STRANGER THAN PARADISE: CHOKING THE ALLIGATOR

 

Garbine Muguruza is standing outside her hotel in New York City after her U.S. Open match. she spots a handsome stranger next to her on the curb.

Garbine Muguruza: i'm noticing you. are you hailing a cab? i don't know how to hail a cab, i'm from Spain where there are only Catalan cabs that are forbidden except in Andorra.

Rick Moranis: oh yeah i know that man, the Star Wars guy.

Garbine: you like tennis?

Rick: is that a computer game? 

Garbine: do you want a selfie with me?

Rick: no, i don't understand computers. i'm so glad you arrived here and stood over me to protect me from getting mugged. you're quite the tall young lady. have you ever blocked the sun?

Garbine: that's a tennis concept, right? with a yellow tennis ball. or white tennis ball. or aqua-blue tennis ball. you're different, most men who are random fans on the street ask me how much money i make. Steffi Graf was my Bosom Buddies roommate in this building above my head for three years. you look familiar, were you in Star Wars?

Rick: Spaceballs, close enough.

Garbine: wanna get married? i'm at the perfect age to get married, 30.

Rick: um.........maybe. pronouncing your last name forms a cobweb in my mouth. what's your favorite movie?

Garbine: Jerry Maguire. do you like Jerry Maguire? 

Rick: the sequel was better than the original.

the three travelers walk onto a curvy path. suddenly Luke Russert stops in his tracks, puts down his backpack, and breaks down and cries ugly man-tears at the sight of all the HIGH sagebrush that has popped up along the trail over the summer.

me: are you okay, buddy? Luke, are you allergic?

Lindy Lenz: no, i think i know what's going on here. the sage obviously reminds him of his late father somehow. give him some time, we'll let him get all the water out of his eyes.

Luke Russert: it could take weeks.

Lindy: let's rest here, Indian-squat here and let's shoot the breeze.

me: in 2023? 

Lindy: sorry, i was thinking back to when i was a kid.

me: nostalgia is very attractive to me, my precious creature.

Lindy: say what?

me: i'm tinkering, trying different stuff out. you like it?

Lindy: huh.........i like it i like it. it takes some time to get used to but i'm warming to it.

Luke: so how do you do the groceries without a car?

me: dunno but i'm sure it involves your backpack.

Lindy: bingo. Luke's backpack is one of the 8 grocery bags you take back home with you on your bike... 

Luke arrives back at the Disneyland Candy Shop. his server today is Ingrid.

Ingrid: don't let the two BROAD blonde ponytails and the tiny Viking helmet and the big tits in the steel brassiere fool you, i'm actually 70 years old. i have 7 children.

Luke: you clean up good, lady. must be my Lucky California day. you remind me of my mother. 

Ingrid: you see? you missed it again, it's the 100 Years Of WONDER Cereal.

Luke: i know and i am sad. what does it taste like? who's on the cover of the box? 

Ingrid: the white chick from Frozen. white-haired chick. that annoying slim wood Tom Hanks cowboy. and the blue gremlin from Hawaii. i know these things, i have 7 kids.

Mickey Mouse: don't worry, my apostle, you won't have to eat diamonds this time. when you put it in milk the diamonds turn to MAGIC.

Luke: omg this cereal actually tastes GOOD this time. it tastes SWEET, not like that cake-pop cereal which was soft and mushy and malky and disgusting, tasted like papier-mache. i'm gonna drink all the milk in my bowl this time. oh those pretty colors!!! red, blue, purple Mickey-ears bites.

Gladyce grocerying: yeah it's that thing, you know? when you have to get EVERY FLAVOR of an item. i walked to this place 4 TIMES IN ONE DAY because i had to sniff all four varieties of trash bag. lemon, fresh, lavender, and Odor Control the only one with the handles instead of the drawstring. it's the little things in life that make you complete like a multivitamin, that keep you whole like whole milk.

 

Mickey Mouse: i'm wearing the Silver Glove. i'm wearing the red glittery rhinestone diamond jacket. the only thing i'm missing is the hair.

Michael Jackson: easy, you rat wannabe. put some of this Sheryl Crow hairspray in your ears, they'll fall down and collapse into my frizzy hair. 

Mickey Mouse: like when you fell off that stage when your hair caught on fire because God, a known Coke lover, thunderbolted your ass.

Suzy Lu and Kakashi are on food holiday researching their youtube-wedding feast.

Kakashi: what are we doing here, pet? i want to go to the beach to catch some rays.

Suzy Lu: your beach bod has more muscles than Mr. Clean. 

Kakashi: my body is LITERALLY my temple. but i still wear my mask on the sand. because of the Sand Ninja.

Suzy Lu: i hear this place has great adobo kraken. remember what to do when you enter the restaurant?

Kakashi: yeah but it's weird. i'm to kick this guy with glasses in the teeth. 

they enter the 5-star restaurant. which is actually the PBS studios of America's Test Kitchen in San Francisco.

the chef comes out through the swinging doors and lasers in on Suzy's tits with his hands in the air.

chef: hungry, bitch?

Suzy Lu: NOW, KAKASHI, NOW!!!

Darya Folsom: fulsome indeed...

serenity deck: you must listen to the Calm App on one of these or it doesn't work...

Yu-Gi-Oh: ...

Frank Costanza: what's a yugioh?

Doryce: allergic itch? that's me on Thursdays when i don't find a second chance at love at my age hanging out with the Pope on Panther Beach. blacksmith more rings!!!

Doryce: Cadgwith? a green lush hobbit towne to place your Cadgwith vadge into and mess about in the warm sensation of ivy in your cooter.

Ghost Adventures: Lake of Death: this is how the band Live gets back together.........and Linkin Park...

flapdragon: how Shakespeare got drunk.

Tenino: the only high school where the track stars get faster times after downing 10 beer cans.

Boc in Lacoste short shorts with the trim: ...

Joe Downing: 11 cans of beer for me. don't make fun of me or i'll pound you to a pulp. Katie Newcom would have been mine if i hadn't eaten eggplant the night of the big game.

Kate Newcom: yeah i'm just not into dirty blond curly hair on men.

Jeff Spicoli: i'm glad Al Bundy didn't catch that football. i'm glad he threw it into the stands. i don't want Al Bundy being my father. if you dissect Fast Times at Ridgemont High, you'll see that it's only one scene...

Hiawatha: why are you palefaces so fucking foolish? what is WRONG with you people?

Melissa Bell: the whale spy story on CNN. it was so shocking my hair turned white the color of the beluga whale in solidarity, it's a sympathetic-injury sort of thing.

Eye Luggage: Stranger Than Paradise and go.

Eye Luggage: Stranger Than Paradise, it's just.........a very AWKWARD concept. you know? it gets stranger and more surreal the more you think about this concept.........what does stranger than paradise mean?...

Jean-Paul Sartre: my mind is BLOWN into a thousand rainbows. i NEVER became a Christian at the last moment on my deathbed, that was all for show, to heighten the dramatic tension...

Eye: this film title is very GOTH, i love it.

Jim Jarmusch: *palm up* i'm not gonna talk much, i'm gonna let the film do my talking. please, no more inane questions from the paparazzi, my twin-spirit and fellow black-and-whiter indie Indian friend Spike Lee is staying with me at my loft this weekend, i'm comforting him, he lost his stalwart of a father, the jazz musician who was a better artist than Spike. 

Spike Lee: my dad was my teacher.

Jim: give us some room, you camera maggots.

Jim: Stranger Than Paradise HAD to be in black-and-white. it had to be SEEN IN BLACK AND WHITE. it simply COULDN'T BE SEEN IN COLOR. 

Jim Jarmusch: everyone thinks i did 200 Cigarettes.........but i didn't.

Laertus's dad: i firmly believed i had seen my first Jarmusch film at Berkeley. which was 200 Cigarettes.

Christina Ricci: did everyone like my accent in that movie?

Natasha Lyonne: i did. only i did. suck on 400 more nicotine sticks, Tina Ricci you Long Island wench.

Jim Jarmusch: i am the vanguard of the New Age of American independent cinema. stark. dark. stripped-down. bare. vital. me and Spike. Spike and i obviously were classmates at NYU and all of these early films of ours are actually our Final Grade Theses to pass our graduate classes. 

Spike Lee: all art comes from teachers.

Jim: now THAT homework was FUN to do...

Jim: 1984 was a VERY GOOD YEAR...

John Lurie: if you do anything pay attention to my jazz stuff, not my painting. my wailing saxophone. my sax isn't sexy it's gritty. a life of Lyme. are you my stalker?

Richard Edson: no.

John: see this is a confusing movie because the two male leads LOOK EXACTLY ALIKE. i literally have a doppelganger stalker.

Richard: how's Jill Goodwin?

John: HOW DO YOU KNOW JILL?!!! sorry i'm either paranoid or it's the effects of the chronic Lyme disease. she's fine. she's still around. but she's leaving on a safari with her aunt Jane Goodall to study the chimpanzees now that it's the 1980s. this safari will take a lifetime...

Eszter Balint: i'm a hot babe.........but it's more that i was YOUNG at the time, you know? i am not a computer game, i am quite REAL. i can assure you i'm real. let's face it, i was only hired for this because i'm Hungarian.

Richard: Balint, that would make a cool band name.

Eszter: yeah, like Lindt chocolate balls. not cake balls. the kids at school made fun of me, called me Blintz Blimp even though i was skinny. yeah, an orchestra, a one-woman orchestra, just me on my violin!!!

John: see? all of us musicians were ACTORS IN DISGUISE for this project!!! that's why the acting came out so natural. we had no idea what we were doing, what we were talking about at any given time, it was all ad-libbed improv in real time on the spot.

Jim: script? what script? i only worked on this script during my 20 college years...

Jim: speaking of, do you like the music in this film? it's not a documentary, it's a real film. a real art film. a long indie short perfect for PBS. do you like the haunting background music? the spooky sounds, the spooky soundtrack. it's bleak and mechanical, pre-industrial to match all the factory smokestacks. i combined Spike Lee's father's jazz trumpet and haunting horn with Eraserhead music...

Jim Jarmusch: i kind of look like Eraserhead in real life...

Bill Lee: my son said it was okay to lounge on the brownstone stoop of the Sesame Street House...

Jim: how's the chronic Lyme disease now?

John: chronic.

Jim: have you tried alternative medicines?

John: that New Age shit?

Jim: i'm Mr. New Age, baby!!!

John: so how was it being the drummer for Sonic Youth?

Richard: i don't remember any of that time period. but i loved them, they were cool people to be with, they all wore the same one pair of grey skateboard sneakers. the only thing i remember was Kim Gordon saying she wanted to be Courtney Love With Depth...

Jim: no coverage, that's awesome for me. SO MUCH LESS WORK. every film-school director should do this, it saves on time. every single-person auteur with an iphone for their camera just needs to film the ONE SCENE WITH THE TWO PEOPLE TALKING, no time for backgrounds...

Eszter: or 360 around-the-world swirls...

Jim: we do the around-the-worlds at the after-party.........in the edit bay...

Willie: you never see the dograces.

Greykid: and thank god for that, no animals were harmed in the making of this picture.

Willie: i had a porkpie hat on because i should have been private-investigating my black soul.

Screamin' Jay Hawkins; "I Put a Spell on You", that set you back.

Jim: yep, the ENTIRE budget down the drain for your copyrights. and you're not even on the soundtrack!!! 

Screamin' Jay: everyone thinks i'm shouting but this is my normal speaking voice. nobody ever listened to me before. in real life i'm a werewolf fit up in Michael Jackson's finest opera finery. not a clothed jaybird at the Oprah Winfrey Show. 

Wille: speak ENGLISH. not Hungarian.

Eva: why? this is America.

Eva: what cartoon is this?

Willie: the Bugs Bunny one with the talking dog. what if dogs can talk? i'm rethinking my dogracing "career."

Eva: do they sell Chesterfields in Cleveland?

LeBron: does the pope smoke in the woods?

 

Willie: in America we call passing the vacuum choking the alligator.

Eva: yeah right, thanks. i'm not stupid, you know. and it should be choking the crocodile for alligator alliteration. hey at least you're not saying all women in America do the vacuuming bottomless or topless but not both like in Working Girl. in Hungary my chocolate violin stands for my pussy, you American moron.

Billie Joe Armstrong: American idiots like me perform cameos at shows where Green Day cover bands are unsuspecting. but only in Europe because we gotta get our image up there.

Willie: what what? what's all the fuss? the vacuum looks like an alligator is all.

Eva: when you said you were "playing solitaire" i honestly thought you were going to masturbate in front of me. but here you are actually with Solitaire playing cards.

Eddie: i have a crush on your cousin.

Willie: good. she's my cousin, not my sister. the plan the whole time was to make you my best man and my in-law.

Eddie: my nickname in college was Fast Money because i always got the line right.

Willie: you did NOT go to college. you did not go to high school. my middle name is Loman, i'm gonna have a depressing life from the start.

Eva: i don't get this American football, your game, why doesn't the offense AND defense go on the field at the same time and vie for the ball?

Willie: you're onto something, that WOULD make for a better sport, make it Powerball from American Gladiators. you like late-night sci-fi movies?

Eva: yeah, Eraserhead and Teen Wolf. the ones where a girl can ride a raygun transporter out of the dingy apartment she's trapped in and go to Cleveland.

Eva: what are TV dinners?

Willie: the food appears AFTER you've watched the 30-minute sitcom TV show.

Willie: put on this dress i bought for you, wear it ONCE, then throw it away in the garbage can outside by the bricks below the fire escape.

Eva: why?

Willie: i'm recreating the scene from West Side Story.

at the poker game.

Eddie: i'm scared, Willie.

Willie: stay cool, man, that's the thing with cheating, cheating is IMPOSSIBLE to prove, cheating is such a nebulous concept. don't worry about the hothead with the glasses, he's a New York City performance street artist. 

Pauline Kael: we only see the dingy side of New York. all the dingy streets and the dingy buildings. imagine if there was a scene with Eva on top of the dingy Empire State Building looking out through a dingy telescope, that would have been so cliche...

 

the small-time hustlers arrive in Cleveland.

Eddie: that's the thing, Willie, no matter where you go in this world, IT ALL LOOKS THE SAME.

Jim: this is the profoundest line in the piece. think about it, it's so true.........take a minute to really think about it. there's no escape, there's no traveling to the NEW THING. New Delhi looks exactly like Watts. Paris is the same as Pleasanton...

Laertus's dad: you know this is a fantasy of mine, going to your favorite local greasy spoon in the snow and the babe of the waitress there is someone you know. that's comforting on so many levels. reminds me of the gyro front on Gilmore Street. except my waitress was a fat sweaty Greek guy with a greasy apron.

 

Willie: wait, you already have a boyfriend after ONE DAY in Cleveland? how?

Eva: look at me.

Willie: want us to dump him in the Cleveland River for you?

Eva: that is such a touristy thing to do.

Cecillia Stark: I AM THE STAR OF THIS MOVIE. know why? none of the stuff i say is IN THE SCRIPT. all of my clever sayings i say off the top of my head. why am i not on Game of Thrones with my name and thick Hungarian accent? WHY ARE YOU KIDNAPPING HER?!!!

Eva: it's not kidnapping if you KNOW the person, Aunt Lotte...

Lotte: and how do i know he's really related to you? just cos he drinks milk like us? he's a stranger who knocked on my porch door asking for TheraFlu...

Willie: we're all gonna die. we're all gonna be buried in this frozen lake here. what's the point of life?

Eva: for all three of us to put our feet into ONE PAIR of Air Jordans.

Mr. Kotter: Gabe Kotter here, i mean Gabe Kaplan, whatever, doesn't matter. LOOK AT THAT SLIDE-OUT BED IN THE MOTEL!!! the bed literally slides out of the nightstand. that is the grooviest coolest raddest bed EVER. Julie and i slept on a bed like that when we lived together. the sex was thin.

Julie Kotter: i am so skinny i can slide back into the nightstand while still on the bed mattress.

Eva: me, too. we should have done that instead of me putting my head down in the car so you didn't have to pay for three. 

Rammellzee: i just invented Vaporwave in the '80s.........i don't need the dust game anymore. want some dust? want the rest of my dust?

Eva: no i'll just take the cash.

Jim: did you see the other woman with the hat who was switcheroo'd? that's my future wife Sara Driver. it's nice when your partner helps you to do what you do, huh.

Dana Scully at your graduation: remember, follow YOUR dreams, not your boyfriend's dreams...

Mardith: but that fancy wide-brimmed straw HAT!!! where on earth did you get that hat?!!! that hat is the most important piece in all this!!!

Eva: from Stevie Luffy Audrey Hepburn Nicks. not from the Disneyland Candy Store.

Laertus: okay i wasn't expecting laughs from this but this scene is HILARIOUS!!! the Eva-Sara Driver double-take, i'm peeing my laughter.

Willie: i told you, Eddie, HORSES, not dogs. 

Eddie: i know, i told you. bet on Mage i said.........does anyone remember Mage? Mage has already been completely forgotten. 

 

Willie: so i talked with the airline agent.

Eddie: was he cool?

Willie: yeah, he's the guitarist from Rage Against the Machine...

Willie: this bitch really messed up my whole life.

Eddie: Willie, i think you're in love with your own cousin.

Willie: why does this airport only sell one-way tickets?...

Willie: why, Eva, why?

Eva: what can i tell ya, a woman can take you to another universe. and sometimes she just leaves you there.

Willie: and apparently my universe is Budapest. i'm an American, i don't wanna go to Europe...

Jim Jarmusch: what does it all mean?

Eszter Balint: it all goes back to the hat, the hat is the SYMBOL here. see how she's rubbing the brim of the sunhat? that's where she keeps the money. she's gonna be a drug dealer from now on for petty cash. this was all an elaborate scheme to get rid of Willie so Eva and Eddie could be together.

Eddie: good cos i thought i had just lost my two best friends. i thought i had lost the only family tethering me to this world. i won't be alone forever.

Eva: and we get Willie's apartment to start a family!!! g'night folks. 

 

CAPTAIN EO AS AN ADULT

 

Michael Jackson: well here we are. at the world premiere of Captain EO in the 1980s. global premiere, before anyone else in the world here at Disneyland. even before Japan.

Luke Russert: do they mind if i bring my E.T. backpack in with me?

Michael: no i don't mind. you know it's very interesting. the mind. the perception of the mind. it was one thing when you saw Captain EO as a kid, you didn't remember nothing, but watching Captain EO now as an adult you really see the world before you, you notice all the little hidden outer-space details.  

George Lucas: yeah so basically this is a Star Wars ripoff i did especially for you, Michael, cos you're my friend. i had my friend Steven Spielberg do all the work, i was busy sleeping. it's a lot of work doing one of these Star Wars things. 3 times...

Steven Spielberg: i'm doing this as a favor specifically for you, Michael. cos you're my best friend. later i'll be doing the Universal Studios Tour and "directing" in quotes the "Liberian Girl" video. i know i know, it's YOU who is really directing that video.

Michael: your cap is so CUTE, Steven.

Michael Jackson with the BIGGEST GRIN on his face smiles all throughout the grounds driving the streets of Disneyland like a wild man in curves and chicanes and Magic-8 turns in his Citroen minicar. the car is so tiny Michael pops his head out the roof and can barely fit his legs on the hood, the steering wheel is most of the car. the trunk is a GIANT SILVER CITRUS REAMER.

Michael: the EARLY 1980s were really PEAK MICHAEL JACKSON, you know? 

Dana Plato: hi Michael.

Michael Jackson: oh hi Dana, glad you made it. you can be my tenderoni for this date. the fact that you're blonde, have freckles, and are white makes it so much better, you know?

Dana: it's more of an auburn. can i be in your "Liberian Girl" video?

Michael: sorry, toots, we already got Blossom.

Jan Jackson: HI DANA!!!

Dana: do i know you? i know JANET Jackson from that one episode of Diff'rent Strokes we did together, remember?

Jan: oh yeah i forgot, it's so confusing now, i confuse MYSELF, i'm thinking i AM Janet Jackson cos that's what everybody says to my face. as if we look alike and are all the same person. are you friends with Janet?

Dana: it's more of a coworker situation.........it's tough when you're on the #1 show in the country, you know? a lot pf pressure for a white girl like me to keep street-cool in the urban jungle of New York City...

Michael: Luke, i don't want to show you the Disneyland Candy Shop.

Luke: why ever not, Mike? and i'm old enough to go on Star Tours, my uncle Luke gave me his lightsaber to stop the ride if it gets too bumpy.

Michael: *blushing* okay okay you forced it out of me, go in there but you're gonna be surprised the bad Charles Barkley way at the candy you see.

Lindy Lenz: omg they have Fruit Rollups as PASTIES!!!

me: and a GIANT MINING CART full of Nerds!!!

Sheryl Crow: and a giant swirled lollipop the size of my '80s hair the color of Vaporwave...

Michael: Vaporwave?

Sheryl: purple.

Michael stroking his chin and rubbing his crotch: interesting interesting.........this is how i'm gonna best Prince, i'll one-up his purple with my VAPORWAVE!!!

Luke Russert: i saw it. i saw it on the motherfucking shelf. and i'm crushed. my entire world is crumbling before my eyes.

Michael: sorry, Luke.

Luke: there's a 100 Years Of Disney cereal box, a BIG BOX twice as big as the 50-year box. i thought i had collected them all.

Michael: yeah and the worst part is that 100 Cereal has REAL TINY DIAMONDS in it. very hard to chew.

Walt Disney: and before you say anything yes they are blood diamonds. it was a different time back then. sorry.

me: Mr. Walt, one of your fillings is a diamond. you have a diamond for a tooth.

Walt: that's a Dwarf diamond.

Paul McCartney: hello all. sorry we're late. i got lost in the Tiki Room with all those pretty birds.

Macaulay Culkin: jolly good.

Paul: Mac is gonna play me in the Beatles movie about my life.

Michael: you as a kid?

Paul: no me as an adult.

bag lady by the animated Disneyland lined and flowered garbage can: this movie will do well in theaters. 

Buerger's disease: those aren't cigarette stains...

blue wind: only found in Hawaii...

Matisse: and inside me...

Missoni: the official clothing line of Italian Three's Company...

Codrus: and the California Missions.........obviously that's a joke, i control the Missions, all that cheap labor that went into each hewn stone...

tortillas: ...

Ubrelvy swim coach: so i took the Ubrelvy and became a dolphin. but dolphin is my chronotype, i have trouble falling asleep and staying asleep. i'm constantly tired...

Quentin Tarantino: streaming movies, do they even exist?...

Ryan Reynolds: are you a writer for Saturday Night Live now cos of the strike?...

David Letterman: i live in Monaco now, the Indianapolis 500 is nothing, it's a local pinewood derby compared to the Monaco Street Race. Monaco is a great place to retire. scenic. water. the totem street signs. there are no barbers in Monaco...

David Letterman: i tried to drive my F1 car through the streets of Monte Carlo. i drive an F1 car rather than taking the bus. at the first turn, i crashed into the water. my car became one of those Monaco yachts. boat boys and their toys, you know? boys with beards. my car had to be lifted out of the ocean by a nearby road crane...

sheepshead wrasse: i'm a fish with a human face...

Don Knotts: ...

Asian sheepshead wrasse: my face enchants...

Link: why does the Walt Disney World music sound exactly like Legend of Zelda music?

Walt Disney: i own you now, Link. 

Link: nuh. i can just fly away on my hang-glider and escape.

Princess Zelda: Link can hide under my bed...

Takahashi: so i went to CAAMFest 2023 in San Francisco.

Dirg: the Asian film festival?

Takahashi: yes. and Asian FOOD Festival. not just eggrolls, Dirg. and Asian music. mostly electronica.

Dirg: because i listen to loud music, so much heavy metal, my ears are permanently encased in 5 pounds of hard wax, my eardrums have no stick, i'm listening at 50% capacity forever.

Takahashi: you 100% never listen to me.

Dirg: loud music causes earwax buildup.

Takahashi: i wouldn't know, i was too busy looking at Carly Severn's face and realizing she looks like a young Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra...

Carly Severn: i have one of those Classic Hollywood faces, Golden Age, i'm young for my age despite being old in cancer years.

CAAMFest: 11 days of indie splendor every year since Phoenix's birth. short films about how you can only make it, you can only become a success as a cook, a Vietnamese kid from Oakland, if you win Top Chef on Bravo. otherwise you're just another anonymous Asian culinary student who went to school in San Francisco with tattoo sleeves and a vat of fish sauce down your Bermuda shorts. 

barrel: no cheese wedge, no crate. if you don't eat the bloodline, you're not eating fish.

jellyfish: i won't bite, man, i'm from California, i'm cool, like the ocean breeze. i go with the flow. i let the rip current take me wherever. i'm not a Decepticon octopus...

Cave of St. Ignatius: the best Manresa pizza is BY THE SLICE at Pizza My Heart...

Monaco Grand Prix: yeah but imagine if it was raining throughout the race.........a lot of hydroplaning...

Quentin Tarantino at the Hall of Presidents by Lincoln: Netflix is not the zeitgeist, I am the zeitgeist...

me: Verstappen, he's my Dutch boy.

Max Verstappen: i paint. like van Gogh.

Lewis Hamilton: and you have the daftest hair i've ever seen, mate. you got that Dutch-boy bowl-cut Little Lord Fauntleroy hair with the Donald Duck overalls.

Verstappen: that's my racing suit.

Lewis: you wear Donald Duck trousers, mate.

Mardith: one thing i've learned.

Madame Pons: yeah.

Mardith: in order for a long-distance relationship to work, you have to talk to the person online EVERY SINGLE DAY.

Madame Pons: yeah, if you miss one day it's all over.

Barbate: all the firemen who live in this city in Spain who show their naked bare butts when they put out fires, they all slap thick white creamy foamy Barbasol shaving cream on their cheeks.

Chris Matthews: ...

Jennifer Lawrence: can i bring any boy out of his shell?...

Pinocchio: ...

Sam Egan at the Disneyland gift shop: gotta love the Outer Limits trading cards. Twilight Zone never had trading cards...

Rod Serling: you know how much i loved baseball. but i loved Garbage Pail Kids more...

Barbate: a place for bearded Barbary pirates, not a place for bearded monks...

Codrus: you can't tell me what to do.

Cotard: i have a long THIN beard, very rare.

TV brown box: in the '80s there's always an episode of every show where the characters all go to a Chinese restaurant...

Lucio Rossi: spam calls? nuh, i'm distracting myself with my car radio, i'm winning the Indy 500, the first American not Italian to win the thing since the '80s.

Michael Jackson: is the radio in your car playing the fat funky beats of "Baby Be Mine"?

Lucio: i had to, i lost my milk card on the St. Cyril's playground, my milk card got stomped on and ripped apart by Matthew Makowski and his scissor boot.

Michael Jackson: okay everyone, gather round me and let's enter the theater to watch see and inspect Captain EO. look for the gravelly details. the patrons in the theater are gonna shit themselves in their silver pants when they see me enter, it's gonna be very "Thriller."

Steven Spielberg: here, Michael, hold this Mogwai in the palm of your tiny hand, don't let it go or the studio will have my ass. you CAN feed this one pizza after midnight, but it has to be Doheny Sweet Heat pizza from Pizza My Heart. you know the one with the mozzarella in the shape of ninja stars.

Michael: Steven, can you drizzle the hot honey all over my back?

Steven: no, Mike, no more, you promised that was the last time.

Anjelica Huston: as the villain in this i have to say that i look EXACTLY like you, Jacko.

Michael Jackson: very funny.

Anjelica: we're ineterchangeable parts you and i, Jacko dahlin, i am you and you are me, we could play each other. we don't need an extra we already have a stand-in.

Michael: don't call me Jacko, i hate that.

Anjelica: is this gonna be a Tina Turner thing? where you're more popular in Britain than America? no i mean we look the exact same in our STREET CLOTHES...

Steven: Babar?

Babar: yes? my dressing room's too small.

Steven: you gotta get into character to become Hooter the space elephant.

Babar: Hooter? really?

Steven: cos you have one trunk.

Babar: okay i'll take some of this dust my mom gave me up my trunk. 

Dick Shawn: it's hard to believe i know but that's me as Tarzan with white hair...

Debbie Lee Carrington: if i don't get the Dynasty part there's no justice in art.

Cindy Sorensen: not from Van Nuys Blvd....

George Lucas: yeah the cast is all future cartoon voice actors, good people, good stock, they're not gonna become Heaven's Gate cultists or anything, okay?...

Michael Jackson: you know what? i'm sensing that i've peaked around this time period. call it my Peter Pan Spidey sense. it doesn't get better for me going forward. my future is bleak. my future fortunes are not good, i gotta do something DRASTIC to reverse this trend, to fight my fate.

bag lady: told ya. wait what are you doing?!!!

Michael disappears and reappears in the present at the Epcot Flower Show.

Michael: i have the only time machine in human existence in my Hayvenhurst garage. there's another time machine amongst the EO aliens. i'm a bit of a collector. i always wanted to be a green-hedge statue, now that is accomplished and i am done. give me my flowers, Perk. now what?

Michael: i gotta go back to BEFORE this all happened. 

Michael POOFS and reappears in the year of Phoenix's birth on a Broadway stage, the first production of The Wiz. 

Michael Jackson: i gotta take this Broadway shit more seriously, it's not just a cameo. i'm not a black scarecrow. i'm the Black Scarecrow, the symbol of hope for all the boys and girls in the ghetto. i am destined not to be a singer but to be a Broadway singer...

Mickey Mouse: and i am the one conjuring all the magic you use to live your dreams, Mike. Mickey and Michael, joined at the hip and tail. magic ain't cheap, this pixiedust shit i create is expensive. how are you gonna pay for it?

Michael: put Hayvenhurst up as collateral.

Mickey: hey Michael Jackson.

Michael Jackson: what? what you want, mouse? i go home to Ben.

Mickey Mouse: you and i have the same voice.  

  

 

BEFORE THE MARATHON OF LIFE

 

notes:

* the photo above is just.........i mean.........IT'S THE MOST SURREAL PHOTOGRAPH OF ALL TIME.........the more you think about it, the more you ponder upon it.

Andrew Shue: why are you STILL HUGGING ME after everything that's happened, dude?!!!

T.J. Holmes: we're still friends, right? we were friends from before. it's nothing personal.

* Sleeping Bear Dunes: Yogi Bear in the 1980s had to sleep the rest of the decade after watching Frank Herbert's '80s Dune epic movie. 

Boo-Boo: i can't eat your entire picnic basket, Yogi, i can only eat one woven-fiber cross-stitch. a heavy meal always makes my stumpy stubby thumby body sleepy for ten years...

* water watcher: dieting underwater...

* Wes Anderson: to watch a film at Cannes is the DREAM, is the ULTIMATE FANTASY, but to ride your blue bicycle through the hills and peaks of Cannes is the HEAVEN YOU CAN NEVER REACH...

* Laertus: i just want to be an art hag.

Dirg: my boy, my boy.........may i touch your shoulder? rub your arm? we need to talk.

Eye Luggage: marry me first, Laer Bear, then we'll talk.

* Sweet Baby Ray's: the sauce Mark Zuckerberg sops up with his bed bread.

Mark Zuckerberg: i was the one person who lost to Glass Joe in the boxing ring...

* Queen Elizabeth II: if i had been an ordinary peasant girl, i would have wanted to joyride with Steve McQueen in a Dodge Coronet...

Sir Alec Guinness stroking his grey-bearded chin and smirking mischievously like the devil: you still can, milady. but only if you maintain a kind heart for 100 years...

Queen Elizabeth II: gimme the car or i take away your knighthood...

* Morgan Bolling in the PBS Kitchen on America's Test Kitchen and Cook's Country: i'm a tasty snack...

Dirg: can i churn you?.........i'm back, baby.

* The Rocketeer: did you see at the end? the small street that in 1938 was a dirt road, ENCINO STREET!!!

me: i know. my heart SWELLED when i saw that. no wonder i love that 1930s time period so much.

The Rocketeer: Encino St. became VENTURA BLVD.!!!

Doc Hammer: Venture Blvd.?

Michael Jackson: i can see my Hayvenhurst House in 1938 from here, it looks exactly the same...

* Tresco Abbey: where all the Triscuits for the entire world get made by monks.

Cecily Strong: i'm the only woman allowed inside that abbey.........needless to say it's a party in there...

* red wind: the only way to get to the blue land...

Doryce at the monastery: where the red wine is kept in barrels in the basement...

* Verizon

man in barber chair: i'm at Square Deal Barbers. i expect a square haircut for my square head.

Halle Berry: yeah i rock-climb in hot pink stretchy pants, too. El Capitan was easier to work with than Will Smith.

girl on bus: Two Broke Girls or 2 Broke Girls?...

soccer coach: the goalie hangs on the goal like monkeybars, that's brilliant!!! the ball will NEVER go in now!!!

* Greta Van Fleet: the band, not the woman...

Dodgers: our rivals have Ohtani and yet they strangely can never make the playoffs while we win the World Series every year...

Ohtani: gotta get rid of Trout...

* Ubrelvy

swim coach: i have migraines. do i pop 100 pills before lunch and get in the water?

Serena Williams: never go in the water after you eat.

swim coach: or do i endure the pain cold-turkey?

Leslie Sbrocco: the best turkey is in San Francisco. it doesn't taste like Thanksgiving turkey, it tastes more like Grandma's turkey. price point tho, this succulent crunchy-skin-on turkey's around $300 a pop.

swim coach: i've decided. this Ubrelvy pill will turn me into a dolphin...

Edward Packard: ...

Edward Packard: i was doing Animorphs before Animorphs was a thing...

* Volkswagen

mom: honey, you're acting like a fool again. 

dad: in front of the neighbors this time, dear.

mom: just ride our baby in the car around the block a few times to lullaby her to sleep.

dad: she doesn't go to sleep cos she's in the car seat, she goes to sleep because she watches me playing Solitaire on my video screen next to the steering wheel...

* Progressive.

farmer: Mike's Angry Cider is...

Flo: no.

Jamie: La Bamba showed what real applepicking is like in the real world.

boy: you need help with that ax stuck in the log of wood?

Jamie: what do i look like? Kirito?

Mara: do i look like Belle when i'm carrying this French apple pie?...

* Lin-Manuel Miranda: the rhythm of the island. like when i'm in a NYC yellowcab and i dream of being in Puerto Rico on the coast riding ponies with Tom Cruise. and then a chip oily and fried takes me to having a tiny frog's ears. you can't drink coconut milk unless you have a hatchet. we play basketball on colored squares chalked by Salieri the mental patient. where did it all go wrong? i should have worked with Alexandra Silber more. Alex actually came up with the Hamilton idea, except her original libretto was Dolley Madison. now i sleep alone in this lighthouse fighting the sea demons in my head and distracting myself with Murder, She Wrote reruns on Tubi...

* Brian Cox: DIRECTv is WAY CHEAPER than Comcast, no hidden Adult Swim fees for having to purchase Cartoon Network, either. purchase Cartoon Network under the table. Succession is ending soon and i'm sick of the show, they wanted me to come back even after i died on that airplane. don't trust them unless the van says Cable Queens. never compromise your morals, if you can't find the remote control, never turn on the TV by hand. people were never meant to talk to each other...

* David Attenborough: nobody was interested in saving the world, protecting our planet from ourselves, so i have to do dinosaurs now...

CLICK HERE TO MAKE DAVID ATTENBOROUGH HAPPY BY SAVING THE WORLD 

happy weekend, my babies.

summer? i'm scared of summer. there's nothing to do. when you have no money. everyone's gone. everyone leaves and never comes back for the fall...

TOMORROW: what's the best fast food to watch a marathon of Unicorn: Warriors Eternal?

Ohtani wearing the gold samurai helmet: did someone say unicorn?...

Phoenix: i know you all will watch every single episode of the big binge party instead of driving, flying, or swimming on a boat this weekend. curry, right? for the worldliness of curry, the worldliness of our cartoon heroes. that THICK ORANGE sauce that fills the swamp that is your body with spice. i make my curry homemade, i get all the ingredients from.........the curry shop around the block. Curry Palace, the best dive ever. your Ninja Foodi isn't for only fries anymore, an air fryer is perfect for SAMOSAS!!! no cleanup if you cook them JUST RIGHT...  

 

THE ROCKETEER: THERE'S JUST SOMETHING ABOUT A 1930s JETPACK

 

 

Luke Russert: we deserve a break, a rest. let's go to the Cannes Film Festival. my dad got us tickets. they're screening Asteroid City, Wes's new film.  

the trio dodge the paparazzi and sit on the WAY FAR END of the theater in the nosebleed balcony seats as the show starts to flicker. 

Luke: did you see the Monte Carlo yachts on the way in? they're the tugboats this year.

Lindy Lenz: yeah. it's cool all the yachts are electric this year, all powered down below in the hull from Uncle Sam the diamond.

i'm feeling down. i crawl into one of the bungalow slits hidden in the ceiling and invite Lindy to come snuggle with me in bed.

me: Jen R and i used to cuddle like this. i miss her. i want her to be my BEDMATE FOR LIFE, i always want to be spooning her in bed, even when we're at work. all the good women are ALWAYS GONE, ALWAYS NEVER AROUND.

Lindy: i know, dear. and thanks a lot. have you told her how you feel?

me: she's NEVER AROUND.

Lindy: you gotta move your body. in a nonsexual way. you gotta get up again and move around, jump up and down as you dance, get your blood pumping, get the circulation going, get out of this confined space with the low ceiling and yearn for another tightness, listen to some Tina Turner music and get DOWN!!! 

Wes Anderson on stage: i know this is super weird, guys, it's strange days at Blake Holsey High. this club is even more exclusive than the Illuminati, i mean to get a ticket HERE to watch a movie exclusively HERE IN THIS VENUE, i mean like only 9 people are ever given tickets, you know? it is a DREAM to watch a film at Cannes, NOBODY HAS ACCESS.

Billy Campbell in the Rocketeer suit with his burnished helmet off bumrushing the stage: i am soy bomb. no my helmet will not explode. i came up with all the ideas for Star Wars and everything and especially all this Asteroid City crap, i came up with it first, all the rocket stuff in this space movie is from the '90s and me.  

security tackles Billy to the ground but he bounces back up.

me: thank you. i feel inspired again. thanks, Lindz.

Lindy: Lindz Lenz? say it.

me: okay fine, YOU inspire me.

Lindy: let's get back to work.

Luke: right.

Luke: the monastery is right over there around this island. walking on water, no boat required. well that's convenient...

water convent: ...

Luke: the monastery has a boat port, how cute.

Aaron Rodgers: how quaint.

Thomas Merton: you wanna fight about it, you washed-up Jets quarterback? i never played sports and imma STILL grind your nose down.

Abbot Butt: i'm afraid i can't offer you weary travelers any provisions except for one Fruit Rollup on a silver platter at night i toss into the monastery basement where you're shackled up in chains. 

Lindy: my sex life hasn't been this kinky since that Madonna concert at the mall.

Luke: save all that basement wine for me. where do you think Oldo is now? where'd that nut scamper off to? we've searched everywhere.

Lindy: in order to find Oldo we gotta piece Starscream back together.

Lindy does all this painstaking work herself, it takes 9 years, but finally Starscream is all back together like a nursery-rhyme egg.

Starscream: want some water? my fingers are tin mugs.

Lindy: no water, just Courvoisier in Benadryl. 

Starscream: after you drink it, that'll work as lubricant for me. i'm scanning for Oldo now across the breadth of this planet with my fixed both meanings orbital tracking lazers.........THERE HE IS!!!

Luke: OLDO!!! WHERE THE FUCK HAVE YOU BEEN?!!!

Oldo: i was hiking and hiding, i was playing solitaire with my stick, i was holing up to forget the world. lost on a mountain? yeah but it's not what you think. my name is Julian Sands and i don't want to talk about it. i don't want to talk to you unless you agree to a safari in the desert.

Lindy: take it from here, you know what to do.

me: right.

i take Starscream to the nursing home i work at. Starscream transforms into a vacuum and i vacuum up my room there for the first time, ALL those nasty tiny pebbles of kitty litter seeped into my carpet. 

me: thank you. but i'm able-bodied. do you want to help a VERY SPECIAL LADY who's crippled at the moment by humanity's ignorance?

Starscream: sure. i'm gonna like having a woman boss after Megatron.

the old lady in question is Fuerza who's elderly and frail and bedridden and is convalescing next to a brown fern.

Fuerza: *whispering to the fourth wall* of course this is all for show, call it an AI experiment. 

Starscream: how can i help you, miss?

Fuerza: transform yourself into my commode.

Starscream: can you bend?

Fuerza: i'm on my broken knees until you marry me.

Starscream: with smell or without smell?

Fuerza: with. i want the stench of URINE ON ALL FOUR WALLS. the breath mint was the worst invention of man, i made you so you'd be able to talk to each other with your BAD BREATHS and be natural about it.

Starscream: ma'am, it seems me as a commode is not fitting onto your perfect butt. i'm gonna have to break apart the lid of your toilet so the commode can fit.

Fuerza: oh my perfect butt. every night my perfect human butt on your robot face...

Sir Alec Guinness: Kind Hearts and Coronets, i played ALL 25 PARTS OF THE MOTION PICTURE AT THE SAME TIME.

Queen Elizabeth II wearing a coronet: we are not amused.

Karen Carpenter: are we on the soundtrack?

Gerard Way: are we? see, EVERYONE thinks it's Freddy not Freddie Mercury!!! i will never meet with Joe Rogan...

Alec: that was back in the day when movies were made on a budget of a wad of gum. the '30s, the '40s. i was doing Jedi mind tricks WAY BEFORE i Obi-Wan-Kenobi'd your arse.

Marie biscuit: i never get soggy...

Goya Maria: you'd think i'd be a salsa biscuit. but i'm actually a chocolate biscuit that you can't resist despite your better judgment. we're voting for Biden in 2024...

Viennetta: cafeteria cake.........served only at Westwood Junior High...

Pasqually: they used my concertina to pattern the ice-cream cake's famous ridges.

Ruffles: ...

LeBron: basketball? yeah i think i'm done with basketball. i'm thinking of becoming a United Nations ambassador...

Celtics: we didn't get swept, we have pride, Celtic pride...

Steve Miller Band "Abracadabra": i feel the magic when i touch your breast uh dress...

Eye Luggage: The Rocketeer and go.

Jennifer Connelly: makes no sense, why wasn't i NAKED in this? OHHHH NOW I SEE, this is a DISNEY MOVIE!!!...

Dirg: right? i mean why have Jennifer Connelly at all if she can't get naked? why have her ONLY in a nice white chiffon silky ballroom dinner dress?

Jennifer: we were all happy when we thought you were gone forever, Dirg.

The Rocketeer: what a LOVELY LILTING NAME!!! freeform flow off the tongue. and it's so 1930s, too.

Eye: a lot of goth is informed by the 1930s. not in a good way.

The Rocketeer: it's like combining Musketeer with a rocket and a leather cape. has that buccaneer whimsy of airy Errol Flynn. 

Jennifer Connelly: and the IRONIC thing is that in the Rocketeer comic books my character is actually a NUDE MODEL!!! a Bettie Page-like hourglass-figure woman. see? i was PERFECT CASTING after all!!!

Baby Esther: people still don't believe I, a black jazz singer named Esther Jones in the '20s and '30s, was the inspiration for Betty Boop. but i was.

Jennifer: that Kane v. Fleischer sounds like it was one FUN court case to watch.

Jennifer Connelly: sigh, i didn't get Titanic so i guess i'll do this...

Laertus's dad: a period superhero film with all the period pieces and sets and design and look of 1938 Los Angeles. i love all this stuff. i love all this Old Hollywood stuff.

Dirg: isn't this around the time period when Satanism started to gain strength in Los Angeles? secret meetings in linoleum kitchens with the drapes drawn from noon to 1PM...

Laertus's dad: oh and keep the ART DECO poster!!! that's rad square-lined art, and it's already Oscars-ready!!! don't go with that bland pedestrian standard poster with the three leads' faces on it, that poster sucked.

Billy Campbell: i was PERFECT CASTING, i have that punchable-face quality, i look like i simply LEAPED out of the pages of a comic book.........but that didn't help my fortunes any. this was supposed to be a trilogy but the other two movies were never made for lack of funds. i was all ready to have a career playing squeaky-clean good guys but instead i turned to the DARK SIDE and became the villain of The 4400. taking a 365-day yacht ride alone in the Pacific Ocean after getting rejected to play Superman at my LAST audition will do that to a man.

Alan Arkin: i am everybody's Jewish grandfather. i am Adam Arkin's father. in fact the Rocketeer set here will later be used to film Chicago Hope. i had to have played Einstein at some point in my career, right?

Timothy Dalton: why didn't this movie do well? i was James Bond at the time. get it? me in my James Bond jetpack, twinsies...

Terry O'Quinn: i know how we can beat the Nazis. keep the Spruce Goose, America's secret weapon, keep it hidden on an island with polar bears, nobody will ever find it.

Paul Sorvino: aren't i better at playing the bad guy than the good guy? my face screams GANGSTER, how did i ever pull off playing a cop on Law & Order?...

Jon Polito: i have that everyman person-who-works-at-a-garage face. i must have played Super Mario at one point at least once, right?

Clint Howard: i'm no monk...

Melora Hardin: i have a beautiful singing voice, which will never be used again. i can sing hip-hop not just lounge. i look weird with brown hair.

Tiny Ron Taylor: my nickname is ironic. i coulda helped the Lakers win this year. Lothar? am i in Excalibur?

Pat Crawford Brown: i have one of those '90s faces, you know? you've seen my face, you recognize my face from that '90s show you used to watch...

Laertus: this truly does have a '90s feel to it. doing the '30s in the '90s.

Billy: Cliff Secord. like second, second-best, appropriate, a second-rate superhero. seacliff. like a sea cord, the cord i used to tug my private yacht all around the world, the seven seas, i stole that yacht because it was a cord without an anchor... 

Dave Stevens: what is it with comic-book creator nerds like me? all of us as a community, all us comics writers, we all need to marry a woman who looks like Bettie Page.

Paul Dini: i'm the same way.

Bruce Timm: i WANT to be like you two men...

Takahashi: yes my name is Wes, don't i have a Wes of a face?...

Michael Eisner: i wanted the helmet to be an astronaut's helmet to coincide with the big NASA launch. now that Elon Musk has bought outer space i don't give a fuck about pub no more.

Fuerza: that Musk money can only take you so far, he's only bought your solar system, when you zoom out your solar system is merely inside a giant black hole...

Takahashi: yeah. and instead you made the helmet looking like the superhero should have been named the Gold Hornet. like a Venture Bros. villain reject. it made me want to start on the live-action Green Hornet movie soon and next...

Eye: this is a bizarre opening scene. is this a movie set or are these in fact REAL gangster Ford coupe cars from the 1930s?...

Cliff: i fly my plane to advertise Bumblebee Tuna. i'm a stunt pilot who does flips, it's the 1930s so i only do ONE FLIP and crash into a barn and die. 

Neville Sinclair: Neville as in the chamberlain who appeased the Nazis...

Lothar by the hospital bed: this is my REAL FACE. i know, it looks like the prosthetic makeup used on my face was gobs of clay. Clayface anyone? i look like a Judge Doom goon reject from Who Framed Roger Rabbit... 

Peabody: i'm an airplane mechanic. i hang around. airplane garages are surprisingly tiny. why am i named Peevy? shouldn't it be Peaby?

Cliff: you irritate me, that's why.

Cliff: what do you think it is? it breathes fire like a dragon.

Peevy: looks like a 1930s vacuum cleaner.

and now this is Buck Rogers.

Roger Ebert: wanna make papier-mache volcanos with me? we'll make the lava from sparklers.

Errol Flynn: i was not a Nazi sympathizer. i just like Roman architecture for my mansion, honest...

Neville: i look like the guy from Princess Bride but with a thinner face...

Neville: i shall not kill you, i shall merely rearrange the flowers on your corsage with my Zorro saber...

Neville: and now we're filming some swashbuckling Anthony Bourdain pirate epic. what's this movie called? Young Frankenstein. i see. call me when my understudy Larry Olivier is ready.

acting: acting is acting as if you're not acting.

Shia LaBeouf: i wish i could teach it...

and now this is Call The Midwife. it's one of yours, no it's one of mine, the one phone in the lobby open for all the girls for all their gentleman callers like in Facts of Life.

Mrs. Pye: don't eat her pie. if he tries anything i'll bonk him over the head with my Olive Oyl watercan... 

Jennifer Connelly: let's see that pennystore motion picture about that dime Betty Boop.

Cliff: can't. copyrights, many court cases.

Jennifer Pizarro: the Curtiss, that's MY biplane.

Jen R: no that's MY twin biplane, it has the Sjogren's stick to pilot it.

Snoopy: no it's MY plane. the Red Baron hates root beer, that was the problem. reminded him of how nice Austria USED to be, painful memories.

Peevy: you got extra gascans in this jalopy?

Cliff: they're in the truckbed not the cabin.

Peevy: that was stupid of you. everyone in this time period drives a 1937 brown Ford pickup truck, classic Depression-era...

the roadside cafe was named after the original Yale bulldog...

Joe Johnston: this diner scene is proving too complicated and difficult.

Walt Disney: look at me, Joe, I MAKE YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE. only Disney can do this, only Disney can turn a comic book into a movie. HBO won't do this for you. and fuck Showtime.

Michael Jackson: listen to Uncle Walt, Joe. plus, St. Cyril's is a block away...

FBI: we're the FBI in the 1930s, we have to MOW DOWN every rickety shack of a house along a dirt road with our Tommy guns using 100,000 taxpayer bullets.

Beemans Gum: the Chekhov's Gun of this movie...

Laertus: i love how you use the gum. if you introduce the gum in the beginning, make sure it's the solution in the end...

the South Seas Club was originally called We're The Pirates of the Old Black Sea...

Jennifer Connelly: this club looks like the Iceberg Lounge from Batman.

Batman: yeah it's very deceiving. what's with all the glitz and glamour? this is only a couple years removed from the Great Depression, people are still LOW AND POOR and drive on dust wearing a brown jacket. the blue champagne soap bubbles and the giant pink seashell are a nice touch tho.

W.C. Fields: hey chickadee, i like your two tits i mean your two giant globes, one is Earth, one is Mars.

Jennifer Connelly: sir, i find you abhorrent and repellent. how can you not like children and dogs? how can you take a baby's lollipop away? how can you ignore a dog on the street? you will never get in this dress.

Greykid: i put a fire hydrant in your bed.

W.C. Fields: *speaking normally* great, my entire act was for naught. they said you could make a life if you knew how to Vaudeville...

Jennifer: you used a date-rape drug on me?

Neville: no my darling, it's knock-out gas on a handkerchief, it's chloroform on a napkin, chloroform is classy.

Jennifer: wait, my dress had a zipper this whole time?...

Griffith Observatory: no need for a set. use the REAL Griffith Observatory, it already looks like the 1930s...

Howard Hughes: and my office looks like the Citizen Kane fireplace...

Howard Hughes: i'm Elon Musk but good.

Disney: what's with our fascination with the Nazis?

Walt Disney: don't look at me.........i'm no Errol Flynn.........i kinda look like him but that's it...

Howard Hughes: i look like Walt Disney not Errol Flynn...

Howard Hughes: do i look like Doc Savage to you? the creator of Venture Bros.? is my wife Bettie Page in a saber-toothed-tiger loincloth? i was smiling when she wore that smilodon. i could play the father on Venture Bros. in the live-action remake, i have the perfect bald head for it...

Cliff: this is SCARY STUFF, why do the Nazis have better animators than us?

Batman: yeah that was the thing, people romanticized the 1930s but it was a TERRIBLE TIME. the Nazis were gaining strength, people literally thought the Nazis wold TAKE OVER THE ENTIRE WORLD. dystopia directly approaching... 

Batman: bring back zeppelins!!! right? they were so grand and noble, like massive whales in the sky. the da Vinci flying machine in giant gortex. commercial zeppelins in airports instead of airplanes. make the skies beautiful again, colorful again, it doesn't always have to end in yellow fire and grey smoke. i want to learn the electric guitar...    

Paul Sorvino: i may be a mook but i'm an American mook. i ain't no Kraut.........Kraut isn't much of an insult, calling someone a Nazi is far more nefarious. far more lethal and dangerous. Nazi really cuts down deep, Nazi really hurts. 

is it really worth $400,000 to blow up the Hollywoodland sign? just keep it up as Hollywoodland, it's a better name anyway...

Neville: i got the Third Reich on my side!!!

Cliff: i got gum.

Neville: oh shit i thought our war airship zeppelin was the Lindbergh...

Neville: this is all mommy's fault, she never gave me swimming lessons. can i still be a good guy who fights a mummy?...

Jennifer Connelly: is it just me or does Cliff's biplane now have MY FACE on it?... 

Billy Campbell: we did massive Pizza Hut and M&Ms cross-promotional campaigns advertising this but it did no good, nothing moved the needle in the slightest. back then Pizza Hut was indie and the M&Ms didn't talk. people really thought i was going to be the next Spider-Man. even the Nintendo video game of The Rocketeer SUCKED, it was voted THE WORST VIDEO GAME OF ALL TIME. hey, why didn't we do a BEEMANS GUM campaign with this film?!!! bring back Beemans Gum for the '90s!!! now in Blue Raspberry and Mondo Mustard!!! this fine period piece, perfect to promote pepsin. sigh. g'night folks. i still have the jetpack under my waterbed...