When it was announced that David Wain would be directing Role Models — taking over from The Girl Next Door’s Luke Greenfield — there was room for disappointment. After all, for Wain to follow up his anarchic cult favorites Wet Hot American Summer and The Ten with a seemingly mainstream man-child comedy — one more suited to the talents of Todd Phillips or, well, Greenfield — was to crush his fans’ hopes for something more along the lines of his wacky web series, such as Wainy Days and Stella, or the old MTV sketch comedy show, The State.
But Role Models does look funny, probably because Wain ended up rewriting (with Paul Rudd and Ken Marino) Timothy Dowling’s original script. And it’s not as if Wain has suddenly gone and sold out with a bunch of really broad family films, as did his former State mates Thomas Lennon and Ben Garant, the screenwriting duo behind The Pacifier, Night at the Museum and Taxi. Still, many of us are holding out for that rumored State movie, or even better, a big screen adaptation of any of the following State sketches:
Louie (aka the “I wanna dip my balls in it” guy)
The ensemble behind The State was never interested in recurring characters, but MTV supposedly pressured the show to be more like SNL, and so the ironic “Louie” was born. As little more than a joke on recurring characters and their catch-phrases, “Louie” may not seem the best character to mine for a feature-length movie. But considering Wain and the others were likely just as against sketches spinning off into movies as they were against recurring characters, it would be suitable for such a film, something to lampoon the Lorne Michaels tradition, if that’s at all possible. And I can already see the ad campaigns: posters with just a release date and the words “Dip Your Balls In It.”
Lincoln Logs: The Unauthorized Biography of Honest Abe
After the release of Oliver Stone’s W., something like this deserves to be made into a movie. Maybe Stone could even direct it from a script by some of the State writers. It could complete his evil Republican president trilogy. And if they act quick enough, it would be awesome if the movie could go up against Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln.
The Bearded Men of Space Station 11
This skit really stretches a single joke really thin (like many State sketches), but the simple premise — a space station crew is illogically incarcerated for growing beards in space — could be a mere jumping ground for an hilarious sci-fi comedy. Sure, the genre has hardly been successful outside of Spaceballs and Galaxy Quest, but if anyone can give us another great parodic outer space movie, it’s Wain and friends. Think of Hitchcock’s wrong man scenario, multiply it times five, and throw in a lot of silly shenanigans.
Porcupine Racetrack
This simple cross between Guys and Dolls, Cats and the “Ascot Gavotte” scene from My Fair Lady is so, so stupid, yet so, so brilliant. And a feature-length version would be as surprisingly beloved as the skit was, especially if there’s some way of also slipping in some reference to the “Gang Fight” skit (that was the “Beat It” video meets West Side Story segment involving an Amish street gang), the “Super Robby” skit (turns out the orphanage that needs saving is cruelly convincing kids they can fly out windows) and the “Mind Match” skit (the orphans are ultimately given away as prizes on a game show). If anything, a silly song penned by Teddy Shapiro would have to receive an Oscar nomination, thereby elevating the Hollywood cred of the State ensemble enough for potentially more ridiculous films.
The Inbred Brothers
I’ve come to realize that most of these movie ideas come from skits likely conceived by Lennon and Garant. This only furthers the point that the pair NEEDS to work on something State-related before putting on the blindfold and writing Night at the Museum 3. And there’s really no better project than a movie based on their Inbred Brothers characters, Emmett and Lyle. Think of Step Brothers with an even dumber duo. How could this not be a success? The merchandising alone is worthy: t-shirts that say “Whaddamydoin?”; talking dolls that also hit themselves in the head with sticks; Halloween costumes (I actually was a non-specific “Inbred Brother” for Halloween back in the ’90s). To make the dream complete, though, Michael Ian Black has to appear as the French exchange student.
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