Credit where it’s due
A while ago now we were talking about the attribution rules set down by the Writers Guild of America and ably summarised by the otherwise corrupt Wikipedia here. In one of those spooky coincidences that can only be explained by the existence of an intelligent designer, less than six months later I came across an actual example of what I was talking about.
This is from Matt Groening‘s underappreciated Futurama, which finished up in 2003 but may yet have a last gasp next year. The gang go to the movies to see the big-screen version of robosoap All my Circuits. The credits imply that Writing Unit 5 wrote the first draft of this triumph, but the second draft was written by Writing Unit 12 together with Joe Eszterhas. 12 and Eszterhas must have been responsible for more than half of the final script; it’s possible that 5 just throws out ideas Stratemeyer-style these days, and it’s good to see that Hollywood has finally forgiven Eszterhas for Showgirls.
March 20th, 2007 at 11:35 am
Humorbot5.0: “Calculon, do you want to set up this clip from All * My * Circuits?”
Calculon: “No, I think it’s self-explanatory.”
Calculon in clip: “Noooooooooooooooooooooooo!”
Robo-audience: *applause, ending sharply*
Calculon: “Funny story. The script called for me to say ‘yes’, but I gave it a little twist.”
Humorbot5.0: “Anecdote accepted. Snappy come-back not found.”
March 20th, 2007 at 7:38 pm
Al—sometimes I think that some of my posts are so contentless that not even you can think of anything to say about them. Thanks for proving me wrong again!
March 20th, 2007 at 9:11 pm
Would that I could bring something to the legal opinions in verse discussion. You’ll have to make do with Futurama regurgitation.