Ok friends. What you are about to watch may be the funniest thing you see all year.
It’s a video we had to make in 8th grade religion class with Ms. Weston. I think the assignment was that someone had to learn a lesson, but Chris, Robby, Mike, Dan, Charles and I clearly just used that as an excuse to make a video depicting heavy drug use and violence.
The tape was pretty old, so the tracking is terrible. I was able to fix it a little bit, but it’s still pretty bad. I also added subtitles because the audio is uneven throughout and because it kind of makes it more hilarious if you pay attention to what we’re actually saying.
I’ll do a play-by-play text commentary below, so I suggest watching it through first. Then, when you’re done almost dying, watch it again while checking the commentary.
Goddamn it. This is too good.
You done peeing your pants? Good. Now on to the commentary:
00:13 – 00:38
Nothing about this title makes any sense, but I guess it doesn’t matter as long as it sounds emo as fuck. Which it does. Robby never says his name, either. So for all we know he’s just some guy who actually admitted to being a drug dealer on camera. Also, “the extras” never once appear again. They just couldn’t be bothered to pause Tony Hawk 2 for 30 seconds while we shot the introductions, or even operate the camera so “Chief of Police Charles Cain” could get a credit.
The term “script writer” is used very loosely since not a single thing was actually written down. Especially since every scene includes someone stumbling over their words or not knowing what to say at all.
00:38 – 01:00
I have a weird inability to not smile when I’m on camera, which is why I’m doing my best to show everyone the back of my head while I walk up to this super secret meeting with the chief of police in front of an elementary school in broad daylight. And there’s nothing more suspicious than a bunch of teenagers in oversized black coats meeting outside of a school as if we’re about to Morris and Klebold these kids for calling us faggots a mere 2 years after Columbine.
01:00 – 01:22
This mutually beneficial deal between the cops and the media is so morally questionable, it’s something straight out of The Wire. Like the next thing we’re going to do is cordon off an area of the ghetto where “small narcotics rings” are ignored in order to meet our goal of cleaning up the streets in nicer neighborhoods.
01:22 – 01:28
Shit, did you just see that? When Charles walks away. Aside from the cross-trainers and high socks, is he…wearing anything under that trench coat? Or is he 12 seconds away from becoming the police scandal of the year by flashing his dick at some innocent children?
01:28 – 01:54
Just two dudes making drug deals pissing on a grade school wall. No big deal.
01:54 – 02:22
It’s interesting that I somehow knew that this kid had just smoked some weed and I didn’t do anything about it. Or that the exact timing of this “stupid mistake” fit perfectly with this newscast. There is the possibility that we did this as an excuse to show Mike pulling a Jackass and falling off his skateboard into a bush, but I swear to God that’s not the case. This is serious business. There’s a real message here…
On a more serious technical note: check out the camera work here. It goes from a standard two-shot to the camera floating up and in between me and Chris right when Mike skates by. That’s some Oscar worthy cinematography right there.
02:22 – 03:00
Ok, there’s no message here. We just wanted to show Mike fall off his skateboard and do a terrible job of convincing us that he just broke his leg while Robby desperately runs around looking for a belt. Then they all of a sudden turn into Anakin and Padme from that scene from Attack of the Clones where they roll down the hill, falling deeply in love in the process, because George Lucas doesn’t know how to write humans. And apparently, neither do we.
03:30 – 04:19
Here we meet the most self righteous drug addict on the planet. The guy’s cradling a shotgun, just tryin’ to do his coke here, and these assholes walk in all injured and shit. So he snorts lines from between his legs immediately before telling his buddy that drugs aren’t the answer. Then Drug Dealer Robby, who turns out to have the most easily swayed opinion in the history of man (which we’ll see more evidence of later) goes from “He doesn’t care that he’s fucked up on heroin” to reassuring Mike that “We’ll find a way to get you clean somehow” within the span of 15 seconds.
04:18
One of my favorite subtle moments of this entire thing. Right after Mike says “I’ll sell that TV”, Dan looks at him like “What the fuck did you just say?” while trying not to laugh.
04:20 – 04:43
Holy fuck. This scene is legitimately hardcore. This is some Requiem For A Dream type shit right here. He’s literally snorting lines of “coke” on camera. It was actually sugar, but still. That’s dedication. I’d also like to direct your attention to Chris in the background at 04:39. I wonder why he peaced-out instead of confronting the drug addict?
04:43 – 05:27
What a rat motherfucker. I knew something was up with this guy. I mean, he’s got a drug dealer in the house he’s in, but decided to go out to “find more coke” instead? Based on what we’ve seen, Dan is the one who needs an intervention. We’ve only seen Mike shoot up once, while this guy has snorted more blow in 18 seconds than Tony Montana does in all of Scarface.
05:27 – 05:50
This scene is pure comedy gold in every way. Dan’s been gone for a total of 10 minutes, and somehow Robby, who apparently has the greatest spy network on earth, calls out his plans exactly. But since Dan is a criminal mastermind more notorious than Keyser Soze, he doesn’t even bat an eye before flat out denying and becoming as fucking indignant as a humanly possible.
Then, as another example of Robby having no backbone whatsoever, he tries as hard as he can to backpedal and deny he’s accusing Dan of anything even though that’s what he just did literally one second ago.
Meanwhile, Mike with a broken leg mysteriously heals and his spidey sense goes off just in time to see that the cops are in fact outside. The timing of the smash-cut to Chris standing outside couldn’t be more perfect.
05:50 – 06:10
My little James Bond move almost makes Chris laugh, and his recovery reaction is priceless. Then come two incredible examples of saying-one-thing-but-doing-the-exact-opposite: (1) For some reason, I have the sound judgement of handing the goddamn news reporter a .38 Special instead of calling for actual police backup. But it was worth it because Chris’ improvised “I spent four years in ‘Nam” line slays me to the point of tears, especially since it’s immediately followed by “Is it loaded?”
06:10 – 06:20
And (2): I tell him to “be quiet” right before yelling “GET DOWN! POLICE!” at the top of my lungs. You know, just to give the guys inside an adequate chance to load up and fucking shoot me while I walk in the door. How did I even become a detective with this kind of shitty police work? I deserve to be put behind a desk, faced daily with towers of mundane paperwork and forgotten by time imponderable. Not out trying to live up to the good name of Jessica Fletcher, these–oh goddamn it. I literally just made a Murder She Wrote reference. Out of all of the millions of Law and Order’s and CSI’s on TV currently, I went straight to fucking Murder She Wrote. I might as well quit now.
Side note: if you look closely, there’s a World War II era fragmentation grenade just chilling out on the bench next to the door. But I guess I remembered we were just raiding some coke heads and not trying to clear out a Nazi pill box.
06:20 – 06:35
Then, as if my yelling wasn’t loud enough, I make the most professional move of my detective career and randomly fire warning shots into the ceiling. But even more funny is Chris, who is clearly untrained, spinning around trying to fire in the same pattern that I did with a gun that is clearly not really loaded despite what I said a couple seconds ago. The complete stupidity of all of this was not lost on Charles who you can hear cracking up behind the camera.
06:35 – 06:45
I don’t even– What is this? Not even a full minute ago, these guys were arguing and freaking out about how the cops were there, and now Dan is peacefully sitting down with coffee and a newspaper and a brand new baseball cap, and Robby magically escaped through a secret trap door. What’s even more weird is that Dan knew that we were coming and just decided to chill out. Not a single fuck given. Also, I’m pretty sure I ripped a poster on that door when I kicked it, so, sorry about that Mike.
06:45 – 06:54
Another genius decision. Let’s not wait for the coroner to arrive and determine the cause of death. Let’s have the news guy check vital signs and instantly determine the cause of death as a drug overdose. Look, everything I know about guns and the police is from movies and video games and one imprudent decision to drive after a few beers one time, so maybe I’m wrong, but I was under the impression that “bullet holes” in regards to a human injury was not really the correct term. I know some of you are in law enforcement or the military now, so maybe you guys can clear that up.
06:54 – 07:10
Ok this is just the most limp dick “chase scene” ever, if you can even call it that. After emerging from the secret passage way, Robby runs at a speed that could barely be considered a light jog even though he was one of the fastest runners in the 8th grade. And for whatever reason, I decide not to cross the street and tackle his ass, opting to fire blindly at him before becoming winded faster than Homer Simpson before he collapsed next to the Flanders’ mailbox.
07:10 – 08:12
Finally, some real police work right here. A good ol’ interrogation. I don’t give a shit about his drug use, I’m willing to offer Dan immunity for giving up the pusherman. I’m getting ready for some hard hitting motherfu– wait, what is this now? This guy got shot four minutes ago and instead of just answering my question, Dan starts going through the 12 step process in front of me. And rather than taking some control and steering the conversation back, I just look around and smile awkwardly while thinking “What’s happening? What should I do, you guys?” And that’s the story of my life.
The “C average” line killed me then and it still kills me now, 10 years later. And you can still hear Dan start to laugh after the “mari-ju-ana” bit, covering his face with his hands so you can’t see him smiling.
08:12 – 08:54
Ok, so after spending 8 minutes of hard drug use and police brutality, we finally realized that we were supposed to be teaching some sort of lesson, and here is our embarrassingly ham-fisted attempt at that. I’d been listening to Dr. Drew on Loveline for a couple years at that point, so I try to make a serious attempt to tell people the dangers of drug use. The only problem is, my message of “drugs don’t just affect the people who do them but also the people around them” is nowhere to be seen here. Literally the only people who suffer the woes of addiction and dealing in this video are those directly involved.
08:54 – 10:00
Oh wait, this is for religion class isn’t it. So, I guess we’d better tie this into religion somehow and, uh, say how God hates drugs ‘n shit…Charles, why don’t you take a stab at that.
This entire segment couldn’t be more awkward and perfect. Almost immediately after Charles starts talking, Chris and I already look bored out of our minds, looking around uncomfortably. Charles getting cut off mid sentence; Chris coughing into his hat; “Hedionists”; Charles getting cut off mid sentence again; a reference to Tonga…We couldn’t have written a better ending to such a sad excuse for a public service announcement.
* * *
It’s funny looking back at all of this goofiness 10 years later, and it really makes me wonder how we even got away with all of this at a Catholic school. I remember appearing in like 6 different videos that year, to the point where our teacher started calling me Cameo Cody, and the really fucked up thing is that this wasn’t even the worst one. I can’t imagine a copy still exists of that one where they had to paint Lon in blackface (because there weren’t any black kids at Blanchet) which ended with him shooting up the school because some girls didn’t want to make out with the black kid at a spin-the-bottle party. I’m sure that tape was burned long ago to avoid costing anyone any kind of respectable career.
This was also the first in a trilogy of movies made throughout high school for me. The second one, made a year after this, was the Spanish language Mis Albóndigas Son En Fuego, featuring many of the same people, which won us a Mejor Película award in our Spanish 2 class (and which is, unfortunately, now out of print…unless someone has a copy?), and finally my Junior year magnum opus, Fragment of a Dream.
Those were good times, and we thought we were so cool. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go peddle heroin at a grade school.
