In my limited experience with Hollywood types, I’ve come to the conclusion that their minds don’t work the way the rest of ours do.
I’m not talking about all the sex and violence on the screen that Sen. Bob Dole has been carping about. In that regard, Hollywood people are normal, since most of us like sex and are fascinated by violence and they know it.
But recently a movie opened about a man who discovers that his apartment is infested with singing cockroaches.
As for the rest of the plot, I’m not sure, since I haven’t seen it. But I’ve seen publicity snippets on TV, which show the little creatures singing, dancing and talking.
That’s what I mean about Hollywood’s strange thought processes.
Imagine, for a moment, that you no longer work in whatever your job is.
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Instead, you are suddenly plopped down behind a big desk in Hollywood as the chief of a studio.
And a dealmaker comes in to make a pitch about a film.
“Got a script here I think you’ll like. Could be big.”
“Ah, yes, big. . .Always in the market for something big.”
“Could even be a smasheroo.”
“Ah, yes, big and a smasheroo. Sounding great. Tell me more.”
“It’s a bit different.”
“Good. A big smasheroo and different too. What’s it about?”
“Uh, singing cockroaches.”
“Say, what?”
“Cockroaches that sing. And they dance and talk too.”
“You said cockroaches.”
“Right. Real live ones, not animated. We do the singing and talking with special effects, of course.”
“Cockroaches. Singing live cockroaches? That’s what you said?”
“Right. So, what do you think?”
I suspect that most people would do something like this. You would pick up your phone and call studio security and say: “Please send up a couple of guards to take an individual from my office and escort him out the gates and make sure he never gets in here again.”
But obviously that isn’t what happened. Someone at or near the top of a studio liked the idea of a movie about singing cockroaches.
So the movie was made, at the usual cost of millions and millions, with the labors of the highly skilled technicians who can put incredible sights and sounds up on the screen.
It recently opened at theaters all over the country and almost instantly became one of the biggest flops of the summer movie season.
And I imagine that at the studio, the people who put the project together are now asking why something into which they put so much money and effort and faith is being rejected by American moviegoers.
They didn’t do any market research. All they would have had to do was stand at the corner of say, Irving Park, Cicero and Milwaukee, and ask people who walk by:
“Excuse me, I’m from Hollywood. I’d like to ask you some questions about cockroaches.”
“Huh? You got a problem with cockroaches, tell your landlord. And keep your kitchen clean. It’s usually slobs who get cockroaches because they leave leftovers and dirty dishes and grease all over the place.”
“No, I don’t have a problem. You see, we are thinking of making a movie about cockroaches.”
“Oh, one of them creepy, scary movies, huh? About giant cockroaches that try to take over the Earth. I like movies like that, as long as at the end we blow them up with lasers or nukes.”
“No, this would be a movie about cockroaches that sing and dance and are, in their own way, lovable. There will even be a wonderful scene of them singing in a dirty toilet bowl.”
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“Excuse me, but I got a weak stomach. G’bye.”
If they stopped a thousand people on the streets of any American city, I doubt if they would have found even one cockroach enthusiast. Lightning bugs, sure, and crickets too. But cockroaches? No. Like sewer rats, you can admire their smarts and will to survive. But you wouldn’t want one sitting on your shoulder like a parrot.
So I’m relieved that this movie–“Joe’s Apartment” is the title–has bombed so miserably.
If it had been a hit, Hollywood, a land of idea thieves, would have suddenly been pouring out imitations.
We’d have cute singing bedbugs, dancing black widow spiders and mirthful maggots.
And somewhere, in a Hollywood mogul’s office, some dealmaker would be saying: “Got a big one here. Bigger even than the singing roaches.”
“Tell me, quick.”
“Singing boogers.”
Tha. . .tha. . .that’s all, folks.