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In honor of MightyGodKing's complete pwnage of the bar exam -- and another hoist of the mug to you, chap -- I wanted to pay homage and also address something that's been gnawing at the back of my skull for some time. No, not the tumor. The answer to the question "If you could create a TV series based on any preexisting intellectual property, what would it be?"
Without a doubt, Buckaroo Banzai.
For the uninitiated, Banzai is what happens when your role-playing character is also the GM: neurosurgeon, rock icon, test car pilot, speaks ten languages -- basically an infinite-character-point character. He'd be a Gary Stu except that he's so damn cool about it all. And that he's assembled around him a cadre of eccentric and invaluable personalities with a gamut of backgrounds and specialties (in terms of all the sciences, hard, soft, violent and musical). It's modern-day pulp filtered through a post-Hawking sensibility, and man, is there a Banzai-shaped hole in my life now.
Why would this work? It comes with a pretty ideal ratio of rabid fanbase to necessary canon (one can cling to the novel or even the comics, or one can reboot from the Peter Weller film altogether, but Jeff Goldblum and Clancy Brown and Christopher Lloyd and John Lithgow...no, I couldn't do that). It can be ensemble or character-driven. Its existing mythos lends toward the great arc or episodic installments. It can be dark and gritty or insane pop eye-candy. It could be any and all of these things. Hell, two people could do two series simultaneously and take them in completely different directions and they'd still be more watchable than most of TV right now.
Me, I'd be the greedy bastard and play the field. Keep the Hanoi Xan and the World Crime League as the overarching threat for the first season, maybe two. Have an episode of Reno and New Jersey counting their bullets as they're shooting their way out of an opium den interspersed with Buckaroo sitting unmoving in a Zen garden watching a butterfly alighting upon a lotus and speaking entirely in voiceover tanka. Send Rawhide to the Moon to retrieve the lost keys to Apollo 18. Make Pecos play a violin with a machete. I don't know, but what I don't know is where to stop. Once you get started with these characters, it's hard to let them go.
So who do you get to play them? The casting's half the fun, of course. And this one's more fun than most.
James Marsters as Buckaroo Banzai. I don't have an alternate for this one. The man has an electricity in his screen presence that Peter Weller, sorry, just never had -- it makes his Buckaroo a bit different animal, but Marsters should be able to pull off the semisynthesis of David Bowie, Bill Nye and Malcolm Reynolds. Speaking of, Adam Baldwin as Rawhide. Nestor Carbonell (or maybe Jon Huertas) as Reno. Tahmoh Penikett as Perfect Tommy. Joshua Malina as New Jersey. Brenda Strong as Pecos (Tricia Hefler a distant second). Judy Greer as Penny Priddy -- if Penny's still around. George Takei as Dr. Hikita -- or Larry Hama, I'd be good with that, too. And how awesome a Hanoi Xan would Daniel Dae Kim be?
And the first episode? Rescuing Emilio Lizardo.
Without a doubt, Buckaroo Banzai.
For the uninitiated, Banzai is what happens when your role-playing character is also the GM: neurosurgeon, rock icon, test car pilot, speaks ten languages -- basically an infinite-character-point character. He'd be a Gary Stu except that he's so damn cool about it all. And that he's assembled around him a cadre of eccentric and invaluable personalities with a gamut of backgrounds and specialties (in terms of all the sciences, hard, soft, violent and musical). It's modern-day pulp filtered through a post-Hawking sensibility, and man, is there a Banzai-shaped hole in my life now.
Why would this work? It comes with a pretty ideal ratio of rabid fanbase to necessary canon (one can cling to the novel or even the comics, or one can reboot from the Peter Weller film altogether, but Jeff Goldblum and Clancy Brown and Christopher Lloyd and John Lithgow...no, I couldn't do that). It can be ensemble or character-driven. Its existing mythos lends toward the great arc or episodic installments. It can be dark and gritty or insane pop eye-candy. It could be any and all of these things. Hell, two people could do two series simultaneously and take them in completely different directions and they'd still be more watchable than most of TV right now.
Me, I'd be the greedy bastard and play the field. Keep the Hanoi Xan and the World Crime League as the overarching threat for the first season, maybe two. Have an episode of Reno and New Jersey counting their bullets as they're shooting their way out of an opium den interspersed with Buckaroo sitting unmoving in a Zen garden watching a butterfly alighting upon a lotus and speaking entirely in voiceover tanka. Send Rawhide to the Moon to retrieve the lost keys to Apollo 18. Make Pecos play a violin with a machete. I don't know, but what I don't know is where to stop. Once you get started with these characters, it's hard to let them go.
So who do you get to play them? The casting's half the fun, of course. And this one's more fun than most.
James Marsters as Buckaroo Banzai. I don't have an alternate for this one. The man has an electricity in his screen presence that Peter Weller, sorry, just never had -- it makes his Buckaroo a bit different animal, but Marsters should be able to pull off the semisynthesis of David Bowie, Bill Nye and Malcolm Reynolds. Speaking of, Adam Baldwin as Rawhide. Nestor Carbonell (or maybe Jon Huertas) as Reno. Tahmoh Penikett as Perfect Tommy. Joshua Malina as New Jersey. Brenda Strong as Pecos (Tricia Hefler a distant second). Judy Greer as Penny Priddy -- if Penny's still around. George Takei as Dr. Hikita -- or Larry Hama, I'd be good with that, too. And how awesome a Hanoi Xan would Daniel Dae Kim be?
And the first episode? Rescuing Emilio Lizardo.
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I would LOVE to see this.
You'd also have to cast me, btw -- I won a contest and am officially one of the HKC now.
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I can't believe no one has thought to revive this franchise! Or maybe they just can't get the clearance.
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My guess is that it was too expensive for FOX, especially at the time.
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As to the casting choices...
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One could write a paper on the similarities necessary between playing Banzai and the Doctor -- pleasant mania, gregarious attitude, infinite talents, the dark shadow of the face you absolutely never want to see....
One downside to me showrunning BB would be that I'd want every end credits sequence to be the same four-minute-long sequence. But it would be the best damned credits ever. And now I have to include it, because I regress into a giddy lump every time I hear it, much less see it.
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Also, must have a Big Norse.
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