LARGETONY Blog

I was watching cable TV this weekend. I saw one of those movies where a group of inner city teens (played by 30 year old actors) are forced to “bring it on” or “serve” some group of more privileged (yet still “street”) teens in some sort of head-to-head competition in order to gain or re-gain street cred and score enough Benjamins to save the community center.

I guess these movies are supposed to inspire kids to go out and stand up for what they believe in through dance or cheeerleading. Clean up the streets! Give your peeps a safe place from the crack dealers by gryrating your baggy-pantsed body until you elicit mad props from the likes of Missy Elliot and Ryan Seacrest. It could happen. Yeah, and monkeys will fly out of my tight white ass and serve the pink elephants that are bringing it on.

Where do they get the ideas for these films? It’s not like stuff like this even remotely happens in real life. Before I was sent to the country to live with my granny, I grew up in a not so great neighborhood. If you got served, it was with a fresh round of bullets, not “fresh” moves. There was no fancy footwork and no giant cardboard check waiting at the end. It was real “west side,” not West Side Story. Hell, even in West Side Story, when all the singing and and leaping was said and done, people got shot and stabbed. The recent rash of “serving” movies are nothing more than extended, less believable remakes of the picnic challenge dance from Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (only with crooked ball caps and bling-bling.)

Wherever the idea came from, I have to say that who ever thought it up is a genius. Genius because he or she was smart enough to know that urban street kids would plop down 7-10 bucks to see this crap and so would all those kids from the suburbs who ache to be street (but without those pesky details like food stamps, welfare, and getting jumped for a pair of tennis shoes). Some genius is out in Hollywood digging a life lying next to the pool and snorting cocaine off a wannabe actress’ tits, while I’m digging paint from my fingernails. He can have the cocaine and the tits, but I’m just as deserving of the pool. I can right stuff just as crappy:

Bring on the Service - a film by Tony

Mickey Ferguson is a hard-working fifth-generation Irish-American and the owner/operator of a struggling inner city pub. Once the most popular bar on the wrong side of the tracks, “The Four Leaf Clover,” established at the turn of the century by his immigrant great-great grandfather, faces closing its doors forever when a big franchise bar and grille, “O’ Friday’s” opens down the street. The powerful chain is part of a “family” of businesses headed by Mario LeBeque, the don of the little-known Canadian-Italian mafia. Ironically, LeBeque is the decendant of a barback once fired by Great-great Grandpa Ferguson. A score to settle? Oh, yes. Bring it on.

“The Four Leaf Clover” is no match against “O’Fridays” flash and dash service, with it’s sizzling fajitas, two-for-one appetizers, and “Happy Birthday” singing waiters. The place is losing customers almost as fast as its losing money. How can Mickey keep from defaulting on the mortagage and come up with enough cash to replace the burned out letters on his sign so that it no longer reads ‘THE FOU_ L___ _LOVER?” With the Ultimate Dance Serve-Off, of course. He challenges LeBeque, who readily and happily accepts.

Soon, Mickey regrets throwing down the gauntlet. It’s true that prior to returning home to run the family business (at the request of his sainted mother who lay on her death bed), Mickey traveled the road as a member of Riverdance. But that was old school. Even if he could put together a team from his despondant employees, how could his fleet-footed Flatley Irish dance style go up against LeBeque’s crew and their wicked mad blend of Guido disco dancing and hockey-style ice dancing. That’s right, LeBeque is serving it over ice.

But Mickey has a secret weapon. One that he doesn’t even know about yet. Tyrone Jackson, “The Four Leaf Clover’s” stoic and fiercely loyal bartender was a former back-up dancer for Paula Abdul. He was forced into early retirement from hip-hop when he suffered an injury from a tricky pop-lurch-neck roll maneuver. Shamed by other hip-hop pioneers, he vowed never to dance again. After some soul-searching Tyrone comes to the aide of the pub staff. Touched by his selfless act, they become infused with renewed energy, and by the end of a stirring montage, Mickey and Tyrone have led the others to combine the rabbit-like speed of Irish dance with the gyrating funk of hip-hop into the freshest of fresh dance styles: Hippity-Hoppity.

The Ultimate Serve-Off is set to happen at the Dome-atorium and hosted by Queen Latifah and Nick Lachey. Competitors from both sides cry foul at the selection of Nick as host, each thinking he hilds an allegiance to the other. The Canadian-Italians of “O’Friday’s” feel he is a plant by the Irish (L’Shea) while Mickey and crew are sure he is Canadian (the name is at least French). Both groups back down when Nick is forced to admit that his name is actually pronounced like “lacky.” “I’m just a Lackey,” Nick proclaims, prompting his wife, Jessica Simpson, to chirp, “But, you’re my lacky.”

On the big night of the Ultimate Serve Off each teams busts out their best moves only to have the judges reach a tie. Latifah annonces that there will be one final dance off. A slammin’ beat will go for five minutes with each team serving the other. No rules. Whoever is left at the end, wins. But during the break, disaster strikes for “The Four Leaf Clover” crew. Gretchen, one of the cocktail waitresses, slips in a puddle from a leaky keg, and dislocates her shoulder. She can’t perform her special roll-pop-flex-pop-flex-twist move. What will they do? All eyes fall on dish-washer Turk Gunderson, the wheel-chair bound, double-amputee, Vietnam Vet who just happened to be there for moral support. “Just let me at them dirty draft-dodging Canadians,” growls Turk. Oh, yeah. IT’S ON!

The moves bust out again. No team seems to have the edge. The tide rolls back and forth…until Turk wheels onto the floor. The crowd goes quiet. “Hey, no substitutions!” cries LeBeque. Latifah barks back, “This isn’t one of your menus, Mario. I said NO RULES.” The crowd goes wild and only gets wilder as Turk breaks it down for the “O’Friday’s” gang. Before Hippity-Hoppity can become hip, it goes to the next level to become Hippity-Hoppity Handicapable. The clock runs out and Lachey announces “The Foul Lover” wins!!

After the huge success of this film, they will immediately come back to me for the sequel. I already have it in the works. It has exactly the same plot (why mess with success?), only this time it involves synchronized swimming and pole dancing. It may go straight to DVD, but you don’t want to miss Bring On The Service 2: A Second Helping.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 6th, 2005 at 2:34 am and is filed under humor, observations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.