”

 

It turns out that “La Fin Absolue du Monde” is so rare because anyone who watches it goes insane, and induces murders and suicides even amongst the most wholesome and hearty of souls. It was a disaster at its premiere back in the 1930s, and has been lurking in the scarier periphery of snuff film circles ever since.

 

We only get to see snippets of “La Fin Absolue du Monde” in “Cigarette Burns,” but we do know that it contains the mutilation of an actual angel. If a friend or a colleague approached me and told me they had a reel of a film that makes you go mad and commit suicide, I would insist that we watch it immediately. If it’s real, what a way to go. If it’s not, well, you can brag.

 

8) Whatever that was at the beginning of “FX2”

From “FX2” (1991)

The idea behind the “F/X” movies (using practical movie special effects to fight crime) is a sadly dated one, as all film effects have largely moved into the realm of CGI; one cannot fight crime with CGI. The films, then, stand as kind of cheesy, but immensely entertaining celebrations of the hard-working, dashing, gore-obsessed engineers who once constructed the ooey-gooey monsters and bloody gunshot wounds of our childhoods. Bryan Brown and Brian Dennehy are also at their cheesy comic best in the films, and they move with a wonderfully comedic clip that one rarely finds in even good action films of the day.

 

The opening of “FX2” is, of course, the filming of a film-within-a-film, and features a shootout between a group of cops, and a cross-dressing super-cyborg that bleeds glowing purple ooze, and shoots missiles from its severed arm sockets. The title of this film is never revealed, and the rest of its story is never discussed. It’s a stand-alone FX scene with a cross-dressing robot.

 

I would watch that movie. I really want to watch that movie. Any movie with a missile-launching, purple-ooze-encrusted, transvestite robot is my kind of movie. As the fake opening began, I even started to wish that “FX2” would never begin, and this weird-ass sci-fi thing would continue apace. Perhaps if Richard Franklin went back in time, we could convince him to make it.

 

7) “Don’t”

From “Grindhouse” (2007)

The Tarantino/Rodriguez two-punch “Grindhouse” remains, in my mind, one of the more purely cinematic films of the last decade. It was a film predicated on actual theatrical experience, rather than a dull bank of easily downloaded and digested images. The film was scratched. It was double feature. The films were sloppy and weird and savvy homages to a certain kind of “B”-film of decades past. It’s one thing to see the films on video. It’s actually something else entirely to see it in a theater.

 

And, most memorably from “Grindhouse” were the entertaining fake trailers directed by special guest directors. There was Rob Zombie’s “Werewolf Women of the SS,” there was Eli Roth’s “Thanksgiving,” and, most enjoyably, there was Edgar Wright’s “Don’t.”

 

“Don’t” remained obscure. Its story was not discussed, and the scenario never made clear. But the degraded images, spooky narration, and grave warnings only made us horror movie fans lick our chops in giddy anticipation. “Don’t” made us hungry for a horror film that sounded more exciting than most of the real horror films being released. If you want to go in the basement… DON’T!

 

6) “Corporate Cops”

From “The Awful Truth” (1999)

 

Michael Moore is often vilified in this country as either an ignorant rabble-rouser, or a sloppy journalist with a left-wing agenda. I’ve always seen him as a working-class satirist, who clearly does have an agenda, and has the gall to stand by his beliefs. I admire a lot of his film and TV work, most of all, this 1999 TV series “The Awful Truth,” which was a weekly 30-minute show that tackled whatever corporate malfeasance he could expose that week, and regularly mocked politicians on both the left and the right.

 

In a short (which he would subsequently reuse in 2003’s “Bowling for Columbine”), Moore questioned why it was that reporting of crime had risen while crime rates themselves had dropped. He approached the producer of the infamous TV reality show “Cops,” and asked why petty criminals were so hot at the time, and why exposing horrible white-collar criminals (who bilked the American people out of billions) was not on his radar. The producer replied that carrying a guy in a suit into a cop car was not good TV, while a shirtless robber was very good TV indeed.

 

Moore then filmed an entertaining segment where he proposed a “Cops”-like spinoff called “Corporate Cops.” The new show would feature tax-evaders, greedy CEOs, and other Mephistophelean assholes running like mad from John Law. I don’t know about you, but I would watch that show in a heartbeat. Who wouldn’t want to see a doughy white embezzler in a suit trying to outright one of the state’s finest?

 

5) “The Moustrap”

From “Hamlet” (1601)

If you will excuse a slight classic digression…

 

So you’re the rightful heir to your father’s throne, but, by some legal trickery, your uncle became king instead. What’s more, your father’s ghost has appeared to you and told you outright that your uncle killed him. It’s your moral obligation to kill him and take your rightful place.

 

Hamlet, though, reacts as, I think, most of us would. With a painfully heartfelt ambivalence. Sure you’d get what you want, but you would have to commit murder. Hamlet’s indecision on the matter leads to one of the most famous (if not the single most famous) plays-within-plays in literary history: “The Moustrap.” He writes a play (!) which theorizes how the murder went down, and, based on how Claudius reacted, would then commit murder accordingly.

 

The play itself – which mirrors the story of “Hamlet” – is a bombastic affair with long speeches and heartfelt line-readings that feel forced and awkward. “Forced and awkward” may not sound like many people’s cup of tea, but sometimes the author’s intentions can be far more interesting than the actual content of a film or play. Watching “The Mousetrap” with the Danish court, while Hamlet is frothing about on stage, and Claudius is shifting uncomfortably in his seat would be a ceaselessly entertaining experience.

 

4) “Crappon Inna Hat”

From “The Maxx” (1993)

The Maxx is a masked superhero – in his mind. In reality, he’s a down-and-out homeless man who takes advantage of the kindness of his best friend Julie. The Maxx also seems to occasionally shift from one reality (this one) to another (a mythical Australian outback), where he actually is a monster-fighting badass.

 

Sam Kieth’s famed cult comic is still one of the weirdest and most elaborate ever written, and is still beloved by cult audiences as a revolutionary oddity about gender dynamics, rape, feminism, and the practical uses of magic. Keith likes to remain oblique, and would only drop hints as to the true nature of what was going on. Hints would come by truly obtuse means: a bad guy’s soliloquy. A strangely decorated bathroom. Hallucinatory dreams. And, most notably, a children’s TV show called “Crappon Inna Hat,” a French Canadian explosion of colorful, Seussian bizarrity.

 

The show was recited in verse. It featured a spotted toad in a hat. It was described as “dumb” and “weird.” And yet… and yet… if seen in the right light… “Crappon Inna Hat” seemed to be an elaborate code for unlocking the secrets of the universe. There are times, when you’re watching “Eraserhead” or “The Holy Mountain” at three in the morning, having consumed too many cans of soda, that you feel like you’re seeing true reality. “Crappon Inna Hat” delivered that catharsis on a weekly basis. I want to see that show.

 

3) “All My Circuits”

From “Futurama” (1999)

I love the subtle ironies of “Futurama.” It takes place in a future world, crawling with robots and monsters, killer Santa Claus and frequent threats to the entire planet Earth, and yet people are still largely dimwitted, of average intelligence, and still like to gather around the TV (which are typically ordinary cathode ray tubes), and watch middle-brow entertainment. The world’s biggest hit show (right after “Everybody Loves Hypnotoad”) is the robot-based soap opera “All My Circuits.”

 

“All My Circuits” is like, well, a soap-opera written by robots. Not only are all the characters robots (with the exception of one token human), but the drama and emotions are ratcheted up to delirious levels. Scenes don’t entirely connect to one another, and t seems confusing. It stars a hammy actor named Calculon (Maurice LaMarche) who plays himself, and it has dealt with evil twins, explosive amnesia, bathing in champagne, familial betrayals, deep dark secrets (one character is secretly metric), assassination plots, and things even more extreme.

 

If I found myself in the year 3000, and I was getting over my culture shock, it’s likely I would find myself planted in front of the future’s TV, taking in every last episode of “All My Circuits.” I’d need to see. I’d need to know.

 

2) “Psycho Dad”

From “Married with Children” (1987)

 

“Married with Children” was a crass, dumb show that slaked the base desires of ignorant misogynists, callow teens, and reinforced the stereotypes of nagging wives and abusive fathers. Some felt it was a savvy skewering of popular sitcom conventions. Some saw it as a heroic plea to escape an exploding nuclear family. Either way, the show was a huge hit, and last ten seasons. It followed the adventures of a shoe salesman named Al Bundy (Ed O’Neill), his shrill wife Peg (Katey Sagal) and his sex-crazed teenage kids (David Faustno, Christina Applegate). The dynamic was like “All in the Family” writ large, with Archie Bunker’s dour racism replaced with Al Bundy’s general misanthropy.

 

Al’s misanthropy, though, found an outlet in his favorite TV show “Psycho Dad,” which went unseen by the audience. Evidently “Psycho Dad” followed the merry adventures of a father – stuck in a horrid marriage – who had freely killed and abused all the annoyances in his life. “Psycho Dad” seemed gleefully over-the-top, and offered all stymied family men a much-needed release of their frustrations.

 

Upon reflection, the presence of “Psycho Dad” in the show expressed exactly how the writers of “Married with Children” felt about most sitcoms. They were finally stirring up the angst simmering underneath the surface of most suburban idylls. Most fathers, they posited, harbored secret fantaies of death and violence. “Married with Children” never went that far, but, thanks to “Psycho Dad,” it kind of did.

 

1) “Fox Force Five”

from “Pulp Fiction (1994)

“Fox” as we’re a bucha foxy chicks. “Force” as in we’re a force to be reckoned with. And “Five” as in there are one-two-three-four-five of us.

 

It’s rare that you see shows of this nature around anymore. Gimmicky shows with unrealistic action and shallow setups. I kind of miss them. Shows like “She Spies,” “VIP,” and “Acapulco H.E.A.T.” could never be made these days. Most new TV seems devoted to protracted story arcs, and soap-opera like character studies of melodramatic angst disguised as real human emotion. When a good cheesy action series promises to come along (hello, “The Cape”) I get a little excited.

 

In Quentin Tarantino’s seminal ’90s classic “Pulp Fiction,” Mia Wallace (Uma Thurman) tells her date about a pilot she starred in. It was about the titular Fox Force, a team of female secret agents who would take down bad guys bent on world destruction. The pilot wasn’t picked up, and Mia Wallace continued to languish in drug-laced obscurity. But wouldn’t you have loved to see that show? Especially today. When superhero teams are rarely seen on the small screen (or even the big screen for that matter, “The Fantastic Four” notwithstanding), a superspy team of stereotype foxy ladies would be just what the doctor ordered.

 

Derivative? Of course. Cheesy? You bet. The most eagerly awaited fake TV show of all time? You got t.

 

Honorable Mentions:

“DJ Laser” from “Robocop”

 

That “I’ll Buy THAT for a Dollar” show, also from “Robocop”

 

“Caleb Rentpayer” from homstarrunner.com

 

“Itchy and Scratchy” from “The Simpsons”

 

“Krusty the Clown” from “The Simpsons”

 

The “McBain” movies from “The Simpsons”

 

“Terrence & Philip” from “South Park”

 

“Chinpokomon” from “South Park”

 

“Rochelle Rochelle” from “Seinfeld”

 

That movie that Bruce Campbell was in at the beginning “The Majestic”

 

That jewel thief movie that did not star John Malkovich from “Being John Malkovich”

 

“Pleasantville”

 

“The Sun Also Sets” from “Soap Dish”

 

“Binky the Clown” from “Garfield”

 

“Bride of the Mutant” from “Get Shorty”

 

“Ow! My Balls!” from “Idiocracy”

 

 

Witney Seibold is a dashingly handsome fellow living in Los Angeles with his lovely wife, and his growing unpopular opinions. He writes film reviews for his ‘blog Three Cheers for Darkened Years!, where he examines and dissects every new film he manages to see, as well and occasionally writes insightful essays on classics films, and gives rundowns of entire film series in his Series Project. You can access his writing here: http://witneyman.wordpress.com/