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May 19th, 1999
One of my first conscious memories of childhood is the time when I played with my dad's cigarette lighter and burned the house down. Then there was the time when I beat my neighbor Kevin's head against the driveway because he bit me in the stomach. But right after that is seeing "Return of the Jedi" in the theater and wanting badly to hit people in the head with rocks. Looking back at my life I can see that the Star Wars films have greatly changed my life, and that I was pretty friggin' violent as a child. I was the kind of kid who complained about how the Ninja Turtles never used their weapons on the cartoon. Why drop a net on somebody or trip them up when you could rip them to pieces like so many potato skins with your Katana blade? And while we're on the subject of the Ninja Turtles, I'd like to state for the record that "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze" is the greatest movie ever made. April got hotter, Vanilla Ice gave us the "Ninja Rap," and Kevin Nash died. And then the "Surf Ninjas" dude insults the fat chick, and we all get a good laugh. And Raph was a total Guido.
Speaking of "getting hotter," the Star Wars prequels did a little modern improvement, not to be confused with home improvement, which is that show about the guy who tries to fix stuff for his family but always messes up cause he's on crack, and then gets sent to jail. Anyway, no longer must Warsies endure the moderately "eh" Carrie Fisher, who looked pretty good in the slave gear but looked like Donatello the rest of the time. Ha ha! Ninja Cowboy! Since Carrie Fisher is older than Joey Buttafuoco now, George Lucas pulled a "good boy" and cast Natalie Portman as Queen Amidala, the biological mother of Princess Leia Organa and Mark Hamill. This casting call offset the fact that Corey Haim plays the young Obi-Wan and that most of the special effects are just still pictures with moving lips, like Clutch Cargo.
And speaking of "insulting the fat chick," one of the most deserving of this honor is Mindy Cohn, who is best known as the fat chick from "The Facts of Life," but is also known as Natalie. And since this Superfight is just a play on the names anyway, I'll refer to her hereinafter as "Natalie." "The Facts of Life" is famous for being one of the longest running sitcoms in history to contain the most ugly people, and being the only show worse than "Hang Time." Facts featured four ugly girls living together in a girls academy ("Eastland School") in New York, where they learned about life, love, and how to sell five dollar Oakleys out of a trashbag on the street.
Before you read the actual fight, say a prayer for me. My girlfriend is a devout feminist, and, though I care about her very much, I know she's not going to talk to me for a week for being so sexist. Holly, if you promise not to hate me, I'll buy you pizza and we can watch "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II" together!
It's Raph! A little...too Raph. ::snicker:: I love that movie!
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| NATALIE PORTMAN | (portly) NATALIE |
I think this fight kinda puts me over the top in the "really sad human being" category. This is a fight between a girl with a weight problem and an attractive seventeen year old in a SCI-fi movie. I think after this fight's done I'm going to devote my life to playing 8-bit Nintendo and complaining about how George Lucas is totally ignoring the "Expanded Universe" novels because, dammit, I want my cloned Palpatine! And then I'll hang up posters of Deforest Kelly up all over my room. And then I'll hit myself in a crotch with a hammer repeatedly and wish for the sweet release of death.
THE JAILBAIT FACTOR
Hopefully, no person associated with the government or child services will read this Superfight, because, as previously stated, Natalie Portman is only seventeen years old. She was born in June of 1981, which, as of this Superfight, makes her jailbait. Jailbait is one of the more affectionate terms used to describe those girls you see walking out of the high school wearing midriff shirts and thirteen layers of "Easy, Breezy, Beautiful" Cover Girl lipstick ("easy" being the key word). These are also the kind of girls who stand outside of the gas station in a bathing suit and get all the "Limp Bizkit-listening" teenagers in racing stripe pants to buy them cigarettes. I'm not insinuating that Natalie Portman is any of these things, don't get me wrong. I'm just associating her age with the girls her age I knew in high school, who were in all the "basic" classes and were sleeping with the Soccer coach.
My sexism in this Superfight has to be limited to jokes about females in general, and not specifically on my personal thoughts on Portman, even though I'm only 232 months old in "over-bearing parent" years. Parents, when your kid is one year old, say he's ONE YEAR OLD, not "21 1/2 months." You sound like a complete humanoid and it makes me want to "trip you" with my Katana blade or drop some kind of net on you.
Anyway, the worst part about dating someone acute of the legal age means that not only is EVERYTHING you do illegal (including speaking), but you have to deal with said over-bearing parents, who will question every action you take and think you are a bad influence. If a 19-year old Jesus Christ dated my ex-girlfriend, her mom would think that Jesus was trying to "steal her daughter" and would call the cops on him. And then she'd beg Jessica to dump him because of a "lack of spirituality" in his life and then urge her to date some random twenty year old with genital herpes, like Freddie Prinze. I think the Government should make a big list of people who should not be able to procreate, as a gesture to the future of mankind and existence in general. Persons on this list would be Martin Lawrence, John Byrne, Andy Griffith, and most of B*Witched.
ADVANTAGE: Natalie Portman
WHO KNOWS THE FACTS OF LIFE
"You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have the facts of life. The facts of life."
This memorable passage gave me a Zen-Buddha-like understanding of my personal existence and the world around me. For anyone who cannot comprehend the meaning of life, let me use the Edna Garrett Nirvana to explain it to you. What I want you to do is take a deep breath, and close your eyes. Okay, now I want you to clear your mind of all thought, and embrace the understanding that is 80's Television. First, you take the good. Macaroni and cheese, "Excitebike" for 8-bit Nintendo, Audrey Hepburn movies, and "Journey: Greatest Hits." Then, take the bad. Charles Dickens, David Flair matches on Nitro, the Hammer "Pumps in a Bump" video, and "Venus De Milo," that female Ninja Turtle. Or Zack, the "fifth" Ninja Turtle. Or the "Facts of Life."
Mindy Cohn had the privilege of being arguably the least attractive of the "Facts of Life" girls, which is kinda like being the best "Fat Boy." Mindy played Natalie Green, the chubby yet eternally cheerful comic relief of the group. "Facts of Life" featured what could, quite possibly, be the worst theme song in the history of television.
When the world
never seems
to be living up to your dreams
and suddenly you're finding out
the facts of life are all about you
I don't know who this song is talking to, but "The Facts of Life" are not about me, unless I'm some ugly girl who hangs out with other ugly girls and always complains about my inadequacies. The "Facts" theme ranks up there with the "Golden Girls" ("...you would see, the biggest gift would be from me, and the card attached would say 'thank you for being a friend"), "Mr. Belvedere" ("I'm just a sexy boy...I'm not your boy toy"), and "Full House" ("I like big butts and I cannot lie, you other brothers might deny") as the most inane TV theme song that I can remember.
Specifically, I would assume that Natalie never really served a purpose other than to wear the Jay Garrick hat with the big wings on it and to be Tutti's friend, even though Tutti eventually left and started hanging out with Queen Latifa. So maybe Natalie didn't serve much of a nominal purpose, and maybe she doesn't understand friendship or beauty, but she definitely understands her connection to the speed force, and the facts of life. And cricket. Nobody understands cricket. You gotta know what a crumpet is to understand cricket!
ADVANTAGE: Portly Natalie
FRIENDS
Everything I know, I learned from television. This could explain my sexism or violent nature. This could also explain why I've always had the feeling that my real parents are David Hasselhoff and Martha Quinn. Anyway, I've learned from television that friends are the people who are always there for you and help you out with your problems. They are also really preppie white people who wear sweater-vests and dance around in fountains to the "Rembrants."
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Natalie is not the only one who's "learnin' the facts of life." There's our sweet chub-muffin on the right, being hugged by "Jo," played by Nancy McKeon, who is most famous for appearing in more TV movies than Lori Laughlin. Jo's roughneck, smart-aleck character paved the way for great tough chicks on television, like Tori, the girl who replaced Kelly for most of the final season of "Saved by the Bell" and was forgotten forever (possibly banished to an alternate dimension by Zack "Immortus" Morris). In the middle is Mrs. Garrett, the headmaster of Eastland School and proprietor of such "Facts of Life" businesses as "Edna's Edibles," which was burned to the ground, and "Over Our Heads," a novelty shop that was shut down because Jo was growing pot in the back room. Then comes Blair, the self-absorbed rich girl, who suffers from the "Delta Burke Disease," in which the chunky nasty girl thinks she's all hot. Finally is Tutti, the token ethnic friend, which is common in 80's television. Tutti was the roller-skating, fast-thinking, street-smart tart, just like the Little Richard who sings her praises, but more masculine. Tutti supposedly was married near the end of the series, but has been "Living Single" ever since. But how many guys are going to hit on you if you live with Queen Latifa? About as many guys that will hit on you if you live with Mindy Cohn.
Natalie Portman's boyfriend is Jean Reno aka Leon, who protects her from Jeremy Irons after her family is killed on a trip into deep space by Gary Oldman. Leon and Natalie have many wacky adventures, including paintball, intimate discussions about, amongst other things, "freshness," and a really cool battle with these spider things that explode into blue goo when you kill them. These two "professionals," who remain "professional" at all times, star in this wonderfully "professional" movie, dubbed "Leon" by the French, and "Super Mega Assassin Kill Man" by the Japanese. Would you rather have Jean Reno with a handgun protecting you, or some ghetto girl on roller-skates?
ADVANTAGE: Natalie Portman
FUNKY HUMANOIDS
"You say people gonna die?" People are going to die when they see that the Gungans, the race of creatures that Natalie Portman's Queen Amidala Mozart reigns over are goofy rabbit looking things.
Meet Jar Jar Binks, who is an outcast from his people because he is clumsy. But consider this: Han Solo gets things to work by hitting them really hard. Luke Skywalker, in "Empire," avoids Darth Vader by hurling himself down into a big hole. The Stormtroopers have worse aim than Ray Charles trying to spit into a trashcan in the dark. Seems to me that the clumsy people in the Star Wars Universe are the most profitable and successful. Well, except for the Stormtroopers, but what can you expect when you cast the camera crew as your Empirical soldiers.
The resident birth defect in the "Facts of Life" Universe is handy-man George Burnett, played to ignorant perfection by George Clooney. George starred in "Return of the Killer Tomatoes" and played "Booker" on Roseanne, before his brother "Stevie Ray" (played by Anthony Edwards) whacked him with a slapjack and convinced him to make out with Aunt Jackie. Clooney stayed on from 1985-1986, until his unmitigated desire to be a true thespian lead him to higher and more notable roles, which culminated in his UNMATCHED portrayal of the Dark Knight in "Batman and Robin." With Derr Arnold as Mr. Freeze ("Ahll right afry one...CHILL!"), Uma Oprah Uma Oprah as Poison Ivy ("My garden needs tending. By that, I mean that I want your Dick, Batman. Come, Robin!"), Chris O'Donnell as Michaelangelo ("COWABUNGA!!") and Elle McPherson as "The Girl Batman Reveals His Identity To in This Movie" ("...."), Clooney's performance was unmatched. Hello Freeze! I'm Batman! Ah dur!
ADVANTAGE: The fat one
WARSIES, UNITE!
Like I said, one of my first memories is of "Return of the Jedi," like most of my generation. I ran around my backyard swinging a stick around making that "whoooom" lightsaber noise just like everyone else. I bought the Ewoks Endor Play-Doh set and sacrificed many Doh-Ewoks to my Godless religion, just like everyone else. I cut off my father's hand and made out with my sister just like everyone else. But I refuse to make the movie my life.
The last week or so, I've been really excited about watching "The Phantom Menace," even though the name makes it sound like one of those straight-to-video Jackie Chan movies you can buy at the Blockbuster for $2.99. I own all three of the original, non-special edition films, complete with the unseen Wompa and Ewok song. I have a big Natalie Portman Queen Padme Amidala Naburrito Supreme poster hanging on my wall. Heck, if I could find a poster of Admiral Ackbar sharing a special moment with Salacious Crumb, I guarantee you that it would be hanging there as well, even though I am not an advocate of puppet love, nor do I know who Salacious Crumb is.
But the Warsies do, and it's them who will stand in line for weeks and days and valuable time that could be used for playing Magic to see the film, and the subsequent prequel sequels that will follow. And even though there is a talking rabbit thing...and even though I'd rather see Liam Neeson stumbling around in the forest with Jodie Foster...and even though I'd rather hear Samuel L. Jackson say the "F-word" a lot...I'm really happy that Lucas cast an attractive female in the film. Not only will that allow me to compensate for that Ewan McGregor/Jake Lloyd "coming of age" shower scene, but it'll allow me to get another sexist Superfight out as well :) So Natalie wins. Want to argue? What, would you rather see Blair as Queen Alfamida?
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Nah.
ADVANTAGE: Natalie Portman
RESULTS
I can't tell you. I don't want to spoil it for you.
But I hear that Queen Amidala takes a shower and gets naked and
then Jar Jar Binks becomes Boba Fett. STAR
WARZ RULEZZZ!!!
