822 – Overdrawn at the
Memory Bank
ééééé
Things I liked in the movie:
The use of the word cinemas.
The idea of doppling.
The movie’s hatred of anteaters.
Impressions
This is the episode that got my kids interested in the show. They watched it over and over until I had to make them stop. I have to admit, it’s one of my favorites. I think I’ve seen this episode more than any other. I include this one in my top ten. As of this writing, however, I haven’t seen all the episodes. I’ve seen about 100 of them, so it may still get squeezed out. One other thing to mention is that it’s filmed using a video camera and has a strange soap-opera feel and extra cheesiness because of that. In fact, this is the worst movie panned by the crew yet! Disclaimer.
Synopsis
The context around this show is worth a quick explanation. Raul Julia of Addams Family Movie fame starred in this movie sort of as a favor to a public television station because he wanted to support public TV. Ironically, this movie probably did more harm than good. The story seemed to be a public service announcement that intended to show the dangers of giving up our media freedom if we let giant communications companies take over. No doubt Raul saw the importance of this message and wanted to get it out. Oj!
Here’s the premise:
Raul is a drone among drones named Arom Fingal in a futuristic world run by two competing Microsoft-like companies. Our hero works for Novicorp, which is presided over by a ubiquitous very Big Brother type character with a spherical mien. He finds the time to run half the world and still meddle in the strange vacation plans of pathetic losers.
Fingal is bored and insulted (as are we!) by his life and work, so he “dials up cinemas,” as the movie puts it, on his work computer. Instead of working, he watches Casablanca (Mike: Never put a good movie in the middle of your crappy movie!). Because of this, he’s forced to go on a virtual vacation at his own expense. In the future, apparently, people will go on vacation by having their consciousness extracted and inserted into animals. (Crow: So old guys being pandas. That’s the future?) The more money you have, the better the animal. Fingal, unfortunately, is poor and can only afford an old female gorilla. Several times he’s told he so poor he can probably only afford an anteater (said with a contemptuous sneer). (Crow: Whoa! Huge slam on anteaters out of nowhere!).
When a member of a group of poorly behaved kids (Is it Children of the Damned day at the institute?) is allowed to wander around in the facility, he swaps Fingal’s tag with another patient. While the staff searches for his lost body, his consciousness is lost a la Tron inside the computer that controls the world. Since it’s a virtual world, he can be whatever he wants, so, of course, he decides to be Rick in Casablanca. A bunch of weird things happen. He starts altering the world’s weather and the adipose Chairman of the company goes into the computer himself and chases Fingal around. Mike and the bots add useful sound effects when he walks like farting and burping. At one point he appears constipated and grimaces. (Mike – I just passed a ham through my left ventricle.)
There’s a big showdown, I think. It’s hard to tell what happened. Fingal and Fat Guy have a very long staring contest. Then there a vortex and maybe some rainbows and some distortion appear. There’s a brilliant special effect where a cut-out of Fingal spins toward and away from the camera with a vertigo-style pinwheel spinning behind him. (I’m reminded of Letterman saying, “Hep me! I been hyp-mo-tized!) It’s a little like the end of Star Trek: The Motion Picture where the blonde guy merges with Vger’s virtual bald babe.
Having defeated or merged with (or whatever) the bad guy, Raul is brought back to his body by the incredibly thin and lipless Computech Appallonia James, with whom he’s fallen in love over the course of the virtual vacation. After all, she gave him reconst and appeared to him wearing only poison ivy on her naughty bits at one point. They recklessly change their identities and embezzle money and apparently run off to spend their happy ever after in the bodies of some unwitting old zoo animals.
The main feature of this movie is the clumsy attempt at being futuristic. Everything has a strange futuristic name: orange juice is “reconst,” crackers are “flav-o-fibes,” identification is “ident,” money is “credits.”
The incredibly elaborate system of surgically altering people’s brains so they can be animals for a few hours is . . . well it speaks for itself. It’s called “doppling.”
These are mostly Pearl doing a fundraising drive for her public TV station “Public Pearl”
These are the funniest Pearl host segments, and some of the funniest of the show period.
Opening: Crow wants to cash in on his catchphrase: "You know you want me, baby!" He has t-shirts made up.
Intro: Mike tries to find himself a catchphrase, while Public Pearl TV begins its dubious pledge drive. Pearl hears well-meaning liberals going “Ka CHING!” She shows The World of Bobo in which Brain Guy shows how he lives with the “wild” apes. Bobo is eating Mexican fast food and a gigantic “border pop.”
Host segment 1: Crow & Tom order a monkey, which escapes and throws stuff.
Host segment 2: While Mike continues to struggle with Henry the monkey, PPTV presents a preview of "Pearl! Pearl! Pearl! Pearl! Pearl!" Pearl and Brain Guy sing a hilarious song panning every love song ever “When Loving Lovers Love”
Host segment 3: Tom asks to be doppled to the nanite world because he’s big compared to the nanites, and soon regrets it. The nanites are bigger when he’s doppled, and they’re street toughs and call Tom “College Boy” and beat him up.
Segment 4: Mike calls customer support for the movie and gets a woman with a Minnesotan accent who tells him all the problems are unfortunate design flaws which they do acknowledge. Mike demands some sort of recompense and she asks where they purchased it. They hesitate and she threatens to report them for having an unauthorized copy.
End: Bobo tries and fails to talk Henry down, so Mike takes deplorable action. Meanwhile, Pearl is counting her ill-gotten gain
Stinger: " 'm I nuts?"
Fingal enters what looks like a mall. A gurney goes by.
Crow: There must be a Jack-in-the-Box in the food court!
Computech Appallonia James narrates that she’s nervous about Final’s “dopple.”
Tom: I wouldn’t want to bumble or bobble the Fingal dopple.
The portly Chairman bursts into Rick’s café with machine gun toting henchmen looking for Fingal. The group stands dramatically just inside the door they’ve just rammed through. They survey the obviously closed saloon.
Tom as the fat Chairman with a pompous gravelly voice: We demand that you set up a delicious buffet!
Because he never knows what form Appallonia will take, Fingal mistakes a large, black dockworker for her. Appallonia is watching on a computer screen and giggles.
Tom as Appallonia: He thinks I’m a Village People!
Apollonia,
Djamilla, and Slavin spout technobabble while trying to find Fingal in the
virtual world.
Servo: Why don't
you reconst your Flav-o-Fibes!
Inside the
simulation, Fingal feels dizzy.
Fingal: I better
call for a medico.
Servo: Yeah, on
the Voice-Com Flav-o-Link Synth— aghhhh!
Mike: You know with this digital technology, the
suckiness comes through with great clarity!
The characters
suggest they might be going to have sex.
Tom: So PBS stands for Public Boinking System,
then?
A strange
spinning cube is shown on the screen.
Crow: It's a Raul-bix Cube!
There’s a
superimposed frame with nonsensical colored blobs.
Mike: Oh, they're showing us the tubby guy's
angioplasty.
Psychist's
Computer: Ask about his mother.
Servo, as
Computer: Ask if she wears army boots.
Fingal: Last thing I knew, I was about to be killed
by an elephant.
Mike, as
Fingal: I should have wrapped him up in
cellophant.
Raul Julia:
Reverse the access code! He probably thought I'd never try something so simple.
Crow: You know,
if this works, I am gonna spank you, movie.
Mike: I guess
this movie is a little like watching Casablanca . . . while having a small
child use your groin as a punching bag.
The movie shows
us Fingal sleeping.
Mike: you know, it's
funny how art imitates life and I'm like, sleepin' right now, too.
Raul flies toward
the camera arms outstretched
Mike: I love you
THIS much!
Apollonia:
Electrons don't dance, Fingal. They don't make love.
Crow: They're
Lutherans.
Servo: So this is
public television, huh? Suddenly I feel like beatin' the crap out of Fred
Rogers.
During the
credits they show Raul in a cube.
Servo: You see, I
thought he was Puerto Rican, I didn't know he was Cube-an!
Apollonia: He lost his body and I almost lost my mind.
Crow: Which wasn't a major loss, but still, pretty
annoying.
Raul as Rick from
Casablanca: It's up to you.
Fingal: It's okay. I can handle it.
Crow: What I want
to know is, what is this "it" which is to him "up" and
which he can perhaps "handle."
Fingal: Genius,
pure genius...
Crow: ...couldn't
save this film.
Overdrawn at the Memory Bank IMDB
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