The 2003 best animated short was a clever space odyssey called “The ChubbChubbs!”

I got the chance to pitch a feature that would expand on the concept of the short, which allowed for a lot of fun riffs on classic sci-fi in an intergalactic movie-musical.

A somewhat long time ago, at a studio far, far away…

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The ChubbChubbs Movie! 

Proposal by Eric Williams

Open on a ROCKETSHIP blasting through OUTER SPACE.  From behind, it looks like an impressive battle cruiser, but as we pull along its side, we discover that it’s the galactic equivalent of a station wagon:  painted green, with fake wooden paneling along its sides and bumper stickers of the tourist destinations it has been.  As we look through the front windshield, we see an alien HUSBAND and WIFE arguing over whether they’re heading the right way, while their SON and DAUGHTER torment each other in the passenger area behind them.  Some things truly are universal.

The husband reluctantly agrees to pull in at the next planet to ask for directions.  As he does, he goes against the flow of a flurry of spaceships careening madly toward him, their pilots seemingly desperate to get away from the planet.  But he continues downward, and all looks peaceful once they land at the Gas Giant service station.

The family disembark and walk into the station.  Mom picks up some supplies (opportunities for jokes as we see the various products for sale).  The kids rush to the rest rooms (we see the universal pictogram symbols on the multiple rest-room doors – it’s not just limited to “Men” and “Women” here).  Dad tries to find an attendant who can give him directions, but he and his family seem to be the only ones here.  Evidence suggests that everyone who had been here panicked and fled at a moment’s notice.

The family huddle together and walk cautiously behind the fueling station, where they discover a wrecked spaceship with a gigantic hole seemingly chewed out of its fuselage.  Mangled, twisted metal is everywhere.  Suddenly, they hear a rocket engine start – only to realize that someone has just stolen the station wagon and is escaping the planet in it.

As all around them gets quiet, they hear someone whimpering.  Cautiously, they move closer to the sound — and discover a fierce-looking creature in a service-station attendant’s smock hiding in the shadows.  He leaps away from them in fear until he realizes it’s just a family.  The attendant peeks out from his hiding place and asks “Are they gone?”  The father asks “Who?” and the attendant says, with terror in his voice, “The ChubbChubbs!”

Just at that moment, a tall menacing armored creature steps around the corner of the building.  As its shadow falls over the screaming family, we CUT TO:

DIVA singing “HELP!” by the Beatles, onstage at the ALE-E INN nightclub on the planet GLORF.  A slapstick main-title sequence set to the song introduces us to the club and particularly to MEEPER, the hapless janitor with dreams of being a singer.  We transition into his daydream when Meeper is conked on the head with his mop – the mop on his head transforms into a Beatles moptop haircut, leading us into a brief homage to the opening credits of “A Hard Day’s Night”, with Meeper being chased by hordes of crazed fans.  We switch back and forth from reality, where Meeper continues to get bossed and jostled and causes general havoc in the club, to his fantasies, where he is suave and agile and he is in scenes which mimic other music videos or musicals (including “Moulin Rouge” and “Chicago” – and maybe even things the kids in the audience could possibly have seen!).

As the song ends, Meeper accidentally clobbers a customer much bigger than he is.  The customer falls to the floor with a huge THUMP.  All eyes turn to Meeper.  No one can believe that little Meeper toppled this behemoth.  As BORIS the bouncer tends to the fallen customer, Meeper approaches meekly, worried about the customer.  “Is he…?  Is he…?”  Boris replies:  “Yup.  It’s Izzy.”

The gargantuan IZZY, a cocky rocket pilot, sits up, dazed.  Meeper smiles at him apologetically.  Izzy wants to crush Meeper.  But Boris convinces Izzy to let it slide.  “It was an accident.  You don’t have to worry about Meeper.  He’s nobody.”  Izzy realizes how true that is and goes back to the bar, buying drinks for everyone.  The crowd follows Izzy, leaving Meeper alone.

The club owner, ZELZAH, a gravel-voiced broad who’s been around the business forever (almost literally), tells Meeper to get back to work.  Meeper asks when Zelzah will let him sing onstage.  We can tell from her expression that this is a request Meeper has made doggedly, and she is running out of nice ways to say “Never.”  She philosophizes, telling Meeper “I believe we’re all put in the universe for a reason.  And that reason is not to annoy everybody else.”  Meeper says “But I really want to be a singer.”  Zelzah replies “I really want to be three hundred again, but that ain’t gonna happen.  I know what you WANT to do.  You need to figure out what you CAN do.”

Meeper takes his break and walks outside.  He stares at the setting twin suns of Glorf and, looking like a forlorn mixture of Luke Skywalker and Dorothy from “The Wizard Of Oz”, he sings a lament about what he wants from life (possibly titled “I Want”).  His desires start simple, just getting on the Ale-E Inn stage and having the audience like him, perhaps winning the love of Diva, but gradually becoming greedier and more outlandish to the point of absurdity.  But as the song reaches a crescendo, he realizes that Izzy was right, singing something along the lines that he’s “just a little nothing underneath Glorf’s three suns”…and stops.  “THREE suns?”

As he looks at the sky, there does seem to be a third sun on the horizon – a big orange ball.  It’s darting erratically through the air, getting closer and closer, aiming right toward Meeper.  He starts running and it continues on his tail.  Finally, he dives for cover over a huge sand dune and whatever-it-is crashes behind him.  After a few moments, Meeper peeks over the sand dune and discovers a charred unrecognizable spaceship, sputtering the last of its fuel.   As Meeper approaches cautiously, a hatch opens and light emerges from inside.  Meeper backs away in fear…and watches as four tiny furry CREATURES waddle out.  Seeing these harmless little things, Meeper steps closer.  The creatures frown, regarding Meeper suspiciously, but Meeper says “You don’t hafta worry about me, little guys.  I’m Meeper.  I’m harmless.  I’m…nobody.”  The creatures exchange glances and seem to agree among themselves that they can trust Meeper.  Meeper peeks inside the spaceship and asks, worried, if they’ve got anyone else hiding inside.  The creatures shake their heads and Meeper looks relieved.

Boris the bouncer yells across the sands that Meeper’s break is over and he needs to come back to work.  Meeper calls back that he’ll be there in a minute.  He worries about what to do with the little creatures.  He doesn’t want to abandon them in the cold desert sand.  He asks if they’re hungry, miming eating by exaggeratedly opening and closing his jaw in huge bites.  The creatures nod enthusiastically.  He gathers them in his mop bucket and carries them to the club, where he leaves them outside, promising to bring them food.

Meeper sneaks some table scraps to the creatures and, when he checks again, the food is all gone.  Meeper asks if they want more.  The creatures nod.  Meeper slips outside with the equivalent of four t-bone steaks.  The next time he looks, the creatures have devoured them too.  “Wow, you guys are really starving.  That must have been a long trip.”  He knows he shouldn’t, but Meeper sneaks the alien equivalent of a jumbo turkey out of the kitchen and carries it to the creatures.  He steps inside and hears what sounds like chain saws outside.  He leans back out the door and discovers that the entire turkey-esque meal is completely gone, bones and all.  Meeper is impressed…and more than a little scared.  But the creatures just smile up at him appreciatively.

Meeper returns to work and is confronted by Zelzah about all the food that is missing, especially the big bird that was to be the centerpiece of Izzy’s surprise birthday party.  “Maybe I’ll fill you with stuffing and serve you instead!”  Meeper realizes he’s made a huge mistake and promises to pay Zelzah back.  Zelzah says Meeper will definitely pay for the missing food, but she’s had enough of Meeper’s foolishness.  Meeper is fired.

Carrying the four little creatures in a cardboard box, Meeper returns to his tiny home, feeling like a complete loser.  He plays the messages on his holographic answering machine but there’s nothing personal, just holographic telemarketing calls and one from Princess Leia saying “Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope”, which Meeper gloomily erases, saying “Wrong number.”  Meeper flops down on his couch and turns on the TV.  The little creatures look sad for Meeper.  They look at his belongings, including a faded and creased photo of a couple who look a great deal like Meeper holding their baby Meeper.  There don’t seem to be any more recent pictures of the couple, just pictures of young Meeper in orphanage talent shows and other signs of his desperate attempts to become a singer.  The creatures look with sympathy at their new friend.

Suddenly, a THUD is heard.  The ground shakes so much that Meeper’s cheap IKEA-style furniture disassembles.  He rushes to the window and the creatures climb upon him to look with him.  In the distance, they see a large spaceship has landed near the Ale-E Inn and tall menacing creatures in armor, like the one we saw at the service station, are climbing out.  Frightened, Meeper pulls down his windowshade.  The little creatures don’t look scared – more like angry.

At the Ale-E Inn, the patrons have become aware of the new arrivals.  Some are fleeing in panic.  Others are hiding.  Even big brave Izzy has ducked under the table, trying to maintain his dignity while munching on a piece of his birthday cake and wearing a party hat with a propeller on top.  Outside, the armored menaces are sniffing around for something.  Their noses lead them to the kitchen door of the club and to the crashed spaceship.  One of them scrapes away the black crud encrusted around the spacecraft, revealing green paint and wood paneling underneath.  One of them sniffs the ground and senses a trail leading across the desert, straight toward Meeper’s house.

Meeper cowers as the thudding of the soldiers’ footsteps gets louder and closer, louder and closer, but then…it stops.  For a moment, Meeper relaxes.  Then, his doorbell rings – it plays the five notes from “Close Encounters”.  Nervous, Meeper walks to the door and checks the peephole.  (The door is extremely concave, to allow room for Meeper’s nose.)  But through the peephole, everything looks black.  Confused, he opens the door and sees the armored troops looming over him, blocking out all light.  Meeper’s knees knock and his teeth chatter.  The troops say they think Meeper has something that belongs to them.  Meeper meekly hands them a rented videotape that is overdue, apologizing that he didn’t rewind it.

The lead soldier flings the tape aside and grabs Meeper by the neck, lifting him into the air.  The little creatures come to the door and glare at the troops.  Meeper, thinking they’ve come to defend him, gasps for them to shoo and tells the troops to leave these poor little defenseless creatures alone…but he notices that it’s now the troops whose knees are knocking and teeth are chattering.  The lead soldier is sweating so much that Meeper oozes from his grip.  One of the troops steps forward tentatively, carrying what looks like an airline dog carrier but with extremely heavy shielding and reinforcements.  He steps toward the little creatures, telling them to get inside “like nice little ChubbChubbs”.  The troops lunge toward the little creatures, whose mouths open to reveal vicious whirling razor-sharp teeth.  Meeper backs inside, covering his eyes.  He hears the sounds of a brutal fight and, only when it subsides, does he dare to look outside.

As the cloud of dust settles, the troops are gone, with only chunks of their armor remaining.  (Probably recreate the moment from the short where the smallest ChubbChubb coughs up a huge piece of armor.)  Two of the ChubbChubbs chomp on the dog carrier, swallowing it in a couple bites.  Meeper is amazed to discover how fierce his new little friends can be.  But now that the battle’s over, they cuddle up to Meeper.

Soon, a crowd arrives to find out what happened.  Not knowing why the troops were after the ChubbChubbs, Meeper decides it’s best to keep their presence a secret.  He gently hides them in a closet with his washer and dryer, then steps outside to answer questions about what happened.  It seems absurd that Meeper could have defeated the soldiers, but without the ChubbChubbs’ involvement being mentioned, there’s no other rational explanation.  Of course, in Meeper’s version, they weren’t devoured.  He just beat them up so badly, they ran away, leaving some chunks of their armor behind as they fled.  Izzy, who’s still hurting from the accidental pummeling he took from Meeper earlier, vouches for Meeper’s strength.  The crowd carries Meeper back to the Ale-E Inn on their shoulders, celebrating his victory, toasting him as their new hero.  Even Diva shows interest in him, which she never did before.  Meeper returns home at the end of the night, proud of his new status.  He goes to check on the ChubbChubbs, who are right where he left them…although the washer and dryer are gone.  One of the ChubbChubbs coughs up a sock.

Well, Meeper’s not a nobody any more.  Newspapers, TV and the internet carry stories of Meeper’s amazing feat.  Meeper is back at work at the Ale-E Inn, but not as a janitor.  He’s gotten his wish and is now the headline singer, even though his singing is as bad as ever.  But because he’s a celebrity now, the audience applauds anyway…although Diva is upset that she’s been reduced to waiting tables and has to endure Meeper’s growing ego.  When Boris the bouncer has trouble with anyone at the door, Meeper walks over and asks if he’s having problems.  As soon as the troublemakers see Meeper, they behave – so intimidating is his reputation.  And Meeper’s contract demands amazing quantities of food backstage for every show.  No one knows that the food is really for the ChubbChubbs, whom he keeps as pets in the fancy house he can now afford with his increased salary from the club.

Then one night, an exotically beautiful alien named MINERVA enters the club, looking a little tentative, hoping to speak to Meeper.  Assuming she’s a fan of his singing, Meeper autographs an 8×10 for her and is about to send her on her way, but she’s really there because she wants to hire him for a secret mission.  He asks her “Why me?”  Minerva says “I hear you’re the only one brave enough to handle the toughest creatures in the galaxy.”  Meeper is flattered.  He’s particularly tempted when Minerva mentions that the mission will take them to the biggest entertainment planet in the galaxy.  (Meeper: “Planet Hollywood?”  Minerva: “That tacky overpriced dump?  No, planet Gliitz!”)  Meeper realizes that, if he can get a job singing on Gliitz, his fame could be even bigger than it is on Glorf.  Then again, Meeper is happy with the fame he’s got and he certainly doesn’t want to endanger it by having to prove his heroism again.

Izzy has overheard Minerva’s proposal and offers his own services as “pilot and hero”.  Jealous, Meeper leaps between Izzy and Minerva and says “She asked me first” and agrees to take the mission.  Meeper and Izzy fight over which of them will take the job until Minerva stops them, saying she’ll hire them both.  Since she’ll need a pilot and a heavily armored spaceship, Izzy and his ship will come in handy.  Izzy is insulted to be playing second-fiddle to Meeper, but he’s glad to get any work at all, since Meeper has been getting all the attention lately.

Once the cargo hold of Izzy’s ship is reinforced with titanium, per Minerva’s specifications, Meeper, Izzy and Minerva set off on their mission.  The staff of the Ale-E Inn wave goodbye to their brave hero…and Izzy.  Meeper’s baggage includes a mysterious container with something moving inside — and a whole lot of food.

Izzy introduces Meeper and Minerva to the ship’s computer, with a polite, eerily calm and very familiar voice – the AL 9000.  (If we can’t get Douglas Rain who did HAL in “2001”, Gene Wilder would sound about right – and would probably be funnier if, at some point, AL starts to panic.)  AL has the annoying habit of addressing Izzy as “Dave”.  When Izzy checks his e-mail, it’s “You’ve got mail, Dave.”  Izzy screams, “I keep telling you!  Stop calling me ‘Dave’!”, then explains to Meeper and Minerva, “Never buy a second-hand computer.”

During the journey, Meeper and Izzy constantly compete for Minerva’s attention, and she seems equally drawn by Izzy’s strength and Meeper’s inherent dorky sensitivity, despite his desperate attempts to seem cool and tough.  As they pass one planet, they receive a distress signal.  Minerva wants to stay on course for their original mission, but Izzy insists that the Code of Space requires them to assist anyone who’s in trouble.  Not wanting to look like a wimp, Meeper agrees, dramatically ordering Izzy to land the ship on the planet.  By the time Meeper has finished his oration about the importance of looking out for those less fortunate, Izzy has already matter-of-factly landed on the planet.

As in “Star Wars”, every planet they encounter on their journey has one defining characteristic (swamp planet, ice planet, desert planet), only these are more unusual, like a partly cloudy planet or a sleet planet.  Well, this primitive planet has a very thick atmosphere which filters out all colors, so everything looks black and white.  On top of that, it’s so backward technologically that the spaceships are flown on wires.  And the fierce monsters look like guys in rubber suits.  Yes, it’s ZOTZ, the planet of cheap special effects!

Wanting to impress Minerva, Meeper says he’ll handle the crisis alone, refusing any help from Izzy – mainly because he doesn’t want Izzy to see that the ChubbChubbs are doing the actual heroics.  Meeper goes to the cargo hold and removes the ChubbChubbs in their carrying case, then walks onto the empty streets of the planet, where a Godzilla-like monster is holding a toy-looking train in his rubbery claws.  (The temptation to have the bystanders speak stiff English as if it were poorly-synchronized dubbing is probably too strong and too obvious for me to resist.)  The monster drops the train and stomps toward Meeper, shooting fire from his mouth.  Meeper looks unflappable as he reaches over to unlock the ChubbChubbs from their cage.  But when he lifts the handle, the lock is jammed.  He chuckles nervously and tries the lock again, but it’s still stuck.  He turns to the monster with a pitiful grin and asks “Can you give me a second?”  The monster shoots another blast of flame at Meeper.

The ChubbChubbs leap to Meeper’s defense, revving up their rotating choppers to chew their way out of their carrying case.  They charge toward the monster, who is so terrified, he runs away in a panic.  Panting, the monster lets out little desperate bursts of smoke.  He becomes entangled in electrical power lines (that look like cheap plastic models) and tumbles into the ocean (which looks like a wading pool underneath a painted backdrop of the sky).  Meeper thanks the ChubbChubbs and puts them back in their case before the citizens emerge from hiding to congratulate him for defeating the monster.  Izzy and Minerva come out of the spaceship.  Minerva is very impressed by Meeper’s heroics, but Izzy smells something fishy – and it’s not just the seafood banquet being given in Meeper’s honor.  (Meeper makes sure the ChubbChubbs get their reward.  He sneaks them into a fish market, where the four of them polish off a whale in no time.)

As they fly away from Zotz, Meeper is in such a happy mood that he begins to sing.  As he does, the ship begins to veer wildly off course.  Izzy doesn’t understand what’s going wrong until he realizes that the frequency of Meeper’s singing is interfering with AL 9000 and is throwing all the spaceship’s instruments out of whack.  Izzy makes Meeper promise never to sing again while they’re flying.  Meeper apologizes but tells Izzy he needs to loosen up.  Izzy says he prefers to act dignified, rather than being a buffoon like Meeper.  Minerva is intrigued and asks if Izzy ever lets himself relax.  Izzy reluctantly admits, with something approaching shame, that he did drop his guard one time, but it wasn’t his fault.  When he was stationed on Pluto, someone slipped him a mickey and it made him act goofy.  (Perhaps AL 9000 flashes a copyright infringement warning.)

AL 9000 warns Izzy that another ship is trailing them, which he identifies as being from the same planet as the armored troops who Meeper supposedly defeated.  Izzy doesn’t tell Minerva, not wishing to alarm her, but he does mention it to Meeper.  Izzy thinks they should stop and fight, but Meeper thinks the better course is to avoid fighting.  Izzy begrudgingly puts the ship into hyper-smell – they travel faster than the speed of smell, making them undetectable by the ship that’s following them.  Unfortunately, the ChubbChubbs have finished all their stored food and have started to munch on the ship itself, chewing through some wiring.  The ship is forced to make an emergency landing on the nearest planet, which AL 9000 informs them is FPPPPPPT, the sponge planet.

As Izzy repairs the ship, Meeper and Minerva get to know the Fpppppptians, inhabitants of the tiny sponge planet which has suffered through a severe drought.  Compassionate to the little guys, Meeper offers to bring some water from the ship.  He runs back and fetches a bucket of water, which drips as he carries it back to the inhabitants.  He also doesn’t shut off the faucet entirely, so water continues to drip on the surface of the planet while he’s gone.  After the first spongepeople slurp up the first bucketful of water, more spongepeople arrive, so Meeper trots back to the ship for another bucketful.  The trip back to the ship seems longer to Meeper this time.  He gets another bucket of water and trundles back, getting really exhausted.  It IS taking him longer to get back.  And the hills seem steeper than they did before.  When he reaches Minerva, they realize what’s happening:  the water spilling on the surface of the planet is soaking the sponge planet…and making it grow!  What was a tiny planet with little molehills when they arrived is getting bigger and bigger, and those molehills are turning into mountains!

Meeper notices a spaceship coming toward them and realizes it’s the ship that’s been following them on the trip.  Meeper grabs Minerva and yells “Let’s get outta here”, carrying her in his arms as he huffs and puffs over the hills and the other obstacles which keep getting bigger and bigger.  The bad guys’ spaceship is getting closer, and because of the planet’s expansion, Izzy’s ship keeps getting further and further away.  Meeper and Minerva finally reach Izzy’s ship in the nick of time, just as he’s finished making his repairs.  They take off and engage in an exciting outer space chase until Izzy is finally able to elude the pursuing spaceship and return to hyper-smell.

Once they’re safely away from imminent threat, Izzy demands to know about the mysterious cargo which chewed through the wiring and almost ruined their mission. Meeper takes Izzy and Minerva to the cargo hold and releases the ChubbChubbs from their cage.  As soon as Izzy sees them, he screams “ChubbChubbs!”, runs from the room like a coward and slams the hatch behind him.  Minerva stays in a corner, as far away from the ChubbChubbs as she can get.  Meeper confesses that the ChubbChubbs defeated the soldiers and he took the credit.  Meeper says he’s not a hero at all.  He’s just a screw-up.  He’s just a nobody.

Meeper walks over to the ChubbChubbs and they perch on his hands and shoulders peacefully.  He tells Minerva, “Don’t worry, they won’t bite…unless you try to hurt them.”  The ChubbChubbs seem as reluctant to approach Minerva as she is to approach them, but Meeper gets them together and they start to interact playfully.  Meeper tells her he’s given the nearly identical-looking ChubbChubbs names.  “There’s Furry and Fuzzy.  No, wait.  THAT’S Furry, and THAT’S Fuzzy.  Then, there’s Furball.  And the little one is Furball Junior.  I never had pets before, so I’m not too good at the naming thing.”  Minerva starts to like the little guys and even sings them a lullabye.  Meeper is amazed to discover that Minerva has a beautiful voice.  Minerva blushes.  She says her parents are great singers, but she’s shy and never had the confidence to pursue it as a career.  Meeper says he has just the opposite problem:  he’s got lots of confidence but he stinks.  Minerva says goodnight to Meeper, leaving him playing with the ChubbChubbs.  She looks very conflicted.

In the morning, Meeper is surprised that Izzy isn’t at the controls of the ship as they are ready to make their final approach to Gliitz.  Suddenly, Minerva aims a disintegration gun at Meeper and reprograms AL 9000 with new coordinates.  A transmission from the EVIL COMMANDER of the enemy ship which has been following them congratulates Minerva on a job well done.  We learn that Minerva is actually a spy, hired to lure Meeper onto this mission.  The story about going to Gliitz was all a ruse.  The mission’s real purpose is to go to the ChubbChubbs’ planet and fill the cargo hold with them, so poachers can sell them.  The ChubbChubbs who became Meeper’s pets were escapees from a previous failed attempt by other poachers.   The evil commander says they needed Meeper on this mission because he’s apparently the only creature in the universe who has learned how to deal with ChubbChubbs without being destroyed by them.

We cut away to the cargo hold.  Minerva has slipped Izzy a “mickey” and locked him and the ChubbChubbs in an inescapable titanium-reinforced section of the cargo hold.  Izzy acts uncharacteristically silly and the ChubbChubbs are making fun of him through their expressions and wordless gibberish.

Minerva aims the disintegration gun at Meeper and forces him to operate the controls to the ChubbChubb planet.  Meeper asks “And what if I refuse?”  Minerva: “Then you’ll be disintegrated.”  Meeper says “But I like being integrated.  How do you know I won’t overpower you and take the gun away?”  Minerva: “Because you’re a wimp.”  Meeper can’t disagree, but he also can’t believe that Minerva would do this, especially after she’d gotten to know him and the ChubbChubbs.  “What did the ChubbChubbs ever do to you?  What did I ever do to you?”  Minerva confesses that she was forced to do this, because the evil commander of the poachers is holding her parents as hostages on the other ship.  “If I don’t get you to fill this ship with ChubbChubbs, then my parents will be…”  She can’t even finish the sentence.  Meeper feels terrible.  There’s got to be a way to out of this without hurting the ChubbChubbs or Minerva’s parents.

Looming ahead of them is what looks like one huge ChubbChubb, hanging in space.  AL 9000 informs us that it’s the ChubbChubbs home planet, the surface of which is covered with ChubbChubbs.  He zooms in to show millions of ChubbChubbs on his display panel, all living peacefully and munching on plant life.  On the open audio channel between their ship and the enemy ship, Meeper asks the evil commander, “You’re going to kill all those ChubbChubbs just to get their fur?”  The commander replies, “That.  And their teeth are one of the most indestructible substances in the universe.  Also, they make a delightful dessert topping.”  The commander orders Meeper to open the hatch and begin scooping up ChubbChubbs immediately.  The enemy ship hovers nearby, ready to blast Meeper’s ship if he doesn’t start shoveling.

The disintegration gun shakes in Minerva’s hand as she aims it at Meeper.  Meeper looks hopeless and is about to start scooping when he gets an idea.  He clears his throat and tells AL 9000 “Brace yourself”.  Then Meeper starts to sing as loud as he can into his microphone, probably a work song of some sort (like “Workin’ In The Coal Mine” or “Whistle While You Work” or “Heigh Ho” or “Sixteen Tons”) and he sounds just terrible.

On the other ship, the ruthless poachers are in agony as Meeper’s gosh-awful singing reverberates through their ship.  Their navigational instruments are going kerflooey.  Their computers are shorting out.  Their ship is going out of control.  The evil commander orders his crew to figure out what’s happening.

Meeper keeps singing, hitting high unpleasant notes, as he struggles to keep his own ship stable.  Minerva tumbles around the cockpit, yelling at Meeper, “What are you doing?”  AL 9000 wishes he had fingers and ears, so he could put the former into the latter.

In the cargo hold, Izzy and the ChubbChubbs are being flung about wildly..  Izzy’s getting queasy, but the ChubbChubbs are having a blast, singing along wordlessly.

Suddenly, Meeper stops singing and both ships stabilize.  Meeper speaks into the microphone, addressing the evil commander of the other ship.  “Release your hostages immediately.”  The commander refuses, so Meeper begins singing again.  The ships start to rock and roll again.

On the enemy ship, the crew is ready to mutiny, but the commander refuses to give in.  “We came here for the ChubbChubbs and we’re not leaving without them.”  But the crew can’t take the turbulence – or Meeper’s singing – any longer.  The crew usher Minerva’s parents into an escape pod and abandon ship, leaving the commander onboard, trying to control the ship as it wobbles uneasily above the surface of the ChubbChubb planet.

Minerva sees the escape pod jettisoned from the enemy ship.  She asks AL if her parents are onboard.  He confirms that only one lifeform remains on the main spaceship.  Minerva makes her way over to Meeper to give him the good news.  They see the evil commander on their video screen as he desperately tries to stabilize his spaceship all by himself.  Minerva thinks he just needs one last push to send him plummeting to the planet, but Meeper can’t think of what to sing next.  AL says he knows a song and begins to sing “Bicycle Built For Two” (as HAL did in “2001”).  Meeper and Minerva join in, and Meeper’s discordant notes are just what it takes to send the enemy spaceship spiraling down to the ChubbChubb planet.

On the surface, the ChubbChubbs look up at the falling spaceship.  En masse, they part to make room for the ship to land.  The evil commander looks relieved as he touches down safely.  He looks out the window.  The ground is covered with ChubbChubbs, all the way to the horizon.  He sneers at them…and millions of them growl back and bare their shiny metallic teeth.  The commander gulps as the ChubbChubbs swarm over the ship.

Meeper pulls away, so they can see the entire planet.  He and Minerva watch as the enemy ship disappears under a covering of fur.  Then, a few moments later, from the surface of the planet comes a massive reverberating BELCH.  Izzy’s ship shudders from the sonic waves.  Meeper and Minerva hug victoriously.  AL says “Yippee” in his monotone.

Minerva and Meeper unlock the storage area, where Izzy lies dazed and loopy…with the four ChubbChubbs nuzzling him gently.  Meeper realizes the ChubbChubbs belong on their home planet, where they can live in peace and no one will bother them.  He’ll miss them, but he thanks them for making him somebody for a while.  The ChubbChubbs are sent to the planet’s surface in an escape pod and Meeper waves a sad goodbye.

The escape pod from the enemy ship requests permission to dock.  Izzy, now back in control of his faculties, worries that it’s a trap, but Minerva tells him her parents are onboard.  The pod docks and the passengers emerge.  Minerva runs over to her MOTHER and FATHER, who embrace her joyfully.  Meeper looks away, reminded once again how alone he is in the universe.  But Izzy keeps looking back and forth between Minerva’s parents and Meeper, as if assembling a puzzle in his head.  Minerva introduces her parents to Izzy, then says “And this is Meeper.”

Meeper turns to shake their hands and is stunned to discover that they are HIS FATHER AND MOTHER. They’re considerably older than they looked in the photo in his home but the family resemblance is otherwise unmistakeable.  In fact, it’s fairly surprising that anyone as pretty as Minerva emerged from this gene pool.  As soon as they see Meeper, they are stunned with shock and delight, hardly daring to believe that this could really be be their long-lost son.  They explain that they were a successful husband-and-wife singing duo called MAXX and MAAMBO.  Many years ago when they were on tour, a careless roadie misplaced their baby boy.  They searched frantically for him for years.  Eventually, they were so devastated, they had to stop performing.  “It didn’t matter how rich and famous we were.  Without our baby, we felt like nobodies.”  They led quiet lives and had baby Minerva, but they never forgot about their lost little boy.  Meeper and Minerva look at each other, tears welling in their eyes, and yell “Sis!” and “Bro!”  They run toward each other and hug, with Maxx and Maambo joining for a delightfully sobbing group hug.

Watching this emotional scene, Izzy remarks to AL 9000 that maybe he’s got a chance with Minerva after all.  But AL is distracted, calculating the astronomical odds against the extraordinary coincidence of Meeper and Minerva being brother and sister.  AL asks Izzy why Minerva never noticed that Meeper bore such a striking resemblance to her own parents.  Izzy shrugs, telling AL that not everything in the universe is logical.  But when it looks like AL is about to rattle off a lot of other holes that the internet film geeks and sci-fi nerds are going to poke in our storyline, Izzy casually snags his foot on AL’s electrical cord and unplugs him from the wall.  AL’s voice slows to a stop, just as he’s pointing out that space is a vacuum, so you couldn’t possibly hear the planet of ChubbChubbs belch.

When they return to Glorf, Meeper figures he’ll be lucky to get his janitor job back once Izzy tells everyone what a coward he really is – but Izzy announces that Meeper was a real hero and, if it wasn’t for Meeper, an entire planet would have been wiped out.  And Meeper knows that Izzy means it.  He says he never could have done it without Izzy.  Reporters swarm Meeper, asking what he’s going to do now.  He thinks about it for a moment and we dissolve to:

A huge Hollywood-Bowl-style venue on the planet GLIITZ, filled to capacity, waiting for a performance.  Except for the bad guys, all the characters from the movie are somewhere in the audience — even the tourist family from the opening sequence.

Backstage, Meeper waits nervously as the orchestra warms up.  Zelzah from the Ale-E Inn checks the crowd, awed by its size.  She walks over to Meeper and asks if he’s nervous, but Meeper says after you’ve saved a planet, this is a piece of cake.  The curtain parts and Meeper walks center stage.  The crowd applauds wildly.  Meeper gestures for the crowd to quiet down and they do — all except the brother and sister from the tourist family, who are picking on each other.  Slowly, they become aware that everyone is staring at them…including the galaxy’s bravest fighter, Meeper.  Meeper simply says “Be good.”  The kids nod obediently, fold their hands in front of them and clam up.

Meeper takes the mike and says, “Ladies, gentlemen, cyborgs, mutants, single-celled organisms and other things that defy all rational description…it’s my pleasure to introduce to you…my little sister, Minerva!”  He gestures to the wings, where Minerva stands, afraid to go on.  Her parents stand behind her and push her onstage.  She smiles nervously to the crowd.  The applause dwindles.  Meeper motions to the conductor and the orchestra begins to play, with Diva and Boris in the chorus.

Minerva begins to sing (possibly an upbeat arrangement of something like the Beatles’ “All You Need Is Love” or maybe an original song with a similarly positive theme).  As the song continues, Meeper dances manically around the stage and encourages the audience to sing along.  Even Izzy finally loosens up and gets in the spirit of the occasion – and his spaceship is parked backstage, so AL 9000 can join in the singing too.  And in the front section of the audience are Meeper’s special guests, thousands of ChubbChubbs, happily bobbing back and forth, flashing their shiny teeth as they harmonize.

Meeper stands onstage behind Minerva, with his arms slung over his parents’ shoulders.  Maxx and Maambo are so proud of both their children and so happy to have their family together at last.  Meeper’s mother listens to Minerva singing and says “She certainly got the talent in the family.”  But Meeper’s dad hugs his son and says “But you got the looks, boy!” as they bump noses.

As the song continues, we pull back from the planet and the song echoes through the universe.  And a ChubbChubb flies toward our camera, smiles at us, opens its mouth wide…and chomps on the screen, causing a BLACKOUT.

Greg’s caricatures are also posted at his blog, the Williams Projects Archive. As you might guess, a complete collection of unrealized Williams Brothers projects could become quite voluminous.

=========

PRESENTING

Starring JOHN HODGMAN,

a professional writer.

Thirty weekly minutes of

animated sketches, songs,

recreations of true-life anecdotes,

and a great deal of totally-made-up crap.

Anchored by the noted raconteur

JOHN HODGMAN

with all the dry wit and deadpan absurdity

for which he has become

surprisingly famous.

Each week, Mr. Hodgman –

or, to be more precise, his cartoon doppelganger –

will embark on a George Plimpton-esque journey into the unknown,

with the advantage that, by making these quests in animated form,

Mr. Hodgman will at no point endanger his own health or safety.

At worst, we are talking a head cold

from the air conditioning at the recording studio.

Joining him on these excursions

will be a wide and impressive array of Mr. Hodgman’s cosmopolitan

friends, colleagues,

casual acquaintances

and pathetic hangers-on,

including his faithful sidekick and personal troubadour,

JONATHAN COULTON,

and serving as Mr. Hodgman’s

spiritual advisor

in times of crisis –

his Obi-Wan Kenobi, if you will –

THE GHOST OF

GEORGE PLIMPTON. 

Each episode shall explore a given subject.

Say, the furry lobster.

(You weren’t supposed to say “the furry lobster” aloud.

We should have been clearer about that.)

This may take the form of a single episode-long escapade

or a series of related vignettes or “skits”.

For example, Mr. Hodgman’s fanciful tales of

the exotic Mall of America food court and its colorful denizens

(as found in his book, “The Areas Of My Expertise”)

could be brought vividly to life through the medium of the cartoon.

Mr. Hodgman’s musings on the relative merits of

flight versus invisibility as super-powers

(as heard by radio listeners on “This American Life”)

could be demonstrated in action via a scenario

in which Mr. Hodgman’s cartoon simulacrum

is granted one of these powers and must battle

one of his many nemeses who has,

by a remarkable coincidence,

been given the other.

To play the role of Mr. Hodgman’s archrival,

might we suggest

B-movie icon

BRUCE CAMPBELL?

Indeed, we might.

Or, in a fond tribute to

(and blatant ripoff of)

Mr. Peabody and Sherman,

Mr. Hodgman might be joined by

author and assassination buff

SARAH VOWELL,

with whom he would time-travel

to the Garfield administration

only to discover that, if they do not act

to ensure that President Garfield is indeed felled

by the bullets of a disappointed office seeker,

the fabric of time will be ruptured

and the very future of civilization endangered.

Pretty cool, huh?

   There will also be hoboes.

Each episode shall also include

ONE (1) ANIMATED MUSICAL VIDEO –

Mr. Jonathan Coulton’s

THING A WEEK ^TM

– through which Mr. Coulton will weigh in

upon that week’s topic,

with either a song of his own

or a collaboration with a

VERY SPECIAL MUSICAL GUEST.

Say, THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS.

(You said it aloud, didn’t you?  Our bad.)

The Inexpensively Animated

Adventures Of

 HODG-MAN

The tweedy, asthmatic segue between

“South Park” and “The Daily Show”

for which America has unknowingly been clamoring.

Think of it as a 21st-Century

“Rocky and Bullwinkle”.

Think of it as a fully animated

“Monty Python’s Flying Circus”.

Think of it as an extremely white

“Chappelle’s Show”.

But do think of it.

 That is all.

ART:

 Greg Williams

TEXT:

 Eric Williams

Roger Rabbit Returns

A Treatment

by Eric Williams and Greg Williams

Based on Characters Created By Jeffrey Price & Peter Seaman

and Gary K. Wolf

Concept:  When Roger and his toon friends head for New York in the 1950s to do a live TV variety show (yes, that’s right:  a live cartoon show), Roger uncovers a sinister plot in which toons are mysteriously vanishing and being subjected to experiments which turn them into oversized mutants.  When he accidentally releases the giant out-of-control toons into the city, it’s up to Roger to round them up and save the day.

The film opens with a black-and-white government educational film of the “duck-and-cover” variety in which Roger Rabbit demonstrates, in his usual frenzied fashion, how NOT to react in the event of an atomic bombing.  When he flubs a take, we reveal a set painted in various shades of grey.  As Roger heads to his dressing room, he removes his makeup and grey wardrobe, revealing his colorful self beneath.

This is Hollywood in the early Fifties.  With the arrival of television, film work has begun to dry up for all but the biggest toons.  Many toons have been forced to get jobs in the “real world” outside Toontown, while some just seem to have disappeared altogether.  Even though times are tough, most toons have an elitist disdain for television, although they do have begrudging admiration for the stoic work of one of the few toons to have gotten a break in TV:  that Indian chief on the test pattern.

Roger and Jessica are still married, but their financial situation has put a strain on the happy couple.  Educational films just don’t bring in the simoleons Roger was used to getting in the old days.  An oily human advertising executive from New York arrives at their house offering a contract to appear in commercials for a new brand of TV set.  Roger is offended by the offer.  Rabbit of integrity that he is, he refuses to sell out his art and lower himself to doing commercials, especially not for that evil new technology of television.  The ad exec listens patiently to Roger’s tirade, then delicately explains that they don’t want Roger.  They want Jessica.

Jessica doesn’t have Roger’s ethical qualms.  The way she sees it, they need the money and this job will solve all their problems.  There’s just one catch:  she’ll have to work in New York.  It’s a tough decision, but Jessica decides she can’t pass up this opportunity.  She tries to convince Roger to come with her, but Roger is too stubborn to give in – and somewhat crushed that they didn’t ask him to do the ads.  Fiercely independent, Jessica boards a train to New York, alone.

Once Jessica leaves, Roger immediately regrets letting her go.  Desperate, he comes up with a brilliant idea to reunite him with Jessica:  he and his other unemployed toon friends will go to New York and get work in live TV.  Roger’s pals immediately embrace the idea.  Baby Herman is so eager to go to New York that he’s nearly wetting his diaper, and he and Benny the Cab will be a natural fit in the Big Apple.

Roger and many other toons embark on an adventurous cross-country journey by train, pulled by a toon engine who happens to be Benny’s cousin.  As they pass through the Painted Desert (freshly painted), they encounter Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner making a movie on location.

When they reach New York, Roger and the other L.A. transplants search for Jessica in Little Toontown, a region akin to Chinatown but populated by toons.  Humans venture there to check out the entertainment in the area’s nightclubs and theatres – plus it’s the only place in the city to get really good Toon food.

Roger is reunited with Jessica, who has found a cozy apartment in Little Toontown.  They settle in together, but there’s tension in their relationship.  Roger is bothered by the frequent presence of the ad executive who, to Roger’s jealous mind, seems to be taking a bit too much interest in Jessica.  A rivalry begins to develop between Roger and the slick ad man.

In Little Toontown, Roger comes into contact with a whole new crop of struggling toons paying their dues in dingy nightclubs and tiny theatres, much like the Method actors who were plying their craft elsewhere in New York around that same time.  We encounter toons who wouldn’t become known to the public until they got their big breaks in the Sixties, like Bullwinkle and Rocky practicing magic (“Hey, Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!”).  Or Yogi Bear and Boo-Boo doing beat poetry.  Or Fred Flintstone in a toon production of “A Streetcar Named Desire”, wearing a torn leopardskin t-shirt, bellowing “Wilmaaaaa!”  (In passing, we overhear an agent giving the following advice to foul-mouthed stand-up Papa Smurf: “You don’t have to work blue.”)

At one of these nightclubs, Roger meets an enterprising, somewhat conniving Tex-Avery-style wolf who helps Roger set up the live TV show, which Roger envisions as a toon version of “Your Show Of Shows”.  They score a coup by booking the Indian chief from the test pattern as their big celebrity guest for the debut show.  (The chief turns out to be a persnickety prima donna, always insisting on being shot in profile to show his “good side”.)  The wolf is even able to arrange a sponsor for the show:  the same TV company for which Jessica does commercials.

As he begins work on the show, Roger hears rumors around Little Toontown that toons are vanishing, lured away by a mysterious toon.  This creates a McCarthy-like climate in which toons are suspicious of each other and especially of outsiders like Roger and his friends.  Roger can’t believe it:  If you can’t trust a toon, who can you trust?

Yet, at the same time, Roger is having suspicions of his own.  Although they’re in the same city, he and Jessica are spending so much time apart, Roger starts to wonder if Jessica might be cheating on him with the slimy ad exec.  He follows them one night and catches them having a seemingly romantic dinner.  Jessica is upset that Roger would ever think she could love anyone but him, and she orders him to move out of their apartment.

A broken rabbit, Roger takes refuge at the TV studio and tries to bury his sorrow in his work.  But as preparations for the TV show continue, several members of the cast and crew disappear.  A tough New York cop, an old friend of Eddie Valiant’s, shows up at the theatre to investigate the disappearances.  He seems suspicious of Roger, since the toons started to vanish right around the time Roger arrived in town.  Roger is furious at the accusation, insisting to the cop that he’ll prove his innocence.

That night, at the hotel where he’s staying, Roger hears a struggle taking place next door and races into the hall to try to help his neighbor.  Roger sees a mysterious, shadowy kidnapper running away with a helpless toon in his clutches.  Roger chases him down the hallway which, like all cartoon rooms, is seemingly endless and has the same chair, lamp and framed picture repeated over and over again for the entire length of the hall.  Unfortunately, Roger fails to catch the culprit.

The cop arrives to give Roger a piece of bad news:  Jessica has vanished.  Because Roger has an alibi for the time of Jessica’s disappearance, the cop now believes Roger is innocent.  Roger tags along as the cop searches for Jessica, but Roger becomes separated from the cop and is lured into a trap.

Roger is spirited to a top-secret underground lab and locked in a cage.  Many other toons are there too, including Jessica.  From her, Roger learns that mysterious experiments are being done on toons in this lab, exposing them to extreme levels of radiation.  Because toons can be exposed to far higher doses of radiation than people or animals, the adverse effects can be studied.  Since it’s a project in Manhattan, its code name is, naturally, “The Kankakee Project” (hey, “The Manhattan Project” was taken).

But the diabolical scientists have discovered an unfortunate side effect:  their experiments are creating giant mutant toons.  You know what happened when sweet, harmless lizards in Japan were exposed to radiation?  Exactly.  Godzilla.  Well, the same thing happens to sweet, harmless toons – they become enormous out-of-control monsters, albeit ones which still possess the mischievous humor inherent to all toons.  The resulting mutants are kept locked away in an underground cave while the experiments continue.  If something isn’t done quickly, Roger and Jessica will become the next guinea pigs.  As they try to figure out a way to escape, Roger and Jessica also rekindle their relationship, whispering sweet nothings across the room to each other from their respective cages.

Back at the TV studio, the remaining toons are panicked.  They’re in the frenzied final hours before the debut of their live show and their leader Roger is missing.  But they’re show folk;  no matter what, the show must go on.  The wolf declares that he’s in charge now, an announcement that doesn’t sit well with the other toons.

During this climactic section, we intercut between Roger and Jessica’s adventures and the hapless live broadcast.  During the live show, which is plagued by technical difficulties and the lack of a proper script, the undisciplined toons run rampant through the studio, ad lib, stall for time and stand blankly before the cameras, not knowing what to say.  The harried human director of the show is going berserk in the control booth, trying to keep the show on track.  The Indian chief, appalled by the other toons’ unprofessional behavior, stays locked in his dressing room.  The arrogant wolf fills in for Roger, but he doesn’t have the spark of a true toon, and he’s certainly not a star of Roger’s caliber.  Finally, Baby Herman becomes so frustrated with the bedlam onstage that he accidentally curses on live TV (which, as you trivia experts know, is what effectively ended Baby Herman’s career).

Eventually, Roger bumbles into a way to escape his cage.  He then releases Jessica, but, in the process, accidentally releases all the mutated toons as well, who escape into the subway and spread out over the city.  One especially large toon, whom we have previously seen admiring Jessica, snatches her up in his gigantic paw and flees the building.

Now it’s up to Roger to rescue Jessica and subdue the rampaging mutants, which are wreaking havoc throughout New York.  Mayhem ensues.  People lock their doors and hide in their homes.  It’s “War Of The Worlds” all over again – only this time, it’s real.

Roger meets up with the cop and the two of them race frantically around town, attempting to capture all the mutants.  When they discover one toon teetering on a high ledge, Roger and the cop, standing on a nearby roof, calmly persuade the toon to walk over to their building.  They urge him not to look down — for, as we know, a toon can walk in mid-air indefinitely as long as he doesn’t look down.

Inevitably, the giant mutant toon carries Jessica to the top of the Empire State Building.  Roger flies to her rescue in a toon plane (another of Benny’s relatives), snatching her out of the giant toon’s hand.  The giant mutant takes a swat at them and loses his grip, toppling from the building and threatening to crush the crowd of people below.  Using typical toon logic, Roger immediately hits on an idea.  He and Jessica race down the stairs of the Empire State Building, stopping halfway to order a glass of water at a bar.  Then, they continue the rest of the way to the street.  They look up — and the mutant giant is still falling.  Roger holds out the glass of water and the giant toon lands in the water, squeezing completely into the tiny glass.

Roger hears a little voice from inside the glass.  He puts an ear to the glass and listens intently as the mutant’s squeaky voice tells him the identity of the toon who has been luring other toons into this evil experiment.  Roger hands the glass to the cop for safekeeping, then he and Jessica board the toon plane and fly to the theatre where the live show is still in progress.

Bursting into the theatre, Roger leaps onstage and starts improvising a fierce battle with the wolf.  As the fight goes on, the wolf is subjected to a series of sight gags which Roger orchestrates to prove that the wolf is not really a toon at all.  He can’t, for example, run into a backdrop painted on a wall –- he slams into the wall instead.  And when he gets clonked on the head with a cartoon anvil, he doesn’t scrunch up like an accordion -– he just falls to the ground, moaning.

Finally, the wolf’s head is removed, revealing that he’s actually the oily human ad executive wearing a full-body toon suit (“Aha!  A creep in wolf’s clothing!”).  This revelation restores everyone’s faith in the essential goodness of toons — and the essential evil of advertising executives.  The ad exec confesses that the Kankakee Project was designed to determine just how cheaply his company could make this new brand of TV.  Or, to put it another way, just how much radiation could be allowed to leak out of these TVs without killing the consumers.

The ad exec explains that his job was to lure unsuspecting toons to New York to be used in the experiments.  He says he never planned to harm Jessica;  he just needed to keep her locked away once she learned about the experiments.  Clearly, the ad executive has fallen in love with Jessica, but she slaps his face and tells him that, no matter what he looks like on the outside, he’s still a wolf on the inside.  She falls back into the arms of her faithful rabbit.

As the cop hauls the ad exec away to the Little Toontown Jail, the live TV broadcast ends with Roger and Jessica leading a rousing, triumphant production number.

This Sunday, millions of people will witness exactly the same event. Approximately half will find this event exhilarating and life-affirming. The other half will find this event horribly depressing and unfair, leading many to question their faith in a Creator.

Fortunately, I know that God is a Green Bay fan, and He’s giving them nine points over Chicago.

I’ve long thought it would be interesting to structure a movie in the same way that most of us consume sporting events, where the audience would find the story uplifting or tragic, a thrill or a downer, not because the of the characters’ moral superiority or likeability or funnier way with a phrase, but because of the city in which the characters live. Just as you cheer for your local team, you’d want Victor Laszlo to triumph over Rick Blaine solely because you went to Czechoslovakian Underground Prep. (I did co-write a screenplay about a sibling basketball rivalry in which the audience never learns which side won the climactic game. The fact that the movie remains unmade probably tells me something.)

Having grown up in Wisconsin, the Packers have always been my default football team, and it was easy to remain a remote Packer fan in Los Angeles because the city can’t find a team of its own that will stay put. But my formative years fell between the Bart Starr and Brett Favre eras, which meant that “my” team pretty consistently sucked. It was delightful when Favre arrived, so I could finally root for a team worth rooting for. At his peak, Favre was so absurdly great, so capable of pulling off unlikely plays, that it seemed like he was performing magic. I’d have enjoyed watching his performance on any team, but sports fandom tends not to work that way. Most of us support whoever shows up to play in our local team’s jerseys. As Jerry Seinfeld has observed, we’re basically “rooting for laundry.”

Three seasons ago, when the Packers higher-ups tired of Brett Favre’s waffling ways and launched the reign of Rodgers, opinions were split, but it’s now nearly impossible to find a Favre fan in Wisconsin. The very same person whom Cheeseheads had revered for more than a decade must now be despised. I still believe that, had Favre retired after his single season with the Jets, the Packer faithful would have viewed it as a forgivable aberration — the football equivalent of the entire season of “Dallas” which was revealed to be a dream. But Brett had to go and become a Viking, and the reservoir of goodwill dried up completely. Add in his annual bouts of indecision, as well as the fallout from the one decision he apparently makes easily (“I’m gonna send her a picture of THIS!”), and he has become an enfeebled warrior facing a Tiger-Woodsian tumble from public grace. (As a society, we really need to figure out how to acknowledge the frequency of infidelity without tacitly encouraging it, but that’s an issue for another blog post.)

When LeBron James opted to leave the cold of Cleveland for the Heat of Miami, the Cavaliers’ owner Dan Gilbert famously issued an open letter worthy of a spurned lover, describing James’s move as a “cowardly betrayal”. I would love to hear John Boehner read Gilbert’s entire screed aloud, as I’m sure he’d bring just the right amount of wounded man-tears to the occasion. Gilbert also told the AP that James had previously “gotten a free pass. People have covered up for [LeBron] for way too long.” Yet, is there any doubt that, had James remained in Cleveland, Gilbert would have been effusive in his praise, stamping a multi-year renewal onto that free pass? The difference between “LeBron is great” and “LeBron is Hitler” is the size of a paycheck.

Of course, sports isn’t the only aspect of society where people are carrying signs, mostly saying, “Hurray For Our Side”. Think of any political conversion. When someone switches party allegiance, the folks they’re leaving must paint them as a weak-minded traitor who should never have been trusted in the first place, while the team they’re joining must embrace them for their wisdom in finally seeing the light. Ponder, for example, how dramatically Dennis Miller and Arianna Huffington zoomed past each other on the ideological map.

The instinct for us-vs.-them-ism is so strong that it apparently takes six deaths and a miraculously-survived brain injury to cause a few of us to finally reconsider where our divisiveness has brought us, although I can’t be the only person who has been holding his breath in fear of a Tucson-esque event (or worse) since at least the Democratic convention of ’08. Even if the specifics of the Giffords shooting can’t be neatly attributed to a coherent – or incoherent — political philosophy, that doesn’t mean we can ignore the very real overheated anger which has so permeated our culture. There must be a way to have honest, serious debates without making our worthy opponents into our sworn enemies, but it’s hard in a culture where we’re so eager to find the bad side that careers can be destroyed by a single utterance (Juan Williams, meet Shirley Sherrod) or even a single word (“Macaca”, anyone?).

Then again, if there’s one thing we like even more than tearing people down, it’s giving them second chances. Remember the last rites being given to the Obama White House after last November’s shellacking? Then, during the lame-duck session, Congress decided to do something it hadn’t done in two years: do something. Supposedly impossible tasks, like ending “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, were suddenly whisked through the process, as if Santa Claus had given our elected officials a free pass to do anything they wanted with no repercussions, as long as they did it before the ball dropped in Times Square. The party has ended and the partisanship has resumed, but those political obituaries for the President now appear to have been greatly exaggerated.

I’m enough of an optimist to hope that even simple gestures such as mixing the seating arrangements for the State of the Union address can remind us, in a small way, to respect the common humanity of our ideological foes.

In the same vein, maybe all those Packers and Bears fans mixed together in the stands at Soldier Field on Sunday can realize that, beneath our green-and-gold or blue-and-orange body paint, we aren’t so different after all. We all love football and beer and hypothermia.

If the team we support wins, that doesn’t prove our moral superiority. If our team loses, it’s not the end of the world. Come February 6, only one team’s fans will think that this football season had a happy ending.

And, surely, we can all agree on at least one thing:

Favre sucks.

On the bitterly cold morning of December 25, I left home, my brother Greg along to share the driving and cut the loneliness. We headed south immediately, in hopes of escaping winter as quickly as we could, but winter, like most things, could move faster than a used brown Chevette hatchback.

We encountered glare ice as far south as Oklahoma, and if we didn’t slip around quite as much as some of the other vehicles, maybe it’s because they didn’t have the ballast of a fruit-crateful of vinyl albums like we did. (If that detail alone doesn’t sufficiently date this anecdote, the Chevette was equipped with an AM-only radio and, needless to say, we couldn’t rely on cell phones or OnStar if we encountered car trouble. However, if you ran out of gas, there were still dinosaurs liquefying into petroleum alongside the highways!)

These memories returned to the front of my mind as I was watching the Weather Channel this Christmas Eve, where they reported on more than a foot of snow collapsing upon Oklahoma City. The longer you live, the more it seems that God is scheduling reruns.

The final week of each year, from Christmas through New Year’s, offers us all a vivid marker by which to measure our lives. Where were we a year ago, a decade ago, a generation ago? Have we progressed, fallen back, or do we find ourselves continuously spinning in circles like a car with bald tires in an ice-covered parking lot?

If that scrawny kid behind the wheel of the Chevette could have seen where he would be at the end of 2009, I think he’d be happy that he could point to a few accomplishments, but disappointed that there weren’t more. With only one lifetime to fill, he’d find the roster of experiences mighty paltry. With any luck, there’s still a little time to make up for that.

In his final semester at Madison, college-me had devoted a huge amount of time to a 25-minute film that he wrote, directed, shot and edited, so he’d probably find it curious that his 2009 self had just spent three years writing, directing, shooting and editing a feature by himself – a documentary this time. I’m pretty sure college-me would really enjoy this new movie, but would be baffled to discover that he had more money in his savings account than 2009-me. Oh, well. That’s for 2010-me to worry about.

He’d be pleased to know that I still had all those vinyl albums, even though I hadn’t listened to the majority of them even once in the Pacific time zone. They now weigh down the floor of a walk-in closet, buried under piles of old inkjet printers (what are those?), not worth the bother of carting to the few used-record stores that exist. He would have great trouble believing that modern-me could carry all of his music on a single device the size of a deck of cards…and that you could make phone calls, read the news and watch videos on that same doohickey. He would certainly wonder, if 2009 did have gadgets like this, why did it not also have flying cars and why wasn’t everyone clad in spandex jumpsuits? If he took a gander at us, he’d be relieved we hadn’t gone the spandex jumpsuit route.

College-me would be happy that I’m still in L.A., despite the frustrations of the business that thinks so highly of itself that it refers to itself as “the Business”, because I’m still pretty sure that what I really want to do is make movies. In fact, I have now lived the majority of my life in the Los Angeles area, although this is the first year I have spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in California. Until now, I have always managed to head east to be with family. I didn’t think it would bother me to be here alone for once. I’m a rational adult. It’s just a day on a calendar, after all. There’s nothing magical about it. Besides, I’m getting on a plane on Saturday which, with the weather’s permission, will deliver me to Wisconsin on the 26th. That’s Christmas-ish, right?

But a quick Christmas Eve call to my mom made it clear.

I may live in California. But on Saturday, I’m going home.

I recently sent out a call for thoughts and reminiscences about the album side, for an essay I am considering writing for the Huffington Post.  Not sure when I’ll get the chance to write my HuffPost piece, so I wanted to share the comments of those who have generously submitted so far.

If you have your own “side A/side B” memories or musings, please submit them at the bottom of the page.

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Eugene Edwards

Singer/songwriter, www.eugeneedwards.com

The first sides that come to mind are side one of Springsteen’s Born To Run album and side two of Led Zeppelin IV.

I’m not sure that “Thunder Road” has ever been topped as an album opener, “Tenth Ave. Freeze-Out” and “Night” describe an urban landscape for the too-desperate-to-last relationship of “Backstreets” and we’re out.

Zeppelin manages to touch upon all the stuff that made them great in four songs.  The humor of “Misty Mountain Hop, the pastoral acoustics of “Goin’ to California,” the menacing to symphonic crunch of “Four Sticks,” and then the Mississippi Delta zen of “When the Levee Breaks.”

I realize that both of these sides contain four songs each and it seems as though that would decrease the odds of there being a clunker.  But it’s not so easy to have a song over five minutes in length that remains compelling.  Springsteen manages it with sheer drama while Zeppelin does it because John Bonham was such a great drummer that you just stay tuned for the next fill.

As far as the worst sides…I think side 4 of the Who’s Tommy drags and shows Townsend’s  eventual disinterest in the story.  This side breaks the concentration of the listener and that’s not a good thing when you think of the overall pretense of the album.  Big, big let down.  Also, side 4 of Cream’s Wheels of Fire album has the quarter-of-an-hour long “Toad,” a painful Ginger Baker drum solo.  Oy!  Clapton proves for three sides of an album that a soloist can go long in rock and then Ginger tries to argue, apparently.  What do 7 Eleven coffee and Ginger Baker have in common?  They both suck without cream.

Are album sides over?  Well, of course.  Album sequencing in general is becoming less and less important with every download.  Is this bad?  Only in a nostalgic way.  The long play album had a 50-year life span, that’s all.  Some of us tend to react to these changes as if we’re no longer allowed to have birthdays.  Baby boomers particularly go off the rails when something relevant to their childhood/adolescence becomes obsolete.  Though many artists still release albums on LP, they’re nearly all double-LPs and the sequencing seems to reflect the uninterrupted form of the CD.

This is not say that sides couldn’t hurt.  I recall an album by Semisonic released in 2001 that had 14 tracks.  Tracks 1 through 7 were all politely bland pop rock.  Then track 8, “I Wish,” grabs you by the heart and for the rest of the album you can’t believe that it’s the same band at all.  These guys really put together a magnificent string of tracks that would have been an excellent side 2 if there were such a thing by 2001.

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Michael Martin

Graphic designer

Of course, Abbey Road was the Beatles lp that had the biggest switch in feeling from side to side. Side one was a loose arrangement of songs, some of them classic, but incredibly different tom one another, while Side two had the feel of a symphony with different movements. It was a great, schizophrenic album.

Another thing to explore would be the idea that we put on a vinyl lp for 20 minutes of listening, or if we were motivated to flip it, 40 minutes at best.  For us short attention span listeners, we were rarely bored by the now average or expected length of 70 minutes (featuring extra tracks and remixes and every godforsaken thing they can dredge out of the studio trash can. I mean, do we REALLY need twenty remixes of Madonna’s latest?)

There were the occasional attempts at pushing the vinyl format, like Jethro Tull’s Thick As A Brick, which was 40 minutes long…a single song over two lp sides with an incredibly clumsy fade out/fade in.

The worst lp multiple sets:

The Concert For Bangla Desh
(sorry, Ravi Shankar fans, but that side was torturous)

All Thing Must Pass
(what should have been “passed” on was the third album…an atrocity called Apple Jam)

Inconsistent or Schizophrenic splits between Side A and Side B:

Cat Stevens – Foreigner
John and Yoko – Live Peace In Toronto
Beatles – Yellow Submarine soundtrack

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Ron Mura

Webmaster for Loudon Wainwright III, lwiii.com

I have a hard time even remembering the vinyl divisions, it’s been so long.  One side I remember as being phenomenal was side 2 of Springsteen’s album _The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle_.  It had three songs:

Incident on 57th Street
Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)
New York City Serenade

Dylan’s _Blonde on Blonde_ had an interesting division.  “Sad-eyed Lady of the Lowlands” was on the last side all by itself, even though it’s less than 13 minutes.  It wasn’t labeled Side 4.  Both discs in the double album had a Side 1 and a Side 2.

For me, on Dire Straits’ “Making Movies”, the seven songs are arranged in descending order of “greatness.”  There isn’t a bad song on the album, but having the songs sequenced that way naturally makes side 1 much stronger than side 2.

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Daniel Davis

A&R, Atlantic Records

My vinyl memories are sketchy at best. To give you an idea..I used to listen to vinyl on my fisher price record player.

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Greg Williams

Artist, Blogjam and Wikiworld Comics, blogjamcomic.wordpress.com

In trying to think back to the vinyl era, very few examples of bad/good album sides have occurred to me. I’m sure I could come up with something to say about the “White Album” – but I’m not sure I have the energy.

Two albums that are forever linked in my mind: The Beatles’ “Abbey Road” and Harry Nilsson’s 1971 remix album, “Aerial Pandemonium Ballet.” And it’s Side Two of both albums that were most memorable, for me.

When Nilsson was becoming fairly well known, someone decided it would be a good idea to re-release a collection of tracks from his first two albums, which were recorded in the mid-to-late ’60s (“Pandemonium Shadow Show” and “Aerial Ballet”). But instead of simply plucking out random tracks and reordering them, Nilsson reimagined those early albums – dramatically remixing many cuts and even recording fresh vocals.

On the first sides of both “Abbey Road” and “APB,” we get a somewhat disjointed collection of decent songs, with an overall feeling of offbeat creativity. Each album has distinctive and recognizable standout tracks (“Come Together,” “Something” and “Everybody’s Talkin’ “), joined by some likable but undeniably quirky tunes (“Maxwell’s Silver Hammer,” “Octopus’s Garden” and “Good Old Desk,” “Bath”).

But on Side Two of both albums, we’re presented with a collection of songs that work together in an unexpected fashion, flowing into one another in a seemingly organic manner.

On “Abbey Road,” we’ve since learned, this breathtaking audio collage was made up of unfinished song fragments (from “You Never Give Me Your Money” through “Mean Mr. Mustard/Polythene Pam” to “The End”). But on “APB,” Nilsson was retooling old songs and crafting stylistic links that would allow them to flow smoothly into one another, with lyrics that seem to make emotional connections where none apparently existed before (“Don’t Leave Me” leads to “”Without Her,” then on to “Together” and “One” – which was famously covered by Three Dog Night, and which also makes a surprise appearance in new backing vocals for “Mr. Richland’s Favorite Song” on Side One).

Both of these unique “song collages” have stayed fresh for me through the years – despite some dated references on the Nilsson album, which includes the phrases “groovy times” and “it grooves like a clock.”

The ending tracks on both albums are short and unusual musical bits that are worlds away from standard rock ‘n’ roll fare: The Beatles’ old-timey novelty song “Her Majesty,” and Nilsson’s brief circuslike “Closing” melody, complete with the sounds of dancing feet and accompanying vocal noises.

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Mike Loprete

Actor/writer

This will make you laugh but… I always thought the first side of Rush’s “2112″ was pretty awesome – and the second side not as much.  The first side is devoted to one whole concept – it’s the future and planet earth is run by this oppressive group called the Priests of the Temples of Syrinx (maybe you know this, but I’d be shocked if you do).  Anyway, the whole side follows one guy’s story who finds a guitar in this world colorless, music-devoid world…  The second side has nothing to do with any of that – it’s just songs – which aren’t too bad, if you like Rush, but it pales to the first side.    I actually like the idea of only one side being devoted to a concept – as opposed to a whole album – and now with CDs, you can’t do that, because there’s obviously no side to end the concept.  You’d just end somewhere around, what? – track 5?

As for best and worst… wow, that’s hard… I gotta think… again, I’m probably not much help because I really didn’t start collecting music until there were CDs… I know… I’m a total pretender…

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Jim Summers

Director, TreePeople Reforestation Initiative

So the following may be the equivalent of admitting I own an Alan Jackson CD, but I have owned a few cast albums from musicals.  They were usually divided by first act on one side and second act on the other.  Having the big first act closing number finish one side meant turning over the album was like having an intermission.

Interestingly, I am not gay.

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Jeff Tobin

Engineer

As for albums, its been a while.  I can’t think of any that I thought were horrible in a side A vs. side B sense, but the one side that sticks out in my mind more than others is the first side (of four) of London Calling.  This side had: 1. London Calling, 2. Brand New Cadillac, 3. Jimmy Jazz, 4. Hateful, 5. Rudy Can’t Fail.  Why I like this album side so much is that all of the songs are unmistakably the Clash but they each have a very different feel, different tempos, different subjects but all are excellent (at least to me) and the change in rhythm and overall sound between makes the whole side more interesting yet somehow more coherent at the same time.  Another one I love but I feel misses because of one song is the first side of Abbey Road.  If it wasn’t for She’s So Heavy, this would be close with London Calling for me.  It has the same type of variation as London Calling, but doesn’t seem as coherent, more of a collection of varied but excellent songs.

So what makes a good album side?  Each song has to be good or excellent in its own right.  The songs have to have sufficient variation yet be similar enough to be distinct yet part of a larger whole.  London Calling as my example has the gritty punk theme throughout the first side, but each song brings its own energy and vibe that fit into a (the only word I can think of is) mosaic painting a bigger more vibrant picture.  The rest of the album goes on to support this.

So what do we lose today?  Nothing from some artists, a whole lot from others.  Some people just make individual songs and when they have enough of them collected they put them out as an album.  Others actually make albums that work only as a whole.  I think Dark Side of the Moon fits this category.  Rarely will you here a hit single played from this album, “Money” usually, and sometimes “Time” will get airplay.  Yet as a whole, this is an incredible album.  Bruce Springsteen albums are also greater than the individual songs they comprise.  Born to Run is a great album and a great song, but I think the first side of the album sets it up so that when you get to the song Born to Run, it is better than just hearing it in isolation.

So what we lose is the chance to communicate a greater artistic vision. What would we lose if all of the movies became a collection of 3 minute vignettes?  We already lose a great deal in a movie because it can’t be 6 hours long and explain everything the same way a book can.  Not that rock songs were ever that much more than 3 minutes, but still, the greatest albums had themes and were much more satisfying to listen to than 30 minutes of unrelated songs. A common theme tied everything together and made the sum greater than the parts.

What did we lose with the advent of the CD?  I don’t know if we lost much there.  It just changed the size of the number of songs from ~4-6, to ~10-12.  But even that is debatable.  There were 30 minute album sides and there are 30 minute CDs.  I guess there aren’t too many 16 minute CDs, though.  I think it really means that artists just adjusted the flow of the music to the CD length.

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Tom Matthews

Writer

My memories/references are too obscure.  The first Cheap Trick album had Side A and Side 1.  Left to random choice I spent my entire teen years first playing the side which DIDN’T open with the track “ELO Kiddies,” which of course is one of the great album openers of all time and which is now the official opening track on the CD and which was the song they played first when they performed the whole album live.  I was not too bright.  (Although Wikipedia reminds me that the track listing on the album suggested the other order.  I was just easily influenced).

My drop off in interest from the first to second sides of “Damn the Torpedoes” is dramatic.  All the great cuts are on side one.

And only because I blew a young rock fan’s mind with this knowledge recently:  You know about the way “The Wall” butts together from the end of side 4 to the beginning of side 1, right?  I find most people do not.

There are actually a fair number of albums from my youth on which the latter tracks on side two are markedly less familiar to me when I revisit them now.  I know I went to bed a lot listening to albums on headphones, and I can only assume I slept through great hunks of side twos.  I was such an exciting teen.

If you play any of the KISS solo albums backwards, they all still suck.

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Norm Brennan

Science Instructor, the Mirman School

Queen-A Night at the Opera- side 1- love the variety offered on this side vs side 2 which is a headphones must-listen…

worst would be anything circa 1972 bread, america, seals and crofts…so much sap the needle barely traveled through the vinyl…

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Lee Schmidt

Advertising copywriter/creative director

Sinatra and his producers were masters at creating album sides. They carefully sequenced songs to create a mood and keep the listener deep in that mood well after the record was over.

A favorite side is the first from “Sinatra at the Sands with Count Basie and the Orchestra.” Frank, in the prime of his baritone, starts with “Come Fly With Me.” Uptempo and playful, it was a big crowd pleaser that hooked any audience. With the second track, Francis Albert gets serious. He sings the Gershwins’ “I’ve Got A Crush On You.” Like a lot of torch songs, once Sinatra sings it, it’s his. It just doesn’t sound right by another singer. The third track, “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” is arguably Frank’s best live recording. Period. You’ll get no argument from me. From soaring to subtle, the voice has never been better. The side could end right there. But he continues with a beautiful reading of the ballad “The Shadow of Your Smile.” I don’t know if the side ends after this track because I own the entire live recording as a “two record set on one disc.” Anyway, I never grow tired of listening to this side. And I’ve heard it dozens of times. A lot of “live” recordings are sweetened in the studio. But this album sounds real and pure and captures an intimacy that has, in my book, no rivals.

Other great sides: Springsteen’s “The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle” side one. Dylan’s “Blood on the Tracks” side one. And of course, side one of Zeppelin Four (with thanks to Mike from “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.”

Worst sides: Did Paper Lace (“The Night Chicago Died”) ever cut an entire album? How about Terry “Seasons in the Sun” Jacks? Those would suck.

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Bill McCloskey

Graphic designer

One of my perfect albums is Goodbye Yellow Brick Road:

Great artwork front and back, with illustrations on every song as well as lyrics. Could be held as a book when listening to the record player, I used to sit in front of my turntable, foldouty kind, speakers on each side and yell( sing) right back into the spininng vinyl.

Side 1 Begins with Funeral for a Friend blends into Love Lies Bleeding, Candle in the Wind, Bennie and the Jets. A very strong 3 song side, that isn’t Pink Floyd.

One thing I have talked to a lot of people about is just how skilled one became at hitting tracks with their thumb on the stylus, that was the only way to hear a favorite song again and again.

And I think our generation will always think of albums in sides and how record players could play stacks of albums in a row, but you had to pick a side to play, which may or may not have a hit on it.

I want back to that world.

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Den Shewman

Writer/editor

One word: cassingles.

That’s all I have to add. Unfortunately, my mind sucks at lists.

“On second thought…” – Me

Growing up, I sometimes regretted that I had missed out on the “Swingin’ Sixties”, with all of that decade’s societal upheavals and explosions of creative freedom.  Sure, you had a divisive and costly war, and I could have done without all those assassinations, but at least big stuff was happening!

As I look back on the past ten years of the “Still-Unnicknamed Zeroes”, I’d like to formally request a little less turbulence in the next decade.  Please?

No era is devoid of history, but certain periods do seem to exceed their allotment of tumult, and we are mired in a doozy.  I find myself reaching for “Superman”, “Seinfeld” and “Saturday Night Live” for the appropriate label.

I believe we’ve been living in the Bizarro Decade.

The Bizarros, for short.

Or, if you prefer, Bizarr-Os, although that makes it seem less like a momentous period in history and more like a sugary breakfast cereal.

As you may recall, Bizarro was the topsy-turvy opposite of Superman.  From Wikipedia:

In the Bizarro world of “Htrae” (“Earth” spelled backwards), society is ruled by the Bizarro Code which states “Us do opposite of all Earthly things! Us hate beauty! Us love ugliness! Is big crime to make anything perfect on Bizarro World!”

Basically, it’s the “War is Peace” newspeak of Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” but with poorer grammar.

So many events from these past ten years make much more sense when viewed through a Bizarro prism.

From 2000 (“Me get less votes!  Me President!”) to 2009 (“Us in debt! Us get money from Communist China!”).

From the frivolous (“Us network called Music Television! Us not play music!”) to the deadly serious (“Me in charge on 9/11!  It not me responsibility!”).

Think I’m off base on that last one?  Just this week, President Bush’s press secretary Dana Perino stated:

“We did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush’s term.”

She made this claim to Sean Hannity on the Fox News Channel, whose slogan, “Fair and balanced,” surely emerged from a focus group on Bizarro World.

This is the same network where Craig T. Nelson brought new meaning to the name “Mr. Incredible” with perhaps the bizarro quote of the year:

“I’ve been on food stamps and welfare.  Did anybody help ME out?”

Just as no conveniently-labeled generation is monolithic in its beliefs and behavior, no umbrella term for a decade is ever wholly accurate.  The Twenties didn’t roar for everyone, and the last ten years were arguably more “Gay” than the 1890s, depending on your definition of the word.

And things haven’t been all bad.  Just try getting through your day without an iPod (born in 2001), MySpace (2003), Facebook (2004), YouTube (2005), Twitter (2006), or even the Huffington Post (2005).

Yet as technology becomes more integral to every aspect of our lives, the certainties of science are sneered at by legions of global-warming doubters and evolution ignorers.  For them, no amount of evidence is ever enough, just as “birthers” cling to their conviction that our president was not born in America, as if Hillary Clinton wouldn’t have eagerly seized on that to blast Obama out of the presidential race when she had the chance.  (I do give anti-evolutionists credit for their internal consistency:  their arguments don’t change over time.)

Our civil discourse has become less civil and more coarse, to the point where, not only can’t we agree on the proper solutions, we often can’t even agree what the problems are.  In an envirionment so polarized and fractured, no wonder we haven’t found a consensus descriptor for the past ten years.

Until now.

You’re welcome.

As we wind down the Bizarros and enter our new century’s Terrible Teens, desperate to steer out of the skid in which we find ourselves, it would be wonderful if our better angels and collective wisdom would lead the world to a new epoch of benevolence, prosperity, and peace.

But me not optimistic!