Hollywood Hates My Childhood Part 2: The '1' Joke take 1

So, for a while now, I actually thought about researching this particular topic in depth. Maybe I will one day. Truth be told though, I can't remember the first time I saw it, but I want to say it was in the movie "The Mask" starring Jim Carey. There was a villain character, clearly aimed at kids with his goofball antics, getting peed on by a dog for laughs. But I wasn't laughing. Oh sure, it was the next 'logical' step down from the burps and gass passing that had started to crop up, but I have never cared for those either. Now, I know that the first thing a person might think if they are reading this, is that I'm a prude and not with the times are so other stupid, snarky thought. Let me give you a little insight into me briefly.

I grew up watching the "Disney Afternoon," so a chunk of my childhood was made up of the likes of Ducktales, Rescue Rangers, and Talespin. I think occasionally on those shows, either Dale or Baloo would belch noisely, but that was the worst of it. Furthermore, after they burped, one of the other characters would usually chastize them for their lack of decor. So, it wasn't really acceptable to even belch without a quick "excuse me." Now, again, before you might think you're oh so clever variation on the "ha ha you're old," garbage, ask yourself this. How does it help a scene in a kids show or a show that is based a kids show to depict something impolite as a source for laughs? What damage does it do to the people watching it? I think it is horrible for a person to think that the best they can do for laughs is a joke about bodily functions. You should expect more from both show, and from yourself.

To that end, I think the current crop of writers in Hollywood think very little of the average movie goer. Not only that, but when a possible franchise opportunity in the form of a beloved children's show comes across their desk, they think that they have to reach into the same bag of tricks. And it is a very old bag.

Without having seen the movie, I knew that the Smurfs based film would have a few jokes about farting and burping, and this was based on the fact that the movie was coming out. Same with the Inspector Gadget movie, Richie Rich, and others. Why does my childhood need to be ruined by the inclusion of some insipid gag that wasn’t funny the first time, let alone the hundredth or so time it was told? It’s like Hollywood had a memory problem and refuses to believe the public when they say that they are tired of garbage like that. There response seems to be, “No, you are stupid masses, we know that you like this stuff, besides, I think that this show is stupid, so I will kill off franchise potential by making the movie unwatchable.”
Sorry to sound so rant like. I will do better tomorrow. I’m trying to get a good quota of words in, but all I can think about is how tired I am from my monthly blood test followed up by an 8 hour shift. A person doesn’t become a writer simply by saying “I feel too tired to do this tonight.” I would like to do this line of thought a better bit of justice, and I think I could hit upon what I would like to say with a bit more rest and a bit more thought. I will revisit the topic of the gross jokes in kid franchises later.
For now, maybe I should just mention the fact that I am tired of my retail job taking so much from me, both mentally as well as physically. I want to crank out a creative bit of writing soon, but even the shortest shift at work leaves me feeling so drained and so tired that I just want to veg-out and do nothing. I don’t know what I can do to combat this. I keep coming up to this problem.
I think it is showing something though that I’m trying to plow through, even if it isn’t something as profound as I would like. I have to fight for every inch of ground that I gain in the war against my own apathy. It would be so easy just to give up, and not write anything more tonight. I want to quit, but I’ve done that enough already.

Hollywood Hates My Childhood: Part 1

So, for a while now, I've thought about writing a series of essays on the ever growing problem of Hollywood ruining things from my childhood. From video games, to toys, to cartoons, to even board games (see: Battleship: the Movie) it seems now there is increasingly less and less of my childhood to for people to ruin by making a terrible movie from them. What really worries me is not so much that people in charge of such decisions will continue to do so, but rather, that they are narrowing the field.

I will likely, as this little mini-series unfolds, go through a few examples of movies where Hollywood bungled a potential money maker by putting their own idiotic spin on it. I know that I might be going out on a limb here, but there has to have been more potential to a Super Mario Bros. movie then Dennis Hopper chewing scenery while that guy from Who Framed Roger Rabbit and John Leguizimomo (sp?) run around looking somewhere between befuddled and glad just to be working on a big Hollywood movie. No, I'm not saying that there was the room for anything than a goofy romp, but that doesn't mean you can't do it with a bit of intelligence, does it? I hope I don't sound pretentious here, it just seems like it was a waste of franchise material when you take a world-wide recognizable icon like Mario, and flush the idea completely down the toilet. Actually it's worse than that, it's like Hollywood takes great money makers and purposefully ruins them. At least that's what I think has to be going on. Doesn't it?

Furthermore, they take stuff from my childhood, and even when it makes money, they make large portions of it so stupid, so raunchy, so filled with sucker punches to my beliefs, that I regret the times that I see them. Yeesh. Is it that hard not to make a movie and say, "You know what this movie really needs? It needs a scene where a giant fighting robot pees on some guy." What's worse, is that some of the so-called valuable writers that make up the Hollwood writing industry write now are complicite in it. They must be sitting there thinking, "Should it be Optimus or Bumble Bee that does the peeing?" Or the endless stream of fart jokes. Can we let up on those too? That's probably a whole article in itself. People use to hold themselves to a higher standard and didn't have this elitist attitude of "Well, the masses like that stuff." Really? Did you go out and poll people on this? I would have loved to have participated in that survey.

Poller: "So, how do you feel about robot urination?"

Me: "What? I don't think I get the question."

Poller: "You know, say we were making a movie about gigantic robots that fight each other, which may or may not be based on some part of your unspoiled youth. Who would you prefer to see peeing, the leader or the heroic, witty side kick?"

Me: "Wha--no! Just no to all the peeing, why would that even, I just--"

Poller: "I'm sorry sir, but 'no' isn't an option. It would negate the follow up question about how big and long the stream should be."

Me: now openly weeping "why...Why...WHYYYYYYY!"

See, I don't necessarily believe that movies based on things from my childhood need to be filled with crude humor, sex jokes, and drug references. If I went to see a movie that's based on something from my childhood, it likely didn't have those things. If something like the cartoon Transformers had held even a fraction of the things that the movies did, my parents would not only have forbid me from watching the show, but would have punished me for watching it.

What I'm trying to get at is that even when there is proven, popular material, Hollywood finds a way to make it awful. Why is this did this have a clear start? I don't know off the top of my head, but I'm willing to give it look. Next time, I'll be looking at a few big successes, big flops, and "what could have been" that were based on bits from my childhood. I'll be trying to point out what I think were the reasons for the failure of the films, even if they were big money makers at the box office.

Thanks for reading.