So, Wei and I decide to rent a movie, something purely escapist. I'm eyeballing Return of the Mummy and remembering that I heard it was pretty bad but with lots of stupid special effects. Wei says, "THAT'S the Mummy movie we should get," and points at Abbot and Costello Meet the Mummy.
Right next to it I notice Abbot and Costello Go to Mars. I suggest renting that because I once caught the tail end of it on TV, and it had Space Princesses in it.
In the last half, Abbot and Costello go to Mars, which turns out to be inhabited by monsters (of course). Specifically, Lou meets up with a giant tarantula oddly reminiscent of the giant Tarantula in another universal picture from around the same period, "Tarantula." Our two wacky but loveable doofuses then flee to Venus, where they find a civilization of Space Princesses in shiny miniskirts, none of whom have ever known the kiss of a man. (To them, Lou Costello is a Sex God.)
THAT was the scene I was renting the movie for. I have a thing for Space Princesses.
BUT I HAD NEVER SEEN THE FIRST HALF.
We're ensconced in the Slack Chamber watching the movie. Lovable orphanage janitor Lou, bumbling as is his wont, gets himself and reluctant new buddy Bud Abbott into an experimental rocketship -- the streamlined 1950s kind -- and OF COURSE accidentally pushes the Launch button.
Well, at first, the sleek spaceship doesn't leave Earth. It flies around in circles and loop-de-loops at the inept hands of the dumb duo, as seen via exterior shots done in miniature or mattes of the rocket model against background footage shot from careening aeroplanes, and similar footage used as PoV shots of what Bud and Lou are seeing through the window.
SUDDENLY THE ROCKET IS FLYING OUT OF CONTROL THROUGH NEW YORK CITY. There are absolutely jaw-dropping effects shots of this huge jet rocket SPEEDING RIGHT TOWARDS NEW YORK SCKYSCRAPERS, sometimes with Lou Costello acting scared in the foreground as we see the buildings approach through the cockpit window -- only to be avoided as the rocket swerves at the last minute. Some of the exterior model shots (the ones as if seen "from the ground") look UNCOMFORRTABLY yet HILARIOUSLY like the horrible WTC attack footage, only, in 1949 NYC, and with this Rocketship XM looking thing. And with Lou Costello instead of Mohammad Atta.
Wei and I were... just... well, you'd simply have to see this footage. I need to borrow neighbor Joe's digital camera so can transfer the sequence over to digital, make a little DivX of it or something.
Suddenly the camera is showing "BOB'S BAR." I shit you not. You see the stooge rocket enter the tunnel and then you see the "BOB"S BAR" sign. Product placement that you couldn't BUY. The camera tilts down, and out of Bob's Bar stumbles a Classic Drunk. The drunk sees the rocket fly into the Lincoln Tunnel (keen, shitty animaion over a still of the tunnel entrance). He does the standard classic drunk doubletake, of course, then runs back into Bob's, grabs a whiskey bottle right from the hands of the bartender (not "Bob," but a bald guy) and takes a big slug. The bartender's about to deck him and he says, "I jusht shaw a rocketship fly into th' Lincoln Tunnel!" Suddenly a newscaster on the radio in the bar is announcing, "A ROCKETSHIP JUST FLEW OUT OF THE LINCOLN TUNNEL." (Which they show on screen, almost as if the Drunk and the Bartender could see both sides of the tunnel at once. The bartender, somehow seeing this from inside the bar, grabs the bottle back and comically slugs down some whiskey himself.
Following this nutty escapade, the oafish louts land in Louisiana just outside of New Orleans, but think it's Mars. It happens to be Mardi Gras, so everyone in town is wearing crazy big-head masks.... and meanwhile some just-escaped jailbirds in striped prion suits decide to rob a bank using space suits they pilfered from the ship while Bud and Lou were having misadventures... you get the picture...
Friends, many dipshits and false prophets claim to have foreseen the awful tragedy of Sept. 11. From Nostradmus through Edgar Casey through the two mystic loons right here on a.s., ALL WERE GUESSING.
But only Universal Studios, Bud Abbot, Lou Costello, and "Bob" REALLY KNEW what it would LOOK like.