I am a sucker for post-apocalyptic fiction. Not your wussy zombie apocalypses, I'm talking about end scenarios that can ACTUALLY happen. Even though reading or watching it gives me nightmares, I can't get enough of it. It's not that I want the world to end, per se. My obsession with PA fiction is two-fold.
First, I harbor the notion that, should the Big Day finally arrive, I'll survive because I've read all the books and thus know what to do. The minute I see mushroom clouds, I am off to loot Capital Center Foods. Remember to get Progresso soups, because they don't require additional water!
Second, stories that allow humanity to survive (as opposed to ones where it's only a matter of time before everyone dies) have some degree of hope to them. I picture myself on horseback, a sinewy warlord who has taken over three states. Somehow I will automatically remember my horseback riding lessons from camp. I'll be tougher and more capable. To a larger extent, sci-fi authors use post-apocalyptic fiction to envision their version of a world made better without the flaws of civilization. PA classics Alas, Babylon and Earth Abides showed the then-progressive scenario of blacks and whites living together in peace, with institutional racism crumbling along with the rubble. Current books like A World Made by Hand, Patriots, and One Second After are by conservatives who long to go back to a time when white Christian men had all the power. In line with the Italian Futurists who believed that "war is the ultimate hygiene," PA fiction can be a giant reset button to remake society from the (hopefully non-irradiated) ground up.
The 1980's saw a heyday for apocalyptic TV. Specifically, it was in the form of brutally realistic depictions of nuclear holocausts. The trend started with NBC's Special Bulletin and each TV movie was more grim than the last. If you want to ruin your day and possibly destroy your will to live, watch The Day After, Testament, and Threads in that order. With all of this grimness, people probably asked . . . where's the laughter? You'd probably have to find some humor in the situation just to stop yourself from screaming constantly. Today, about 20 years after the Cold War ended, we have no problem poking fun. Take this clip, where people are trying to prove that everything is funnier with the Benny Hill theme by playing it over the bombing sequence in Threads. (You've been warned. NO. SERIOUSLY. HIGH OCTANE NIGHTMARE FUEL AHEAD.)
On a significantly lighter note, here is one of my favorite clips from the British sketch comedy show, That Mitchell and Webb Look. This is the reason why I can't take the upcoming TV drama The Event seriously. (This is part 1 of 3. I recommend the other two parts as well.)
In the fall of 1992, with the Soviet Union collapsing, people did not have the proper distance from Cold War fears to find humor in these scenarios--or at least, effective humor. It was in this climate that the sitcom Woops! premiered on FOX on Sept. 27, 1992. Though thirteen episodes were produced, only 10 aired before FOX cancelled it that December. The origin is summed up in the opening title for the show, which is apparently the only surviving video of it and can only be viewed on Retrostatic.com.
Whoops! Opening Sequence
At a homecoming parade in a small town, the local armed forces are showing off their nuclear missiles. Some little kids play with remote controlled cars, which the missile detection system confuses with weapons. Before you can say "It's coming out in clumps," WWIII is over, leaving a small band of six survivors. They each serve a purpose of filling a much-needed stereotype--the wimpy schoolteacher, the uptight businessman, the ditz, the African-American physician (two birds with one stone!), the plucky homeless man, and the humorless feminist. The actors never went on to much, except for the school teacher (Evan Handler) playing Charlotte's husband in the Sex and the City franchise and the physician (Cleavant Derricks) playing Rembrandt Brown on Sliders.
The show was panned by critics, and since it aired long ago and lacked a cult following, it will probably never be seen on DVD. At this point, I just want to see it for curiosity's sake. I love so-bad-it's-good TV. I even watch so-bad-it's-bad TV if it's notorious enough. However, the reviews indicate that it wasn't even offensive. It's humor was as electric as an iPod after an EMP. It fell back on expected storylines and jokes, like the survivors having to learn to work together as a team to fight giant radioactive spiders and turkeys. It did not try to play into the young network's reputation for tastelessness, or even try for political humor. Basically, it was a post-apocalyptic Gilligan's Island.
The one truly outrageous episode they did . . . well, it made the book of dumbest events in TV history. It's there on page 37. In their Christmas episode, the survivors meet Santa (Stuart Pankin, known to me as the voice of Earl Sinclair on Dinosaurs). With Mrs. Claus and the elves reduced to Christmas roast, Santa is a bit depressed. At the Christmas party, Santa starts crying, "I killed Mrs. Claus and the elves!" He confesses that when the air raid sirens sounded, he ran into the fallout shelter only to be unable to open the door for his wife and elves. ("The screams! The horrible screams!") Eventually, the survivors figure out that Santa wasn't being malicious--it's just that in all those centuries of climbing down chimneys, Santa forgot how to use a doorknob. Thus ends one of the most bizarre Christmas episodes ever.
Ok, that description sounds pretty awesome to me. The rest of the show wasn't nearly as notable. The legacy of the show is one of cautionary example. If you are going to go ahead and make a comedy out of the end of the world, this isn't the time to rely on safe humor (fail-safe humor?) Do what the best sci-fi writers have done and use it as an opportunity to critique a civilization that would let this happen, to point out the foibles in man's nature with biting accuracy. It worked for the movies in Dr. Strangelove, so let it work for TV.
Good night, and REMAIN INDOORS!
No comments:
Post a Comment