Pootie Troopers Strike Back!

By John Saleeby
March 16 , 2003

If the past few issues of Acid Logic have been even more haphazard than usual it's probably because we can't get any work done around here from the phone ringing off the hook with Hollywood executives begging us to lend the Acid Logic brand name to one of their piece of shit comedy movies. "What? 'Acid Logic's Kung Pow!'? Get outta here!" or "'Acid Logic's Kangaroo Jack'? Kiss my ass!" It was almost "Acid Logic's The Tuxedo" but they wouldn't ditch Jackie Chan's tired ass for Rodney Dangerfield. Screw em!

Not that we only have negative things to say about all of the comedy movies that have been made in the past couple of years . . . But, while we're still being snotty - TIM ALLEN SUCKS!!! . . . Not that we only have negative things to say about all of the comedy movies that have been made in the past couple of years. In fact, there are a lot of of funny talented people making good comedy movies that a lot of people have never even seen. For example, "Pootie Tang" (2001), "Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back!" (2001), and "Super Troopers" (2002) - Three terrific comedy movies that completely bombed when released in theaters. Everyone involved in all three of these movies should be multimillionaires living in mansions full of naked teenage girls but - No! - Everybody went to see those stupid goddam Julia Roberts movies instead and now everybody in "Pootie Tang", "Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back!", and "Super  Troopers" is waiting on tables, mowing yards, or hosting Morning Zoo radio shows to make a living. Well, don't despair, kids, all of us here at The Acid Logic Mansion (Including most of the naked teenage girls who have been positioned towards the TV screen ) think you're just great, and we will be putting as many of you as possible to work on our own comedy movies as soon as I talk Forbis out of his idea for "The Bill Maher Story" starring Dennis Miller in the title role.

Even though "Pootie Tang" stars Chris Rock, it was total flop. Hey, wait a minute . . . "Down To Earth" starred Chris Rock and that was a flop, too. And that other movie he starred in, that buddy movie with the English fruit who played Hannibal Lector - That was a flop, too! Now that I think about it, every movie that Chris Rock has ever starred in has been a flop! ("Nurse Betty"? People only went to "Nurse Betty" to see Renee Zoolander.) But we're all supposed to pretend he's right up there with Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks, for some odd reason. Wouldn't it be more fun if we pretended that we were all Big Stars and left Chris Rock to pretend for himself? When David Caruso had a movie career like this he was The Laughingstock Of The Planet, but Chris Rock . . . Whattya mean I'm a racist? I'm no racist! Why, in "Pootie Tang" Chris Rock is so great I can almost understand why he is allowed to vote in our country's elections!

Pootie Tang, an Internationally Beloved Super Hero-Pop Star, is played by The Internationally Beloved Super Hero-Comedy Star Of The Future Lance Crouther while Chris Rock is hilarious in THREE different toles - Pootie's Pops (Funny), Pootie's Perpetually Pissed Off Pal (Really funny), and a Radio DJ losing his mind over the brilliance of Pootie's latest hit single (So funny it defies alliteration!)

"Pootie Tang" was written and directed by Louis CK, a really talented stand up comic who was one of the original writers for "Late Night With Conan O'Brien", the producer of Rock's HBO series, and -Most Importantly- always had the good sense to be polite and courtious whenever he and I ran into each other in comedy clubs around New York. So, unless I find out he ever said anything negative about me or was one of several comics who made out with my girlfriend behind my back (I peeked in her diary), he'd be a good choice to help write and direct the Acid Logic Movie  (Forbis and I have lots of ideas but we need someone to do the typing and run out for coffee and sandwiches). "Pootie Tang" is full of funny guys I knew in my New York comedy days - Dave Attel, Rick Shapiro,  Todd Barry, - all of whom were wise enough to treat me with the respect a man of my intellect demands and would be really funny in the Acid Logic Movie. Chris Rock, unfortunately, is Damaged Goods and we can't gamble the future of Acid Logic on Nineties Leftovers. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Time Magazine said he's The Funniest Man In America. Funniest Man In Time Magazine, more like it. When was the last time they had anything about Fred Willard in Time Magazine? They don't even know about Rick Shapiro!

Betcha they don't know who Jason Mewes is, either. Mewes plays Jay in Kevin Smith's "Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back!" and he is so great that if I  knew how to pronounce "Mewes" I'd say he should be a household name. I never paid any attention to The Kevin Smith Thing because nobody seemed to give a shit about The John Saleeby Thing, but a few weeks ago my nephews Gus And Sam forced me to watch "Mallrats" and I was pleasantly surprised at what a pleasant break from The Gus And Sam Thing it proved to be.  Jay and Silent Bob are supporting characters in "Mallrats" but in "Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back!" they carry the whole movie, although it will be up to you to get it from the shelf of your video place and to your house. Maybe David Spade will help you out with that the way his movie career is going. For a quarter. After clowning around in God only knows how many Smith movies, with "Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back!" Mewes successfully makes the transition from "Funny Buddy Of The Director Screwing Around In Front Of The Camera" to "Comedian", demonstrating comic skills of such high caliber that when watching "Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back!" you will find yourself involved in the physical process of "Laughing". Ask your Mom and Dad about Bill Murray or Steve Martin back in the seventies and maybe they will be able to explain that "Laughing" stuff to you, kids. It's kind of like that little "snort" sound you make with the front of your head when Jon Stewart or Tina Fey make one of their little jokes, only multiplied by two or three hundred times. Hey! Come back! Guess I lost ‘em with that "multiplied by two or three hundred times" bit. God, kids today are stupid.

What is "Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back!" about? Well, Fag Jokes mostly. There are so many Fag Jokes in this movie I don't have any in this article because back in 2001 Smith traveled into the future and stole ‘em to put ‘em in "Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back!" It's like being back in Junior High School. And I was in Junior High School when Elton John and David Bowie first happened so that's really saying something. GLAAD ( I'm not sure what that is an acronym for, they're apparently a bunch of gays who think they have some business telling funny guys what kind of jokes we can write. Which gives me an idea for a joke but I'm afriad it might get me in trouble. This is the thanks I get for four years in my country's military?) gave Smith a lot of trouble for all this, but he was never in the military so screw him. I'm walking on thin egg shells here cause I'm a hetero (Or a "hetemo" as my clever friends call me) guy writing jokes about homosexuals getting upset about hetero guys writing jokes about homosexuals, so I'm going to skip the jokes and cut right to the "Eh, get outta here! That wasn't homophobic! I was only joking around!" part. There.

In addition to about eleven million Fag Jokes, "Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back!" also features the Best Female Fart Joke in any movie since Audrey Hepburn let one rip in "Breakfast At The International House Of Pancakes". This happens when Jay And Silent Bob meet up with a gang of sexy girl international jewel thieves (Hey, it's more likely than meeting up with a band of sexy girl punk rockers) including Elizebeth Shannon and Eliza Dushku, whom I immediately recognised as The Future Mother Of My Unborn Children in that high school cheerleader movie with Dirsten Kunst. Dushku Uber Alles!!! Eliza will definitely be in the Acid Logic Movie, even if the funding never comes through and it's just something I shoot on video in the basement with some  rope and an old mattress. Hey, you gotta get this stuff off of your chest or many miles away something will come to the surface from the bottom of a dark Scottish Loch and it will be all your fault, man!

    Smith wrote and directed the approaching Jennifer Lopez - Ben Affleck movie and, unless the collective IQ of the American People shoots up so high they stop having babies and supporting professional sports, it will be a tremendous success and Smith will be too busy doing . . . uh . . . whatever successful guys do to work on the Acid Logic Movie.  But we'd be more than happy to have Jason Mewes in it. Him and whoever plays that Silent Bob dude.

"Super Troopers", another excellent comedy movie that nobody went to see, was put together by Broken Lizard, a comedy group I am truly embarrassed to admit that I never heard of until "Super Troopers" came out. Boy, am I a hick! But just imagine how lame you would feel if you never heard of Broken Lizard until you read about ‘em in some screwy humor zine published in March 2003. Oh man! Can you imagine being that much of an ass backward square? I bet somebody like that doesn't even know about Rick Shapiro! Geez!

Anyway, Broken Lizard kicks ass - Kids In The Hall ass, particularly. No "Let's dress up in all kinds of CRAAZY outfits and dance around talking in all kinds of CRAAAZY voices!" for these two fisted tough guy non-Canadians - The Men Of Broken Lizard strike fast n' hard with the beer brawlin' rowdy humor found in barracks, frat houses, and chess club meetings wherever Wild And Crazy Guys are free to go for the Big Yuks without the domesticating influence of Moms, girlfriends, and network executives. It's all here - Going into a diner and chugging down every bottle of syrup in the place so squares who order pancakes are outta luck, shoving the New Guy into a wall locker and emptying about a hundred cans of shaving cream in there so he comes out looking like the "Ghostbusters" Marshmellow Man, and - Funniest Of All! - Squirting Somebody With A Waterhose!!

"Super Troopers" is clearly influenced by eighties comedy movies like "Police Academy" and "Stripes", although in years since we've seen enough pain and suffering brought into this world by Big Fat Funny Guys for the Big Fat Funny Guy in "Super Troopers" to be the object of disgust and repulsion.    Every time he tries to join in the pranks the joke is how sadly unfunny he is - Like when he serves one of the Guys a cup of coffee with a great big bar of soap in it and triumphantly barks "Ha! I got you, MOTHERFUCKER!!!". So maybe the ol' Gross Out Comedy has evolved a bit after all. Just don't hold your breath waiting for us to give up the Fart Jokes! Just hold your breath.

    It's no secret that a lot of people don't like this sort of thing, but if you're one of em you'd best keep your mouth shut or we'll put a paper bag full of doggie poop on your front porch, set it on fire, ring your door bell, and run away so when you come out and jump up and down it we'll break into your house, stab you and all of your family to death, and write "HELTER SKELTER" on the walls in your blood to spark off an apocolyptic race war. Okay, so maybe we're not as good at that sort of thing as the Broken Lizard pranksters are, that's why we'll surely give ‘em a call when we need a hand with the Acid Logic Movie.

"Super Troopers" is well directed by Black Lizard's Jay Chandrasekhar - Or, as I like to call him, Jay CK. Or just Jack - and he would certainly be a good choice to direct the Acid logic Movie if Chris Rock goes back to HBO with his tail between his legs and needs Louis CK to produce his show again.

I spend a lot of time talking about these guys lately because the other day I overheard Forbis barking "ACTION!" and "CUT!" when he thought he was alone in the office and the other night he was trying to impress some chick in a bar with a frame by frame analysis of the Odessa Steps sequence from Eisenstein's "Potemkin". "You are aware that I'm a GIRL, aren't you!?!" the poor thing squealed and ran off to spend all her money on a boob job. Me, I'll sit around and write comedy bits until it's time to get up and do something to pay the friggin' rent, but I'm too much of a surly sociopath for as collaborative a deal as . . . Oh shit! Forbis just got back from the video place with a stack of Italian Neo Realism from the late forties and a hard cover collection of Paul Schraeder scripts! Looks like it's time to make an ashtray out of somebody's jawbone around here. If only the young Steven Spielberg had a friend who cared as much about Making A Better World For The Children Of Tomorrow as I do.

SO DON'T FORGET -

"Pootie Tang" !!!

"Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back!"!!!

"Super Troopers"!!!

ALL ONE HUNDRED PERCENT JANEANE GAROFALO FREE!!!

GUARENTEED!!!

 

John Saleeby wrote for The National Lampoon while he was in high school, was a stand up comic in New York, and has contributed to the net humor zines Schmuck.com, Campaign Central, and the legendary American Jerk. He's on medication now so he's probably a little nicer now than he was when you met him earlier. Email - jacksaleeby1@hotmail.com