As has been well-established in Tales from the Slack, David’s military upbringing and general car fascination has denied him much of pop culture. It’s therefore always a surprise when David actually knows something. I was around over the weekend trying to help David with a post on Iconiq 5 woes and thought I’d come up with a brilliant reference for the topshot. Of course, I knew David wouldn’t get it…
He got it! Just in case you didn’t get it, it’s from the movie Short Circuit featuring Fisher Stevens (I love Fisher Stevens), Steve Gutenberg, and Ally Sheedy about a sentient robot who gives up his fighting ways to just, like, hang and be chill. It’s probably not possible to write a more 1980s sentence. Surprisingly, David did get it. Even if he didn’t get it get it.
It was! David got another reference!
I make so many joke references that never make it to the front page, but here’s this reference in case you missed it:
[Editor’s Note: Having lived in Germany for eight of the first 12 years of my life, and then moving to Leavenworth, Kansas, where I basically just fished, hiked, played soccer, and studied until I left high school, and then going to college and locking myself in the basement of the Chemistry building so I could study in silence, and then joining the auto industry and wrenching 24/7 after college — I missed a lot. I really don’t get most pop culture references. -DT].
Jfc Matt, ALL of those were good. Well done. And I’m sad that David didn’t like them.
Ya know there was a movie back in the 70s called SpinalTap. Well to reduce violence they trapped people in a chair who were violent and made them watch violent or non violent scenes. I Can’t remember. Then there was Charleston Heston in Soylent Green a post apocalyptic tale where people could suicide and got to see serene epics while being euthanized. I guess what i am saying is trap DT IN some chair or van for 72 hours and force him to watch all the iconic scenes.
Also Kurt Russell was an under rated action hero due to his great comedic skills and he banged Goldie Hawn a lot. MY HERO.
David – you need to watch Blues Brothers.
When you are done with that then watch Big Trouble in Little China. These are classics that you will enjoy.
David! No Disassemble!
Okay. You people sit tight, hold the fort and keep the home fires burning. And if we’re not back by dawn… call the president.
“If I’m not back by dawn, call the president” is a line I use ALL THE TIME.
I confess I missed it even though I’ve seen all the SC movies multiple times and experienced a crush on Ally upon seeing BC.
My excuse is that I grew up in the land of BC and was busy trying to be Bender. Smoke up Johnny!
The funny thing is David Tracy has become a pop culture reference himself. From multiple Holy Grails to rust he has become the popular measure, a cultural icon.
“Isn’t it Iconiq” made me laugh out loud. Well done.
And all stand on this hill all by myself: Short Circuit sucked.
Boo this man!
(I’ll bet if you weren’t in the target demographic age bracket you would think it sucked… but I was squarely in the middle of it and I loved Short Circuit and will defend Johnny 5 to the end!)
I will forever have a fondness for movies in which the machines that gain sentience are relatively wholesome and kind. Whether it’s Johnny 5 not wanting to be disassembled or let other beings be disassembled or a military computer discovering the only winning move is not to play, they’re great. But, like you, I was the right age in the era in which those movies were produced. If I were just introduced to them now, I don’t know if I’d feel the same.
I get tired of machines gaining sentience and killing people. I want escapism, not dire warnings of the dystopia to come, I guess.
Still better than watching Sandler and Eddie Murphy play 12 unconvincincing characters in the same movie.
The fact that he knows the movie but thinks that is too obscure a reference is peak David-doesn’t-know-pop-culture. “Johnny 5 is alive!” is something people who haven’t even seen the movie know because it has transcended the movie it came from.
If you hear “More Than a Woman” in Johnny 5’s voice, though, you almost definitely watched the movie a few too many times.
But, yeah, if David gets a pop culture reference, it’s pretty safe to assume most of us know it. I guess you might be able to find a Mail Call reference that David gets and most people don’t, but that’s such an edge case that I think it would be fun to see the reference included anyway.
Short Circuit is a fantastic reference! I’m proud of you, David. Also, I wish you had gone with that for the story. But all of these are great.
You aren’t the only one. As a army brat who spent 8 years in Berlin, my references are mostly AFN reruns and British TV. 🙂 The video store next to the PX helped.
Ask me about Fraud, Waste and Abuse commercials and I’ll get your reference!
I used to see how not act like a dick in public and security test ones.
I loved all the government thought control ads. “Doesn’t your child have a regular bedtime?” And when it was time for the news, all the commentators were in Class A uniforms. It was like living in Russia.
I feel like Torch has Johnnys 1-4 somewhere in his lair.
DT is our very own Steve Rogers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzZNWqUJuA4
I’m here for all things Johnny 5.
You know David, most people use Leavenworth as an excuse for being out of touch because they’re in prison, not outdoors.
Leavenworth: making big rocks into little rocks.
To be fair (to be faaaaaiirrr), DT does pick up on some things. I made a popular culture reference a month or so ago and included an explanatory note for him, but he was already familiar with it. So he had that going for him… which is nice.
To be faaaaairrr….
TO BE FAIR
Allegedly!
At work we’ve got two people like David. One of them is just young and the rest of us are old, and the young’un has told us “I haven’t seen any movie earlier than 2000” which is kinda acceptable.
The other is about the same age, but he just never watches anything.
One of the spare white boards has turned into “Movies that Adam and Barbara should watch” (they, in turn, made the other half of the board into a list of stuff we olds should watch)
What I’m saying is, we need to give David homework.
If he can tell you guys to read that grammar book, ya’ll can tell him to watch movies
Had a coworker who played Fortnite. They released some sort of dinosaur costume skin and said that their programmers “were so preoccupied with whether or not they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should.” He thought it was because they considered it a bad idea, but released it anyway. I had to point out the Jurassic Park reference because he was too young. I promptly shriveled up into a desiccated corpse. I’m okay now, but it gets tenuous when I’m around the youths.
It is better to be quiet and thought the fool than to speak and remove all doubt.
Damn Millennials think being able to look stuff up is the same as knowing it. Give one of the little beeatches a landlines rotary phone and they look like the chimp in the zoo with a camera.
I’ve been trying to get him to watch The Blues Brothers for a year now.
You’re doing the Lord’s Work, Mark. Stay the course!
You’re telling me that after a YEAR, he STILL hasn’t watched it?! There’s got to be an intervention. Let’s have a movie night at a meet up and tie him to a chair with a Jeep wiring harness (I’m sure several will be just lying around), and we ALL watch it together. Heck, I’ll bring the projector and a sheet to drape over the husk of whatever vehicle he has that isn’t running (I’m sure we’ll have our pick).