My thumb is in a pie, and that pie is a comedy magazine that will go unnamed (until I’m actually in the thing). My editor is a respected name in humor writing, satire, what have you, and our back and forths have produced a very short trail of unusable writing. Such writing follows, in raw form, and I am in no way trying to be flip in regards to the Katrina tragedy (those who are not idiots will see this). To note: I am on to bigger and better ideas with this publication.

Sci-Fi Channel Fake Listings

Intro:

In the space of three or so years, The Sci-Fi Channel has rejuvenated (thus practically laying sole claim to) the once dormant Nature Strikes Back genre of horror film. Though made for basic cable, forcing it to shuck the adult language and random titties, the channel’s agenda of biological chaos can nonetheless be counted on for wild gore worthy of any R-rated theatrical release. At first easing into the void with one-dimensional concerns like “Python,” “Boa,” and “Crocodile,” the network has complicated matters with more recent critter-crawly splatter fests. Whether pitting former plots against one another (”Boa vs. Python”), mixing the old with the new (”Dinocroc”), tossing sense out the window (”Mansquito”), or tackling topical ecological issues (”Snakehead Terror”), the channel’s think tank of what appears to be 11-year-old fat kids has shown no sign of slowing. Let’s a take a look at three of the potboilers in the pipeline:

“Nutria Retribution” – Useless furballs get a deadly makeover in this bloody, 74-minute white-knuckler. Starring Bo Hopkins as the paraplegic small town sheriff that spends much of his onscreen time trying to convince 98.8% of the cast that droves of genetically-altered, semi-literate Nutrias the size of Chevy Chevettes are responsible for a string of unexplained murders and that an innocuous but dark-skinned terrorist organization has chosen his quaint community as an experimental beta ground. Also stars Mary Stuart Masterson, Brian Bosworth, and a special appearance by Pat Morita as “Freedom Eagle,” the town’s hilarious yet prescient eccentric.

“Common Carp Fiasco” - The once benevolent, vegetarian inhabitant of golf course ponds and apartment complex canal systems is secretly transformed into an instrument of mass slaughter by FEMA. In order to rid New Orleans of troublesome stragglers in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, a kill-serum is used to rapidly morph the gentle, boring creatures into a sinister plague with fins. Watch in awe as the uber-carp open their mouths wider than two inches, squirt cayenne pepper spray from their eyeballs, and read minds. Starring Tom Atkins as the blacklisted scientist that knew all along, introducing newcomer Michael Brown as the unscrupulous FEMA director, and Phillip Seymour Hoffman as the bedraggled sad sack that doesn’t save the day.

“Pterodactyl vs. Giant Abandoned Housecat” – Coolio returns in this sequel to the “whelming” thriller Pterodactyl. When a portly bar owner Creekwood Banks (Charles Durning) innocently devours a 45-pound omelet made from a Pterodactyl egg, hell on earth is unleashed in what is already hell on earth. The Pterodactyl’s incessant screeching and ill-defined flight shadows awaken Giant Abandoned Housecat, an orange tabby of gargantuan proportions due to a steady diet of gutter water saturated with doo doo and two-cycle engine oil. Coolio welds shotguns onto his wave-runner, but is it too little too late? Can an unassuming Buffalo Wild Wings assistant manager (played by countrypolitan party girl Gretchen Wilson, in her acting debut) give the violently hardcore rapper the extra umph his fight needs so bad?

“I Told Ya’ll Motherf**ers, You Gots To Get Outta The City!!!” – Terrifying, multi-layered, semi-biographical story of Mayor Ray Nagin’s (played by Robert Townsend) plight to save New Orleans, his secret life as a shape-shifting, time-traveling, kick-boxing, Gymkata-instructing Scanner, the conspiratorial idea that the NOLA police force may have been crooked, and accusations that the mayor is trying to reconstruct the city into a giant arena for the World Series of Dominoes.