Go into your local video sell-through store, bypass the feature film section, wander past the music videos and you’ll eventually arrive at the children’s section. Without a doubt you’ll be able to track down several tapes of classic Warner Bros. animation – Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Sylvester & Tweetypie, Elmer Fudd, Pepe Le Pew and maybe even the odd Speedy Gonzales. Notice any missing names? Yep. You will hunt in vain for any Wile E. Coyote (aka Famishius Vulgarius Ingeniusi) and Roadrunner (Birdius High-Ballius) cartoons. It’s difficult to see why they’ve been so ignored as for me they represent a distillation of all that is entertaining about animation, impossible to recreate as a live-action film.

The first cartoon ‘Fast and Furry-ous’ appeared in 1949. The series was originally conceived as a satire on the chase cartoons which were highly popular at the time, but nobody saw it that way, they were all too busy laughing at the chase sequences. The series continued for the next fifteen years under the guiding hand of Chuck Jones, culminating in an Academy Award nomination in 1961 for ‘Beep Prepared’ – other directors have since tried their hand at making the films, but just as Fred Quimby must be considered the essence of Tom & Jerry, so Chuck Jones is to Wile E. Coyote (Evereadius Eatibus) and Roadrunner (Digoutius Hot-Rodius).

Their appeal, to some extent, lies in the way they produced an infinite number of variations on the chase theme, a great many of which produced the same result; Wile E. falling down a canyon, accompanied by a whistling sound and with an expression on his face that says “Oh No, here we go again!” far better than any words. The tension is generated in a classic, almost Hitchcockian style – you tend to know exactly what is going to happen, you are just totally unsure how, or indeed when. An example: the Coyote is standing on an overhang, trying to reach the Roadrunner who is on the other side of a canyon. He sets up a see-saw and staggers onto it carrying a boulder, which he throws in the air. What happens next?

• a) It lands on his head?
• b) It propels him vertically upwards onto the bottom of another overhang above – he then drops down onto the see-saw, the boulder goes back up and then lands on his head
• c) It propels him horizontally across the canyon into the opposite wall, just below the Roadrunner, from where he falls down into the canyon.
• d) The boulder lands on the other end of the see-saw, doesn’t move it at all and rolls down on top of him.

The correct answer, in fact, is e) The boulder lands on the other end, tipping the see-saw alright, then continues down through the overhang, leaving a nice hole – the Coyote slides down the see-saw and into the hole, cue Wile E. falling down a canyon, etc. Give yourself a point nonetheless; the other answers are almost correct as I’ve seen all of them, and several more besides, happen in various Chuck Jones cartoons.

One of the hallmarks of the series was the appearance of objects made by that well-known company called Acme; we have the Acme Giant Rubber Band (For Tripping Roadrunners), Acme Tornado Seeds, an Acme Rocket, etc. About the only thing these have in common is a tendency not to fulfill their specification, tho’ to be fair, this is often at least PARTLY due to misuse by the client! The name ‘Acme’, incidentally, used to be chosen by companies because it put them near the start of the Yellow Pages, back in the days before AAAAAAB Taxis.

1. This reliance on Acme products is enshrined in Chuck Jones’ Rules; these are taken from his book ‘Chuck Amuck’ (Farrar Strauss Giroux, New York), a part-autobiography, part-textbook on how to make animated cartoons. As he says, “there are – there must be – rules. Without them, comedy slops over at the edges. Identity is lost”. Here are the rules in full:
2. The Roadrunner cannot harm the coyote except by going “Beep-beep!”.
3. No outside force can harm the Coyote – only his own ineptitude or the failure of the Acme products.
4. The Coyote could stop anytime – if he were not a fanatic (Repeat: “A fanatic is one who redoubles his effort when he has forgotten his aim” – George Santayana).
5. No dialogue ever, except “Beep-beep!”.
6. The Roadrunner must stay on the road – otherwise, logically, he would not be the Roadrunner.
7. All action must be confined to the natural environment of the two characters – the Southwest American desert.
8. All materials, tools, weapons or mechanical conveniences must be obtained from the Acme corporation.
9. Whenever possible, make gravity the Coyote’s greatest enemy.
10. The Coyote is always more humiliated than harmed by his failures.

It’s an old fashioned story.

I wanted to be a hero. But I’d got to earn my spurs, prove to you that there is more to me than meets the eye.

The moment I had stepped into the house, the party was in full swing. Snogging couples even hung from the light shades, and the music…well, it sounded like a lot of fat boys snorting.

I idled up to the bar where my girlfriend’s mother was rationing out the beer.

“Seen Cilla?”, I asked, not really expecting her to reply.
“She’s upstairs with another fella.”

I took the stairs at a run, missing the middle section altogether.

Bob stopped me on the landing : “How about gatecrashing this party again?”

I laughed off the joke and progressed towards the bedrooms, not knowing in which one Cilla was ensconced.

Leaning against one of the doors was my long lost pen pal, Peter, who had evidently dropped acid in the not too dim and distant past, boldly going beyond the frontiers of sanity… He pointed along the corridor – I forged on, anger gathering itself for a sudden impending release.

I stormed through the door he indicated.

---

Peering through the half-light, I saw my moral tutor sitting on the floor, guiltily unhanding himself.

I decided this was not the right time to broach the subject of my Degree course, especially as he retreated under the bed in some apparent confusion as to my intentions. I nearly dragged him out again, to piss into his mouth. That would be no more than he deserved.

I tried the door of the ensuite bathroom.
“Cilla! I know you’re in there.”

---

Inside my head, I knew all along that I was pursuing a rat around the universe.

The space lanes were too obvious free-for-alls where peak capped individuals saluted the bright disco-like lights that jockeyed between the commodity planets.

If she was here, she would no doubt be disguised as a refugee from Star Trek, still bemused by the particular peccadilloes of her own version of Captain Kirk.

No, I must digress – towards the Dark, where lurked those monsters who had failed the auditions. She smiled at their inability to count their own limbs.

Little did I know she was crouching within her own womb, desperate to shed the outer skin that did her no justice at all.

---

The bathroom was a right sauna. It was just as if I had come off the cold Norwegian forest lands into the near reaches of a Sun system that only need to grow slightly hotter to disappear up its own arse.

I handled her pert, finely nippled breasts as if they had been poured from my clapped out motor’s engine. I exploded the myth of her mouth with the legend of my tongue. And little bits that came off me explored further into her gullet.

There was also a man in the bath with her. And I bent down his head violently, so that he could feed off his own privates.

I sweated like a pig in an oven.

---

The party continued for another day and another night. Most gradually came off the medicine towards the end, but some never recovered.
Some are ever on call for dress rehearsal of an old-fashioned TV series, never knowing whether they are to be cast as hero or monster.

Cilla? She’ll probably go off with my moral tutor to form a pop group called ‘Insider Dealing’. Her mother will play all the instruments backstage, as they mime up front, during the desultory nights of the future…

The Sun has gone out on me. Somebody no doubt pulled out the light fittings – now there’s nothing of me to meet the eye. I’m writing this in the dark – so maybe I’ve got the ending wrong.

TC doesn’t normally go in for interviews, the idea that someone is interesting purely because they are famous not holding water, as Linnea Quigley proves beyond reasonable doubt. However, the following piece struck us as weird – Paul Higson interviews James Lorinz, star of Street Trash and the forthcoming Frankenhooker. No information was available on either participants’ state of mind – we recommend putting this article away until you’ve seen the film, as it might make more sense then, though we’re making no promises…

Paul Higson: A cult is said to have arisen around you after your appearance in Street Trash. In what form has this manifested?
James Lorinz: A small group of Marxist London garbage collectors worship me and voted me most likely to throw tea in the harbour.

PH: Would you call yourself acerbic?
JL: No, but I have some relatives from the Baltic States.

PH: How much did you ad-lib on your Street Trash stint?
JL: Perhaps 60% ad-libs done with the writers on the set.

PH: In the John Hughes film Some Kind of Wonderful there was a doorman character that seemed to have been loosely based/ ripped off from yours.
JL: Sorry, haven’t seen it. My lawyers will look into it.

PH: Is there somebody you would like to see melt? If so, who?
JL (after some careful thought) : The actor William Hurt.

PH: Have you written any scripts yourself?
JL: Yes, I’m in pre-production of a short film I will direct titled Mr Softee: An American Tragedy concerning the trials and tribulations of a man made out of ice-cream.

PH: I know that after Frankenhooker was made, you were given a special credit for dialogue. With you, Henenlotter and Uncle Bob Martin on the script as such, we should be able to expect some of the funniest character interaction of the coming year.
JL: Yeah, I guess so. You’re the boss.

PH: I have yet to see any explanation for the role of Honey yet. How is the character related to the movie?
JL: Honey acts as a liason between J.Franken and the girls he needs to rebuild his sweetheart. She also brought me tea promptly at 2pm every day.

PH: Another cult figure to appear in the film was Shirley Stoler [star of The Honeymoon Killers]. How did you get on with her?
JL: She must live in a “whine” cellar.

PH: Did you know that Napoleon Bonaparte was poisoned by wall-paper?
JL: No, but I know they auctioned off his shrivelled, mummified penis ten years ago [This is true!] and it had a distinctly recognisable paisley design from the wall-paper on it [Er…].

PH: In one part of the film, you seem to drill a hole in your own head from one of the shots seen or is this a potential suicide following Elizabeth’s death? If the power drill was running and running through your head, how was the effect rigged up?
JL: What effect? That was real! The catch? After returning home from the war in Korea, I had a metal plate implanted in my skull.

PH: Patty Mullen is an absolute beauty. You did behave yourself with her on set, didn’t you James?
JL: Yes, I did. Though I often felt like taking a lead pipe to her head.

PH: The make-up job on Patty was highly reminiscent of the work performed on Malcolm McDowell in Britannia Hospital, don’t you think?
JL: What make-up? Actually, she looked more like Alex in A Clockwork Orange.

PH: I understand that Alan Jones was on the set collecting interviews.
JL: Don’t know him, but I’ve heard he’s a nasty bloke.

PH: Is there anyone you have a gripe with, be it in the making of Frankenhooker or otherwise? Offload it here.
JL: Why can’t we all just love each other?

PH: Anyone you suggest we never trust? Absolutely anyone.
JL: The guy who wrote England on $35 A Day.

PH: Where do you see yourself going from here?
JL: I’m currently starring in a television sitcom with Valerie Harper titled City on the CBS network, soon to be syndicated to the BBC. I shall return to features as soon as my schedule permits – I hear they’re remaking The Crawling Eye [ aka The Trollenberg Terror ].

PH: Did any children’s television programme ever scare you as a child or even today?
JL: A puppet show entitled Thunderbirds and the puppets would smoke cigarettes and perspire. It made me feel like I was on LSD.

PH: Thank you.
JL: Paul, you sound like a nice bloke but you are a little bizarre. Lay off those Robyn Hitchcock records for a while.

Section 1 : Spot the Quotes

Take a bow, Michael Gingold of ‘Scareaphanalia’ for getting 8 right. Also take a bow, the entrant who failed to get any right at all, but gained bonus points for imagination…

1. “Wake up – time to die!” – 40% right
   Correct answer : “Blade Runner”
   Best alternative : “The Toxic Avenger”
2. “I will not be threatened by a walking meatloaf!” – 60%
   Correct answer : “An American Werewolf in London”
   Best alternative : “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” [ think about it! ]
3. “I cut off his legs. And his arms. And his head. And I’m going to do the same to you” – 60%
   Correct answer : “The Hitcher”
   Best alternative : “Re-Animator”
4. “I don’t know what the hell’s in there, but it’s weird and pissed off whatever it is!” – 40%
   Correct answer – “The Thing”
   Best alternative – From a documentary, by the policeman outside 10 Downing Street…
5. “No tears please – it’s a waste of good suffering” – 50%
   Correct answer – “Hellraiser”
   Best alternative – “Argh! Like #1 this is as familar as hell!”
6. “While everybody else is opening up their presents, they’re opening up their wrists” – 60%
   Correct answer – “Gremlins”
   Best alternative – “Santa Claus, The Movie”
7. “Couldn’t enjoy it any more, Mum. Mmmm-mm-mmmm” – 0%!
   Correct answer – “Repo Man” [OK, it was a bit of a personal joke!]
   Best alternative – “Re-Animator” again; the cut scene involving Barbara Crampton and Dr Hill’s severed head, or “Psycho 2” or “Rabid Grannies” or “Pink Flamingoes”.
8. “Don’t you fucking look at me!” – 40%
   Correct answer – “Blue Velvet”
   Best alternative – “Manon des Sources” [an explanation of this one would be appreciated!]
9. “Although we may run out of Pan-Am coffee, we’ll never run out of TWA tea” – 0%!
   Correct answer – “Crimes of Passion” [Kathleen Turner, dressed as an air-hostess]
   Best alternative – “The Railway Children” [and this one!]
10. “We just cut up our girlfriend with a chainsaw – does that sound ‘fine”?” – 30%
    Correct answer – “Evil Dead II”
    Best alternative – “Heathers”

Special no-prize for the best non-answer goes to Glyn Williams, whose response to #9 was:

“A line from the forthcoming ‘Airport 90’ in which 700 passengers are trapped at Heathrow Airport by a French air traffic controller’s strike (see also ‘Airport 85’, 86, 87, 88 and 89). Within hours, the catering manager, played by Arthur Kennedy, starts to run out of refreshments and only a daring mid-motorway transfer of coffee from the Newport Pagnell service station (closed) prevents unrest. Charlton Heston plays the called out of retirement coffee-truck driver, Linnea Quigley plays the bubble headed air-hostess who falls for Chuck’s charms, Nastassja Kinski plays a singing nun (lynched by passengers in reel 2) and Marlon Brando plays a jumbo jet.”

At the bottom is a scribbled note, “I’ve just got the TWA-T joke!”….

Section 2 : Part-time employment

Given 10 famous people (someone didn’t know who Jim Bakker was), the entrants supplied suitable screen roles, providing interesting insights into their psychology…

1. Wendy James (lead singer, Transvision Vamp)

Beyond the expected comments about home-made videos, the two best or at least most intriguing suggestions were the title-roles in ‘Annie’ or the combined sequel to ‘Dumbo’ and ‘Bambi’: ‘Bimbo’.

2. Jim Bakker (ex-TV evangelist, now serving a very long jail sentence)

The perverse Jesus Christ-like figure in ‘God Told Me To’ or Elvis’ role in ‘Jailhouse Rock’

3. Mikhail Gorbachev (leader of the Soviet disUnion)

At least one contestant got a little confused here and swapped his answers to #3 and #4 round – at least I hope so, or his suggestion of “the woman who beats up all the surfers in ‘Surf Nazis Must Die'” is very worrying. Mind you, the alternatives of Leatherface or a role in ‘Auf Ghanistan Pet’ don’t indicate much better states of mind.

4. Gabriella Sabatini (nubile advertising hoarding)

More semi-deviant ideas, the best one being Bo Derek’s role in “10(is)”. The bad news is she’s already booked for “Gabi Does Dulwich”. “A paper-clip” and “a dead donkey in ‘Un Chien Andalou'” do not bear thinking about.

5. David Gower (English cricketer, though I use the term ‘cricketer’ loosely)

A wide selection : The Toxic Avenger, Pee Wee Herman or in any vampire movie. “an entertaining but inevitably short-lived appearance as a (middle order) bat”.

6. Salman Rushdie (Satan incarnate)

Surprisingly, only one entry went for The Invisible Man. Rambo’s testicle was suggested as being “nicely inconspicuous” but the best suggestion was “any movie which requires a nice, busty blonde…”

7. Edwina Currie (Conservative MP. For the moment…)

The eggman in ‘Pink Flamingoes’? “With a little more cleavage”, Elvira? The Wicked Witch of the West? Cruella de Ville? Attila the Hen? Who cares any more?

8. Kate Adie (BBC TV’s #1 news reporter)

I’ve had a lot of respect for her for a long time, ever since a Panorama programme on violence on TV which was the best investigation of it I’ve seen. So had the entrants, with the suggestions being mainly complimentary : She-Ra, Princess of Power, Karen Silkwood and, probably most plausibly of all, replacing Sigourney Weaver as Ripley in ‘Alien’ and ‘Aliens’.

9. Bob Monkhouse (game-show host and Mr Sincerity)

No respect here. Norman Bates was the least libellous, ahead of the evil ventriloquist’s dummy in ‘Magic’ [look at the video – the resemblance is striking!] and Fuad ‘Blood Feast’ Ramses. Vitriol prize: ‘The first victim who appears only briefly before being offed extremely bloodily and painfully’.

10. Pamella Bordes (bimbo of the year, 1989)

Oddly, two suggestions were for biographical films: one, replacing Julie Walters in ‘Personal Services’ and the other to play Mary Whitehouse… “The snake-woman in ‘Lair of the White Worm'” probably falls somewhere in between!

And there it is. The three contestants all wanted different videos so I declare the competition a triple tie between Andy ‘Surf Nazis’ Waller, Glyn ‘She’ Williams and Simon ‘Satan’s Dog’ Wood. Thanks also to Michael Gingold and Paul Higson for entering, even though they couldn’t win anything, and to Psychotronic Videos for taking the unclaimed prizes off my hands and giving me an original of ‘Videodrome’ instead! I’m acquiring bad videos and good quotes at a steady rate, so there’ll be another competition sometime. You’ve been warned…

Much of my life is governed by bizarre ideas that get out of hand – you’re reading one of them at the moment! However, even as such concepts go, the idea of flying across to New York for a weekend is a little hard to take. There was some logic behind it; my main holiday this year is going to be two weeks spent learning to drive, not my idea of fun, so I thought it’d be cool to throw all caution (and rather more money than I care to think about) to the winds and head for New York on an ultra-cheap Virgin flight.

Arriving at the airport clutching my weekend bag (socks, toothbrush and a wide range of unpleasant T-shirts), I discovered one of the perils of cheap airlines, the inevitable delay in the flight. Paranoia was soothed on discovering that every Virgin flight was late, some of them by up to 12 hours, which made our 90 minutes seem almost bearable – Gatwick airport isn’t somewhere I’d hang around by choice. In desperation I hit the book-shop, hoping to find something to kill time with and after some time rooting among Harold Robbins and Jeffrey Archer novels (and, oddly, P.J.O’Rourke’s ‘Holidays in Hell’), I went for ‘Slaughter of the Lambs’ by Thomas Harris, the nearest thing to a good book available.

We were eventually allowed onto the plane. “Hey, this is a lot roomier than I expected”, was my first thought. Then we were left the Upper Class i.e. expensive section into the Economy i.e. our area. Sit down, belt up and wait for take off. I had to stifle giggles throughout the demonstration of the safety drill, being unable to forget the piss-take – “the emergency exits are situated over the wings of the plane, which means you people here, here & here have no chance”. I was impressed with the power of the plane at take-off, which showed high acceleration and maintained it for a long while. I was also impressed with the Virgin stewardesses; an aisle seat meant I couldn’t see out the window but who wants to see the top of clouds when you can gaze wistfully after long, stocking encased legs… I began to wonder for whose benefit the safety belts were provided.

The main in-flight entertainment was a film – on leafing through the flight magazine, we could have been lumbered with ‘When Harry Met Sally’, which made ‘Black Rain’ a relief. Interesting to note no-one at Virgin gives a toss about showing 15-rated films to an audience of all ages. Seven hours after leaving, we struck land, not too gently, at Newark. Since they’ve abolished the visa requirement for UK citizens, I was hoping for a quick passage through immigration, but it was not to be. After filling in a form that had intriguing questions like ‘Are you a member of a Communist or other subversive group?’ and warned me that I might be refused entry if I was mentally handicapped (into the nation that elected Ronald Reagan president?), queuing for 45 minutes and being quizzed to make sure I had a return flight ticket, enough cash and a hotel, I was in. So much for “give me your poor, your huddled masses”.

Having taken the bus into New York, the next step was to get to the hotel. It was Bedlam outside, so a wise move seemed to be to take a taxi. This was fine until we arrived at the hotel – on pulling up at the curb, the taxi was approached by a bagman who suggested to the driver that he should move his fucking cab. The driver responded in kind, and the two began a contest to see which of them could cram the most swear-words into a sentence. The vagrant yanked open my door of the cab – was he going to get in next to me? He reached inside his pocket – ohgodhelphesgotagunletmeout. He got bored and drifted away. Welcome to New York. My state of mind wasn’t improved when I went for a burger to calm my nerves. I’m sitting there eating it, when in walks a policeman. Second Chance body armor, large semi-automatic weapon, the works. At this point, I rated my chances of getting out of the city alive at about 50/50.

Saturday morning dawned bright & early, jet lag working in my favour this way. Watched a bit of American TV before getting up – great sports coverage, everything else was dross. Some of the adverts had a horrible appeal, like the programme (sponsored by some diet plan) resembling a revivalist prayer meeting with people telling their tales of how said diet had saved their lives, before bursting into tears and having to be comforted by the presenter, who resembled Russell Grant, only a lot more effeminate.

Much of that day was spent walking down Fifth Avenue, and up Broadway. I was impressed with how clean and quiet the streets were compared to London. Even on a Saturday morning, there were about one tenth of the numbers you’d see on Oxford Street. Most people drive enormous cars, I expect – I thought the SUX-6000 in ‘Robocop’ was a joke, but it’s hideously close to the truth. It was great to see places like the Chrysler building, home of ‘Q – The Winged Serpent’ and the Empire State Building, climbing frame for large anthropoids. The latter was slightly disappointing, in that it’s tiered nature meant that by the time you were close enough to appreciate it’s size, it seemed to go up only twenty stories or so, compared with other slabs of glass-steel, which rose vertically up from street-level six or seven hundred feet without a pause for breath. It’s the only place you can get vertigo standing on the ground.

Spent a fair amount of time in book shops, or rather running back and forth between them. There is no fixed price for books in the States, so you have to comparison shop between places to get the best price. Picked up some interesting bits and pieces, most notably Klaus Kinski’s autobiography, ‘All I Need is Love’, following which he is now facing several libel suits. Had a quick drool in a couple of video stores, too, cursing the invention of the NTSC system!

Broadway goes on and on – I eventually gave up at Macy’s, the world’s largest department store with a turnover of $5 million per day. Eight floors, five of which sell nothing but women’s underwear. After heading back to the hotel, I got a call from Michael Gingold, the editor of Scareaphanalia and the only person I knew within striking distance – he came into town and after one drink in the hideously expensive hotel bar, we headed out. Hit something of a problem in the first place we tried – they demanded to see our ID, to prove we were over 21 (the drinking age in New York). Having been asked to prove my age once in the past six years, I naturally hadn’t bothered taking my passport, so after a brief delay, we found another bar, ready to prove our right to bear drinks. Naturally, they didn’t ask. However, they served a mean steak sandwich, a good pint of Guinness and the juke-box occasionally played tracks from ‘Blue Velvet’ which kept us happy, though our Dennis Hopper impressions got the odd funny look!

Continued in TC7

A Guide to Western Civilization, or My Story – Joe Bob Briggs (Penguin Originals, 5.99)

Published in the US in ’88, this is the second book from Joe Bob, his first being ‘Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-in’, one of last year’s Penguin originals, first published in ’87. ‘Western Civilization’ is a very different book, containing little about his favourite films (apart from a brief mention or two about ‘The Trip’, ‘Night of the Blood Beast’, ‘Maniac’ or ‘Bell, Bare & Beautiful’ or stars such as Steve Reeves or Annette Funicello), and more (much more) about his real-life exploits.

His first book was pretty much unreadable at one sitting (as you’d expect; it was, after all, a collection of columns in a newspaper), but enjoyable nevertheless. This second book, detailing such things as his earliest girlfriend Dede Wilkes, or how he invented the Titty Bar, his marriage to his star attraction and his exploits in Mexico helping the locals across the border and into America, land of the free.

There are a few occasional chuckles to be found but the rest is a bit of a strain, in parts even embarrassing. You’ll have to read some of his first book before you even consider embarking on this one, and then only if you’re really that interested in hearing about his (fantasy – Joe Bob, or Jose, as they know him in Mexico, is after all more of the writer’s character than his true self) life, without the info about the many trash and exploitation movies covered in his previous publication.

It’s hard to slag off a book which manages to come up with more than ten different phrases to describe the female breast in the space of two pages, but at times it just degenerates into plain silliness. The highlight of the book is his point-by-point description of the Kennedy assassination, so check this out if you see the book on a rack somewhere – page 165! For those who read ‘Joe Bob Goes to the Drive In’ in one sitting. (AF)