Jacob Levy linked me to this old cartoon by Lucy Knisley over the weekend, guessing that I'd be pretty much it's perfect target audience:
He's not wrong: between my general HP madness and my fondness for 80s pop culture, surely this is the sort of thing I'd drool over. The problem, however, is Knisley's casting: she gets some basic roles wrong, which I argued with Jacob and others, including Melissa, over the weekend. So let's set things straight here and now. If Jo Rowling had been American, and been hit by inspiration roughly 15 years earlier, the resulting movies would have looked like this:
Michael J. Fox as Harry Potter (short, enormously decent, with obsessive undercurrents)
Eric Stoltz as Ron Weasley (tall, red-headed, and constantly being upstaged by Harry (see the Back to the Future saga for proof))
Sarah Jessica Parker as Hermione Granger (the cartoon suggests Brooke Shields, I suspect primarily on the basis of the hair, but SJP is no slouch in that regard)
Mary Stuart Masterson as Luna Lovegood (blonde, spooky eyes, and sweetly and innocently insane)
John Cusack as Neville Longbottom (nebbishy and put-upon when young, but grows up to become a dorky, nerdy, kick-ass superman)
Molly Ringwald as Ginny Weasley (red-haired, mouthy, a complete romantic, yet doesn't take crap from anyone)
Billy Zabka as Draco Malfoy (in this version, obviously, Draco would have no need of Crabbe or Goyle, but we can make it work)
James Sikking as Arthur Weasley (if he can parent Doogie Howswer, then you know he could handle the Weasley clan)
Edie McClurg as Molly Weasley (just picture her saying, with that prim, sweet smile, "Not my daughter, you bitch!")
Jeffery Jones as Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge (the jokes write themselves, obviously)
And finally, Christopher Lloyd as Albus Dumbledore (here there I can be no questions, I presume)
He's not wrong: between my general HP madness and my fondness for 80s pop culture, surely this is the sort of thing I'd drool over. The problem, however, is Knisley's casting: she gets some basic roles wrong, which I argued with Jacob and others, including Melissa, over the weekend. So let's set things straight here and now. If Jo Rowling had been American, and been hit by inspiration roughly 15 years earlier, the resulting movies would have looked like this:
Michael J. Fox as Harry Potter (short, enormously decent, with obsessive undercurrents)
Eric Stoltz as Ron Weasley (tall, red-headed, and constantly being upstaged by Harry (see the Back to the Future saga for proof))
Sarah Jessica Parker as Hermione Granger (the cartoon suggests Brooke Shields, I suspect primarily on the basis of the hair, but SJP is no slouch in that regard)
Mary Stuart Masterson as Luna Lovegood (blonde, spooky eyes, and sweetly and innocently insane)
John Cusack as Neville Longbottom (nebbishy and put-upon when young, but grows up to become a dorky, nerdy, kick-ass superman)
Molly Ringwald as Ginny Weasley (red-haired, mouthy, a complete romantic, yet doesn't take crap from anyone)
Billy Zabka as Draco Malfoy (in this version, obviously, Draco would have no need of Crabbe or Goyle, but we can make it work)
James Sikking as Arthur Weasley (if he can parent Doogie Howswer, then you know he could handle the Weasley clan)
Edie McClurg as Molly Weasley (just picture her saying, with that prim, sweet smile, "Not my daughter, you bitch!")
Jeffery Jones as Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge (the jokes write themselves, obviously)
And finally, Christopher Lloyd as Albus Dumbledore (here there I can be no questions, I presume)
This is great. Except about your title -- aren't the 90210 actors in a pretty separate category to the Brat Pack actors? I think of them as being a good deal younger. (And, well, inferior.)
ReplyDeleteOf course you're right, Modesto--tossing out the "90210" thing doesn't fit the casting or the era I have in mind at all. But I love the sound of it anyway. I suppose I could have gone with "The Gryffindor Club" as my back-up title.
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