The Bat. The Cat. The Penguin. There were high hopes for Tim Burton’s wonderfully strange followup to the classic 1989 Batman film. But is the visual appeal of this film strong enough to support a shaky story and misdrawn characterizations?? Don’t decide for yourself- let Superhero Club Review tell you what to think!

You know, it’s remarkable that no one in the real world has ever taken it upon themselves to become Batman.  After all, there’s nothing really magical about the guy. Batman is just an average Joe, fed up with all the guff of the world. We’re right you know.

Just think about it. Aren’t you fed up with your retarded job at Game Stop? Batman would be. Do you still live in a dark, dank, underground cave also known as your parent’s basement? Batman lives in a cave. Are there no sexy Catwomen in your life to tickle your balls of yarn? BATMAN DOESN’T NEED WOMEN.

Put the pieces together, and the picture slowly comes into focus. That’s right.

You are Batman!!!

YES.

So guess what!

It’s time to take out that costume, Caped Crusader, because the real world needs a hero, and you’re sad enough to play the fool!

We know you may feel silly or even wildly embarrassed dressing up like Batman. Don’t. That’s what Robins are for. They’re like… a shame magnet. Or a vacuum of shame. Or a black hole of shame. Or the shame that shame feels in its private moments… of shame. Just trust us. That shy, smiley, effeminate guy who works at 7-11 would gladly be your Robin! Or maybe that twelve year old kid from down the street who you sort of consider your best friend would work. Whatever. Just don’t skimp on this one.

Hey girls! Feeling left out? Want to be a symbol of truth and justice just like Batman? Don’t worry- you can, too! Just leave the truth and justice part to the men and try on this skimpy, demeaning batgirl lingerie instead. Think of yourself more as… a cheerleader for Team Batman! GOOOOOOOOOOO TEAM!!!

Alright, we’ve put a lot of Bat Wisdom on your plate. But maybe you’re tired of justice and all that do-gooding is cramping your style (ala the world rejected you, even when you tried to save it (selfish bastards!)). WELL. Maybe it’s time to get revenge… by putting a SMIIIIIIIIILLLLLE on their faces… and yours! That’s right- as the Joker, you’ll have the last laugh when all the passed out clown babes are falling into your lap!!!

ATTENTION: ANIMAL FRIENDS!

Are you perpetually frustrated that Batman is ALWAYS portrayed as a human, despite the obvious fact that’s he’s supposedly part bat??? Well, you’re closer to a bat than a human ever was- here’s your chance to right this wrong! But don’t wait for your human “owners” to suit you snugly into that little costume of cuteness- take matters into your own paws, and avenge the night!

We’re right you know.

If you grew up in America in the 90s, that was probably your response to seeing the Oasis brothers, Liam and Noel Gallagher, on TV. Whether it was giving a drunken interview or belligerently reacting to reporters, it was cockney incoherence at its finest. At least you got a little help from the bleeped out parts- you knew they were either saying ’shit’ or ‘fuck’.

Do you remember when they were on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine in 1996? I do. I cut it out and hung it in my locker (jealous?). The cover said: “They’re hard drinking, groupie shagging, drug snorting louts. They’re the Gallagher Brothers. And they’re HUGE.”

Ok, Rolling Stone. Here’s the thing. They weren’t fucking huge.

Not in America they weren’t. It was still all about grunge here. This country’s teenagers were more infatuated with Marilyn Manson and Rage Against The Machine then they ever were with some annoying panzees from England who sang sappy, 60s inspired ballads. Sure, Oasis found some success in America, with singles from their second album reaching very high on the Billboard charts. But the overall idea of the band, rooted in a very distinctly British theme, was no more than a passing moment of popularity in America.

But anyway, it’s not like Oasis didn’t have a chance. They did. But when America was paying the most attention, they failed. Here are three moments you may remember.

1) MTV Unplugged

In 1996, Oasis was slotted to play the popular MTV set, but Liam derailed things when he sat out the performance, preferring to smoke, drink, and heckle his brother from the balcony instead. Bloody idiot!

2) Video Music Awards Performance

A performance at the 1996 VMA’s should was the golden opportunity to cement the band’s popularity on the heels of their second album’s success. But once again, Liam’s intransigence shot them in the foot. Look at what a drunken asshole he is during this performance.

3) Release of “D’ya Know What I Mean?”

There was an insane amount of hype leading up to Oasis’s third album, and almost deservedly so. But when the video for their new single came out in ‘97 (I remember watching the world premiere on Matt Pinfield’s (dork) Buzz Bin show, midnight on a Sunday that July), we all knew it was the beginning of the end. Talk about bombastic- the helicopters, the douchey new outfits, the lyric “I met my maker/I made him cry”. And it’s all seven and a half minutes long!

God save the Queen… Ken’s starting an Oasis cover band! But when he forces Willie to join, it begs the question- was Oasis the second coming of the Beatles, or were they the second coming of last night’s dinner? Get ready to laugh, cry, sing and barf as Ken and Willie take on the “greatest band in the world!”

Step #1 – No Zack Morris’s!

When selecting your resort’s staff, it’s extremly important to choose employees who are submissive, malleable, and generally afraid of you! Zack Morris fits neither of these descriptions! Do not hire a Zack Morris! He will dine in the member’s restaurant on his lunch breaks! He will mock you for your weight problems behind your back! He will not vote for Stacey at the 4th of July paegent even though you placed him on the judge’s panel for the sole reason that he vote for her!!! While we’re at it, do not hire a Screech Powers as well! Actually, any employee who is recommended by Lisa Turtle’s family should be strictly avoided!

Step #2 – Put Your Hard Nosed Daughter from New York in Charge!

My beautiful daughter, Stacey (a proud Carosi in her own right!), will know how to seperate the sand slaves from the beach bums off the staff! She may be a long way from the mean streets of New York City, but squashing California Zack’s spirit isn’t very different from squashing the guts of a common cockroach in a New York City dwelling!

Step #3 – Beat North Beach at the Intra-resort Volleyball Game!

Everyone will know which resort has the superior volleyball team when Zack’s friend’s come together to win the annual game.  Remember, because winning is all important, its OK to eat your hat when the score is close!

Step #4 – Underpay the Kitchen Staff!

Need to cut costs? Look no further than the salaries of your kitchen staff! If they demand a raise, give ‘em the boot! Unless, of course, the resort is double booked with a Sweet 16 and 50th Anniversary party… Well then, you’re screwed this time, my friend, and you’ll have to give ‘em a raise! BUT! Just know that in the end, YOU will have the higher hand, YOU will crush their tiny spirits, YOU are the great LEON CAROSI!

Step #5 – CRAIGGGGG STRANNNNNNNNNND!!!!

Your resort (and you) can only profit from Stacey being ‘pinned’ by a wealthy frat boy from Harvard! That’s ‘pinned’, as in Craig’s frat pin, you gutter scum- what were you thinking of!? Unless of course, you’re reading this and you ARE Craig Strand… In that case, Craig, I must apologize! You may pin Stacey in which ever way you please! Now… how about sharing some of your father’s stock tips with me!

Step #6 – Apply Your Voice to a Popular Disney Character!

Hakuna Matata! Sound familiar? That’s because I said it- me, Pumba, from The Lion King! If you don’t think that doing a character in a Disney movie hasn’t boosted business, you’re terribly pea brained! But about that “worry free philosophy”. Don’t buy into it! I’ll tell ya about a real philosophy- it includes a lot of full time worrying!

Step #7 – Don’t Let People Confuse You with Nathan Lane!

Although I highly respect Mr. Lane’s work as an actor, this does not make it acceptable for people to confuse the two of you! If a member of your beach club makes this mistake, kindly remind them of their error! If an EMPLOYEE makes the same mistake, I insist that you fire them on the spot!

Lets start at the bottom of the totem pole with Screech.  Was Screech a virgin?  Well, you’d be quick to say yes, but on closer examination, its a slow, but certain NO.  That’s right, Screech got laid, not on the reg, but definitely more then once.  Still don’t think its true? Well let’s look a closer look.  Screech was a nerd with an incurable case of dorkwaditis, but, he was the KING of the nerds at Bayside.  His best friend, Zach, RAN the school, and his girlfriend Violet, WORSHIPED HIM!  Because of said worship, it NEVER crossed Screech’s mind to ever change his crazy hammer-pants, his polka dot shirts, or horrible Jew-Fro hairstyle!  And why would he?  He had a winning combination.  No man as smart as Screech would go on being an annoying geek bucket if it wasn’t paying dividends in the sack!  Also, if Screech was a virgin, why was he constantly brimming with social confidence?  Screech never exhibited the self-loathing hatred of the world that characterizes most virgin nerds, and that is why, Screech got laid.

Next on deck is Lisa Turtle.  Total virgin.  Why?  Well, granted, Lisa is a beautiful, rich, spoiled brat whom you might imagine had plenty of opportunities to get it on with any guy she liked.  But if you examine her situation more closely, you realize that Lisa’s parents had her sex life on total lockdown.  She gets whatever she wants whether its a luxury car, a gold card, trendy clothes, and she doesn’t even have to work the summer when the rest of the gang is stuck baking clams for Mr. Carosi at the Malibu Sands Beach Club!  This lifestyle all comes at a high price in the form of nosy, judgmental, controlling parents.  Lisa is a good student, hardly gets into real trouble, and hangs out with a bunch of corny white people.  Sure, she goes on dates and likes boys plenty, but its all about high school social status, not real intimacy.  Why should she defy her parents to slut it up when she has so MUCH to lose.  For Lisa, there will be plenty of time to meet a rich wealthy playboy and marry him and start a family.  She’s in no rush to go crazy in high school.

Ok, lets talk about Slater and Jessie.  I lump these two together because its obvious they lumped each other together…IN BED!  This one is very easy to break down.  Jessie is a high maintenance over achieving bitch, masking her insecurities behind a veil of militant feminist revulsion for male swarminess.  It seems like a recipe for isolation, and it would be, if not for Jessie’s stunning beauty.  Jessie’s embrace of feminism likely stems from her ambitious intelligence working in overdrive to keep all the pathetic boys at school from drooling over her all day.  But why go for Slater?  He’s a type A meat-head jock who does nothing but fight with her whenever they try and communicate.  They have nothing in common.  For Jessie, Slater is the gatekeeper to the realm of forbidden musty delights.  Because she is way more intelligent then him, she can easily control him with her sex, and the promise for more.  He is an utterly whipped boy toy who most likely was sworn to secrecy in regards to their midnight trysts in Mr. Belding’s office.  Slater would never even attempt to brag about it to Zach, because he knows he couldn’t possibly find anyone better then Jessie in High School, and why screw up the perfect high school romance, i.e. meaningless sex with the second hottest girl in school.

Let’s talk about Kelly.  Kelly, not Jessie, is the hottest girl in school, and she knows it.  She loves the attention her beauty brings, and uses it to date a lot of choice guys.  She’s a sweet, innocent girl who has safe good ole’ fashioned American fun with the boys in her school by going to dances, the beach, and pep rallies.  However, when she catches the attention of an older man, her inhibitions go out the door, and she becomes insatiable for their approval, love, and yes, sex.  Its obvious that Kelly lost her virginity to Jeff, her boss at the Max, and was probably more devastated by his eventual betrayal then any breakup she ever had with Zach.  When she got to college, she fell hard for Professor Laskey.  She pursued him with the obsessed passion that only a 19 year old daddy issues crazed girl can, and bedded him.  How do we have proof that she did in fact go all the way with Jeff and Laskey?  Well, you don’t go after older suave, sophisticated, hunks like those guys while safeguarding your Christian chastity.  This is California after all, not Kansas.  As we know, Kelly only gives it up for older dudes, and this left one Zach Morris in quite the pickle.

Zach Morris, also known as the King of Cool, but really, was the King of Virgins.  Zach is the most popular guy in school.  He’s tall, blond, smart, and pretty.  Seems like a winning combination, but when you are trying to win the ultimate prize in high school, it takes all that plus tons of luck to take that trophy home.  Every strength Zach has works against him.  His good looks made him extremely vain, thus forcing him to compete in the awfully tough field of flawlessly beautiful women.  His popularity comes with the baggage of a reputation for being a heartless girl chaser.  Girls know exactly what they’re getting into when the agree to go on a date with Zach Morris.  There is no mystery to him at all.  And lastly, Zach is way too smart for his own good.  His cunning and intelligence always works against him as he only puts it for the use extremely selfish reasons in extremely unstable conditions.  He is always shooting for the moon, and usually pays for his hubris.  The closest he ever got was with Stacey Carosi.  And to get her to fall completely for him, he had to go through the near impossible task of winning the respect of Stacey’s hard-assed father, who was also his boss at the time.  Only when he finally cleared all the obstacles, and had her, the summer ended, and she moved back to New York.  Did they do it?  I’m going to say no, because part of me suspects Zach was into Stacey mostly for the challenge, not the prize.  For Zach, the ultimate prize was Kelly.  His obsession with winning her led to his continued virginity, forcing him to go crazy and outright do everything he could to try and marry her in his freshmen year at college just to have her in bed.  All the while he had to watch older men succeed so easily where he failed, making his fantasy of being each others firsts crumble into bitterness.  Instead of getting a pristine high school cheerleading goddess, he ended up with the confused hooters waitress with unresolved daddy issues that Kelly became in college.  All of this unhealthy pining for Kelly probably really ended up screwing Zach over, as he could have gotten over his sexual fantasies with a number of ready and willing girls, and then re-focused his energies into exploring more substantial dreams that could have led him to fame and fortune.  Instead, he is stuck in a dead end marriage with his damaged goods high school sweetheart, and with Kelly being Catholic, probably has a baby on the way that he has no hope in supporting financially.

Well, delving into the private sex lives of our Bayside buddies was an adventure in itself, but at least we can now all rest soundly knowing exactly what Zach, Kelly, Lisa, Jessie, Slater, and Screech were up to after the bell rang, and class got out.

Ken thinks he’s going back to college- until Willie discovers this means trashing the living room and watching “Saved By The Bell: The College Years”! It’s a full discussion of the one season spin-off, guaranteed to earn its degree in nostalgic pleasure!

But I wanted to take my love for AYAOTD further. So I called up everyone I know and asked them for advice. And the answer was unanimous. They said that I should write my very own script for AYAOTD!

I’d never written a script before (not true- I wrote a play once for my grandma as a Hanukah gift), but I still wanted to give it a try. And I tried my darndest- I really did! I brainstormed ideas, drew up an outline, came up with some drafts, quit, ate a box of Toaster Strudels, watched AYAOTD, crapped my pants, started all over again, and finally, after a whole mid-afternoon, had myself a polished script!

All that was left to do was mail it to Nickelodeon, so off it went. Three weeks later, I received a reply. They rejected it.

What I’m going to do next may shock you, but don’t freak out. What follows you’ll be able to read, in its entirety, my finished AYAOTD script. I figure if enough people read it and like it, they’ll all start calling and emailing Nickelodeon demanding this gets produced!

Alright, cool. Thanks in advance for this, guys- I totally appreciate it. So… without further ado…

SUBMITTED FOR THE APPROVAL OF THE MIDNIGHT SOCIETY, I CALL THIS STORY…

“THE TALE OF THE CANDYMAN’S HAUNTED HOUSE”

EXT. DARK STREET – HALLOWEEN NIGHT

Everything feels scary on this street, as a teenage boy named PAUL and a teenage girl named PENNY walk  down the sidewalk. I’ve used funky Halloween colors for the fun of it!

NARRATOR: Paul’s family had just moved to town eight years ago, so he was still trying to fit in. Penny was his only friend, and although she wasn’t as adventurous as him, she tried hard to not be a loser.

PENNY: Hey Paul, it’s getting late, and I think we’ve got enough candy. Let’s go home.

PAUL: No way. Don’t be a wus. There’s still one house left.

PAUL and PENNY see the Candyman’s house on top of a hill. All the lights are flickering and there’s weird ghost sounds too.

PAUL: Awesome…

PAUL and PENNY walk up to the front door. PAUL rings the doorbell.

PENNY: Ok, nobody’s home. Let’s leave.

PAUL turns the knob and sees that the door is open.

PAUL: Awesome…

PENNY: Paul, no. We’re going to get in trouble.

PAUL: I’m new in town. I can’t get in trouble.

They walk inside the dark house. The door slams shut behind them. Just then, a light turns on and DR. FINK sits at an armchair.

PAUL: (unpolitely) Who are you?

DR. VINK: Who am I? Who am I? My boy, you are the ones who have broken into my house!

PENNY: We’re really sorry, sir. We were just on our way.

PENNY tugs at PAUL’s arm, trying to leave.

DR. VINK: Nonsense! Now that you’re here, you’re a welcome guest of Dr. Vink.

PAUL: Dr. Fink?

DR. VINK: That’s Vink! With a vuh, vuh, vuh! And I am NOT a nutjob.

PAUL: Whoa man, never said you were.

PENNY: I’m sorry, Dr. Vink, but we really have to go home.

Paul takes one last look at the Candyman’s house. They walk home.

CUT TO:

INT. SCHOOL CORRIDOR – NEXT DAY

Paul and Penny are at their lockers. Paul eats a Milky Way candy bar.

NARRATOR: Paul and Penny didn’t understand what happened on Halloween night- was the headless horseman for real or not? Either way, they had to go to school because it wasn’t summer, and so they ate their candy that they had from Halloween night.

PAUL: I can’t believe how much candy we got.

Paul closes his locker. He has like a ton of chcocolate smeared on his face.

PAUL: Hey, Paul- I mean Penny- I have a crush on you.

PENNY: But what about the headless horseman?

Paul and Penny walk into their homeroom class. All the other kids are ghosts.

PAUL: Hey is there a test today?

Penny walks up to the teacher’s desk. The teacher’s chair is turned with its back facing the class.

PENNY: Ms. Pitkins?

The chair turns around and a skeleton sits in the chair. Paul and Penny really freak out.

CUT TO:

INT. CLASSROOM – DAY

Paul and Penny scream as the skeleton teacher laughs demonically.

SKELETON TEACHER: Where’s your homework! Ahahahahahaha!

Paul and Penny scramble out of the room. They run down the hallway, stopping at a mirror that looks into another room.

PENNY: Look!

Paul and Penny see verisons of themselves as old people.

PAUL: Holy schnikes! It’s us! But really old!

PENNY: Oh no! Time is speeding up! If we don’t get back inside the Candyman’s portal, we’ll never reverse the excellerated aging!

PAUL: What do we do!?

The hallway suddenly turns into a medieval dungeon. Suddenly, the Headless Horseman slashes off Paul’s arm.

PENNY: Oh no!

Paul oozes and melts with green ooze. It turns out he was a witch. Then it turns out he’s a giant, room-szied head.

PAUL: It turns out I’m the Candyman!

Penny takes a rock and throws it at the mirror.

CANDYMAN: NOOOO!!!!!

The ceiling of the dungeon collapses on the Candyman as Penny excapes.

CUT TO:

INT. CLASSROOM – DAY

Penny sits at her desk in school, relaxed and smiling.

NARRATOR: Penny never saw Paul again, because Paul was really the Candyman, and she killed him. But she wasn’t sad, because she wasn’t going to age prematurely. One thing was for- she would never, EVER, go trick or treating again.

The camera pans to a mirror in the classroom. The Candyman’s face appears and he laughs demonically. The trots and gallops of the Headless Horseman can be heard.

THE END.

…..

So, there you have it. I know the part where Paul’s eating the Milky Way should be changed to a Snickers bar, and in the classroom scene you have to imagine the skeleton wearing a pair of funny glasses, but all in all, I’d say it’s pretty tight. I see this as an eight part epsiode, which, would obviously require things to be trimmed down, but… I’m ok with that (I think). Oh- and the decision to make the kids age prematurely was actually inspired by another episode of AYAOTD that I saw. So I know first hand how scared you must have been reading this, just like I was when I saw that episode!

Thanks for reading! Bye!