HAPPY FEETWritten by Steph ("It's just like Shakespeare") Ladyand Frank ("Smells more like Bacon") Darabont
MOVIE
Oh, you already know the story. The fancy title is simply meant to avoid confusion with Cartoon Network's gripping drama 'Frankenstein Jr'. What makes this particular caper different from other 'Oops, I made a monster!' flicks is the wiggy stagecraft of its star/director, the celebrated Shakespearean pundit Kenneth Branagh. While others might envision the title character as a tragic genius or a deluded elitist, Branagh portrays him as a dancing fool. When he's not dancing in front of the camera, Branagh is dancing with the camera, whirling it around with enough force to disrupt the normal flow of time.
With only 30 seconds of backstory for a childhood and an adolescence scarred by jumpcuts, Victor Frankenstein evolves into a manic dilettante who's loose in his footwork, his hand gestures, and his mores. He's intent on marrying his sister Elizabeth, who was adopted by the Frankenstein family when her biological parents were swept out to sea during a Riverdance festival. To win the approval of his father, a former House Doctor for La Cage dux Folles, he segues into a sophomore year at the prestigious Ingolstadt College Of Comparative Anatomy And Wardrobe. His ambition to establish the first improv group in a surgical theater is sundered by the tragic loss of his mother, who perishes in the Polonaise Crash of 1799. It prompts Victor to seek out a radical new dance form that will exert enough power to beat back the Grim Reaper. He alienates family and friends with unnatural experiments in sustained dance, such as running a charge through a conga line during a lightning storm. It inevitably leads him to assemble a super-sized chorus boy from an odd assortment of body parts, including John Cleese's brain and Robert De Niro's patented facial expressions. This reanimated specimen of human decoupage experiences a truly twisted karma which limits him to good deeds involving either turnips or blind old men who grope too much. The Monster aspires to a more aesthetically pleasing career in professional wrestling and demands that his creator build him a Ring Girl. When Victor balks, his creation goes on the familiar rampage, destroying anyone who ever shared wig lice with the Frankenstein estate. Negotiations for a decisive fandango between creator and creation collapse, leaving Victor Frankenstein to die of neglect on a Singles Cruise to the North Pole. The Monster carries off Frankenstein's remains in a final production number that sorely needs dancing Eskimos and electric penguins.
TRICK KNEE
Balthayzr> Can we build our own George Kennedy?
Cthulhu> What would we do with him?
Balthayzr> Oh, what *wouldn't* we do with him....
Ironf> What we always try to do with a homemade George Kennedy, Cthu.
Ironf> Take over the world.
Robert> The dawn of the nineteenth century. A world on the brink of revolutionary change. An incomplete sentence.
Balthayzr> Does anyone really need a 5 minute crawl for the backstory on this?
* Plumm looks for his paper on Eastern vs. Western values in Frankenstein.
EvilJen> oh, this is that new improved Pirates of the Caribean ride....
thayer> guess they shouldn't have killed that albatross.
Robert> iceberg ahead... do those two guys have to make out now?
mgrasso> is that celine dion i hear?
thayer> wow, their boat must have been built better than the titanic.
Ironf> Unfrozen Caveman Captain.
thayer> he's just bitter because santa never gave him what he wanted for xmas.
mgrasso> hey, it's my crazy-old-lady neighbor! the one who collects bottles and cans!
thayer> when women's hips were REALLY big.
Robert> So, the drama rests on knowing the story in advance? Ok.
Balthayzr> And Frankenstein's fate is sealed when mommy buys him a "Build your own Serf" kit for his birthday.
Robert> We'll show a 30-second scene of him as a little kid, so we don't look like we're copping out on backstory.
mgrasso> calling oedipus.
Ironf> And now, 10 cc of pure fey.
thayer> pretty sad that the only dances they go to are family-only.
Cthulhu> Morgan Le Fey and Jefferson get jiggy with it.
Cthulhu> Whoa... Helen Cleavage.
EvilJen> wait, shouldn't anthony hopkins be in this movie somewhere?
Cthulhu> Did mom explode?
Balthayzr> 'Bring her back... to the store. She's obviously defective.'
Cthulhu> A flashback in the flashback.
BEMaven1> 'i did everything i could... tucked her tummy, lifted her face, put implants in her breast.'
Robert> oh, NOW with the "three years later"
Robert> Rube Goldberg Frankenstein.
mgrasso> the age of reason, folks.
Balthayzr> The Young Ben Franklin Chronicles.
Robert> Ben Franklinstein?
EvilJen> 18th C. McGyvor.
mgrasso> he commands the lightning. uh huh.
Balthayzr> I think this is how they power this chat server.
mgrasso> electric cleavage, baby.
Altair-4> 1st electic vibrator.
EvilJen> that explains her hair now.
thayer> and they all have irregular heartbeats for the rest of their lives.
Ironf> And a personality energizer appearently failed.
thayer> um, isn't she like his sister?
EvilJen> just adopted. it's okay. ask Woody Allen, thayer.
Ironf> And now, Dancing.
* Robert can't get enough Dancing.
BEMaven1> i don't remember so much dancing in Mary Shelley's novel.
Ironf> Am I the only one that finds Helena kinda creepy looking?
EvilJen> depends. are you from Arkansas?
thayer> how do brothers and sisters say goodbye? not like THAT!
Robert> make with the walking dead!
mgrasso> ironf: she's got a strange nose thing going on.
Ironf> that and I think it's the wire hair terrier hair-do, Grasso.
Robert> "Dear Diary, Met a lovely girl. Mom, you've met her ..."
EvilJen> this. is. icky.
Balthayzr> "Got dead eyes, like a doll's eyes...."
Ironf> That's a plus in Vic's book, Balth.
EvilJen> hey, Plague Victim clothes are half off!
Ironf> 'It's a far, far better creature I build than I have ever built before.'
Balthayzr> The school holds classes in a silo?
Robert> When do they bring out Kirk and McCoy?
Ironf> When is the last time he washed that seat cushion on his head?
Julia> wonder if anyone ever spits on his head?
Balthayzr> Place looks like a Water Balloon Dropping Academy.
mgrasso> ah, tom hulce. you preening little fey homonculous.
Calvin-Crowe> Win Frankenstien's money!
Ironf> Did we need the "Blue Boy" in this film?
mgrasso> if he giggles like amadeus, i'm leaving.
Robert> Do you think this school has a problem with binge dancing?
Ironf> He was creating monkeys with 5 asses.
nicklby> why is he operating on Right Said Fred?
Altair-4> it's Abbie Normal.
Calvin-Crowe> Ye olde Quincy.
nicklby> someone nail that camera down, I'm getting sick.
EvilJen> this movie is proof that most drama boys, whether straight or gay, still...are fey.
Balthayzr> John Cleese puts the monster's legs on wrong so it has a Funny Walk.
mgrasso> hulce: get back in your fucking skin.
Balthayzr> We have proven that the worms crawl in, the worms crawl out, the worms play pinochle on your snout....
mgrasso> ah, the lair of buffalo bill.
Calvin-Crowe> Look at all those Reader's digest books!
Balthayzr> Look at this. I keep Graham Chapman's ashes here behind this monkey arm.
Balthayzr> He's invented the Arm Wrestling Machine?
BEMaven1> why does he have a diagram of yoko ono?
Ironf> Did he just say he needed to 'reverse the polarity'?
Balthayzr> Now, look over here. I've got a gerbil's naughty bits hooked to a car battery.
EvilJen> I keep on thinking this is Howard's End.
Ironf> I know I always read my writtings out loud.
nicklby> the camera work is giving me Doom sickness.
mgrasso> is cleese dubbed?
Ironf> That's what I was just thinking.
Calvin-Crowe> They can make a hand move but they can't color their hair...
Balthayzr> Lock him in the Keanu Reeve Wing!
Balthayzr> Oh, my God! He killed Fawlty!!
Ironf> Is he trying to hump him back to life like Tom Green did the moose?
BEMaven1> Marquis of Queensbury CPR.
Ironf> that was Deniro, right?
Robert> reading out loud runs in the family, it seems.
Balthayzr> I'm tryng to build an assistant director.
BEMaven1> i suppose the procedure for reviving the dead involves *lots* of dancing.
Altair-4> see Footloose.
Robert> You infuse the corpse with Fey.
Balthayzr> "Take out Scenery Chewing Gland." BZZZZZZZZZZZZ!
Balthayzr> 'Victor sent me an odd letter, asking if I was still using my spleen.'
BEMaven1> "raw materials... that's all they are." -- he got that quote from Warren Beatty.
thayer1> who would have thought that bringing things back to life would be so icky.
Balthayzr> Ingredient one- 6000 gallons of vaseline.
mgrasso> that's a lot of amniotic fluid.
nicklby> um ... ew.
Ironf> goo is life.
Calvin-Crowe> um..... sewing up his crack is bad.
Balthayzr> Oh, Victor. Sea monkeys????
Robert> You've given up a life of dancing for *this*?
Balthayzr> Fine. I'll get Tom Cruise to take me to see the Unicorns!!
nicklby> is it my imagination, or is the volume of Ken's voice directly related to how fast his arms are moving?
BEMaven1> you know, he could achieve a far greater breakthru if he just invented sanitation.
mgrasso> ah, shirtless ken. everyone take a drink.
Balthayzr> That is one weird Jell-o Mold.
Robert> "Big sweaty men, running around, pulling things! And reanimating things!"
nicklby> some people take their home breweries a little too far...
Balthayzr> My bowling-ball dryer works!!
Altair-4> look at those balls spin.
Robert> He's trapped the North Wind.
Ironf> That's an awful big rig just to pirate cable.
BEMaven1> i don't remember a water ballet with eels in the Shelly novel.
mgrasso> and now, slime rasslin'!
Robert> No, wait, it's dead again.
BEMaven1> 'no, i forgot to put him through the Cotton Sturdy cycle.'
Balthayzr> I'm glad Vaseline doesn't conduct all that electricity.
Ironf> 'You stitchin' on me?!'
Altair-4> toxic avenger.
Ironf> soooo wrong.
thayer1> that is one UGLY naked guy.
Robert> two half naked men, rolling around in amniotic fluid. Thank you, oh so much, movie.
nicklby> get a room, you two!
Balthayzr> Stop this.
Robert> Ken adlibbed this whole scene.
mgrasso> worth the price of admission, eh?
BEMaven1> i don't remember dishwashing a corpse in the Shelley novel.
Ironf> and he's dead again.
Robert> Now he's *thinking* out loud ...
BEMaven1> it is NOT Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
Robert> Next, Ken will kill himself, then reanimate his corpse.
nicklby> maybe it's Mary Gross' Frankenstein.
Calvin-Crowe> Alan Smithee's Frankenstien.
BEMaven1> Marilyn Manson's Frankenstein.
Robert> Kenneth Branagh's Mary Shelley's Frankenstein's Batman.
Calvin-Crowe> Susan.
nicklby> Bob Vila's This Old Frankenstein.
Robert> the post-screwup montage.
Balthayzr> Brother Cadfael and the case of the Sewn-Together Corpse!
Ironf> what? "he's the one that's been clogging the pipes?"
Julia> That's what this movie needed. A good mob scene.
BEMaven1> uh, he really doesn't look all that inhuman.
mgrasso> all of a sudden, it's a wuxia movie.
Calvin-Crowe> Frank "The Body" Enstien.
Altair-4> Curley Howard undead.
Ironf> Why does he have stitches all over his head? Didn't he just use one head?
thayer1> iron, they have to make sure everyone know's it's a * monster*.
Ironf> Hey, he DID end up with a funny walk.
Robert> He hijacks a hog, rides it to the north pole, and kills everyone, the end.
Balthayzr> "Aw, he put my Buttocks on sideways!!"
nicklby> you know what this movie needs? Tonto and Tarzan.
mgrasso> man, he must've used hooked on phonics.
thayer1> one more person who has to read outloud.
nicklby> so, he's the creation of a Vienese student with a British accent, so he has a New Yawk accent.
Balthayzr> Just when did Frankie join the Trenchcoat Mafia?
Cthulhu> You have a wash board for a face.
Calvin-Crowe> hmmm....lumpy.
Robert> "Why, you're Bob DeNiro!"
Cthulhu> You have a honey backed ham for a noggen.
Balthayzr> The Incredible Melting Man lunches with a retired Jack Frost.
Cthulhu> He digs up their crops... He kills their landlord... and this is the thanks he gets.
nicklby> "he forgot to give me nipples!"
Balthayzr> Uh, can you wear white when you marry your brother?
BEMaven1> DeNiro looks like he made a face and it got stuck.
nicklby> "Have you seen my Willie?" did he say that?
nicklby> quick, get some K-Y and a shitload of eels!
BEMaven1> 'my son is dead... care to dance?'
Cthulhu> Why are they burying him in a sheer nighty?
Cthulhu> You know Victor... Herbert West would have reanimated half the cast by now.
BEMaven1> 'we did everything we did to save him, sir... a waltz, a rhumba, a tango, a line dance... '
Cthulhu> BRB... need more source of all inspiration.
Balthayzr> Booze?
Ironf> Spice.
Balthayzr> Vaseline?
Lodovik> Viagra.
Robert> Turnips?
Cthulhu> Caffeine.
Balthayzr> And thus, the World Championship of Hide-And-Go-Seek is underway!!
Balthayzr> "I know the ways of Man".....ewwwwww
Robert> suddenly he's eloquent.
Ironf> It's all about not raising a latch key Frankenstein.
Balthayzr> No, the it was a choice between the soul and the undercoating, sorry.
Robert> It's all Branagh can do to sit still.
nicklby> no hand movement, no voice volume.
Robert> We should chill him more often.
Robert> a companion?
thayer1> he just wants a little action.
Cthulhu> Why bother with making a chick. Just give him $500 and a ticket to Reno.
BEMaven1> if you're in a hurry, i'll inflate a companion for you.
BEMaven1> bet Victor spends a whole day wrestling in gelatin with the female Creature.
Cthulhu> Shouldn't they have been wearing thongs bottoms though?
Balthayzr> Damn! I had it set on Phyllis Diller!
nicklby> my arms/voice volume theory is holding up rather well, I must say.
Robert> maybe his arms squeak, and he's covering it up.
Ironf> Ya know, if I were to pass out right after DeNiro gets outta the KY, and woke up just now, I really wouldn't be all that lost.
thayer1> brother and sister no more, now husband and wife.
Cthulhu> That may be legal in some Southern states.
nicklby> this is rivaling the KY wrestling scene for grossest scene.
Robert> Passionate ... rubbing.
Ironf> Stop that.
Cthulhu> It will take the rest of this movie to get her out of that outfit.
BEMaven1> 'once more onto the breech, dear friends.'
nicklby> oh no, it's the theme to Taxi!
Altair-4> damn Zamphir records.
thayer1> yes, leave your wife alone. good idea.
Balthayzr> She's in her nightgown, and she's less nude!
Cthulhu> Hey! I told you! Your she-creature is on back order.
Robert> Okay, now how did she die?
thayer1> he ripped her heart out.
nicklby> she died of quick editing.
BEMaven1> in the phillipines, the Creature would be a kick-ass faith healer.
Balthayzr> I'd alway heard DeNiro stole girls hearts.
Ironf> It didn't take him long to collect all the goo.
Julia> "Begin warm liquid goo phase"
Robert> ironf: well, he got interrupted ...
Cthulhu> Mmmmmmmmm... goooooo.
nicklby> he made Sinead O'Connorstein.
Robert> WHY did he have to sew on another hand???
Ironf> He kept the other one for "personal" reasons.
Balthayzr> Uh, why did he give her a softball for a head?
Ironf> The first Cabbage Patch Kid.
BEMaven1> bad news. she dances with two left feet... literally.
Ironf> So, footloose, footloose....
nicklby> pity he couldn't do somehting about the hips.
Ironf> Well go about feeling your stitches then.
Cthulhu> Fire BAD!
Cthulhu> I didn't know she was buddist.
Balthayzr> Ok, first word. Sounds like....fire? Flame?
Robert> not the dance hall!
Balthayzr> plop.
thayer1> sorry ken, but i don't think even the eels will fix her this time.
Cthulhu> Liz's edges light quickly.
nicklby> on the positive side, at least Tom Hulce died.
Ironf> That was all backstory, now on with the rest of the two hour film.
Balthayzr> Well, he said this... (entire movie starts again)...
Robert> That's an odd time for a haiku.
Ironf> and the Fortress of Solitude bursts forth.
Balthayzr> And now, Orca bites him in half. The End.
Robert> And Bugs Bunny adopts the little penguin. The End.
Altair-4> oh good a Viking funeral.
Ironf> hmm wouldn't the ice melt and either put the fire out, or cause them to sink before they were burnt to death?
Balthayzr> "Now, we deliver this crate to London. Mr. Reinfeld is expecting it."
nicklby> so Victor learned not to tamper in God's domain. Did we learn anything from this movie?
Balthayzr> I learned not to tamper in Beef Lo Mein.
| The Creature |
| Kingdom: Quasi-Shakespearean |
| Class: Talentus Squanderus |
| Genus: Homo |
| Species: Lumpus |
| AKA: Frankenstein's Monster, Goodfella |
| Special Powers: Can emote with enough force to tear laytex make-up. Has the physical strength to toss Kenneth Branagh's pansy ass across a room. |
| Weaknesses: Can't dance. Don't ask him. |
| NOTES: "Rarrrrrr!" |
HAND JIVE
"Bring her back!"
"Oh, Mother. You should never have died."
"He could break into heaven and lecture God on science."
"Why must people die?"
"Go on, touch it."---"It feels warm..."
"Raw materials... that's all."
"You're not stickin' that in me!"
"What kind of people is it in which I am comprised? Good people? Bad people?"
"Slight trace waves in the brain perhaps."
"You do speak!"
"Yes, I speak, and read, and think, and know the ways of men."
"And what of my soul? Do I have one? Or was that a part you left out?"
"Have you seen my Willie?"
| OUR CENTURY OF PROGRESS |
| In the original novel, Mary Shelley gracefully sidestepped the technical details the Monster's creation. She focused instead on Frankenstein's obsessive state of mind as he toiled away in a secluded room somewhere in a Bavarian college town. His manic efforts resulted in a reanimated grotesque that stood eight feet tall, with features too repulsive for a full description. The narrative implied that the monster was rude assembly of parts taken from graves, morgues, and even the local slaughterhouse. In her own progressive fashion, Shelley dramatized the need to fully disclose the contents of packaged meats. |
 1930sFrankenstein This was the adapatation that left the most indeliable stamp in the memories of horror fans. Robert Florey, James Whale, and other cohorts at Universal Studios forged a dynamic monster, jolted into existence by the force of electricity. When the sparks subsided, actor Boris Karloff kept the show going with his sensitive portrayal of a walking surgical atrocity. |
 1940sAbbot And Costello Meet Frankenstein After three turns in the monster suit, Karloff moved on to other challenges. Sacraficing performance for the sake of box office endurance, Universal Studios tapped other people to play the monster... including Bela Lugosi, Glen Strange, and possibly Carmen Miranda. As the sequels grew progressively lamer, Frankenstein's creation required less and less voltage for activation. For its appearance in this sodden, sorry finale to series, the monster only needed a quick buzz from Bela Lugosi. |
 1950sCurse Of Frankenstein By the time Hammer Films was ready to refurbish the Frankenstein franchise, government regulators had severely limited the use of exposed, high-voltage wiring. As Doctor Frankenstein, Peter Cushing adopted the more sedate process of electrolysis. Whether this was meant to keep his monster free of unsightly body hair or provide it with a sporty chrome finish is not entirely clear. Neither goal was achieved, giving actor Christopher Lee the look of a Fitfth Beatle who'd been dragged repeatedly over Abbey Road. |
 1960sFrankenstein Vs. The Space Monster Designed to serve as the ultimate astronaut for the US space program, this Frankenstein monster was built by the lowest bidder on a government contract. Need we say more? |
 1970sFrankenstein: The True Story More like... 'The True Story As Told By The National Enquirer'. This loopy mini-series portrays Frankenstein as a hopeless slacker, constantly cramming to keep up with other mad scientists in the vicinity. Stuck for ideas, he borrowed a set-up styled along the lines of a Jules Verne game show. The ad hoc arrangement generated the figure of Michael Sarrazin, easily the scrawniest monster to ever appear in a Frankenstein production. Having neither Karloff's charisma or Lee's poise, the Sarazzin monster suffered a loss of face... both figuratively and literally. |
 1980sFrankenstein This made-for-cable Turner production was billed as the most faithful adaptation of the original novel. If so, then 19th century author Mary Shelley was the first to envision the process of Xerography. Portrayed by a harried Patrick Bergin, Frankenstein devised an ingenious system to make color 3D reproductions by thrusting various body parts into a special imaging array. His tragic preoccupation with short-term gains led him to purchase cheap toner from OfficeMax. What ultimately emerged from the copy process resembled actor Randy Quaid with clotted lumps of laytex make-up... the very essence of an unreasonable facsimile. |
 1990sMary Shelley's Frankenstein If you sought to place yourself among the Gods by harnessing the primal forces of life, what better inspiration would you need than Rube Goldberg? That was Kenneth Branagh's apparent thinking as he slapped together a bizarre assortment of apparatus for his Frankenstein opus. Key items included...
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