P.S. PAT: STALAG ALTMAN

 

Robin Williams: it's a lazy Sunday afternoon in the '80s. you're watching Channel 5. it's either gonna be the Oakland Athletics away-game versus the Giants or my film, Popeye from 1980. toot toot!

Deep Water Salvage: on tonight's episode, ATTACK OF THE LOG!!!

the Meraki trees have branches so long and skinny and stripped and drooping they sag onto the sidewalk as the kids make their way jumping over them in their galoshes onto the wet sidewalk to grade-school the doors slippery from rain:

Pat: i'm so nervous about my date with Gina.

Max Kellerman: no sweat it's raining.

Rosie O'Donnell: night movies are always fun. informative and educational not enjoyable. i want my first date to be on a spooky Friday night when a cool new flick about vampires or something hits. and werewolves. and maybe a girl with a plastic face.

Pat: i got my costume ready, i sewed it myself. 

Mardith: have you noticed the horoscope symbol for Cancer is 69?

Dirg: yeah cos it's cancer. as in cringe. Cancers get no goofy-sex to balance their diagnoses of cancer.

Kenny Mayne: in life it's either Into The Great Wide Open or feeling immeasurably terrified and scared-to-death at the prospect, the very-real scary-as-fuck prospect, that you have no idea what your future is going to be. you could be Depression-era homeless soon.

Jillian Clare: i got the Topple-Popple! my bodyshape is the original can! it tastes better than Zeke's spine wine!

Dirg: what woman refers to her man as her partner?

Dirg: Grammarly says my comic-strip sounds dour...

Madame Pons: as a nature photographer i'm obsessed with monkeys peeing. but also of them peeping.

MAMIHLAPINATAPAI opens a storefront up at the mall, they're a tiki hut for Cinco de Mayo. DAISY ROOTS opens up next to them, a boot shoppe.

Kurt Cobain: i'm bald.

Dirg: after the covid hell we've been through a Universal Studios ride is just lame now.

Lori Loughlin: i'm doing a local-theatre play in Idaho about a potato that saves a marriage in bed. a flock of 12 Sebastopol geese line the stage as my bridesmaids.

McLovin: all i wanted to do as a 17-year-old dumb person was listen to MF Doom forever. it got intense but thankfully it never reached the level where i needed to pilot a plane.

John Mulaney: i got sober just in time for the internet lobster craze.

Lorne Michaels welcomes Elon Musk into his office on a cold dreary night:

Lorne: sit down, Elon.

Elon: is something wrong? is it my golf swing? into your minivan? why does the weekly SNL wrap party take place in your office?

Lorne: i like Christmas sue me. look, Elon, i know what you're planning. you're gonna take advantage of my kindness and go out there and do something crazy when you're live on-air, you're gonna blurt out some secret dogecoin word or launch-code. son, don't do it. you'll ruin the lives of all Earthlings and art-kings if you do. more importantly your SAG-AFTRA card will have to be shredded in front of you.

Alex Moffat: my mom was with Andrew Dismukes's mom......and there were no metal suits or moms found, but i still believe in alchemy.

Laertus: Dirg, don't speak in AAVE until you learn the haves and the have-nots.

Dirg: but where's the SNL Dad Episode?

Olivia Rodrigo: i'm performing "drivers license" live on SNL and since i'm a Latina from the streets when it comes time for me to sing "fuck", what am i gonna do?...

Pete Davidson: instead of saying it act it out on my face.

Olivia Rodrigo: .........wait he was gay all along?!!!

Dirg: i've never had a tv that was actually suction-cupped-stuck onto the sidewall of my bedroom.

Eye Luggage: i'm not jealous of Jasmine Becket-Griffith, i just wish i had three names.

Andrew McCarthy: all i ever wanted to do in my career was win a topiary competition judged by Martha Stewart.

Laertus: don't reduce my script to a 3-to-6-minute read.

Dirg: *his arms on Laertus's shoulders* yeah! this is my friend, New York Times! dumb newspapers.

Sofia Kenin: nobody dropped dead, relax everybody.

Dirg: i got covid after i got the vaccine. i'm fine tho. really.

Stoke Newington: we're the Brooklyn of Britain.

Andy Roddick: that kind of sex is not fun for me. can i at least do the British version of The Office where Kate Winslet becomes an electro-guitar player?

George Lucas: i wanted the world to end in 2012 cos i didn't want to make any more damn prequels! 

Seth Rogen: why couldn't i do a Star Wars? i could have been a Giant Ewok.

Channing Tatum: sure is. my next role i'm adapting one of Philip K Dick's lesser-known works.

John Cameron Mitchell: so my next role is playing Doc Hammer.

Doc Hammer: i was at the bar in Popeye 1980!

Fuerza: i'll sleep when i'm dead.........which will never happen.

crones: we're gray. but gray divorce will never happen to us.

Codrus: why are there three paperclip emojis? does there really need to be 3 paperclip emojis?!

Madame Pons: my girls all share one trait across time and space the expanse of the universe and Instagram: they all have a huge phoenix tattoo on their back.

Gladyce: so Doryce dear, if i wash my clothes with too little water they become itchy, if i use too much water the machine floods.

Doryce: live naked. or dump your clothes in the river.

trashmen: we're taking the cracked-lid bin back with us. in case there are cracked dishes and Jesus-Cristo-knows what else, we'll have the FBI inspect it.

one of Madame Pons's girls: never thought being on American Idol would eventually land me selling the Ninja Foodi with Emeril.

Sabalenka: you don't have to shout, line-judge!!!

Gladyce: when i go shopping at The Store, i wear my Safeway T-shirt. now that's being a superfan!

Doryce: i can't park straight. in my old age i never get the thing between the lines anymore, that's why i need people to talk to my chest-lane.

Bryson DeChambeau: guys, with my immense brain-muscle i solved where the Malaysia Flight MH370 plane went.

Mardith: Dirg wants me to explain to him circadian rhythm. if i have to watch anime, it must only be Chronotype Trigger.

Michael Weiss wearing a foamrubber Bok'Gnar bodysuit for cosplay: Instagram is just the way for one to write a letter without the bottle.

David Foster Wallace: i was the dude all the white bros rallied around rooted for and cheered on before Elon Musk.

Doryce: in the morning you do NOT want to be smelling tilapia...

Flexible Robot: only the Battlestar Galactica babes.

Madame Pons: when i'm not around cos i'm helping another girl, i've assigned Isa Mazzei to help you with your cam cum, Mardith. listen to her, she's smart, she went to Berkeley, i just want you to be safe on your OnlyFans.

Bugs Bunny: eh, what's up, doc?

Daffy Duck: that ain't a carrot, that's an orange popsicle.

Walgreens On The Hill: we are deeply hurt you decided not to trust us, you didn't get your covid-vaccine shot-jab at our place.

Dirg: there are no vaccination booths at your house on the hill. just hills.

Walgreens On The Hill: you never call, you never write, you never cyber. you don't even come in for Vanquish anymore! for pizza soup anymore.

Laertus: you can do art on your receipts.

Laertus: wait, can you be a Democrat and like camping? i'm torn here.

Isner Injured: i'm injured. but don't worry, i'll crack the Top 30.

Mardith: Eostre, Ostara, it's all just Easter the way it should have been from the start, the Spring Festival untainted by man.

Dirg: you know those rap videos where they always say at the end

to be continued...

but then they never continue it.

Madame Pons: Takahashi is teaching me suminagashi.

Takahashi: it only works if you're working on the anime Uzumaki whilst wearing a baseball cap backwards on bare scraped knees in the asphalt tetherball circle and only if you use the okay symbol with your fingers to launch balls not revolutions.

Spongebob: but i don't wear ANY pants...

Madame Pons: company inhouse memo: for summer vacation all LUSHes will use their oil diffusers as air conditioners

Madame Pons: Philips Hue for spiral mood lighting, nobody wants to be outside in summer!!!

Dirg: when you've been talking to a girl on Instagram for 5 years and then that fateful Mother's Day post when she reveals her kids...

Henry Rollins: let's go!

Dirg: hold up, i'm reading these wriggly wiggly wavy lines of poetry on this Slurpee cup.

Henry Rollins: now!

Dirg: i know, i'm ordering on the 7-Eleven 7Now app.

Michael Weiss wearing kelp: you know how you know if she's single? if she posts videos of herself all the time, her husband is the one behind the camera. if all she posts are videos of the kelp in the ocean, she's single.

Eye Luggage: Popeye and go.

Robert Evans: the kid with the arms stays in the picture.

Robin Williams: those torpedo-arms i had to wear fucked me up! they were so damn heavy i couldn't fucking MOVE! not to mention the weight of the boat-anchor tattoo on those arms. they wanted me to DANCE for my supper! and the crew put tapioca pudding inside the arms for their lunch breaks, they ate me for lunch, just my arm. and for fuck sake WHY DID POPEYE HAVE TO BE BLIND IN ONE EYE!!! i had to do the ENTIRE damn film with one eye fucking closed! do you know how uncomfortable that is!!! at least give me a sex scene for my trouble!!!

Robert Altman: there's an open-secret misconception in Hollywood that somehow this was a bomb. it didn't bomb, in fact it made bank, it broke even and then some, we made money off this. the movie may be shit but it made a lasting impact: Popeye Village in Malta! visited by billions a day, the eternal moneymaker! STILL an attraction bigger than Disneyland, fuck you Disney.

Robin: why do you look like if Dali were a fat pirate?

local Malta locals: we don't want a settlement, we were here long before you! we don't want a permanent location we have our own permanent locations! we're just resident villagers who drink beer. we want to live in peace and figure out what it means to be human without tourists!!! 

Robert Evans: can you imagine if GILDA RADNER played Olive instead! Gilda would still be with us alive today if she did! it would have launched her film career the way it never really did for her goddess love her. not even with a spot of purple-taffy magic from the tophat man.

Shelley Duvall: but i was born to play Olive Oyl, Ebert & Siskel said so.

Robin: Dustin Hoffman? i don't see it. it would have been Rain Man the prequel. i played Popeye with a learning disability, not retarded.

Paul L Smith: it's Bluto, not Brutus, Brutus is stupid, Bluto is original, Brutus is just a Julius Caesar hack. he is a brute tho. i just want to talk about the movie, not the Israel-Palestine world-war, even in 1980.

Dennis Franz: i was up for the part of Bluto but i wasn't a heavy enough. wasn't fat yet.

Paul Dooley: remember when that beautiful blue water of our circular-coast set was brown that one day? that wasn't pollution, that was my upchucking all those damn hamburgers i had to eat for this.

Ray Walston: how can i be threatening when my name literally is poop?

Roberta Maxwell: i'm Nan Oyl. but i'm really Kate McKinnon.

Donovan Scott: nobody remembers Castor Oyl. he's that guy that ends up a serial killer, every small town has one.

Sharon Kinney: i did the choreography. just cos there are dance numbers doesn't mean all the dancers are prostitutes, Bob Altman never seemed to grasp that.

Robin: why did you add all the whore stuff, Bob? i couldn't take my kids to see this!

Altman: what else are sailors gonna do? this is real-life not virtual reality.

Shelley: yeah! and what you made me do was not poetic! you made me sing the song "Large" to only you in your private bungalow office at night with the portal closed outside but not inside and none of the crew around. in nothing but a nightie!  

Popeye to the camera: kids, remember, there are no private auditions...

Altman: but that was Olive Oyl's nightie. i told you to use the carrot.

Shelley: i'll stick with my long cigarette thank you. i'll sic Jack Nicholson in the snow and ice on you!  

Robin: i had to chew on that damn corncob pipe the whole movie! at least make it pineapple so my cum will be good. that pipe tasted like day-old cigarettes from a tiki bar's fish tank. you didn't understand the character, i did innately. all of my ad-libs under my breath are amazing jumbles of wordplay, they speak to Popeye's hidden intelligence. like when i say

glum club instead of glee club

do you know how much work and research i did to craft each ad-lib just right just so so it'd be funny and make you go "huh" when you left the theatre?

Altman: but it's not in the script.

Max Kellerman: i will play Popeye, i'm an expert in Mad Libs.

Oxblood Oxheart: i later when on to sell frozen turkeys with Emeril. i was NOT in the Capitol riot.

Linda Hunt: recognize me? yeah it's me from that Mark Harmon show! my next role: Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the tiny lady-judge with the lace who's not Judge Judy. the first time Mark Harmon and i made love he couldn't find me in the bed but we saved it...

Takahashi: i'm not gonna hate on the special effects, i really like what they did here to try to emulate cartoons in real-life. the practical effects are creative and inspired for 1980, they MacGyvered everything.

Robin: we didn't even get angus steaks for craft service in that whole big island.

Takahashi: the boxing scene making the Popeye pipe spin. and that one scene down the hill where the acrobat loops and loops and loops down in a circle, that takes guts, that's a real human performance there, not one Adobe image.

Jack Mercer at the beginning: you'll see my voice later on in Who Framed Roger Rabbit...

Eye Luggage: always start with a warm group number. so this a musical, okay kids? got it. oh i love that ketchup bottle on the table, it's so nostalgic.

Robin: this was such a slog to get through. you could've at least let me smoke pot through that pipe, i'm from San Francisco for fuck sake.

Dirg: Popeye stopped smoking real tobacco in the cartoons cos cancel culture. 

Laertus: relax kids this isn't Waterworld.

Eye: i'm trying to think of other movies that are filmed totally within the boundaries of one set.

Laertus: back in the '80s both Democrats and Republicans hated taxes.

Popeye: i had a fever dream mi pappy was here. 

Wimpy: whatever you're smoking i want some. put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Popeye: that's good, did you come up with that?

Wimpy: the mob did when they came on Tuesday to my hotel on the hill to collect.

Wimpy: Commodore? is that a new video-game system?

Popeye: bullies? come on, Bluto is President cos he's a bully. you're seriously gonna bully me? have you seen my arms? they ana. pick on someone your own size. you're making fun of my stutter? the President of the United States has a stutter.

FDR: i was around during all these times, Popeye and Annie. 

Shelley Duvall: i swear to Athena if i have to do the Olive Oyl worried-moan every time i say a word one more time i'll show you what hysterical really is.

Tyzik: the townsfolk are dumb. they're turning their back on the greatest comedic genius of the past quarter-century.

Robin: my man Rubikon, right there. THIS SCENE. THIS is movie magic. see when Swee'Pea the baby says the word "baby"? great bit of improv from that little actor there, and i went with it, i improv'd my line and it was like being back on a standup stage.

Altman: aren't you gonna give me credit for that one? that was done in one take.

Olive Oyl: it's my number! and suddenly this becomes Singing In The Rain.

Eye Luggage: i love when you hero-fold your arms, girl.

Popeye: Swee'Pea is a gypsy? wait is it a she? does the baby have a tattoo of a map on his back? 

Wimpy: i need a fortuneteller.........just for more hamburgers.

Laertus's dad: i remember this scene distinctly watching it on my tv on Sunday in the '80s. i remember thinking i wanted a boy. why the mechanical horses tho? that seems dumb and tacky.

Altman: um, we couldn't rightly have REAL horses race on water now could we.

Popeye: GIVE ME BACK MY SON!!!

Robin: i only ate spinach and yams the whole time. i tried to lodge a complaint with the Better Business Bureau but we were on an island so my call didn't go through.

Poopdeck Pappy: ALL CHILDREN ARE SPOILED JERKS! ungrateful ingrates!.........i'm practicing my King Lear monologue for my next role... 

Robin: Scab Island, why did i cross that picket line! *hits head* stupid stupid stupid. 

Laertus's dad: i distinctly remember this scene in the water, Olive just her head coming out of that tuba boat pipe.

Shelley Duvall: i don't mind siting in all this freezing-cold water for days and nights on end, it's cold-training for my next role when i become an ice nymph...

Laertus: and inside the treasure chest?.........all the ALIMONY!

Dirg: IT'S THE GOONIES OCTOPUS!!! i'm an expert in this comic. this Popeye comic.

Bluto: next time i'll let Popeye starve to death...

Bluto: my next role: Wario.

Dirg: but where was Betty Boop? Linda Hunt as Betty Boop, perfect casting. g'night, folks.

Laertus: you okay, Robin? you seem sad.

Robin: i'm okay.

Altman: i invented the rave, the first rave was at Popeye Village.

Laertus: i wish the world was the tv show Shetland. quiet, peaceful, open-air, green. g'night, folks.

at the cinema Pat and Gina are all gussied up as Olive Oyl and...Olive Oyl, there was only red thread.

inside the theatre it's packed but normie:

Pat: i don't get it, why didn't anybody else dress up! this is the VERY FIRST time in cinema history a cartoon property is live-action!

Gina: nobody really knows what cosplay is.

Gina: i appreciate you vomiting all over the front-seat of my dress. it soaked through, everyone can see my bloomers.

Pat: sorry, i wanted to be strong for you. i ate 10 cans of spinach including the tin can, my tum-tum said nope. my stomach rejects you but i don't.

Gina: is that a torpedo in your pants or are you just happy to see me?

Pat: no it's my arm.

Robin Williams: should have gone with the original ending: Popeye gets his mighty strength not from some Last Airbender vegetables but from rubbing a duck's head. that duck is Howard the Duck, tie the properties together, tube it, freeze the eggs, g'night, folks, toot toot!