We’ve been working on this for a while, and we finally think it’s ready for widespread publication.
On the Development of Movies in Contemporary Hollywood
Three hats (or bowls, or some other large hollow object) are filled with small pieces of paper, roughly the size of fortune cookies, and mixed thoroughly. Each piece of paper has a word printed on it. The first hat contains only adjectives, the second contains nouns, and the third contains widely accepted genres of film. (We figured this out when we were at the Blockbuster and found a movie billed as an “Explosive Crime Thriller!”) The studio executive, blindfolded, then fishes around in each hat until they come up with a piece of paper from each one. The movie is made based on whatever the pieces of paper spell out. For example, Office Space is a “cynical work comedy.”
In the event that the pieces spell out something garbled, such as “childhood hitman romance” the executives will either make the movie anyway (I just described Leon) or, more recently, they will turn on the nearest TV, punch in two random numbers on the remote, and make a movie version of whatever show is on.
On the Development of TV Shows by Contemporary Networks
The system with the hats is repeated, but instead there are two hats, and each one contains only nouns. For example, X-Files is “paranormal conspiracy.” We also have reason to suspect that 70% or more of the words in the first hat are “shit.”
In the event that the pieces spell out something garbled, like “puppet phone,” the executives will either make the TV show anyway (I just described Crank Yankers) or they will turn on the nearest TV, punch two random numbers into the remote, and rip off whatever show is on.
{insert foil smiley here}
You can do this with just about any movie or TV show. Try it, it’s fun!