Today, Part 2 of yesterday’s 80stravaganza. Read all the options and vote at the end!
Crazy Eddie, by Fenzel
If we’re going to revive an 80s franchise, let’s go whole hog. None of this “I kinda like this unremarkable cartoon because it was on after cookie time” crap. I mean the real deal. It’s time to get crazy! 80s crazy!
How crazy, you ask? How about Tri-State Area discount electronics store crazy? How about the stock symbol CRZY, and taking it from $8 to $75 and back to $9 in three years crazy?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsCb_eQlKGo&NR=1
How about paying all your employees off the books in cash and skimming 1 out of every 6 bucks for yourself crazy? How about laundering tens of millions of those embezzled dollars through offshore accounts in Israel and Panama back into your stores to boost sales figures and inflate your stock price crazy? How about making a public announcement you resign as CEO and President, only to not really resign, fire your father from the business, and dump all your company stock right before somebody catches up with you and the shares tank crazy?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXf8oKJ2mu8&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jc-Mhynh_pg&NR=1
How about losing control of your company to a hostile takeover crazy? How about fleeing the country with a warrant out for your arrest crazy? How about getting charged with racketeering and securities fraud three times–the first time, fleeing the country, the second time, getting the 8-year prison sentence overturned on appeal because you claim the judge was biased against you, and the third time going to the federal pen for a decade with $1.1 billion in overdue fines and judgements against you crazy? (Man, these Christmas ones are the best!)
So, yeah, if you’re going to reboot an 80s franchise, DO IT NOW! Crazy Eddie CANNOT BE UNDERSOLD and WILL NOT BE UNDERSOLD!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehOrW4n7CaQ
Plus, because of the dozens of convictions across the family business, the millions upon millions of dollars in fraud perpetrated against customers and shareholders, the public debasement of the extended legal drama, Crazy Eddie is the only 80s franchise you can remake now, because it’s the only one somebody isn’t already remaking!
Wow. I guess I was wrong. Apparently people will literally forgive and forget anything.
Crazy Eddie is back in business, and that, dear Overthinkers, is INSANE!!!!!
(By the way, contrary to popular assumptions, the guy in the commercials isn’t the Crazy Eddie who owns the stores and committed the crimes. The guy in the commercials is radio DJ Jerry “Dr. Jerry” Carroll, who, as far as I know, never did anything to anybody except make awesome commercials.)
And seriously, a vote in the poll for Crazy Eddie is a vote for bringing back these totally awesome commercials – not the crime, so much. If they can do Monopoly as a movie, they can do this.
I have but one suggestion: Perfect Strangers, co-starring Anton Yelchin as Balki.
I can’t help but think your answer was spurred by a certain film recently in theaters, Lee. I get frustrated with remakes/sequels/prequels/etc., too, but I’m sorry you were *so* traumatized/jaded that now your love for the franchise has been marred. :(
Building on Gab’s comment and Lee’s answer, you know what really annoys me? When a sequel or reboot is so bad, it somehow makes the original (completely awesome) product tainted by mere association. While sequels and not reboots, the Matrix trilogy comes to mind as the most glaring example of this. The original was a spectacular film when it was released, but the sequels were so wretched that even the first moves has become an outcast and a pariah. Star Wars? Same deal. T:S (and T3, to an extent) hasn’t managed to have that effect yet, but McG’s still got two more sequels to finish murdering the originals with, so it’s still anyone’s game. Who here doesn’t think that the new G.I. Joe movie’s going to destroy any lingering fondness they may have had for the source material?
Well, I’m quite easily entertained, and it takes a lot for something to get “ruined” for me to the extent that I won’t like it because of another edition to its canon- so I’m going to say “me” for myself. In fact, I think the previews look kind of awesome. Action fluff. BUT, I won’t be surprised if a ton of people *do* get jaded by the G.I. Joe movie.
I won’t accept anything less than _The Adventures of Buckaroo Banazi Across the 8th Dimension_.
…Cause the renaissance man/top neurosurgeon/particle physicist/race car driver/rock star/comic book hero/last hope of the human race combo is hot.
@Glenn: “Anton Yelchin as Balki”
FTW
@Gab: I did sort of have Terminator on the mind when I wrote “Leave ’em alone,” but I suppose that could have applied to the decision to make a sequel to Terminator 2. That David Foster Wallace article we mentioned a while ago certainly took the opinion that T2 ruined T1, which is certainly a minority view.
But even if you think T2 was great (which I do), there was plenty of risk that the sequel would have fallen well short of the original. This of course did not happen, for 2 main reasons: 1) James Cameron is James Cameron and 2) T1 was super low budget; T2 was Cameron’s chance to really max out what could possibly be done in a Terminator story.
So I guess a better rule of thumb than a blanket “leave ’em ALL alone” for reboots/sequels would be to make sure you’re really adding value and not just stamping out another copy of a template. Also, adding value is not the same thing as making random changes to the original just for the sake of being able to say it’s not just a template copy. Sigh, this is a topic for a whole separate post.
@Lee: You’re so gonna blog about it?
One Word – Krull! True, not a franchise to begin with, but I think they could build it into one.
I voted with Lee, but mainly just because HeMan and Masters of the Universe weren’t on the list.