Heat Vision & Jack
(Reviewed on 04/05/2006)
Louis Gossett Jr. and the ROSSMAN
Heat Vision and Jack is the GREATEST half hour of unaired television ever produced. EVER. If you accept that fact then your soul has already been saved.
Everything about this unaired pilot is pure, unpetrified, precipitated perfection. The casting: perfect. The script: suck-my-dick perfect. The special effects: read my goddamn lips when I say "PERFECT." Jack Black, Owen Wilson, Ron the-fucking-man Silver, that scary guy who taught Patrick Swayze how to be a ghost in Ghost, strippers, and Ben Stiller's hottie wife... All in one fucking sweet show. What the FUCK was Fox smoking that they didn't pick this puppy up?! URGH! I'm having a goddamn stroke from being so fucking pissed off here!!! I can just think about all the great adventures that Heat Vision and Jack could have gone on had one short-sighted, head-up-its-ass television company allowed this glorious premise to blossom like Gary Coleman's giant cock at a nudie bar... Hell, that right there would have been the only thing that could have made this show any cooler -- Gary Coleman. Oh MAN! He so easily could have been a guest star in a future, very special episode! FUCK YOU, FOX!
Anyway, yes, Heat Vision and Jack is indeed real and not just something that I hallucinated after walking in on Tammi With an "I"'s Colombian sauna during her daily downer time. I personally hadn't even heard about it till Psychoweasel pointed me towards the show's minute-long opening credits sequence on the web. Even after that I just thought that it was a funny joke that Jack made as a Tenacious D short or something. But after then finding and watching the whole half-hour pilot twice in a row I found that I was totally stunned. Stunned that something so AWESOME could have been created, let alone created and then buried for 7 fucking years. See, back in 1999, Ben Stiller directed this pitch for a series starring Jack Black (as the smartest man alive who knows EVERYTHING) and Owen Wilson (as his talking bike) who were running from NASA and Ron Silver (as himself), and were blocked at every turn... by adventure!
But Fox, even after seeing the same awesomeness that I had just witnessed, for some reason passed on the idea. They were like, "Oh fuck! If we air this show then everybody in the world will see that the rest of our shows suck John Travolta's hairy, wrinkly balls! We just can't let that happen!" So then they hid the tape and tried to kill Ben, Jack and Owen... because the Fox people are assholes. Thankfully Ron Silver got in Fox's way, killed 4 executives with his mind, and allowed the rest of the cast and crew to escape with their lives... Unfortunately the finished tape with the pilot episode on it was lost forever. Forever until some 14 year-old punk was dumpster diving in some landfill in Northern Utah in early 2006 and came across the only living copy of Heat Vision and Jack that was ever made. After realizing that not even the current crop of Fox execs had even heard of it (thereby excluding the youth from extorting money out of them in a giant blackmail scheme that would buy the kid enough blow to give a blue whale a coronary), the punk put the show on the internet... And there was much rejoicing.
So what is Heat Vision and Jack about, you ask? That's a fair question, but beyond me telling you IT IS THE GREATEST TV SHOW SINCE SLEDGE HAMMER! you really shouldn't give a crap about silly little things such as "plot" and "storytelling".... But I'll humor you anyway (goddamn unbelievers).
HV&J is about a man (Jack Austin, an astronaut who was once exposed to inappropriate levels of solar energy on a mission in space, and who has now become the smartest man alive... when the sun is out) and his motorcycle (Heat Vision [voiced by Owen Wilson], Jack's unemployed roommate who was melded with his bike) who are on the run from a government agency (NASA, with the lead hunter in the chase being Ron Silver [who acts in movies on the side, but is really into science and shit]) that wants Jack's enormous brain all for their own evil purposes.
Each episode is staged in the perfect A-Team/Incredible Hulk set-up (or at least each episode would be staged that way if there was more than one): Jack and Heat roll into a new small town (or meet new people) and even though they're being chased by evil dicks who want to lock them up or whatever, they take the time to help the locals (usually a hot chick) overcome their problems before moving on, leaving their hunters one step behind them again. There are great bits of Knight Rider, the Greatest American Hero, Buck Rogers, MacGyver, and Misfits of Science thrown in for good measure as well. It is a glorious tribute to crappy 80s television! Seriously, I wish to God that I could've seen the story behind Jack punching that werewolf in the opening credits sequence. Fucking awesome.
Anyway, the basic plot of the pilot episode was this: In some dusty, desert town, some radio-wave alien-being beams down to take over the scary ghost-guy from Ghost's body, and makes him start killing women (turning them to dust) while demanding stuff like "All monkey-sluts shall be absorbed!" and "You will dance... on Paragon's lap!" Of course, before things get really out of hand, Heat Vision and Jack roll into town and stumble into the middle of the alien mess. Really, you simply have to see it for yourself. Me explaining lines like "Well... Get a PEN, and I'll get you an autograph!" and "That's right! Yeah! You want some more of this?! You want so-- PLEASE don't hurt me!.." just can't compare to Ron Silver and Owen Wilson delivering them, so I won't even try. And the special effects in this show! Wow! This was made back when CGI was becoming really cheap to use, and shows like Buffy and Dark Angel were able to implement heavy CG elements that looked almost as good as the movies... Okay, maybe not Buffy, but you get the idea. HV&J takes TV special effects to new levels unseen on the ole boob-tube.
So, great cast, perfect script, and mind boggling special effects all add up to something even greater than the sum of their parts. Goddammit! Just think about it for a second, will you... This could have happened. Jack Black and Ron Silver could have been on our TVs every week for like 7 seasons by now! This world just isn't fair.
The Heat Blaster
BOB FROM THE FUTURE
One time my uncle, the famous biologist/mechanic Dr. William Hung XLIII, melded my cousin, his son, with his car. I am not quite sure if this was all part of an experiment or he just messed up washing the car, but he told the police that it was all for science.
In my time, if something (even if it is horrific and kills over a million babies) is done in the name of "science," then the Galaxy Federation will not press any charges. Well, they will not if you can recreate the science atrocity on our enemies, the Drakalorian Temesci, which are giant, flesh-eating, pterodactyl-like creatures who like to fly over and defecate on top of all of our cars when we park them outside.... My poor cousin Will Jr. Those Temesci really let him have it.
The Smartest Man Alive CHI-CHI
Jack fucking Black is my idol. I've done everything in my life to emulate that guy! I sculpted my body to look like his; I started singing about everything I do, mostly while in public; I can even do crazy shit with my eyebrows, wiggling them all over the place and stuff; and I can't do any wrong.
This TV show (is it really a "show" if it's only like one episode long?... Doesn't that just make it a made-for-TV-movie?) has got it goin' on! This show is like smokin' a great big bong! This show makes me sing this song! This show will let you sing along, in Hong Koooooong! Oh man, Heat Vision and Jack is so great! But, like the Rossman, I'm pretty bummed out that this thing never got picked up for a full series. Maybe it'll come back someday as a movie or some shit. That would be really, just perfect. Seriously, to be able to see Ron Silver chasing after Jack and HV on the big screen.....OH! I think I just orgasmed... Yup. Oh yeah.
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