Once Hollywood started turning theme park rides into movies, figured it wouldn't be long before they started looking for inspiration in the aisles of Toys 'R' Us. After all, they did actually make a movie version of Clue a while ago, and isn't Hunt for Red October pretty much just a movie version of Battleship? Recently a movie called Reel Steel appeared in local theaters, a flick about fighting robots that had to have been inspired Rock'm Sock'm Robots, whether they'll admit it or not.
Here are a bunch of other childhood favorites that Hollywood may wish to consider:
Candyland. A group of teens dare each other to spend the night in an abandoned candy factory. Just one problem: the factory is already inhabited by a demented candy-maker. Ever since the original 1971 version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory this one's been swirling in my head - you just had to look into Gene Wilder's eyes to know he was one gobstopper away from being a serial killer.
Snakes and Ladders. Cave explorers discover a magnificent underground cavern system. Just one problem: it's infested with deadly snakes! Will they escape with their lives?
Hungry, Hungry Hippos. A television crew filming an Ultimate Fishing show on the mighty Amazon River start disappearing one by one ...
Life. A screwball comedy version along the lines of Ultimate Race, in which 5 families (chosen because of their dysfunctionality) are given a mini-van and 2 weeks to follow the clues that will lead to a $10M prize. Along the way they have to complete different kooky career-like tasks (a la the glorious "candy factory" episode of I Love Lucy), care for a baby (I'm thinking the mechanical kind they use for "family life" classes at high schools - lots of zany possibilities there), participate in a college scavenger hunt ("find a fraternity boy who will admit to being a virgin!"), etc. They'll definitely need to haul Chevy Chase out of retirement for this one.
Barrel of Monkeys. Mutant monkeys on an isolated island sneak into the cargo bay of a tourist plane and wreaking havoc once they reach the city. A cross between Snakes on a Plane and Planet of the Apes?
Operation. Like those Saw movies, except the psycho killer forces people to operate on their loved ones. Undoubtedly without anesthesia.
Stratego. Two kids playing a wargame don't realize that simultaneously, in an alternate reality, their battle is actually happening.
Cooties. The next big thing - and I do mean Big Thing - after Godzilla: bugs that have been accidentally irradiated and mutated into monstrous size.
Kerplunk. A group of explorers have discovered a magical city of gold hidden beneath a mountain of boulders. Can the extract the gold without the boulders collapsing and killing them all?
Monopoly. The sequel to Wall Street that they should have made, instead of the awful mess they tried to foist on us a couple of years ago.
Sorry. A distopian sci-fi vehicle, a la Hunger Games, in which slaves complete a contest to win their freedom, but if they lose they get sent back into slavery
Mystery Date. A sweet rom-com vehicle in which three girls go forth in search of their "perfect man" ... only to realize, after many kooky mishaps, that they have each fallen in love with a guy that's the opposite of what they thought they wanted.
Thin Ice. A thriller involving a group of people stranded in the arctic by a plane crash who have to cross frozen ice in order to reach safety ... but will they survive the crossing?
Ants in the Pants. An animated Pixar-type flick in which ants are forced out of their nest by an evil landscaping company and take up residence in an curmudgeonly old businessman's pants. All turns out for the best in the end, though, because the ants teach him how the key to success in business - and life - is working as a team.
Mr. Potatohead. A horror film in which a modern-day Dr. Frankenstein merges vegetable and human DNA, creating a monstrous human-potato clone that terrorizes a rural community.
Mousetrap. A serial killer prepares elaborate labyrinth-type traps to torture and torment his victims before the cage finally falls over their heads (metaphorically speaking).
I thoroughly enjoyed this nonfiction account of poison, prohibition, jazz, justice, and the birth of forensic science in America. The book is loosely organized by poisons, with chapters devoted to poisons from pedestrian (arsenic, cyanide, carbon dioxide, nicotine, various toxic alcohols) to exotic (mercury, chloroform, radium). Along the way the author, a Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer, invites us on a leisurely stroll through a fascinating period in US history, an era in which thugs regularly chloroformed whole families in order to rob their house; arsenic was so commonly used to bump off rich relatives, it came to be known as "the inheritance powder"; cobalt-colored "blue men" poisoned themselves for profit; "radium girls" exhaled radium gas as their skeletons literally disintegrated; products sold over-the-counter regularly contained quantities of lethal substances; and the government knowingly poisoned alcohols that the bootleggers regularly sold to the unwitting public.
Not hooked yet? What if I told you that in addition to all of the above, the author includes detailed accounts of some of the most notorious poison murders of the era? And what if I told you that your journey would include a panoramic overview of New York City during the jazz age, including vignettes devoted to speakeasies, celebrities, and socialites, corrupt Tamany Hall politicians, drunken coroners, mobsters, tenements, ruthless industrialists, and body-snatching undertakers? And what if I told you that by the end of the novel you'll be able to speak intelligently about the chemical properties that cause cyanide to be lethal, the physiological explanation for why alcoholics hold their liquor better than novice drinkers, an easy test that infallibly proves the presence of thallium in tissue, and the steps by which brain tissue can be mashed, steamed, mixed with various acids, distilled and separated in order to reveal the telltale markers of nicotine poisoning?
Honestly, haven't enjoyed a non-fiction book this much in a long time. Yes, the author sometimes wanders off on tangents, and the depth/detail of her storytelling is necessarily constrained by the availability of historical records, but I doubt you'll care. I certainly didn't.
Just one caution: you may wish to consider the extent to which you decide to share your newly-acquired expertise with your spouse and close friends. They may find your new zeal and enthusiasm re. all things poisonous just a little offputting ...!
I'm not sure we'll ever be able to rationalize or explain the prodigious talent of Shakespeare (or whoever he may have been). But in case you may be thinking that reports of his genius and influence on culture/literature/language are exaggerated, I offer the following post as proof to the contrary.
By the way, if you find this post to be of interest, you may also wish to check out my compilation of Shakespeare Trivia.
Shakespeare wrote 37 plays in approximately 21 years
His vocabulary, as culled from his works, numbers upward of 17,000 words
Average citizens of England in Shakespeare's day possessed a vocabulary of ~500 words
Today's most celebrated poets/authors typically utilize a vocabulary of 7,500 words
Of the 17,000 words included in his texts, 1,700 were first used by Shakespeare
Shakespeare is credited by the Oxford English Dictionary with the introduction of nearly 3,000 words into the language.
Words Shakespeare invented but that have not entered common usage: affined, attasked, cadent, to beetle, bubukles, co-marts, co-mates, congreeing, conspectuities, crants, credent, dispunge, enactures, fracted, germins, immoment, impair, incarnadine, incorpsed, indigest, intrenchant, irregulous, jointing, mered, mirable, mistempered, operant, oppugnancy, palmy, out-crafted, out-villained, out-tongued, plantage, primogenitive, primy, propugnation, relume, reprobance, rigol, rooky, roted, rubious, smilets, to stell, stelled, supplyment, unsisting, virgined (held securely)
8,598 of the words in Shakespeare's texts appear only once. (Scholars refer to these as 'nonce words'.)
Some of the most common techniques Shakespeare employed in creating new words:
changing nouns into verbs
changing verbs into adjectives
connecting words never before used together
adding prefixes and suffixes
devising words wholly original.
The most commonly occuring words in Shakespeare's writings include (in order): the, and, I, to, of, a, you, my, that, in, is, not, with, s', for, it, me, his, be, he
Some of the most commonly occurring words in Shakespeare's texts that are not in common usage today: anon, art, dost/doth, ere, fain, fie, hark, hence, hie, hither/thither, hath, ho, mark, marry, pray/prithee, saucy, sirrah, thee/thou/thy, whence, wherefore
Shakespeare uses double negatives in spots and phrases such as "most unkindest" with regularity
He often used verbs that do not agree with their subjects
He often altered the structure of sentences (subject/predicate)
He also invented many phrases that are still in common usage today:
All one to me
all our yesterdays
as good luck would have it
as merry as the day is long
as pure as driven snow
bated breath
bag and baggage
be all and end all
beast with two backs
brave new world
break the ice
breathed his last
catch a cold
come what may
crack of doom
dash to pieces
dead as a doornail
devil incarnate
disgraceful conduct
dish fit for the gods
eaten me out of house and home
elbow room
even at the turning of the tide
faint-hearted
fair play
fancy-free
fight fire with fire
flaming youth
for goodness' sake
foregone conclusion
forever and a day
foul play
full circle
the game is afoot
the game is up
give the devil his due
good men and true
good riddance
green eyed monster
heart of gold
heartsick
heart's content
her infinite variety
high time
hoisted with his own petard
hot-blooded
housekeeping
in my mind's eye
in stitches
in the twinkling of an eye
infinite space
it smells to heaven
itching palms
kill with kindness
killing frost
knock, knock! who's there?
laid on with a trowel
lean and hungry look
leapfrog
lie low
like the dickens
live long day
long-haired
make short shrift
make your hair stand on end
melted into thin air
milk of human kindness
minds' eye
ministering angel
more fool you
more honored in the breach than in the observance
more in sorrow than in anger
more sinned against than sinning
much ado about nothing
murder most foul
my salad days
neither rhyme nor reason
night owl
not slept one wink
obvious as a nose on a man's face
off with his head
once more into the breach
one fell swoop
one that loved not wisely but too well
out of the jaws of death
own flesh and blood
pitched battle
pomp and circumstance
pound of flesh
primrose path
refuse to budge an inch
rhyme nor reason
salad days
sea change
seen better days
send him packing
set my teeth on edge
shall I compare thee to a summer's day
the short and long of it
short shrift
sick at heart
shuffle off this mortal coil
snail-paced
something in the wind
a sorry sight
sound and fury
spotless reputation
stony hearted
star-crossed lovers
strange bedfellows
such stuff as dreams are made of
sweets to the sweet
swift as a shadow
the milk of human kindness
the Queen's English
thereby hangs a tale
there's no such thing
there's the rub
this mortal coil
too much of a good thing
tower of strength
towering passion
towering passion
up in arms
vanish into thin air
wear one's heart on one's sleeve
what a piece of work
what the dickens
wild goose chase
witching hour
witching time of night
woe is me
yoeman's service
Shakespeare also invented many "bon mots" which are still in common usage today. Here are some of the most well known:
a plague on both your houses
all's well that ends well
better a witty fool than a foolish wit
brevity is the soul of wit
every dog will have his day
clothes make the man
conscious does make cowards of us all
discretion is the better part of valor
frailty, thy name is woman
how sharper than the serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child
I will wear my heart upon my sleve
it's an ill wind which blows no man to good
jealousy is the green-eyed monster
love is blind
make a virtue of necessity
misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows
neither a borrower nor a lender be
nothing in his life became him like the leaving it
parting is such sweet sorrow
smooth runs the water where the brook is deep (aka "still waters run deep")
something wicked this way comes
the better part of valour is discretion
the course of true love never did run true
the lady doth protest too much
the quality of mercy is not strained
the world's my oyster
though this be madness, yet there is method in it ("there's a method to my madness")
to thine own self be true
truth will out
what fools these mortals be
what's done is done
what's in a name?
what's past is prologue
wish is father to that thought
Some famous quotes from Shakespeare's texts:
A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool. (As You Like It)
A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse! (Richard III)
A plague on both your houses! (Romeo & Juliet)
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. (Romeo & Juliet)
Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety, (Antony & Cleopatra)
Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio (Hamlet)
All that glitters is not gold. (Merchant of Venice)
All the world's a stage, and all the men and women mere players. They have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts. (As You Like It)
Beware the ides of March! (Julius Caesar)
Screw your courage to the sticking-place. (Henry V)
Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once. (Julius Caesar)
Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war! (Julius Caesar)
Double, double, toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble! (Macbeth)
Et tu, Brute? (Julius Caesar)
Eye of newt and toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog (Macbeth)
Fie, foh, and fum, I smell the blood of a British man! (King Lear)
Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears! (Julius Caesar)
Goodnight, goodnight! Parting is such sweet sorrow! (Romeo & Juliet)
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips. (Henry V)
If music be the food of love, play on! (Twelfth Night)
If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? (Merchant of Venice)
Is this a dagger which I see before me? (Macbeth)
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves. (Julius Caesar)
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more; it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. (Macbeth)
Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none. (All's Well That Ends Well)
Now is the winter of our discontent. (Richard III)
O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo? (Romeo & Juliet)
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more! (Henry V)
Screw your courage to the sticking place. (Henry V)
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate. (Sonnet 18)
Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em. (Twelfth Night)
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. (Macbeth)
The course of true love never did run smooth. (Midsummer Night's Dream)
The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones. (Julius Caesar)
The quality of mercy is not strained. (Merchant of Venice)
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. (Hamlet)
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. (Hamlet)
There's method in my madness. (Hamlet)
This precious stone set in the silver sea ... this blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England. (Richard II)
To be or not to be, that is the question. (Hamlet)
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub. (Hamlet)
Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown. (Henry IV, Part II)
We are such stuff as dreams are made on (The Tempest)
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers (Henry V)
What a piece of work is man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god. (Hamlet)
What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. (Romeo & Juliet)
Who ever loved that loved not at first sight? (As You Like It)
