It’s widely believed that video game movies suck worse than the Tiger Game.com, but could it be that just not enough of them have been based on Sega franchises? Sure, we’ve had House of the Dead from Uwe Boll, but he couldn’t make a decent film if you gave him all of the raw footage from Citizen Kane and a copy of Editing for Dummies. So what we hope to do in this weekly feature is to establish which real-world people, living or dead, should have played our most loved characters in the Sega movies that never were. Welcome to The Dream Cast
We’re going to be begin by casting for a pair of hip-hop loving aliens named Toejam and Earl, who have crash-landed on Earth and are trying to find their way home to the planet Funkotron.
The original Megadrive / Genesis game had a very 90s sense of humour and an overall character inspired by rap culture, while the funky soundtrack plays a larger part than simply being backgound music. This means we have two avenues to explore in casting for our two leads: musical double acts and comedy duos.
If we were making Earl and Earl we could combine the music and humour, ending up with a potentially great movie starring Tenacious D. Sadly it’s not that easy, as having two Earls could create a paradox in the space-time continuum, And nobody wants that.
Perhaps we could hire Flight of the Conchords under their Hiphopotamus and Rhymenoceros alter-egos. They’ve certainly got the humour part sorted and they’re not afraid to open the door when Doctor Funk comes a’knocking. However, as we all know, the budget for the average video game movie wouldn’t stretch to half a dozen pies let alone a prosthetic fat-suit for one of them to play Earl. Thus Toejam squared and another bloody time paradox. Back to the drawing board…
How about one of the greatest comedy twosomes of all time, Laurel and Hardy? Well, their physical dimensions definitely fit the bill and throughout their entire career, the skinny one has proved he is extremely capable of wearing a hat. There’s a massive downside though… colour was yet to be invented in their time so their eyes are only capable of seeing black and white. For Laurel and Hardy to be capable of seeing their filming colleagues, we would need the entire crew to be made up of penguins and nuns. And an all-nun-and-penguin crew has always worked out bad, Speed 2: Cruise Control being the most prominent example.
I guess it would work if we got Eddie Murphy in to play both Toejam and Earl, because he’s pretty good at playing different characters in the same movie. Well, he’s good at putting on a slightly different voice while wearing a padded outfit at least. It would save on ludicrous megastar wages too, as Murphy is now happy to work for free as long as you put his name somewhere on the poster and send him a copy of the movie on VHS. We’ll put him on our list of standbys for now.
Fakest smile wins a cookie
Maybe we’re taking the wrong approach here. It might be better to think of a pre-existing movie that has a vaguely similar plot and simply typecast the same actors. If it’s good enough for every Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder film after Blazing Saddles, it’s good enough for us, right? The movie I have in mind is Planes, Trains and Automobiles, and there are a number of parallels to draw with Toejam and Earl.
- It’s about two guys trying to get home
- One of the guys is fat, the other is skinny
- It almost features a crash
- John Candy’s character is from the planet Funkotron
If it wasn’t for the fact that Steve Martin comes across as so embarassing when he tries to be hip (admittedly intentionally) I think we would have our ideal candidates, but I think we might be able to find a much better match by employing two individuals rather than an established duo.
I think I’ve managed to find the perfect Earl. He makes hip-hop, he’s about the right size, and heck, even his shorts are similar. Ladies and Gentleman, I present to you… (drumroll) Fatman Scoop
After all, Scoop’s acting skills surely can’t be any worse than his rhyming skills.
For our other lead actor, we’ll have to try a little harder due to Toejam having 50% more legs than the average person. Are there any famous people at all with three legs?
Well, those in the UK and Australia will know about Rolf Harris, the cartoonist and artist who has a sideline in novelty records. One of his most popular songs was Jake the Peg (with the extra leg) and this video shows he has the beatbox skills to fit that hip-hop vibe. He may be a bit old for the part by now, but as this is a hypothetical movie we are talking about, I think we are perfectly within our rights to ask his agent to send a twenty year old Rolf instead.
So, there we have it. My two stars of Toejam and Earl: The Movie are Rolf Harris and Fatman Scoop.
No worse a combination than Jean Claude Van Damme and Kylie Minogue, but I’m sure you can think of better, so feel free to let us know your choices in the comments.
Actually, thinking on it again, the best bet for a celebrity with three legs is probably to hire Verne Troyer (Mini Me) and keep him on a constant supply of viagra…!
