copyright © 1994 Jeff Goode

HOLLYWOOD by Jeff Goode

     They call me Hollywood.
     "The most famous reindeer of all."
     ...To borrow a line from Rudolph's little jingle.
     I don't think he'll mind.
     I guess I shouldn't speak ill of the dead... Especially the braindead.
     I just hate him.
     I don't hate him. I hate his movie.
     That claymation piece of crap just about ruined my career. Did you see it? God, I hope not. I look terrible. Flanks out to here. All of us look terrible, though, because we all look alike. Santa and his eight tiny clonedeer.
     You know why that is? Every last reindeer in that film looks the same. Not just The Eight. Every reindeer in every scene. Except Rudolph, of course. All the rest of us look exactly like Donner.
     The women look like Donner!
     I said this at the time, I said, "The does have antlers. You can't have does with antlers." They said, "That's okay, most people don't know there are girls on the team anyway."
     Yeah, sure, people don't know there are girls.
     You find me a baby name book that lists Vixen under "cute nicknames for boys".
     Putting antlers on that slut is like having a centerfold with a pop-up phallus. SPROING!
     That's how I feel every time I see that movie. SPROING! What the hell am I looking at??? Abominable snowman? Island of misfit toys? Rudolph speaking without an interpretter?
     Continuity in the film industry just makes me cringe.
     Like in my movie...
     Which was supposed to be based on a true story. But by the time they finished editing it, it looked like the little girl had saved my life. Can you believe that?
     That's what I get for not sitting through rushes.
     I'm pretty happy with it though. At least I wasn't made out of Play-Doh. I said, "No way. I want live action, big budget, and an original score by John Williams."
     "And I want to play the role myself or I'm not signing anything."
     We almost got John Williams. He wanted to do it, but he had other commitments.
     So I was telling you why Donner got the Rudolph deal...
     Not because he has the best profile.
          (turns)
     In order to gloss over his role in the "foggy Christmas" affair, Donner wants to make a movie of his version of what was, quite frankly, one of the most sordid events in our history. So he makes phone calls, writes letters.
     And he gets his lips on the ass of every movie exec north of Anchorage for almost a year until he finally lands the deal with this Claymation company.
     This outfit is so second-rate that they go over-budget flying in an Equity deer to play Rudolph.
     So... They aren't going to pay the rest of us!
     Well, I walked out.
     I said, "Santa, Donner, if you want me to sell my soul, you're gonna have to come up with the cash. Because I only do charity work once a year."
     And everyone else went with me. And that's why every deer in that movie bears a strange resemblence to Rudolph's daddy. Terrible movie.
     They didn't even ask me to sign a release to use my name... So this year my agent's getting an injunction to keep them from airing it. I'm not trying to be vindictive or anything. It's just that it hurts the distribution of my movie. Really. Video rentals of Prancer go down during the holiday season because that's when the networks air Rudolph.
     I think that's one reason why I didn't get an Oscar nomination. The Rudolph movie and, uh... racism in the film industry. No deer has ever been nominated for an academy award.
     Are you gonna tell me Bambi didn't deserve an Oscar? My god, when his mother died, I just wept. Of course, that was animation.
     But my movie... Live action. Feature length. All-star cast. Two years in the making. ...I did my own stunts! What did I get?
     Hello! Motion Picture Academy! Were you asleep during the scene where I saved the little girl?
     We were filming the scene and I nailed it on the first take.
          (does the scene)
     Oh! Give that deer an Oscar. Sammy was fun/great to work with. It took us two days to shoot the peekaboo scene because we were both laughing our rumps off.
     I'm looking at treatments, now, for the sequel, but it's tough because there's so much crap out there. Look at this:
     "Prancer II. Opening sequence. Night time. Christmas Eve. Winter." Now there's an innovation. "I've got this Christmas Eve story and, hey, I've got a great idea. Let's set it in winter!"
     "Prancer gets separated from Santa and becomes lost in a forest." What is this? "Lost in a forest"? Why don't I just fly up over the trees and see where I am?
     "He arrives in the yard of an orphanage..." Oh no.
     I am not working with kids again.
     It's absolutely true what they say about working with children and animals. They'll steal the scene every time. Now, I do it because I have an uncanny natural sense of the cinematic, but children do it because they're obnoxious and self-centered. I hate children.
     But all of these ideas are like this. Kids and deer, deer and kids. Kids and deer and Christmas.
     What about a Schwartzanegger/Prancer buddy film? Arnold plays Santa, I play myself. We set in in the year 2000. Cuban mafia cyborgs try to take over the North Pole in a computerized real estate swindle. Arnold and I go down to Miami to kick some tail. We wipe out entire Latino crime families in high tech combat sequences. We uncover a plot to export stolen nuclear weapons and soon we're running from crooked cops and robot assassins hired by a European drug cartel bent on world domination. Lots of location shooting, lots of stunts, special effects. You slot it for a summer release and we're talking blockbuster. There's not a man, woman or child in the United States who won't pay $7.50 to see it.
     ...I'll probably have to write it myself.
     ...
     But, now, with this Vixen thing I don't know what's gonna happen. If she sells her story to a cable network, it's going to undercut anything I do next year. You know that's why she's doing it.
     They all want to be Hollywood. Vixen, Donner, all of them. That's why this is coming out right now. When the media is focussed on us.
     We all have Santa Claus stories. Most of us have a few Vixen stories, too. She was also no saint.
     We all have stories. Most of us just have the common courtesy not to share them with the wrong people at the wrong time when someone else's career is on the line.
     The only thing we don't all have... is talent. And that's where she's made her big mistake. Because six months from now when HBO starts filming The Vixen Story : Holly and Harrassment. See if they ask her to play herself in the movie. This little uproar is going to get her nowhere.
     Which is why I am not not cooperating with this investigation. There are things I know. There are things I don't know. But I have nothing to gain by Vixen's little tell-all scheme. And until I do... She can cry all she wants.

     Oh! And, I almost forgot, this Friday, 8 o'clock, NBC, Hollywood Goes To Hollywood : The Making of Prancer. Wonderful behind-the-scenes footage. Don't miss it.

[BLACKOUT]
"Hollywood" IS COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL AND MAY NOT BE DOWNLOADED, TRANSMITTED, PRINTED OR PERFORMED WITHOUT THE EXPRESS PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR


AUTHOR'S NOTES:
This piece is third in a series of monologues which were later gathered together to become the play The Eight: Reindeer Monologues. The text above is the original, unrevised version of the script as performed at No Shame/Chicago in 1993.

"Hollywood" debuted November 29, 1993, performed by Jeff Goode.

This piece has been performed many times, both as a solo piece and as part of the play The Eight: Reindeer Monologues.
Other performances at No Shame:

December 6, 1993 - No Shame / Chicago. Performed by Jeff Goode.
December 20, 2002 - No Shame / Charlottesville. Performed by Clinton Johnston.


[Jeff Goode's website]

[Back to Library] Home