Sorry For The Delay...

~~~continued from where we left off~~~

"Guys! Guys, wake up!" I thought I heard Kip say.

Kip? KIP? Kip who'd been revealed to be a robot driven by the foul preschooler Petit? Why would I be hearing his voice, considering we were on an old movie set doing battle with dozens of past foes, next to the burning remains of a cushty Renault Espace?

As Clark, Michael and I dispatched villain after villainess, goon after goonette, henchmen after henchwoman, we all turned as we heard it again.

"C'mon now guys, time for breakfast!"

"How curious", I thought, and I could tell the others did too.

We all looked at each other. 

Roundhouse kicking Negative Charge across the room, Michael said, "You know (oof), even though we are (biff) incredibly skilled crimefighters (thwak), well versed in UnbelievaFu (clonk) and other forms of hand-to-hand (boiinngg) combat, including but not limited to capoeira (doof), tae kwon do (bosh) and the little-known Scottish art of Fookujimmi (crakk), doesn't this all seem remarkably easy?"

"Now that you (pow) mention it," replied Clark, "I was beginning to think I had just gotten (whammo) amazingly better at fighting, too."

"Chaps, I think it's time (blaff) we did something completely out of left field," I said, casually pummeling the punchable face of Mac Ramey as I did so. "Let's see what happens (kerbloop) if we stop fighting."

The others were incredulous, but quickly decided that they'd give it a try.

"On three, OK? One...two...two and a half...three!!"

We stood still and let our arms flop to our sides. As I suspected, everyone else stopped fighting too and stood around with puzzled looks on their faces. Suddenly we heard a voice.

"CUT!! CUT! Guys, what the hell are you doing?"

We looked across to a director's chair in which an incensed Henri Petit was sitting, wearing a beret and aviator pants and smoking with a very long cigarette holder. 

"You guys weren't supposed to stop! It's not meant to be like this! No fair! My film is ruined! Waaaah!!" he bawled. 

~~~GAME OVER~~~

"Wake up, you guys, come on!" yelled Kip. "You've been playing that game for weeks now!"

We felt a pair of hands removing something from our faces, revealing Kip, solid and definitely not a Petit-driven robot, in front of us.

Woozily, Clark was the first to speak. "What game? What are you talking about?"

"This one." Kip handed Clark a copy of our video game, which has now been made into a Virtual Reality version (only $69.99 in stores now, folks! Get'em while they're hot!).

"Lemme see that," snarled Michael, snatching the box away from Clark. "Hmmm. Well, I'll be goddamned. What level were we on?"

"Apparently, a custom level whereupon you can meet all previous foes and a few new ones, called "THE UNBELIEVABLES MEET TIE-PO AND THE TEETA VON DEESE TRIPLETS" Michael said, reading from the box. "Play as Michael, Clark or Jeff as they team up with an old enemy to defeat an army of old adversaries on a Hollywood backlot." Well, that's what happened, I guess. But the whole backstory of sitting around in the backyard, hearing the girls' voices, watching them drive away in a Renault Espace, meeting Tie-Po, being put in gunnysacks, dumped in a parking garage, picked up by that shrimp Petit and made to fight an onslaught of disguised stuntmen while he films it? To what end, might one ask?"

"You think that's bad," replied Kip. "It's lucky you didn't put it in Zombie mode."

We all three looked at each other. "ZOMBIE MODE?!"

We reached for the goggles...

Jade-Walking

Well, I'm no expert (strike that - I AM an expert), but that lady turning into a vaguely squid-like B-Movie grade monster that then transforms itself into a giant pink ball, rolls down a hill and knocks a lorry off a cliff, looks suspiciously like ex-model Talulah Mae Periwinkle a.k.a. Jade East.

That's right, the master criminal who was once the object of Michael's affections (who wasn't? Let's be honest here.) seems to be back in business. How do I know? Because I looked up her ex-cohorts Der Lederhoser...

 and Frenchy McGee...

only to discover that they've gone into the film business. With Frenchy directing and Der Lederhoser behind the camera, they have been in Bangkok trying to put together their first feature film entitled "Attack Of The Pink Squid-Ball Woman." I hear the script is excellent.

Unless my info is seriously flawed, which I doubt, it seems they have Jade as their leading lady. Which means that given their penchant for ne'er-do-wellery, then you can bet your sweet bippy they're up to no good.

What say you, friend Michael?

Submission And Irony

Fact: We may have been looking at this entire situation as a major slight to our characters. "The Unreliables" - that short-lived BBC production - was a farce from the very beginning. Farces have a way of attraction Hollywood attention, however. As Clark detailed, why anyone would want the property for the big screen treatment is beyond us, but it moved in that direction and forward.

Fact: We realized quickly going in as "consultants" we had little (if any) say in things like story progression, character development, set location or production input. To say we were frustrated was and understatement.

Then? An epiphany ...

The three of us powwowwed one day while on the production set as "invited casual observers."

"Guys, we're going about this entire thing the wrong way. Hear me out:

"The standards these clowns are setting are so left of center there's no possible way anyone - not even the densest movie-goer - could mistake what's being put down on film is indicative The Unbelievables. And I say we embrace it ..."

Jeff and Clark looked at each other with disapproving twisted faces, exchanged them and looked back at me.

"Look: We buddy up to everyone - the producers, the set people, wardrobe (yeah, I know ... that's a tough one) and anyone else on the crew - and happily put in our two cents ... even though we know our two cents is worth less than two cents. Result? Everybody on staff is happy thinking we're happy and << BOOM! >> we let the residuals come tumbling in.

"Think about it: How many of these throw-away romps have come and gone with zero legacy left in their wakes? None of this is going to prick us where it counts. As The Unbelievables, we're Teflon-coated where this joke of a film is aimed. That's why we need to seem engaged and happy about the entire affair and keep going merrily along. I mean ... there is an audience for this kind of thing."

The guys weren't convinced.

"Hokay ... look at it this way: Clark? You've been looking to take your dinosaur dioramas upscale to new levels, right? Think of the influx of *ka-ching* that will no doubt come in when this flick is finished! I know it seems like a major put-down to your character when they have 'Mark' saying lines like 'Sometimes my penis doesn't even work' but, hey, Jeff and I know your penis works just fine. (I mean ... so we've heard.)

"And Jeff? I know they nixed that entire whipped potato encounter and left it on the cutting room floor, replacing it with drivel about your inadequacies but every single Unbelieva-Babe knows better, right? Right? Am I right? Again ... think of the big picture here ...

"And how about my role in the thing? When have I ever encouraged anyone to where pants? That's so uncharacteristic of me it isn't even funny.

"Remember: We're The Unbelievables. They couldn't do us harm if they tried ..."
 
That little pep talk did the trick. From that point on, each of us were overly enthusiastic about anything the director and producers suggested.

And things went swimmingly. The film commenced and wrapped and is currently in the marketing stages.

We even threw a major after-party with food and drink and plenty of Unbelieva-Babes on hand as eye-candy. Everyone had a smashing time.

It was a pretty easy party to throw.

Here's a scene prior to The Unbelieva-Babes showing up.

In the end? Well ... you should see all the improvements and renovations to the Unbelieva-Base simply from the advance we've garnered from the film's higher-ups. Especially to our arsenal department ...

Location, Location, Location

As Clark mentioned on Monday, we are being allowed some limited input on the production of the movie version of the cancelled-because-it-was-awful TV show The Unreliables, which was a thinly veiled parody of us. I mean, check out this morsel of dialogue:

MARK: I sure do love being a wheelman, and my studly AMC Gremlin is sure to attract the girls.

GEOFF: Shut up, Mark! Just because you passed your driver's test first time, you have to go on and on about your skills. I can drive too, ya know!

MICKEY: Yeah, me too. I learned from my Mamaw's neighbour Uncle Pete. Well, we called him Uncle, but he was just a neighbour really. He didn't really go home that much though, just spent a lot of time at our house, with Mamaw, redecorating the basement. Never did get it finished.

MARK: Gaw, Mickey, you never know when to stop sharing little anecdotes from your weird upbringing, do you?

MICKEY: Shut up, man!

MARK: You shut up.

MICKEY: Naw, you shut up!


....etc. Now what I have been given to do in this little, ahem, "project" is location development. Which means, essentially, that the production team pick locations for various shots, run them by me to ensure accuracy and then they go with something completely different, because frankly, they're assholes and I am only in it for the money. I'm certainly not in it for the fame, recognition or kudos, because there is absolutely none of that. But let me go ahead and give you a couple of prime examples of what I'm talking about.

I said once let's do a scene in the parking lot of either a Pizza Hut...

 or a Pizza King...

 so they went with a Wienerschnitzel. Not even in the same ballpark, guys!

Then there was a bank scene. I said we need to do it at a Great Western or a BB&T, something like these...

So what did they end up going with? 

Friendly's in Myrtle Beach. I mean, come on!

Then we needed to do a scene in a laundromat. Here are the two choices I picked...

Both ideal spots, I thought. What ended up in the film?

La Parrilla in Oakwood, GA. Nice food. I have eaten here.

And so I sensed a pattern emerging here. On the next scene they gave me, I didn't even look at the script, I knew it was going to end up being a restaurant. So here's what I suggested.

And they went with...?

It's a living, I guess.

We might have a big (screen) problem

Dedicated, devoted readers (and what other kind is there?) will remember when we talked about the short-lived BBC show "The Unreliables", an effort to humiliate us (as if). That show was cancelled due to bad ratings, but that hasn't stopped some fancy boys in Hollywood from developing the thing as a movie! We probably should have seen this coming, as turning TV shows into motion pictures is something that's been taking place for some time. It doesn't matter if the source material was any good, or even popular, to begin with The problem is, since it's a movie about a TV show that was a parody of us in the first place, we probably don't have a legal leg to stand on in terms of shutting it down. Thankfully, the producers have recognized that they don't want to be on our bad side and are allowing us some limited input on the production. I can tell you right now, I'm not entirely thrilled with dialogue like this:

GEOFF: Well, we're in danger again and completely unequipped to deal with it on any level. What should we do?MICKEY: We could ask a woman for help.MARK: We don't know any, remember? In spite of our incessant boasting, the truth is that we're actually very bad at women!GEOFF: He's right. Among our many, many, many issues is that we're not open enough with our feelings. MICKEY: Our lack of emotional depth is probably why we're so selfish and generally inadequate. MARK: Sometimes my penis doesn't even work.

Yeah, we're gonna need some red pens. And this doesn't even take into account things like casting, locations, soundtrack, merchandising. I'm sure the guys have thoughts on these concerns and maybe others.