Upsetting Day: Classic Remaster - Rebooting the Reboot

Once, long ago, there was a comedy website that only wanted three simple things: to make people laugh, to teach them a few things, and to help horses fall in love over the internet. It succeeded in two of those goals, before getting piledriven into the dirt by corporate scavengers. Some of its archives have been deleted, some of them have been corrupted, and some just suck. You decide which one this is. It’s…

A confident knock resounded through Hollywood executive Geoff Chaser's rare Brazilian Weeping Tree door. The recently extinct wood slightly muted the harshness of initial knuckle contact, but delivered an authoritative resonance on the deeper notes.

Or at least, that's what the salesmen told him when he bought it.

"Entree, Chaz baby!" Geoff called out, splitting a thin line of cocaine from the pile on his desk.

"Geoff! The Big G with a little D! How it do? How it does? H-how does it do? Am I using that right?" Chaz Blazer wore a slick purple suit, his dress shirt completely unbuttoned down to the crotch, forming a ‘V’ that led the eye inexorably to his dick. They call it PowerPointing.

"Take a seat, Chaz. I'm afraid I have some bad news. The studio's been going through some tough times, and it breaks my heart to say it, but I'm afraid we might have to let you go..."

"Oh, god..."

Visions of unemployment ran through Chaz's head -- he wouldn't go back to the Tanning Salon. He'd burned that bridge a long time ago. By which he meant Tanning Salon.

"...unless you love this pitch!"

"Ha ha! Yes!" Relief poured over Chaz like kerosene on a Tanning Salon. "You fucking nailed me, Geoff! You nailed me so dirty I’d be amazed if you called me again.”

"I totally wouldn't! I'd leave you a business card with a fake phone number that connects up to a venereal disease treatment clinic."

"Dark, yet specific! Fantastic."

Geoff quickly ran through a series of meditative stretches, then snorted three lines in rapid succession.

"I am burnt today, Chaz. Absolutely burnt out. You want a cappuccino?" Geoff asked, his finger above the buzzer to his professionally-suffering assistant, Janice.

"I will fucking murder a cappuccino right now. I'll kill it and then flip through its wallet until I find the address on its driver's license, and then I'll go to its house and kill its fucking family too," Chaz said, eyeing Geoff’s coke mountain with equal parts lust and hunger. They call it Lunger. It’s like when you see a really sexy steak, or a delicious hooker. It’s very hot right now.

"Dark, yet specific! I'm right there with you, guy. I have just no respect for human life right now without a cappuccino. Janice? Janice are you there?"

"Yes, sir?"

"I swear to God, Janice, if I don't get a cappuccino right now, I will turn into a werewolf."

"What, sir?"

"I will transform into a wolfman, and in my wolfen state I will bite somebody. And they will bite somebody, and they will bite somebody else, and so on and so on until there is an entire army of wolfmen bearing down on the civilized world, Janice. That's what's going to happen unless we get two cappuccinos with extra foam in here, ASAP."

"Right away, sir."

"All right! Let's get down to it," Geoff finally gestured to the cocaine, and Chaz cheerily bent to devour it like a curvy sirloin or a meaty Tammi. "I'm sure you've heard by now all about the Spider-Man shake-up?”

“Even though it's pretty much a brand new series, it's still being canceled, recast and rebooted. It is going to be a total reboot of a series that is less than a decade old. And that got me thinking..."

"Yeah of course I - good god! That is wonderful blow. It’s so light in the nose!”

"Why, thank you! I made it myself. I've been getting really into this new Artisanal movement--you know, bake your own bread, brew your own beer, cure your own meat--and this shit here is my pride and joy. Shade grown, hand-cut, environmentally-friendly micro-batch cocaine."

"You can really tell. There's almost a whimsical tone throughout. It finishes brightly, with a summery tartness - and are those hints of cherry I detect?"

"I didn’t catch her name.”

"Dark, yet worryingly vague! Fantastic," Chaz fidgeted in his seat. He kicked off both shoes and squatted on the floor, rocking on his heels.

"We're reaching critical mass with these reboots - there can't be much more done."

"Right right. But you gotta milk that cow until the white runs red. Right? What else are you gonna do? Right? Am I saying 'right' too much? I feel like I am. Am I right?"

"You're right. Shit. Now it feels weird when I say it. Listen, Chaz - I'm already goddamn bored with this coke. Would you do me a favor? Come over here and choke me a little while I explain.”

"God you're so fucking jaded and I LOVE YOU FOR IT," Chaz giggled, removing his belt and skipping around the desk.

"So, what do we do when something's become stale and unprofitable?" Geoff's voice rose to a squeak, strangled off by the seal-skin leather of Chaz's $14,000 belt, ironically adorned with a Pabst Blue Ribbon buckle he paid an intern $3.50 to find at a thrift store.

“You don't mean..." Chaz's grip on the belt slackened.

"We reboot the entire concept of the reboot!" Geoff rasped, before passing out and ragdolling to the floor.

He awoke instantly, sporting the kind of erection only asphyxiation and inspiration can invoke. They call it in Ass-In and you need to be very careful how you ask for it.

Geoff crawled back up to his desk and hit the intercom button.

"Janice, ETA on that cappuccino?"

"Five minutes, sir."

"Army of wolfmen, Janice. Army of wolfmen."

"Where was I? Oh, right. Reboots: What are all reboots?"

"Gritty," Chaz said instantly, a muscle memory.

"That's right! We mostly take lighthearted franchises and give them a gritty reboot. What I'm proposing is flipping the script: Give gritty original properties a lighthearted reboot."

"Oh tits," Chaz said, his voice thick with reverence and drainage, "I know we just thought of this, but I already want to run it into the fucking ground. I want to bury it."

"I want to more than bury it. I want to take it up to the hills and push it off a cliff," A blank, frenzied expression overtook Geoff. "I want to push it off a cliff and then jump off after it, following it all the way down to Earth just fucking... just fucking beating the shit out of it as we fall like Gandalf and the Balrog from Lord of the Rings. I want to die beating this into the fucking ground."

"I can't even properly picture it," Chaz said, horking a cocaine loogie onto the bespoke wingtips he had cobbled onto his feet every morning. "I'm too wired for gritty."

"Understandable. Want me to hit you with some examples?"

"Absolutely yes. I want you to hit me until I recover repressed memories about my father. I don't want you to ever stop, ever. No safe words. I am your steak hooker, and I got into this van knowing I’d be leaving it in your belly. Wow! This cocaine is bringing me to a darkly specific place and I just could not be happier about it!"

"I'm thinking Saving Private Ryan, but instead of World War II it's a dance competition."

"Holy shit!"

"I'm thinking Scarface... as a child. Think Charlie Brown meets Little Rascals meets True Romance."

"Fuck your brilliance!"

"When he says 'say hello to my little friend'... it's actually a little friend of his; it's like a fucking dog or something."

"MOTHERFUCK YOUR GENIUS MIND."

"We can reboot everything! Everything! I'm thinking a digital remaster of The Terminator where all the gunfight scenes are digitally replaced by high-fives."

"I love you; I want to fuck you; I just might kill you."

"I'm fucking rebooting the gritty reboot of Spider-Man!"

"That's not even out yet!"

"I know, and I don't care! I want a light-hearted reboot of the gritty reboot out before the fucking gritty one is out!"

"You've gone absolutely mad and you will change the course of human history because of it. You’re fuckin’... you’re fuckin’ Rasputin!"

"We've got to move on this, Chaz! Quick, get down to production and greenlight every expense you can possibly think of! I need this to happen now!"

Geoff was surprised to learn that somewhere along the way he had torn his pure white blazer into shreds and tied one around his head. He also didn’t recall making the decision to karate chop his desk into splinters and mount the remains, but was not surprised to learn of it.

"I'm going to run down there, and then when I get there I'm going to keep running in circles while I talk because I feel like if I stop moving now I'm going to die!"

"Do me a favor on your way out, Chaz?"

"Anything! EVERYTHING!"

"Bite Janice on the arm. Keep her doubting."