The radio call-in contest with the guy who has a mouthfull of PB&J sandwich and no milk to wash it down with.

"AWWYNNNN BUUUUHHH!"

I love this ad. It's a classic.

Heh. I don't recall seeing that.

Oh man, you have to. It's got to be available for download somewhere. I think it was the very first "got milk?" ad.

Aaron Burr on iFilm.

I think where the duel ending might have a problem, at least in a major motion picture, is with Aaron Burr winning. I don't think most people would have the same problem I do - which is that in those days, everyone you went into a duel with the intention of hitting a man in the leg, not killing him - but I still think somehow that ending wouldn't quite do in a big ol' movie. Unless Hamilton were either the bad guy or a lovable misanthrope who is less lovable, actually, and more just interesting.

the first suggestion that was made to me was if I could make the bad guys an evil corporation.

Heh, that is the obvious angle to take. We like stories about oppressive governments/corporations versus the noble individual. Particularly in the US, of course. Kids like stories about rebelling against authority. Adults like stories about destroying bigger versions of everyday bureaucracies. It's all very cathartic, the hero's motives are easy to understand, and there's an obvious happy ending at the end, which almost certainly involves something very large exploding. It's a good formula.

I think that scenario isn't so much liberalism as populism, though. Which is actually even more wrong for a Heinlein adaptation. So I don't know what my point is here, and I should get more coffee. Yay, coffee.

I'm not being oppressed. Help, I'm not being oppressed!

Dear Tim,

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Liberals like me love your sarcastic ways. More please.

sincerely,

me

PS - I may want to tag this.

I watched Team America last night, and every time a Hollywood actor puppet said something about evil corporations, I couldn't help but wonder if there are lots of people who are bankrolled by big corporations going on and on about how evil they are.

I mean, I guess I'm the same kind of hypocrite - here I am, a gov't employee, always ragging on government. So, yeah. Wow, that was humbling.

Anyway, this seemed relevant somehow. I always think of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress as having something to say about frontier stuff. Of course, that's where the American Revolution in the future comes in, with the taxation without representation and whatnot. And I feel kinda stupid for not recognizing it until after I read it.

I couldn't help but wonder if there are lots of people who are bankrolled by big corporations going on and on about how evil they are.

I did when I worked for the Other Evil Empire; some of my friends who work for the Official Evil Empire do. Then we sigh and say "it's a living" and go do evil, trying to ameliorate it. I have a friend who works for the Bradford Exchange, and boy, does she have a lot to say about the horror of it.

Nowadays I work for the Nice Empire. It's much more fun.

The radio call-in contest with the guy who has a mouthfull of PB&J sandwich and no milk to wash it down with.

"AWWYNNNN BUUUUHHH!"

The zenith of Michael Bay's career.

Michael Bay directed that?

Hamilton dying in agony after the duel is a fantastic ending! I mean, not so much for him, but for drama.

But it's not just the duel. The story of a bastard from a slave trade infested island dreaming for a war so he might show his stuff, then in a couple of short years he's General Washington's right hand man. (His views on race and slavery were, well, revolutionary for the time. He was not only against the institution, but scoffed that non-whites were in any way genetically inferior)

Hamilton was the prototypical emigrant who came to America to reinvent himself -- and practically invented the idea of America in the process.

Plus, first American sex scandal!