[the following are emails and journal entries and other notes taken during and after the summer of 1999 that show the beginnings, growth, creation and early marketing of "Dr. Fred's The Phantom Movie." This was originally titled "Fred IV" as there was a joke about an unmade third installment, "Revenge of the Fredi." This was later the title of a cable access installment which I linked as Hamlet. But it's known as Fred III to the world now, and here is a glimpse into our mode of thinking when we made it, problems and all ... This is almost entirely from my point of view, as it was at the time, covering and including my end-of-summer move to L.A. Some large sections of the shooting are not described here, some of which are described in Justin Bielawa's great TPM memoir "I'm Not Boink." Hopefully more of this material will come to light one of these days. This little scrapbook here actually begins with a surprisingly positive first-viewing review of the real Phantom Menace, which I of course don't like one bit now after seeing it again ... hmmm ...]


Thu, 20 May 1999 05:06:05 -0700

The Boring Menace, Laurie called it. Despite all this I (shudder) liked it. Not the beginning bits (taxation, for chrissake, and dubbed Jap-uh-neez aliens), or the acting (though there were small hints of acting efforts in some of Qui-Gonn's lines, Amidala's crooked smile, Shmi's mild depression and Maul's mauling) ...... Lucas does his best visual work ever, though, in this one, and does good work in repeating and analyzing themes from the earlier films. It's a more personal movie than "Jedi," and superior to it, despite all those fucking Gungans. The reason much of it falls flat is because he didn't let his cast have any fun with their lines whatsoever. However, all the performances do possess a certain nobility, appropriate for these more medieval Jedi-dominated times. And the final battles really do give us, for once, a real Star War.

Bad points:

Bad plotting. Bored, line-reading acting from almost all the cast [excluding maybe Ian McDiarmid, slimy as ever], too much Warwick Davis [look, it's Willow! And that damned bad Greedo mask]. Anakin seems to think he's already playing Darth Vader. He's flat, and unsettlingly bad, and far too smart. C-3PO isn't 3P0, dammit, not without Anthony Daniels inside. He doesn't move right, at all. THOSE DAMNED DUBBED JAPANESE ALIENS! Too much bad CGI cartoons, not enough good costume puppets. Most costume puppets look sub-par, and the camera doesn't photograph them to have their moments, instead focusing on lame cartoon characters. The entire Gungan subplot is painful, particularly since the performance by Ahmed Best as Jar-Jar just doesn't work -- he's not even a believable idiot. Get Kevin Kline next time. Whole experience vaguely unsettling at first. Phantom Menace given a name [Darth Sidious]. Midi-chlorians. Must concentrate, or watch more than once, to have any idea what boring folks are talking about. Liam doesn't fade away, like Obi-Wan or Yoda, and has to be burned, like Anakin. What in the hell? PG rating. Grr. Dumb Star-Wars-like fighter scene with Anakin. Really dumb.

Good points:

The photography, of course. Many shots, though computer-generated, have an impossible reality to them. Consider the knife-life Nubian ship landing in the trees -- the light glinting off it and nearly blotting out the lens is perfect. Lucas also makes back most of his mistakes in those evil Special Editions, by creating more believable cartoon Dewbacks, and of course Jabba. Liam and Ewan are perfectly believable as Jedi, and the fact that we can accept "Obi-Wan" as Obi-Wan makes up for confused acting. Natalie Portman, as Amidala, gives one of the film's only natural-feeling acting jobs, with a dual voice, royal nature, spillover smile and occasional gunplay. If only she could've been a neurotic bitch like Leia, it might've been a real movie. But she's okay. Yoda also plays much more like the classic Yoda of Empire, rather than the dull copy in Jedi. Whole movie looks set in an ancient, beautifully-cared for veranda or garden in a better part of Europe. Old Italy, or Venice. Battle droids talk, for once, like Star Wars characters. "Roger roger." Some lines are fairly good -- "Be mindful of the living force, young Padawan" sticks out in my mind, and the whole thing really does look and feel like a Star Wars film, without the wisecracking talent. Final lightsaber battle is more impressive than ought to be legal, and entirely saves the film. The character of Darth Maul looks lamer than lame in every other scene, but entirely takes over here, he's great. Evil, but great at it. His split-in-two death drew a huge cheer from the audience. 50,000-odd Gungans fight 50,000-odd droids, and some of the Gungans actually die [not nearly enough, and never onscreen, though -- grr. I want to see 50,000 humans fight it out]. Soundtrack excellent, and underused -- chopped up and played too soft. Some Dr. Fred II lines used ("You win this round, mortal" ... well, not quite, but it sounded like it ... okay, okay). By the end, I'd stopped complaining and learned to love the Star Wars bomb. It could've been quite a bit better than what it was, but perhaps a real director can come around for #2 and save the second trilogy. Too bad Irvin Kirschner's dead ........

[editor's note: as of sept. 23, 2000, Irvin Kirschner is still alive. I was mistaken.]





Date: Fri, 11 Jun 1999

After the premiere of "Dr. Fred Strikes Back," (the show also featured a highlights tape from "Fred I" which was more popular than the feature itself, and a showing of "1381" which no one watched, followed by a brief encore of "Fred II") the crew, including myself, grumbled about the boring bits and stunningly overlong editing in sequences like "KILL" and "Catchphrase." But no one watching quibbled, and I was begged to sign the yearbooks of several people I did not know. They hadn't known I could do all that. Of course not. It was a nice moment. It almost made up for the graffiti and scratching painted painstakingly all over the vast, library-covering "Masuk mural" I'd first dismissed as "impossible" then be forced to do, virtually alone, for the next three months.

At the premiere, I had to do all the advertising myself, as school administration and Mrs. Montgomery would not admit to the show's existence. I created huge xeroxed posters, and had to put them all up myself. I went out into the halls dressed as a Tiger and borrowed the handheld microphone from system head Leon Mackiewicz, dressed dapperly as always in candy-apple red suit and tails, to make a string of announcements heard all over the school, in my own inimitable manner. David Marshall, who has auditioned to play "Torgo" in either Dr. Fred II or the possible IV, commented -- "Garrett's achieved omnipotence!" All over the school, posters with screen grabs of the Fredshow cast asked "WHAT IS FYRPESHA?" and noted that "In the art room, no one can hear you laugh." Indeed, in that room we couldn't hear anything, no matter how loud the band got. A nice, sheltered, quiet haven, excluding Mackiewicz's announcements. Very few people stopped into the art room, but those that did stayed for the run of the show, as soon as it was showing. Marshall and date Michelle Caruso laughed the hardest, and even producer commented that the demon-worship sketch he'd written but never before seen performed was "very good, Garrett." He signed my yearbook asking to do another Fred. Several of those who watched were, in fact, in the program, including C. Talmadge Pearson, Justin Bielawa, David Brown, David Gordon, Jerome White, and Steve Nagy. Others that appeared as extras didn't find out until they saw their face onscreen. Most that appeared in that way never found out. It was, as I've said, a not-huge but comfortable group. As Todd Toaso mumbled his classic adlib -- "I'm not appearing unless I get paid" -- I paid him a dollar, on the spot. He returned it a few minutes later.

Art teacher Ellen Montgomery nearly cancelled the show two days earlier, worried about offensive content. She was assured there'd be none by freshman Jamie Records, who appeared in "You Can't Take it With You" and inspired some of Teal's philosophy in "Easier Than Thinking." She did refuse to allow any my art into the art room, however, excluding a canvas piece entitled "Fully-Automated Second Rinse," which was presented without credit [Gilchrist's mural was credited to Montgomery and advisors Christina DiSanto and Ian Knox].

I'd had blown all my best work up to poster size using xerox, print and watercolor, but was unworried by the snubbing, which made me ineligible for the art awards. I kept my pieces out of the art room, and wallpapered the rest of AA-hall with them. They drew quite a bit of attention, though most didn't seem to realize all were by just me. Patricia White, Greg Nicolett, and Susan Milne, among others, showed up late and weren't quite sure what the whole thing was really about anyway, but were glad it was airing. White, a retiring Creative Writing teacher, had read the "Tellychubbies" script but missed the sketch, and was heard to chant "Where's Poe?"

Ben Sipprell, who drove me to and from the show when no one else would, commented that Fred II was quite freaking good. And despite the sniping over "Catchphrase" (I myself still have to leave the room during the sequence), Ben commented that the song was "really funny," and better singing than in previous attempts by me, an acknowledged non-singer [I always gets the singing parts anyway, because they're taped last and no one's ever there to help]. Sipprell still believes "1381," which almost no one at the premiere stayed to watch, though luckily more than three full classes have seen it already, is the best of the OCP movies, for reasons that should be disturbingly obvious.

This is drama.

"Fyrpesha," in Fred II, really happened. Though David Ashe still
denies actually saying the immortal phrase that inspired my adlib,
on-camera riff-disguised-as-a-sketch the following morning, I heard "fyrpesha," and still do.

I shut up now.

I remain,

Annoying Bootlicker
Jedi Knight




Sat, 12 Jun 1999 11:48:39 -0700 Bottom of Form 0


Some interest has been expressed in taping another Dr. Fred before we all part ways, me to California. Well, I would like to crush this interest right now by providing this summary of the film, set before Dr. Fred I, which would have a nine-day shooting schedule at which bearly all cast members would have to be present every day. This is madness, and it would never work. So there. Here's the film:

Dr. Fred's Amazing Exploding Cow Show Episode IV The Phantom Movie

Whisk-ei Jinn [David Ashe] is a rebel member of the Harmonic Comedians, a race of old-time performers who try to keep humor in the galaxy. Armed always with the comedian's weapon, the cheap glowing plastic toy, he and his young apprentice, Bar-Bar Boinks [Justin Bielawa], have been at odds with the Comedy Council ever since the "nudity incident." In response, Jinn has decided to become a warlord-type and a very poor role model. Boinks is an angry Irish youth who rejects the plastic toy as flimsy, and mostly shoots things. He is constantly mocked for his name, which "sounds like the jerkoff cartoon character from the Phantom Menace," and has become sullen because of it. Meanwhile, the elaborately-dressed King Sipprell [Benjamin Sipprell] is arguing with the Racial Stereotypes, who want the King to give them a multimillion dollar-grossing new comedy film soon, or they will wage war upon his peaceful planet of Wyoming. Jinn and Boinks battle some flimsy robots, and the opening titles roll. The show is introduced, and a plot-unrelated sketch rolls to use up unused material from the last two shows. Perhaps the Apple Police. We use a minimum of real sketches, and keep returning to the plot. Jinn and Boinks, on the King's orders to find new comedians, travel to the depths of Wyoming, and wind up in the very cheaply-shot city of PlasticFeet, which is at first underwater and then not. This city is filled with the Irritating-Sons-of-Bitches, a peaceful race of really stupid-looking creatures with irritating patterns of speech. One of them, the most irritating [Garrett Gilchrist?], is singled out to be Jinn's friend, and travels with them as Boinks stays behind briefly to slaughter the entire city. Meanwhile, the King is sweating quite a bit, and an announcement is made that the old Republican Senate has been overrun by Ewoks and will have to be shut down, and a young drunken robot distinguishes himself in bravery. Another sketch rolls. Jinn and Boinks report to the King, who is desperate for a new comedy star, any new comedy star. But the Irritating-Son-of-a-Bitch they have brought back is unsuitable, and Boinks takes him off and shoots him. The king begins to sweat buckets, and realizes that they have now been forced to go to war. Senator "Mucho Man" Rodney Feral [David Ashe] assures them that all is okay, but there is something not quite right about him. When he is safely away from the crowds, he bites into a pickled meat snack, and a cutout of Obi-Wan Kenobi explodes. The King realizes that with the show's budget, a full army of troops cannot be found to fight the war, so Jinn and Boinks, pissed-off, are sent to do battle on the remote planet of Vietnam. Pilot Leonard Cubbins [David Brown], a dashing and popular fellow, takes them there and talks a lot. Also along for the ride are the drunken robot and one of the King's servants [Ben Sipprell]. In the jungles of Vietnam they meet Annoying Bootlicker [Garrett Gilchrist], a young, bright-eyed child who is freakishly intelligent for no clear reason and who they can't seem to get rid of. He has built a variety of useless things, and does a variety of useless things as well. They head deeper and deeper into the jungle, and the King's servant continually denies that he is, in fact, the King in disguise, though really no one asked him. Cubbins begins to lose his mind. Jinn, calling Bootlicker the "chosen one," is losing his mind too, and Boinks begins to act a bit like Martin Sheen. It is all quite a bit like that old movie, "Owlboy," which is run for good measure. The troops voyage along the river, and an "Aliens"-like sense of desperation grows. They are looking for some sense of meaning, of sanity. They need to meet the Great Director. Yet when they finally reach him in his heavily-guarded basement, he is a fat, mumbling madman. He teaches Bootlicker a catchphrase, and everyone decides that the best thing to do is simply to go insane. And with a large-scale production number, Dr. Fred has been created. And like that, it is gone. Bug



Date: Tue, 15 Jun 1999 19:45:03 EDT Bottom of Form 0

FROM DAVID BROWN: Hey Garret? I dunno if you can fit this in anyway into the script. But I was talking to Ashe about Aliens vs Predator.... and he mentioned how the alien bites peoples heads off. Then I said "Just like the rabbit" And then my warped mind went..... "You know.... if they used the Monty Python rabbit for the Trix commercials, I bet he could get the Trix.." Anyway you think you might be able to use that? ^_^ ~Puck out


Date: Tue, 15 Jun 1999 20:24:06 EDT
FROM DAVID ASHE:

Sounds very good Garret. Some of my suggestions:

-Dave Marshall has expressed interest in being a part of Dr. Fred this
summer, and we also we could bring back people like Tal and Greg, so let's
try to leave rooooooom in the script for them, k? Also, Dave Marshall might
be able to get access to some serious equipmetn, like a...ready for this???
ACTUAL BLUE SREEN! BABY! just like the ones they actually use! wow, what a
step for us, genuine equipment, no faking!*


*Who am I kidding? we'd fake it all even if we didn't have to.



Also, Jerome came up with some silly little phrase he likes to say all the
time (for no reason, of course), and I think it should be included, namely in
a pointless three-second interruption.

We'd cut in on Jerome, wearing normal clothes, carrying a blank expression,
and before the audience could think, "Who the hell is this joker?" he'd say:

I am the Phantom Menace.

then we'd cut right back. Repeat at least three times during the
movie.

Date: Fri, 18 Jun 1999 19:07:35 EDT Bottom of Form 0
FROM DAVID ASHE:

This one starts where you left off. I'm pretty confident in it, but it might not follow your plot, and its gets a tad slow towards the middle, so if you just want to rob it off its gags and re-write it go ahead. It starts where your latest writing left off.

[Dave's writing here was followed very closely in the final movie, and follows from the king's line, or Queen's line in the final movie: "well, I must admit, although you killed all my best men, it was really cool, and I was impressed" to Boink saying "Holy space-ship in a bottle, Whis-kei!" and Whisk-kei's response. It does however call the Jar Jar character "Jar Jar Annoying" and contains this scene not in the movie:]
[Cut to director]

DIRECTOR GEORGE LOOC-ASS (sperhaps poken with lots of broken pauses, and a
hefty portion of ums and ahs): This is a very important scene in the movie.
Here, I've just introduced Jar Jar, one of my very favorite characters. I
think Jar-Jar is definitely a pivotal character, one that will make the
audience really think. I mean, what drives Jar-Jar? What's his motivation?
That's what I'm exploring here. As the movie progresses, you'll see Jar-Jar
grow into a major charcter, essential to the stroyline. Now, you may ask,
what's Jar Jar's appeal? well, I think it's the comic relief. This movie
needs comic relief. His funny voice, those funny ears (chuckles to himself).
I really love Jar-Jar.

[Pan back, showing LOOC-ASS pick up a glass tray, and sniffing white powder
from it.]

LOOC-ASS: Well, let's get back to the film.

[Cut to ANNOYING, JINN and BOINKS in the undersea city of Plastic Feet]

BOINKS: Well, here we are. Goo-goo city. I can feel a strange presence in the
force here, and much stronger than before...

JINN (clutching head in pain): Oh, god...Why, george, why?

SEVERAL HUNDRED GOO-GOOS: WESA LOVE YOOS!! WESA YOUR HUMBLE SERVANTS!!!!

BOINKS: Oh my. I have a bad feeling about this.

On Sunday, June 20th, Dave added the very short scene where the King [Queen] sends them to audition following "Suddenly Family Matters," used in the final movie with the addition of a new character, pilot Cubbins, which Garrett added, and a second sword of flaming monkey droppings joke I came up with just before shooting.]

Tue, 22 Jun 1999

FROM DAN BUZI: I think it's great. Really funny stuff in here. But I also think the
steriotypes should be hispanic, because it's esier to do a Spanish accent.


Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1999 23:09:02 EDT
Subject: Dr. Fred...the end??? ALIENS??? DIE MOTHERFUCKER!!!!!

FROM DAVID ASHE:

[editor's note: this bit of script is not used in the final movie. At this point in the original script, Slapme and Annoying Bootlicker had been killed in the lawn chair battle, which we didn't bother to do in the final movie.]


Okay, two things:

1.) I'm really fucking tired, please excuse the wierd and haphazard nature if
my suggestion for the ending...i think we could do most of it, with a lot of
special effects. I have some idea how we could actually make an airlock. If
we're lucky bastards it might look good. i just got home from orientation (we
had to sing the husky fight song and do the husky dance...yelp!)

2.) What you wrote so far is good, but I have some issues with it, as follows:

-How the hell are we going to get 50's cars, Garret????

-Maybe we shouldn't call the Ewoks Ewoks, for copyright reasons

-What happened to my car being included?

-Dannon!!!!

I'll write something that makes more sense tomorrow, once I've slept
( they made us get up early today so that we could play the 'name game.' Ohhh
god....)


[Insert elaborate fight scene. The three engage in harried battle.
Eventually, the fight takes itself into a series of opening and closing
doors. JINN and ASS-KICK wait on either side of a door. JINN pops into a bag
of chips. ASS-KICK looks real scary. Show BOINKS staring blanky at JINN. Cut
back to ASS-KICK, looking scary again. A caption appears below this shot,
saying "(I'm real evil)." Cut back to JINN puffing a cigar, and playing high
stakes poker with the director. The door suddenly re-opens and the two
continue their fight. ASS-KICK points to a corner and says "look, free
cubans!" JINN looks eagerly, and is cut in two by ASS-KICK. BOINKS, seeing
this, flips out.]

BOINKS (Charging into battle): MOTHERFUCKER!!! COME ON! COME ON! COME GET IT
BABY! COME ON LET'S GO! COME ONE ! COME ON YOU BASATRDS! COME ON, YOU TOO!
OH, YOU WANT SOME OF THIS??? FUCK YOU!!!!!!!!

[ASS KICK knocks the lightsaber from BOINKS' hands...looking around confused
BOINKS remembers his oversized revolver, pulls it out and shoots ASS-KICK.
Big sparks all over appear as ASS-KICK falls backwards (too early, of course)
in slow motion.]

BOINKS: That's for looking cooler than me!

[However, ASS-KICK isn't through yet! he hops up, ready to fight. BOINKS goes
to shoot again...but is out of ammo!!]

BOINKS: Homosexual detecting bastard! I'm out!

[BOINKS runs into a cargo bay door and shuts himself in. SLAPME enters.]

SLAPME: Jinn? oh my, you've been killed.

JINN: I'm not dead yet...

SLAPME (points): That was shameless! (kicks JINN)

[ASS-KICK comes after SLAPME!]

SLAPME (about to be slaughtered): AIEEEE!!!

[the cargo bay door opens, revealing BOINKS, who is now driving a power
loader.]

BOINKS: Get away from her, you bitch.

SLAPME: Hey, I'm a he!

BOINKS: Whatever.

[ASS-KICK hisses. JINN, all of a sudden, has a white substance coming out of
his mouth and covering his body. SLAPME runs like a girl. Suddenly, ASS-KICK
is as tall as the power loader, and just barely misses BOINKS with his second
set of jaws (a fish puppet, of course). BOINKS opens the airlock and throws
ASS-KICK in. Unfortunately, BOINKS falls in, too! Cut to commercial]

[Dancing snack products, carrying a sign "mid-climax intermission"]

SNACK PRODUCTS: Dontcha want sumthin ta eat
Doncha want a ta-ta-tasty treat?

Go to sna-sna-snack bar
Where all the great gifts and foods are

Snack baaaaaarrrrr!!!!

[BOINKS opens the air lock and sucks ASS-KICK out! Heroic ass-kickin music
plays as BOINK just barely closes the door in time. You know the drill.]

JINN: You're a fuckin bad-ass. At last, you've become a fredi. Now, where's
my whiskey?

BOINKS (looking around the airlock): Where's Slapme?

[Cut to shot of SLAPME flying around in space]

SLAPME: I have a bad feeling about this...

[Cut to hyper-sleep chamber]

BOOTLICKER: Ah we going to sleep awll the way heawmme?

BOINKS (pushes him over): Shut up, you're dead.

LORD TANGIBLE: Yes, you'll sleep on the way home...Awlll the way
home...cough...hack...gah!(dies)

JINN: We need a real ending.

BOINKS: Yeah.

JINN: What should we do?

BOINKS: Um...let's have a parade.

JINN: Okay. Good idea.

DIRECTOR: I bet if we show a big scene at the end involving lots of computer
animated annoying bastards, we'll get the audience back for the next movie.

JINN: A hundred credits? You're on?

DIRECTOR: Huh?

JINN: Okay, fine, ten thousand!!

DIRECTOR (derranged look, sniff): You're on!

[Parade scene, maybe just more lawn chairs. End with mockery of the strange
ball Boss Ass is supposed to hold up. God I'm tired.]



06/23/00

FROM NIKET DOSHI: script looks great at first glance...as far as the tail end goes, how
long do you want the fight? it can be three minutes or ten (or twenty,
whatever you damn well please ( the longer the better))
but here goes....
Jinn and Ass-Kick both whip out plastic sabers (if ya pull them out right
they pop out) and Boinks has trouble, fiddling around for a while, while
Jinn and Ass-Kick point and laugh.
Boinks finally gets his plastic out, Jinn and Boinks glare at Ass-Kick,
who growls back. Jinn/boinks charge and Ass-Kick gets pushed back.
Ass-Kick knocks Jinn out of the way and engages Boink for a while- Boink
starts using a repetitve spinning technique( of a spinning ballerina
moving forward without know where he's going) Ass-Kick dodges and lets
Boinks, screaming, bangs into a wall. By that time Jinn is up again and
glares at Ass-kick, they start to circle each other slowly. Suddenly Jinn
throws down his lightsaber and makes slowly tai chi motions. Ass-Kick,
intrigued, also throws down his lightsaber and does the wierd tai
chi...both end up like mimes feeling a wall- Ass-Kick screams and a
fierce game of slo mo "patty-cake" ensues. Jinn knocks Ass-Kick back at
the end, who quickly recovers, and spins to face an alert Boinks. Boinks
opens a flap on his side revealing a "JUDO-CHOP ACTION" button. Saber in
one hand, other hand presses a button- Boinks advances doing "JUDO-CHOP"
in a stilted motion[ a la action figure]. Ass-Kick and Jinn do similar
things ["KARATE LIGHTSABER PUNCH"- Ass-Kick, "JUDO KICK"- Jinn] all
converge and there is a triple K.O.- quick recovery, and Jinn and Boinks
give chase, Ass Kick runs away. Boinks suddenly trips over his own feet
and falls flat on his face, Jinn and Ass-Kick engage in the distance.
Boinks sees vision of "Yoda"- actually the cow from Tao of Cow- who only
says "MOOOOOOOO!" Boinks becomes full of energy- shot of Boinks falling
in reverse (if you can), runs of to engage Jinn and Ass-Kick, who are
down that hall-type thing where the red dividers are. ( How you are going
to do that I don't know--maybe large pieces of transparent red paper
moved in and out by grips-or something even more Fredlike--i don't know).
Boinks gets stuck behind, but only one divider separates Jinn and
Ass-Kick. Jinn sits down to meditate but falls alseep and starts mumbling
about beer. Ass-Kick pulls out potato chips and starts stuffing his face.
Boinks pulls out a bottle of water {200 proof}, downs it, stumbles,
coughs and passes out. Dividers open- Ass-Kick and Jinn engage fiercly-
Jinn is about to kill.
Ass-Kick: Look, Beer!
Jinn (looking around eagerly): Where??
Ass-Kick: HERE, DUMBASS!!! (Stabs Jinn, who falls over and dies
over-emtionally. )
Boinks lifts his head, half asleep, nods off. Suddenly wakes up realizing
what is going on screaming: NOOOOOOOOUUUAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!
(Head on shot of Boinks charging)
(head on shot of Ass-kick standing)
(Head on of Boinks, charging some more)
(head on of Ass-Kick, filing nails)
(head on of Boinks charging)
(head on shot of Ass-kick in an apron mopping the floor and looking gay)
(head on of Boinks- bangs into a wall)
(Shot of Ass-Kick on the floor, laughing hysterically)
Boinks recovers quickly and charges Ass-Kick, who is behind
barrier-Boinks busts through- Ass-Kick taken by surprise, but fights
hard. Ass-Kick and Boinks deadlock (pressing swords against each other's)
Boinks starts making really dumb faces. Ass-Kick starts chuckling- Boinks
becomes even more excessive, by the end Ass-Kick is on the floor crying
of laughter. Boinks takes advantage of position and chops Ass-Kick in
half, and kicks bottom half away (doll??) The top half surprised
continues to show some fight, and grabs onto Boinks leg, and Boinks kicks
around frantically, beating Ass-kick with the plastic lightsaber, but
Ass-Kick won't die.
Boinks: What the hell? THIS ISN'T WORKING!!
Jinn (waking up form the dead/ vampire teeth??): It's plastic, you stupid
fucking [DUB: fudging] paddlewand!
Boinks: well, how am I supposed to kill this mangy son of a bitch [DUB:
snitch]!
Jinn: Shit [DUB: Shnookers], I dunno. Anyways, I used the up my half dead
time where I'm supposed to talk to you about my legacy and pass on the
metaphorical "flame", but I gotta die now...[falls down, singing "gotta
die now, gotta die now" a la "gonna fly now"]
Boinks: HEY....NO....WAIT....JINNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Ass-Kick: Ha (cough cough sputter cough vomit sputter) ha.
Boinks: I'm going to KILL you. KILL. KILL! KIIIILLLLLL!!! (Babarian
rushes in and chops up Ass-kick and runs off/ Boinks is relieved, and now
you finish the movie.)

feel extremely free to edit this up to fred standards and call me if you
need to (261-9711)
Niket



[editor's note: by this point Garrett and Dave had written the full script for "The Phantom Movie." As seen above, Dave and Niket had their own ideas for the movie's ending, but here, printed for the first time anywhere, is the original ending to the movie writen by Garrett Gilchrist. This was also not used in the final production, as we thought up something better on-set. There's another scene with George Lucas, once again never shot though I wanted Greg Nicolett to try the part out. The end-credits rollup is a parody of "American Graffiti" and "More American Graffiti." Note I misspell "Binaca." The death of Boink is a Fred 1 reference, the Tiger as a mystery writer a Fred 2/American Graffiti reference. Ass-kick working for Microsoft is a Fred 2 reference which almost made it into the film, that was supposed to be Bill Gates' walkway Boink dragged the bag up at the end, not Joel Schumacher's. "Scranton, PA," is a nod to Scranton natives 50 O'Clock who did music for the movie. David Ashe still refuses to watch "American Graffiti." Garrett Gilchrist likes "American Graffiti" a lot but refuses to watch "More...."]


BOINK: WHIS-KEI!
JINN: [raising finger] Yeah! Make that two. And a scotch, rocks! Uggh ... [dies]
BOINK: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO !!!

ASS-KICK: What?

[BOINK, seething with all the rage ever known to the universe, has
killed ASS-KICK, in a split second. We barely realize it at first,
until he falls in two pieces. Both halves are still moving, on the
floor. He looks a bit confused. So does BOINK, gasping with his
saber. He shrugs and goes in the finish the job. ASS-KICK's feet
block it. He goes in again. ASS-KICK's head blocks it. He shrugs
and packs the still-struggling ASS-KICK into a garbage bag, still
in two bits. He thinks and then puts him in two bags.]

[A cut. BOINK stands upon a bridge, weeping a bit, holding two bags
that struggle like there are cats in them. ASS-KICK's head pokes
out of one of them, angry. BOINK pushes it back down. An IRRITATING
BASTARD and all the other puppets are below in the water, cooing
like a bird looking for food and pointing to its mouth. BOINK closes
his eyes and throws both bags off the bridge. They fall, and a screaming
ASS-KICK hits his head on the rocks and gets chewed up in an instant
by all the Fred puppets. BOINK sighs, looking thoughtful.]

[Enter JINN, from stage right, putting his hand on BOINK's shoulder.]

JINN: You've done well, Boink. We will do some pretty nice comedy.
BOINK: [elated] Whis-kei! WHIS-KEI! Master Jinn! You're alive!
JINN: Yeah, I couldn't wait for the sequel.
BOINK: But what about continuity?
JINN: Screw continuity. Come on, it's a George Lucas movie. Let's
end it with a celebration. [exits with BOINK]

DIRECTOR: [entering with drugs] YEAH! YEAH! A CELEBRATION! LET'S
HAVE ... A PARADE! [sniffs white powder] WHAT A SILLY BIT! AND NOW ... HERE's ANOTHER!

TIGER: [entering] Hey, that's not half bad. Sort of a catchphrase, right? I may use that.

[And the entire damn cast returns to celebrate in a huge parade.
Everyone is there, and it's pretty cool, if stupid. And the movie is over! Roll credits.]

WHIS-KEI JINN was killed by a drunk driver - himself - in December 1997.
BOINK THE SUGAR SCHLOCKINS GNOME overdosed on his own cereal and
is thought to be dead, as of February 1998.
ANNOYING BOOTLICKER is an amateur filmmaker in Los Angeles, California.
SLAPME CRUNCHBERRY, alias KING AMADEUS THE MIME, alias PEPITO JUAREZ,
alias "DEBBIE," became embroiled in a campaign-funds scandal and
chose to resign rather than face impeachment. He now resides in Mexico.
DARTH ASS-KICK survived, and is now a marketing specialist for Microsoft.
CAPTAIN DANIEL BANACA deserted the army in Vietnam in January 1996.
His current whereabouts are unknown.
GERALD THE ALIEN is an insurance agent outside Scranton, PA. FORD
THE ALIEN is an Amway representative.
LEONARD CUBBINS is undergoing treatment for mental illness.
GEORGE LUCAS is undergoing treatment too.
THE TIGER is a mystery writer living in Canada.
LORD HOLOGRAM is a Country Western singer.



06/27/00

>Who are the main Characters and what are they playing?
WHIS-KEI JINN: David Ashe
BOINK: Justin Bielawa
KING AMADEUS/SLAPME: Ben Sipprell
DARTH ASS-KICK: Niket Doshi
LEONARD CUBBINS: David Brown
ANNOYING BOOTLICKER: Garrett Gilchrist
DARTH HOLOGRAM/LORD TANGIBLE: Garrett Gilchrist?
GERALD: uncast
FORD: uncast
CAPTAIN D. BANACA: Dan Buzi
SMEE BOOTLICKER: uncast [Lieva Whitbeck?]
STAR WAR JINX: uncast [Garrett Gilchrist, David Brown?]
BLACK CHEVY: Niket Doshi?
GEORGE LUCAS: uncast
JEROME WHITE: himself
Those are the main characters right now, but this script also contains more supporting roles than any before it, including one crazed attendant, four servants, two movie critics, one sitcom dad, eight car racers, ten 50s greasers, numerous guys who get killed, and an army of about fifty. And then ..

[editor's note: note the misspelling of "Binaca." In the final movie, Queen Amadeus/Slapme was played by Liz Dimenno, not Ben Sipprell. Gerald and Ford were me and Dave Ashe. Smee was Michelle Caruso. I was Sta-Wa Jinx. Chevy, called T-Bird in the final movie, was played by Ben Sipprell. Lucas was never cast, though I did an intentionally bad cartoon voice for him in the final cut, one line ...]


Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1999 00:53:57 EDT

FROM DAVID ASHE:


Hello all. You're recieving this because you're a tried and true Dr.
Fred veteran and have no choice but to be in the cast, or you have expressed
interest in the project, in which case thank you so much.
If you are no longer interested in being a Dr Fred cast member, tell
me so and I'll leave you alone.
If you are interested in being a cast member, hooy boy, we have a
doozy of a film to shoot here.
Due to heavy constraints of editing time, and the college abscence
of the most important member of the team (and the creator, editor, director,
producer, thinker, drawer, doer, vionary, writer, everything), Mr. Garret
Gilchrist, principal Dr. Fred 4: The Phantom Movie photography must be
completed by July 15th. That's about two weeks from when I'm sending this.
I, your producer (autographs available at request) this time around,
am attempting to organize a schedule for schooting, based on cast
availabilty. So, please, if you want to be in this movie:

Send me a basic outline of when you'll be free each week, and how much time
you're willing to put in every week (Me and Garret work at it every day!)

If your schedule changes weeky, please update me on a week-to-week
basis. Some of you have already reported a schedule, but I would appreciate
you doing so again to make it official. Thanks. Questions, just ask me.
If you're in the cast, we need you to donate one item: ALL the
lawnchairs you have access to. The droids from The Phantom Menace will be
replaced with lawn chairs in The Phantom Movie. The lawnchair battle scene
will be shot Monday, July 12th at 11:00. Attendance is greatly needed (there
must be many extras!), but if you really can't be there, at least give us
your lawn chairs. : ) The more we are lent, the less we have to buy. Have I
mentioned we've spent around $200 so far? We don't have money to throw
around, and time is scarce.
I hope I'm not sounding like an asshole, but things are going to be
tight, so even though no one is getting piad, we will need a hefty dose of
commintment and reliability from everyone.
Once I've recieved your schedule of availability, I'll assign you
your part and send you a script, if wither haven't been done already. It's
late, so I probably forgot somewthing. If I did, please please ask, and i'll
correct. When this things gets done, you'll all get a tape of Dr. Fred
Episode IV: The Phantom Movie, and you can show off your comedic skill to
everyone! Isn't that great??
I hope to hear from all of you very soon. Thanks.

-David Ashe


People in Sweet Charity w/ me: We can work around rehearsal times.
Fred rehearsals will start at 12:00, then Charity at 5:30. We can eat dinner
after rehearsal if needed. I know that's a gigantic chunk out of your day,
but I really need you. Did I mention I love you both very much? Please be in
my movie. : )


Date: Fri, 02 Jul 1999 13:24:58 PDT
From: Michelle Caruso


hello garrett, my hours for next week are...........
monday-7am-1pm
tuesday 1:30pm-6
wednesday 1-7
thursday- off !!! :)
friday 4pm-10pm
sat 1pm-6pm
sun 9am-3pm

the rest of my time is yours. um.. just contact me to tell me when you need
my time lawnchairs and body... until then
*michelle





Date: Fri, 02 Jul 1999

Okay, I'll ask the cast ... I'll yell it, very loud -- "WHO NEEDS MICHELLE CARUSO'S BODY???" I'm sure this will get their attention. No, no ... Right, the schedule. Looks like we're gonna need you, well, whenever you're free, but that's not too often so .... We definitely need you Monday and thursday, if you can manage. If you can't manage, you will be shot. If you can manage, you will be shot. If you don't want to be shot, you will shoot others. Is that clear? GOD, I LOVE THE MARINE CORPS! ... Er, what was I saying? Oh, yes. We need you monday after 1:00. We need you thursday after 11:00 in the morning or noon [Ashe is usually late]. We need you friday, probably after 10 at night ... that's bad hours, isn't it? Ouch. Just trying to sneak into the car show at Dairy Queen ... it's an idea, anyway. Oh well. Maybe we could use you from 11:00 in the morning to a bit after 3 friday too, before work, if you're interested. We just plain need you, we need you, dammit! This show is falling apart! We've spent two weeks shooting 5-10 minutes of footage! GOD, I LOVE DR. FRED!! Er, uh, anyway ... we're, like, painting your face white, or something. Not all the, like, time, but, like, on some days, and stuff. And we don't, like, have any white face paint yet. Ohhhh boy. Right. Right? RIGHT! KILL!!!! Ponder things. The script is attached. You are "KING AMADEUS THE MIME" and "SLAPME CRUNCHBERRY." All instances of "KING" are hereby Michelleized to "QUEEN." Speaking of script, I was trying to write a third act to "Easier Than Thinking ..." I know, I know, I should just give up. Oh well. Right. FOON! Bug

[Note: Michelle Caruso did not wind up getting the role of the Queen, which was given to Liz Dimenno. Michelle appears in the film as Smee [a sort of combination of Laurie from American Graffiti and Shmi Skywalker], as a tourist in Coruscant [apparently of the same race as the warlord and Tal Pearson's Smurf Guy character], and also as the barkeep at the Cantina and Oktoberfest, a role inspired by Bea Arthur's in The Star Wars Holiday Special. All three roles show her in some kind of weird romance with Ben Sipprell, something I'm sure Ben enjoyed very much as in real life he doesn't get women. Hee hee. Sorry Ben.]



Date: Fri, 2 Jul 1999 22:44:24 EDT
From DAVID ASHE:

Want to be a part of the parody event of 1999? Of course you do! The
Dr. Fred cast, previously seen in the acclaimed Dr. Fred 1 and 2, are getting
together to mock Mr. Lucas' newest movie. What do we need from you, you ask?
Well, a large cash donation would be helpful, but chances are you won't give
that, so we want you to be in our two biggest scenes, which need many extras.
It'll be on

MONDAY, JULY 12th


On this date, we will be shooting a big battle scene, in fact a
parody of the one in Star Wars Episode I. Instead of droids, however, we will
gather on a large field to do battle with:

LAWNCHAIRS!!! HAZAA!!!!!

Following this epic battle between man and furniture, We will film a
parody of the Episode I parade. Baby! It'll be relatively short, and
definitely fun. Please report to Wolfe Park at 11:00 on Monday, July 12th.
At the absolute most, it will take 2 hours, so get a ride for 1:00. If you
reeeallly can't get a ride from anyone else, I could maybe, just maybe give
you one. Maybe. Questions, comments, death threats? Call:

[Editor's note: Dave misspells my name here.]

Director: Garret Gilchrist (268-1008)
Producer: David Ashe (452-1084)

Bring Star Wars looking weapons, if you have em. Also, BRING YOUR
LAWN CHAIRS!!! If you own a musical instrument, bring it and march with it.
Trust me, you WANT to be there. You even get to be in the credits!! A day in
Dr. Fred is like a day in the Corps. Every meal a banquet, every paycheck a
fortune, every formation a parade. I love Dr. Fred!



Date: Sat, 3 Jul 1999 13:20:53 EDT
From: Atoook@aol.com [add to address book] [add to spam block list]
Subject: Hell, Yes, We're Gettin' Sued!
To: tygerbug@mailcity.com




Our drummer booked(we're bookies...) the auditorium thing for us. We'll
prolly go up sometime next weekend. Okay? La la la! Oh, yeah, we're also
prolly gonna (two incorrect usages...) play a festival called "Wishstock".
It's a benefit thing. We know the chairman of it. All we have to do is give
him a tape of us and we're in. It's August 6th and 7th or 7th and 8th. It's a
weekend. If you want, I could give you directions to the place(it's a huge
stage) and maybe you can go...

Tim



Fred Journal: July 5th, 1999

The day before yesterday, Sunday, David Ashe and I grabbed Justin Bielawa, intending to shoot a few scenes, but as it was the 4th we took yet another day off and went to a "Phantom Menace" matinee instead. Believe it or not, the place was packed, and we were running late. We thought we'd miss the trailers only, but Liam and Ewan were already leaving the Gungan city when we arrived. It was pitch-black [thanks, ILM!] and there wasn't an empty seat in any sane portion of the house. We sat in the second row, far right. I had the worst seat, and could see very little at first, though my eyes eventually adjusted. I'd brought along a notebook and both Justin and I had pocket tape recorders, though only mine was running for nearly the entire film [however, it was a crappy Sony, and the sound quality is pitiful, rarely understandable]. Justin insisted on complete silence, though [he's such a film student, it makes me laugh] so we communicated via the notebook, and made many jokes and observations which will probably end up in the film. Ashe was quick to note how Qui-Gonn gravitates toward the women in the story. During the Podrace, he has his hand on Padme's shoulders in a somewhat unJedilike manner, and when he first meets Shmi -- well, let's just say he notices the Force. My own personal revelation was that Midi-Chlorians are sperm. As in, "his midi-chlorian count is off the charts." This colored our mockery of the film for the rest of the day, though it is good to know that Master Yoda gets it on. Looking for our own names in the Phantom Menace credits, we spotted only DAVID BROWN [the first scrolling credit], the TYGER [final cast credit], and one MICHAEL LYNCH [sort of a Fred player -- he played Alfred, anyway]. We stopped by McDonald's, where the July 4th leftover staff had descended into madness. Ashe ordered a double quarter-pounder, and after a few minutes I realized I was hungry, so I popped over to the counter and asked for a crispy chicken. The clerk, however, was confused and baffled, wondering what was wrong with my double quarter-pounder. I told him I hadn't gotten a quarter-pounder, and just wanted a crispy chicken. He asked me if I wanted to exchange the quarter-pounder, and where was the quarter-pounder, and oh, you haven't ordered yet and just want a crispy chicken? But you look exactly like the last guy who was here, who ordered a double quarter-pounder! Eventually, he settled down and took my money, returning the change to the WOMAN NEXT TO ME. Clearly she looked just like me too. [Ashe's theory was that we all looked to him like identical rabbits. Maybe that has merit, as I said something similar to the frazzled clerk at the time, though Ashe didn't hear it. Later, the clerk pointed Ashe out to me as "that guy," far too loudly.] After only seven minutes wait for my fast food, we all ran for the doors, only to discover every exit had been locked, on all sides of the store. This even though the restaurant was filled with people, like us. A second clerk said they were actually closed, but realizing they were still serving food, and would be for much of the day, he relented and walked to the doors with us, unlocking one of them. His eyes briefly flashed with thoughts of the possibility of escape, but he knew he couldn't. He was craggly-eyed, greasy and small, and could have been successful in life had he mob ties. Ashe and I escaped. Justin stayed behind with the clerk, briefly, and caught up to us scared to death but quietly laughing as he quoted what the clerk had said to him -- "God, man, I gotta get outta here. I wanna go home and get some fuckin' PUSSY!" Justin's reply: "Uh, yeah man." And with that freshly in our minds, we got the hell out of there.

Again, our own movie was considered, but Ashe lacked his Whis-Kei Jinn pants, and we went to his house to retrieve them. But instead, he started to discuss with us a new movie, the ultimate badass violent movie of all time. Knowing myself to have little talent for writing such, I nearly balked, but David had discussed the idea before, and it was certainly the sort of idea that sold in Hollywood. For reference, we started up Ashe's computer. He wanted to see what Justin had brought him on a self-burned CD-ROM. It was just a bunch of MPG, Quicktime and AVI videos from recent releases and releases of the Final Fantasy videogame series. They were up to 8, apparently, and rereleasing 6 and 4 with redone cinema scenes. I was uninterested, but paid attention anyway, and as Dave tried desperately to make the things work on his system I paid witness to what are beyond a doubt the greatest computer-generated visuals I have ever seen. I commented to Justin how inferior we really are to the Japanese. He grinned in reply, and noted that at least they weren't making big movies. Indeed. Any nation that can convincingly generate a human face is one to be afraid of. I saw computer sprites waltz, wage war and go to the opera, then smiled as Ashe popped into his DVD-ROM drive Jim Cameron's "Aliens," the DVD version, which is, believe it or not, even longer than previous director's cuts. It's almost a 3-hour movie now, god help us. It's never been one of my favorite films, not by a long shot, but it certainly was the proper reference for Dave's badass movie. Quickly I nudged it along, trying to give it strong leads, female appeal, unforgettable visuals, and a sense of humor. And the swords and guns got bigger and bigger as we talked all through the night. His parents finally kicked us out after midnight. The working title then was either "Fuzzy Happy Bunny" or "Chester the Destroyer." I went to sleep but couldn't, instead naming most of the cast, working out a plot and ironic soundtrack [Billy Joel, anyone?], tossing in a waltz and renaming it "Hell's Pancakes." So much for a dialogue-less exercise in violence. How about an exercise in violence, with nice dialogue?


Yesterday -- Monday -- was reserved for Michelle Caruso. She's free only about two days a week, and monday was one of them. Indeed, most of the cast would be free, even Niket Doshi, who normally only does weekends [and was gone the past weekend]. What a boon! Ashe had even skipped his normal 5:00 PM play rehearsal ["Sweet Charity," god help me] for maximum effect, and I'd hoped that large portions of the script would be shot that day. Unfortunately, it proved to be the hottest day yet, 105 degrees in the shade, and Michelle would not be free until 1:00. We'd burn before then. Doshi was called instead, but he'd lost the black pants he needed for his Darth Ass-Kick costume, and was ransacking his home rather than showing up. The day wore on heavy, and we were thankful for Central Air conditioning, but getting little done. Justin decided to screen Sam Raimi's mad, mad, mad "Army of Darkness," starring Bruce Campbell and lots of cheap special effects. Niket appeared just in time, but pantless. Ashe's enormous puffy ballet pants made famous in "You Can't Take it With You" and "Peter Pan" were fetched, which took time, and Dick Blick art supplies, from which Michelle's makeup would hopefully be bought, was closed for the day before's holiday. We decided to shoot the final lightsaber battle, and do it at the Discovery Museum, which had helped Freds I and IV so much already. But we didn't have clearance to get in, and would have to get our characters in check shooting the scene's prologue [on the grassy battlefield just after the lawn chair war] first. This proved disgustingly difficult in the heat, and both Justin and I [as Lord Hologram] had long speeches we could not remember. I caught the worst of it, and Niket's painstakingly applied makeup began to scab over and boil. It was a much longer scene than anyone had anticipated, but we fought through it and shot quite a bit of footage, following the script as best we could. Everyone looked the part. Upon playback it was quite good, but some of it was exposed too bright [in my attempts to not make the players all look like black burnt-out matchheads against the blazing sun. My scenes will have to be reshot, too, as the too-small cloak donated by Justin for Hologram didn't cover properly, making the evil figure look like a tiny Jawa, with my nonthreatening face. This by itself would not ruin the take, but as the shots went on, Ashe kept inching forward and forward, Justin and I following his mark and no one directing, until I was not in the shot at all. Ashe likes that footage. He would. [Actually, Justin's quite funny in it, and half of it may be used.]

That done, we spent about an hour recuperating inside. Dave went off to get McDonald's and drinks. Niket ordered a Big Mac without meat. I ordered a double quarter-pounder [Insert ironic comment here]. Niket washed off the now-ruined makeup. His lips were still purple from some toxic kids' black lipstick we'd given him, which turned out to not rub off on skin without applying enough pressure to cause bleeding. He looked a bit like a drag queen between shows. We'd complained originally that his teeth were too straight and white [Maul's being all cracked-and-broken, sorry mom, the mob has spoken! Monorail, monorail, monorail! ... Mono ... D'oh!], but now they'd turned purple too. Justin screened even more of "Army of Darkness," and we wound up watching almost all of it. This was a pity, as I needed time to apply Niket's makeup, and we would already only have about an hour and a half before the museum closed. A bit tough for an estimated three-hour sequence at a place 30 minutes' drive away. But we rested, and recuperated. The drinks Dave bought were undrinkable to me, and I provided my own. I'd paid for a few of them, though. Applying Niket's makeup again, I found myself screwing up bigtime. But the acrylic-like paint, which I applied with a brush, was so thick and gummy that I was able to put on several coats and fix mistakes. Niket disappeared once again, and it was a better paint job than the last. He also discovered he could eat his meatless mac through it, if careful. Finally, after all that, I called my mother to ask if we could come to the museum. She, of course, said no.

We went anyway. She gave us a half-hour, max. We needed six times that. On the way there, we got a speeding ticket. The officer didn't seem to notice that fake "alcohol bottle" and real cigars in the frontseat, or the satanic creature and Obi-Wan clone in the back. Nor did he pay any mind to the driver's fake beard and prominently-displayed random lobster. Ashe will appear in court a week from today.

Finally, on the hottest day of the year, we escaped to the air-conditioned museum just as it was closing, and stayed for nearly three hours, even when it was locked-up and shut-off. David and Justin had become surprisingly adept swordfighters, and it was extremely difficult for me to capture the excitement of what they were doing onscreen, especially since I hadn't seen any of what they'd created before the call of "take one." The script was altered to match what we could do, but it was largely a matter of addition. Every portion of the fight was redone for angle after angle after angle. Ashe escaped into an elevator, and as I watched with horror and glee his thirsty throat guzzled down, on camera and with perfect comedic timing, the entire enormous bottle of "alcohol" [actually a rather repulsive tea water] in one swig. Niket's makeup was running worse than ever, but in the cold museum it was from his own perspiration rather than any outside heat. His teeth, by the end, had turned completely black, and he did a brilliant "Monty Python and the Holy Grail"-like sequence running toward the camera at top speed for what seems like an eternity without actually moving much. I hope I can edit the film so that what was created in that state of panic can be given a full showcase. Much of the intended battle was lost, certainly, and what was done doesn't always match the script, but it was never written around actual fighting, which is exactly what we got. Ass-Kick and the Fredi really kicked some ass.

Finally, we were kicked out, by my mother and by reasons of maintaining our own sanity, just before Whis-kei's big death scene. The final line recorded was this:


[ASS-KICK grabs the can, drinks it at light-speed, and tosses it away.]

JINN: Hey, we could use you in the chug-a-lug festival on Oktoberfest 4.


The final decision was made to CUT THE SCENE RIGHT THERE, and actually create Oktoberfest 4 for the viewers. Jinn will take Ass-kick out drinking. Perhaps liederhosen, and a polka band. That's where the final portion of the battle will take place. I want to see that more than anything.

We never called Michelle. Ashe was by then too tired to do anything but watch the footage and take everyone home. As we watched, the camera began to malfunction and jam. Ashe just started up the car. He didn't even wash off the beard. Niket washed off his face and teeth. His lips were still purple, though, and his hair streaked with faint red stripes. His parents didn't seem to notice. I borrowed his camera, which is identical to mine but not nearly as broken. His parents want it back by saturday, though -- they're home-movie freaks. No event is too trivial to record in its entirety. Bit of a pity, as no one else in Monroe seems to have an 8mm camera, and I've got three Fredshows to edit, as soon as Ashe lets me have half a minute to myself.

Michelle is free again thursday. Niket isn't. I'll update the webpage eventually.


: Mon, 12 Jul 1999 18:09:53 -0700
From: "Garrett Gilchrist" [add to address book] [add to spam block list]
Subject: To be printed
Organization: MailCity (http://www.mailcity.lycos.com:80)
To: davrovana@aol.com





Scenes remaining to be shot --

Since you asked. Or didn't. As you can see, most of the remaining
scenes are connected, to be shot 5 or 6 at a time, on the same day,
when the required cast members and times of day come together. Only
the full cast lineups needed will provide results, and time is needed
to get it all done. But it should be doable in a couple days, as
long as the, er, producing gets it together, and then you can start your life again. Peace.

1. The alien audition [Jockey Hollow Auditorium] QUEEN, GERALD, FORD, BODYGUARDS

2. She didn't go for it! [reshoot, Jockey Hollow Hall] GERALD, FORD

3. The attendant [Jockey Hollow Auditorium] QUEEN, ATTENDANT, WHIS-KEI, BOINK, BODYGUARDS

4. The auditions were short [Jockey Hollow Hall] WHIS-KEI, BOINK, BODYGUARDS

5. The pirate station [Abandoned Storefront] BUNNY, GERALD, FORD, LORD HOLOGRAM, WHIS-KEI, BOINK

6. Which way? [Jockey Hollow Hall] WHIS-KEI, BOINK

7. Violence is cool [Jockey Hollow Auditorium] BODYGUARDS, BOINK, WHIS-KEI, QUEEN

8. You've been tattooed [City Rooftop] LORD HOLOGRAM, DARTH ASS-KICK

9. To victory! [Jockey Hollow Auditorium] BOINK, WHIS-KEI, QUEEN

10. The director [Merchandise Hall] GEORGE, TIGER

11. Here we are [Underwater City] BOINK, WHIS-KEI, JINX, BOSS ASS, WARLORD, GUNGANS

12. Cool beans [Random Hall] DARTH ASS-KICK, ROBOT

13. He is large like Godzilla [Vietnam Studio] GERALD, FORD

14. Excellent work/Hologram Out [Vietnam Studio] GERALD, FORD, WARLORD, LORD HOLOGRAM, JINX

15. Contra [Outside Vietnam Studio] WARLORD, SMURF SHIRT KID

16. The Pilot [Van Interior] WHIS-KEI, BOINK, LEONARD CUBBINS

17. Did you acquire the plastic feet? [Jockey Hollow Auditorium] BOINK, WHIS-KEI, QUEEN

18. Descending into evil [Darkened Vietnam Studio] GERALD, FORD, LORD HOLOGRAM, JINX, ASS-KICK

19. I've got a trace on it [Discovery Studio] WHIS-KEI, BOINK, LEONARD CUBBINS

20. Planet of Vietnam [Vietnam Studio Jungle] GERALD, FORD, LORD HOLOGRAM

21. We are now at war [Jockey Hollow Auditorium] WHIS-KEI, BOINK, LEONARD CUBBINS, TIMMY, QUEEN

22. Really frickin' great [Discovery Ship Interior] BOINK, WHIS-KEI, LEONARD CUBBINS, TIMMY, SLAPME

23. Some enchanted evening [Dairy Queen Lot, Night] WHIS-KEI, SLAPME, T-BIRD, ANNOYING

24. Dry them off [Vietnam Studio Jungle] GERALD, FORD, LORD HOLOGRAM, DARTH ASS-KICK

25. Ewoks in the Senate [Faked shots] SENATOR, CHANCELLOR VALIUM, CHAIR, EWOKS

26. The Happy Bantha [Bill's Drive-in?] ANNOYING, WHIS-KEI, SLAPME

27. We aren't forgetting anyone, are we? [Sandlot] ANNOYING, WHIS-KEI, SLAPME

28. You bastards! [Dairy Queen Lot, Day] TIMMY

29. Who died in here? [Discovery Ship Interior] BOINK, WHIS-KEI,
LEONARD CUBBINS, ANNOYING, SLAPME

30. The secret word is "yes"/A manufactured enemy [Grassy Field]
SLAPME, WHIS-KEI, BINACA, ANNOYING, LEONARD CUBBINS, ANNOYING, BOINK?

31. Stupider than Pokemon [Grassy Field] GERALD, FORD, LORD HOLOGRAM

32. The speech [Chair-Filled Field] ANNOYING

33. Oktoberfest IV [Oktoberfest Deck] BOINK, JINN, ASS-KICK

34. The bridge [Bridge] ASS-KICK, BOINK, PUPPETS, WHIS-KEI

35. Celebrating [Somewhere Impressive] MAJOR CAST MEMBERS


Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1999 23:59:25 EDT
From: DavRovana@aol.com [add to address book] [add to spam block list]
Subject: Uuuuuggghhhhh. Fuck.
To: tygerbug@mailcity.com




Well, justin phoned me and said he couldn't film this morning. I
really can't film much today either, i have to work at 3:00. Holler if you
still want to shoot before then. Liz can still shoot at 10, so after
rehearsal, she and i will arrive at your house and meet ben, and knock out
another scene (progress! sweet progress!). Sorry about the way the film is
going, it IS partially my sloppy producing. Beat me, I deserve it.We'll be
done by next week. We will. I promise. I'll talk to you tomorrow.
Bye.

-Dave


Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1999 15:53:31 EDT
From: Atoook@aol.com [add to address book] [add to spam block list]
Subject: Sorry For The Long Wait
To: TygerBug@mailcity.com




Okay, we ARE taping tomorrow, rain or shine, tidal wave, whatever. We'll tape
even if no one shows up, although Larry has contacted many people(mostly
girls, the little cassa nova) from the area who said they'd go.
Okay, well,
great.



August 1, 1999

Beats me. Honestly, I really don't know. At one point [weird -- the Netzero banner ad is blaring "Voltron vs. Dr. Who" at me right now, and I'm picking Voltron] it was supposed to be that I would go out there completely alone. I think now, though, mother is coming along and taking all my stuff with her, and she's going to set everything up at the house of an old friend of hers named Marcia Siegel. She'll spend a few days there and then either run off back home or run off back home to get her stuff and try to relocate permanently. Frankly, I'm far too removed from the whole process mentally to make much of anything she's saying, because I'm obsessing over this Phantom Movie of mine which is now finally about three days from completion, shooting-wise, although there is no way in hell, basically, that I'll have a final edit together before leaving for LA. [That's a pity, because the sooner this thing gets released, the more impressed everyone will be by it, because it's timely, and the parody and satire hit dead-on.] To tell the truth, I doubt I'll even have Fred 2 cut together by then. It's all just a matter of how awake I can stay. With just a few days left to work in, it's remarkable how many entire days I still waste just sitting on the couch or in bed, sleeping or thinking quietly to myself, only to get up, eat, maybe go online for a bit, shower, start the wheels of real work rolling at about 5:00 PM, and either have to walk to work at the video shop, or go out and shoot something with David Ashe .... We've also been having a lot of early-morning shoots lately, and it's a good thing everyone assumes I'm always home now, just because I am, because when they show up it's usually to wake me up ... what little editing I've been doing usually starts at around midnight, when I've finally exhausted all other possibilities, and I run tape for a bit before going to sleep yet again at about 3. Otherwise I'm just like a cat, sleeping and eating, occasionally clawing at my carpet of a movie and then prowling all night, unable to sleep or do anything but frighten the neighbors, then pass out for a few minutes to do it all over again the next day .... [The banner ad now reads: "Best voice in sci-fi: Yoda, Odo, HAL, or Kitt?"]

LA, and USC, are not real to me at this point. They will not truly be real to me until I've spent a couple of weeks walking around in them. They're just concepts now, and I don't give a womp rat's ass about concepts. A concept's just a concept. What you can see and feel is the reality of the thing, and it's likely the entire move to LA will catch me completely by surprise. I refuse to pack, and I don't care so much about my life here in Monroe that the prospect of a new life on the other side of this little American world would frighten, or even interest, me. It's doubtful, in fact, that I'll even notice I've run so far away. When I moved to the condos, I promptly forgot where I'd lived before, even though it was the only life I'd ever known and I often wrote about missing it. I can't really remember what the house at Jay Lane was like. I had a father there, and a sister, a different dog, same cat, a best friend named Mike who I no longer know who has a brief but surprisingly good role in Fred 3 which he got by accident, a toxic blue shag rug thick with cleaner and the residue of cat shit, a bed we threw away because it was thick with my own shit [as a baby], a closet with a wooden door that didn't work and could fall out and crush your skull in if you weren't careful and a little electric light on the ceiling inside with the pull-chain ripped off so you couldn't turn it on or off without hitting it with a wiffle bat, and lots of junk on the walls. A child's room, and the minute I moved into the empty basement at Northbrook, where for the first few days I slept on the floor in the middle of an empty room that smelled of pine tar, I completely forgot what, exactly, the old room smelled or looked like. It's likely I'll forget Northbrook too. I'm sure the videotapes of the Fred basement will jog my memory later, but most of what I've got now I'm going to just throw away without realizing it, probably. You can go from town to town, coast to coast, but in the end someone like me who sleepwalks through life is going to be stuck in their own little world anyway, so what does it matter? This is the kind of attitude that drives my mother insane, and I'm sure she'll expect me to have packed everything and made big plans and all, and I won't, and it'll all have to get done in two days, a month's worth of work. But my mind is elsewhere. I'm doing a big-scale movie now, and I love every fucking frame of the thing. I cut the first few scenes in the other day, at midnight, and they were kind of terrible compared to the rest of it, but it's something very new and real and different, and when people finally get to see it I think it's going to surprise people. It's either going to blow them out of the water, wondering "how the hell did they do all that?" or more likely they won't even notice how much we put into it, because for once the lack of budget's not holding up the story, and you can just watch it. It's just a little story, and it kind of goes. Nothing holds it up, and as a parody of Lucas' thing it's not missing anything at all -- all his characters, and all the Fred characters, all the plotlines and running gags and everything, everything's accounted for somewhere, because we approached it slow, one character at a time, and got very lucky with costumes and actors. Everyone got the parts they deserved, and somehow they're able to look just like a dreamworld version of the character they're parodying. Everything that was missing in the script, not thought out well enough, they've filled it in, and all the action scenes are different than the script described, and better in a lot of ways. We shot ALL of Niket Doshi's remaining scenes as Darth Ass-Kick, including the final battle at Oktoberfest, and got incredibly lucky for the first time in ages. We reshot the character's introduction in Coruscant, because the original shoot had been a miserable failure -- the lighting was such that you couldn't see anything but white sky and black figures, and eventually our toxic makeup got into Niket's eye. There we were lucky enough to get high onto an incredible abandoned factory fire-escape stairwell overlooking the entire city of Shelton, just at sunset, with perfect lighting everywhere. We were nearly frightened off by two Department of Environmental Protection [DEP] troopers who asked us what the hell we thought we were doing, and a bunch of apparently homeless vagrants about half a mile away on a distant bridge who all during the shoot can be heard screaming at us, mocking us, and talking about calling the police, but it got done, in one take, and was perfect. We also managed to shoot ALL of Lord Hologram's face-on shots, with or without Ass-Kick, basically the entire length of the script, in about 15 minutes. Don't ask me how. It was supposedly a daylight shoot, and was now long after nightfall, and contruction workers had torn down all but a few remnants of our old set, but somehow it all looked perfect onscreen, and Niket added a lot to the character, with little kung-fu movements and dead-on timing. We needed lots of extras for Oktoberfest, but couldn't find any. Remarkably though, what we got in replacement was better, and sustained us through the all-night shoot, as we got Ben Sipprell and Michelle Caruso to reprise their roles from the opening bar scenes. Michelle even got some jokey business to do, serving pretzels to the battling Jedi, and though Ashe's back porch had never looked at all like an Oktoberfest before it suddenly turned into one that night, complete with every sort of beerstein and tiny prop in the world. Not only was the entire final battle improvised in under an hour, everyone [Justin especially] just let the adlibs fly and got some hilarious lines in. Really, none of it was scripted, but the viewers need not know that, because it works so well. Halfway through, Darth Ass-Kick's $40 lightsaber, which had formerly belonged to Michelle's significant other Dave Marshall but which now belonged solely to David Ashe, ripped in two, down the middle. Everyone was quite horrified, until after a few seconds pause Niket took the two still-connected halves in hand and began to use them as nunchaku, flipping them about and using them as a double head-on sword construct too. Justin, getting the idea, stole his fallen partner's lightsaber and took Niket on with two swords at once. When kicked in the head, he reeled about perfectly, with a slight drunken edge that was dead-on. When reacting to his partner's death, he did such a violent, surprise spit-take with our ginger ale that Niket burst out laughing and had to be restrained. He then repeated the motion for take after take, showering poor Ashe in spittle. Meanwhile, Michelle decided suddenly to serve pretzels to the fallen Whis-kei. Eventually, both Michelle and Ben had to leave, and their absence will be seen and felt in the final cut, but Ashe and Justin turned in a brilliant death scene anyway, take after take with sudden, gutbusting adlibs -- Ashe mistaking Justin for Santa, or captain Picard, Justin screaming out a long, unexplained soap-opera-style plotline ["You slept with Christine! How could you!"], and, in the night's single funniest moment, beating Whis-kei's crushed body shouting "YOU DIDN'T FADE AWAY!!!" ... Ashe himself had to be restrained that time. Finally, with all parties so exhausted to be near death, the last portion of the fight was cut down to an adlib -- I let them fight take after take until finally Justin just hit Ass-Kick in the head with his saber, knocking him out and ending the thing. I said nothing, directed nothing, just let the cameras roll until something interesting happened, and got lucky every time. This time, Ass-Kick began to wake up and rise, Dracula-style, as Whis-kei gave his dramatic speech. Boink screamed "NOOOOOOOO" to the heavens, and suddenly bolted out the door, furious. As Ass-Kick began to growl evilly, Boink walked back in with a garbage bag and simply stuffed a garbage bag over the Sith's head, dragging the corpse out the door and, slowly, all the way over the deck and down the stairs, in a vaguely creepy, very long scene. As he did this, Justin began to mumble the theme from the "Toxic Crusader." Finally, Boink deposits the bag on the front door of an unnamed individual [whose last name is "Gates"] with the notice "Do not open until Dec. 24." Oh, and Whis-kei returns from the dead. All this was made up on the spot, and incredible to watch unfold, though all involved were protesting and tired, having to be prodded heavily not to just go home then and there, property damage to Ashe's house totalled over $200 and three hours' cleaning time [a bench was broken too], and etc. etc. etc. It all worked out. Sometimes, it just does. Even the fake-German costumes looked great. Those were tossed into the pile by Ashe, right on the spot. He'd cut up clothes from Goodwill. There's only one thing I missed -- Niket, finally free to get out of his bag and breathe again, did a dramatic shredding, tearing, growling escape. This, after we'd finished shooting. I really wish I'd had the camera on for that. But you can't win 'em all.

I've rambled. I'm done now. LA will be nice, I'm sure. I plan to be nice to it. I only hope I can survive the weeks before it ... considering that I won't be packing or anything.




Date: Thu, 12 Aug 1999 17:19:13 -0700 Bottom of Form 0

The following motion pictures directed and edited by Garrett Gilchrist have now stalled in final edit and will probably have to be completed in L.A., far from their original cast. Either I finally got it right, or I finally bit off a whole hell of a lot more than I could chew. It's a long list. 1.) Dr. Fred Strikes Back. Starring Garrett Gilchrist, David Ashe. With Justin Bielawa, Ben Sipprell, David Brown, and a cast of hundreds. The long-delayed sequel to "Dr. Fred's Amazing Exploding Cow Show" was supposedly finished in 1998 and has already been seen by most, but is still missing an ending. STATUS: Still in final edit at approx. 1 hour, 20 min. 2.) Dr. Fred 3: The Phantom Movie. Starring David Ashe, Justin Bielawa. With Garrett Gilchrist, Liz DiMenno, Michelle Caruso, Ben Sipprell, Niket Doshi, David Brown, Dan Buzi, Greg Nicolett. The Fred team takes a poke at "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace" with their own subtle, surprisingly coherent comic prequel. Also references "American Graffiti," "Aliens," "Return of the Jedi," "Army of Darkness," etc. STATUS: A rough cut edit is in the works, but final edit has stalled. 3.) The Animal Game. Starring Garrett Gilchrist, David Ashe, Ben Sipprell. With Steve Nagy, Justin Bielawa, Tal Pearson. A one-night, all-night improvised shoot was the gimmick behind this grainy, black-and-white quickie, an emotionally taxing look at a young, methodical madman trying to capture the last moments of his life on video. Throw in a chase-in-the-woods ending, and you've got the anti-"Blair Witch Project," and an occasionally interesting serious capper to the madness of Fred. STATUS: Final edit has not yet begun. The movie now runs at 4 1/2 hours, and not even the director has watched it yet. 4.) The Dr. Fred Outtake Reel. Often-discussed but never-delivered compilation of the funniest unused and unusable footage from the Fred rough tapes. Cock-ups, ad-libs and alternate takes abound, and it would be a real treat if ever anyone got around to creating it. STATUS: On the back-burner. Unusable recordings of things like "Nine Lives" and "Easier Than Thinking" also exist. Call them coming attractions, if you will.




Date: Sun, 18 Jul 1999 18:31:24 EDT
From: Atoook@aol.com [add to address book] [add to spam block list]
Subject: The Band Is Broken Up(but back together again)
To: Tygerbug@mailcity.com, Jimtwo@ncx.com, HouseFind9@aol.com,laurie@neilinnes.org, Bonnie@neilinnes.org, Eccles9697@aol.com,DibleyRoad@aol.com




Yes, you read right. 50 O'Clock is officially broken up. There is no more 50
O'Clock. At all. Well no. Let me splain. Jim got really annoyed with Larry
not being able to practice. Also, Larry started saying stuff behind Nick's
back. Mean stuff. Nick and Jm wanted to kick Larry out, but I didn't, so we
broke up, then formed a new band with out Larry. Sneaky. We were slated to
appear in Garrett Gilchrist's new movie, "Dr. Fred IV: The Phantom Movie",
but this will not be possible. We will, however, be able to perform three
songs for the film. We are currently nameless. We are accepting any
suggestions for a band name. Thank you for your time in this crisis of sorts.

Guitar And Vocals,
Tim McDermott

Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1999 00:40:21 -0400
From: Niket Doshi [add to address book] [add to spam block list]
Subject: the end of darth ass-kick
To: tygerbug@mailcity.com




dear garrett
once again, thank you for letting me do whatever ya called that fred
thing of yours...it was all in your head the entire time, right? just a
dream waiting to happen, full with a complaining cast, pressing
deadlines, and a circus freak indian.
just kidding.
I had a lot of fun. I think the fight scenes look great, they are
admirably edited. if I had any talent, I wouldn't have edited much
differently either. all in all, it's a good production. I have to leave
teusday like tuesday the 17th on a vacation, so after that, I won't see
you for a long time. a very long time.
BUT you can get to me in new york!
niket doshi
2172 lerner hall
New York, NY 10027-8315
phone# 212-853-6498
email (after two weeks): nd101@columbia.edu
this is where i'll be, in the midst of my madness!
-niket.





Date: Wed, 25 Aug 1999 20:38:15 EDT
From: DavRovana@aol.com [add to address book] [add to spam block list]
Subject: You're...huge? pardon?
To: tygerbug@mailcity.com




Calibug?
Well, I can tell you that I've come up with a few serious screen play
ideas...one of which seems to be going somewhere. Unfortunately, it's a
fantasy story, so I dunno if it could ever atract any interest. I mean, how
could I ever compete with classics like Army Of Darkness? : )
As for me makin some stuff in college...I thought I'd go digital, that'd
be easier. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! Any ease digital equipment might give me
has been made up for in trying to actually obtain computer-to-digital
camcorder hardware. Circuit city gives me dumb looks, and the manufacturer
wants $700-800 for a Firecard. Fuck me.
Well, I'll be in UConn on saturday...we'll see if college provides me
with some great opportunities for growth. Or, as I forsee it, a whole bunch
of useless crap will be mine to wallow in.
Talk to you later...ASSHOLE!!!!!!! DIE YOU MAGGOT! WATCH DISNEY'S
INSPECTOR GADGET!!!



-Connetidav?



Date: Fri, 08 Oct 1999 22:52:23 -0700



Subject: My amazing marketing campaign
Organization: MailCity (http://www.mailcity.lycos.com:80)
To: davrovana@aol.com, lehah@mailcity.com, laurie@neilinnes.org





I have been working on the large color painted poster, and it is the best thing I have ever painted. A lot of my better paintings from high school were destroyed by anonymous thieves before I could see if they were any good or not, but parts of this one actually kind of look like something someone might, you know, paint, and not just colored cartoony things that look sort of bad. I drew Sta-Wa Jinx from life. It is unfinished, but should make a nice poster, considering I still can't paint but should from now on try. The marketing blitz began yesterday, with a total of fifteen posters put up in clusters of three near where I live. This was to take advantage of the three styles of poster I'd created -- two formal posters showing Annoying or Gerald & Ford, and one quickly and poorly-xeroxed version of the color poster, torn around the edges and far too dark. When put together, this had a nice effect. All xeroxing cost $1.00 total. Last night, a couple of jackass drunks who also happen to be my hallway neighbors were amusing themselves by barreling back and forth like pinballs down the hallway for about an hour, trying to hit everything along the way and fighting and swearing quite a bit. My door was closed, but boy could you hear them. This was at 2:00 in the morning. Somewhere in there, they got in their so-called brains the idea to tear some of the posters off the walls -- mine, mostly. When I realized they'd done this, I left my room and got extremely angry, calling them "assholes" and kicking things. They threatened to kill me, and tried to, so I closed the door again, and they tried to break it down. They came close to succeeding, but stopped after a while, probably passed out. This is the price I pay for not getting into the actual cinema student housing hall. That was also the night I managed to get a small papercut on my right eyeball. I won't elaborate further. Later today, after a full half-day's glory, I dicovered most of my posters in Pardee Tower had been ripped down and apparently destroyed. This had been the centerpiece of the campaign, and it got the most attention and looked very nice. Several people asked me why I'd taken them down. The posters on the information kiosks outside Doheny and Leavey had already been papered over with new posters, mostly for various Bible clubs and a movie where Matthew Perry plays a guy who isn't gay. Or something. I tore all these down, or moved them so they didn't cover my now-damaged publicity campaign. Two more days, two more days ... Bug





Date:
Thu, 14 Oct 1999 07:42:28 -0700
From:
"Justin Bielawa"
Subject:
Re: My amazing marketing campaign
Organization:
MailCity (http://www.mailcity.lycos.com:80)
To:
"Garrett Gilchrist" , davrovana@aol.com



Suggestions: Lamination, if at all fesible. This prevents everything but lighters being taken to posters. As for the drunkards who've ripped them down, I suggest, rather strongly, to start dressing and acting like either Christopher Walken or the big Owl from the New Zoo Review. Both of these will send all who oppose you into a catatonic state of shock. Which like most reactions to, say, the Sleepy Hollow trailer.

Fear and Loathing in Bridgeport: A poster for the Housatonic Community Coffee House had the subtitle "GOOD CLEAN FUN" underneath the original cover
to Fear and Loathing. I have a copy stuffed into my bag as we speak.

I had a heated arguement on Yahoo the other day about the Phantom Meance AKA: The movie that doesn't go away, AKA: the movie I will not stop talking about, AKA: AKA. We argued, for the good part of 3 hours, on the subject matter of the whole movie, from Maul to Lucas to the story. We came to an honest, simple conclusion: this movie is easy to bash, so we must praise those who see the good (and the bad but perfer the good) in it as Lucas is a simpleton. We also agreed that TPM is the only SW epic besides Empire but TPM is the second weakest of all the SW movies, narrowly beating RotJ in the 'good' catagory. In other words, TPM is a weak epic (?!). And I still wonder why Kubrick disassociated himself to Sparticus. Lucas could learn from that movie.

The famous Sparatacus Slave scene:

Slave Master (Palpatine): Where is the Jedi named Kenobi? Your lives will be spared if Kenobi is given to me!

Spartacus (Kenobi): I am Kenobi!

Slave #1: I am Kenobi!

Slave#2: No, I am!

Slave #3: I am Kenobi!

And, thus, Palpatine was forced to kill all the Jedi...

Things that hurt: Pokemon, Math of Finance tests, unused TPM scoring, paper cuts to the eye (which I have inflicted upon myself twice in 18 years), turning down parties only to get buzzed alone while the parents are in Vermont, subtitles in Hebrew, not being able to sleep.

Soon to be reported: MY ADVENTURES WITH RED BULL: THE GERMAN ENERGY DRINK or WHY NOT TO DRINK GERMAN ENGERY DRINKS AT THE START OF YOUR ENGLISH 101 CLASS or WHY THE FDA DIDN'T APPROVE THIS DRINK

Dance or die,

-J
---


Date: Fri, 15 Oct 1999 23:47:28 -0700
From: "Garrett Gilchrist" [add to address book] [add to spam block list]
Subject: Dr. Fred's Unamazing Exploding Theatrical Release
Organization: MailCity (http://www.mailcity.lycos.com:80)
To: wunschinator@netzero.net, lawnripper@aol.com, laurie@neilinnes.org, atoook@aol.com, mrmmbongo@aol.com, dibleyroad@aol.com, davrovana@aol.com, lehah@mailcity.com, puck40@aol.com





For the first time on record, a Dr. Fred motion picture actually exploded tonight. Fizzled out, more like it. Whispered its presence, and then disappeared into the silence. If I listened to public opinion I would never promote or speak of Dr. Fred ever again. I am thinking of listening to public opinion right now. This is similar to thoughts of beating one's own head against a wall repeatedly. It is thought about, and never done.

Tonight I made the realization that film is not all it's cracked up to be. For almost a decade now I've been fiddling about with video. Well, as "Dr. Fred's Amazing Expoding Cow Show Episode III: The Phantom Movie" played in a multiplex-size theater, with forty seats and a large screen on which an S-video enhancing projector flashed the RGB images of Connecticut's own with astonishing clarity, I realized something I'd already suspected --

"The Blair Witch Project" is very poorly videotaped.

I swear on my last remaining threads of sanity that "Phantom Movie," when given a proper setup in a proper theater, looked pretty damned good. I found myself catching details I'd never noticed before. This is madness, as video is famed for its lack of clarity. But that $600 dollar camcorder delievered images clear enough to kind of get away with.

People watched "Blair Witch," millions of them, and "Blair Witch" looks muddy, flattened and low-res on film. They watched it tonight. Maybe a hundred people watched "Blair Witch" tonight instead of "Phantom Movie."

I should back up.

I advertised "Phantom Movie" for three weeks, a full campaign. Lots of different posters, so many that I realized I had a full "press kit" in my USC portfolio, very pro. Here is a brief guide:

The "A" poster: Drawing of Annoying Bootlicker with a take-no-guff-from-these-fucking-swine expression on his face. Text "Sneak preview! See it now. Before someone else does."

The "B" poster: Similar, but with a drawing of Gerald and Ford, and rearranged text. Pasting is obvious.

The "C" poster: Each one was mildly different. Purposely bad xerox of an early version of the D poster, with some characters missing. Information on the showing is very obviously handwritten, and some sides are ripped.

The "D" poster: Large, extremely detailed painting depicting some of the main cast of the movie. Title appears against a black "asphalt" background in red "Seven Samurai"-style lettering. Painted in bright-colored acrylic, approx. 14 x 20 inches ... I never actually measured it. Layout resembles a standard Drew Struzan poster. Style varies from very realistic to somewhat caricaturish. Very impressive, depicts [from left to right] in row one: Darth Ass-Kick, Queen Amadeus [in half white-face "blue feather" costume], Captain Daniel Binaca [laughing, with stick and random lobster]. Row two: Whis-kei Jinn, Jar Jar Boinks, Annoying Bootlicker. Row three: Timmy, Sta-Wa Jinx, Pilot Leonard Cubbins, Ford the alien, Gerald the alien, Ford T-Bird, Smee. This is a very nice, Hollywood-style poster.

The "E" poster: 11 x 17 color xerox of the D poster. A fold-style break is visible halfway down due to the image being too large to copy all at once.

The "F" poster: 8.5 x 11 color xerox, same as E poster but smaller.

The "G" poster: Same as A poster, only clearer.

The "H" poster: Same as B poster, only clearer.

Photo book: color printouts of small photos from the "Phantom Movie" webpage, three sheets, to be taken out and shown to interested parties.

I bombarded USC with these, day after day, since they kept getting ripped down. I'm proud to say I didn't lose any of the color posters, since I tended not to put them up anywhere unsafe. One did get thrown out, but I found it in the trash and used it again. All "A," "B," and "C" posters were pretty much destroyed. The original "D" painting remains in my room, as safe as I can keep it. It's swell. [Note to Jerome, Tal and Greg, all painted out of the poster at the last minute to keep it from looking too cluttered -- sorry.]

What I mean to say is, you would all have been very impressed. I have discovered, though, that USC students lack the ability to be impressed. They only exist to further their own selfish ambitions, and are ALL working, or hoping to work, on some project or another, and believe that giving a moment's thought to actual talent or entertainment around them is only an admission of weakness, and tantamount to deserting their one-man army. My posters were "blocking their own," and who stays on campus on a friday anyway?

I should start again.

Hi.

My name's Garrett.

I've directed five movies. Two of them can even be called finished.

My best movie was shown in a theater at the George Lucas building at USC in L.A. in room 207 tonight, october 15th, 1999, after three weeks of advertising and asking every friend I thought I had here to support me and watch what I'd done.

No one showed up.

The theater was completely empty at 7:15.

And 7:20, and ...

Well, someone did show up actually, one person, 20 minutes late. She'd been told by a friend to go and check this out. The friend would never come to such a thing herself, of course. I talked with her a bit, and she said she wouldn't mind seeing it. She was working on a video project herself, a 20-minute short with a Buddhist-themed title. Everyone's got a screenplay going in this town. She plugged it a bit, and said she wouldn't mind actually seeing what she'd come to see. She was apologetic and nice. She did say she might not be able to stay the full 2 hours. I sat her down in the theater alone, and played her my magnum opus.

It was beautiful. It looked marvelous. Sharp, huge, lovely picture.

She left after 8 minutes, I think. But she did say it was "kind of clever." I think her name was Vanessa Harris. I can't remember.

An hour had passed. I was more alone than I ever had been in my entire life.

I ran outside ranting, and stuttering. All my USC "friends" were in their dorms, doing nothing in particular. They knew it was tonight. I told them I still had time to run it, if I did it right then. I couldn't get anyone to see my movie. They had their own agendas to meet. This continued for thirty-five minutes, with forty-five acquaintances. Wales the Evil but Kind of Intelligent Guy who Lives Next to Me, who probably attended the "Fight Club" screening later tonight, said I amused him in my insane, raving, suicidal form, because I reminded him a lot of Woody Allen. Mike, the Helpful RA Guy, said if I ever wanted to get a REAL promotional budget going, to call him, because he knows people and can do things.

I began to scream, and verbally attack pedestrians. I also made the miming-gun-to-head gesture Travis Bickle uses in "Taxi Driver." I began to hate all Asians.
[editor's note: a reference to how Bickle learns to be racist in "Taxi Driver." I am not actually racist in any way.]

Some German students started to follow me, mocking my mode of speech in thick accents. They eventually watched some of the movie, actually. They mocked that too, and left sooner than the polite Buddhist-video senior.

I stayed, alone in the dark, watching as much as I could of all three Fred movies. As Leonard Cubbins tried to eat that lamp, I could feel his struggle and pain emotionally. I began to get misty. What a stupid fucking world.

John Hazelton, the Norris Theatre projectionist and Rutles fan who'd helped me get the theater ready, helped me pack up too. On the way we passed the Japanese non-USC-students who have for over a month now been promoting an 85-minute rape-horror flick called "Scar," their own creation, and based on a Japanese story, probably written by Buddhists. On video. They seem to have spent more on the promotion than on the picture itself. They've certainly spent more time. They're also charging admission. They premiere tomorrow.

"Tney'll be disappointed," John said, noting that movies at USC usually fail on weekends. "They'll be disappointed no matter what," I replied.

John is not at all a Dr. Fred fan, but he actually asked me about the group -- who they were, why I bothered.

Ask anyone on the street "How's the screenplay going?" in L.A., and they'll have an answer for you, he said. Makes it hard to get excited about the work of others, I suppose.

I am not yet famous. I will be in five years, I think.

Bug


10/23/00

More than one person has talked to me about the fourth Fred, now that Fred is basically over. Since "Phantom Movie" was originally titled "Episode IV," both due to the fact that "Phantom Menace" was really the fourth Star Wars and rather obviously showed it [the "Conquest of the Planet of the Apes" syndrome] and due to the long-awaited outtakes reel being scheduled for release as "Fred 3: Revenge of the Fredi."

With the renaming of the "Phantom Movie." the Fred 4 slot, which should never have been opened in the first place, remains empty, mocking this tired scriptwriter.

So I am tossing this very short bit of plot summary into that hole, and then closing it forever. Whenever anyone mentions Fred 4 from now on, tell them what follows, and note that the matter is closed. There is no Fred 4. This is Fred 4.


DR. FRED'S FOURTH MOVIE EVER

The names of the stars of the movie are shown on large, human-sized cardboard boxes, with FRAGILE and HANDLE WITH CARE marked on them. Out of one marked EMOTIONALLY FRAGILE steps Garrett Gilchrist, dressed in a spacesuit. We see that he is aboard a spaceship, piloted by David Brown. Garrett lights a cigar, and chokes on it. He begins a director's log, talking like Charlton Heston, describing how despite the best efforts of the Fred race, mainstream success has eluded them, and as an admittedly misguided publicity stunt they have all packed themselves up into cardboard boxes and shot themselves into space. And Trace Beaulieu keeps sending them bad old movies for some reason. A song number is inserted randomly at this point. Trying to pilot his way to George Lucas' house, Brown has slipped up and is on a course for Roger Corman's house instead. Garrett grabs the controls and, never having driven anything before, crashes the ship thoroughly on a deserted island. David Ashe names it the "Planet of the Fred," forgetting that it isn't a planet. Making the best of it, they decide to start their own studio-civilization, where the Fred style of comedy, having no competition, can be truly popular. A song number is inserted randomly at this point. But they discover that the island is not uninhabited at all, but colonized by a race of Legitimate Actors, who all wear blank masks over their heads imprinted with the image of a celebrity. The Fred folk are immediately treated as inferiors and slaves to traditional notions of plot by a bunch of well-paid damn dirty actors. They are even being paid well for their admittedly minor roles in this very movie. A song number is inserted randomly at this point. The Fred folk are imprisoned. They decide to change, act seriously in serious drama and try to fit in. A song number is inserted randomly at this point. But the Fred folk can never fit in, as well and dramatically as they act in brief theatrical productions here. They keep telling jokes, and skimping on money, and forgetting what role they're supposed to be playing, and talking to the audience, and quoting other movies, and all the things that Fredfolk do. They are put on trial, and the legitimate actors try to shut down the very movie we're watching. A song number is inserted randomly at this point. Garrett goes out for a stroll on the beach and discovers a huge, half-destroyed statue of Boink the gnome and an urge in himself to very briefly overact and say "You maniacs!" After a bit he manages to suppress this urge. A seemingly incongruous plot point is discovered -- at one point on this island, a gnome named Boink was worshipped as a god. Justin agrees to "go Anthony Daniels on their asses" and impersonate their god, and the ruse seems to work. Everyone loves Fred. Then the judge sentences the entire cast to be taken off and hanged. And they are. In a cheap-looking heaven, everyone has a big keg party and the time of their lives.

Bug

back to the phantom movie