Chet Watkins Improv Comedy

Hey all.  It’s 2011 now and I’ve been getting myself raring to go for tonights performance.  A lot of the time I personally draw from inspiration from movies and TV (of course).  It’d be boring though if I always drew inspiration from “good” academy award winning movies all the time though.  Last night I popped in an old classic, The Wizard (starring Fred Savage & Christian Slater).  This movie most famously known for the world screen debut of the video game Super Mario Bros 3.  Even my girlfriend who isn’t especially into video games remembers how much everyone was blown away by the SMB3 revelation.

I haven’t given this movie a complete run through viewing since 1990… and I’ve got to say, this movie is POWERFUL.  For a kids movie, it tackles some pretty grown up themes.  Here’s a brief run down of the plot (not exagerating anything):

The Wizard is the story of a family broken apart by the death of a young girl, Jenny.  Jenny drowns in a river while her younger brother watches, unable to do anything because he is afraid of swimming.  The death results in a lot of tension in the family which results in a divorce.  Fred Savage & Christian Slater live with the Dad and their half brother who witnessed Jenny’s death lives with the Mom and her new husband.  The Half Brother won’t speak to anyone and has an obsession with going to California so he can relive one of his favorite family memories (not revealed until later).  When Fred Savage hears his half brother is being put in a institutional home for his emotional problems, he goes to break his brother out and they hide in a bread truck to run away.

When the parents find out they freak out.  Beau Bridges (the father) & Christian Slater set out to find their kids and the Mom hires a kid bounty hunter who is looking for a pay day – so he tries to sabotage Beau Bridges from finding his son at all costs (really messed up).

Unfortunately Fred Savage and his half brother have no money to travel.  While at a bus station, the half brother starts playing Double Dragon on an arcade machine and Fred sees that he is amazing.  Fred gets the idea that he will use his brother to hustle other kids at video games so that they can make money to travel.

They eventually meet a girl from Reno.  Her mom was a stripper and her Dad is nowhere to be found.  She promises that if they get to Reno she can find a way to get to California so that Fred’s brother can play in the World Video Game Championships (called Video Armageddon in the movie).

The kids continue to hustle, the bounty bunter continues to hunt and I’m getting lazy and won’t explain the rest of the movie.

As an improv comedian, I can tell you… watching this movie is comedic gold.  The seriousness of the plot combined with the fact that none of the characters are completely taking the situation seriously creates for a lot of great moments.  Instead a lot of the drama happens when the kid is being directly challenged in video games… like the following video clip:

Or in the following clip, where the sweeping dramatic music plays while the Bounty Hunter tracks down the half brother in an arcade section of a casino in Reno.  It’s very intense.  The tension is broken by something hilarious and awesome by the girl that tags a long:

So there you have it… my run down of The Wizard movie.  Now that I’ve seen it again, I’m ready to start improvising.  God help the rest of my teammates tonight.