ENTRE BASTIDORES: THAT "CHICO AND THE MAN" EPISODE IN MEXICO

 

Titus: come on, man, i'm sorry. let me make it up to you.

Late: how? como?

Titus: we travel the jungles of Mexico till we get to the secret find in the clearing.

Late: a hunt?

Titus: not of you. not of man. this is legit.

Late: but how? como?

Titus: we need a tool. not referring to me. follow me.

Late: by the way where's Raul?

Lili Estefan: Raulie, i don't care anymore. 

Daniela di Giacomo: como? the mafia backdoored Raulie, i tried to intervene but when i reached their hideout in the middle of Tijuana it was too late...

Lili: don't look at me. don't ask me to show you around, i'm not from Mexico, i'm from Cuba. i went to Harvard...

Raul De Molina: i look like if Castro let himself go...

the El Gordo y La Flaca intro announcer: yes i'm drunk. they serve sangria at Taco Bell. Three's a Crowd on The CW!!! i chuckle and laugh even when i'm announcing a sad story...

Talia licking the faucet: don't worry, we cats entertain ourselves...

David Lynch: use your imagination, i was the lead singer of the Talking Heads...

Capp: my dream is to be never heard from again.

Trent Reznor: i just realized something, all music is crazy...

xxxHolic: Catholic...

3:30 PM: The Cosby Show on Hallmark Channel.

Rose Nylund: what?

Rudy Huxtable on cord phone: mom is COLD BUSTED.

Rose: that means something different in St. Olaf.

Clair Huxtable: Rudy, shut yo mouth, child. sit yo ass down, Rudy. i'm not gonna have this from my youngest. i already had to sign the waiver saying i wouldn't look directly into Lisa Bonet's beautiful eyes when Lenny was in the room.

Eroxon: get your rocks off.

Michelle Trachtenberg: Notre Dame High School looks like a mall...

Cameron Mathison with Cameron Mathison smile: tonight...

Storybook International "Great Heart": it's a shame the white man has to intrude on this brilliant ancient Native American Indian vision-quest spirit-walk tale. so sad. it's a painful history...

Chipotle: the weird thing is none of our food has the chipotle chile in it...

Ferris Bueller: in the '80s, you tried to get the attention of the girl you liked.

Al Gore: but there was no attention economy... 

Bergman Island: those guest quarters for the wedding guests, those SKINNY TALL rooms with the IHOP roofs, are actually saunas...

Ingmar Bergman: they serve fartinis in there...

Hampus: the Krampus's hamper.

at the Great Western Forum in Los Angeles, Steve Jobs in short shorts and a headband psyches himself up bouncing the basketball on the court.

Steve Jobs: i'm oiling my brain.

Chick Hearn: may fried chicken and potato chips always be served in these stands.

Steve Jobs: doing a deep dive on the dunk.

Steve Jobs does a flying jacknife DUNK on the basket.

Steve Jobs: oh wow...

Melissa Maker holding a chocolate chip cookie by the Mexican microwave: it melts in your hand...

Jennifer Pizarro: A Court of Thorns and Roses, i was born to play this part!!! i was born to act in this faerie-porn stuff!!! bring the Star Trek guy back!!!...

Tom Petty: i should have been in A Clockwork Orange, i already dress like that, those are my clothes...

Egon Schiele: my life got CUT WAY SHORT by the Spanish flu, our covid, but i find solace in that MANY YEARS LATER Aeon Flux will cure my disease in the future...

Late: my upper lip's starting to quake, how much further must we roam the Mexican jungles?

Titus: we need a jungle sword to cut away all this dense brush. the trees here have coconuts heavier than my balls. i know where to fetch a jungle sword: Jackie Fitzgerald's house in the States, she lives in a forest, too...

Titus: this is a vacation from our vacation. it's a good thing, too, my eyebrows were starting to sweat. i was getting palm tree in my shorts. look at the gutter in front of Jackie's house.

Late: can't see a thing, it's night.

Titus: exactly. see that black shadow in the gutter? long penis-shaped black shadow? that's Gunther's jungle sword.

Late: Gunther?

Titus: Jackie's man, He-Man, Conan the Barbarian, Blond Rambo.

Late: but why does he leave his jungle sword outside?

Jackie Fitzgerald: that's my one rule when i fuck any man: no weapons. weapons are so BARBARIC.

with Gunther's jungle sword in tow, the two valiant sun warriors attack the jungle with a preservationist's precision, making sure to reseed any tree they hack down.

finally they reach the center of the clearing where the brush bends.

Titus: DA CAR DA CAR!!! you see the car?!!!

Late squinting his eyes: is that a.........clown car?

Titus: no it's my family car. my wife and kid and me. i'm giving it to you, we even?

Late: i don't know, vato, i don't want to be taking your livelihood like that. you say no hard feelings but i haven't been hard since that night at the Mexican Oscars with Lili Estefan.

Titus: okay vato, adios!!!

a red balloon with a string appears across the sunbaked Mexican sky floating over the vista ever so strategically to catch Titus's small hand and scoop him up by the fingers. Titus flies away as he lets out another one of his trademark banshee-hyena laughs.

Late: wait. it's Late. where are you going?!!! vato, come back!!! we can be amigos, just for one day. DON'T LEAVE ME HERE!!! DON'T ABANDON ME!!! DON'T STRAND ME!!! i have a deep-seated fear of getting ditched, of getting discarded by the system. mental note: discuss this with my psychiatrist Carl Old. i'm stuck here, i'm not gonna drive that car through the forest, there's been enough damage to the Earth Madre, her knees are chapped from indifference.

 

 

ENTRE BASTIDORES: GIACOMO GANG

 

Clarissa Molina: everyone turned their life around. except me.

Raul De Molina: listen mujer, don't let yourself go. always be pretty. i don't care anymore. Lili and i get our stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, i don't care anymore. all dentists speak Spanish now, i don't care anymore.

Clarissa: i need some inspiration, Raulie. that's why i walking the outskirts of Mexico City. 

Raul: stay here alone, it should be safe, i'll be right back.

back in Hollywood.

Raul: um, hello? hola? who's in charge? who in charge here? i don't want my star next to P. Diddy's star.

Lili Estefan: yeah and can my star NOT be next to Gloria Estefan's star? i mean come on. i've spent my entire fucking life trying to distance myself from my favorite auntie. i'm my own woman. i'm my own mujer. i'm not from Miami, i'm from Mexico. put me next to Jennifer Esposito, that chica makes the best bagels.

Jennifer Esposito: chive n onion...

Jen R to Capp: do you know why you wait a long time in life? to FINALLY have that nice hard fuck with someone, you know?

Jackie Fitzgerald: being with Gunther has REALLY been challenging my Catholic faith...

Gunther: it's against your religion to love a hot guy like me.

me: i can't be around crazy people anymore.

Jules Smith: you mean me?

me: no, my family.

Bergman Island.

Ingmar Bergman: i was the son of a minister. there would be no movies if i was the son of a dentist...

Tim Roth: so how was your little local Bergman guide?

Vicky Krieps: he was a dork. a sexy dork.

Ingmar: i want the toilet outside in the garden...

one of Ingmar's wives: there is nothing like the dusk of a Swedish outdoor wedding.

groom at party: fuck Bergman. i'm jealous of him because he hoarded all the Pepto Bismol on the island.

Ingmar: in my defense, what's the point of war? i made a cameo in the grocery-store episode of Metalocalypse...

Jen R: mental note: bicycle rides are romantic.

Amy and Joseph ride their bikes to the beach to the ending of the M83 "Teen Angst" music video...

Ingmar: yellow schoolbus? I HATED SCHOOL!!!

Dirg: why can't there be coed communal saunas in America?

Ludo: it's just not as cool as Parcheesi.

Hampus: good ol' Hampus.

Vicky: what should the ending be? suicide?

Tim: that would be the Bergman thing to do.

Vicky: you can't just wave your hand and wish me away because you're getting tired of me. we have a daughter, remember? June.

Billy Corgan: named after my song.

Tim: *heavy sighing internally* i know. but I'm gonna need a couple of month vacations from you a year, okay?

Vicky: Amy wants her dress to the wedding to be white because she wants to start over and be Joseph's bride, be Joseph's wife, and be in Joseph's life.

Mia Wasikowska: has anyone heard my Australian accent?...

Vicky: i should have ended up with Hampus, Hampus was my Duckie Dale.

Ingmar Bergman: so this was a long advertisement for the Ingmar Bergman Museum...

Emma Raducanu: i'm quitting tennis for a bank job.

Andy Murray: you're gonna rob a bank? a bank heist?

Emma: no, i'm gonna count all my money. 

Andy: i could be your coach...

Emma: we'll never be as beloved as Greg Rusedski.

Kurt Cobain: i coulda been a great actor!!!

Melissa Maker: in Canada we eat mac n cheese with a spoon...

Kendrick Lamar: X Drake.

Drake: yeah i know i know, you dissed me good at the Super Bowl.

Kendrick: no, the One Piece character.

me: how are you, my friend?

Jen R: how are you my friend?

me: don't know, just lucky i guess.

at the nursing home.

9:59 AM: crepes and strawberries.

10:00 AM: Golden Girls on Hallmark Channel.

Ryan White: i buy Dorothy's Bobby Hull hockey stick at the indoor yardsale. how much for that BIG-ASS yellow teakettle in the cheesecake kitchen?

the mom from My Life as a Dog: i'm Rose's blind sister. what do grits look like?

Rose: they literally look like nothing.

Dan Fielding: i never smoked...

Dick Clark: in the '80s you'd have to guess the word "petition" to win the $100,000, "petition" was the pyramid capstone. 

Ben Johnson, coach of the Chicago Bears: i have an anime voice. i wrote all of Shakespeare's plays.

Michael German: ...

LeBron James: i'm winning the NBA championship for the Lakers this year so JJ Redick can buy his family another house to replace the house that was burnt to a crisp.

JJ Redick: see, kids? it pays to stay in school. Duke math, motherfucker.

Dick Vitale: the Dukies!!! the Dukies cured my cancer!!!

Dr. Seuss: i did The Midnight Gospel first...

Peter Griffin: cwalk? no not the Crip walk, the color walk, i travel outside my house and point out all the green bushes along my sidewalk, my color is always green. and i love bush. i have to go on a walk, i'm fat.

the two reach Daniela di Giacomo's pueblo along the dustiest of trails.

Daniela di Giacomo: welcome to our secret bunker. notice that we're technically not in Mexico City. you won't find this place on any map. even though the Aztecs invented maps.

Raul: what's with all the sausage in your place?.........i'm talking about actual sausages...

Daniela: well you see we in the mafia always have a need to flee an area quickly. so we hang our sausages in the ceiling for fast plucking. 

Clarissa: also they dry out faster in the sun.

Daniela: people don't know this but Mexican sausage is just Italian sausage dipped in peanut dust.

Clarissa: teach me about the secret to your cooking.

Daniela: see that microwave over here in the basement? under lock and key. that microwave is the key.

Raul: and i'm a skeleton.

Daniela: you see those of us in the mafia often have no time, so we can't put the cookie on a little cute saucer dish with blue flowers to nuke it, put the cookie RIGHT IN the microwave without a plate.

Clarissa: OW!!! it's hot to the touch!!! THE PALM OF MY HAND BURNS!!!

Daniela: calmite, mujer, you gotta stand up for us ladies, we're strong, this chocolate-chip pain is worse than childbirth but come on, do it and give me a mujer high-five!!!

Raul: i'm hungry.

Daniela: that's a surprise, Raulie. no chips here, the police took them all. we mafiosas had to be industrious, so we made our own cheap chips. take two tortillas, put them in the microwave WITHOUT a plate, fold the four-sided tortilla into a triangular shape and voila!!!! instant tortilla chips. that are actually made from tortillas. dab a little Frank's RedHot on them for flavoring.

Daniela: hey, have you noticed you've never used the DEFROST or REHEAT buttons on your toaster?...

ENTRE BASTIDORES: "EL GORDO Y LA FLACA" ON A SATURDAY

 

Lili Estefan: HOLA MI GENTE!!! you know what? i can't do this anymore...

Raul De Molina: what's the matter, Blondie Bustamante?

Lili: Raulie, i'm having an existential crisis about the show.

Raul: right here right now as the lights are on and the cameras are rolling?

Lili: it's just, is CELEBRITY everything? 

Late, the handsome young Spanish man who was sure to be Raul's successor, steps up on the grassy set to deliver his lines with force.

Fuerza: ...

Late: see that QR Code at the bottom right corner of your TV screen? scan it with your phone and get all that juicy behind-the-scenes stuff from your favorite correspondents and all of us here at El Gordo y La Flaca!!!

Raul: that was STRONG, young man. good for you, chico. you sound like you really want to be here, that you're enjoying working here day after day, year after year. the camera adds ten pounds but you can't fake enthusiasm.

Raul De Molina delivers a flying spin-kick right to Late's face.

Late: what the fuck, hombre. 

Raul: your head is the perfect shape of a soccer ball.  

Late: i looked up to you, man. you were my idol. how did you do a flying spin-kick? you're too fat for that.

Tanya Charry: everyone thinks it's Tanya Cherry. do not confuse me with Gelena Solano.

Gelena Solano: do not confuse me with Tanya Charry. just drop me off at the D.R., that's where the real sun lives.

Maria Hurtado: don't hurt me, MC Hammer, with your love songs.

Elizabeth Curiel: as the only true Mexican on this panel.........i got a hangnail.

Miss Yvonne: Pee-wee, now that we're all HERE, no more secrets, no more lies, let it all come out with the wash.

Pee-wee Herman: are you my mommy?

Miss Yvonne: yes. i fucked Jambi. Jambi gave good head.

Jambi: wait i'm in Heaven but i'm still in this fucking box?!!! get me out of this fucking box!!!

Pee-wee: why isn't my face green?

Miss Yvonne: it is. you're colorblind. but that doesn't matter, Pee-wee. you taught us all to love each other no matter what, to love all colors.

Orson Welles: so this is how Moby Dick ends: i harpoon the white whale for calling me fat.

Courtney Love: Jack In The Box food just speaks to me, you know?

Chantal Kreviazuk: i'm the Canadian Paula Cole. 

Invincible: when it starts to look like The Venture Bros...

Jaleel White: be those exes who team up and go on a game show together...

Billy Corgan: "With Every Light" is my "All You Need is Love..."

Suzy Lu: i had a church wedding.........a Final Fantasy wedding in a church...

me: what do you call someone you talk to every day online?

Jen R: girlfriend...

Capp: why does everything in life take such a LONG DAMN TIME to happen?!!!

Jen R: that's what gets you out of bed the next day forever...

Raul De Molina: for you see, this is a SPECIAL EPISODE of El Gordo y La Flaca at the Super Bowl!!!

Lili Estefan: but Raulie, this is Saturday. and we're on the wrong field.

Raul: the Monterrey Aztecs soccer team are playing here this afternoon, that's a bigger game anyway.

Titus the little person: i am not dressing up as a football. either one.

Lili: look at the stadium we're in, it's in the shape of a Tetris block...

Titus: where is the head pillow? that's my body pillow...

Lili: a pillow for my bare feet when i have High Tea with the King of England...

The Big O: the Megadeus's neck is the Atari symbol...

Lindy Lenz: do you want to come over? i'm naked.

me: yes.

me: thank you for giving me your phone number.

Lindy: oh the phone number attached to this apartment is dead because the roof caved in, i had to flee to parts unknown...

me: i look like Frieza's final form.

a monk playing the lute and singing by himself to end the album...

Jackie Fitzgerald: sex under a crescent moon is the roughest...

Jen R: Jen-R-ator Rex.

Jen R: love is.........being there.

Melissa Maker: when they say don't operate heavy machinery after taking medication, they mean cars...

Bergman Island.

me: this movie is what i wanted to do in real life. i was envisioning a batch of short stories taking place on Faro, Ingmar Bergman comes back from the dead as Batman telling anyone who will listen that Heaven exists.

Ingmar Bergman: but it's secluded...

Tim Roth using GPS to drive: what do all these Swedish placenames mean?

wife: Death Bog.

Vicky Krieps: it's just nice to be in a movie, you know?

Lars von Trier: see? rustling reeds like Antichrist...

Ingmar Bergman: make sure my island stays secret. don't ride the fucking bicycles, those bikes broke Lance Armstrong's heart. watch only Tom & Jerry on that TV.

Vicky: that Boy with the Dragon Tattoo arm tattoo is really unseemly and obnoxious.

Tim: sorry, i got it when i was 17.

Ingmar: i mean should ANY artist have kids?...

Vicky: want your marriage to last? never look at your husband's porn.........that he writes and draws. honey, we need to talk.

Tim: okay i admit, the hook in the butt is a bit much. 

Vicky: The Magician.

Tim: that was like an episode of Mork & Mindy.

Vicky: Seventh Seal.

Tim: between you and me, that was his worst one.

Vicky: Saraband.

reelist: be a realist, nobody gets to Saraband, people outgrow Bergman long before getting to Saraband...

cheers and whistles: not cries and whispers.

Stephen Merchant in the gift shop: trying out my Shaggy from Scooby-Doo look. why didn't Shaggy have long hair?...

Stephen: thanks for making that movie, that movie caused my girlfriend to dump me. now i want to die.

Vicky: how did Ingmar Bergman handle fame?...

Stephen: can you get drunk if you drink enough cider?

Vicky: what's with all these LARGE sheets of lambskin?

Stephen Merchant: condom for my cock.

tour guide: we end the Bergman Safari with this scene from Before Midnight...

Stephen Merchant: i TOTALLY thought you were gonna kiss me on the lips through the open car window just then.

Ingmar: Faro, it's like Portland but in the country...

Vicky: what's it about?

Tim: our fucked-up marriage.

Vicky: can't wait to read it. 

Tim: and if the pollen in the air can make me invisible.

Vicky: so mine is that episode of The Love Boat but swap out Andy Warhol for Ingmar Bergman.

Ingmar: i can do sitcom cameos.

Jen R: wait this is OUR story!!!

me: a few fleeting moments of happiness.........a sketch.........a cuddle...

Joseph: want an upper-decker?

Mia: what?

Joseph: on your chest.

Mia: that's the thing with boats, you can't leave boats...

Jules Smith: you need to be around normal people with sound lucid minds in the countryside.

Today Show: we get you through your morning making you feel just a bit better about things.........you know, we make you forget for three hours that life is meaningless...

George Clooney: there's a time when a man must put down his coffee and wine and run for President...

Bill Gates: i'm Good Elon Musk.

Titus is the director on set.

Titus: my headset is bigger than me.

Titus is also the prankster on set, he's the one always scurrying around the set pulling pranks on the cast as the crew laughs in the background, cracking jokes with the hosts as he snickers like a jumpy fox, pulling the correspondents' pants down, and wearing silly costumes.

Titus: i figure since i'm already a dwarf i might as well go crazy in my life.

Raul De Molina: when you confront me in the monologue, pull my face down to yours, and tell me a joke that makes fun of me, that makes me uncomfortable, i fake-smile after because you make me uncomfortable, Titus.

Titus: story of my life.

Titus: hey Lat...

Late: you making fun of my Latin heritage?!!!

Titus: no, your lat muscles, i was admiring your pecs and biceps, do you work out? what do you mean, we're all Latin American here.

Late: you want me to drop-kick you through those uprights, you mischievous midget?!!!

Titus: orale, amigo. calm down, hombre. temper temper. you're too irascible, man, we're friends. you gotta calm down, dude on a duderanch.

Late: sorry. sorry. climbing the Mexican Hollywood corporate ladder gives me stress.

  

ALEJANDRO & ME: NEW BATCH OF "THREE'S COMPANY" EPISODES

 

Alejandro: the world has actually really gone crazy this time.

me: yeah. but it's nice for us, we get to hide within the walls of your garden community only going out to work at a grocery store. the world doesn't affect us. the world doesn't touch us.

Alejandro: as long as we can pay for it. which brings me to...you have a job interview tomorrow at 4 AM.

me: oh come on. at least help me cut my toenails for it.

Alejandro brings the home garbage to the foot of my rented bed. 

Alejandro: i got the scissors, let's do this.

me: those are cat-nail clippers.

Alejandro: PEE-YEW!!! what the fuck is inside this trash can?

me: that old tin of sardines you let me eat for supper last night, i emptied out all the sardine juice into this trash.

Alejandro: as we clip over the trash of course. you know what, leave your nails on the carpet, i'll call Melissa Maker to come vacuum tomorrow as a common maid.

me: in her French-maid uniform, you like how i play mind checkers?

Chantal Kreviazuk singing "O Canada": Donald Trump, you can't have Canada. ice hockey is our game. you are the LOWLIGHT of human existence. wait, am i still married to Raine? maybe instead of Moon vs. Sun we should have been called Moon vs. Rain...

Jen R to Capp: get to the point that you make friends so when you text them the next time, you're saying "it's me."

Trinity the cat: don't make me utter an INDIGNANT meowl. let me forage in the film-noir laundry shed...

Zach Galifianakis: me for Orson Welles. i need a TINY fireplace on my mantle...

Boc: you know how men walk their dogs in the park to attract jogging women? it's the opposite for me, i see a guy walking his dog and i jog the OTHER way and there's gonna be NO date, mister...

Jen takes me to Muriel's Wedding: The Musical in Australia. 

Brent scootches us over so he can fit in the seat.

Brent: Wharf Theatre my fat ass. they serve the musical patrons lager and whalemeat to get us oiled up, so we'll sing along, the songs are good enough on their own, they don't need help. the non-ABBA songs...

Jen R perching a smoking cigarette between her bare toes: now this is Brent, your kindergarten best friend you haven't seen in 40 years.

me: i don't know what to say to him. being Australian is so cool.

Jen R: don't assume he's a surfer. don't ask him why his mom is named Carmel. do not talk about Foster's Beer, only Foster's Ale. do not talk about Tim Tams or the Australian Open of Golf or swimming or Hugh Laurie or prison or Muriel's Wedding.

Brent: i am a real person, not an Aussie. 

P. J. Hogan: no relation to Paul Hogan, what a shame. Hogan is like Smith in Australia.

on the Safeway shelves.

cream cheese: ONLY on bagels...

Larry: it takes big balls to wear pajamas in prison...

curl care: this shampoo doesn't ELIMINATE curls, it makes your curls GLISTEN...

Brooke Trantor: plop.

Larry: Blueberry Dr. Pepper.........i mean.........i don't know...

Lalo: don't make one of the baby toys a fidget spinner...

Jen R: hon is a Maryland thing.

Lindy Lenz: let's have a double date.

me: i don't want to share you.

Lindy: no, you come to Baltimore for some Towsons Bagels. cheese bagels with a side of egg. and then i travel to California to Islands restaurant. do they have pizza there? i only eat triple-cheese pizza.

me: a burger with extra cheese. make it an early lunch.

Lindy: yeah, malls are creepy at night.

Boc wobbles into Safeway after a long hard walk.

Boc: i'm sweaty, i need beans. why is the chili WITH beans LESS expensive than the chili WITHOUT beans? B&M, not a good name for beans...

Jaleel White: don't call me Steve Harvey, i'm WAY cooler than that guy. it's boring hosting Flip Side, there's not much to do.

Jaleel White: can we have a Steve-Urkel-lookalike dance contest in the middle of every Flip Side episode? 

Timothee Chalamet: dancing is the only thing i don't do well...

coincidence: the universe is not magical...

Louise Post: i cried, Wolf...

Joanie: how am i gonna live without mum?

Muriel: you aren't. you will not survive.

Melissa Maker: $30,000 a life?...

Boc: walking clears my head.........both meanings.........i have a concussion...

Jules Smith in Australia: all monologues are rants...

me: i'm nervous for my job interview in an hour. haven't slept a wink all night. my pajamas are SOAKED.

Alejandro: calm your tits. i mean calm your mind.

me: i've never worked a day in my life.

Alejandro: breathe. breathe. but that is an indictment of society and humanity. my '90s doctor told me breathing would cure my Jerry's disease. interviews are cinchy. you'll anticipate the trick question, right? remember what i taught you.

me: right. the yoga tea sold at Safeway smells like chicken curry.

Alejandro: that's the one.

me: can't i just say i have a concussion? i really do have a concussion, pin needles and pinpricks are inside my right temple as we speak. they give jobs to concussions, don't they?

Alejandro: imagine the cash register as your personal home-computer keyboard you're blogging on right now...

me: and on top of the concussion i have razor bumps on the part of my shaved head not concussed so in total i look like a cancer patient.