Best One-Shot Character Spin-Off Films Of All Time....

I like some of those old early 90s Saturday Night Live One-Shot Character Full Length Spin off Films. I didn't drink coffee this morning ... but when I got home I drank coffee ... so now I am all ready to do something ... so I'm gonna write down words.


Pre Face

Alright, so what I'm setting out to do here is find what was the best Saturday Night Live spinoff film, but this genre is somewhat more complex than it seems.

Anyone who knows what I'm talking about knows a great deal of these films are not very good ... but we're not gonna be rating them on a standard scale of how you'd rate films. This genre being as unique as it is ... we shall apply a specific ranking system to achieve analysis on the quality of the films.

My system is basically a raw score (based on how you'd rate any movie) but then a series of BONUS points shall be added based on how the film makers overcame obstacles inherent to the making of these films.

These bonus points are going to be based on the following ... How difficult was it for the people involved in this film to take this content (one-shot character) and create a 1.5 hour full length content film based around them. So, with this metric involved even some horrible ones will be getting decent scores because we have to put ourselves into the people involved in these films shoes and realize what a herculean task it must have in some cases to work with the content they had to work with.

Take, It's Pat, which is a real film that I am not just making up and pretending it does exist ... it exists in actual human reality .... it really truly was made and I saw it in the era it was made in the early 90s. Now, if you're not familiar with Pat ... the joke on SNL was that no one knew if the human was male or female and situational comedy would (sort of) be created with that premise. If I was a writer or director and somehow got tied up with this vehicle .... I wouldn't have any idea how to create a full length "It's Pat" movie .... that's beyond a herculean task ... it's genuinely insane to ask people to work with that content and make it work.

You starting to understand why the rating system will have difficulty modifying bonus points? If you still don't... here.... just try and pretend you are exiting your body and are now being Quantum Leaped into the early nineties into the body of a writer or director ... and you've signed on to do some SNL movie ... and a lady walks in and tells you ...

.... "Okay, We're gonna make It's Pat ... The Movie! "

Where the hell would you even start? Like, it's insane that anyone was ever put into a situation where they were asked to take "It's Pat" and make a full length motion picture ... it's crazy.

Anyways, you get the rating system now so on with the show...


(Note: This is only for spin-offs of characters on SNL ... movies like Austin Powers aren't in here ... it's only characters from the show that were made into full length films.)




1. Blues Brothers

Year: 1980
Content they had to Work with: Two men dress up in suits, sun glasses, and hats ... and sing Blues music.

That's not that difficult to work with because these characters were just a Look and had nothing really fleshed out yet for them which gives the writers and creators lots of room to work with.

There's so many ways they could have went and the way they chose made sense. They were these two guys who don't speak much, one recently released from prison, and all they want to do is re-unite their former band and sing Blues music again. It's a simple premise ... and simple premises usually tend to work ..... and this movie did.

It was a full length variety show, really. With all the celebrity musical guests (including JAMES BROWN) it basically went like 25 minutes of movie ... musical number ... 25 minutes ... musical number ... 25 minutes ... car chase .... musical interlude .... car chase .... Ending. Great progression, beautiful use of time and segmentation.

For villains they threw in some crazy ex-wives and some Nazis (Illinois Nazis) to round it out. All in all it's a great film.

As far as bonus points for difficulty goes, none will be awarded because all these characters came with was a Cool Look and a Cool Look is not hard to work with ... there wasn't really any other datum hinged on these characters other than that they looked pretty cool and liked Blues music.

I'm not gonna get into Blues Brothers 2000, that kind of felt like a sort of tribute film to the first one.

Raw Score: 89
Difficulty Modifier Bonus: 0
Total Score: 89

2. Wayne's World and Wayne's World 2
 
Year: 1992-93
Content they had to Work with: Two dudes do a cable access show out of their basement and love heavy cock rock music.

Not much to go on but it was something that could easily be made into a buddy comedy and that's what they did with it. This came out when MTV was really starting to hit its stride with the cock rock videos.

Kids now a days know MTV as the place to watch reality shows but in the 90s it was a place to see Music Videos and the early 90s is when MTV really took off.

In the 80s there weren't that many music videos to show. The Residents were making videos for their "songs" and they were probably the only ones. In the late 80s Mojo Nixon invaded MTV and started making videos. Eventually every band started doing this and by like 1991 MTV was a behemoth of Rock and Roll vignettes.

Wayne's World hit at the best possible time. The rock and roll persona for these two dudes fit with the times and what the young people wanted. Growing up in this era, I can assure you that Wayne's World was HUGE ... I even played the adventure video game of Wayne's World where you throw this Pizza-Thon to save your cable access show ... that game was cool.

Being a young kid in this era this film will always be fondly remembered ... and with all honesty I liked the sequel even better than the first one which never happens in movies. I loved Wayne's World 2 ... I even used to do the whole "we beat him to death with his own shoes" story word-for-word on command at school.

I won't be giving it d-mod points though either because to have MTV oriented characters release a film aimed at MTV audience during the meteoric rise of MTV wasn't really difficult at all to work with.

Raw Score: 91
Difficulty Modifier Bonus: 0
Total Score: 91



3. Cone Heads
 
Year: 1993
Content they had to Work with: A family of Aliens with cone-shaped heads.

Okay ... now after the commercial success of Wayne's World I think the people behind these SNL spinoff movies were ready to start churning these out like butter.

But why Coneheads? It's not even characters from the 90s era when this film was made. These characters were from the 70s era of SNL. It seems like a strange set of characters to try and make a full length movie with.

I bet this was always being pitched as a movie or show since the 70s and most people said no to it. The 1996 show Third Rock from the Sun was likely born as a Coneheads show (Jane Curtin being in the cast of Third Rock seems to make that more plausible too). I think why it took 20+ years to make a movie version of Coneheads was probably because those people saying no for 20+ years were probably right.

Okay so they are Aliens with cone-shaped heads, that's great, how is this gonna become a 2 hour feature?

I don't really remember much from this film even though I know I've seen it probably more than once. I remember they get into "fish-out-of-water" style situations often and don't understand earth customs. Fish out of Water can be funny but I prefer it with weird foreigner characters (like Borat or Balky) .... but with Cone Headed Aliens, of course they're weird and will find mundane things difficult to understand and people will find them weird, it's a given. With foreigner-buffoon characters like Borat doing Fish-out-of-Water the comedy is more subtle and works better. Watching Balky Bartokomus or Borat not understand normal situations is funnier than forcing the bit so much by giving the Fish outta Waters cones for fucking heads.

I remember Akroyd has to go back to his planet and fight a beast unleashed upon him by Doug McKenzie in some ritual Star Trek jive kind of thing near the end. I'm not gonna re-watch it to remember it ... it's not worth it. Cone Heads is not a good movie.

The only place they could go was Fish-out-of-Water with it and that's where they did go ... I guess they ran out of bits eventually and flew him off to space to fight monsters. I dunno why they even bothered making a god damned Coneheads movie for, it gets difficulty points for sure but even then this is not a well made film.

Raw Score: 29
Difficulty Modifier Bonus:15
Total Score: 44



4. It's Pat 


Year: 1994
Content they had to Work with: A human is not known to other people who come in contact with it whether it is a Male Human or a Female Human.

I was talking about this one in the intro and setting up why I needed to put a D-Mod bonus. This is beyond a head scratcher ... maybe it's in some SNL actors contracts that they are guaranteed a feature film or something of that nature.

Why make an It's Pat movie for? I mean, the joke of that people don't know if it's a girl or a boy lasts for what like 5 seconds? How are you gonna make a 2 hour movie about this?

I saw this when it came out and even as a youngster I wondered how the people involved in making this managed to squeeze a movie out of this content. This is another one I wouldn't re-watch to refresh my memory... the whole movie has to do with people not knowing whether Pat is a girl or a boy and it's not helped by Pat having a romantic partner played by Dave Foley who's always very androgynous.

I think at some point the writers just gave the fuck up ... I remember a scene where a black street gang demands AT KNIFE POINT whether Pat is a "Brothah" or a "Sistah" but Pat still does not divulge his/her gender specification. Near the end, a man Pat knows loses his mind over not knowing Pat's gender, kidnaps him/her, and forcefully tries to determine the sex of the creature but to no avail.

My Gosh .... this has a rating of 0% on Rotten Tomatoes. I'm gonna give it 0 too but I'm gonna heap on so many D-Mod points here because to even make a movie and get it released on video based on the one-shot character of Pat deserves some kind of medal or general merit badge of some manner.


Raw Score: 0
Difficulty Modifier Bonus: 65
Total Score: 65



5. Stuart Saves his Family

Year: 1995
Content they had to Work with: A non-licensed group therapist with a lisp hosts a self-help-book style cable access program.

This one is probably hated by most people but I will say right outta the gate that I liked this movie. The behind the scenes people had a little more experience, I'd say, than other SNL one-shot spin-offs ... it was directed by Harold Ramis (rest in peace Egon) and written and starred in by Al Franken who did more writing on SNL than bitting whilst on that show.

I remember this bit, I thought the one with Michael Jordan wearing a sweater and self-affirming his low esteem with Stuart Smalley was fucking funny ... but a full length movie? How's it gonna work?

With Ramis and Franken, I think you got a lot more out of the character you would have if other people made the film. This could have easily been another "It's Pat" but it wasn't. Where they took this highly emotional character worked (I think anyway). It's very early in the film that you start to be endeared to Smalley and start to root for him.

The premise breaks away early on from the cable access show as he loses it within like the first scene .... after he calls his boss a VAGINA and quits .... then this character has to go home to attend a funeral and we're introduced to his family (the one in the title we learned he has to save) ... and the film becomes a dysfunctional family vehicle that about 99.9% of people can relate to.

His dad is the judge guy from Ghostbusters 2 who gets pissed and who's anger awakens the Scolari Brothers!

This movie flopped, probably because many people made the sane judgement before seeing it of "How the fuck and why is there a damned Stuart Smalley movie!?" ... but if you give this little film a chance you'd see it's not as horrible as it could have been, and in the end it's ...

... Good Enough, Smart Enough and Dog-gone-it People like it.


Raw Score: 55
Difficulty Modifier Bonus:25
Total Score: 80




6. A Night at the Roxbury

Year: 1998
Content they had to Work with: Two Italianized fellows enjoy going to dance clubs, making exaggerated movements with their necks, and hitting on chicks.

Look before I say that I don't like this movie let me just set up first....

When you're like 9-15 years old SNL is like the holy grail. Staying up until 11:30 at night for a 9-15 year old is like seeing the pacific ocean for the first time for a sea-faring adventurer. Having a friend sleep over and stay up, drinkin' sprites n' 7-ups, until SNL comes on was like the greatest moment in a kids life at that age.

After 15, you've been there and done that ... and by the time you're 18 ... only losers/dorks/turds/nerds are home on a Saturday night at 11:30 pm ... 18+ year olds are in their party years by that time.

My 9-15 SNL holy grail period was from the years 1991 to 1998 ... so those SNL years for me is when it meant something to me. I was a kid, drinking 7-ups n' stayin' up super late ... but by 1998 I didn't give 10 shits about SNL anymore.

It's not only an age-wise thing, but also because, the show sucked ass in 1998! The main bits were two cheerleaders (THAT THEY DID EVERY FUCKING NIGHT!) and Kattan would come on and look annoying. If I was home on a Saturday in 1998 and after ... I wouldn't even tune in. The Fox affiliate came out with two new shows to compete with SNL in the late 90s ... MadTv and the Fox affiliate in my region bought the Howard Stern E! Show to air opposite SNL.

I would watch either SNL or MADTV (whichever didn't suck as much as the other), until the Weekend Update ... then I'd watch the news with Norm MacDonald then after him the Stern E! Show would come on and I'd get to see that good show. So basically I just watched Weekend Update in that era if I was home.

I was not a fan of SNL in this era and it was mainly just an age thing ... I grew out of it. So these characters don't have the same fondness in my memories as say a Wayne, a Garth, or a Stuart Smalley have but I'm sure for people 5-10 years younger than me these characters are their Holy Grail characters.

Will Ferrel has come a long way since this bomb came out. Elf is one of the greatest Christmas movies ever made ... he should be very proud of his comedy record.

Chris Kattan? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

If you have nothing nice to say about someone's comedic prowess than maybe you should just say nothing at all ... and I will say nothing about Chris Kattan.


Raw Score: 10
Difficulty Modifier Bonus: 35
Total Score: 45



7. Superstar


Year: 1999
Content they had to Work with: A mentally retarded girl smells her fingers after putting them under her armpits (ad nauseam).

I watched this because Harland Williams plays a Fonzie character and I wanted to see that ... and Kid in the Hall Bruce McCulloch directed it who is fucking funny .... but I didn't make it to the end of this movie. I mean, sure I wanted to see if there were a couple more Harland as Fonzie scenes, but, I couldn't handle it.

Taking a one-shot who smells her armpits and turning that into 2 hours of film ... ya, good look with that guys. I'm sure it wasn't a walk in the ol' park this one. I commend your efforts Mr. Bruce ... but this was not a winning battle to engage in. There were not many scenarios of possibility where this was going to be a great movie.


Raw Score: 7
Difficulty Modifier Bonus:50
Total Score: 57




8. Ladies Man

Year: 2000
Content they had to Work with: A man who claims to have an above-averaged sized "wang" hosts a cable access show where he helps callers with their relationship issues.

Ok, so .... Tim Meadows lives in a boat .... he bangs that Baywatch chick when she was still hot ... um, he wrestles Will Ferrell in a mansion ... and uhhh ... that's all my brain is picking up when trying to recall this film.

You know how if you work at the same company for like 50 years the company gives a nice watch? I think this movie was Tim Meadow's nice watch. Lorne Michaels came to him one day and was like,

"Mmmm-kay, Tim, yes, you've worked here at SNL now for 50 years and your devotion as token black guy on this program hasn't gone un-noticed ... so we shall now award you with a gift certificate for Olive Garden and a full length feature film, mmmmmmmm-kay?"

Meadows was on that show forever and there's only 2 bits I can remember him doing. He would dress up as Ike Turner and beat up Kevin Nealon ... and there was one where he was a piano lounge singer and he sang that fun song about that one Chinese kid who was no dope.

He paid his dues, he got his 2 hour feature vignette. I'm gonna add a special bonus point category for Tim.



Raw Score: 8.5
Difficulty Modifier Bonus: 30
Tim Meadow's Retirement Present - Commemorative Gold Watch: 20.5
Total Score: 59



SNL Feature Vignette Leader Board

1. Wayne's World! - 91
2. Blues Brothers - 89
3. Stuart Saves his Family - 80
4. It's Pat - 60
5. Ladies Man - 59
6. Superstar - 57
7. Night at the Roxbury - 45
8. Coneheads - 44



Bonus: Figurative Theoretical Ones


Gonna do some theoretical ones too, while we're here. Gonna include some MadTV one-offs too ... I mean this section is speculative of what might have been so it doesn't have to be iron-cast in human reality ... so including MadTv one-offs isn't illegal in this topic.

Here's some more possible 90s one-off films that would have sucked or even might have been good.


1. Ms. Swan

Content they had to Work with: An Asian woman walks around and describes people as "looking like a man".

I didn't understand this bit. At all. You do it once, "he-a luk-a like-a ... man." Okay, couple laughs, good job ... the throw away line worked okay, good for you ... but they proceeded to do this bit EVERY SHOW for YEARS! How can you do this? Even Ray-Jay fucking Johnson threw a couple curve-balls at David Steinberg now and then. Mrs. Swan comes out ... she says the line .... and that's it.

Sometimes I wish there was a Comedy Prison and Comedy Police to enforce Comedy Laws. Mrs. Swan should be in Comedy Prison ... a lot of MadTV people should be there. The tall guy that did the young character with ugly make-up on his face? That guy does not deserve to walk amongst the land of the living and do bits ... he belongs in comedy prison. Chris Kattan would have probably benefited from a few stints in the Comedy Big House as well.

The Mrs. Swan movie would have been a crime drama where she witnesses a crime and has to testify against the killer ... and the killer wants to kill her so she can't testify .... and a cop is ordered to protect Mrs. Swan from the killer .... and they get into hyjinx ... and every 5 fucking seconds she has to claim someone looks like a man. The end. 0/10.


2. Church Lady

Content they had to Work with: A homely and wry woman hosts a religious themed cable access show.

This one would've worked. Dana when he's on can bring shit to life (except in that one where he wears like a turtle costume and shit).

I would've went full fantasy with this one and loaded it with CG. Like, Satan invades a small town and this one Yenta (the only lady in town who still believes in the god n' the jesus) is the only thing in Satan's way from world domination.

Satan's CG graphics are fire-oriented shit and Church Lady's CG gimmick is like Holy/Light (or "Pearl" oriented if you're Ted Woolsey) CG graphics ... and like at the end she battles Satan with the glorious power of prayer and it's very very epic. 7/10.


3. That's My White Mama

Content they had to Work with: a slightly over-weight white man hits an old black lady with his car yet in a miraculous twist the spirit of the dying black woman leaves her corporeal body and enters into the man who hit her with the car ... she then proceeds home and resumes raising her children.

Haha, this bit is fucking funny. It's like that great show "My Mother the Car" except it's like a black lady's ghost is in a white dudes body.

The bit is based on that incredible (and I personally can't believe actually existed) premise that Dick Van Dyke's brother's mother's spirit inhabited a car and moved in with him. My White Momma in turn starred Artie Lange as the "White Momma" ....

As a movie? It would have worked on sooo many levels. The two characters sharing the body would start fighting over it and race relations in America would have been explained, understood and solved by a white man and black woman learning to share the same body. I would have formulated the movie like this:

My Mother the Car + The Water Melon Man  + The Thing with Two Heads

Just mix those all up and make like the best movie.

Watermelon Man is about this white guy who goes to bed and wakes up black and those elements would have served well in a movie like this. The Things with Two Heads is about this white man who puts his head on Rosey Grier's body (it's even STRANGER than it sounds).

This movie would have worked. 110%.
10/10.

Punchin' Up some Scripts.

I wanna learn how to write movies good.

I mainly write things in this blog to get better at the skill known as Writing. It's like any other skill, writing is, like you have to practice to get any good at it. I always used to read a lot but writing is more harder than reading and thus is a harder challenge to take on. Gettin' good at writing is like going to the driving range, or taking a car to a field to drive around and learn it....to really learn writing you got to go to a field (a paper or a computer screen) and start punchin' up keys 'til you gain proficiency as such.

This site mainly deals with essay-style writing because that's the only style I really know...but movie writing seems fun too.

I was on the internet the other day and saw someone a tweet a movie pitch he had to Jean Claude Van Damme over twitter. It was the internet writer Seanbaby and he pitched a sequel to Time Cop via twitter. He broke the pitch into 48 twitterable chunks and then assembled them chronologically backwards so if you are reading the film from his twitter feed...it would read from start to finish.

I realized while reading that Time Cop 2 pitch...that I've seen so many movies....that I can play a movie in my head and basically construct and visualize an entire film that doesn't exist in my brain. While reading the Time Cop 2 script I could easily visualize the goings-on of this film, no problem at all. It feels like I've already seen Tim Cop 2 even though it does not even exist.

Looking back, I've visualized entire films in my head over the course of a general-day many times....just from my imagination and nothing else. I look into the abyss of nothingness in my skull and then slowly visualize entire films from start to finish. Films that don't exist...films constructed from experiences of watching many films.

Sanguillen's Quest

Like one time, I read this article about how Pirates catcher Manny Sanguillen refused to believe that Roberto Clemente died in a plane crash and vowed to search the area where his plane went down and find his friend alive. While reading that article, I kept thinking, "damn, this would make such a touching film." The next day while at work and showering and stuff....that movie happened in my head. Manny Sanguillen's search for his friend kept me unbored while doing shitty stuff at work. This wasn't a great movie, though, it was a long time ago, it was probably like 10 years ago...my mental movies are better now. My imagination got too out of hand with this film and Sanguillen, whilst in the jungles of Nicaragua (or was it Ecuador?), had to battle lizards....and then the lizards kept getting bigger...and by the end he was fighting Dinosaurs with Lazor Beamz and it was just a silly place to take a heartwarming film such as this.

Committing these mental movies to some sort of existent record may be a fun exercise. Maybe it'll teach me how to write movies. You have to stick to your strengths when trying to write a new style of writing....and when it comes to movies...I seem to have some experience writing bio-pics for obscure baseball catchers.

Oh wait...I just remembered....

One time I did write a baseball bio-pic in school as a sort of joke thing to see what the teacher would say. I copied it to this blog and it's in this article over here....

(If you scroll all the way down in this mess to the pic of Steve Jeltz you can read Steve Jeltz Saves Christmas: https://writingsonsubjects.blogspot.com/2012/02/the-steve-jeltz-thing-from-school-i-did.html)

That Steve Jeltz Christmas story is a very very heartwarming story. I was young when I wrote that, re-reading it now...I think I was a better person back then.

Soooo.....the only experience I have in both fiction writing and story telling is with obscure baseball players so I might as well train harder in the Obscure Baseball Player Story Telling genre in order to not have to learn anything new or apply myself too much whilst practicing movie writing.

First we'll need an obscure player, and sticking with the back-up catcher motif, we shall try and write a back-up catcher bio-pic. Hmmmmm, how about.....

A Mike LaValliere romance-comedy? No.

A Tony Eusabio crime drama? No.

A Ron Karkovice buddy cop film? No.

A deep introspective kafka-esque Lenny Webster vehicle? No.

A Rick Cerone workin' man movie? Hmmmmm......Yes!


The Rick Cerone Story

Well, that's the movie I'm gonna play around with in order to try and learn how to write movies. So, you can stop reading now if you want or you can follow me on this amazing adventure in learning.

Baseball bio pics are pretty common....I read there's a Bill Lee one coming out produced by Eric Gagne. I'm gonna watch that for sure.

The premise for the Bill Lee movie (this Bill Lee movie is a real one not like mine) has him fooling around in rural Quebec from what I've read and I don't know how that will sell to American audiences. I think they'd make more money setting it in Boston, no? It's not even Montreal it's set in, it's set in like the Triple AAA league and in like Granby or something.

I watched that Jackie Robinson bio-pic with Harrison Ford and it was really good and it made big bucks. Montreal had a big role to play in Jackie's rise to success yet in the movie they really cut out any reference to Montreal except for a brief mention by Ford at one point. Honestly, I was a bit disappointed but I understand why they set it in Florida and that's because American audiences respond better to that. They don't want to hear about french Canada if they don't have to. The Bill Lee movie, I hope it does well, despite being set in rural french Canada. I think it's a great idea but I'm not sure how the American audiences will react to the non-american setting for the Bill Lee bio-pic.

Anyways, this article I'm writing is about my baseball bio-pic so we better get to it. My movie isn't gonna have any trouble with setting because it's gonna be set in the biggest city there is...New Fucking York in 19-fucking-81...The Big Apple, baby. That's the biggest setting there is!

Now we need some historical information to base our "based on actual events" bio-pic on. If you're not familiar with that phrase it basically means...."based on something we read once and it sounded cool so we stole the idea." I'm gonna use this New York Times article as my "actual events" as such.

"And Rick Cerone is STILL on Trial" October 12th, 1981:
(http://www.nytimes.com/1981/10/12/sports/and-rick-cerone-is-still-on-trial.html)

Did you read it? Now do you see why a Rick Cerone "workin' man versus the big wig" type of movie would be awesome? All the characters for the film are set-up from that 1981 Dave Anderson article. The working hero and the rich evil big wig boss that is keeping our hero down.....those two polarized characters are easy to work with. George Steinbrenner as the villain is a great character to work with, most people remember the back-of-his-head portrayed in Seinfeld yet my movie will portray all-of-his-head and even his body.

The first high-drama climactic scene will be based of the actual event of Cerone and Steinbrenner "exchanging expletives word-for-word." The schism event will be everyone turning on Cerone which makes him feel down and sad...but as you can see from the source-material article....the victory at the end will be "50,000 fans cheering for the hero" Rick Cerone.... and in the end his enemy will accept him as being "my type of ball player." So it will be a happy ending for sure.

Hmmmm, we need a few more characters. We need a comedy-relief dopey side-kick who plays Cerone's roomate, we need a cool black guy who doesn't dig Cerone at first but by the end really digs him, we need a sub-boss secondary villain and we need a hot-chick too. I can fill those roles by looking at the 1981/1982 Yankees rosters....and for the chick I'll just google a hot celeb from 1981/82 and pretend Cerone and her were intimate lovers.

So let's make a list before it gets too confusing, these are the basics so far.

Title: The Rick Cerone Story

Hero: Rick Cerone
Bad Guy: George Steinbrenner
Vice-BadGuy: Bob Lemon
Dopey Side-Kick: Lou Pinella or Bucky Dent
Cool Black Dude: Oscar Gamble
Hot Chick: Olivia Newton-John

Main Theme: A "Stone Cold vs. Vince McMahon" style thing of the Working Man fights back against The Boss.
Secondary Themes: Baseball, Italian Culture of the 80s, White person and Black person becoming best friends, swearing, toilet humor.

Schism: Steinbrenner's dislike for Cerone spreads throughout the entire organization and all the Yankees, even the FANS, start hating poor Rick Cerone. Will he quit baseball forever or will he win back his teammates and fans hearts?

Climactic Victory: Through strength of character and a timely homerun....Rick Cerone wins his teammates respect and the adulation of New York baseball fans.

Oscar Gamble = Cool Black Dude

Ooooooh, it sounds pretty good, this movie. Obviously we need a cast. Now, for that Bill Lee bio-pic they cast a real pretty-boy named Josh Duhamel to play Lee....but my movie's lead is a workin' man so I can't cast a pretty boy type. I need a big overweight Italian guy to portray Rick Cerone correctly.

We need an overweight, Italian, preferably a Yankees fan, who excels at swearin' and toilet humor....hmmm....

An image is forming in my mind, yes, it is. I can see who meets these criterion crystal clear in my brain. The ONLY person who I can think of who possibly can do justice to this film and tell the important story that NEEDS to be told with this Rick Cerone bio picture is...of course...

Artie Lange.

Artie Lange as Rick Cerone.

Lange is the only human on earth who could enter into the Rick Cerone character and really do it the justice it deserves. It's a perfect fit. We're talking oscar here...not Oscar Gamble this time....but oscar like award-oscar. If someone actually makes this film and casts Artie Lange as the lead....I absolutely guarantee it will be regarded as a cinematic triumph of the amazingest degree. No joke.

They'd need to dye his hair and stuff though so he can pass as being a 29 year old athlete....but he has range, Artie, so I think he can stretch the role and pull it off.

You should see how the movie goes in my head, it's great, like Artie is really really good in it. He's funny but he's also very believable and the audience really relates to him.

The other actors can be slotted in later...the villain has to be mean, the side kick has to be goofy, the black dude has to be cool, and the chick has to be hot...that's the only criterion for those roles.

Look, after I'm done punchin' up dis script I'm gonna shop it around to all the big movie people and shit so I'm not gonna just throw the script in the next section, but, I will provide dialogue samples from certain key scenes of the film.

Sample Scenes

Okie-doke, so here are some samplers from the script. I'll set them up so you know what the fuck is going on in the scene too.

Humorous Scene 2C:
In this will-be memorable scene, Rick Cerone is catching in a game but needs to use the bathroom to move his bowels. The umpire is another Italian man named Ron Luciano (who is played by Ernest Borgnine....oh wait...he's dead...sorry...Ron Luciano will be played by Pat Cooper).

This scene is based on the actual event when Hubie Brooks one time (this actually happened) called time out to go take a leak during an at-bat.

Hubie had to go to the bathroom.

In real life Hubie had to number-1 but in my Luciano-Cerone scene it is a heavy number-2 that Cerone needs to evacuate from his body. Both characters being Italian, you'll noticed that, they use a lot of Italianized english terms and talk a lot about Italian cuisine. The scene begins as Cerone catches a fastball and turns to look at Luciano and says...

Rick Cerone: Luch! Holy shit! I...I....I gotta go!

Ron Luciano: Go? Whaddya talkin' 'bout "go"? Go where? Wat the fuck you talkin' 'bout?

Rick Cerone: You fuckin' fongoul...I gotta fucking take a shit!

Ron Luciano: A shit!? What? There's NO SHITTIN' IN BASEBALL! Ya dumb segarsi!

Rick Cerone: Luch, man, I gotta go, I'm not fucking shittin' you man...I gotta shit!

Ron Luciano: Are you fuckin' kiddin' me? You're fucking joking ya stupid asshole! Skeevosa!

Rick Cerone: You're gonna see in about 5 seconds that I wasn't jokin' you fat piece of garbage!

Ron Luciano:  You cazzo-suckin' asshole! Turn aroun' and leave me the fuck alone!

Rick Cerone: Luch....on my grandmother's grave...I swear I'm telling the truth.

Ron Luciano: On....your grandmother's grave?

Rick Cerone: Ya. Man, I ate 2 cannolies, a pizza, and a buncha gnoccies for pranzo!

Ron Luciano: You crazy sonavabitch...........TIME!

(Wow, you should see Pat Cooper in this scene....he is simply impeccable....like his timing and stuff).

Confrontation Scene 1F:

In this scene Rick Cerone has just made a grievous mental error of a magnitude which most would describe as being  "game-altering".  George Steinbrenner (all of his head, not just the back of his head) calls Rick on the telephone and proceeds to tell him he's over-weight, stupid, and ugly.

Rick Cerone: Hello, it's me Rick Cerone. Who the fuck is this?

George Steinbrenner: Who the fuck is this!? Who the fuck do you think asshole!?

Rick Cerone: Oh, Mr. Steinbrenner hi, uh, howzit goin' ?

George Steinbrenner: Ooooooh just swell, just swell fatso.....

Rick Cerone: ....

George Steinbrenner: It's just that your dumpy mentally-crippled ass COST ME THE GAME!

Rick Cerone: Hey, hey...come on. Didja see how Goose pitched today? He sucked shit!

George Steinbrenner: No! You know who sucked shit out there, today? YOU DID FUCK FACE!

Rick Cerone: ME!? FUCK FACE!? Ya I'm a fuck face alright....BECAUSE I FUCK FACES!

George Steinbrenner: You fuck faces? NO! You have the face that gets fucked....fuck-face!

Rick Cerone: Wanna bet? How 'bout I come into your office and fuck you in the face?

George Steinbrenner: YOU fuck ME in the face? You fat stupid retarded asshole! FUCK YOU.
Rick Cerone: You're the fuck-face...you fucked-up fuckin' FUCK FACE. Fuck you MORE than FUCK ME! BYE! FUCKER!

(Ooooh that scene's intense. This is the eighties too so it's those rotary phones you can SLAM down hard and shit. Wow).

Reconciliation Scene 2B.1
In his scene Oscar Gamble and his humongous and wicked-cool afro come to make amends with Rick Cerone after Rick helps Oscar's girlfriend fend off creeps at a Detroit disco-tech after a road game.

Oscar Gamble:Yo smooth brother.....
Rick Cerone: ???

Oscar Gamble: I.....I.....I.....yo.....thanks for helpin' my girl back in Detroit.
Rick Cerone: Hey, it's nuthin' man.
Oscar Gamble: Smooth brother....I'm sorry for calling you a fat ugly Guinea Dego piece of shit.
Rick Cerone: Ya. I'm sorry for calling you a retarded moolie asshole.
Oscar Gamble: Hey man....what's done is done. It's water under the bridge, smooth brother.
Rick Cerone: Osc, you've really taught me a lot 'bout hittin' n' losin' weight....I.....
Oscar Gamble: Hey man, we're teammates and dats what teammates do.
Rick Cerone: Life is tough sometimes, Osc.
Oscar Gamble: Hey, life is always tough. They don't think it be like it IS....but it DO!

Words of Wisdom

Filler Scene 3A:

To fill up some screen time there's a part where Cerone goes down to Mexico to play some Winter Ball after the '80 season and he befriends fellow Italian Don Demola who's re-conditioning his arm after surgery down there. They are battery partners when A HUGE BRAWL breaks out after Demola hits a batter with a pitch and Cerone picks up the batter and helicopter suplexes him.

This scene is based on the actual event stated in Tommy Lasorda's book where he claims in a winter ball game to have hit a batter....then the batter charged the mound....and then Lasorda CLAIMS to have picked him up, spun him around like a helicopter, and then suplexed him. Personally, I don't believe Tommy Lasorda did this but it is stated in his book that he did and this is the "actual event" that this scene is inspired/stolen from.

(Note: Don Demola is a pretty funny Italian guy with a good accent.....See this interview)

(Note II: The brackets mean they're thinking to themselfs.)

Rick Cerone: (He wants inside!? Fuck, he's gonna nail this asshole!)

Don DeMola: (I'm gonna whack dis asshole. Fuck this guy. I'm nailin' him)

Rick Cerone: (Oh shit....here we go again.) *WHACK*

Don DeMola: Here he comes! Aaaaaaaaaeeeeeeeeiiiieeeeeeeee!

Rick Cerone: What the fuck! He's getting his ass kicked!

Don DeMola: Yo Rick! Come fuck this guy up! Give him the helicopta suplex technique!

Rick Cerone: You ready!? You ready for the Rick Cerone Helicopter Suplex Mark II !?

Don DeMola: HOLY SHIT! HE'S GOT 'IM IN DA HELICOPTA SUPLEX! HOLY SHIT!

Rick Cerone: GRRRRRRRRAAAAARGH! BLAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGH! YAAAAAAAA!

Don DeMola: Whoa! Rick....dat was cool!

(This scene is really cool.)

Conclusion

Alrighty, so I'm gonna pitch my script to all the big producers and shit. It'll get made, probably. Someone'll probably steal the idea but it'll get made eventually I bet.....maybe.

It's so good this movie, it doesn't have T-Rexes like my Manny Sanguillen non-existant mentally visualized film but it's still very very good.

Pat Cooper's great in it, and the guy who plays Don DeMola is a kid who's new but really good at acting. Oh and fuck, the chick who plays Olivia Newtons-John is soooooo sexy it's not even funny.

Everybody wants the next big-thing and I can honestly ensure you that back-up catcher bio-pics is the way to go. It's the new thing.

Zomb-A-Movie

Super fucking famous movie director Christian Kole is making a second attempt at a Zomb-a-Movie, after having somewhat internet success with "28 Terms Later" (available here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcCzRWbNBWI).

Fresh out of the prestigious Las Vegas Film School of Movie Arts, Kole has his sites set on making his second zombie movie a littler raunchier, and way more disgusting. His previous passion of documenting the mentally crooked and deranged members of society in their natural habitats (as seen here as they eat pizza and listen to some Etta James) should give him the edge and necessary experience to take on such a difficult film making endeavor.

The first draft of the script seems very well written

Back in Montreal after a long haitus in the wastelands of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Kole is excited about his project and hopes it turns out quite good.