RED GUNDAM: MAKING A SCENE

 

Katharine: as i sit here in this Gundam and envision the future, i close my eyes and MANIFEST.

Mardith: how's that going? how's that going really?

Katharine: nothing. nothing's happening. just darkness. anxiety and a double-chin.

Mardith: the universe is on summer break.

Katharine: what's this penny stuck in the slot to the side here? no wonder the engine wouldn't start!!!

Mardith: whoa, this penny is coated in blue powder. it means you can take the luck now or wait to travel to a parallel animated cartoon of the '80s, the village of the Smurfs.

dad: you can wait to get licked by Azrael or Smurfette.

Papa Smurf at the wheel: is this the Soyuz? there's always a Soyuz.

Stephen King: "Word Processor of the Gods," it takes a very honest man to admit your son is a creep.

Buddhist monk at the British Open: not a good look, lot of colonizing going on here. can we give the LIV tour back to the Saudis and ban all sports in Britain? golf is the ultimate meditative pastime. golf was invented in TIBET, not China...

Defenders of Wildlife: we have to put our stuff in blank unmarked envelopes now...

Katharine: i'm for a new approach, like Jesus in The Last Temptation of Christ. why do we have to fight and destroy these cool robots? it takes 87 years to build one Gundam. how can there be an enemy when we can all mindread?!!! 

Four: yeah i'm with you, let's open our cockpit doors and just talk. what are you doing? why are you burying your head in my crotch?

Katharine: that's how i meditate.

Ted Robinson: something happened with tennis, it just isn't the same...

John Isner: i never won a major? why? meanwhile Scottie Scheffler drops his pants and the rest of the golf world doesn't know what to do. all tennis players must be required to wear trousers. you must win by two. each set is the first to 70 games...  

under control: under someone's control.

Match Game '74: get to tomorrow faster...

Michele Bachmann: so they didn't let me keep the Congress company car. btw, i've never listened to one of Bach's songs...

game shows: we got INSANE lawyers.

Ons Jabeur: it wasn't because i was unhappy on the tennis court. that i was depressed, that there was no joy anymore hitting a fuzzy green ball through a net, no it was because i want Bud Collins back.

Dan Rivera: the doll wasn't haunted, okay? we just want Telly Savalas back. bring Telly back so he can see his Muppet children. and change that Twilight Zone episode title from "Living Doll" to "Talky Tina."

Rod Serling: my first draft was called "Haunted by a Bald Head."

After Dark, My Sweet: Coca-Cola flavored with date palms...

Billy Corgan: hey i don't mean to step on any toes here.

Bjork: you have a very genuine smile that's from the '50s. don't worry about your toes, they're frozen.

Billy Corgan: i fear frostbite more than i fear death. are the acoustics good in Reykjavik?

Bjork: i don't know, i never leave my house.

Billy: the drawback of having a home studio...

Padraig Harrington: they love their potty...

Tales from the Darkside "Seasons of Belief": not really like that Rent song. blossomed into something else. never tell a child Santa Claus doesn't exist, that ruins lives, that will ruin that kid's life forever, that destroys the innocence of youth, magic is all we have...

Suzy Lu: i got Kakashi some Converse shoes.

Kakashi: thank. being a barefoot ninja is rough on the dogs.

Steejo: what'd you get me, luv?

Suzy: you get to stay in my Scottish castle in the doghouse.

Michael Jordan: Suzy got me some Atari shoes...

me: hello!!! what are you doing here?

Jules Smith: i'm just sort of into anime. where's the food? conventions have good food, right? where are the triple-cooked chips? come on, this is Japan, they've gotta be here.

Japan: oh yeah, sous-vide french fries, we did that in the '80s... 

Leslie Sbrocco: not swag, schwag. look, we've done every single restaurant in San Francisco. i told the producers not to come to Carmel but they said The Forge was the last restaurant in the state!!!

Clint Eastwood: it's not a comfortable feeling being 100 years old...

Emil Bove: i'm a reckless prosecutor. and a venal man. i have brought shame to my great-great-great grandfather Nosferatu.

Hall & Oates: whoa oh here she comes, watch out boy she'll spit you out, whoa oh here she comes, she's a dreamweaver...

Katharine: you see, Gundam is Japan's Shakespeare, Japan's literature. i treat it as such, i treat it serious, i need for it to be REAL.

Lux: i feel you. and mindmeld you. tho that sort of thinking plummets manga sales.

Katharine closes his eyes again, this time he REALLY tries to believe...

the roof of the con hall has a hole. caused by the Red Gundam's head. 

Katharine: i like this robot, he has a hard noggin like me. WOW, we are in the sky!!!

without having to heavily lean on the clutch, with a light touch, the Gundam makes a beeline for the sun.

Lux: okay okay i get it, so YOU write the next anime.

Katharine: don't you see? i'm gonna LIVE the scene, not imagine it. books can never replace a lover.

it's too bright to see inside the sunny amphitheatre.

Katharine Hepburn: worship me, Earth!!!

RED GUNDAM: MANGA BOOKS ARE HEAVY

 

Katharine: what's the highlight of any con?

Lux: the comic-book shop of course. here's where you get RARE manga of your favorite mech anime for like 3 times the price you would in America. but it's here in Japan.

Katharine: i guess i'm not patient enough to wait the 117 weeks of shipping and handling. how much did i pay for this plane ticket again? anything good this week? the week i happen to be here?

Lux: here, a thousand-page steelbook on how the Aztec symbol in Sailor Moon Super is the same symbol of that village in Zelda.

Katharine: that book is giving me the thousand-year processed stare.

Katharine Hepburn: saddle up, you dozy dingbat. 

Katharine gets inside the cockpit of the Red Gundam and is transfixed forever.

Katharine: i'm never leaving. it's like my butt is glued to the seat, but the superglue is wonder. why are all the computers aboard this Gundam wood?

Four: they finally got around to upgrading the computers!!!

Katharine: finally a woman.

Four: Katharine is a male name? oh i get it, you're named after that painter. that painter that urinated in a French cafe and was kicked out of the culture circle in 1920s Paris.

Sartre: that was the only time in my life i ever got mad.

Four: yeah well how do you think I feel when it comes to forced romantic pairings around here? why are you always so spastic? you fly off the handle when someone says hello.

Katharine: that's part of my charm. i'm peevish at weird words. or if you're acting too much like an adult with secrets. the word PETULANCE best describes me. i can get away with it because i'm a young stupid boy.

Four: no it's because you're your planet's war machine. you do all their dirty work for a couple chocolate bars and a mindmeld with a pretty girl with Vaporwave punk hair.  

Katharine: Vaporwave punk music is the next frontier...

Four: did you vote for Biden?

Katharine: yeah. so? hey that whole thing wasn't my fault.

Suzy Lu: i could play Mel in the Kiss Me Kate reboot.

Steejo: that Craig is good stock, give it up for the wee lad, only a fine bloke would have a Voltron poster in his flat.

Heavy Traffic.

Michael: i do not want to see my mother's pussy, Ralph Bakshi!!!

ma: look at these old black & whites!!! there's the first photo of the Marx Brothers in 1901. yeah Rosella the weirdo married the ice man who was not nice man, he melted her.

Carole: why am i still with this white boy after he hit me?!!! fool. the world won't drop its drawers for you, unless you're Robert Crumb...

Nighthawks: only works if you don't see eye-to-eye...

Carole: i have a psychological problem with you. why would you pay for sex? love is supposed to be free...

Robert Crumb: why would the father kill the son? that's dark even for me.

bullet: not a bullet, a pinball. symbolism.

JFK: oh come on, let's not retraumatize America with this scene, the country will never reach the heights of me again...

me: replace the real guns with laser guns in the cowboy noon-duel game!!!

Jen R: and make it harder to drop your pants in the photo booth. at least they provide a curtain...

pinball and life: like a dream...

Mamdani: when the grit left NYC in the '70s, so did the will, so did people's desire to live.

Ralph Bakshi: see the other animators were JEALOUS of me because i could be hardcore and they couldn't. people still think i'm lying when i tell them i'm friends with Steven Spielberg...

Katharine: i feel stuck to this cockpit.

Four: you men are all alike.

Katharine: can i confess some soft feelings to you? i'm scared.

Four: i get it, we had a pilot who was 114 years old from India. a beautiful man with a Punjab triangular white beard and royal turban under this helmet. he didn't die of old age!!! he died getting into a Gundam accident!!!

Emma Watson in Normal Suit: i've been forbidden to drive a Gundam. not allowed to drive a Gundam ever again, one too many tickets to ride. ride in space. don't care, and i am NOT going back to that broom they tried to make me fly on...

Katharine: it needs to be real. you know? it can't just be pages in a shelved book, faded-color scenes in a television show. i need to see the poverty in the future streets outside this convention hall, the space slums, the homeless neighborhoods in the bubbles which forced humanity to seek its fortune on other planets. 

Monica Pro: call me Monica Fa, it's more Hungarian. i've always sought my fortune in the stars, in a sappy way, pinned my hopes to the black skies of outer space. outside the arena of Safeway. i live in a rowhouse in one of those space bubbles in Watsonville...

Matt: Safeway in space? Space Safeway? but what about my truck? there's no space in those bubbles, those bubbles are smaller than people think.

Jackie Fitzgerald: when i'm not computer-programming like your dad i'm feeding homeless men at our local corner church. i cook my dead husband's favorite recipes of mine and add a little of that Fitzgerald flavor to make my dishes secretly delicious.

Blond Rambo: the secret ingredient is her flavored oil.

me: okay now i REALLY feel bad. you've earned your new fuck, Jackie Fitzgerald, can you ever forgive me?

Blond Rambo: that's how we met, Jackie fed me a meal at the homeless shelter. for homeless Catholic men. yes i look like Kurt Cobain but i also look like a homeless man with dirty-blond hair wearing a plaid shirt and jeans...

Father Navin: i didn't want to say anything but all Catholic men have long dirty-blond hair...

Rick Springfield: don't yawn. what's the number? what's the famous phone number? 867-5309.

Craig Melvin: but that was Lindsay's number!!!

Lindsay Czarniak: we had to move...

new Gumball show: why? what's the point? just to please that ONE GUY on YouTube?!!!

Raul De Molina: they took my dick!!!.........oh no it's there...

Gelman: do you know what it's like to run a marathon? it brings tears to my beady little eyes. it makes a grown man cry.

Mark Consuelos: i'm crying right now thinking about how my marriage to Kelly Ripa has been a marathon...

'80s VHS language-course: a language-course soap opera is a marathon. binge it in one day and graduate from college at age 11...

Kirk Fogg: by Season 3 i had nothing to say, Olmec stole all my lines...

Chibiusa: why did i become the main character in Sailor Moon?...

Euell Gibbons: eat a pinecone? nut dirt? can i show you my nuts? they look shriveled. but eating wild foods is quite rational, how do you think the cavemen survived? i mean i promoted natural food, a bowl of Grape Nuts each morning, and i die of an early heart attack in my 60s?

Grape Nuts: the grapes are stuffed with olives. and the nuts are dipped in saturated fat.

Jackie Fitzgerald: are you one of my homeless men? or do you just prefer to stay in nature?...

Wyndham Clark: just locker-room talk.........i couldn't remember my high-school locker combination, remember those black locks?...

Seal in a sealed spacesuit sipping through a straw from the side of his Turquoise Gundam: the Baja Blast secret ingredient: lime.

Four: come on, each of us has to do it.

Katharine: BUT I DON'T WANNA!!! i do not stink!!! why do i have to take a shower? i don't have tits, i have a chest!!! i don't want to show my naked butt to the camera. 

Jared Leto: wait, there are bubbles in a shower?...

Four: and then you gotta get in a leotard and do some Jane Fonda jazzercise aerobics in a studio with large open windows as the four walls and a bare floor of ballet wood planks. every Gundam character has to get in the leotard.

Jane Fonda: come on, these elbow and knee movements are jerky, i blame the '80s animators.

RED GUNDAM: OLDTYPES EAT APPLES

 

at Tokyo Con 1985, those world travelers who snatched a coveted ticket were grateful, they knew this was a big deal as the first true convention dedicated to anime was about to commence. 

Katharine: Katharine is a man's name, right?

Lux: sure. you're Japanese, right?

Katharine: i think. i'm drawn weird. i have big eyes.

Lux: think of me as Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons but from Luxembourg. that's the new wave of anime now: collaboration between three countries.

Katharine Hepburn: stand at attention, you sad sexless imbeciles.

Lux: you see this MASSIVELY GIANT BIG Gundam robot with a laser-gun in the middle of the hall here?

Katharine: it is simply my life's work. my life's purpose. the only thing that matters. wait is a red Gundam rare?

Melissa Maker: it is if it's Cadillac red.

Katharine: hey is Katharine a man's name?

Jen R: only if it's Catherine from Beauty and the Beast, that '80s live-action.

me: she would later pack a gun from the future...

packie: why J.Lo divorced Ben again...

Heavy Traffic.

Homer Simpson: not about me...

Ralph Bakshi: the same pinball machine used for the Pointer Sisters 123456789-10-11-12 Sesame Street song...

Ralph Bakshi: so this is the good parts of Tommy with if Welcome Back, Kotter was on HBO...

Charles Nelson Reilly: listen very carefully to this film, this film sounds like me...

Fannie Flagg: yeah and i'm in it too for some reason.

Deep Throat: the last porno film. and the last film in big black letters on a white matinee box.

thug: i'm respected in this neighborhood. good thing i was wearing my Spider-Man underwear. 

cartoonist: too early for breakfast, ma. cartoonists eat breakfast at 5 PM at Jack In The Box.

ma: it's the '70s in NYC so you better have your blackout candles.

Jen R: a housewife's ultimate weapon: the frying pan.

Seinfeld: Jewish virgins are more common than you'd think.

Michael: omg it's Bird Man from Hey Arnold!!!

ain't there: God knows this.

Crazy Moe: you look handsome and sharp today, Michael. midnight-blue heavy coat with the beige bellbottoms, you going on Match Game '74?

Shirley: no wonder you're a virgin, kid, you don't know how to unhook a bra.

Clark Gable: the only reason i'm in THIS Jean Harlow picture is i eat dinner at 5...

Jen R: the '70s in NYC, the last place to watch Pre-Code B&W films in a theater...

Michael: no way, dirty rooftop mattress, Pippi Longstocking, no way.

Newt Gingrich: photo hanging of Newt Gingrich smoking a cig?...

Carol Burnett at the bar without a mop.

Carole: LOW-rise jeans.

Shorty: Vietnam turned me into Tony Hawk...

Mick Jagger: stick with the French postcards, kid, trust me.

George HW Bush wedding photo?...

pa: i'm cheating on your mother with Blondie Dagwood's wife!!! a real '20s dame!!! i had to do it.

godfather: i ain't moving the olive oil too good. Popeye's goil packs a punch. she slapped my nose so hard it fell off.

pa: i'm a unionbuster. work is good for the soul. listen to me, pay attention to me, i'm important, i'm a fat Inspector Gadget. olive oil gives me the gloopy runs.

Alfred Hitchcock: watch out, the steering wheel renders you alive but everyone thinks you're dead...

Mr. Magoo: religion sells!!! look at The Chosen!!! look at Yellowstone!!!

Michael: these are the storyboards for Wizards. too dark? okay make God less horny and call it Adventure Time...

Baltimore: where everyone has a wife.

Jen R: except apparently you...

dad: classical music classes up any joint, even urinals.

cardinals: i know we're in the back buttpocket of the mafia, but when did we start wearing red hoods?...

Disneyland: yeah we did a World of Tomorrow thing with Vaporwave hula hoops a decade before TRON...

Twitch: i mean paying for the catbed okay, but a house payment? A HOUSE PAYMENT?!!!

Hotels.com bell mascot: we need GEICO money. we need a BRITISH mascot.

Jules Smith: ...

Nickelodeon game shows in the '90s: we made history fun. 

Legends of the Hidden Temple boy/girl team: T-shirts will never be this colorful again. we're each gonna get our first kiss by kissing the other in a Sbarro bathroom.

Florida mall: only if your backpack is Eastpak.

'90s vacations: the international entertainment at The Bahamas was superb. and the blue tennis courts sparkled.

Frances Tiafoe: Ben Shelton stole my life...

Dr. Shannon Klingman: so i'm the Lume Lady. yeah. but i'm not clingy. my voice sounds clingy because i blast you with a million commercials, but the only thing clingy is your pits and your pussy when it sweats, so use my soap foam.

Dirg: i dare you to write I love you in the Instagram comments.

Michael Weiss: i've done this...

Iga Swiatek: the popping of champagne bottles DURING a tennis point is a new experience. i got a champagne cork in my ear.

Jen R: the sound of bubbly flowing hits your eardrums like a dream as you smash...

StaceyRPG: the "Hello hello hello how low?" refrain in "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is Kurt sounding all like, "yeah, whatever."

Kurt Cobain: very perceptive. it takes years of practice to sound bored.

Legends of the Hidden Temple.

Geronimo: i mocked with my moccasins.

Father Navin: you threw your shoe at me at the St. Cyril's potluck.

the interstitial break music: breakdance music.

Kirk Fogg: not cool to subject 11-year-olds to jump scares with the Temple Guards giving young people heart attacks. 

Olmec: the Temple Guards then kidnapped the kids!!!

shame: heals a cough more than cough syrup.

beyond lucid: a tech-savvy grandma.

Steven Spielberg: okay Jaws remake: i'm the captain, Richard Dreyfuss is still Richard Dreyfuss, and Roy Scheider's part is Timothee Chalamet or we don't get the funding...

Jannik Sinner: i'll put it this way: my favorite drink is Baja Blast at the Taco Bell on the rocks with the seals. that one Seal with rock trying to make a comeback. no steroids on the speedboat. my brother is Gordon Ramsay...

Wiffle Ball: just another excuse to drink beer from a long flute in a hot tub behind home plate.

ESPN The Ocho at the Mid Valley YMCA in Van Nuys: too bad pushups and pullups don't have their own professional sports league...

Katharine: hey, no climbing on the Gundam. Gundam is serious, not for little kids, for serious students of literature only.

Katz: get your dick out your ear and relax, mister, lighten up, this ain't a Safeway. 

Katharine: thank you for calling me a man. what's with your beady eyes? you look like Linus from Charlie Brown.

Katz: blame my mom. and the animators. isn't this a swell Gundam, mister? it has turn signals on either side of its butt when it's in space to avoid accidents. hey why are you always biting your thumb all the time? are you the reincarnation of Amuro Ray?

Katharine: no, i just have an itchy trigger finger...

 

JONNY & LUCY: PROTECTING PBS ROWDILY

 

at Tiny Desk Concert at PBS, Jen R is trying to make up for it.

Jen R: and make up for lost time.

she takes a guitar of OLD wood from her back buttpocket and begins strumming.

Paula Kerger: what a specimen!!!

Jen: thank you. my guitar's nice too. we both have nice asses.

Paula: i recognize that red oak from my girl days as a triangle-player. my long-haired parents took me to Woodstock but i slept in the van. this is the ORIGINAL Woodstock, folks, not that MTV shit.

Paula Kerger: so before you start why don't you tell the radio audience something unknown about yourself, something unexpected that would make them go to the bathroom in excitement.

Jen R: well, Paula, i only eat 7-Eleven food. yeah. my diet is strictly french fries and Slurpees. 

Jen plugs her acoustic guitar into her cute little pink ORIGINAL Teen Titans amp and starts WAILING. she sweeps ALL the chords, all the guitar notes, and finishes with a flourish, she SLAMS the guitar on top of the hallowed Desk smashing it in a thousand shards. Paula saves the big mic at the last second tho with her keen eye and dexterity.

Paula: better concert than the Guns N Roses Riverport Riot. did the audience get all that? did you guys hear all that? this station has a reputation for mumbling...

potatoes: fills you up like peanut butter.

Mocha Mix: i change coffee. i make coffee light. i allow coffee to forget about its self...

Liam Neeson: i coulda played Fezzik. you suddenly get taller with a shillelagh in your hand...

brownies: better without the fudge.

turndown service: is that an orange mint or an alien receiver on the bed?...

Bob Ross: if i had stopped painting those goddamn clouds, there would have been no rain. no rain means my perm goes limp...

Jonny: you did us dirty, Jaleel.

Jaleel White: how so, my man.

Jonny: Fast Flips, you read the question SLOW to pause to laugh at an answer. ate up a bunch of clock.

Jaleel: that's on me, blond holmes, i'll make it up to everybody. you know your lady has that Sade vibe to her. it's in the lips, it's in the eyes, it's in the HAIR!!!

Lucy: aw that's sweet. and i do like your lips. but it ain't happening, chester. no chance. Urkel was not my favorite character.

Jaleel: what?!!! how can that be?!!! who could possibly be your favorite Family Matters character other than Urkel?

Lucy: the mother.

DVD: remember when you and your friends would sit down on a brown sofa and listen to the Director's Commentary track of a movie?...

Brooke Trantor: it's Mad Max out there. but it can still be My Dinner with Andre in here...

Kurt Cobain: Big Dumper was the name of the band before Nirvana. right before our first show...

Axl Rose: the reason i always wear shorts is i was living in Southern California...

Krillin: just chillin. but not like a villain.

Android 18: ...

Krillin: sorry, my wife...

Joe Pera: Polar Cubes for my boys...

Hallmark Channel: last year's Hallmark Experience was sparsely attended. nobody knows why. probably because it was in Colorado.

caterpillars: there was no work for us, you used CGI butterflies...

Dr. Robbins: you don't need therapy. you need Instagram memes...

Chloe Annett in Kiss Me Kate: oh no, i was Princess Leia, i am not going back to being a Bond Girl...

Jaleel White: listen Paula, we're all in this together, we're not gonna let Trump dissolve PBS.

Paula Kerger: aw that's sweet, whoever you are.

Jaleel: turn around and face the camera...

Paula: it's a good thing, too, the next PSA public service announcement i was gonna film was me saying how the Senate had in fact ended PBS and Leslie Sbrocco's tits were out of a job.

Leslie Sbrocco: my tits can never be finalized.

Jaleel: you can use the Flip Side studios to film ALL the PBS shows FOREVER!!! just be sure come Christmas you tell Ken Burns to get me some of that vintage North tobacco from the Civil War so i can send it to my neighbor.

Ken Burns: the stuff the soldiers put in their gums? i would but Fred Rogers would not approve.

Mr. Rogers: guns are bad, but if you don't save your gums, you have no noble society.