by David Cross
NARRATOR (V.O.)
Good Americans everywhere respond to the call of duty, throwing away their photos, home movies, and diaries of the bleven year. Jimmy here is tossing away his prized 4H Club medal for onion eating.
A KID proudly/sadly shows his 4H Club medal with the year “195-bleven” on it. The ARMY GUARD salutes him.
NARRATOR
Uncle Sam says “Thank you.” Prisoners willingly go back to jail for one more year, happy to contribute. It’s like they never served that time!
EXT. PRISON
Five BLACK MEN file in, getting cuffed by nasty GUARDS while a mean-looking WARDEN, chewing straw and holding a rifle, looks on.
NARRATOR
But this means that all achievements must be forgotten. Achievements in the field of science.
EXT. LAB
SCIENTIST speaks to camera.
SCIENTIST
There were no significant achievements in science this past year to talk about. Just two and they’re easily replaced. Something called “frogurt,” which is a frozen yogurt no one will ever eat because it’s disgusting. And this thing…
Holds up a test tube.
SCIENTIST (CONT’D)
A cure for something called, “aidsies.”
He tosses it into the garbage. Followed by a big sheaf of scientific papers.
EXT. SENATE BUILDING
NARRATOR (V.O.)
Some events to be forgotten include one that most of America would like to forget. I’m speaking of Senator Howell Tankerbell’s notorious blacklist.
INT. SENATE COMMITTEE ROOM
SENATOR TANKERBELL (a comically overstated Southern blowhard), sweating, speaks to a panel of other SENATORS and many news microphones.
SENATOR TANKERBELL
I have in this little book…
He holds up a little black book.
SENATOR TANKERBELL (CONT’D)
… A list of so-called Americans whom I suspect of being black.
Murmurs and brouhaha.
SENATOR TANKERBELL (CONT’D)
Please, let me finish. The only way to truly find out if they are black is to ask them.
CUT TO:
INT. SENATE COMMITTEE ROOM
A sweating, nervous, BLACK WITNESS sits at the testifying table.
SENATOR TANKERBELL (O.C.)
Answer the question! Are you now or have you ever been a black man in America?
BLACK WITNESS
(leaning into microphone)
Yes.
The Gallery murmers as Tankerbell writes.
SENATOR TANKERBELL
Thank you. Next!
We see a LONG LINE OF AFRICAN-AMERICANS waiting to step to the mic.
EXT. NYC STREET, MIDFIFTIES
NARRATOR
And Madison Avenue will have to junk its efforts of the past twelve months and go back to the drawing board. Say good-bye to this fun product.
Cheesy kinescope commercial for “Li’l Cap’n” cigarettes.
A DAD sits reading the paper and smoking a cigarette. TIMMY, a ten-year-old boy, enters and starts to take a cigarette from Dad’s pack. The DAD slaps his hand away.
DAD
Hey there, son, those aren’t for you.
TIMMY
Aww, Dad.
DAD
Here.
He picks up a smaller packet of stubby cigs.
DAD (CONT’D)
Now kids have their own cigerettes. Li’l Cap’ns, they’re an inch shorter, perfect for your tiny, growing lungs.
TIMMY
Thanks, Pop.
They both light up, and Timmy takes a big drag.
INT. FAMILY ROOM
NARRATOR
And even entertainers are getting behind the enforced amnesia… who can forget the Nutz Brothers and their fabulous film Knock Knock, Who’s Scared?! Well, hopefully EVERYONE! Here’s one last glimpse—
INT. HAUNTED MANSION HALLWAY
OFFSCREEN VOICE
Knock knock.
The NUTZ BROTHERS, THREE BROTHERS with identical suits and moustaches, act scared and flop around.
NUTZ BROTHER 1
Whaaaa? Who’s knocking?
NUTZ BROTHER 2
Answer it.
NUTZ BROTHER 1
I ain’t answering it.
OFFSCREEN VOICE
Knock knock.
NUTZ BROTHER 1
Yeeeyeeee. What are we gonna do?
NUTZ BROTHER 2
Let’s answer it together.
NUTZ BROTHERS
Who’s there?
OFFSCREEN VOICE
Mummy.
NUTZ BROTHERS
Mummy who?
OFFSCREEN VOICE
Your mummy, dummies.
They open the door to reveal an actor in a gorilla suit with an apron on, who proceeds to hit both of them over the head with a rolling pin and then shuts the door.
NARRATOR (V.O.)
(chuckling)
Truly the height of all things comedy. As well the war with Canada will also be forgotten.
CUT TO:
EXT. HUGE FIELD
In this field of well-mown grass is ONE WHITE GRAVESTONE with a soldier’s helmet hanging off it.
NARRATOR (V.O.)
A war that lasted over eight hours and left one American infantryman’s dog dead from Canadian measles, a gentle, mild form of measles similar to American measles but… not as good.
SCREEN SPLITS INTO FOUR featuring footage we’ve just seen.
MUSIC: RAH-RAH newsreel clap-trap theme
NARRATOR (V.O.)
Nineteen fifty-bleven, seeya, sayanora, bye-bye, there’ll never be another year quite like ya!
FAMOUS PUSSIES
by Bob Odenkirk and Brian Posehn
Written sometime around 2003
MONTAGE OF STILL IMAGES
Herbert Hoover, any President speaking to a group, Truman, Pearl Harbor before it was bombed.
ANNOUNCER
Everybody talks about Roosevelt’s “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself” line, but did you know that it was stolen from Herbert Hoover? Hoover, originally said, “The only thing we have is fear. Fear itself is the only thing we have. And you can take that to the bank!” And then Truman’s “Have no fear, the buck stops here. I’m Superman!” speech, but does anybody remember Truman’s first speech after Pearl Harbor?
INT. STATELY OFFICE
Black-and-white, scratchy newsreel (Super 8), crackly audio, Bob as Truman.
TRUMAN
(a pronounced quiver in his voice)
By now… you’ve all heard… what happened…
(totally breaking down)
Oh, my God…
Holy shit… I am so fucking scared. I mean… oh, dammit… I’m scared. I don’t want to die. I’m scared for me! I… can’t stay here. No good… must…
(yelling)
—Warm up Air Force One!
OS
Uh… we don’t have it yet.
TRUMAN
Well, somebody build one. Now!!
He runs off and we stay on the empty office…
ANNOUNCER (V.O.)
Or the so-called “great” President Kennedy’s first response to the Cuban missile crisis…
INT. PRESIDENTIAL PRESS CONFERENCE
Wavy kinescope recording of presidential press conference.
KENNEDY
(heavy Kennedy accent)
Aahhh… oh shit… aaaahhhh… I’m scared. My brother’s scared. My entire family’s scared. My wife. My girlfriend, we’re all scared. And you should be, too. Arr, uh, I’m going to ask each and every American to stay home until I can get as far away as I can. Then you can, uhh, run, too. Don’t panic. Wait until I am safe, and then it’s every man for himself. (He shits himself.) Oh no. I sharted.
CAMERAMAN (O.C.)
There was no fart to that.
KENNEDY
(trembling)
Ohhhh…
He sucks his thu
mb and cries. Over this:
ANNOUNCER (V.O.)
Cowardice has often been the first choice for so-called heroes all through time. Who could forget Lou Gehrig’s famous speech.
EXT. BALLPARK
Black-and-white film, scratchy… David is Lou Gehrig… we catch a snippet of the famous speech…
DAVID
Today I consider myself the luckiest man on Earth…
He carries on, we hear the voiceover.
ANNOUNCER (V.O.)
… was preceded, before the game, by a speech with a much different tone…
EXT. BALLPARK
Same setting, David as Gehrig is a ball of self-pity and anger.
DAVID
Whyyy? Whyyyyy? I’m famous! I’m good at baseball! Whyyy? (sobs—looking into the stands)
I swear, I wish you had this! If I could rub a lamp and get a wish from a genie and give my disease to every one of you I would do it in a second! I would! I mean, come on, I’m probably better than every person here, you know that…
Cutaways to embarrassed PLAYERS and CROWD MEMBERS IN PERIOD DRESS.
DAVID (CONT’D)
I’m going to touch you… I don’t know if it’s catching, but I hope it is…
David as Lou Gehrig runs around, trying to touch the various BALLPLAYERS, who scatter around the infield.
ANNOUNCER (V.O.)
The real first words, spoken before the moon walk, before the hatch opened, and we all heard the scripted “giant leap for mankind” thing, were much different before they went into a Hollywood studio and dubbed over them.
INT. SPACE CAPSULE
A futzy TV image, scrolling with snow, glitching in and out, relatively stationary, of an ASTRONAUT (BRIAN POSEHN) with his hand on the door handle, ready to exit. He is breathing heavy, and we hear the following conversation with those famous “audio snow” blips in between talk.
HOUSTON (O.C.)
Are you ready to disembark?
ASTRONAUT
Uh, Houston… no, no, I’m not…
HOUSTON (O.C.)
Is there something wrong?
ASTRONAUT
Houston, yeah, it’s wrong. We shouldn’t be here! It’s against… God! Whose idea was this?!
HOUSTON (O.C.)
This is Houston, could you repeat? Is there a problem?
ASTRONAUT
Yes there’s a problem!! I’m fucking on the moon! Okay, I didn’t know this till I got here, but I’m scared of space! I know it now! There’s probably monsters out there!
HOUSTON (O.C.)
Uh… no, there’s no monsters, over…
ASTRONAUT
(through the roof)
You don’t know! You’re not here! I’m going home, now! MAKE THIS THING BRING ME HOME!!!
HOUSTON (O.C.)
Uh, this mission is not completed.
ASTRONAUT
It is now! I’m gonna scream in your ear until you bring me home! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
HOUSTON
Are you done?
ASTRONAUT
Are you bringin’ me home?
No answer.
ASTRONAUT (CONT’D)
Aaaaahahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!
Epilogue
Shortly after the fourth (and to some the last) season of Mr. Show with Bob and David finished airing, Bob was questioned by a confused fan at a gas station. “Hey, I thought you guys said you were doing another season? When’s that gonna be on?”
Bob smiled ruefully and said, “We did and it was.”
Our (perhaps only) fan had missed the whole stinkin’ thing! The fourth season had already aired, quietly, secretly, in a dark corner of the cable channel known as HBO, or Home Box Office. A last-minute time slot shift from their vaunted “comedy block,” where it followed The Chris Rock Show, to Mondays at midnight, where it followed Taxicab Confessions, made the fourth season a hidden gem—hidden even from fans who were LOOKING FOR IT. Painful. By the way, if you’re wondering, that tank of gas cost Bob less than twelve cents, and he was able to drive over 4,200 miles on it (this was 1999).
Licking our wounds, we wrote Hooray for America! As we said in the Preface, it’s not the first script in this book, but it is the first we wrote after the death of the TV show. Cinephiles and masturbators alike will note that the “Chow-Chow” character in this script also appears in Run Ronnie Run. “Chow-Chow” is directly inspired by our going to see the film Rumble in the Bronx… which you must see for the spectacle of a poorly dubbed and wheelchair-bound child (subbing for a legitimate English-speaking child) who will tug at your laugh-strings, as well as for the beautiful snowcapped mountains surrounding New York City (New York was busy with a bunch of rapes and murders that week, so Vancouver kindly subbed for NYC). Anyway, we invited the writers of Mr. Show to come in for a read-through of Hooray! Everyone thought it was funny but also agreed, immediately after reading, that the script couldn’t be “our first movie” because it was too inside. And in addition it really required that the viewer be at least somewhat familiar with Bob and David, which, as we discovered from our gas-guzzling friend, was not anything to be counted on.
Thence came Run Ronnie Run. Yeesh.
The whole crew from the show wrote Run Ronnie Run as a “sketch” movie with an intentionally thin “road” story of the British producer taking Ronnie to Hollywood and interacting with a bunch of sketches. Over time, due to New Line’s input and Bob Odenkirk’s bad instincts, that story tried like hell to become more traditional. It failed on most counts.
We (and some of the cast) put together a live tour two and a half years later (2002), which was called Hooray for America! and utilized some aspects of that screenplay.
After all that, we knew we’d made a mistake drifting away from our strengths in sketch and so, despite a screaming lack of interest in our work, we wrote The Bob and David Sketch Movie, or Bob and David Go to Hollywood, or Bob and David Make a Movie, or Six Months of Wasted Effort—you pick your favorite title.
This would have been around 2003, according to the dates on the scripts.
In the very premise and title of Bob and David Make a Movie you can see our brains working on the issue consuming us: how do you get a movie made? More specifically, “How do WE get a movie made?” You are on your own. It felt like a surefire, home-run, steroid-spiked, laff-tastic hit. Hollywood disagreed. So thanks for reading our book! You’re great. You’re our fan? Fuck that, we’re fans of YOU.
Acknowledgments
David would like to acknowledge global warming.
About the Coauthor
As Dictated to the Coauthor’s Wife
Baby, what the fuck? Did you see this? My name’s on the cover, yeah, but it’s half the size of their names, and it’s got a “with” before it, which… what the fuck? What? No, I’m not gonna call them! Fuck that. I mean, my picture’s not even on the back. People know MY name, they don’t even know BOB’S name, they just think he’s “that guy.” They still come up to me ALL THE TIME and say, “I loved you on Mr. Show with Bort and David!” Bort’s not even a real name! Huh? Yeah, turkey tacos are fine, but no cilantro on mine. What was I saying? Oh yeah, this book. No one’s going to read it, it’ll be like this year’s Brief History of Time, people buy it just to look like they’ve got indie cred, but no one cracks the fucking spine even once. But the fucking picture… they didn’t even tell me they were taking their fucking pictures! I know they said they’ll give me my own picture, woman! You always fucking take their side! Yes, you do—why don’t you marry Bob and David if you love them so much, see what kind of weird child they give you—bald little guy with shorts and an angry attitude! What? Are you crying? Honey… I’m, I’m sorry, I get worked up. You’re the greatest. Come on… let me kiss you, come on… what are you writing? Everything I said? Everything? Well, let me see the picture of ME they are planning on using… huh… wow, I look like a real writer. Cool. Knowing them, they’ll probably do something lame like stand near a dirty Hollywood sign. I’m be
ing serious! Wait and see if they don’t. Dicks.
* It doesn’t have to be cinema verité, it can be mockumentary or animation, or it could be a TV show… or anything.
* Pure conjecture on our part, but we can easily see it.
Thank you for buying this ebook, published by Hachette Digital.
To receive special offers, bonus content, and news about our latest ebooks and apps, sign up for our newsletters.
Sign Up
Or visit us at hachettebookgroup.com/newsletters
For more about this book and author, visit Bookish.com.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Welcome
Dedication
Preface
Introduction: A Brief History and Context of the Scripts Herein
Bob and David Make a Movie
Some Reminiscences, Just for You!
Hooray for America!
“Studio Notes” on “Hooray for America!”
Bonus Sketch Scripts!
Fagit & Morello
Nineteen Fifty-Bleven
Famous Pussies
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Coauthor
Newsletters
Copyright
Copyright