THE BOOK OF THE VIP
DAVE
Saving the world from whatever it isPeter Sellers goes ape over the Bomb
Chapter 45
This is not to say that plenty of other producers and directors won’t make movies for children,
2Because they will.
3It’s just that they won’t be great artistic geniuses with lots and lots of money to spend,
4kAnd so a lot of their movies will be pretty low-budget,
5And they’ll mostly be about alien invaders from outer space,
6Or carnivorous mutants from some laboratory,
7Or lgigantic monsters from Japan,
8mEven though it really won’t matter which it is,
9nBecause all these movies will have about the same plot,
10oWhich has to do with saving the world from whatever it is,
11Usually with the help of a phandsome scientist and the qonly girl on earth who doesn’t think he’s a complete lunatic,
12rBecause he has already figured out what is happening,
13And no one will believe him because nothing has squashed sTokyo or tLos Angeles yet,
14uAlthough everybody changes their mind when they actually catch sight of it,
15Which means it’s time to call in the vmilitary,
16Who show up with a bunch of tanks and planes and shoot off weverything they’ve got,
17xWithout having any effect,
18yBecause all earthly weapons are powerless against the invader,
19zWhich means that unless the good scientist can figure out what to do, everybody on earth will be history in about twenty-four hours.
20aaAnd so the good scientist and his girlfriend stay up all night thinking,
21bbAnd figure out that none of this would ever have happened in the first place if it weren’t for nuclear weapons,
22ccBecause the monster was created by fallout from nuclear tests,
23Or the aliens from outer space spotted the nuclear tests and are angry about the ddchildish violence of the human race,
24Or something like that,
25aWhich means that all of it was really our fault in the first place,
26And we don’t deserve much sympathy, let alone a happy ending,
27Except that,
28Well,
29This is a low-budget picture for youngsters, and it has to end happily so they won’t have nightmares about it.
30bSo the good scientist buckles down and makes the ray gun or whatever,
31cAnd finishes it in the nick of time,
32dAnd saves the planet,
33And everybody lives happily ever after,
34Which isn’t art,
35And isn’t even Walt Disney,
36But it sure sells a lot of popcorn.
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Chapter 45 / 58