~ Of course, you could alway paint the car "Old Yeller", but
~ at the end of the story you have to box the car up and
~ shoot it.
I almost brought this up in the context of The Naming of Cars,
which have similar characteristics at their best to household
pets. (Actually, "Spot" would be a GREAT name for an LBC. Hey
Bob! Winnah!!!) But Kim and I happened to be discussing Old
Yeller in an LBC context, oh, just last Monday night.
The origin of this conversation was Movies That Caused Unintended
Laughter. Kim was recalling how she howled with derision at the
end of Love Story -- not so much for the film as for the sight
of adults weeping and, as one man literally did, wringing out
their handkerchiefs as Ali McGraw went to her eternal whinge--er,
reward.
"Well, there's only one thing I've ever seen, or wanted to see,
in Love Story," I told her. "Ryan O'Neal's car."
"He has some cute sports car, doesn't he?" Kim asked, ingenuously.
"He has a by-God M.G. TC!" I spluttered. "The only thing worth
watching in the whole film."
"Well, it just didn't make me feel like crying," Kim said. "But I
cry at those stupid Kodak commercials, where the little girl dances
on her dad's feet, or comes back from college to find her old cat
is waiting for her. And all you have to do is *say* 'Old Yeller'
to me and I'm over the edge."
"Ah," I said. "I suspect that there are two kinds of people in
the world -- people who cry at the end of 'Love Story,' and people
who cry at the end of 'Old Yeller,' and neither will ever understand
the other entirely." (Me? I'd rather have a hemorrhoid than a
dog, but I can't watch the kid load up his Kentucky long rifle
without choking back a few sniffles.)
So how's about it? Or are the people on this list more likely
to cry in the middle of Goldfinger, when Sean "No, Mr. Bond,
I expect you to die!" Connery stuffs the DB5 into a warehouse wall?
--Scott "Don't anybody even THINK of mentioning Zuzu's petals" Fisher
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