PORFLE'S OBSCURE MOVIE FACTS

Ah, Hollywood...that most mysterious of places.  Its dark secrets are legendary, its mysteries deep and often disturbing.  Even its fruitily fraudulent and fictitious fables of fanatastic fickle fate are frankly fascinating when foisted as fact. 

Here, then, are some of Hollywood's most tantalizing tales, titillatingly touted as truth, yet fabulously fabricated--and ribbed--for your pleasure...



"A VIN-VIN SITUATION"

Currently languishing in production limbo is a film biography of Vin Diesel entitled OUR VIN HAS TENDER GRAPES. 

Interestingly, he wouldn't be playing himself.  "I do not think that Vin Diesel would be a good choice for the title role," reveals writer-director Al Gore.  "I believe that it would be more interesting to cast someone like Paris Hilton or Haley Joel Osment as Vin Diesel." Vin Diesel himself would instead be portraying his mother, Mrs. Diesel, which insiders have already deemed likely to garner him a major acting award. 

When asked for his own opinion on this unique casting choice, Vin remarked:  "I like hot dogs."



"SCHLOCK-BUSTER"

Legendary comedian Buster Keaton was once hired by a studio known as Big Historical Pictures to write, direct, and star in an epic film about former president Millard Fillmore. 

During filming, however, Keaton was struck on the head while performing a stunt and forgot what the movie was supposed to be about, subsequently turning in a raucous comedy entitled ME WHAT HUH? OH HA-HA POTATOES.  Big Historical Pictures, which had already spent thousands printing up posters proclaiming "Buster Keaton IS...'Millard Fillmore'", retaliated by hiring an artist to replace the words "Millard Fillmore" with the words "a dumbass"  and distributing the altered posters to movie theaters, airports, train stations, and elementary schools throughout the United States and Canada, effectively ending Keaton's movie career. 

The aborted ME WHAT HUH? OH HA-HA POTATOES project was then augmented with footage newly shot by William Beaudine and transformed into a prestige vehicle for George Arliss entitled MARS NEEDS HAMSTERS.  Arliss' career never recovered, although nobody noticed and he went on to star in several more films as Edna May Oliver.



"BORIS TO TEARS"

Legendary horror film bogeyman Boris Karloff...was a woman. Born Wilma Henrietta Pratt, she first pretended to be a man in an attempt to win the lead role in a stage production entitled "Blarney on the High Seas." After landing in Hollywood, her desire to reveal her true gender as "Doris Karloff" was thwarted when the role of Elizabeth in FRANKENSTEIN went to Mae Clarke, forcing the tearful young actress to audition as the Monster instead.

In 1966, she welcomed the chance to reveal her true appearance to the world as "Mother Muffin" on the TV series "The Girl from U.N.C.L.E."



"SHA-KA-REE"

The role of "Star Trek"'s Captain James T. Kirk, which made William Shatner an instant star, almost went to...Sean Connery.  "I thought it might be a lark," the distinguished actor revealed to us over a late lunch of spaghetti and meatballs under glass in the Parisian Room at Toots Shor's.  "Wear a silly costume...shoot a ray gun...have sex with a few birds done up in green paint and sparkles.  I was tired of playing Bond." 

Things got a little real, however, when Connery discovered that he would be expected to wear a toupee.  "I was tired of balancing a rug on my head," the chrome-domed actor admitted while casually tucking into a rich dessert of banana split under glass.  "When I proposed doing the part sans hairpiece, they laughed at me.  'Whoever heard of a bald captain?' they jeered.  Well, I was proven right after all, wasn't I?  I mean, just look at the bloody 'Love Boat.'  So, I wished the next chap jolly good luck and hoped he didn't mind wearing the damned thing." 

When asked by the producers if he would consider playing a different role on the show, Connery offered a dismissive reply.  "'Listen', I told them," the stuffed actor recalled while contentedly passing after-dinner gas in Toots Shor's exclusive Flatulence Room, "I said, 'Tell you what--why don't you create a new character with ears like a jackrabbit, no emotions whatsoever, and hair like Moe Howard of the Three Stooges, and then get some unknown Jewish chap from Canada with a funny name to play him.'  Then I told them all to 'live long and prosper' on my way out the door.  Never did find out what become of their silly little space show."



"SCREAM-OF-CHICKEN SCOOP"

Although Universal Pictures successfully kept most of the rumors under wraps, insiders still whisper about the apparent curse of evil that plagued production of the supernatural comedy-thriller, THE GHOST AND MR. CHICKEN.

Filming began under a cloud of unease when director Alan Rafkin mysteriously misplaced his megaphone and was forced to shout instructions to the cast and crew, which by the end of the shoot had resulted in a painful sore throat. The missing item was later discovered in a pawn shop in Philadelphia. "To this day," Rafkin once told friends, "I sometimes I wake up screaming...still screaming at Reta Shaw to get away from the craft services table and back to the set."

More ill fortune, seemingly from beyond, continued to stalk the soundstage. Charles Lane, as malevolent bad-guy lawyer Whitlow, reportedly showed up to work for days at a time in a good mood. "He had a sort of lilt in his step," recalled co-star Robert Cornthwaite with a shudder. "Happy, whistling little tunes...and, God help us, smiling. It was ghastly. Finally, several of us had to physically hold him down and show him nude photos of Jim Begg on horseback just to snap him out of it."

The worst, however, seemed reserved for hapless star Don Knotts, who appeared to be the center of whatever evil forces hung over the set. Lurene Tuttle recalled: "One day, between scenes, Don was playing mumblety-peg with Skip Homeier, and something distracted him for just a moment, and the next thing you know, Skip was dead." Added Ellen Corby: "Donny felt terrible about it. He hadn't accidentally killed anyone since 'No Time For Sergeants', but that had only been a couple of extras from the mess hall scene."

She continued: "Well, the casting people had a dickens of a time scrounging up another Skip Homeier before we fell behind schedule. But luckily a group of anthropologists in Uruguay had just stumbled upon a tribe of wild Homeiers in a jungle somewhere and captured one of them alive. Oh, he was wild--much wilder than the other one. Don eventually had to kill that one, too, when he attacked him during the typesetting scene." Homeier's part was then completed by a double who was shot from behind, when Don Knotts' gun accidentally went off while he was cleaning it.

But the most horrific misfortune was yet to come. A distraught Dick Sargent explained: "I was there the day Don bent over to pick up an errant script page and split his pants. One moment he was happy, joking with Joan Staley about what a world-class rack she had, and then..." He mimicked the blood-chilling sound. "It was a gaping rip, right down the seat of Don's pants, and...Joan saw his underwear. She tried not to laugh, but that just made it worse. Pretty soon everyone was laughing...Joan, me, Jesslyn Fax, Nydia Westman...even Burt Mustin, who wasn't even there that day. And that's when the infamous 'Ghost and Mr. Chicken Death Curse' began. Don killed us all--tracked us down like a rabid timber wolf, eyes blazing with blood lust, and slaughtered us all in our sleep."

When later questioned about this startling accusation by his trusted family lawyer, Tom Hagen, Don Knotts was coldly dismissive. "I never felt as though I had to kill everyone, Tom--only my enemies. Now, are you going to go along with me on these things that I have to do? Because if not, you can take your wife, your kids--and your mistress--and move them all to Las Vegas."


(Thanks to Ted Newsom for the "Obscure Movie Facts!" idea.)
(originally posted at Andersonvision.com)

PORFLE VS. PEOPLE WHO DON'T KNOW WHO LARRY STORCH IS

"What the hell do you mean, 'who's Larry Storch?'"

"I mean I don't know who the hell Larry Storch is!  Who the hell is Larry Storch?"

Infuriating, isn't it?  If you're like me, and find yourself in this situation at least once a day, you can understand why there are so many sudden, unexplained attacks across America every day.  Chances are, it's someone who knows who Larry Storch is attacking someone who doesn't know who he is. 

Here's an example that may sound woefully familiar to you: several years ago I got set up on a blind date, and I gallantly called the young lady up in advance to verify the time and place where we'd meet--which, by the way, was a Denny's on Wilton Boulevard, since I wanted to impress her.  She asked me what I looked like, and I told her (again, wanting to impress her) that I resembled actor Larry Storch. 

"Who's Larry Storch?" she inquired. 

"What the hell do you mean, 'who's Larry Storch?'" I screamed, a volcanic eruption of blazing hot fury erupting like a million geysers from every fiber of my tortured being. 

"I mean I don't know who the hell Larry Storch is!  Who the hell is Larry Storch?" she persisted, incredibly unaware of her own utter stupidity.

"What are you, incredibly unaware of your own utter stupidity or something?" I shrieked, kicking the glass walls out of the phone booth that I was standing in and repeatedly smashing my body into the frame until the whole thing fell over into the street with a resounding crash.  "ARE YOU SOME KIND OF A TOTAL F**KING IDIOT?  GRRRRRRR!!!  By the way, that's the Denny's on Wilton Boulevard, not the one next to the bowling alley on Burton Street."

Well, she never showed up.  She was probably too embarrassed by her own utter stupidity to show her face, and you can hardly blame her, but she could at least have stopped by my house later for the obligatory blind-date sex that I have come to expect over the years.  I've never actually had sex on a blind date, of course, but I have come to expect it.  Anyway, it's just as well, because I found out later that she looked more like Larry Storch than I do. 

I guess one of the reasons that women who look like Larry Storch don't know who he is might be that people are reluctant to tell these women that they look like Larry Storch.  But that's still no excuse for never having heard of him.  Anyone who's ever watched an episode of "F Troop" or "Ghost Busters" should not only know who he is, but should in fact consider him to be one of the greatest human beings who ever walked the face of the earth, next to Robert Loggia and Ben Gazzara.  They should also know who Forrest Tucker is as well, since he co-starred in both of those series with Larry Storch. 

Well, I brought all of this up at a political fundraiser that I attended several years ago, in an attempt to liven up what I considered to be some pretty boring chit-chat amongst a gaggle of pseudo-sophisticates who were standing around sipping drinks and tittering a lot.  When the mayor's wife gaily inquired, "Who's Forrest Tucker?" I poured my drink in her face.  As I congratulated myself for my restraint, another total moron--I think it was the mayor--chimed in with, "How dare you!  And 'Ghostbusters' was a movie with Bill Murray in it, not a television series!" 

Again I held my temper, and responded by merely flinging the hors d'ouevres table over, drenching several people with caviar and other gooey, expensive treats.  But then, just as I was returning to my usual casual demeanor, I heard a voice say, "Yeah, and who the hell's Larry Storch?"  The next few moments are still a blur in my memory, but the next day there was a picture of me on the front page of the newspaper in which some quick-thinking photographer had managed to catch me in mid-air as I hurled myself at the governor with the crazed look of a kabuki dancer. 

My interest in politics continued when I later attended the Carter-Ford debate and, after furiously waving my hand for several minutes, managed to get called upon to ask the presidential candidates a question.  When the guy held the microphone up to my face I took a deep breath, cleared my throat, and asked, "How do you feel about Larry Storch?"  A perplexed Jimmy Carter smiled uncertainly and asked, "Who's Larry Storch?" 

Just as I was about to charge the stage and hurl myself at him, Gerald Ford responded confidently, "Larry Storch is the greatest actor who ever lived.  Perhaps even the greatest human being who ever lived."  Banging the podium to emphasize each word, he added, "I...love...Larry...Storch!" The audience erupted with unrestrained cheers and applause! Well, I did, anyway.  And I sure as hell voted for Gerald Ford that year.  Jimmy Carter won, though, and, as you might expect, my extensive campaign to have Larry Storch's Birthday declared a national holiday was totally ignored by the government of the United States of America for the next four years.  Talk about malaise.  That, and possibly the Iran hostage situation as well, resulted in Carter losing his bid for re-election.  Take that, Carter!  Betcha know who Larry Storch is now!  BWAH-ha-ha!!!

Well, I've cut down on my attacks in recent years.  Maybe because of the wisdom and maturity that come with age, or maybe because I was getting beaten up a lot.  But the realization that attacking people because they don't know who Larry Storch is might not be a good thing to do finally came to me as I was discussing future attacks with my trusted consigleri, Tom Hagen.  Tom, not a wartime consigleri, is often the voice of reason in contrast with my unrestrained hostility, as can be heard in the following exchange...

TOM: Now, former President Carter and the Governor of Texas are on the run. Are they worth it? And are we strong? Is it worth it? I mean you've won...you want to attack everybody?

PORFLE: I don't feel I have to attack everybody, Tom. Just people who don't know who Larry Storch is, that's all. Now, are you gonna come along with me in these things I have to do or what? Because if not, you can take your "F Troop", your "Ghost Busters", and your "Dean Martin Celebrity Roast" DVDs...trade 'em all in for Adam Sandler movies.

TOM: Why do you hurt me, porfle? I've always been loyal to you. I mean, what is this?

PORFLE: You're right, Tom.  I should stop attacking people who don't know who Larry Storch is.

TOM: Well, you should try to cut down, anyway.



(originally posted at Andersonvision.com)

PORFLE VS. NETWORK TELEVISION EXECUTIVES



When I was approached by the three major television networks to do a series, my first thought was: "What unmitigated gall these silly bastards have--daring to address me as though they were equals." My indignance was temporarily assuaged when they referred to me as "Your Holiness", but then I noticed that they were merely on their knees instead of sprawled out facedown in total supplication to me. This really irked me, and I was compelled to release several gallons of molten lead that I keep handy in large swiveled urns around the house. Panic-stricken, they screamed and backed into corners and onto the furniture to keep from being incinerated, which I found so amusing that I actually decided to entertain their pathetic pleas for my participation in some sort of television program. But the first subject on the table, of course, would be my list of demands.

"First of all," I firmly announced, "I want peanuts. All kinds. Salted, unsalted, dry roasted, boiled, raw, all shapes and sizes. I want a variety of every kind of peanuts in the entire world at my disposal at all times. Every time I hold out my hand, even if I have my eyes closed, I should be able to grab a handful of peanuts. Do you get that? Peanuts! PEANUTS!"



Vincent Buggatti, head of programming for ABC, was the first to hastily jot this down in his notepad. This seemed to be a point in ABC's favor until I noticed that Phyllis van Buren, head of programming for NBC, was already on her cell phone to the CEO of the World Peanut Federation, ensuring me a perpetual lifetime supply of peanuts, truckloads of them, twenty-four hours a day, delivered by movie stars and prostitutes. I made a mental note of this.



Meanwhile, Brendan Gilhooley, the boy genius of CBS who had turned the network from a boring wasteland of old-people shows into a fantasy wonderland of brain-rotting crap for teenagers to watch while getting stoned and whacking off, was still struggling with the concept. "Peanuts?" he muttered with a perplexed look. "Why? With the whole world at your demand, with anything you could possibly ever dream of merely a wish away, why in god's name would you ask for something as trivial and inconsequential as--"



Taking the liberty of interrupting him by releasing a horde of rabid, flesh-eating warthogs, I watched with mild interest as Gilhooley scrambled for his life, first by trying to outrun the carniverous fiends, and then by leaping onto a chandelier and dangling precariously over the slavering beasts for dear life, screaming in mindless terror.



"What do you think about peanuts now?" I asked.



"Yes! YES!" he screamed. "They're GREAT!!!"



"I thought so." With a casual wave of my hand, the warthogs obediently retreated through their secret sliding wall panels. Gilhooley nervously climbed down from the chandelier as Buggatti and van Buren smirked at him like schoolchildren.



"My second demand--"



At this, all three instantly sprang to attention in front of me, their notepads, cell phones, and laptops at the ready. I opened my mouth to speak, and van Buren hastily croaked into her phone, "He's opening his mouth to speak!" The unbearable suspense caused Gilhooley to have a massive heart attack and croak right there on the spot. Buggatti, meanwhile, was having an out-of-body experience and was observing the scene from somewhere near the ceiling.



"My second demand," I continued, " is that everyone else who works at the network of my choice, whether in an acting or production capacity, must walk around stark naked all day--"



The two surviving network executives instantly began tearing their clothes off. After a few moments of ripping sounds and flying scraps of material they both stood there naked as jaybirds, bug-eyed and hyperventilating as they trembled in anticipation of my next utterance.



"--and they must also hop around clucking like chickens."



"BAAAAAWK!!! BWAAAAAWK!!!" they shrieked while hopping jerkily around the room, hands lodged in their armpits as they made flapping motions and darted their heads back and forth. With a bright smile of childlike amusement, I reached into a bag of chicken feed that I kept handy for such occasions and spread a few handfuls on the floor. "BWAAAAARK!" Buggatti and van Buren cried in unison as they sprawled onto the meticulously-polished teak floorboards and started pecking hungrily at the chicken feed, their bare butts bobbing up and down in the air.



Suddenly, Gilhooley opened his eyes and sat up groggily. "Oh my god," he said, his voice filled with wonder. "I just died, and...and experienced the afterlife..." As he spoke, a heavenly light seemed to shine down and cast his face in its otherworldly glow. "Everyone was there," he said wistfully, "beckoning me to join them...it was b-beautiful..." Tears streamed down his cheeks. "And then...a deep, wonderful voice said to me, 'Brendan, it isn't your time yet.' And, and then..." He looked around and saw what was going on. "Oh, SH**!" he cried, ripping his clothes off and joining the others as they clucked insanely and pecked at the chicken feed. "BAAAAAWK! BWAAAAAWK!" he shrieked.



Well, needless to say, I had no intention of participating in some stupid television program, but I'd found it momentarily entertaining to toy with these network executives for a brief time until they became boring and I had all three summarily ejected from my home by burly armed bodyguards. They were hesitant to leave at first, but the warthogs soon encouraged them to scramble into their limosines, still stark naked and covered with chicken feed. In the desperate hope that I might change my mind, they were still hopping around in their seats naked and clucking as loudly as possible out the open windows as their chauffeurs drove them away. After that, I made a salami and cheese sandwich and watched my hidden camera videos of the whole thing, which of course would be posted on the Internet the next day, before I grew tired of this and popped in a "Howdy Doody" DVD. It had been quite a nice day, and as I drifted peacefully off to sleep that night, I dreamt of human chickens.



(originally posted at Andersonvision.com)

PORFLE VS. AUNT BEE

Ever want to blow Aunt Bee's head off with a shotgun? Me, too.




I love "The Andy Griffith Show", or at least the black-and-white episodes before Barney left and the show became a living nightmare of horror. Mayberry was filled with lovable characters--Andy, Barney, Opie, Floyd the brain-damaged barber, Goober the dangerous idiot, Gomer the other dangerous idiot, Thelma Lou, Ernest T. Bass, the Darlings, and so on. All of them lovable.



All except for Aunt Bee, who was supposed to be lovable but elicited nothing but pure, seething hatred. The despicable, loathesome Aunt Bee. Oh, how I've fantasized about all the different ways I wanted to execute her. Or how cool it would've been if some guy Andy put in prison escaped and returned to Mayberry looking for revenge, and ended up blowing Aunt Bee in half with a shotgun. In slow motion. It would've made a great Sam Peckinpah episode.



BLAM! Aunt Bee's mid-section explodes and she goes flying backward in slow motion through the livingroom window as the bad guy keeps on pumping and shooting. CRASH! Glass shards cascade in all directions as Aunt Bee smashes through the window, her fat feet flying upward. She would land like an overstuffed sack of manure on the porch just as Gomer and Goober, who had been invited for supper that night, were coming up the steps. "GOH-HOL-LEEE!" Gomer would utter in surprise. "Somebody dun kilt Aunt Bee!" and Goober would say "Does this mean we don't git tuh eat?"



Aunt Bee was sorta okay in the earlier episodes, before she began to assert her evil influence over the Taylor household. But one day the writers thought, "Hey, wouldn't it be funny if we suddenly made Aunt Bee a brass-plated bitch in this episode?", which gradually got to be a habit with them after a while. "Hey, let's have Aunt Bee interfere with Andy's duties as a sheriff by angrily protesting some old bum's eviction" or "Hey, let's have Aunt Bee join the Mayberry Women's League and start sticking her big, fat nose into everybody's business and giving strident lectures to people about stuff she doesn't know jack sh** about", and finally "Hey, let's have Aunt Bee nag the ever-livin' dog crap out of Andy until the last traces of his amiable, laidback NO TIME FOR SERGEANTS-type character have been totally beaten out of him, leaving him a bitter, irritable, and humorless shell of his former self." Which is exactly what happened, thanks to the unrelenting, soul-crushing horror that was Aunt Bee.



The nadir came in one of the color episodes, when Andy was appointed umpire of the Little League championship game that Opie was playing in. Of course, Andy ended up having to call Opie out, losing the game for the home team, and Aunt Bee went hog-wild. She waddled up to the fence, spittle flying from her festering gob, and croaked "You were supposed to HELP!" with all the bile-spewing vitriol her rancid soul could muster. So, of course, she was royally and righteously pissed off at Andy for displaying honesty and integrity, and Andy's slow slide into utter despair once again became an ulcer-fueled rocket sled to Hell. This would've been a good time to introduce the revenge-crazed escaped convict with the pump shotgun, but no. Aunt Bee was like Jason Voorhees--you couldn't kill her, no matter how much horror and agony she spread to everyone around her during her one-hag buffalo stampede through the once-idyllic town of Mayberry.



Andy finally got his ass out of town when he married Helen Crump, who by that time was just as much of a spiteful harridan as Aunt Bee so he ended up pretty much just-plain screwed forever. (Well, not quite forever--when Helen and Aunt Bee finally kicked the bucket, Andy was free to change his name to Ben Matlock and revert back to his former easygoing self.) The show morphed into "Mayberry, R.F.D." and Aunt Bee moved in with the unsuspecting Ken Berry and his equally-doomed son, "Mike", who had no idea what disaster had just befallen them. In one episode, for no particular freakin' reason whatsoever, Aunt Bee decides to take flying lessons. We're supposed to get all happy and inspired when she makes her first solo flight, but for some unimaginable reason the writers left out the part where she flies straight into a water tower and the plane explodes. Sorry, but that's just lazy scriptwriting.



As you can surmise, I've oftened imagined Aunt Bee horrendously frying in the electric chair a la Michael Jeter in THE GREEN MILE, or taking Robert Blake's place during the big hanging scene at the end of IN COLD BLOOD. A firing squad would be cool, though a little too quick for my taste. Or how about a special edition of SAW, with Aunt Bee digitally inserted into all of the torture sequences? Surely this is possible with today's technology. And Ron Howard's still around to do some new scenes--I'm sure a grown-up Opie would love to resolve some of his long-suppressed hostility issues with Aunt Bee by gleefully cheering the maniac on.



Hey, how about an all-new "Mayberry" TV-movie where Aunt Bee finally gets what's coming to her? You know, something like 2000 MANIACS, only heartwarming. It's too late for Don Knotts and Sam Peckinpah to join in the fun, but good old Andy's still kicking. Come to think of it, forget the revenge-crazed escaped convict. Just hand revenge-crazed Andy that pump shotgun--I'm pretty sure he'll know what to do with it.



(originally posted at Andersonvision.com)

PORFLE PRESENTS: "THE JOKER FROM B.E.H.I.N.D."

I was watching THE DARK KNIGHT again recently, and during the scene where the character known as "The Chechan" walks into the big mob meeting, it occurred to me that he somewhat resembled Heath Ledger's "The Joker" from behind. Then the phrase "the Joker from behind" got stuck in my head.



As I repeated it over and over to myself, it started to sound kind of like "The Man From U.N.C.L.E.", that cool 60s spy series with Robert Vaughn. So then I pictured the phrase as "The Joker From B.E.H.I.N.D.", and for the next several hours I kept wondering what the hell kind of super spy organization would have such a stupid-sounding acronym as "B.E.H.I.N.D."? And why would their main secret agent be called "The Joker"?



Before you knew it, I had dashed off a series treatment called "The Joker From B.E.H.I.N.D." and arranged a meeting with J.B. Chickenstein, the executive in charge of programming for NBC. Later that afternoon in his office, he looked at me across his desk and asked, "What is this series about, porfle?" and I answered, using some Sesame Street hand puppets as visual aids:



"Well, J.B., it's about a secret agent who works for a super-secret spy organization known as B.E.H.I.N.D., which stands for 'Bureau (of) Espionage, Headquarters In North Dakota.' But they're not really in North Dakota, see--that's just a clever ruse to throw off their enemies. Their number one agent, around whom the series will revolve, is an ex-Navy Seal, international martial arts champion, and former stand-up comic known as 'Joker' Johnson. Not sure if we can afford him or not, but in the lead role I see...David Hasselhoff."



"Hasselhoff, eh?" broke in J.B. as he stroked his chin thoughtfully. I marvelled at how smoothly J.B.'s famous catchphrase, which he had been uttering intermittently against his will ever since being attacked by squirrels one day in Central Park while eating a ham sandwich, had worked itself into our conversation. Usually it stuck out like a sore thumb, as in the time Rachel in Accounting announced that she was pregnant and J.B. responded, "Hasselhoff, eh?"



"Yes, he is the only possible choice," I asserted, showing J.B. a cut-out doll I'd made of "Joker" Johnson with David Hasselhoff's head pasted on it. I moved it around on the edge of the desk to simulate walking, which seemed to elicit a positive reaction.



Suddenly, J.B. buzzed his secretary. "Vera, get security. Tell them there's an impostor in my office, pretending to be porfle." He sat back warily and shot me a suspicious glare. "Hasselhoff, eh?" he accused.

I stood up angrily, crumpling the doll in my trembling fists. "Curses!" I shrieked. "For years I've labored to perfect my porfle impersonation! Not to mention the endless sessions of painful plastic surgery! What in the galloping blue blazes gave me away?"



J.B. gave me a smug look as he toyed with a pencil. "You overlooked one thing," he explained. "You, my friend, are left-handed. Whereas porfle, as everyone knows, is right-handed."



"But," I sputtered, "I'm NOT left-handed. I'm right-handed, just like porfle."



"Oh," said J.B. "I thought you were left-handed. Well then, let's just call it a lucky guess."



Just then, two burly, armed security guards burst through the door. J.B. stood up and pointed at me. "Get him!" he ordered. "He's a porfle impersonator!"



The guards gasped in shock, then advanced with nightsticks and handcuffs at the ready. I sprang from my chair and leapt catlike onto J.B.'s desk. "You'll never take me alive!" I screamed, executing a thrilling kamikaze dive right through the open window. A sudden wave of terrifying vertigo swept through my body as I found myself in mid-air, rushing helplessly toward the ground. Then I landed in some bushes outside of J.B.'s window, which, fortunately, was on the first floor.



More security guards were already pouring out of the front door as I scrambled to my feet and sprinted toward the fabulous porfmobile, which was double-parked in back of a hot dog stand. Leaping into the cockpit, I flicked a switch to activate shields and punched the power-up button. The porfmobile roared to life like a surging beast and made my seat vibrate really hard, which felt awesome. I looked over at Robin, the Boy Wonder, who was pressing buttons on his control panel.



"Reactor to power!" he cried. "Turbines to speed!" He sat back in his seat and braced himself for the sudden burst forward.



I gaped at him in surprise. "Robin? What the hell are you doing here?"



"I'm ready to help you fight crime, of course!" Robin said breathlessly. "Let's go!" He sat back and braced himself again.



I pressed the ejector button. A section of the roof blew away and Robin flew upward through the hole like a jack-in-the-box, screaming. He landed headfirst in a garbage can about thirty feet away, which then fell over and started rolling down the hill into traffic.



Suddenly the security guards arrived and started beating on the porfmobile with their nightsticks. Well, I didn't like that! Springing into action like a coiled cobra, I pushed a button on the door. The power window came down slightly.



"I don't like that," I said through the crack. "Would you please stop doing it?"



"Oh, I'm sorry," said the head guard, lowering his nightstick with an abashed look. "You see, we were just--hey, wait a minute! I don't care if you like it or not!" He started banging on the porfmobile again and pretty soon they were all doing it.



Well--long story short--I set the controls to emit a sustained burst of deadly radiation which instantly flash-fried the security guards like fish sticks. Then I parked the porfmobile on the lawn across from J.B.'s office, activated my hood-mounted twin M-47 DRAGON Guided Missile Launchers, and blew J.B.'s fat ass to smithereens. I imagined him uttering "Hasselhoff, eh?" one last time as he exploded.



"That's right, J.B.," I chuckled, taking off my mask and revealing myself to be none other than David Hasselhoff. "You didn't know how right you were." I said it all smart-alecky, too, so it sounded really cool. Then I drove away, admiring myself in the rear-view mirror and thinking of how totally cool it was to be David Hasselhoff. I was doing that when I drove across some railroad tracks and got hit by a freight train, which shattered the fabulous porfmobile into a million pieces. Suddenly I found myself pinned by centrifugal force to the cowcatcher of a speeding train, flying through the outskirts of town as people noticed me going by and said, "Hey, isn't that David Hasselhoff?" I waved and gave them a "thumbs up", pretending that I was doing it on purpose.



When the train finally stopped in Butte, Montana, I fell off and took a bus back to my hometown, where the streets were filled with joyous people dancing around celebrating J.B.'s demise, singing "Ding Dong, the Witch Is Dead." I was hailed as a hero. The mayor presented me with J.B.'s ruby bowling shoes, and before long I was skipping merrily along the yellow brick road on my way to the Emerald City. A few hours later I stopped suddenly and thought: "Wait a minute...what the hell am I doing here?" So I turned around and went home.



My cat was mad at me for forgetting to feed her that morning, so I gave her some tuna fish. Then I turned on the TV and sat back in my easy chair to enjoy some fine entertainment. Suddenly a promo for "The Joker From B.E.H.I.N.D." came on, announcing it as the flagship series for NBC's new fall season. Damn! J.B. had stolen my idea and sold it to the network before I'd had a chance to blow him up, and now the show was destined to be a big hit without me.



The promo even had David Hasselhoff in it as "Joker" Johnson, which made me realize that I was actually a David Hasselhoff impersonator, which was a huge letdown. My parents, upon realizing that they were actually David Hasselhoff's parents, disowned me. My cat, who was really David Hasselhoff's cat, ran away. And I, who was really porfle, vowed never again to use my mind for anything besides looking at internet porn and inventing things that had already been invented, like nuclear reactors and squirrels.



(originally posted at Andersonvision.com)

PORFLE VS. GENE RODDENBERRY

I remember the time I tried to accuse Gene Roddenberry of stealing the idea for "Star Trek" from me. It wasn't true, of course, but I saw an opportunity for big money if I could pull it off!




I stormed into his office unannounced one day and pounded my fist on his desk. "You stole the idea for 'Star Trek' from me, you bastard!"



"'Star Trek'?" he said with a puzzled look. "What's that?"



"Huh? Wait a minute...what year is this?"



"It's 1963."



"Oh," I said sheepishly. Retreating from his office, I turned at the door and shot him a defiant look over my shoulder. "See you in three years, SUCKAH!!!"



Three years later, I stormed into his office again and slammed my fist on his desk even harder than I had last time. "You stole the idea for 'Star Trek' from me, you bastard!"



He looked up from some script pages he'd been going over and lowered his glasses on his nose to get a better look at me. "No, I didn't," he claimed. "I totally made it up on my own."



This enraged me, so I stood there clenching my fists, shaking uncontrollably, looking around for something demonstrative to do. Gene's size 12 feet were crossed on his desk, so I grabbed him by the ankles and started swinging him around the room in wide circles. He yowled in a mixture of shock and fear as the script pages fluttered around like big, square snowflakes. Then I let go and launched him right through the window. He crashed through the glass and disappeared with a scream.



I ran to the shattered window and looked down just in time to see Gene being carried away in the back of a passing turnip truck. Since there didn't seem to be anyone at the helm of "Star Trek" at the moment, I sat down at his desk and took over production of the show. Buzzing my new secretary, Dorothy, I ordered her to alert the entire cast and crew of the show to assemble in my office on the double.



There wasn't enough room in there for everybody so they had to sit in each other's laps, ride piggy-back, or make other arrangements. Shatner, who had ended up draped across the back of a couch with production designer Matt Jeffries sitting on his stomach, demanded to know what "the hell" was going on.



"Listen, pal," I growled, chewing on a cigar, "this is my show now, see? I created it, not that Roddenberry mug, see? Anybody got a beef with that? Who wants a knuckle sandwich?" I brandished my fist threateningly while glowering like a bulldog and blowing huge clouds of cigar smoke from the corners of my mouth.



Leonard Nimoy, who was partially wedged underneath the desk and had propmaster Irving Feinberg's butt in his face, spoke up with a groan. "Where's Gene?" he inquired. "He's the creator of this show, not you, and he should be--"



"YAAAAAAA!!!" I exploded in a burst of rage, flailing my arms. "I CREATED THE SHOW!!! ME, ME, MEEEEE!!!" Screaming like a banshee, I leapt onto the desk and started jumping up and down. At one point, my pants fell down around my ankles but I didn't notice. Chunks of plaster began to crumble from the walls and ceiling while ominous creaking and groaning noises filled the room. "ME, ME, MEEEEE!!!" I continued to scream.



Suddenly the overloaded floor gave way with a tremendous din of splintering wood and a billowing cloud of dust. Everyone crashed through, plummetting from the second storey to the first and landing in the lobby of the office building like so many sacks of tomatoes until the floor was littered with people and debris. DeForest Kelley had fallen through the top of a candy machine and could now be seen through the display glass, as though he were on sale for a mere thirty-five cents. George Takei had landed on a watercooler, smashing the large container of water and taking its place atop the machine. Nichelle Nichols was part of a large potted plant next to the restrooms.



When the noise had subsided, I calmly rose to my feet and produced a script from my back pocket. "You see," I said in a reasonable voice, "this is my original script for 'Star Trek', which I wrote several years before this Roddenberry jerk started running around claiming to have invented the whole thing himself." I showed it to Shatner and Nimoy, who were hanging upside-down by their feet from some kind of electrical wiring.



"This..." Nimoy sputtered, gasping for air. "This...is a script...for a sitcom called 'Leave It To Pooky.'"



"That's right," I affirmed. "Oh sure, Roddenberry changed a few things. Names, locations, whatever. Merely a thinly-disguised attempt to steal my ideas." I flipped a few pages and pointed. "See? The next-door neighbor character named Mr. Dinglehooter? That's Mr. Spock. And the kooky teenage daughter who's going through a volatile social and sexual awakening that leads to lots of comical complications? That's, uh...Scotty."



"What about me?" Shatner croaked. "Who am I?"



"Oh, you're Pooky, of course."



"But...Pooky's a dog!"



"Yes," I agreed, holding up a finger, "but he's a dog with all of Captain Kirk's most distinctive qualities! Courage, wisdom...uh, irresistible sex appeal..."



"Hmm," Shatner intoned. "This is all starting to make some sense."



"Oh, for god's sake, Bill," scoffed Nimoy.



Suddenly, Gene Roddenberry's ample bulk filled the front doorway. His clothing was strangely rumpled, and whenever he moved, turnips fell out of it. He pointed at me with a trembling finger. "SECURITY!" he cried. "GET THAT GUY!"



"You'll hear from my lawyers, you big dope!" I screamed, making my getaway with armed guards hot on my heels.



It wasn't long after this that the first Klingons began to appear on "Star Trek", and I like to think that they were at least partially inspired by my disruptive antics that day. On the whole, I felt as though I had really accomplished something worthwhile and was pretty darn proud of myself, until a few years later, after "Star Trek" had been cancelled, a new show appeared on NBC's fall schedule. Sure enough, it was "Leave It To Pooky." It turned out to be a big, big hit, with "Pooky" fan clubs popping up all over the world and billions of dollars rolling in from "Pooky" merchandising. And to add insult to injury, the opening credits every week featured the huge, glittering letters: "CREATED BY GENE RODDENBERRY, AND NOT PORFLE."



(originally posted at Andersonvision.com)