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Along with Krusty the Clown, Bumblebee Man and, very briefly, Gabbo, one in every of Springfield’s most well-known entertainers is, after all, Rainier Wolfcastle, star of the favored McBain motion pictures, in addition to Undercover Nerd and Assist! My Son Is a Nerd (it isn’t a comedy).
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The McBain franchise, which was first launched within the second season of The Simpsons, is an motion parody smorgasbord containing components of Deadly Weapon and Die Arduous, with a wholesome dose of each film Arnold Schwarzenegger ever made — though Schwarzenegger would later rip off Rainier Wolfcastle, so all of it evens out in the long run.
As we’ve talked about earlier than, these early clips of McBain had been designed to type one cohesive story — a extra cohesive one than some actual Schwarzenegger motion pictures, to be sincere. Followers, actually, have even edited the scenes collectively as if it had been an actual movie.
However in a uncommon case of The Simpsons really predicting one thing, simply months after McBain first popped up within the Season Two episode “The Approach We Was,” an precise Hollywood motion film referred to as McBain hit theaters.
Relatively than a hulking Austrian bodybuilder, McBain starred the less-beefy Christopher Walken as a Vietnam veteran taking up Colombian drug sellers. Did we point out that Walken’s McBain additionally helps a band of rebels overthrow the federal government in the long run?
James Glickenhaus, the director of the non-cartoon McBain, has confused that The Simpsons under no circumstances impressed his movie. Though he did admit that he lifted the identify from a Sergio Leone film, presumably As soon as Upon a Time within the West, by which the McBain household is viciously gunned down.
Within the DVD commentary for “The Approach We Was” Simpsons author/producer Al Jean described the “ironic” scenario the writers discovered themselves in: “We thought this feels like a dumb identify {that a} Schwarzenegger character would have, after which a film got here out referred to as McBain.”
“For some time, we misplaced the rights to make use of the identify,” producer James L. Brooks added.
Yeah, regardless of pre-dating Walken’s film by a number of months, The Simpsons was pressured to prematurely retire the “McBain” identify, as an alternative referring to the character by the identify of the actor who performs McBain: Rainier Wolfcastle.
Clearly The Simpsons’ moratorium on “McBain” didn’t final, most likely as a result of the true life McBain film wasn’t precisely a success. It made lower than $500,000 on the home field workplace, however price $16 million to make. So Springfield’s McBain was as soon as once more free to save lots of UNICEF pennies from the clutches of Commie-Nazis.
Or dunk on Woody Allen throughout a stand-up set in McBain: Let’s Get Foolish — which additionally, by the way, gave us the “That’s the Joke” meme.
There are even McBain comedian books, one in every of which apparently entails McBain combating robotic orangutans, earlier than he’s murdered, goes to Hell after which weapons down the literal Satan?
Sadly, although, The Simpsons’ McBain has but to stage a violent coup towards a South American dictator.
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