Turning his upcoming Christmas film into a powerful, holy celebration of peace and love between races, cultures, and catchphrase-spouting caricatures, Tyler Perry has added Larry the Cable Guy to the cast of his [Tyler Perry's] Madea Christmas.
The American-vs-European racing rivalry of Talladega Nights, the candy-lacquered driving of Speed Racer, and the intolerable Larry the Cable Guy-as-a-hero scenario put forth by Witless Protection, all put in a blender and served in three dimensions, with an exceptionally bitter digestif of Weezer covering The Cars (because, yes, that band's name is the same as the movie)? Look, Pixar, I figure you'll probably figure some way of making all of this so charming, and so Best Animated Feature-winning, but this sure looks hard to swallow:
Japan sure is weird if you're American, and are also a tow truck voiced by the voice Larry the Cable Guy, am I right, Larry the Cable Guy the Tow Truck? YES, he responds in this new Cars 2 trailer, using that voice he affects to let me know he probably drinks too many Budweisers while installing cable.
Larry the Cable Guy Car is a bumbling, terrible spy, but Michael Cain the Bond Car keeps misconstruing his idiocy for outside-the-box talent! Yikes! Also: Owen Wilson Car goes to Japan to do some racing in Tokyo! What in the Johnny English/Fast and the Furious sequel world!? I don't know, but here's the trailer.
Having successfully remade Doc Hollywood, replacing Michael J. Fox and everyone else with cars, in 2006, Disney-Pixar will at last release an awaited(?) second chapter in the Cars saga next summer with the aptly-titled Cars 2. To get us revving our engines about the film early (car reference!), the animation giant has released a brief trailer teasing the story's spy themes and Larry Cable Guy voices. Unfortunately, just by telling you this is a Cars 2 teaser, I've sort of ruined the trailer's punchline, which I believe is, "Surprise: it turns out the 'world's newest secret agents' we've been describing are actually cars! I bet you thought they were going be hamsters or some shit, didn't you?" Sorry.
Addressing concerns that most of America would rather see Larry the Cable Guy do something, anything, than learn a valuable history lesson, History Channel has decided to further stray from its titular theme and give L.C.G. a show where he goes around doing things in his trademark sleeveless (hilarious) fashion:
In "Only in America With Larry the Cable Guy" (it's a working title, so don't fall in love with it just yet), Larry explores the country, immersing himself in different lifestyles, jobs and hobbies that "celebrate the American experience."“Larry the Cable Guy wows* audiences across the country with his unique brand of humor and quirky take on America," said Nancy Dubuc, president and GM of History. “We are thrilled to welcome him to History in what promises to be a
brand-bustinggenre-busting series that takes a look at history like you’ve never seen it before.”
I haven't had History Channel for a long time, but last I remember, all they would air was Marc Summers' History Trivia Challenge or something involving shoddy CGI representations of pyramids. Great to see they've abandoned that for alien huntin' and a Blue Collar Comedy Tour approach by which a man playing a buffoon travels the country, only relating to history in that the inevitable success of such programming will be looked at by future anthropologists as the dismal nadir of human entertainment.
At least, according to today's prescient Onion, we still have Science Channel.
*I'm certain even fans of Larry the Cable Guy would never say they were "wowed" by him.
Starting this Friday, prints of Bolt will come with the new Pixar short film Tokyo Mater attached. The digital 3-D short focuses on Larry the Cable Guy Truck from Cars telling a fabricated story that leads to a drift-racing competition--which The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift's title tells me is a very popular racing style in the region.
Coming Soon has posted the first shots from the short, and there's one more below the cut. I Watch Stuff takes no responsibility for whatever resulting ads/spam for Hot Tokyo Mating Services you may encounter.
I think I've become obsessed with Larry Cable Guy's Witless Protection. For some reason, and despite any outside encouragement (outside of the echoing laughter from our nation's small town bars), I can't help but follow the adventures of this sleeveless buffoon. So I don't know if it was the idea of knowing the enemy, the sick self-empowerment I derive from intense hatred, or just pure self-loathing that led me to watch another clip from the film, but I did. And it was awful.
I don't expect anyone else to subject themselves to such blue collared misery, but if you do, try your best to answer some of my earnest questions.
1. Does Larry Cable Guy have a new catchphrase, or was "Boy, it's a good'n!" created exclusively for this clip to hurl me into abject rage?
2. Hasn't this "beat someone up to prove they're dead when they actually aren't" joke been done in a Naked Gun or something before (albeit with fewer undertones of spousal abuse)?
3. Why does LCG continue to talk to her as if she's unconscious when she's obviously waving her fingers in his face?
4. Why is Larry Cable Guy wearing a comedic tuxedo t-shirt, rather than an actual tuxedo, to a funeral? Answered: Larry Cable Guy is funny.
Exclusive Witless Protection Clip [Coming Soon]
Even more upsetting than the idea that Larry the Cable Guy is popular enough to warrant a feature film is sad fact that this will be his third--and at the horribly alarming rate of one a year.
For the first film, Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector, he was kind enough to remind us that, although he would be playing a health inspector, this would still be our classic Cable Guy character. But audiences are maturing, and in this outing, in a showing of good faith, he simply calls the character "Deputy Larry". We're left to search for clues (sleeveless shirt, trucker hat, exact same f***ing schtick as always) to determine that this is--thank god--our beloved cable installer.
In line with this newfound confidence in his audience, the comedy takes a similarly drastic rise in intelligence. Whether Larry is mistaking the question "Are you insane?" for an inquiry to his name (his name is not "Insane" it turns out; it's Larry), stuffing a corn cob in an exhaust pipe, or being cavity-searched by airport security (topical!), it's clear that our cable guy has been studying humor from as far back as vaudeville to as modern as Leno, and nothing in between.
Why is anyone willing to buy into so many layers of fiction for this guy? I can't even imagine. Bear in mind, this is not the third starring film for Dan Whitney, but rather the third in a series of roles for his catchphrase spewing alter ego. (Larry so succeeds as an artist that he needs to meta-act to fully realize his potential.) No one is writing movies where Chandler from Friends takes on a new profession each year, yet it's just as ludicrous of a concept.
Worse yet, it's not even LCG writing these things; independent, yet clearly defective, people write these for him, a career I can only equate to assembling the launch buttons for atom bombs. Not since Ernest has an idiot playing an idiot playing an idiot been so strangely existent, and I hope it never is again.
Thanks for the tip, Kyle.
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I Watch Stuff is a movie and video blog dedicated to bringing you the best and worst that Hollywood and the Internet have to offer and then, more often than not, making fun of it because it sucks.
