4-23-06, 8:13 AM

Together they run for their lives, blocked at every turn... By adventure!

Music: Guster - Rocket Ship

Updates I have meant to make earlier this month will have to come later, today's update may be the most important one I have ever made.

So, while I was up and about, surfing the vast electronic volumes of the entirety of human knowledge you call the internet, something of great importance popped into my head, a piece of information of monumental importance that I must seek out: Whatever happened to the guys who made Scud: The Disposable Assassin?
What did I find? Pure, unfettered genius.
What I had first stumbled upon in my search was a short film creator Rob Schrab had written and directed in 2001 titled, appropriately enough, Robot Bastard! It tells the tale of a robot that serves mankind that must infiltrate a space station and kill lots and lots of zombie mummies to rescue the president’s daughter from the clutches of the Black Mamba. It is highly entertaining.
Both Rob Schrab and Dan Harmon seem to be doing well enough at this point, since a script they had written long ago was picked up and is being turned into a computer animated feature titled Monster House. It comes out this summer and is being produced by Robert Zemeckis and Steven Spielberg. I think they’ll be okay.
But what may very well be their most brilliant creation was a show they created in 1999 and is something only a handful of people have actually seen. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Astronaut Jack Austin, during a routine space flight, strays too close to the sun and is exposed to heavy amounts of solar radiation. Jack’s brain becomes supercharged and when he comes in contact with sunlight he becomes the smartest man alive. NASA, through an evil, unstoppable operative of theirs, wants to remove Jack’s brain and keep it to help accomplish their nefarious plans. Through an unfortunate twist of fate, Jack’s unemployed roommate, Doug, is merged with his motorcycle and becomes Heat Vision. Together they run for their lives, blocked at every turn… by adventure!
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Heat Vision and Jack.
Written by our two boys, a television pilot for Fox was filmed. It starred Jack Black as Jack, Owen Wilson as the voice of Heat Vision, Ron Silver stars as himself who moonlights as NASA’s dangerous agent after the two protagonists. It was directed by Ben Stiller. This is not a joke. It was real.
How could it possibly fail?! One word: Fox. While Jack Black and Owen Wilson were still fairly unknown at the time, Ben Stiller had become a household name, but even his pull couldn’t force it through the door despite an absolutely hysterical pilot. It was deemed too “out there” and now languishes in obscurity. Even today, despite the desire of those involved to turn Heat Vision and Jack into a film, Fox stubbornly sits on the rights.
But here, I present to you the fabled pilot. Go. Watch. Laugh and lament.

-K.