Childhood Cartoons: The Movie

As a true sign that originality is dead, Hollywood is repackaging my favorite childhood cartoons into live action movies. My demographic, passively misogynistic males between the ages of eighteen and thirty five, eat up nostalgia like its morning-after pills at a brothel– we just fix ourselves a big bowl of it, top it with some 2 % milk and eat nostalgia for breakfast. Maybe we’re disillusioned with reality– Generation X has witnessed tremendous social unrest– race riots after Rodney King’s verdict, the whole O.J. ordeal (both times), Scrubs being cancelled, then sold and uncancelled, then cancelled again but picked up for another season without Zack Braff, begging the question, “What’s the point in that?”. We’ve seen so much social upheaval that it’s natural for us to think fondly of our childhoods. But nostalgia, like uncontrolled flatulence, gets worse the older you get. Like accidental farting, I enjoy seeing cherished memories from my childhood reimagined as cinematic megahits.

I’ve seen not less than eleventy-four films based on cartoons I grew up with. I’ll not mention the lousy ones, except to say that ‘TMNT’, a 2007 CG-remake of a live action 1990 film, was more gratuitous than Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan in a beaver-flashing contest. The first good cartoon-to-live-action remake was Scooby Doo, a clever take on the classic stoner show. Scooby is not technically from my childhood– the show originated decades earlier. After forty years, twelve television series and dozens of direct-to-video movies the franchise is still alive. Even though he has been collecting social security since the Reagan Administration, Casey Kasem still does Scooby’s voice. (I hope I didn’t jinx old Casey. I’d feel terrible if he died soon. I wouldn’t care if he died later, so long as it’s at least a few issues from now.)

Really the first good live action movie based on a cartoon from the eighties, other than ‘Masters of the Universe’, is ‘Transformers’. It opened the flood gates and lured so many pasty white boys to the theaters that a sequel was in production before filming ended. It only grossed $700 Million, a measly sum compared to it’s Hasbro toy line, the true origin of the franchise, which has earned eighty gajillion dollars since coming to the states from Japan in 1984.

The next Hasbro toy from the eighties to premier as a live action movie will be 'G. I. Joe'. I hope Samuel L. Jackson is in it and I hope he says, “I’m tired of these motherf!cking cobras on this motherf!cking tank!” Or jeep, or chopper or whatever vehicle they let him drive. Also, I hope they include Sgt. Slaughter and that Hulk Hogan body slams him in the big fight scene.

I’d like to make movies based on my favorite eighties cartoons. I’d make the coolest, most ‘BA' movie ever, because I’m so awesome and all. But audiences are jaded like me– again, because of the whole O.J. thing and 9/11. So another movie based on an eighties cartoon isn’t gonna wow anyone. I'll combine a few shows into one amalgamated movie.

I'd take the Thundercats. Remember, their planet is exploding (Superman, anyone?) so they have to escape on a spaceship to find a new planet. Let’s say they land on Earth, and discover a set of five rings, each with a different colored stone. Lion-O, Pantro, Cheetarah, Tygra and Snarf each put on the rings which imbue them with the powers of earth, fire, wind, water and (wait for it) heart. As their powers combine, five mighty lion robots awaken– one deep below the Earth’s surface, one inside a volcano, one in a cloud or something… each of them representing a different element. With their mighty battle robot lions, the Thundercats, powered by the Planeteer rings, form ‘Captain Thunder Planet Voltron Cat Force’! Their battle cry is “Captain Thunder Planet Vultron Cats Force Gooooo!” That’ll make a billion dollars, easy. Oh, yeah casting! For heroic Lion-O it’s gotta be Tom Cruise. In the pilot episode of Captain Planet, he provided the voice of Captain, what’s his name, Planet. Vin Diesel would play the dark-skinned bald mechanic Pantro– he really wouldn’t need any make up. Tygra would be played best by Zac Effron, just to get the teenage girls (and forty year old men) to watch. As for Cheetarah, I would say Halle Barry except she botched up her Catwoman performance. I’m seriously considering taking her off the Christmas card list. So maybe Demi Moore as Cheetarah, even though she’s actually a cougar, or else RuPaul. For Snarf, that’s easy: Pauly Shore. No other choice. I’d write the screenplay contingent on his playing Snarf. Plus I owe him a favor. He scored me some blow one night that I made up.

‘The Smurfs’ is long overdue for a live action version. You know Will Farrell would sign up, since the entire film he’d be in nothing but a white diaper, white booties, a white hat and blue body paint. Farrell has a near-nudity clause in his contract– every film he does has to have him in an almost-nude scene. That’s why it’s tough for him to do serious dramas– his part in Apollo 13, for example, as the nearly-nude NASA rocket scientist nearly cost the movie it’s Nickelodeon Kid’s Choice Award. Luckily Jack Black’s cameo cinched it. Since Anna Nicole Smith is dead, Jessica Simpson would make a great Smurfette, also known as the village whore. Oh come on, she was the only chick! She smurfed everyone, except Vanity Smurf, but she even gave him hand-smurfs. Vanity and Brainy Smurf sure did spend a lot of time playing “Chess” together. I wonder how often Brainy captured the queen. So maybe in my movie I’ll work that angle, a little Smurfback Mountain. That would be smurftastic.

As long as I’m making blockbuster movies, I might as well throw a sequel into the mix. I’d wrote a screenplay for ‘Rocky VI: Adrian’s Revenge’. Yes, I know she died in a previous film, but that’s the gag– Rocky buries her on sacred Indian land and she rises from the dead. Now, Rocky must rescue her soul from hell while he trains zombie Adrian for a dead celebrity death match against two of the Golden Girls. In the big fight scene, zombie Estelle Getty and zombie Bea Arthur have zombie Adrian on the ropes. Rocky can’t watch, he can’t bear to see his wife’s zombified body take so much damage. Then, just when you think she’s down for the count, zombie Don Knotts comes to her rescue! They become tag-team dead celebrity death match champions! They get sponsorship deals with all sorts of satanic companies, like Mephisto Motor Corp., Devil-O's Cereal and Wal-Mart. Did I mention this would be a comedy directed by Ron Howard?