LA Comedy Writer

I was giving some thought to the youth of today, and I made the same mistake of every generation before me. I thought the world will be full of the dumbest assholes ever after I’m gone. I see our youth making idols out of Miley Cyrus, Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, and yet, they can’t tell you who the Vice President is. Then I caught myself, and said, “Didn’t my parents and their parents have that exact same opinion at one time?” The answer is an unequivocated “yes”. Just so you don’t think I’m farting and calling it a brainstorm, let me explain. Back in the late 70′s, Burt Reynolds made a movie called Smokey And The Bandit. When I was a kid, I not only saw it at the theater four or five times, I was also convinced it was the one of the best movie ever. Funny thing about movies you saw as a kid. Your memory of the film will remain intact, as long as you never see the movie as a middle-aged adult. HBO is running the original SATB, and, yearning for a bit of nostalgia, I watched it from start to finish. Jesus! The movie was horrible! Then I realized what I remembered from the movie

1. Sally Field had a great ass

2. A black Trans-Am was a $7000 pussy magnet.

3. Given enough room, the Trans-Am could jump a creek.

4. Never piss off a trucker if you’re riding a motorcycle.

And that’s it. Besides a few great lines from Jackie Gleason (“When I get home, I’m gonna punch your Momma right in the mouth”), there was little else of any substance. Yet, there it remained for almost thirty years, among my favorite movies. I dare not ever watch Caddyshack again. But my point is, despite my inability to tell a good movie from a bad one (from a writing standpoint), I turned out okay. As I got older I learned that a good movie isn’t filled with cops too stupid to avoid crashing into each other during a chase. And, while I’m at it, just to show you how fucked up the eighties were, Smokey And The Bandit spawned two sequels. SATB was about getting beer to Atlanta. SATB II was about transporting a pregnant elephant. SATB III was so bad that even Burt Reynolds had to say “enough”. How asinine a script was III, so that Burt Reynolds would turn it down? He acted in a movie with an elephant! But even without Reynolds, the producers sat in a room, and thought about how to make it work…

“Okay, so Reynolds won’t do III because he’s a fancy-pants star now, and he’s screwing Sally Field, so she’s out too. Bandit I and II made a shitload of money, so what can we do? We gotta have a III, but Jerry Reed can’t carry a movie all by himself. What if we have the dog drive the truck?” Then another guy jumps up and says, “Hey! How about if we make Buford T. Justice the guy that makes the run? We can call it, “Smokey IS The Bandit.” The first guy says, “Now Jim, that’s an idea with some legs. Let’s run with that. Good meeting fellas. Let’s go get some lunch.” And of course, SATB III made exactly $11.83 at the box office. And trust me, the dude that suggested SATB III was still somehow, promoted.

What I’m trying to say in a nutshell…midlife adults can relax. The world will be okay.