Six months ago I wrote a script for LoadingReadyRun called “Movie” Movies Movie, the video is a parody of the horrible “spoof” films by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. In order to write the script, I actually sat through Meet the Spartans (with a heavy hand on the fast forward button) and I confess that I have had a morbid fascination with their movies ever since. As a comedy writer, I find it is almost worth seeing the absolute worst that the genre can produce, just so I know what to avoid. What I really find interesting, though, are the brief glimpses of genuinely half decent comedy that will occasionally surface. Maybe there is a third, uncredited writer that manages to sneak some comedy into the script while Friedberg and Seltzer are at lunch, but I choose to believe that deep down inside one or both of these talentless hacks, a tiny sliver remains of a young, idealistic, comedy writer who just wants to make it big in Hollywood. They have tried to crush him, time and time again, replacing satire and parody with sloppy references and repetition, but yet, every once in a while, this inner comedian will give a tiny flutter, like a poor baby bird with a broken wing, causing them to snap out of their self induced coma and write an actual joke.

As an exercise, I thought it would be interesting to take their latest masterpiece, Disaster Movie, and edit it down to just all the funny bits. Unsurprisingly, this resulted in a very short film. Rather then just show a bunch of clips, though, I had the idea that maybe I could re-edit the film in such a way as to preserve some semblance of a story while hitting all the actual jokes. The end result is a little choppy, but I think it worked pretty well. My new 8 minute, 38 secs long version has pretty much the same plot as the original, but in theory should have at least 10x the humour density.

WARNING: This is in no way an endorsement of Disaster Movie. If you enjoy the re-cut version, feel secure in the knowledge that you have seen every even remotely funny bit of the film. Do not rent the movie from your local video store. I have suffered the pain of watching it so that you don’t have to.

If you are curious as to what was cut out, check out this detailed spolier at themoviespoiler.com