Doomed.

I had an awesome conversation this afternoon with the boys. We went out together to run a few errands and, on the way home, passed our local “eat dinner and have drinks in the theater while you watch a movie” place. I mentioned that I’d like to go there sometime (it opened last fall and we haven’t been yet!), and the older boy said, “Yeah, you know, Christopher Lloyd was there recently and they showed ‘Back to the Future’; isn’t that cool?”

I told him that celebrities go there all the time to make appearances. For example, Richard Dreyfuss was there a couple of months ago, for a special showing of “Jaws”. Peter Fonda did an appearance when they had a special showing of “Easy Rider”.

The older boy said, “Well, if *I* were a celebrity, I think those appearances would be a pain in the butt.”

I explained that the celebrities that do these particular types of meet and greets are, ahem, usually not at the peak of their acting careers. I said, “These people probably like to do it at this point in their lives. Imagine how nice it would be to have had real success at what you love to do and then, when your life gets a little quieter, making occasional appearances during which people tell you how GREAT you are and how they LOVE you and your work.”

“Yeah, I guess,” he said. “I bet the audience asked a lot of dumb questions about Doc Brown and ‘Back to the Future’ that he was sick of hearing. I know that if *I* had been in that audience, I would’ve asked different questions altogether.”

“Oh really?” I asked. “Like what?”

He didn’t hesitate one bit when he answered, “I’d skip over the Doc Brown stuff completely and ask questions about ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit?’ like, ‘Yeah, um, how did you like playing Judge Doom? Was that chainsaw arm real?'” And then he laughed his head off at the thought of that.

The younger boy piped in: “Yeah, and…how did it feel to be run over by that steamroller? Did that really happen?”

We all guffawed and giggled as the intentionally ridiculous questions kept flying.

“What was really in ‘The Dip’? And how did you get that big container of it in there?”

“We saw you get melted in The Dip; how is it that you are here today?”

“Can I see your arm? I just want to check out where the chainsaw was, because I don’t see any indication of it through your clothing.”

We were having a great time. And then, of course…I ruined it.

“You know, in addition to asking him about Roger Rabbit, I have something else to ask him about: ‘Taxi‘.”

Silence.

One of them asked, “What’s that?”

*Le sigh.*

I explained that it was an old sitcom that also starred Tony Danza and Danny DeVito, and that Christopher Lloyd played a nutty character named Reverend Jim.

“Oh.”

The remaining part of the car ride was silent. I was driving and thinking about how old I am…and they were riding and probably thinking about how old I am.

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©2010 Suburban Scrawl

12 Comments

  • -Justin

    I'm not that old. I would have gotten it. I mean, come on, have they had no access to Nick at Night in their lifetimes?

    Then again, my teenager probably wouldn't get it either. Uncultured swine…

    😉

  • Huckdoll

    This was so well written that you had me laughing out loud at the ending, hilarious!

    I'm positive already that I have many hundreds of those moments with my own kiddos in the future 🙂

    Oh, and that whole movie, dinner, drinks concept is soooo fricken cool. I even read that part out to Colin and even he was amazed by the awesome that can be found in the USA 🙂

  • Michelle

    Hee hee! I love it.

    I'm actually impressed that you all remember that much about Roger Rabbit (and ummm that you knew he was in that movie in the first place). I enjoyed it, but I remember hardly any of it, apparently!

    And ummm Taxi? Never heard of it (I'm ducking now)

  • nycgirl0501

    I knew Taxi…never saw it though but I knew Danza & Devito were on it. Not Llyod but then again I didn't see Roger Rabbit either.

  • Oscar

    Hands down back to the Future would be my question topic.

    Your kids sound like a lot of fun. Thats's great!

    Don't ya hate when you put in your two cents it becomes a wrench in the gears. if i were there I'd have said…'oh yeah!".

  • Heather

    Who is Christopher Lloyd? Seriously… I wanna know.

    I mean, I looked up his IMDB page, that you linked but I still can't really place him from anything.

    😉

    JUST KIDDING. *giggles*