"You cannot joke about failure in America"

[Chris Casino]

Douglas Adams acknowledged this as one of the problems with Arthur Dent as a
hero in the movie. Well, there were a number of American TV shows whose main
characters I think Douglas needed to see. Case in point:

"The Honeymooners" with Ralph Kramden, a bus driver whose get-rich quick
schemes all failed

"All in the Family" Archie Bunker, a warm-hearted, yet uneducated bigot who
knew nothing but thought he knew everything

"Married... With Children" Al Bundy, a sadsack loser with a life he didn't
ask for, doesn't want and hates (kind of like Arthur, except Arthur's
nowhere near as crude). Al in particular is the best example of how you can
indeed joke about failure in America. This show has such a cult following
that everybody who watches it kind of considers Al a hero. If Al Bundy can
be a hero to Americans, so can Arthur Dent.

All of these characters, except for Archie, can be considered heroes to
people because you know people like that, whether you're American, British,
Canadian, Russian or Japanese, and they're all failures. Arthur will make a
fine hero because he is how we all would be in space: Flabbergasted, doesn't
know anything and doesn't pretend to know anything, either.

--
Chris Casino
cca...@rcn.com

"To a new world of Gods and monsters!"
Ernest Thesiger, the Bride of Frankenstein
Universal Pictures 1935

[John Coxon]

In the two thousand and fourth year of Bob, Chris Casino's voice said the
following, in wonderful perfect quadrophonic sound with distortion levels so
low as to make a man weep:

> Douglas Adams acknowledged this as one of the problems with Arthur Dent as a
> hero in the movie. Well, there were a number of American TV shows whose main
> characters I think Douglas needed to see. Case in point:
>
> "The Honeymooners" with Ralph Kramden, a bus driver whose get-rich quick
> schemes all failed

I have a comic of this.

> "All in the Family" Archie Bunker, a warm-hearted, yet uneducated bigot who
> knew nothing but thought he knew everything
>
> "Married... With Children" Al Bundy, a sadsack loser with a life he didn't
> ask for, doesn't want and hates (kind of like Arthur, except Arthur's
> nowhere near as crude). Al in particular is the best example of how you can
> indeed joke about failure in America. This show has such a cult following
> that everybody who watches it kind of considers Al a hero. If Al Bundy can
> be a hero to Americans, so can Arthur Dent.

I have a comic of this, too.

That's my intelligent-looking contribution of the day.

Although you're right, anyone can be a hero. Some of the people who get
awarded medals for bravery insist that they were just doing their duty when
they were clearly well A & B the C of D. Bob knows what the relevance of
that is. I sure don't.

--
John Coxon

Despite the cost of living, have you noticed how it remains so popular?

E-mail: johnc...@virgin.net
Website: http://alphacentauri.8k.com
LiveJournal: http://www.livejournal.com/~johncoxon
Missing footnotes: http://www.nut.house.cx/cgi-bin/nemowiki.pl?ISFN