I would’ve bet anything that my Google skills would uncover a real-world “Saffron Indian Restaurant” in Hollywood (or even better, somewhere in Ohio’s Western Reserve) that served as a model for the restaurant in today’s strip, but I came up empty handed. Meanwhile, Les has yet another of his Hollywood illusions shattered when he discovers that the “script doctor” in whose hands his masterpiece wound up moonlights as a waiter.
Tag: Clay Wallace
Testing Credibility
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Happy Independence Day from SoSF! ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Charles
July 2, 2014 at 11:06 pm
…You don’t run a script or treatment past a test audience. That would be absurd…Never mind that no one making a crappy little movie to fill the Tuesday night slot on a basic cable channel would bother running it past test audiences.
This Hollywood arc has veered so far from reality to the point where even Les begins to suspect that it’s all bullshit. And he’s right: the “testing” seems to have been conducted by a succession of random people, each person having even less connection to the industry than the last. And hotshot “script doctor” Ken Casey is totally on board with that.
beckoningchasm
July 2, 2014 at 10:52 pm
…I find it interesting that Tom Batiuk gets worked up into high dudgeon when someone dares alter Lisa’s Story or question the value of comic books, but he simply can’t be bothered to respect the details in any other sphere (making films, as one example in a long list).
Yes, filmmaking ranks on par with or below the ability to make “a wicked tandoori chicken.”
Doctor My Ass
If script doctor “Ken Casey’s” name is a play on “Ben Casey“, TB’s crafted yet another hoary cultural reference that’s sure to elicit a chuckle from those readers who appreciate “Jungle Jim toppers”. But it’s still better than naming him after a porn star (see “Mason Jarr“).
Mala Adaptation
Hey all! TFHackett here, slingin’ the summertime snark for the next se’nnight or two. Let me start by offering kudos to Epicus Doomus, and to David O, Oddnoc, and Beckoning Chasm, the Murderer’s Row of snark, for their brilliant contributions to SoSF!
Readers, remember how we’d bemoan Batiuk’s habit of weekly skipping from arc to arc, without ever resolving any of them? Well, the first half of 2014 has been taken up mainly by “Holly’s Kwest for Kory’s Komix” and “The Making of Lisa’s Story” (with a month-long detour into “Jessica’s Father, John Darling,” which at least was resolved, albeit in incredibly lame fashion).
Like TB, I have no working knowledge of the made-for-TV-movie making process, and I can’t wait for those of you who do to gauge exactly how many “quarter-inches from reality” today’s strip is.
Les meets the director and principal cast of “Lust for Lisa” (guess that wildly inappropriate title is going to stick), none of who can be bothered to stand and greet him. “Seth Wheeler” looks and sounds plausible enough. Then we meet “Mason Jarr”, har-dee-har-har (they couldnt afford Robert Downey Jr.). Mason’s no physical match for the real Les, but he’s already working on his disdainful smirk. “Sherry Carlyle” is a closer physical match to the titular character…and when I say “titular” I’m not talking about her bazoombas!
And who’s the peanut head? Why, he’s the catalyst for today’s “punchline,” which in addition to being unfunny and leaden, is pretty cynical. Assuming that “Fox Spanish” is the IRL Mundo Fox, it’s not likely they have room on their schedule for a made for TV weeper, with or without a written-in token Latino character.
Thelma And Ennuis
Today sees Tombat trying way, way too hard to drive home his “point” about how horrible “Hollywood” is yet again, this time via “Thelma”, Clay Wallace’s awful, rude, somewhat mysterious and clearly miserable office drone. Man, if that woman (she IS a woman…right?) isn’t a born Westviewian I don’t know who is, she’d fit right in at WHS, Montoni’s or the front desk at the local cancer hospital without missing a beat. Awful hair, worse attitude, obnoxiously rude…forget about those “Hollywood starlets on the make” because Thelma is the REAL threat, a woman seemingly MADE for Les Moore. Methinks they’ll get along wonderfully as they attack the business at hand.
Of course I have no idea what that business might entail, as Batom has wasted the entire week with a bunch of nonsensical and unrelated babbling, but still. I’m sure he’ll get to the “script doctor” and the “table read” eventually and then maybe this idiotic tale might start to become somewhat coherent. And then again, maybe it won’t. Either way, it won’t really matter as we all know this idiocy will end with Les sitting on that crappy porch swing ruminating over how turning down that filthy Hollywood loot was the only real choice he had because of Lisa and his “art” and so on and so forth. Dopey premise, weeks of pointless repetition and senseless yammering, quick and cheap “resolution”, that’s the time-tested FW formula responsible for churning out all this fantastic art over the years. Why tamper with success, you know? Sigh.
Son of Stuck Funky 
