Ripped directly from today’s headlines, if you’re a complete and total comic book dork, The Fantasticks 4: Rise Of The Silver Smurfs asks the question we’ve been inquiring about for nearly 20 minutes now and counting, namely, what happens when you take 4 scientist people, give them super powers that are kind of lame and not really relevant, powers acquired after having been in some scientific experiment accident involving radiation (again) and latex body suits, and put them in a position where they may or may not even be able to save themselves from renegade advertising agencies that would have us believe that wild bears use toilet paper, not to mention the world?

Answer: They begin to resemble circus freaks more than superheroes, Smurfette gets knocked up by Poet Smurf (yeah, I know, not likely), and El Gallo rapes Luisa so Matt will fall back in love with her. And before you can spray paint your dog blue, you’ve suddenly found yourself right smack dab in the middle of a Falcon Crest marathon on TBS.

Get us out of that U.N. thingie!

(Come on, guys. Try to keep up. You might want to think about coming to the meetings.)

The 4th installment in the The Fantasticks franchise, “the franchise that never was where they are now”, pits strength against fiction, love against pain, and lesbians against giant pits of diseased alligators. (For what it’s worth, my money’s still on the lesbos. No-brainer, really.)

Close the curtains and secure the storm windows, folks. Because in the span of a single generation, those trouble-making Smurfs have turned the shade of aluminum (aluminium for you anglophiles), and Papa has declared a jihad on everyone who’s short, fat, and not blue. Or violet even.

I bet there are some nervous people around here, what with America itself being caught smack dab right in the center of the obesity epidemic. A collective shudder can veritably be heard across the land by stubby idlers everywhere.

Meanwhile, that wall won’t build itself, and Huckleberry and Bellamy set about their secret plans to thwart their kids’ aspirations but good.

Get us out of that U.N. thingie!

And that’s precisely when our superheroes show up to save our bacon and pull our substantial fat out of the fire. Reprising their roles as Dr. Richard Reed, Dr. Susan Anton, Dr. Jon Stone, and Dr. Benji Grimes are, respectively, Iona Grufford (Arthur!, The TV), Jesse Albans (Into The Blues, Sincinnati), Evan Christian (The Perfect Store, loads of straight-to-video gay porn [I’m told]), and Mike Chicklet (from TV’s Shields and The Commissioner).

Rabid fans of this particular franchise, “the franchise of broken dreams”, will recall that Dr. Reed’s super power is the ability to appear very gay, that Dr. Anton’s super power is the ability to find name brand slacks in the TJ Max bins, that Dr. Stone’s super power is the ability to say the most radically inappropriate non sequiturs that have positively nothing to do with the catastrophe at hand, and that Dr. Grimes’s super power is the ability to determine the identity of an object with his eyes closed using nothing but that object’s weight, size, shape, texture, heft, orientation, mass, distance from the sun, station in history, color, manifestation, time of day, and location during the time of the Challenger explosion.

Get us out of that U.N. thingie!

But there’s a problem. The “blue states” have been usurped by The Leftist Smurfs Previously Known As Blue. ( Payback? Fate? Color blindness?)

The “red states” have been destroyed by The Vast Rightwing Conspiracy Of Ignorant Retards.

And “the states up for grabs (not really)” have been annexed by reasonable people saying things that make sense and have purported philosophical and sociological weight that no one listens to because we have the attention span of a canned ham.

And just when Dr. Reed launches into the chorus of “Try To Remember That One Time In September” to placate the silvered mob that is our citizenry, it happens. Look out!

But I don’t want to give away too many secrets. Though, needless to say, the twist ending towards the end will have you reaching for the xanax and gin. Again.

When the roll is called up yonder and all the cows have come home, folks, we don’t want movies like The Fantasticks 4: Rise Of The Silver Smurfs. We need movies like The Fantasticks 4: Rise Of The Silver Smurfs, if for no other reason than at a certain point in history, it’s incumbent upon each and every one of us to rise up against “the man” and take what’s rightfully and inalienably ours, namely, freedom from choice.

Perhaps I'm as lost as a retard in a September fog, but storm windows are BetaMax.

May I suggest everyone switch over to custom built replacement windows with insulated Low "E" Argon glass? The double glazing means no more storm windows, and the process of tilting in the sash for cleaning is a snap.

If the new windows are Energy Star compliant, you get a $200 tax credit to boot.

And they come in a wide variety of colors, so no more SILVER anything.

Listen, bub. The FF deserves a place of honor in the history of literature. Like it's spiritual brother Spiderman, FF grappled with archetypal themes and pondered the imponderable (including ponderable ponderables, ponderable imponderables, and even imponderable imponderables [thank you, Rummy!]).

Namely, the pissy squabbling, backbiting, and catfighting of your typical dysfunctinal American family. Ben fought with Johnny. Johnny fought with Sue. Sue fought with Ben and Reed. Reed fought with Ben. Johnny and Sue fought with Ben and Reed. Ben fought with Johnny, Reed, and Sue. Reed fought with Sue. Occasionally they all fought with Doctor Doom, but usually just each other.

Classic stuff man. Don't you be dissin' comic book dorks.

and then one of the characters will show up on Law & Order: Cartoon Violence edition. Hope you are well.

In the criminal justice system, violence against cartoon characters is considered especially heinous (though often amusing). In New York City, the men and women of the Toon Violence Squad leave no boulder unturned in their pursuit of animated justice. These are their stories.

[CUE BIG "THUNK THUNK" SOUND EFFECT, CUT TO JERRY ORBACH LAYING IN A POOL OF WHIPPED CREAM AND PIE PLATES]

Because I think Ian McKellen as a magnetic Gargamel is long overdue.

Dropped a piano on him.

Seriously—two things; first you’re right—Jessica Alba as Susan Storm/Richards does look like Susan Anton. Second, you and I are the only two people here who remember Susan Anton. (And man, she was smokin’.)

That reference made me laugh out loud. And no, you’re not allowed to go back in time to Spencers and get your poster of her in that red swimsuit. You can’t have the incense back either. [Smack]

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deep in december

it's nice to remember

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