Category: LEARNING DAY

So i realize i been thinking that most of you know me but that might not be the case, apparently we got enough new Hotdog Neighbors they did mascot week even, so let me introduce myself again: Hello i’m sissyneck, i used to just write in the comments but then they invited me to write these articles too. So: im kinda like the weird guy that goes to all the shows for a band and stands up front and yells all the lyrics (but maybe in like a A.I. Tommy Lee Jones voice) and then somehow the band invited him to open for em for a while, and hell, even I dont know a hunnerd percent if i’m real or a prank! But Brockway’s Thomas Kinkade designer checks keep clearing and Heavenly Father keeps putting delightsome stuff like this in my path:

And I find it hard to argue with that.

Maybe you already guessed, this disco book was in the collectors corner at the Friends of the Libary Book Sale, it might be the most expensive one i ever bought there ($10) except i think it was half off ($5).

Apparently for a while there there was a thing of making kinda comic books with pictures from movies, most of em was called Fotonovels and theres truly some magical ones out there:

And if your wondering why these were ever a thing or who would read them, the boy scout motto for these was: “The Ultimate Rerun!” so maybe you can understand that before vhs or laserdiscs in the rain, this was a way of reliving your favorite cinema. Like the only way.

Just like being in the theatre!

So mine is Saturday Night Fever but its not name-brand Fotonovel its a simon and schuster run outfit called FLIKS, so its kinda a lego/megabloks situation. And I can’t find out ANYTHING about these folks that made it:

Except maybe that Laura Weymouth is sisters with Tina Weymoth from Tom Tom Club? That might be irresponsible specalation on my part though, if you quote me on that you should say: citation needed.

So for me it was fun to imagine these three young people workin for simon and shuster in 1979, sweatin in that special 70s nyc summer heat and probly not even registering anymore that there whole waking life smells like nicotine and piss, and then they get the very excitin word from there boss that: The Shoost he did it again, he got the rights to make a Fotonovel adaptation of this Night Fever movie that’s like starwars popular and: Michael, Joan, Laura, we think yous threes is the ones with the moxie to pull it off, you think yous got what it takes? And this special team of three probably answered wisely by saying: Only if we get the rights to the soundtrack too. And their boss said your bustin my bubbles over here but if thats what you need? You fucken got it. And then probly friendly high fives and laughter and celebrating 1979-style: they went out and got some of those little kid-size cheeseburgers they ate back then and a steaming hot cup of coffee to wash it down.

Sorry i been going back and forth between this book and the movie and Im a little discombabalated in time.

So ill note that this book is a Fotographic Adapatation of the PG version of the movie which: if youve seen the R version, you know thats probly for the better. Also i thought it was good to know that the movie was based on a article written by a british gent visiting the US named Nik Cohn and

Which i dont want to get all high and mighty but: if I just retreated to writing about familiar home stuff every time I was “unable to make any sense of the subculture [I] assigned [myself] to write about”? Well it might look a little something like…pretty much every article i do for this website actually i guess. But it’s good to know that even though the movie looks like this:

In real life it was about this.

Which makes the movie make a lot more sense actually. And also explains why the folks of color and queer that were a big part of disco arent really in this movie at all except to get racisted and homophobed at.

So how did a extra fake movie kinda define how the whole world thinks about Disco forever and always? It’s worth a reminder at this point maybe about how powerful John Travolta was, like there was something about his charisma that had (has?) real strong gravity so that anybody that had any insecurity about there masculinity (aka all men) apparently looked up to him for an exemplar of how to be a modern man in different arenas such as:

THE DANCEFLOOR

Saturday Night Fever, the movie more than the book probly

THE STAGE

Staying Alive, the sequel to Saturday Night Fever, directed by Sylvester Stallone who said about it: “That is me up there.”

THE FITNESS GYM

(emphasis mine) Perfect, this one for realy though taught me a bunch about the ethical considersations of writing about living humans and i honestly think about it alot when i’m writing these articles

THE URBAN RURAL BAR JOINT

Urban Cowboy. That one is specifically a help-meet to me because its clear from our current age how silly a mechanical bull machismo leader-board is but apparently they took it real serious at the time (they even did a bosom buddies episode about it!) so nowadays whenever i feel like maybe i’m failin at some aspect of manhood (like: I don’t even have a truck loan) I say to myself “Could be that’s another mechanical bull.” and I feel better, for a short while anyway.

Putin all these clips together made me wonder how we’ll look back on Taters in a few decades. (Taters is my cute nickname for Channing Tatum, my wife LaRene pretends she doesnt think it’s funny but I seen her hide her smile whenever I say it)

Anyway, let’s end this little Brut-scented interlude and get back to those three youths in NYC, intent on showing there talents by ably bringing the vivid sounds and visions of Travolta and BeeGees from silver screen to pulpy page. Lets see if they did, indeed, have what it takes. Our very first page tells us much:

Alright yes thats a little rough but thats probly their first try, they were still figuring out their workflow and remember, the budget that was likely available for this project covered a overhead projector, a bunch of transparencies, their dad’s Minolta and $2.90 a hour for three crazy city kids with no past left to lose…and a whole future left to learn – of a lifetime.

But that is a pretty awesome promise the thought bubble makes, that we get to read our characters thoughts! Think about it: we dont have to rely on actors doing stuff with their faces and bodies to understand what their thinking, but also: we dont have to read a whole actual novel about it either. The loss of Fotonovels is honestly like how the Concord isnt around anymore; a sad reminder that we are living in the lengthenin shadow of a once-great but now-decayin civilization. (see also: you can’t even watch Bosom Buddies with the original theme song anymore)

So we’ve all seen the first part of the movie a hunnerd times or ripoffs of it when Tony Travolta is just STRUTTIN around Brooklyn and the BeeGees are just DEFYIN the impact of testosterone on vocal chords but now, for the first time, let’s peer into what our protagonist actually had on his mind:

Well that is enlightenin, if kinda faded with time. The shopkeeper we learn was thinkin about the shot of the shirt from earlier and I cant tell if its his fanciful idea that the shirt was thinking “buy me” or if thats objective reality. And Tony was thinkin about the most memorable lyrics from Stayin Alive! Its also good that our design team, in spite of some apparent layout challenges, made sure to include Tonys boss tellin him to go around back. Sadly, the part where John’s Travolta sister Ann is in the movie for a second (giving him pizza) was deemed that it didnt have the artistic merit for enclusion in FLIKS. Hold on we better fix that real quick

Hawhaw that was kinda fun actually! I can see how they got carried away with it. But lets continue to dive into the secret depths of Tonys intermost musin’s:

Huh i actually hope that’s what my face looks like when my boss is yellin at me.

Alright i guess we see that the Brothers Gibb were communicatin on kinda a spiritual level with Tony and there music helped him make sense and cope with lifes hassles large and small. Thats fine actually thats kinda how i feel about Buck Owens. But did Tony ever have any thoughts that weren’t BGs lyrics?

That says “Night on Bald Mt.” because thats the song that was playing during this part. But not the disney fantasia version, the one with hi-hats. Okay, so maybe we’re learning that maybe the soundtrack was actually diagetic, but only for Tony? Let’s continue our study:

At first i got excited about these ones it looked like he was having colorful sci-fi visions or memories of another realm like maybe this book is revealing that Tony is actually a Under the Skin alien from outer space! But then I realized it was just hard-to-see pictures of the disco he was getting ready for, and we already knew he was thinking about that from when the movie used a technology called “film editing” to show us that.

So honestly i’m gonna say that if you got this book hoping to learn more about Tony’s unspoken cogntitives and emotionals your probly gonna be disappointed, cause I was. BUT remember Tonys not the only person in the movie and maybe our FLIKS creative team decided that the movie already told us enough about Tony and they would use this opportunity to really flesh out the inner experiences of the other rich characters. Like remember when Tony tells the one girl who is really into him that he wants to have a different girl as his dance partner? We no longer have to guess how that impacted her:

(You may be noticin those little corner pictures, they are supposed to make a flip-book animation of Travolta dancing but dont get too excited because 1) it doesn’t really work and 2) its often kind of a bad emotional juckstaposition with what’s happening next to it, see above and below:)

But lets get back to the heartbreak girl: when one of Tony’s dirtbag friends stuck two cigarettes up his nose and asked if she wanted one, what did she really think about that?

Or when she was feeling poorly and had to take some medicine?

Or what about when Tony came home from Disco and his whole family was just sitting there not saying anything? If you just saw the movie you might think they were upset about how the son who was a priest left the church, but thats not quite it:

But wait there’s maybe even more to learn about grandma there, spaghetti-focused tho she may be:

I think the book is tellin us that she’s secretly Jewish!

Or maybe not, that underpants Diaboli appears to be of a Christian extraction. And yes, we do learn what the Al Pacino poster was thinking. Also the Farrah Fawcett poster:

This book is kinda like google photos: if there’s a picture of a face in a photo, it thinks its a real person. (I’m pretty sure that just because of the wall art in my home, google thinks I’m actually real life friends with Legolas.)

But its not just good job with the words, there is also FLIKS Visuals Interpertations™. For example, here’s a shot from the movie:

And here is our FLIKS team’s reimagineering:

Pretty! Maybe better than the film version, this one has a improved body-hair to hangover ratio AND we get the special secret-thoughts bubble.

There’s another double-page spread that for real did change the way I watched the corresponden scene in the film:

Try it yourself at home! Watch this sequence and see if you can get through it without thinking to yourself:

Extra points if you can do it without somehow feeling ashamed..

Alright let’s bring this one home, the guy from FLIKS actually did do some original writing for this adaptation, let’s turn to him to see what we learned today:

Maybe. Maybe not. For the “another book” part its definitely: not. Michael, Joan and Laura were not invited back to do another one and in fact as far as I can tell nobody ever made another FLIKS book ever, not even Staying Alive. So I guess that’s for sure the end..

Whoa! I don’t honestly know which it is. As a wise woman once taught us, I don’t know if any of us can never be sure. Tony?

Yes correct, to me too. More than a movie, a little less than a book, and a whole lot of meet me halfway, across the sky. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Aaron Croston, aka John Travolta’s vacant thought bubble.