RoundTable Thursday : Sequels, Aliens, and Brokeback Mountain

Welcome to another RoudTable Thursday! The only round table discussion that features the writers of Act Classy that you can find on Thursdays on this site. I’ll be your moderator, Joseph “Switchblade” Lyons, and we hope that you enjoy this glimpse into the creative process into the beautiful minds that are the folks at Act Classy.

Before each Roundtable, we always pose with our bones…and then we laugh and laugh…

JOE LYONS – RoundTable Thursday engines…ACTIVATE! Hollywood, thanks to a horrifying bookmaking mistake, has just given you an obscene amount of money to make a sequel to any movie that has ever been made. What are the sequels you would make? WHY?!

JIVE TURKEY – This is easy! If no one beats me to it, I make a sequel to The Happening called It’s Happening Again! with most of the same cast, including Marky Mark and that girl who plays ukeleles for no apparent reason. In the sequel, the trees don’t just release a deadly airborne toxin to register their displeasure with the human race — they actually tell us! Yes, the trees can talk, and boy, are they cheesed off! There’s a crotchety old elm (voiced by Mickey Rooney), a sassy maple (Niecy Nash), a mopey weeping willow (David Schwimmer) and a precocious little sapling (don’t the Fannings have another kid stashed away somewhere?), and do they EVER give people an earful about their disrespectful treatment of the environment. Dumping chemicals down a storm drain? I don’t THINK so! What a gas!

Tell your mother that every part of my brain agrees with this idea.

MOLLY MARTIN – Savannah Smiles: The Reckoning

And then, seconds later, she set a whole bunch of guys on fire.  They know why.

FRED BETZNER – I’ve never understood why there was never a sequel to On Golden Pond in which they drain the lake and discover the piles and piles of corpses that Henry Fonda was dumping there for all those many summers.

Oh, Norman!  You murdering poop!

BRAD STEPHENSON – I guess this question is best answered with my nightly prayer: “Please Jesus, I know I haven’t been the best disciple, but if you just make Brokeback Mountain 2 a real thing, I promise I’ll never, ever sin again. Except when I watch Brokeback Mountain… and, of course, Brokeback Mountain 2. Also, please let there be at least one penetration closeup this time. Also, please make my hair start growing back.”

Well it does explain why Brad has this painted on the side of his van…

All fascinating responses. Jive Turkey’s movie gets the greenlight, but Fred’s will do better at the box office.  Personally I would have either gone with Babe III: First Blood or Glitter 2: Pig in the City. Both films would challenge audiences’ thoughts as well as their appetites.

It’s as awful as it looks.

NEXT ITEM! Aliens have made first contact with Earth and the only way they can do it is through your cellphone. What’s the first thing you tell them about Earth? What’s the biggest lie you’ll have to tell?

 

Well, whatever I tell them, I certainly WON’T tell them to watch Glee or look at Facebook, because then they’ll destroy us immediately. I suppose I’ll tell them we can make some pretty good ice cream? I don’t know. People kind of suck, so I feel I should be up front about that.

The original poke.

The first thing I’d tell them is to rent Brokeback Mountain immediately.

The biggest lie I’d have to tell is this: “Earthlings always greet alien visitors by reenacting the tent scene from Brokeback Mountain.”

You see, Overlord Glong, it’s just a bunch of gay cowboys eating pudding.

All good points. Personally, I would tell them that the people of Earth are generally a peaceful race and would love to cooperate with the aliens in any way, shape, or form…just so long as they don’t force use to use our Godzilla Ray. Then I’d put the aliens on hold, call the UN, and tell them I need someone to figure out what a Godzilla Ray is and to start making one immediately.

It’s either a ray that shoots out Godzillas or it’s a ray powerful enough to kill a Godzilla…I haven’t decided which yet…

I was going to talk about the economy, but my hand has been forced…so to speak. Why do you think it is that you can’t quit me?

 

I can quit you. I can quit you anytime I want. I just don’t want to. IT’S MY LIFE! STOP JUDGING ME!!!

 

Stephenson men aren’t quitters. Stephenson women are men.

 

What I look like after all of my conversations with Brad…

Clearly, we’ve gotten as far as we’re going to get today without a sturdy pair of chaps and a room that has been THOROUGHLY swept for surveillance equipment.  So what about you, folks?  What’s the one sequel you wish would get made?  What would you definitely not want the aliens to know about?  Can you quit me?  Well?!  CAN YOU?!  Talk at us in the comments below!

Joe Lyons

Joe Lyons is a Pittsburgh-based humorist, playwright and the only man to successfully play Street Fighter II at Beeps, Balls & Bings in Camp Hill, PA blindfolded for 12 consecutive matches in 1992. His fighter of choice was E. Honda, thanks to the ease of his attacks, the reach on his punches and kicks, and the fact that when he flew through the air you could kind of see his butt. Butts are funny. Joe has been featured on Significant Objects, Hilobrow, MamaPop, and will someday spout his insanity on a gigantic video wall in the middle of a major city, like that Geisha lady from Blade Runner.

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