X-NEWS: spcvxb.spc.edu rec.humor.funny: 6745 Xref: spcuna rec.humor.funny:6745 Newsgroups: rec.humor.funny From: loeb@catbird.cs.duke.edu (Michael Alan Loeb) Subject: Disney's Moby Dick.... Keywords: smirk Approved: funny-request@clari.net Path: spcuna!news.new-york.net!news.columbia.edu!panix!newsfeed.internetmci.com!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!arclight.uoregon.edu!enews.sgi.com!decwrl!pacbell.com!amdahl.com!news.fujitsu.com!nntp-sc.barrnet.net!fugue.clari.net!funny-request Message-ID: Date: Tue, 13 Aug 96 19:30:04 EDT Lines: 123 This is original... Recently, I saw Disney's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame", and this gave me the idea what would happen if classic writers were employed by Disney. The question is that the marketing reps would require classic literature to be rewritten to make them more marketable. For example, this might be a conversation between Herman Melville and a marketing rep from Disney. (MR will stand for Marketing Rep) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- What if Herman Melville worked for Disney. By Michael Loeb MR: Mr. Melville, I have read your book "Moby Dick", and it has some good points to it, but we would like you to make some changes to it. Melville: I don't understand. MR: Well, we like the fact the story is about a whale. Kids like animals. We also like the fact that there is a multi-racial crew aboard the Pequod. Queequeg is magnificent. I think Starbuck should be an African-American. However, there are still a few changes we would like you to make. Melville: Changes? MR: Yes. For example, there are no women aboard the Pequod. How are we going to sell this story if there is no woman for Ishmael to fall in love with? Melville: But, there are no women on whalers. MR: Well, you got a point there, but we still need a woman on the boat. I got it, she can be a princess that is running away from her evil father because she's going to marry a total jerk. Melville: There are no princesses in New England. MR: Yeah, right. I know. She is an animal rights activist and doesn't believe that they should kill whales. So, she stows away to stop the crew from killing any whales. Melville: But the whole point is that they kill whales to make their living. MR: You want this to sell, don't you? Then we have a woman that will "save the whales". We need a name. Jasmine, already taken. Belle, no. Esmeralda, no, we gave that one to Hugo. I got it, Cellina. Yeah, Cellina the woman from Greenpeace. Melville: Green who? MR: OK, now this Ishmael character. He's too dark and depressed. We need him to be strong and handsome so that Cellina can fall in love with him. Melville: But being depressed is the reason he's going out to sea. MR: No, he should be into adventure. Listen to this. Ishmael catches Cellina stowing away. However, instead of him turning her in, he decides to help her to save the whales. At risk of his own life, because if they are caught, Captain Ahab will feed them both to the sharks. Melville: Why would Ishmael help her? He's signed aboard a whaling ship, you know? MR: Well, it's because he sees Cellina's hour glass figure, her smile, her long beautiful blonde hair, her passion for whales. Melville: Whoa! He's going to betray the entire ship for one woman? MR: Well, Ishmael is an adventurer. He doesn't really realize what they (the crew) are doing by killing whales. This will be the tension in his relationship with Cellina. She convinces him that what they're doing is wrong. Melville: Hold on. Ishmael doesn't know what they're doing to the whales? He's signed on to a whaling ship. I think it would be obvious. MR: Also, Moby Dick doesn't have a big enough part in the book. I got it. Ishmael and Cellina befriend the whale. They talk to him at night while nobody else notices. Yeah, and Moby has two side kick dolphins, Francesca and Riggoletto. Yeah, kids love dolphins..... Melville: The whale talks?... MR: Sure he does! How else can we make stuffed animal toys to sell? Melville: And nobody else is going to notice that a great white whale is right next to the boat? MR: No, they're all asleep. That is except for Captain Ahab's evil sidekick parrot, Iago. Oh no, Iago is Jafar's evil sidekick parrot. I got it: Rasputin. The parrot tells Ahab, then Ahab spies on Ishmael and Cellina to wait for Moby Dick to talk to them. Then Ahab wakes the whole crew so that they can try to kill the whale. Cellina blames Ishmael for this. However, Ishmael sabotages the harpoons in a big fight sequence. Then this typhoon comes and Cellina falls overboard. Ishmael tries to help her, but he can't because he's in a fight with Queequeg and Starbuck. Moby dives into the water and rescues Cellina. Then, lightning hits the main sail. Water rushes over the deck. The ship is blown apart. All the crew is in the water drowning. Cellina convinces Moby to save the crew which he does. He puts them all on his back. Then Captain Ahab and Rasputin come up with a big harpoon in a long boat. Ahab says "Now I got you, Moby Dick!!!" Well, at that point Cellina screams, and Ishmael shouts "No!!!" But Right as Ahab is about to throw the harpoon, he is knocked overboard by Francesca and Riggoletto. Ahab is last seen swimming for his life because two sharks (Annastasia and Nikoli) are chasing him and the parrot. The final scene has the whole crew on another boat where the captain is marrying Ishmael and Cellina with Moby Dick, Francesca, and Rigoletto jumping in and out of the water like you see in those Sea World shows....... -- Selected by Jim Griffith. MAIL your joke to funny@clari.net. This newsgroup is sponsored by ClariNet Communications Corp. Read about The Internet Joke Book -- the best of RHF at http://www.clari.net/inetjoke.html