The Classics Never Die

Okay, I'm done talking about Vegas. I did want to talk about the 12 hour Mad Libs session we had going on the flight back, but the language we were throwing around that thing would make Redd Foxx blush. Obviously, the Mad Libs would first have to raise Mr. Foxx from the dead before he could start his blushing. This gets me to thinking: Mad Libs should put out a book of spells and curses. They could tie it in with Harry Potter or something and make a billion dollars. It'd also be the perfect way to capitalize on the burgeoning market of little pagan kids. Truth be told, I don't even know what pagans are. The only idea I have of them comes from that Dan Akroyd/Tom
Hanks movie, Dragnet. And if a Dan Akroyd character hates a religious group, then by God, so does Cody Wayne Maxwell Powell. Hopefully, we're all sufficiently confused now.

Okay, I started thinking about Dragnet and now I must heed to its siren song and blather incoherently about it. When we were growing up, my sister had this mania for watching certain movies over and over again. Not different movies, mind you, but a selection from a stable of roughly 6. I don't remember them all, but the major figures were Three Amigos, Sweet Dreams, and Cry Baby. Dragnet was one of the bit players in the rotation. Every evening for a two or three year stretch, she would watch at least one of those; she was like the kindergarten Cal Ripken Jr. of crappy cinema. Since I couldn't get any of my friends involved in my hobby of looking for rocks shaped like ex-presidents, I was often dragged into these viewing sessions, and thus I conservatively estimate that I've seen those movies 200 times each.

The end result was that, for years, I hated all of those movies with a passion. Carlos Jacott and all the possums of the world could've forged an alliance, and my loathing for their association would pale in comparison to my antipathy I felt towards Cry Baby. In fact, I hated those movies so much, I was convinced that they couldn't really exist; they must've been some sort of torture devises, created by my parents and inflicted upon me whenever I went a day without flossing. And then, one night a few years ago, I stumbled across Dragnet on TV, late at night. After so many years of separation, I could only stare at it, mouth agape, as if I had just discovered the Sasquatch in my underwear drawer. My friend who was there at the time noticed the change, and asked me what was the matter.

"Oh God," I said. "Pep and Joe are about to argue about chili dogs."

I only watched five minutes of the movie, but I gained a very valuable insight. I realized that if I were to ever, in a fit of anger, sell my sister off as a mail order bride, my sole defense could be to show Dragnet 50 times in a row. There's not a jury in this country that could be unsympathetic after that.