Love, Brak Style
THE SPACE GHOST SIDEKICK’S FAVORITE DATE FLICKS
In my opinion, a date movie should be a movie that you
can ^o to with a date. And hopefully afterward, there's
food involved. Did you know you can ^et fried cheese at the
movies now? Once 1 had a date and ordered five plates of
fried cheese and ate them all by myself, because 1 figured,
"She paid for 'em, 1 mi^ht as well eat 'em." But where was
1? Oh. yeah, date movies. Here are my top five. -Brak. as
relayed through really painfvl mind control to Scott Brown
O The Delicate Delinquent
[1956, Paramount, unrat
ed] For such a jerk, Jerry
Lewis sure can make a
funny movie. And speak
ing of jerks...
Q The Jerk (1979. Univer
sal, R] The scene where
Steve Martin has his pants
pulled down is one of the
best pants-pulled-down
scenes in movie history.
© Plan 9 From Outer Space
{1958, Phino. unrated] This
is the most realistic por
trayal of alien zombie in
vasion I've seen—and I've
seen 'em all. And inciden
tally, you people of Earth
are idiots.
O KISS Meets the Phan
tom of the Park (1978,
GoodTimes. unrated] 1 tip
my hat to Hanna-Barbera
for the use of the band
Kiss in such an original
fashion. Where were the
Golden Globes that year,
1 ask you?
© Rainbow Brite and the
Star Stealer (1985. Warn
er, G] 1 thought it would
be a harmless animated
feature, but this whole
planet ?ets stolen and,
well, 1 just couldn’t watch
any more. My date, Marla
Hibbs. said that Rainbow
Brite eventually comes in
and saves the day. but
once 1 ^ot scared by the
bi^. bad, evil Princess. 1
ran as far from that the
ater as 1 could. Marla also
said she had to hitchhike
home. Soon after, she
stopped returning my
calls. 1 still ride my bike
past her house, though.
Space Ghost dreams the impossible dream
Thus, the Powerpuff jet streaking
across America’s skies (the girls ap
pear on the rear end of a kid-friendly
Delta Express 737), the Powerpuff
album, featuring Devo and Frank
Black, and the Powerpuff the
atrical movie, slated for release
in 2002. A pretty impressive
yield from McCracken, an ani
mator who envisioned an audi
ence of “stoned college kids.”
Which, come to think of it,
gives a whole new meaning to
that mysterious Chemical X.
IF THE REACTION TO THE
Powerpuff Girls has been
chemical, the success of Car
toon Network’s other pint-size
-1 protagonist hit, Dexter’s Lab
oratory, has been explosive. Dexter
was born of a California Institute of
the Arts student film by Genndy Tarta
kovsky—a classmate of McCracken's—
called Changes, about a carefree, per
petually pirouetting young girl: the
proto-Dee Dee. Tartakovsky realized
she needed a foil, so he gave her a broth
er, “a grumpy little boy scientist. And I
thought he should have a big lab in his
room.” He also decided Dexter should
have an untraceable Eastern European
accent. Later, while working on 2 Stu
pid Dogs at Hanna-Barbera in the early
’90s, Tartakovsky’s film made its way to
the nascent Cartoon Network’s brain
trust, and Dextet'’s Labcrratory became
the channel’s first original series to
bring in more than a million viewers.
Tartakovsky, 30, attributes this
success to a deep and abiding desire to
please not network executives, but
himself: “Otherwise, I have to think,
well, what will a 6-year-old find funny?
Well, throwing up and failing is funny