Andrew Koenig was found dead in Canada yesterday from an apparent suicide.  He was best known for playing “Boner” on “Growing Pains”.  Andrew also had many other endeavors in comedy.  He had a feature film called New Wave he had been working to produce for some time.  He was a part of several web sites (http://www.monkeygolucky.com and http://www.pardcast.com/).  He did improv and loved making people laugh.

Andrew Koenig on the Set of "Instinct vs. Reason"

I had the pleasure of meeting Andrew in 2004. I was just starting out as a screenwriter and had optioned a script (”Instinct vs. Reason“) to a small production company. We made a short film script out of that feature script to take to festivals and try to build up interest for a feature. They hired on Andrew to direct. Andrew brought in a lot of fun, energy and creativity and made something that everyone seemed to enjoy.

I traveled out to LA for the table read and for the premiere of the short. When I told me friend that Koenig was directing, he begged me to get his autograph for him, but I chickened out when I finally met Andrew. While out in LA, Andrew invited me to an improv show he was doing on a regular basis. At that time, he had real life and joy about him. He loved entertaining and making people laugh. The improv show was fairly small, but you could see happiness in him every time he told a joke that landed.

Then I went back out to LA for the premiere. It went well, although it didn’t win any awards, it still meant the world to me. Andrew expressed a little frustration to me about the results. He left early from the festival that night and that was the last time I saw him. We kept in touch in email after that. I even invited him to my bachelor party in Vegas. Being a TV star and all, I would have totally understood had he not even responded, but he still took the time to apologize to me that he couldn’t make it.

To a lot of people, he was that guy from Growing Pains. But to me, he was the first director I ever collaborated with. The first “star” I ever got to work with. I guy I watched in several endeavors over the years do all he could to entertain and make people laugh. A guy I was too scared to ask for an autograph from. I only met him in person twice and I’m not sure what it meant to him, but that little film we came together to make represents a really special part of my life. And I feel just terrible that I never let him know how much that all meant to me. Thank you so much, Andrew! I’m sure you’re in a better place now making people laugh.

“Its funny because he’s fat!”

Its a universal truth that doesn’t only apply to Zack Galifianakis in The Hangover.  We’ve always had an affinity for the funny fat guy going back to Gleason, the fat one in Laurel & Hardy and the fat one in Abbott & Costello all the way up until John Belushi, Chris Farley and Kevin Smith.  They’ve spent a lifetime developing an incredible sense of humor as a protective shield to keep them immune or diffuse ridicule about their weight.  And we love them for it.  Every college clique had the funny fat guy.  They’re just an essential part of life and they make life a little bit sweeter.

But one subsection of the Funny Fat people has yet to get the respect it fully deserves.  Funny fat kids.  We all had one in every class in elementary school.  Filmmakers knew this.  They all had funny fat kids in their classes when they were kids.  So when they grew up, they got their chances to put funny fat kids in their films and make them sympathetic creatures if they happened to be the fat kid when they were young.   Or they put them in their films to mock them if they were the ones who mocked them as a kid.  Regardless of the motivation, these chunky, little thespians always seem to get the best lines and are the characters that stick with us.

And now they get a proper tribute.  (After the break) is the definitive funny fat kid tribute!  I’m even going to rank them since they all have self esteem issues and because people wholeheartedly reject non-list based articles on the internet.  This ranking will be based on several factors which make us love chunky kids on TV and film.  The first two categories are the obvious ones: total fatness and funniness.  Another aspect of being a funny fat kid is your willingness to cry.  Like Flounder in Animal House, we love seeing them cry.  Not sure why its any funnier than a skinny kid crying, but it is.  I guess its part of the old adage “its funny because he’s fat.”  Then, the kid has to be willing to use his weight to his advantage and bully lesser kids and obsessively seek out food at any personal cost.  Another appealing trait to a funny fat kid… being a stupid funny fat kid.  It just works.  Then, if they can also have a funny haircut, that’s just gravy.

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Invention has been the lifeblood of our evolution as a people. We place major milestones in our growth as a species upon those inventions which define us as a people. Our first steps were discovering how to make fire. Rounding out stone or wood to make the wheel. The Roman Aqueducts. The light bulb. The car. The computer. Fantasy Football. We celebrate those beacons of our innovation and champion those when revolutionary items when we proclaim our dominance over all other living organisms ever.

“The dinosaurs may have been big and physically imposing, but we created the iPhone! Boo ya ka sha! I’d like to see those big fuckin lizards do that!”

Its easy to celebrate those grand achievements. I want to publicly admonish one of the worst developments of our modern world.

The purpose of invention is to streamline those time consuming, tedious tasks in order to give us more time to waste on youtube or Twitter. The wheel was invented when walking wasn’t fast enough. We propelled wheel using a steam engine when one horse pulling a cart wasn’t fast enough to get us across the country. When we found it was too slow to wait for a train, we invented cars so we could go wherever we wanted whenever we wanted. Planes, jets, etc, etc. Faster and faster, eventually working towards instantaneous transportation. Mail turned into email. Pony express turned into FedEx. Slow building satire turned into a swift kick to the groin. You get the point.

There’s been some invention which they attempted to do something great and failed. Astroturf. Hungry Man meals. Dippin Dots. I can’t fault them for trying and just not quite getting it right. Then there’s inventions that for one reason or another failed, then became a punchline.  The most famous of which is beta-max videos. They actually created a quality product, but failed in the licensing and therefore fell into oblivion.

Dippin' Dots!!!!!

No, one invention pisses me off beyond all belief. There’s one invention that, when you see you have no other option but to use it, causes me to curse under my breath at the time it is wasting to use. These items should be ripped off of every wall they are installed on and sunk into the bottom of the deepest abyss. They increase the time required to perform the simplest of activities by 7000% and they don’t even work in the end. You know in your heart what I’m talking about…

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With the new Kevin Smith film, Cop Out just around the corner, its time for some good Kevin Smith-ness on the Lampoon.  Kevin Smith has his regulars.  Jeff Anderson.  Brian O’Halloran.  Walt Flanagan.  And of course Jason Mewes.  But since the smash hit Clerks, he’s been acquiring new, super successful friends who can’t wait to be in the next View Askew cult hit.  (Even though he stopped working under the View Askew brand with Jersey Girl, Zack and Miri Make a Porno and Cop Out. I still like to think of all of his films as View Askew films.  So please don’t bother with the whole snarky “The View Askew films were only the ones in the Clerks Universe!”)  To the public, Smith comes across as this friendly, funny, likable jolly dude.  And I don’t think you can fake that.  He’s a good actor, but not that good.  And that charm and likability has resulted in this conversation MANY times since 1994:

“So, Ben, we’ve got a lot of work to do.  You’ve got a lot of projects to decide on.  $20 Million to reprise your role as Jack Ryan.”

“Pass.”

“$25 Million to be Daredevil again.”

“Pass.”

“Invitation to Matt Damon’s wedding.”

“How much is he paying me to attend?”

“Uhm.  To attend his wedding?  Nothing.  In fact I think you even have to buy a gift.”

“Pass.”

“Invitation to Casey Affleck’s film opening.”

“Pass.”

“But you even directed the film.”

“Just tell me what language to say ‘pass’ in in order to allow you to understand it.”

“Last one.  A 20 second cameo in which you don’t get paid, you go in and a donkey farts on you.  But it is a Kevin Smith film…”

And Ben Affleck hops on the first plane to Jersey.

This little black book of celebrity buddies all started when he made a tremendously popular little film called Clerks.  It spoke to millions of kids sitting behind the counters at menial jobs across the country.  Smith’s unique dialog style and quirky sex humor had fans clamoring for more.  As the years progressed, Smith started working with bigger and better actors (no offense Walt Flanagan).  And even when those actors blew up and became the new Jack Ryan or the dude who screams at Alvin and the Chipmunks, they still would drop all to fly back and work with Smith again.

So, what would have happened if he were presented with his current clique of celebrity friends and his current pull, and he just now came up with Clerks.  Who would he cast?  Let’s hypothesize below:

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Last year’s Oscar snoozefest that saw The Dark Knight omitted from Best Picture contention before the broadcast even started was a wakeup call for the Academy.  Last year’s broadcast was a slight rise over the record setting low point of the 2008 broadcast.  There was a rise in New York, LA and Chicago, but not of the country still failed to really care about Hollywood patting itself on the back and giving smug speeches.  They went out and made a major move in upping the Best Picture nominees to 10 from the traditional 5.  It drew some ire from people, a lot of people shrugged, but very, very few said “yes, that’s what was missing.  More five-minute montages about the Best Picture nominees.”

February 2nd will see the announcement of the Oscar nominees.  We know that AVATAR, The Hurt Locker and Up In The Air will be on the list.  The list will generate a small buzz if we see District 9 on there and a moderate buzz if The Hangover sneaks its way in.  Ratings will climb a little bit on the off chance we might get to see Zack Galifianakis give a Best Picture acceptance speech, even though we all know that the Academy would rather shut down Hollywood altogether than give the award to The Hangover.  They don’t give a damn that it might have been the most enjoyable and memorable movie this year.

And that’s the big problem.  The Oscars are all about this self adulation of this small exclusive club and often end up celebrating the films most people couldn’t care less to see and will be forgetting once that “Special Oscar Winning Edition” Blu-Ray of that film is out of the Best Buy weekly ads.  Not sure if they expect people to tune in to the Oscars when they celebrate these critically acclaimed, but narrowly distributed films, but its not working.  “Oh, man!  Who will win?  The 519th film about how the Iraq war was wrong or the small story of a lesbian dealing with bulimia that had no dialog?  I didn’t see either movie and don’t plan on it, but I am so emotionally invested in this award ceremony!”

By adding 5 more nominees to the Best Picture list, the Academy shows they want to be more inclusive, draw in more people and have the opportunity to celebrate more films in an attempt to nominate those films that resonated with the general film going public.  But even when those fun films we talk about around the water cooler make it on the list, we have no delusions that they might win.  Here’s how I think the nominees will shake out:

• Avatar
• The Hurt Locker
• Up In The Air
• Precious: And The Weird Ass Subtitle
• Inglorious Basterds
• Julie & Julia
• (500) Days of Summer
• (Some Obscure Foreign Film)
• (Film from one of the big Hollywood Directors like Invictus even though it probably doesn’t deserve to be here)
• The Hangover

I’m calling it.  I’m calling my shot.  They will give The Hangover a nomination solely to draw people in.  But it won’t totally work.  But everyone knows it won’t win.  The people they hope are drawn in won’t come just to see their favorite film get 10th place.  Its almost insulting.  Its like creating a special award in Elementary school just so the weird kid can feel like he accomplished something.

Sure, last year people really took to Slumdog Millionaire and were brought in by that.  But it seems like the Oscar success is totally dependent on some film miraculously resonating with the Academy and the people and being one of the five nominees.   But if they made some minor tweaks to the awards, the event of the Oscars itself would be interesting enough and they wouldn’t have to hope and pray that critics and fans line up in order to have a successful broadcast.  So, now you started reading this hoping I would get to the point.  And here is my proposal to fix that (after the break):

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Yeah.  This article might be a little deplorable.  But one cannot write solely mocking Robert Pattinson.  If you’ve gathered around the computer as a family to read some National Lampoon… I’m sorry and am going to recommend you avert the gaze of your kids before the see someone ranking their beloved Disney Princesses on hotness.  And for those of you who think it might be a little gay to be talking about Disney Princesses at all, you can’t tell me that the below picture doesn’t make you start doing the same:

You want to go watch Peter Pan right now, admit it.  And come on.  You do a Google image search for any of these Princesses, a picture will come back with a sexy Halloween costume version of them like so:

So I’m not the only one.  They make heroines all pretty, trim, athletic girls.  They want girls to admire them and think they’re pretty.  So what’s wrong with ranking them based on how well they did making them pretty.  Wow, I just keep making this worse, huh?  OK, I’m going to stuff justifying this and just jump in (after the break).  ALSO!  Working under the assumption they are all over 18.  Cuz, otherwise, that would just be sick.

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