Angels on Tap (2018) Movie Script
1
(BRIGHT MUSIC)
Robert Hix here for Samuel Bachman.
(BRIGHT MUSIC)
Hello fans of ShowBiz Today,
this afternoon we are in the backyard
of Hollywood schlockmeister
Samuel Bachman.
Please, call me Sammy.
As I was saying Sammy
Bachman has Hollywood all abuzz
because in a dazzling bid of showmanship,
he managed to outbid the entire town
for the rights to the national
bestseller, Angels on Tap.
So tell us, how did you pull of this coup.
How does Sammy Bachman,
formerly best known
for such straight video
schlock as Wuthering Heights,
A Gool of My Dreams and One Man's Poison,
win out in a bidding war
that ultimately pitted you
against the legendary Harvey Weinstein
for the rights of this
modern comedy classic?
Well, if I do say so
myself, when Sammy Bachman
sets his sights on something,
he's a regular bagel.
A bagel?
Yeah you know the southern dogs
with the good nose and the flop ears.
Do you mean a Beagle?
Bagel, Beagle, potatoes,
potatoes, listen,
all I knew, once I quit horsing around
with those measly 10 grand raises
and I raised ol' Harv
a cool mill, he plots.
Plots?
Yeah you know, plots, like fold up,
the way something folds up
when you raise it a cool mill, uhn yeah.
Like a Harvey Weinstein.
Yeah like that.
Aren't your worried
that he'll seek revenge.
Rumor has it Mr. Weinstein
does not like loosing.
Who likes loosing?
Did that English guy Lord Nielson,
did he like loosing at Waterloo?
Actually it's Lord Nelson
and he won at Waterloo,
it was Napoleon who lost.
It was.
Well that's not the way we had it
in the Wild Women of Waterloo.
Our ending is better, if he'd lost,
Napoleon would have been in
no mood for a full scale orgy.
Yeah getting back to Harvey Weinstein,
aren't you worried that
you've made yourself
a dangerous enemy.
Yeah, are you kidding, me and ol' Harv,
we're like this, believe me,
it's just a coincidence
I hired a food taster.
I think our audience would like to know
what it was about this story
that touched you so much
that you would, if the rumors are true,
'caused you to sell off
your entire art collection
in order to buy the rights.
Those rumors are true.
I had to sell off all my
Monits, and my Daidies
and even my precious Suzzanies.
I believe you mean
Monets, Dolly's and Suzanis.
Did you ever own one?
No.
My point exactly.
Okay well out of all
the books out there,
what, why did you need to
turn Angels into a movie.
Because it was so darn magical.
You haven't read it have you?
No, I'm a pretty busy guy.
Yeah sure, you probably
spend hours a day
messing with that hair.
Not hours, hair like
this doesn't grow on trees.
Don't I wish, trees I have.
Let me tell you about the book
and maybe you'll understand
why I had to buy the rights.
Relax Bobby, you wanted to know why
I had to sell off my art collection,
I'm gonna tell you.
So it starts out, this poor dumb shmuck
is driving home from work.
It so happens, he's a reporter,
always had dreams of writing a bestseller,
but like someone else I
know, he never had the time,
but what he really lacked
was a story worth telling.
Anyway so he's driving home from work
and his car begins to act up
so he pulls off the freeway,
think he's gonna call Triple A,
he finds that his cell
phone is dead (MUMBLES).
So he spots a bar, he
figures, have a groosky,
call the Auto Club,
while he waits for a tow.
He steps inside, and what does he see?
I don't know, I told you
I didn't read the book.
Angels.
Angels?
Real live angels, like
I told you, it's magical.
Now I'm gonna tell you
exactly how I see the movie in my head.
Now you might thing it would
be a rather startling sight,
maybe you're even thinking
he wouldn't notice right off the bat,
even if you weren't worried about your car
and whether the Auto Club would arrive
before the second coming
or whether there'd ever be
peace in the Middle East
or whether my red socks
would ever have the (MUMBLES)
to carry themselves through July for once,
what you need to remember
is everyone in the bar
from the bartender to the customers alike,
they all had wings
and under those circumstances,
it might not be as
obvious as you may think.
Anytime enough people
are doing the same thing,
whether it's the wave or watching dancing
with their husbands,
it just might not be as
startling as you may think.
So there was Prelutsky, nursing a beer
and surrounded by all these wings.
He was trying to play
cool but it wasn't easy,
I mean we've all seen wings
but they've been attached to
birds and airplanes and hospitals.
Seeing them attached to
a room full of people
is another matter,
he didn't want to be rude and stare,
one can't help but peeping.
I gotta give the guy credit, if it was me,
I would have run out of the joint
and check myself into a mental ward
and had myself checked out by shrinks,
could you imagine being surrounded
by an entire room full of angels.
Not really, I mean,
what makes you think that
he didn't just make it all up?
I met the writer, Prelutsky,
he's not that smart.
Hi, I'm Gabriel.
Am I dead?
No, we are.
Oh, beginning to wonder why
I was seeing so many angels.
Lots of people see angels,
but it's usually just one at a time.
You're a reporter aren't you?
Well how did you know that?
You'd be surprised what we know.
Give me a year and I'll
tell you what happened?
Yeah, hmmm, nothing.
You don't remember 1513?
Oh I remember it, but
nothing memorable happened,
it was a lot like 762.
Every once in while a year comes along
that is so boring, the
best thing you can do
is lie down and take a nap.
I know what you mean,
I was that way in 1997.
Yeah, that was the snooze.
Ask me about 1398.
What happened in 1398?
Jan Hus was lecturing on
theology at Prague University.
And that made it memorable?
You bet, because Jan Hus
was the most boring speaker in the world.
10 minutes into his talk,
500 people would fall asleep,
if he rehearsed his speech at home,
his dog would fall asleep,
even birds would fall out of a tree.
Gee and I thought Jeff Bush was bad.
I should tell you, you're
not the only writer to stop by.
I'm not.
A lot of guys have been here
but nothings ever gotten published,
Shelley tried it with the signs,
Homer with the Greek tragedy,
I'll tell you what I told them,
it's just a bar, it's a
bar like any other bar
except all the customers are angels,
which means they have
wings but no pockets,
so don't expect a lot of tips.
This is a story that has to be told.
But it's never gonna be published,
they're gonna laugh at you son,
they are gonna say it's unbelievable.
They published The
Bridges of Madison County,
anything is possible.
What's with the black wings,
is that a fashion statement?
Some of the angels think
it makes them look thinner.
And that was the beginning of the story
that changed his life.
On the spot, he immediately
began interviewing
the entire flock of them,
flock being the appropriate
word by the way.
You got a den of thieves, pride of lions
and a flock of angels.
Just in case you ever wake up one morning
and you find yourself on Jeopardy.
In short order he
commandeered a corner table
and let it be known that
the drinks were on him
as long as the angels
answered all of his questions.
He wanted to know who they
were, what their jobs were
and whether or not for the most part
angeling was a good job.
How does one become an angel?
Back in the old days,
I mean God created em,
more or less from whole cloth.
But after people started
began all of that,
the angels couldn't keep up,
so God solved that one by
appointing human beings.
Dead ones.
Yes, that was the one pre-requisite.
So what's the procedure?
Well first you die and then
if your papers are processed,
they'll give you an assignment.
What sort of assignments do you get?
Well most of us are
supposed to look after people,
but only in certain restricted areas.
So you're all specialists.
Exactly.
Do you think your friends
would agree to be interviewed?
I don't see why not,
as long as you're buying,
they talked to all the others.
Who were the others?
Shakespeare, Milton, Twain,
Melville, Poe, Tolstoy,
not to mention Hemingway and Spillane
They all stopped by.
Shakespeare.
Right here at this spot.
Or was that Bacon.
One of those two plum guys.
Two plums?
Yeah one for wearing
and one for writing.
Twain and Belvo, I can't
believe they've all been here.
That's the problem,
nobody could believe it.
They all wrote stuff about us
but they couldn't get it published,
I mean you won't be able to either.
Well don't be too sure about that.
Hey if William Shakespeare
and Mickey Spillane struck out,
what chance do you think you have?
People are a lot more open today
and a lot more broad minded
accepting things they can't see.
Do you mean gullible?
I just mean there's a lot more interest
in the spiritual these days
and people are ready,
even eager to believe in the unbelievable.
I know what you mean,
I've seen some of those TV infomercials.
Name's Wully.
Food and beverage are my line.
I didn't know that heaven
was involved with such things.
Well officially I work for
the food and beverage division
of the health department.
That woman over there by the pool table
running in place is Joyce,
she's the angel of jugging,
and that good looking guy over
there hoggling her is Shawn,
he's the angel of dieting.
Ours is one of the few departments
that's actually expanding.
Right off the top of my head
I'm thinking, Robin Williams,
would be terrific as a
food and beverage guy,
do you remember how funny
he was in Mrs. Doubtliar.
Doubtfire.
And I'm afraid Mr.
Williams died a while back.
Oh.
Yeah.
You miss Variety one week,
you can never catch up.
Hello, what's your name.
Cyrus.
You have something to do with travel.
I've got everything to do with it.
And believe me it's not easy.
What with all the different
timezones, half the time
I don't know if I'm coming or going.
You travel by plane?
No, clouds.
Used to be the best way
to fly, slow, stress free,
you could really stretch out,
you could read on the way.
One trip I read all of Mark Twain,
got half way through Pruist.
What are your duties?
Cars and buses, jet
planes and helicopters,
motorcycles and roller blades.
And as if all that weren't
enough, cigarette boats,
parachutes and bungee
cords, it's all madness.
The trip itself used to be part and parcel
of the travel experience.
People used to voyage and journey.
The very words themselves
suggest an experience of self discovery,
people set sail, they cast
off, they even sally forth.
These days people's idea of a
trip is a ride at a carnival
that combines the west elements
of speed, noise and weightlessness.
Today travel is strictly
a matter of moving from point A to point B
and back to point A in as pointless a way
as mechanically possible.
If someone ever devises a
way to transport human beings
through noematic tubes,
he'll make a fortune.
The casting possible in it
is enough to make my head explode.
I mean this could be another
Around the World in 80 Days
because basically we've
got like, 14 or 15 cameos.
I mean nobody could try to
hold us up for 20 million
when they're only gonna be in the picture
for five or six minutes right,
everyone's gonna want in.
Would you mind
answering a few questions?
Not at all young man.
You seem to be enjoying
that magazine, what is it?
TV Guide.
It's my bible.
You understand that's
just a figure of speech.
You must really enjoy the articles,
I've never realized they were so funny.
I don't read the articles,
I read the listings.
When I read the little blurbs,
they remind of the episode.
Like I was just reading about
this episode of Frasier,
the one where Niles winds up setting fire
to Frasier's favorite couch (LAUGHS).
(MUMBLES)
You've memorized every
episode of Frasier?
I've memorized every
episode of every show.
Wow.
Yes, I believe that television
is the greatest invention of all time.
That's why I'm so proud
to be associated with it.
A lot of people regard it
as a terrible waste of time.
Well I think a lot of people
are a terrible waste of time.
BURT: What's the best
thing about being an angel?
It's a job.
Is it like being alive though?
Oh yeah, in some cases
it's all the way better.
We never have to punch a clock.
And what's the worst?
No paid vacations, no
bad mouthing management.
Can't you complain to anyone?
Of course, it's a god
given right to gripe,
unfortunately it's a right
that god reserves for himself.
You should hear him when he gets started.
You would think nothing ever
worked out the way he planned.
Really, like what?
You name it.
Sex.
Big mistake, total accident.
I mean Satan completely
blind-sighted him on that one.
The truth, I don't think
god's ever gotten over it.
How did god expect people
to reproduce without sex?
I mean let's face it Horace, without sex,
Adam would have been the
first man and the last man,
I mean surely god didn't
expect human beings
to be a mere footnote in
the history of the universe.
Actually he did.
Really.
Sure, if you ever run
into him, don't bring it up.
I mean learn from my bitter experience,
don't get him started.
According to Horace,
each of you has a specific
area of responsibility,
what's yours?
I'd rather not say.
Why not?
It's embarrassing.
Why don't I tell you something
embarrassing about myself,
then it's your turn.
Fair is fair, my middle name is Beagle,
my mother raised them.
Well you're right Beagle
boy, compared to that
my secret's pretty puny stuff.
I'm responsible for the fine arts.
What's so awful about that?
Just look around you.
In the blink of an eye the world has gone
from Bach and Beethoven to reggae and rap,
we've gone from Run Brand and Da Vinci
to pop art and graffiti,
think how that reflects on me.
How would you feel if
everyone held you responsible
for the fall of western civilization?
Do you have anything to do
with professional wrestlers
or log (MUMBLES)?
Well not directly but,
nobody I dear say is
immune to my influence.
Oh really?
Oh yes, I'm Lydia the angel of romance.
At least romance used to be my field.
Now of course it's faded
away like an old rose,
pressed between the pages of a diary.
It's really so sad.
Keltrastess, in olden
days, romance meant a lover
scaling walls, or slaying
dragons of one sort or another
and pledging himself to his true love.
Are you talking about chivalry,
isn't that a bit old fashioned.
And what sir is outdated
about eternal bliss?
What's uncomfortable about lovers
pledging their troth to one another?
Their what?
That's another thing,
people used to know what troth meant.
Now their lawyers hammer out pre-nuptials.
Once upon a time we had soulmates
and two hearts that beat as one.
Now they're significant others.
Men snooker about hooshers
and women giggle about butts.
How can romance flourish
when you treat one another
like so many interchangeable
body parts like Chevys
or the Colonel's Chicken.
BURT: Uncle Sydney.
I'm afraid not sunny
boy, my handle's Harry.
I did know an Uncle Sydney once
but he was my uncle, not yours.
It's just that you look so familiar.
I think I look a bit like
Ziegfeld, a little taller,
better looking with wings.
I'm thinking maybe George Clooney,
he's pretty cool isn't he.
Oh yeah very cool, he
also has very nice hair.
Again with the hair, just listen.
What is your job Harry.
What job don't I have, I've done it all.
Best of all I've done it my way.
I invented show business, it's my life,
or at least it would be if I had a life.
Before me, people knew there was something
missing in their lives
but they didn't know what.
They sat around for hours on end on rocks,
scratching and moaning.
Well how did you go about it.
Well I began with the women,
every night I'll get them to go up
to their husbands and say,
you never take me out, we
never do anything together.
Within a week, Harry,
the first entertainer,
was packing them in.
Doing what?
Harry used to throw 19 rocks
in the air at the same time.
And that's how we got joggling?
No that's how you got
dodging and ducking.
Joggling came along much later,
it involved three oranges.
My name is Minerva young man,
and my field of expertise,
if I might call it that
without appearing immodest, is athletics.
I would have never guessed.
Actually, I'm relatively new to the job.
Formerly, I was in charge
of what used to be known
as the social graces.
But there has been less and
less call for my services
until finally I was as
redundant as an appendix.
Well what happened?
I was hoping you would tell me.
All I know is that etiquette
used to be quite important,
and then one day it wasn't.
My name is Alexander,
please don't call me Alex.
You wouldn't possibly
know a 37 letter word
for Villeinage, would you?
No I don't.
I didn't expect you to.
Let me be so bold, you
seem a bit dispirited.
Certainly discouraged.
Not the crossword puzzle is it?
Hardly, the 'cause for my lethrege
is that for all intents and purposes,
I've been out of work for 60 years.
Well that's a problem.
What is it that you do or did?
My job was guiding geniuses.
Hence I've been unemployed
since April 18, 1955.
What happened on that date?
Einstein died.
BURT: I guess you're a happy angel.
Oh why is that? Do you
know something I don't?
Well I thought that
although romance and the arts
might have been going to the dogs
that you can't knock modern technology?
You can't, not if you
know what's good for you.
It could knock back and really hurt you.
You're not a fan of progress.
Do you realize they
now have a lethal gas
you can't see or smell.
With just two ounces,
you could wipe Southern
California off the map.
I see you're smiling.
Just visualizing.
Be that as it may, Mr. Wisenheimer,
my point is that one man's progress
is another man's poisoned gas.
What a very good point it is.
Where did we go wrong, how
could we have been so blind?
It wasn't our fault George.
We were darn fools.
We were no such thing,
we were idealists.
Why are you being so hard on yourselves?
Don't blame us, god knows we tried.
There there dear, I'm
sure the nice gentlemen
realizes that we did the best we can.
More is the pity.
Please excuse us, it's just
that when we started out,
we had such high hopes for the future,
we actually believed
there could be such things
as perfect nurturing parents.
And don't forget those
wonderful loving tots.
We believed in them too.
What is it that you do?
We oversee parenting.
Anyone could see our next subject
was trying to drown his
sorrows and possibly himself
at the rate he was
downing shots (MUMBLES),
it was as if he was trying to finish off
the work began decades earlier
by carrying nation (MUMBLES)
but instead of waging on boos
by shutting down distilleries
through the 18th amendment, or sing an ax
to break bar tops into kibbling,
he was on a one man mission to
deplete the entire bar stock.
What's your name?
Who told you to sit down?
You were sleeping.
Well wake me up next time, my name's Al,
actually it's, Aloicious Jailmally,
my friends call me Swifty,
at least that's what they used to call me
when I still had friends.
They died?
They did.
Any of them here.
I'm afraid not, none of my boys made it.
Actually I guess I'm lucky
to have snuck through.
You were a politician.
No, no no no, I was
what you call an arranger.
I helped arrange it for
other people to get elected.
And now?
Well my official duties
are to oversee politics,
but mainly what I do is overlook.
Overlook.
As an angel I try to guide them,
encourage them to do the right thing.
Did you ever hear such a
flap doodle in all your life.
We all want to have representatives
in congress and in the white house
that we can respect and look up to.
The only politician the
people should look up to
is the one that's
hanging from the gallows.
BURT: Finally a cheerful angel.
Well indeed I am,
do you suppose that's because I only deal
indirectly with humans?
Who do you deal with?
Why dogs of course.
Dogs.
Of course, why do
you sound so surprised.
I never imagined that poodles
would have their own angel.
Well isn't that like a human being,
to think that heaven is more
about them than their pets.
They're just poor dumb creatures.
Oh I know,
that's why we always try to
make allowances for people.
I was talking about the dogs.
I know.
What about Meryl Streep.
Oh what about her?
Is she alive?
Oh yes yes, she's alive.
She'd be terrific as a dog angel.
Yeah oh my, she's always terrific.
Basically, we'll be guaranteed
at least one Oscar nomination,
I mean the lady sneezes
and she gets nominated.
That is so true.
What do you do for relaxation?
Once in a while I do go rainbow sliding.
What's that like?
They're like those water
slides at the theme parks,
except we don't have to buy tickets
or stand in line all day.
Didn't even realize
they had TV in heaven.
It wouldn't be heaven without it.
The only problem is some
angels don't feel that way.
So I often have to mute it.
That must make it hard on you?
Fortunately I can read lips,
besides they're mostly re-runs,
so I've seen them before.
How many times have you
seen the Frasier episode
that you were just reading about.
Roughly 400 times
but it just keeps getting
better and better.
I guess it's because I'm getting to know
the characters so well.
I think I love Roz best of all.
What forms of entertainment
are most popular in heaven?
Usual things, Celetial
Quaz, Hop Concerts,
lots of re-runs of I Love Lucy.
What do you think of
the television medium?
Well to quote the
great arch-angel Frenal,
they call it a medium
because it's never done well.
What form of entertainment
do you enjoy the most.
Well in my book you
can't beat modern film.
I mean dog acts, Ventrocus,
Tumblers, Arge Comics,
German Comics, Sister
Acts, Barbershop, Quartets,
the whole razzmatazz,
before that all you had
was wandering minstrels and court jesters.
Give me a dog that dances
on its hind legs anytime.
Perhaps just well,
but how much real
satisfaction can there be
in overseeing the affairs of
creatures who pee on trees
and go pop.
And who are fearless,
loving, gentle and loyal
and who don't start wars,
lie, cheat or betray their friends,
whose simple goodness
and piety is an example for the saints,
and yet here you sit truly
astonished by the fact that,
we all have a special place
in our hearts for them,
see I find that totally astonishing.
And it may further shock you to know
that their place in heaven is secure
while the human race
is skating on thin ice.
I never imagined.
Well that's because it's
not their way to brag.
Here on earth even, when a dog
wins a race or a blue ribbon,
he doesn't hug the limelight,
he's very willing to share
the glory with his people.
So it's basically
been your responsibility
to wean us off of bark and onto burgers.
It's not as easy as it sounds.
You people talk about developing a taste
for olives and grand flakes
but can you imagine how long it took me
to convince the very first
person to try a lobster?
plus keep in mind that butter
hadn't been invented yet.
I bet it was even harder
to get us onto snails.
I got lucky on that one.
Butter or no butter,
at the rate those little
rascals reproduce,
if some French gardener
hadn't had a brainstorm
and decided to call them escargot,
you'd be buried in by now.
How'd you like to coax
someone into trying yogurt
before the stuff even had a name.
How'd you manage?
I found this lost soul
wandering in the Gobi Desert
for two weeks, dining
on sand in his sneakers.
Even at that, it took another
five days before he caved in.
And are you telling me that
there's no other geniuses.
Nothing much to speak off.
Find that hard to believe.
Of course you do.
That's because human beings
throw the word around
as recklessly as rice at a wedding.
By actual count in the
history of the world,
there have been nine geniuses.
But, if you believe say People Magazine,
they're as plentiful as
flees on a bloodhound.
Everyone who ever directed
a movie that turned a profit
or been a lawyer for a celebrity criminal
or made a financial killing on Wall Street
or made the cover of
People for that matter,
qualifies for their pantheon.
As it is, the last person
who actually saught creative
inspiration was Andy Warhol,
I'm afraid he misunderstood
when I told him
that to be a great artist,
he might have to eat
Campbell soup to survive.
If it has you so upset,
why don't you do something about it.
I am a muse and clearly you
are unaware of a muse's role.
What happened? Get all mused out?
It's you people.
You stopped wanting to
be divinely inspired,
writers stopped writing great novels
and started writing bad TV shows.
Composers lost interest in symphonies
and concentrated on jingles
selling soap and potato chips.
Architects stopped designing
cathedrals like Notre Dame
and started designing
towers like Notre Trump.
There used to be hundreds of
us in the Arts Department,
it was thrilling.
More than a mere job, it was a calling.
Every time you turned around,
voila, another masterpiece.
What happened?
What always happens.
Funding for the Arts dries up.
The usual cut backs take
place and here I am,
Helen, the lone surviving muse.
Every time I read
that chapter I break up.
Everything she says is so darn true.
Don't you realize she's
talking about people like you,
people who produce movies
like Wuthering Heights
and the Wild Women of Waterloo.
Of course I realize that,
that's why I had to make
the ultimate sacrifice
and sell my Monets and my
Susannies and my Dailies.
That's why I have to have
my name on Angels on Tap,
don't you understand?
I'm trying to save my soul.
Do you miss the old days?
I sure do.
If only we can turn the clock back.
Ever relaxing carriage rides, train trips,
long sea voyages, and on occasion,
an exhilarating gallop across the meadow.
Once in a great while, for a
refreshing change of scenery,
a scent in a hot hair balloon.
Today you get hit with
so many rushed jobs,
we're all on shooting stars.
I'll never forget the
day the wheel was invented.
There was such excitement.
Did they have any
idea what to do with it?
None whatsoever.
That's what made it so exciting.
Everyone sensed they
were onto something big
but they had no idea what.
Was it one person
who made the discovery.
Of course, it's always one person.
As soon as you get a
second person in the room,
all he'll do is tell the first
person to stop horsing around
and get a real job.
So who was it that discovered the wheel?
It was a guy named Benny.
He was just fooling around
one day with different shapes.
It's very fortunate he
finally came up with round.
What do you mean?
Well for the longest time
he got hung up on triangles.
Can you imagine driving around
on four steel rim triangles.
I guess you could say that
we were just a bunch of
general practitioners.
Back then, there wasn't a lot of trouble
that people could get into.
So, just as long as they
didn't mix it up with witches
and they remembered to say their prayers
30 or 40 times a day, the job was a sab.
What did it consist of?
Mostly hovering.
Hovering?
You've seen it in all
the pagans, like cat.
We hovered a lot.
Whenever anybody important
was born, there we were
hovering over him.
Likewise, when they died, I mean,
we'd show up at weddings and crucifixions
and most of your bigger shit takes.
Can you tell me about
some of the great painters you have known?
Well I hate to drop names but perhaps
you've heard of Michael Angelo.
I imagine he's one of
the greatest of them all.
Certainly the laziest.
How can you say that?
A lazy man painted the
ceiling of the Sistine Chapel?
He only took the job because
he could do it lying down.
Still it was a tremendous achievement,
didn't it take him four or five years.
Of course, that's
because he kept napping.
Anyone else would have had it
finished in two weeks tops.
Frankly, in all honesty, I have to admit,
I outdid myself that time.
How so?
Maybe you think it's easy being museful,
when every time you
come around, the artist
is 200 feet up in the
air, snoring like a bear.
I am amazed that you have
to oversee all the fine arts.
I would think that painters
alone would keep you happy.
Hoping mad.
Somewhere along the
line the art of painting
turned into the art of framing.
People put frames around
dots and drips and smudges
and the stuff sells for millions.
Without the fancy frames,
they're the sort of things
that parents of very young children
attach to their refrigerators
with little magnets.
You know our biggest mistake?
Was letting parents
keep the children around
even after the children
were bigger than they are.
It breaks down the natural order of things
when a parent gives a command
and the child is like, oh yeah,
who's gonna make me, or worst
of all, you and who else?
Sounds like you're
talking about teenagers.
Oh the awful T word, try not to say it.
It's a modern aberration you know.
Both the word and the thing itself,
they're an offense to mother nature.
Kind of like a butterfly
turning back into larvae.
But haven't we always had teenagers?
Of course not?
But how can it be avoided.
In those happier days there was simply
no such thing as a teenager.
You went straight from being
an adorable little six year
old to a very short coal miner.
I always say there's nothing
like a 16 hour work day
to keep the young tikes out of mischief,
if you know what I mean.
BURT: What are your duties?
Well let's just say if
it weren't for Old Wully,
people would still be gnashing on twigs,
grass and small rodents.
When you put it that way,
I guess I owe you a pretty large debt.
I'd say so.
Though I actually feel mice
were considered delicacies
until just recently.
Heck fella, it wasn't that
long ago that you folks
gobbled up acorns like
they were bear nuts.
Well what has changed?
It was decided that there
weren't enough differences
to distinguish human beings
from owls and bears and wild boars
and that perhaps diet might
be an area worth exploring.
Who was the greatest genius.
Well that's easy, it was Ag.
Never heard of him.
Of course you didn't,
for one thing he never
made the cover of People
and for another he was quite
a while before your time,
several million years before.
What made him such a genius?
He invented the alphabet.
That's quite an accomplishment.
It was even better before he
caved in to outside pressure.
What happened?
He had a wife who
thought she was creative.
Q, X and Z were her ideas.
So Ag compromised.
Well it was either that
or sleep outside with the Tyrannosaurus.
Genius is a demanding mistress
but it's nothing compared to a pushy wife.
I had a wife like Ag's.
In what way?
Pushy.
Mrs. Bachman number one.
And that divorce cost me
almost as much as this book,
but it was money well spent.
How so?
It taught me that marrying someone
just because they look good on your rom
is a lousy reason to get married.
Much better to go out and buy something
that looks good on your wall.
Like a Suzani.
Yeah.
When did things start
to go downhill for you?
After Edison.
I'd have to say it stopped being fun.
You admired Edison?
He flabbergasted me.
He had a brain on him the
size of a bowling ball.
They say the legs are the first to go,
but if you got a brain like Edison's,
it's the neck.
I take it that you've
been on a first name basis
with some of the biggest
brains in history.
Is there any one moment
that stands out for you?
No.
Come on, there must be something.
I mean the supper where Socrates
expanded on the meaning of love,
the day Shakespeare
drafted Hamlet's Soliloquy,
Isaac Newton's discovery of gravity.
What you think, Newton
was one of the nine?
Well I assumed.
The man was just lucky he
fell asleep under an apple tree.
If it had been a palm tree,
a coconut could have fallen on his head.
And let me tell you,
fella gets beaten by one of those babies,
his big concern isn't
with the laws of nature,
it's his health insurance.
Still, he discovered gravity.
He didn't discover it,
all he did was name it.
What, you think he was the first person
who ever noticed things didn't fall up?
One idea that really knocked
me for a loop was the car.
I still can't get over it.
You mean the internal combustion engine.
Oh good gracious no.
That's just noisy and messy.
I mean what made the fellow plunge ahead?
How could he possibly imagine that others
were going to invent paved roads,
signals, street lights,
speed bumps, gas stations,
tow trucks, and those big fuzzy dice,
just to accommodate his
nutsy notion, what an ego.
With an ego that enormous, you half expect
to see a bunch of guys named Lars
climbing up and planting a flag on it.
I imagine that you've met
all the greatest artists that ever lived.
I knew them all, except for Roca.
Who is Roca?
He was the first one
to do cave drawings.
By the time I realized it
was art and not vandalism,
it was too late to meet him.
Why, what happened?
A dinosaur ate him for breakfast.
And so art criticism was born.
Who was the first professional comedian?
The first professional
comedian was Henry Youngfellow
but his career didn't last long.
Every other line out of his mouth was,
Pretty, taketh thee my wife.
I always thought that court
jesters lived by their wits?
In a sense they did.
Their job, you see, was
to fall down laughing
every time the king made a joke.
The louder the laughed,
the longer they lived.
That's why people started thinking
that laughing was good for your health.
Weren't any of the jesters funny?
Well some laughed
funnier than the others.
But even the jester known
as Agus the Hilarious,
never had a better line than,
she is no lady, she is Lord
Hashford's wife (LAUGHS).
Who do you regard as
the greatest romantics?
One who readily comes
to mind is Shah Jahan
who built the Taj Mahal as a mausoleum,
when his wife, the lovely
Mumtaz Mahal passed away.
Well the Taj Mahal
was a heck of a gesture.
But nothing compared to the Taj Shirley.
The Taj Shirley,
never heard of that one?
It was the house that Shah Jahan
had to build for his second wife
when she got a gander at the
tomb he built for number one.
As Shirley put it, and rightly
so if you want my opinion,
that woman's living better than me,
and she's dead.
The place must have been spectacular.
Oh my yes.
Not only was it twice
as big as the Taj Mahal,
but the reflecting pool was indoors.
Say what you will about Shirley,
she definitely knew what she wanted.
Which invention impressed you the most?
Where to start?
There are so many you couldn't count.
The safety pin was a real doozy.
Very simple but a real money maker,
and baseball cleats were another.
Without the cleats,
nobody would have ever
gotten to first base.
Half way there, they'd fall down.
It's a very slippery game baseball.
Without the cleats, it
would have been ice skating.
The escalator is a snappy idea.
And the juicer is a pip.
Nothing I enjoy more in the morning
than a nice fresh glass of orange juice.
Do you like orange juice?
Sure.
Everybody does.
But do you ever go to
a park and see a statue
of the smart guy who made it all possible?
And what about the fellow
who invented popcorn?
I never thought of
popcorn as an invention.
It doesn't exactly grow on
trees but technically speaking
you're right, popcorn's
always been around.
But it wasn't always food.
It was packing material.
In fact, it was a guy with a
warehouse full of this stuff
who made it all possible.
One night he sat up in bed and shouted,
butter and salt.
Scared his wife half to
death, but he made millions.
And that's where you got the saying,
one man's packing material
is another man's snack.
I think you may need
this more than I do,
oh yeah never mind, I don't
want you to have that.
Now now listen, what made
the old days bearable
were the bosses.
But weren't they all corrupt,
I mean surely you don't long
for the return of Tammany Hall.
These days the people have
to bribe the politicians
to get anything done.
In the old days the politicians
would bribe the people.
Two bucks per vote, if you
voted for the right party.
On election day a go
getter could really score.
He could get himself 10 bucks, 10 bucks.
Now that'd feed family
of four, for a week.
Surely you don't think life was better
back in those dark ages do you?
It was if you were a parent.
You're too young to
remember I suppose but,
there was a time when
youngsters were grateful
to find an apple in
their Christmas stocking.
I should say so.
They were grateful for the stocking.
It's the thought that counted.
When do you think things
started falling apart?
When parents started giving
their kids spending money.
And the car keys.
Cable.
Store bought clothes.
Their own phones, their own beds.
Their own opinions.
Their own bathrooms, and
one thing led to another.
Their own bathrooms.
Yeah that's right mister.
They began feeling entitled
to the modern luxuries of life
and they hadn't done anything to earn it.
They didn't milk the cows
or till the South 40.
They didn't even take out the trash
or bring in the newspaper.
Or say thank you for all that matter.
And still their parents
went on treating them
like little Dalai Lamas.
But at least teenagers
now have a sense of their own worth.
An overinflated sense you mean.
Why do you think people
persist in having children?
The perpetuation of the human race.
For their pelts.
For their pelts.
What do you consider the
biggest problem with air travel?
Leg room.
People keep getting taller and
seats keep getting smaller.
Do you see a solution?
Oh sure, but it will first mean
soaking passengers in olive oil.
What's the best thing
about being an angel?
We get to sneak in
all the movies for free.
What's the worst?
The movies.
Who would have known that the movies
would catch on the way they did?
I mean I just thought it was a novelty,
a fad, like the yo-yo.
I thought when Mary
Pickford hung up her coals,
it would all blow over.
Seems like just yesterday,
you paid a nickel
and saw eight acts that
would knock your socks off,
not to mention, chorus girls
with meat on their bones.
Now you pay 10 bucks to watch Jim Carry
make faces for two hours.
Why is it, if travel is so much bother,
people still insist on taking trips?
I myself blame it on the movies.
I don't see the connection.
In the movies they don't show you
any of the bad or boring parts of travel.
People in the movies never spend six hours
going through customs
and they never strip search
because they look a tiny bit
like a fugitive terrorist.
In the movies people never
get sick from the water.
Their hotel rooms are
always ready and waiting
and the telephone always works.
In the movies people spend all
their time falling in love,
not trying to track
down their lost luggage.
The clinture though is that in the movies,
people can spend their
entire holidays in Rome,
eating pasta and drinking
wine and never gain an ounce.
And when you get right down to it,
the worst thing that ever
happened to tourists in the movies
was that they got seduced
by Rossano Brazzi.
Now that you mention it,
he did pop up in an awful
lot of those movies.
The man did more for the travel industry
than honey roasted peanuts
and drownmin combined.
Do you have a favorite show?
Wouldn't that be like asking a mother
if she has a favorite child?
Each in its own way is special.
But just between us, I must confess,
I have a special soft spot for quiz shows.
Really, why do you think that is?
I believe it must be because
they're so educational.
Some people actually believe
TV destroys brain cells.
I wouldn't want to sound judgmental,
but those people don't
have two brain cells
to rub together if you ask me.
I must say for someone in the love game,
you don't seem to have your heart in it.
Don't you believe in your own product?
Of course I do, but
you people are hopeless.
Lust has long replaced love
as the governing emotion
and romance has given way to pornography.
Why wouldn't I be a pessimist?
I truly believed the world
sought what I had to offer.
Now the scales fell from my eyes
and I see the tunnel at
the end of the light.
Is there nothing that can be done?
Well I can't speak for
everyone but I managed to get by
renting Casa Blanca.
And Now Voyager every few months
and a little white wine never hurts.
Tell me, who thought up applause.
No one thought it up,
it was an accident really.
You see, in the beginning,
when people liked a performer,
they stayed quiet.
The more they liked it,
the quieter they were.
Then one night, some musician
was making music with rocks
and mosquitoes the were
driving everyone nuts.
People were slapping themselves so hard,
made such a racquet you
couldn't hear the music.
But the musician kept on playing.
So in one fell swoop
you got rock and roll,
applause and encores.
Is there any one
person whose contribution
seems to be greater than all the rest?
Absolutely.
Henry Ford, the Wright Brothers.
H.G. Wells.
Why H.G. Wells? What
did he do for travel.
He dreamed up the time machine.
A person sat at home in a chair
and time did all the traveling.
You wanted to go somewhere
you flipped a dial and it came to you.
The next best was Gutenberg.
The Gutenberg who
invented the printing press.
There was another Gutenberg?
But what's the printing
press got to do with travel.
After Gutenberg, if
people suddenly decided
they wanted to go visit Timbuktu
they could read about it first.
After 20 pages they got bored,
they could put the book down
and they were home.
No packing, no catching
the next plane out,
no worrying about the city flyers.
Some people say travel is broadening.
Sure and some people like cannibals,
there's no accounting for taste.
As someone once pointed out,
if travel were all that broadening,
stewardesses and buzz (MUMBLES)
wouldn't be the smartest people on earth.
I probably shouldn't
tell tales out of school,
but the possibility of pulling
the plug on the human race
has been discussed more than once.
No.
Yes, yes.
The ones that were in favor of it
thought that it would be
more merciful in the long run
because of the damage
they're doing to the planet
and the other inhabitants.
But it never came up to a final vote
because the dogs went to bat for you.
I don't know why, heaven
knows they have a soft spot
in their hearts for people.
It may sound like so
much bow wow to you sir,
but it was only their eloquence
that saved your bacon.
Gee.
Gee indeed.
The only thing they haven't
been able to figure out is,
why, if they're your best friends,
the way you always claim they are,
why so many of you insist
on paling around with cats.
Don't look at me, I'm allergic.
Ms. Mary.
MARY: Yes.
You wouldn't happen to know
a little Schnauzer named
Whiskers would you?
Yes I do.
It took me weeks to heaven
break that little dickens,
but he was worth it, he's a love.
Would you tell him that I said hello.
My pleasure.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
Remember when the reporter
was talking about his dog.
Yeah.
That could have been me.
You had a Schnauzer named Whiskers.
Not exactly.
You had a dog named Whiskers?
Not exactly.
Did you even have a dog?
Not exactly.
My dad didn't like dogs.
I had an invisible friend named Lenad.
But I couldn't have loved him any more
if he had four feet and a tail.
What happened to him.
One day he chased a ball into the street
and he got hit by a car.
I still miss him.
He'd be 52 years old today
if he didn't stop to scratch himself.
Who came up with the idea
of eating three meals a day.
The English.
In the 14th century,
there were two princes.
Harold the fat and Bertrum the Bulimic.
Harold felt that five meals
a day was just about right.
While his brother Bertrum
argued that one was quite sufficient,
especially if you didn't swallow.
Before a war broke out
between the two factions,
their father, Arnold the Moderate,
worked out a compromise.
It was Arnold who gave meals their names.
Breakfast was so called
because it broke a fast.
And dinner was named
after the bell they rang
when it was time to eat.
And lunch?
Named after the Duke of Lunch.
The man who said, just because
it's too late for breakfast
and too early for dinner,
doesn't mean we've gotta starve.
I suppose people simply
decided that it simply
didn't matter which fork they used.
The tricky part was getting people
to use forks in the first place
for something besides
scratching their back.
But why were the rules
of etiquette so elaborate?
So that people could relax,
knowing exactly how to behave
in every social situation.
Is there nobody these days
that you think even has a spark if genius.
The pickings are awfully slim
but I suppose if I had
to come up with one name,
it would be Oprah.
Oprah Winfrey is a genius.
Let me put it to you
that turning lead into gold
used to be considered a big deal.
This woman managed to turn
drivel into two billion dollars.
I think even Ag would have been impressed.
Who else comes to mind
when you think of the great romantics?
Norman Couperman, makes
right there up at the top.
What did he do?
It's what he didn't do.
During World War II, PFC Couperman
got to see Marlana Ditrig
at the Hollywood canteen.
She kissed him on the cheek
and he never again washed his face.
Now that's what I call romantic.
It's not very hygienic.
Well that's true.
But should I remind you
romance isn't for sissies.
Look at Van Gogh, for
love he gave up an ear.
And Edward you may recall,
even gave up the throne of England.
If it doesn't come at enormous sacrifice,
it's not romance dear boy,
it's just dating.
Obviously you've seen them all,
but who would you say is
the greatest entertainer
who ever lived.
It's hard to put a finger on one person.
I mean did Will Rogers
play the musical saw?
Did Fanny Brace Juggle?
If Gallagan Sheen tap danced, I missed it.
Did Gipsy Rose Lee do impressions?
Who cares, now if you
wanted the loudest voice,
that would be Carooser, the
guy had lungs like watermelons.
The funny thing about Carooser though
he could never whistle.
When he tried to whistle
it'd sound like he had
crackers in his mouth.
That's why the guy never owned
a dog, you can look it up.
Now if it's whistling you wanted,
then you had the choice
between Widama's Birds
and Al Johnson.
Even that was a toss up.
I mean Johnson had more range.
But the birds were Husbrock.
In your opinion who was
the greatest of them all,
was it Garbo, Tracy, Gabel or Herper.
In my opinion, the best of the bunch,
the one who impressed me the
most was Esther Williams.
Esther Williams?
Who else, that broad was a big star,
never got out of the pool.
You think that was easy?
You try doing a performance
in eight feet of water.
The Chlorine alone could kill you.
And that made her greater
than say Sir Lawrence Livia.
There was no comparison.
He acted in the west end you noticed.
But never in the deep end.
How was it decided
that you of all angels
would have been assigned to sports.
Well I don't know for certain.
But I would venture
that they looked around
for something else
that had lots of rules governing conduct.
Rules after all, are my meat.
Do you oversee all areas of sports
including basketball and football?
Oh, so you can still
distinguish between the two.
You really must be paying close attention.
But to answer your question though,
basically all physical activity
asides from sex and channel surfing
falls within my domain.
I'm not questioning your qualifications,
well actually I guess I am
questioning your qualifications.
You just don't strike me as a jock.
I suppose that's why I got the job,
they were looking for
a civilizing influence.
What has been your
greatest single challenge?
Actually there are two.
The first was artichokes.
Took me over a thousand years
to figure out how to eat em.
But the real toughy was alcohol.
The stuff tasted awful, it smelled worse
and it played tidly winks
with the old kidneys.
All that being the
case, why'd you bother?
Just because it made us laugh
when you folks would get drunk
and start arguing politics and religion.
Even if I grant that
running for political office
can be a pricey enterprise,
surely that's money donated
with no strings attached.
The lobbyist doesn't walk
around with a bag full of money.
They advise where to invest this money
and that senator gets to
vote on getting it done.
What about the ones
who already have money?
Nobody ever seems to have enough money.
You don't see Bill Gates
picking up his pension check do you?
You make it sound so tawdry.
The fact remains that no
matter how poor a guy is
when he first gets elected,
by the time he retires, he's wealthy
and all because he knows
how to vote on the job.
Sounds to me like the real
problem is the lobbyists.
He's just providing a public service.
The question is why should anyone
give a contribution to a candidate
unless he expects to get
it back a thousand fold.
And yet some people do.
I've contributed to a
few political campaigns.
I mean, I wasn't expecting any favors,
I just felt the candidate
would have best represented my concerns.
There's a word for people like you.
Responsible citizen.
Sucker.
Would you agree that
nothing beats organized sports
for turning young boys into real men.
I'm just a little old lady angel,
so what do I know of such matters.
Still, it always struck
me as a whee bit odd
that organized athletics
called for 30 to 40 robust
young men to shower together,
when everyone knows that's the main reason
10% of them join the
team in the first place.
Looking back over your career,
who are some of the other
artists that stand out.
Picasso was almost as
cute as he thought he was.
Dali, crazy as a poodle.
Remprant never took a bath.
Wooslier was a mama's boy.
And the biggest pain in the
neck was that Botticelli.
Why was that?
He's the one who insisted
on painting us angels
in those sappy robes and the big halos.
The flowing ribbons and all the
rest of that silly faldural.
But you're not dressed that way now.
That's because we're not working.
When we're on the job, we
have to be in full regalia,
it's how people expect to see us,
all because of his goofy paintings.
The man wasn't an artist,
he was a costume designer
with a paint brush.
If we showed up not looking
the way he painted us,
people assumed we were just ghosts
or the end result of too many dry martinis
but if we appeared looking
like something whipped up
by a French pastry chef,
people took us seriously.
Did Botticelli become
an angel when he died?
Why do you ask?
I just thought it would be very ironic
if he himself wound up having
to spend all of eternity
looking like a piece of wedding cake.
Yes, I suppose that
would have been ironic but,
ol' Botticelli didn't
exactly get his wings,
what he got were his just desserts.
What happened to him?
He's busting tables at the cafe limbo.
I bet he wishes he stuck to landscapes.
Too late now.
What ol' Botticelli didn't get I'm afraid,
is that angels don't
get irony, we get even.
I was wondering whatever
happened to Christopher,
the one who used to be the
patron saint of travelers?
Ever since the demotion,
he was plenty bitter.
Only time he'd even leave the house
was in the middle of the night
when he'd run out to airports
and mix up people's luggage.
So he is the one.
Yes but he's okay now.
Ever since he and the Mrs, got cable,
he seems satisfied to stay at home
and watch old travel logs.
Well in the old days after
all, things were pretty brutal.
With the Mayans, the loosing
athletes were sacrificed
to appease the, you should
excuse the expression, gods.
These days, if worse comes to worse,
they get traded to Milwaukee.
There are those who feel
that winning is everything,
are you one of those people?
Hardly, I am firmly of the
opinion that it doesn't matter
if you win or loose, it's
how you play the game,
unless of course you're an ancient Mayan.
Who are some of the
great chefs you've known?
At the top of the list
Charles of the Ritz,
famous for his toasted cheese sandwich.
He invented it?
No, but he did perfect it.
He was the guy who first burnt the cheese
around the edge a little.
The man was genius.
There are people who claim
it is immoral for us to eat meat,
do you agree?
That's really not my area.
The way I look at it, if
it tastes good, eat it.
You're saying morality
doesn't enter into it?
Keep in mind that,
what appears to be a question of morality
is very often only a matter of geography.
Cows are held to be sacred in some places,
in some dogs are considered snacks.
Or take bugs, in one
country they're pests,
in another they're protein.
When you start talking morality,
you get into a big gray
area, for instance,
there are definitely those,
and I count myself among them,
who saw it as a giant step,
up the evolutionary ladder,
when people started eating mutton
and gave up dating it.
I don't know if this comes under
the category of air travel,
but I am curious about one thing?
Don't ask, I still don't understand
how frequent flyer miles work.
No, it's those people who
you read about all the time,
that get hit by trains,
they can't all be committing suicide.
I have a newsflash for you.
None of them is committing suicide.
Then how do they get themselves killed,
I mean a train doesn't sneak up on you,
a train for god's sakes is
bigger than a herd of elephants,
louder than a teenager's boom box
and they can't jump off the
tracks and chase you down,
so how does it happen that
trains kill more people
than disgruntled postal employees
and botulism put together.
Does the number 49 have
any significance for you?
Bill O'Reilly's hat size?
Close, but no cigar. No.
That's the average IQ of people
who get run over by choo choos.
In the wild kingdom it's
referred to as thinning the herd.
Do you have a favorite sport?
Professional wrestling,
nobody gets hurt.
Which sport was the worst?
Christians Versus The Lions.
Even the bookies didn't
care much for that one.
What's the strangest
sport you've ever seen?
Without a doubt, that would
have to be early Water Polo.
Really, why is that?
It took them a while to figure out
it just wouldn't work with horses.
Finally, Ms. Minerva,
if you weren't in charge of sports,
what job would you like to have.
Well lately,
I've been thinking of
giving real estate a whirl.
What would you do in real estate?
First I'd send Donald
Trump to Milwaukee.
BURT: Do you have hope for the future?
Of course I do, why wouldn't I?
Sometimes I worry,
that technology is moving too fast for us
and that, I worry that
it will do away with us.
No matter how big the
machinery or how intelligent
or how powerful, that will never happen.
At least not so long as
we remember one thing.
And that is that we were
created in god's image
and that there's a spark of immortality
in each and every one of us.
No, the one thing we mustn't ever forget
is to always include an off switch.
When the next pair of
angels stood before him,
he looked around, and he realized,
they were the last angels left.
He tried to figure out
what their roles were but,
what was left?
The angels of medical mal-practice?
The angels of insurance injustice.
The angels of small household appliances.
In the end he was to learn,
that not only do cocker
spaniels and chihuahuas
have higher standing in
heaven than we humans,
but so do toaster ovens
and electric blankets.
How have things changed over the years.
Well we've certainly had to adapt.
To go along with the flow as it were.
Along the way we found the need to expand
to include philosophy,
mythology, dietary law.
And don't forget military
strategy and medieval torches.
It's certainly been a
broadening experience.
Yeah, I'm sure you could have guessed
but it was getting late
and he had quite an evening.
That's why he was rather taken aback
when Julie and John told him
that their arena was religion.
Yeah yeah yeah, sure
you would have guessed.
Right, have it your way.
I'm sure you also would
have guessed that Mary
was the dog angel.
Well in the old days there
were very few religions,
nothing fancy.
Truth is, if all of the services
had been conducted in Latin,
then you would have closed your eyes,
you'd never know where you were.
Yeah. But you know how people are.
Complicated.
Well, let's just say not too bright.
So before you could say
Moses and the bull rushes,
there were more religions,
cults, sects and covens
than you could shake a stick at.
Tempted as you might be.
They just sprang up like toad stores.
It seems like every
time you turned around,
there was people speaking
in tongues and channeling
and reading backwards,
twirling around in circles,
playing with snakes.
What's religion like in heaven,
I mean do you go to church,
does god give sermon?
No.
Why not?
We don't need it.
The main point of religion
is to remind people that god exists.
We don't need reminding god exists.
And if you need reminding,
try turning your stereo on
sometime after midnight.
If you could tell people
one thing, what would it be?
I think people should remember
that although god answers all prayers.
Sometimes they have to
accept that the answer is no.
The only thing wrong with people,
is they keep on asking questions,
long after they've been provided
with all the answers they'll ever need.
You mean the 10 commandments?
Yeah.
The trouble with most
people, if you ask me,
is that they seem to think
that there are six commandments
and four suggestions.
John, Julie, there's one
thing that I have to ask.
Of course.
You wouldn't be human if you didn't ask.
God, what's he like?
The waitress.
God looks like a waitress.
God is the waitress.
God is the waitress.
Hey guys, I didn't just
fall off the turnup truck.
Suit yourself, but that's the truth.
If you don't believe us, just ask her.
If she is god, then
I'm a monkey's uncle.
Close enough.
Come on honey, let's call it a night.
SAMMY: Now we get to my favorite part.
Prelutsky doddled.
I love that word, couldn't
you see him doddling.
He's worried that John and
Julie are playing a joke on him
and he doesn't want to embarrass himself
by asking an old woman if she's god.
But how could he resist.
I mean, as Prelutsky writes,
what could it hurt on a night
where I've already met
a room full of angels
to ask an elderly waitress if she's god?
I'm yet to meet a waiter
in the Jewish (MUMBLES)
who wasn't half convinced he was god.
So what did he have to loose?
I don't mean to be rude,
but those two told me that you were god.
So, what's the question.
My question is, are you her?
By her, do you mean me?
Well I do, if you're her.
Well if I'm not, then who is?
So you really are her.
So help me, me.
Are you telling me that god
is waiting tables in crummy bar?
I've seen worse.
In fact, right at this moment,
I am sweeping up a cafe
in downtown Beirut,
makes this place looks like Versailles.
That's not the point.
God waiting tables in a
bar, that's outrageous.
You're right, I suppose,
and to tell you the truth
a little hard on my feet
but, I soak em good when I get home.
But it's honest work,
we got a nice clientele,
and I get Sunday's off.
What was that all about.
Oh, you noticed I left.
Wasn't I supposed to.
That was a darn good trick.
I must be slowing down.
It used to be, I could be
everywhere all at the same time.
Where were you just now?
A giant comet just crashed into Siberia.
Comets, volcanoes, tidal waves,
I just love all that stuff.
What are you doing here?
Mostly staying in
touch with my workforce.
Like a CEO who is lunching
at the company cafeteria?
That's the idea,
it shows that you're just one of the gang.
It's supposed to boost morale.
I read all about that in a book
about modern management techniques,
oh and I just joined a bowling league,
I can't tell you how hard it
is for me not to throw strikes.
Speaking of books.
How would you suggest I go
about getting published.
I heard about all those hot shot writers
that tried and failed,
and if they couldn't get
published, how can I?
Frankly, I wouldn't mind
a little positive publicity.
Lately, the only time I
see my name is in print,
is when Time Periodicals
announces my demise
or some crazy cult leader
says that he has me on hold.
What do you think I should do?
When you write your
book, you give me holler,
I'll make a few calls.
You know people in the book business?
I wrote a bestseller you know.
I forgot.
So did they.
I'm still waiting for
my first royalty check.
Oh, by the way, your car is ready now.
ROBERT: I have to admit
that is quite the tale.
SAMMY: Now you understand why this book
is so important to me.
ROBERT: I guess I do.
Look, I know I'm a joke.
I've owned paintings,
and I don't even know how to
say the names of the artists.
But that doesn't mean I didn't
appreciate their beauty,
believe me, wallpaper would
have been a whole lot cheaper.
But I love beautiful things,
and I want Angels to be a beautiful movie.
Good luck.
Sometimes, I know this
is gonna sound nuts,
but sometimes I feel like my mom
was standing as close to me as you are
and she's been gone for nearly 20 years.
She is the real reason I bought this book.
So I could dedicate the movie to her.
She is the real reason that I
know that angels really exist.
She'd like that.
(SOFT MUSIC)
Well it was nice meeting you.
Thank you.
Peace.
From your mouth to my ear.
(SOFT ORCHESTRAL MUSIC)
(BRIGHT MUSIC)
(BRIGHT MUSIC)
Robert Hix here for Samuel Bachman.
(BRIGHT MUSIC)
Hello fans of ShowBiz Today,
this afternoon we are in the backyard
of Hollywood schlockmeister
Samuel Bachman.
Please, call me Sammy.
As I was saying Sammy
Bachman has Hollywood all abuzz
because in a dazzling bid of showmanship,
he managed to outbid the entire town
for the rights to the national
bestseller, Angels on Tap.
So tell us, how did you pull of this coup.
How does Sammy Bachman,
formerly best known
for such straight video
schlock as Wuthering Heights,
A Gool of My Dreams and One Man's Poison,
win out in a bidding war
that ultimately pitted you
against the legendary Harvey Weinstein
for the rights of this
modern comedy classic?
Well, if I do say so
myself, when Sammy Bachman
sets his sights on something,
he's a regular bagel.
A bagel?
Yeah you know the southern dogs
with the good nose and the flop ears.
Do you mean a Beagle?
Bagel, Beagle, potatoes,
potatoes, listen,
all I knew, once I quit horsing around
with those measly 10 grand raises
and I raised ol' Harv
a cool mill, he plots.
Plots?
Yeah you know, plots, like fold up,
the way something folds up
when you raise it a cool mill, uhn yeah.
Like a Harvey Weinstein.
Yeah like that.
Aren't your worried
that he'll seek revenge.
Rumor has it Mr. Weinstein
does not like loosing.
Who likes loosing?
Did that English guy Lord Nielson,
did he like loosing at Waterloo?
Actually it's Lord Nelson
and he won at Waterloo,
it was Napoleon who lost.
It was.
Well that's not the way we had it
in the Wild Women of Waterloo.
Our ending is better, if he'd lost,
Napoleon would have been in
no mood for a full scale orgy.
Yeah getting back to Harvey Weinstein,
aren't you worried that
you've made yourself
a dangerous enemy.
Yeah, are you kidding, me and ol' Harv,
we're like this, believe me,
it's just a coincidence
I hired a food taster.
I think our audience would like to know
what it was about this story
that touched you so much
that you would, if the rumors are true,
'caused you to sell off
your entire art collection
in order to buy the rights.
Those rumors are true.
I had to sell off all my
Monits, and my Daidies
and even my precious Suzzanies.
I believe you mean
Monets, Dolly's and Suzanis.
Did you ever own one?
No.
My point exactly.
Okay well out of all
the books out there,
what, why did you need to
turn Angels into a movie.
Because it was so darn magical.
You haven't read it have you?
No, I'm a pretty busy guy.
Yeah sure, you probably
spend hours a day
messing with that hair.
Not hours, hair like
this doesn't grow on trees.
Don't I wish, trees I have.
Let me tell you about the book
and maybe you'll understand
why I had to buy the rights.
Relax Bobby, you wanted to know why
I had to sell off my art collection,
I'm gonna tell you.
So it starts out, this poor dumb shmuck
is driving home from work.
It so happens, he's a reporter,
always had dreams of writing a bestseller,
but like someone else I
know, he never had the time,
but what he really lacked
was a story worth telling.
Anyway so he's driving home from work
and his car begins to act up
so he pulls off the freeway,
think he's gonna call Triple A,
he finds that his cell
phone is dead (MUMBLES).
So he spots a bar, he
figures, have a groosky,
call the Auto Club,
while he waits for a tow.
He steps inside, and what does he see?
I don't know, I told you
I didn't read the book.
Angels.
Angels?
Real live angels, like
I told you, it's magical.
Now I'm gonna tell you
exactly how I see the movie in my head.
Now you might thing it would
be a rather startling sight,
maybe you're even thinking
he wouldn't notice right off the bat,
even if you weren't worried about your car
and whether the Auto Club would arrive
before the second coming
or whether there'd ever be
peace in the Middle East
or whether my red socks
would ever have the (MUMBLES)
to carry themselves through July for once,
what you need to remember
is everyone in the bar
from the bartender to the customers alike,
they all had wings
and under those circumstances,
it might not be as
obvious as you may think.
Anytime enough people
are doing the same thing,
whether it's the wave or watching dancing
with their husbands,
it just might not be as
startling as you may think.
So there was Prelutsky, nursing a beer
and surrounded by all these wings.
He was trying to play
cool but it wasn't easy,
I mean we've all seen wings
but they've been attached to
birds and airplanes and hospitals.
Seeing them attached to
a room full of people
is another matter,
he didn't want to be rude and stare,
one can't help but peeping.
I gotta give the guy credit, if it was me,
I would have run out of the joint
and check myself into a mental ward
and had myself checked out by shrinks,
could you imagine being surrounded
by an entire room full of angels.
Not really, I mean,
what makes you think that
he didn't just make it all up?
I met the writer, Prelutsky,
he's not that smart.
Hi, I'm Gabriel.
Am I dead?
No, we are.
Oh, beginning to wonder why
I was seeing so many angels.
Lots of people see angels,
but it's usually just one at a time.
You're a reporter aren't you?
Well how did you know that?
You'd be surprised what we know.
Give me a year and I'll
tell you what happened?
Yeah, hmmm, nothing.
You don't remember 1513?
Oh I remember it, but
nothing memorable happened,
it was a lot like 762.
Every once in while a year comes along
that is so boring, the
best thing you can do
is lie down and take a nap.
I know what you mean,
I was that way in 1997.
Yeah, that was the snooze.
Ask me about 1398.
What happened in 1398?
Jan Hus was lecturing on
theology at Prague University.
And that made it memorable?
You bet, because Jan Hus
was the most boring speaker in the world.
10 minutes into his talk,
500 people would fall asleep,
if he rehearsed his speech at home,
his dog would fall asleep,
even birds would fall out of a tree.
Gee and I thought Jeff Bush was bad.
I should tell you, you're
not the only writer to stop by.
I'm not.
A lot of guys have been here
but nothings ever gotten published,
Shelley tried it with the signs,
Homer with the Greek tragedy,
I'll tell you what I told them,
it's just a bar, it's a
bar like any other bar
except all the customers are angels,
which means they have
wings but no pockets,
so don't expect a lot of tips.
This is a story that has to be told.
But it's never gonna be published,
they're gonna laugh at you son,
they are gonna say it's unbelievable.
They published The
Bridges of Madison County,
anything is possible.
What's with the black wings,
is that a fashion statement?
Some of the angels think
it makes them look thinner.
And that was the beginning of the story
that changed his life.
On the spot, he immediately
began interviewing
the entire flock of them,
flock being the appropriate
word by the way.
You got a den of thieves, pride of lions
and a flock of angels.
Just in case you ever wake up one morning
and you find yourself on Jeopardy.
In short order he
commandeered a corner table
and let it be known that
the drinks were on him
as long as the angels
answered all of his questions.
He wanted to know who they
were, what their jobs were
and whether or not for the most part
angeling was a good job.
How does one become an angel?
Back in the old days,
I mean God created em,
more or less from whole cloth.
But after people started
began all of that,
the angels couldn't keep up,
so God solved that one by
appointing human beings.
Dead ones.
Yes, that was the one pre-requisite.
So what's the procedure?
Well first you die and then
if your papers are processed,
they'll give you an assignment.
What sort of assignments do you get?
Well most of us are
supposed to look after people,
but only in certain restricted areas.
So you're all specialists.
Exactly.
Do you think your friends
would agree to be interviewed?
I don't see why not,
as long as you're buying,
they talked to all the others.
Who were the others?
Shakespeare, Milton, Twain,
Melville, Poe, Tolstoy,
not to mention Hemingway and Spillane
They all stopped by.
Shakespeare.
Right here at this spot.
Or was that Bacon.
One of those two plum guys.
Two plums?
Yeah one for wearing
and one for writing.
Twain and Belvo, I can't
believe they've all been here.
That's the problem,
nobody could believe it.
They all wrote stuff about us
but they couldn't get it published,
I mean you won't be able to either.
Well don't be too sure about that.
Hey if William Shakespeare
and Mickey Spillane struck out,
what chance do you think you have?
People are a lot more open today
and a lot more broad minded
accepting things they can't see.
Do you mean gullible?
I just mean there's a lot more interest
in the spiritual these days
and people are ready,
even eager to believe in the unbelievable.
I know what you mean,
I've seen some of those TV infomercials.
Name's Wully.
Food and beverage are my line.
I didn't know that heaven
was involved with such things.
Well officially I work for
the food and beverage division
of the health department.
That woman over there by the pool table
running in place is Joyce,
she's the angel of jugging,
and that good looking guy over
there hoggling her is Shawn,
he's the angel of dieting.
Ours is one of the few departments
that's actually expanding.
Right off the top of my head
I'm thinking, Robin Williams,
would be terrific as a
food and beverage guy,
do you remember how funny
he was in Mrs. Doubtliar.
Doubtfire.
And I'm afraid Mr.
Williams died a while back.
Oh.
Yeah.
You miss Variety one week,
you can never catch up.
Hello, what's your name.
Cyrus.
You have something to do with travel.
I've got everything to do with it.
And believe me it's not easy.
What with all the different
timezones, half the time
I don't know if I'm coming or going.
You travel by plane?
No, clouds.
Used to be the best way
to fly, slow, stress free,
you could really stretch out,
you could read on the way.
One trip I read all of Mark Twain,
got half way through Pruist.
What are your duties?
Cars and buses, jet
planes and helicopters,
motorcycles and roller blades.
And as if all that weren't
enough, cigarette boats,
parachutes and bungee
cords, it's all madness.
The trip itself used to be part and parcel
of the travel experience.
People used to voyage and journey.
The very words themselves
suggest an experience of self discovery,
people set sail, they cast
off, they even sally forth.
These days people's idea of a
trip is a ride at a carnival
that combines the west elements
of speed, noise and weightlessness.
Today travel is strictly
a matter of moving from point A to point B
and back to point A in as pointless a way
as mechanically possible.
If someone ever devises a
way to transport human beings
through noematic tubes,
he'll make a fortune.
The casting possible in it
is enough to make my head explode.
I mean this could be another
Around the World in 80 Days
because basically we've
got like, 14 or 15 cameos.
I mean nobody could try to
hold us up for 20 million
when they're only gonna be in the picture
for five or six minutes right,
everyone's gonna want in.
Would you mind
answering a few questions?
Not at all young man.
You seem to be enjoying
that magazine, what is it?
TV Guide.
It's my bible.
You understand that's
just a figure of speech.
You must really enjoy the articles,
I've never realized they were so funny.
I don't read the articles,
I read the listings.
When I read the little blurbs,
they remind of the episode.
Like I was just reading about
this episode of Frasier,
the one where Niles winds up setting fire
to Frasier's favorite couch (LAUGHS).
(MUMBLES)
You've memorized every
episode of Frasier?
I've memorized every
episode of every show.
Wow.
Yes, I believe that television
is the greatest invention of all time.
That's why I'm so proud
to be associated with it.
A lot of people regard it
as a terrible waste of time.
Well I think a lot of people
are a terrible waste of time.
BURT: What's the best
thing about being an angel?
It's a job.
Is it like being alive though?
Oh yeah, in some cases
it's all the way better.
We never have to punch a clock.
And what's the worst?
No paid vacations, no
bad mouthing management.
Can't you complain to anyone?
Of course, it's a god
given right to gripe,
unfortunately it's a right
that god reserves for himself.
You should hear him when he gets started.
You would think nothing ever
worked out the way he planned.
Really, like what?
You name it.
Sex.
Big mistake, total accident.
I mean Satan completely
blind-sighted him on that one.
The truth, I don't think
god's ever gotten over it.
How did god expect people
to reproduce without sex?
I mean let's face it Horace, without sex,
Adam would have been the
first man and the last man,
I mean surely god didn't
expect human beings
to be a mere footnote in
the history of the universe.
Actually he did.
Really.
Sure, if you ever run
into him, don't bring it up.
I mean learn from my bitter experience,
don't get him started.
According to Horace,
each of you has a specific
area of responsibility,
what's yours?
I'd rather not say.
Why not?
It's embarrassing.
Why don't I tell you something
embarrassing about myself,
then it's your turn.
Fair is fair, my middle name is Beagle,
my mother raised them.
Well you're right Beagle
boy, compared to that
my secret's pretty puny stuff.
I'm responsible for the fine arts.
What's so awful about that?
Just look around you.
In the blink of an eye the world has gone
from Bach and Beethoven to reggae and rap,
we've gone from Run Brand and Da Vinci
to pop art and graffiti,
think how that reflects on me.
How would you feel if
everyone held you responsible
for the fall of western civilization?
Do you have anything to do
with professional wrestlers
or log (MUMBLES)?
Well not directly but,
nobody I dear say is
immune to my influence.
Oh really?
Oh yes, I'm Lydia the angel of romance.
At least romance used to be my field.
Now of course it's faded
away like an old rose,
pressed between the pages of a diary.
It's really so sad.
Keltrastess, in olden
days, romance meant a lover
scaling walls, or slaying
dragons of one sort or another
and pledging himself to his true love.
Are you talking about chivalry,
isn't that a bit old fashioned.
And what sir is outdated
about eternal bliss?
What's uncomfortable about lovers
pledging their troth to one another?
Their what?
That's another thing,
people used to know what troth meant.
Now their lawyers hammer out pre-nuptials.
Once upon a time we had soulmates
and two hearts that beat as one.
Now they're significant others.
Men snooker about hooshers
and women giggle about butts.
How can romance flourish
when you treat one another
like so many interchangeable
body parts like Chevys
or the Colonel's Chicken.
BURT: Uncle Sydney.
I'm afraid not sunny
boy, my handle's Harry.
I did know an Uncle Sydney once
but he was my uncle, not yours.
It's just that you look so familiar.
I think I look a bit like
Ziegfeld, a little taller,
better looking with wings.
I'm thinking maybe George Clooney,
he's pretty cool isn't he.
Oh yeah very cool, he
also has very nice hair.
Again with the hair, just listen.
What is your job Harry.
What job don't I have, I've done it all.
Best of all I've done it my way.
I invented show business, it's my life,
or at least it would be if I had a life.
Before me, people knew there was something
missing in their lives
but they didn't know what.
They sat around for hours on end on rocks,
scratching and moaning.
Well how did you go about it.
Well I began with the women,
every night I'll get them to go up
to their husbands and say,
you never take me out, we
never do anything together.
Within a week, Harry,
the first entertainer,
was packing them in.
Doing what?
Harry used to throw 19 rocks
in the air at the same time.
And that's how we got joggling?
No that's how you got
dodging and ducking.
Joggling came along much later,
it involved three oranges.
My name is Minerva young man,
and my field of expertise,
if I might call it that
without appearing immodest, is athletics.
I would have never guessed.
Actually, I'm relatively new to the job.
Formerly, I was in charge
of what used to be known
as the social graces.
But there has been less and
less call for my services
until finally I was as
redundant as an appendix.
Well what happened?
I was hoping you would tell me.
All I know is that etiquette
used to be quite important,
and then one day it wasn't.
My name is Alexander,
please don't call me Alex.
You wouldn't possibly
know a 37 letter word
for Villeinage, would you?
No I don't.
I didn't expect you to.
Let me be so bold, you
seem a bit dispirited.
Certainly discouraged.
Not the crossword puzzle is it?
Hardly, the 'cause for my lethrege
is that for all intents and purposes,
I've been out of work for 60 years.
Well that's a problem.
What is it that you do or did?
My job was guiding geniuses.
Hence I've been unemployed
since April 18, 1955.
What happened on that date?
Einstein died.
BURT: I guess you're a happy angel.
Oh why is that? Do you
know something I don't?
Well I thought that
although romance and the arts
might have been going to the dogs
that you can't knock modern technology?
You can't, not if you
know what's good for you.
It could knock back and really hurt you.
You're not a fan of progress.
Do you realize they
now have a lethal gas
you can't see or smell.
With just two ounces,
you could wipe Southern
California off the map.
I see you're smiling.
Just visualizing.
Be that as it may, Mr. Wisenheimer,
my point is that one man's progress
is another man's poisoned gas.
What a very good point it is.
Where did we go wrong, how
could we have been so blind?
It wasn't our fault George.
We were darn fools.
We were no such thing,
we were idealists.
Why are you being so hard on yourselves?
Don't blame us, god knows we tried.
There there dear, I'm
sure the nice gentlemen
realizes that we did the best we can.
More is the pity.
Please excuse us, it's just
that when we started out,
we had such high hopes for the future,
we actually believed
there could be such things
as perfect nurturing parents.
And don't forget those
wonderful loving tots.
We believed in them too.
What is it that you do?
We oversee parenting.
Anyone could see our next subject
was trying to drown his
sorrows and possibly himself
at the rate he was
downing shots (MUMBLES),
it was as if he was trying to finish off
the work began decades earlier
by carrying nation (MUMBLES)
but instead of waging on boos
by shutting down distilleries
through the 18th amendment, or sing an ax
to break bar tops into kibbling,
he was on a one man mission to
deplete the entire bar stock.
What's your name?
Who told you to sit down?
You were sleeping.
Well wake me up next time, my name's Al,
actually it's, Aloicious Jailmally,
my friends call me Swifty,
at least that's what they used to call me
when I still had friends.
They died?
They did.
Any of them here.
I'm afraid not, none of my boys made it.
Actually I guess I'm lucky
to have snuck through.
You were a politician.
No, no no no, I was
what you call an arranger.
I helped arrange it for
other people to get elected.
And now?
Well my official duties
are to oversee politics,
but mainly what I do is overlook.
Overlook.
As an angel I try to guide them,
encourage them to do the right thing.
Did you ever hear such a
flap doodle in all your life.
We all want to have representatives
in congress and in the white house
that we can respect and look up to.
The only politician the
people should look up to
is the one that's
hanging from the gallows.
BURT: Finally a cheerful angel.
Well indeed I am,
do you suppose that's because I only deal
indirectly with humans?
Who do you deal with?
Why dogs of course.
Dogs.
Of course, why do
you sound so surprised.
I never imagined that poodles
would have their own angel.
Well isn't that like a human being,
to think that heaven is more
about them than their pets.
They're just poor dumb creatures.
Oh I know,
that's why we always try to
make allowances for people.
I was talking about the dogs.
I know.
What about Meryl Streep.
Oh what about her?
Is she alive?
Oh yes yes, she's alive.
She'd be terrific as a dog angel.
Yeah oh my, she's always terrific.
Basically, we'll be guaranteed
at least one Oscar nomination,
I mean the lady sneezes
and she gets nominated.
That is so true.
What do you do for relaxation?
Once in a while I do go rainbow sliding.
What's that like?
They're like those water
slides at the theme parks,
except we don't have to buy tickets
or stand in line all day.
Didn't even realize
they had TV in heaven.
It wouldn't be heaven without it.
The only problem is some
angels don't feel that way.
So I often have to mute it.
That must make it hard on you?
Fortunately I can read lips,
besides they're mostly re-runs,
so I've seen them before.
How many times have you
seen the Frasier episode
that you were just reading about.
Roughly 400 times
but it just keeps getting
better and better.
I guess it's because I'm getting to know
the characters so well.
I think I love Roz best of all.
What forms of entertainment
are most popular in heaven?
Usual things, Celetial
Quaz, Hop Concerts,
lots of re-runs of I Love Lucy.
What do you think of
the television medium?
Well to quote the
great arch-angel Frenal,
they call it a medium
because it's never done well.
What form of entertainment
do you enjoy the most.
Well in my book you
can't beat modern film.
I mean dog acts, Ventrocus,
Tumblers, Arge Comics,
German Comics, Sister
Acts, Barbershop, Quartets,
the whole razzmatazz,
before that all you had
was wandering minstrels and court jesters.
Give me a dog that dances
on its hind legs anytime.
Perhaps just well,
but how much real
satisfaction can there be
in overseeing the affairs of
creatures who pee on trees
and go pop.
And who are fearless,
loving, gentle and loyal
and who don't start wars,
lie, cheat or betray their friends,
whose simple goodness
and piety is an example for the saints,
and yet here you sit truly
astonished by the fact that,
we all have a special place
in our hearts for them,
see I find that totally astonishing.
And it may further shock you to know
that their place in heaven is secure
while the human race
is skating on thin ice.
I never imagined.
Well that's because it's
not their way to brag.
Here on earth even, when a dog
wins a race or a blue ribbon,
he doesn't hug the limelight,
he's very willing to share
the glory with his people.
So it's basically
been your responsibility
to wean us off of bark and onto burgers.
It's not as easy as it sounds.
You people talk about developing a taste
for olives and grand flakes
but can you imagine how long it took me
to convince the very first
person to try a lobster?
plus keep in mind that butter
hadn't been invented yet.
I bet it was even harder
to get us onto snails.
I got lucky on that one.
Butter or no butter,
at the rate those little
rascals reproduce,
if some French gardener
hadn't had a brainstorm
and decided to call them escargot,
you'd be buried in by now.
How'd you like to coax
someone into trying yogurt
before the stuff even had a name.
How'd you manage?
I found this lost soul
wandering in the Gobi Desert
for two weeks, dining
on sand in his sneakers.
Even at that, it took another
five days before he caved in.
And are you telling me that
there's no other geniuses.
Nothing much to speak off.
Find that hard to believe.
Of course you do.
That's because human beings
throw the word around
as recklessly as rice at a wedding.
By actual count in the
history of the world,
there have been nine geniuses.
But, if you believe say People Magazine,
they're as plentiful as
flees on a bloodhound.
Everyone who ever directed
a movie that turned a profit
or been a lawyer for a celebrity criminal
or made a financial killing on Wall Street
or made the cover of
People for that matter,
qualifies for their pantheon.
As it is, the last person
who actually saught creative
inspiration was Andy Warhol,
I'm afraid he misunderstood
when I told him
that to be a great artist,
he might have to eat
Campbell soup to survive.
If it has you so upset,
why don't you do something about it.
I am a muse and clearly you
are unaware of a muse's role.
What happened? Get all mused out?
It's you people.
You stopped wanting to
be divinely inspired,
writers stopped writing great novels
and started writing bad TV shows.
Composers lost interest in symphonies
and concentrated on jingles
selling soap and potato chips.
Architects stopped designing
cathedrals like Notre Dame
and started designing
towers like Notre Trump.
There used to be hundreds of
us in the Arts Department,
it was thrilling.
More than a mere job, it was a calling.
Every time you turned around,
voila, another masterpiece.
What happened?
What always happens.
Funding for the Arts dries up.
The usual cut backs take
place and here I am,
Helen, the lone surviving muse.
Every time I read
that chapter I break up.
Everything she says is so darn true.
Don't you realize she's
talking about people like you,
people who produce movies
like Wuthering Heights
and the Wild Women of Waterloo.
Of course I realize that,
that's why I had to make
the ultimate sacrifice
and sell my Monets and my
Susannies and my Dailies.
That's why I have to have
my name on Angels on Tap,
don't you understand?
I'm trying to save my soul.
Do you miss the old days?
I sure do.
If only we can turn the clock back.
Ever relaxing carriage rides, train trips,
long sea voyages, and on occasion,
an exhilarating gallop across the meadow.
Once in a great while, for a
refreshing change of scenery,
a scent in a hot hair balloon.
Today you get hit with
so many rushed jobs,
we're all on shooting stars.
I'll never forget the
day the wheel was invented.
There was such excitement.
Did they have any
idea what to do with it?
None whatsoever.
That's what made it so exciting.
Everyone sensed they
were onto something big
but they had no idea what.
Was it one person
who made the discovery.
Of course, it's always one person.
As soon as you get a
second person in the room,
all he'll do is tell the first
person to stop horsing around
and get a real job.
So who was it that discovered the wheel?
It was a guy named Benny.
He was just fooling around
one day with different shapes.
It's very fortunate he
finally came up with round.
What do you mean?
Well for the longest time
he got hung up on triangles.
Can you imagine driving around
on four steel rim triangles.
I guess you could say that
we were just a bunch of
general practitioners.
Back then, there wasn't a lot of trouble
that people could get into.
So, just as long as they
didn't mix it up with witches
and they remembered to say their prayers
30 or 40 times a day, the job was a sab.
What did it consist of?
Mostly hovering.
Hovering?
You've seen it in all
the pagans, like cat.
We hovered a lot.
Whenever anybody important
was born, there we were
hovering over him.
Likewise, when they died, I mean,
we'd show up at weddings and crucifixions
and most of your bigger shit takes.
Can you tell me about
some of the great painters you have known?
Well I hate to drop names but perhaps
you've heard of Michael Angelo.
I imagine he's one of
the greatest of them all.
Certainly the laziest.
How can you say that?
A lazy man painted the
ceiling of the Sistine Chapel?
He only took the job because
he could do it lying down.
Still it was a tremendous achievement,
didn't it take him four or five years.
Of course, that's
because he kept napping.
Anyone else would have had it
finished in two weeks tops.
Frankly, in all honesty, I have to admit,
I outdid myself that time.
How so?
Maybe you think it's easy being museful,
when every time you
come around, the artist
is 200 feet up in the
air, snoring like a bear.
I am amazed that you have
to oversee all the fine arts.
I would think that painters
alone would keep you happy.
Hoping mad.
Somewhere along the
line the art of painting
turned into the art of framing.
People put frames around
dots and drips and smudges
and the stuff sells for millions.
Without the fancy frames,
they're the sort of things
that parents of very young children
attach to their refrigerators
with little magnets.
You know our biggest mistake?
Was letting parents
keep the children around
even after the children
were bigger than they are.
It breaks down the natural order of things
when a parent gives a command
and the child is like, oh yeah,
who's gonna make me, or worst
of all, you and who else?
Sounds like you're
talking about teenagers.
Oh the awful T word, try not to say it.
It's a modern aberration you know.
Both the word and the thing itself,
they're an offense to mother nature.
Kind of like a butterfly
turning back into larvae.
But haven't we always had teenagers?
Of course not?
But how can it be avoided.
In those happier days there was simply
no such thing as a teenager.
You went straight from being
an adorable little six year
old to a very short coal miner.
I always say there's nothing
like a 16 hour work day
to keep the young tikes out of mischief,
if you know what I mean.
BURT: What are your duties?
Well let's just say if
it weren't for Old Wully,
people would still be gnashing on twigs,
grass and small rodents.
When you put it that way,
I guess I owe you a pretty large debt.
I'd say so.
Though I actually feel mice
were considered delicacies
until just recently.
Heck fella, it wasn't that
long ago that you folks
gobbled up acorns like
they were bear nuts.
Well what has changed?
It was decided that there
weren't enough differences
to distinguish human beings
from owls and bears and wild boars
and that perhaps diet might
be an area worth exploring.
Who was the greatest genius.
Well that's easy, it was Ag.
Never heard of him.
Of course you didn't,
for one thing he never
made the cover of People
and for another he was quite
a while before your time,
several million years before.
What made him such a genius?
He invented the alphabet.
That's quite an accomplishment.
It was even better before he
caved in to outside pressure.
What happened?
He had a wife who
thought she was creative.
Q, X and Z were her ideas.
So Ag compromised.
Well it was either that
or sleep outside with the Tyrannosaurus.
Genius is a demanding mistress
but it's nothing compared to a pushy wife.
I had a wife like Ag's.
In what way?
Pushy.
Mrs. Bachman number one.
And that divorce cost me
almost as much as this book,
but it was money well spent.
How so?
It taught me that marrying someone
just because they look good on your rom
is a lousy reason to get married.
Much better to go out and buy something
that looks good on your wall.
Like a Suzani.
Yeah.
When did things start
to go downhill for you?
After Edison.
I'd have to say it stopped being fun.
You admired Edison?
He flabbergasted me.
He had a brain on him the
size of a bowling ball.
They say the legs are the first to go,
but if you got a brain like Edison's,
it's the neck.
I take it that you've
been on a first name basis
with some of the biggest
brains in history.
Is there any one moment
that stands out for you?
No.
Come on, there must be something.
I mean the supper where Socrates
expanded on the meaning of love,
the day Shakespeare
drafted Hamlet's Soliloquy,
Isaac Newton's discovery of gravity.
What you think, Newton
was one of the nine?
Well I assumed.
The man was just lucky he
fell asleep under an apple tree.
If it had been a palm tree,
a coconut could have fallen on his head.
And let me tell you,
fella gets beaten by one of those babies,
his big concern isn't
with the laws of nature,
it's his health insurance.
Still, he discovered gravity.
He didn't discover it,
all he did was name it.
What, you think he was the first person
who ever noticed things didn't fall up?
One idea that really knocked
me for a loop was the car.
I still can't get over it.
You mean the internal combustion engine.
Oh good gracious no.
That's just noisy and messy.
I mean what made the fellow plunge ahead?
How could he possibly imagine that others
were going to invent paved roads,
signals, street lights,
speed bumps, gas stations,
tow trucks, and those big fuzzy dice,
just to accommodate his
nutsy notion, what an ego.
With an ego that enormous, you half expect
to see a bunch of guys named Lars
climbing up and planting a flag on it.
I imagine that you've met
all the greatest artists that ever lived.
I knew them all, except for Roca.
Who is Roca?
He was the first one
to do cave drawings.
By the time I realized it
was art and not vandalism,
it was too late to meet him.
Why, what happened?
A dinosaur ate him for breakfast.
And so art criticism was born.
Who was the first professional comedian?
The first professional
comedian was Henry Youngfellow
but his career didn't last long.
Every other line out of his mouth was,
Pretty, taketh thee my wife.
I always thought that court
jesters lived by their wits?
In a sense they did.
Their job, you see, was
to fall down laughing
every time the king made a joke.
The louder the laughed,
the longer they lived.
That's why people started thinking
that laughing was good for your health.
Weren't any of the jesters funny?
Well some laughed
funnier than the others.
But even the jester known
as Agus the Hilarious,
never had a better line than,
she is no lady, she is Lord
Hashford's wife (LAUGHS).
Who do you regard as
the greatest romantics?
One who readily comes
to mind is Shah Jahan
who built the Taj Mahal as a mausoleum,
when his wife, the lovely
Mumtaz Mahal passed away.
Well the Taj Mahal
was a heck of a gesture.
But nothing compared to the Taj Shirley.
The Taj Shirley,
never heard of that one?
It was the house that Shah Jahan
had to build for his second wife
when she got a gander at the
tomb he built for number one.
As Shirley put it, and rightly
so if you want my opinion,
that woman's living better than me,
and she's dead.
The place must have been spectacular.
Oh my yes.
Not only was it twice
as big as the Taj Mahal,
but the reflecting pool was indoors.
Say what you will about Shirley,
she definitely knew what she wanted.
Which invention impressed you the most?
Where to start?
There are so many you couldn't count.
The safety pin was a real doozy.
Very simple but a real money maker,
and baseball cleats were another.
Without the cleats,
nobody would have ever
gotten to first base.
Half way there, they'd fall down.
It's a very slippery game baseball.
Without the cleats, it
would have been ice skating.
The escalator is a snappy idea.
And the juicer is a pip.
Nothing I enjoy more in the morning
than a nice fresh glass of orange juice.
Do you like orange juice?
Sure.
Everybody does.
But do you ever go to
a park and see a statue
of the smart guy who made it all possible?
And what about the fellow
who invented popcorn?
I never thought of
popcorn as an invention.
It doesn't exactly grow on
trees but technically speaking
you're right, popcorn's
always been around.
But it wasn't always food.
It was packing material.
In fact, it was a guy with a
warehouse full of this stuff
who made it all possible.
One night he sat up in bed and shouted,
butter and salt.
Scared his wife half to
death, but he made millions.
And that's where you got the saying,
one man's packing material
is another man's snack.
I think you may need
this more than I do,
oh yeah never mind, I don't
want you to have that.
Now now listen, what made
the old days bearable
were the bosses.
But weren't they all corrupt,
I mean surely you don't long
for the return of Tammany Hall.
These days the people have
to bribe the politicians
to get anything done.
In the old days the politicians
would bribe the people.
Two bucks per vote, if you
voted for the right party.
On election day a go
getter could really score.
He could get himself 10 bucks, 10 bucks.
Now that'd feed family
of four, for a week.
Surely you don't think life was better
back in those dark ages do you?
It was if you were a parent.
You're too young to
remember I suppose but,
there was a time when
youngsters were grateful
to find an apple in
their Christmas stocking.
I should say so.
They were grateful for the stocking.
It's the thought that counted.
When do you think things
started falling apart?
When parents started giving
their kids spending money.
And the car keys.
Cable.
Store bought clothes.
Their own phones, their own beds.
Their own opinions.
Their own bathrooms, and
one thing led to another.
Their own bathrooms.
Yeah that's right mister.
They began feeling entitled
to the modern luxuries of life
and they hadn't done anything to earn it.
They didn't milk the cows
or till the South 40.
They didn't even take out the trash
or bring in the newspaper.
Or say thank you for all that matter.
And still their parents
went on treating them
like little Dalai Lamas.
But at least teenagers
now have a sense of their own worth.
An overinflated sense you mean.
Why do you think people
persist in having children?
The perpetuation of the human race.
For their pelts.
For their pelts.
What do you consider the
biggest problem with air travel?
Leg room.
People keep getting taller and
seats keep getting smaller.
Do you see a solution?
Oh sure, but it will first mean
soaking passengers in olive oil.
What's the best thing
about being an angel?
We get to sneak in
all the movies for free.
What's the worst?
The movies.
Who would have known that the movies
would catch on the way they did?
I mean I just thought it was a novelty,
a fad, like the yo-yo.
I thought when Mary
Pickford hung up her coals,
it would all blow over.
Seems like just yesterday,
you paid a nickel
and saw eight acts that
would knock your socks off,
not to mention, chorus girls
with meat on their bones.
Now you pay 10 bucks to watch Jim Carry
make faces for two hours.
Why is it, if travel is so much bother,
people still insist on taking trips?
I myself blame it on the movies.
I don't see the connection.
In the movies they don't show you
any of the bad or boring parts of travel.
People in the movies never spend six hours
going through customs
and they never strip search
because they look a tiny bit
like a fugitive terrorist.
In the movies people never
get sick from the water.
Their hotel rooms are
always ready and waiting
and the telephone always works.
In the movies people spend all
their time falling in love,
not trying to track
down their lost luggage.
The clinture though is that in the movies,
people can spend their
entire holidays in Rome,
eating pasta and drinking
wine and never gain an ounce.
And when you get right down to it,
the worst thing that ever
happened to tourists in the movies
was that they got seduced
by Rossano Brazzi.
Now that you mention it,
he did pop up in an awful
lot of those movies.
The man did more for the travel industry
than honey roasted peanuts
and drownmin combined.
Do you have a favorite show?
Wouldn't that be like asking a mother
if she has a favorite child?
Each in its own way is special.
But just between us, I must confess,
I have a special soft spot for quiz shows.
Really, why do you think that is?
I believe it must be because
they're so educational.
Some people actually believe
TV destroys brain cells.
I wouldn't want to sound judgmental,
but those people don't
have two brain cells
to rub together if you ask me.
I must say for someone in the love game,
you don't seem to have your heart in it.
Don't you believe in your own product?
Of course I do, but
you people are hopeless.
Lust has long replaced love
as the governing emotion
and romance has given way to pornography.
Why wouldn't I be a pessimist?
I truly believed the world
sought what I had to offer.
Now the scales fell from my eyes
and I see the tunnel at
the end of the light.
Is there nothing that can be done?
Well I can't speak for
everyone but I managed to get by
renting Casa Blanca.
And Now Voyager every few months
and a little white wine never hurts.
Tell me, who thought up applause.
No one thought it up,
it was an accident really.
You see, in the beginning,
when people liked a performer,
they stayed quiet.
The more they liked it,
the quieter they were.
Then one night, some musician
was making music with rocks
and mosquitoes the were
driving everyone nuts.
People were slapping themselves so hard,
made such a racquet you
couldn't hear the music.
But the musician kept on playing.
So in one fell swoop
you got rock and roll,
applause and encores.
Is there any one
person whose contribution
seems to be greater than all the rest?
Absolutely.
Henry Ford, the Wright Brothers.
H.G. Wells.
Why H.G. Wells? What
did he do for travel.
He dreamed up the time machine.
A person sat at home in a chair
and time did all the traveling.
You wanted to go somewhere
you flipped a dial and it came to you.
The next best was Gutenberg.
The Gutenberg who
invented the printing press.
There was another Gutenberg?
But what's the printing
press got to do with travel.
After Gutenberg, if
people suddenly decided
they wanted to go visit Timbuktu
they could read about it first.
After 20 pages they got bored,
they could put the book down
and they were home.
No packing, no catching
the next plane out,
no worrying about the city flyers.
Some people say travel is broadening.
Sure and some people like cannibals,
there's no accounting for taste.
As someone once pointed out,
if travel were all that broadening,
stewardesses and buzz (MUMBLES)
wouldn't be the smartest people on earth.
I probably shouldn't
tell tales out of school,
but the possibility of pulling
the plug on the human race
has been discussed more than once.
No.
Yes, yes.
The ones that were in favor of it
thought that it would be
more merciful in the long run
because of the damage
they're doing to the planet
and the other inhabitants.
But it never came up to a final vote
because the dogs went to bat for you.
I don't know why, heaven
knows they have a soft spot
in their hearts for people.
It may sound like so
much bow wow to you sir,
but it was only their eloquence
that saved your bacon.
Gee.
Gee indeed.
The only thing they haven't
been able to figure out is,
why, if they're your best friends,
the way you always claim they are,
why so many of you insist
on paling around with cats.
Don't look at me, I'm allergic.
Ms. Mary.
MARY: Yes.
You wouldn't happen to know
a little Schnauzer named
Whiskers would you?
Yes I do.
It took me weeks to heaven
break that little dickens,
but he was worth it, he's a love.
Would you tell him that I said hello.
My pleasure.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
Remember when the reporter
was talking about his dog.
Yeah.
That could have been me.
You had a Schnauzer named Whiskers.
Not exactly.
You had a dog named Whiskers?
Not exactly.
Did you even have a dog?
Not exactly.
My dad didn't like dogs.
I had an invisible friend named Lenad.
But I couldn't have loved him any more
if he had four feet and a tail.
What happened to him.
One day he chased a ball into the street
and he got hit by a car.
I still miss him.
He'd be 52 years old today
if he didn't stop to scratch himself.
Who came up with the idea
of eating three meals a day.
The English.
In the 14th century,
there were two princes.
Harold the fat and Bertrum the Bulimic.
Harold felt that five meals
a day was just about right.
While his brother Bertrum
argued that one was quite sufficient,
especially if you didn't swallow.
Before a war broke out
between the two factions,
their father, Arnold the Moderate,
worked out a compromise.
It was Arnold who gave meals their names.
Breakfast was so called
because it broke a fast.
And dinner was named
after the bell they rang
when it was time to eat.
And lunch?
Named after the Duke of Lunch.
The man who said, just because
it's too late for breakfast
and too early for dinner,
doesn't mean we've gotta starve.
I suppose people simply
decided that it simply
didn't matter which fork they used.
The tricky part was getting people
to use forks in the first place
for something besides
scratching their back.
But why were the rules
of etiquette so elaborate?
So that people could relax,
knowing exactly how to behave
in every social situation.
Is there nobody these days
that you think even has a spark if genius.
The pickings are awfully slim
but I suppose if I had
to come up with one name,
it would be Oprah.
Oprah Winfrey is a genius.
Let me put it to you
that turning lead into gold
used to be considered a big deal.
This woman managed to turn
drivel into two billion dollars.
I think even Ag would have been impressed.
Who else comes to mind
when you think of the great romantics?
Norman Couperman, makes
right there up at the top.
What did he do?
It's what he didn't do.
During World War II, PFC Couperman
got to see Marlana Ditrig
at the Hollywood canteen.
She kissed him on the cheek
and he never again washed his face.
Now that's what I call romantic.
It's not very hygienic.
Well that's true.
But should I remind you
romance isn't for sissies.
Look at Van Gogh, for
love he gave up an ear.
And Edward you may recall,
even gave up the throne of England.
If it doesn't come at enormous sacrifice,
it's not romance dear boy,
it's just dating.
Obviously you've seen them all,
but who would you say is
the greatest entertainer
who ever lived.
It's hard to put a finger on one person.
I mean did Will Rogers
play the musical saw?
Did Fanny Brace Juggle?
If Gallagan Sheen tap danced, I missed it.
Did Gipsy Rose Lee do impressions?
Who cares, now if you
wanted the loudest voice,
that would be Carooser, the
guy had lungs like watermelons.
The funny thing about Carooser though
he could never whistle.
When he tried to whistle
it'd sound like he had
crackers in his mouth.
That's why the guy never owned
a dog, you can look it up.
Now if it's whistling you wanted,
then you had the choice
between Widama's Birds
and Al Johnson.
Even that was a toss up.
I mean Johnson had more range.
But the birds were Husbrock.
In your opinion who was
the greatest of them all,
was it Garbo, Tracy, Gabel or Herper.
In my opinion, the best of the bunch,
the one who impressed me the
most was Esther Williams.
Esther Williams?
Who else, that broad was a big star,
never got out of the pool.
You think that was easy?
You try doing a performance
in eight feet of water.
The Chlorine alone could kill you.
And that made her greater
than say Sir Lawrence Livia.
There was no comparison.
He acted in the west end you noticed.
But never in the deep end.
How was it decided
that you of all angels
would have been assigned to sports.
Well I don't know for certain.
But I would venture
that they looked around
for something else
that had lots of rules governing conduct.
Rules after all, are my meat.
Do you oversee all areas of sports
including basketball and football?
Oh, so you can still
distinguish between the two.
You really must be paying close attention.
But to answer your question though,
basically all physical activity
asides from sex and channel surfing
falls within my domain.
I'm not questioning your qualifications,
well actually I guess I am
questioning your qualifications.
You just don't strike me as a jock.
I suppose that's why I got the job,
they were looking for
a civilizing influence.
What has been your
greatest single challenge?
Actually there are two.
The first was artichokes.
Took me over a thousand years
to figure out how to eat em.
But the real toughy was alcohol.
The stuff tasted awful, it smelled worse
and it played tidly winks
with the old kidneys.
All that being the
case, why'd you bother?
Just because it made us laugh
when you folks would get drunk
and start arguing politics and religion.
Even if I grant that
running for political office
can be a pricey enterprise,
surely that's money donated
with no strings attached.
The lobbyist doesn't walk
around with a bag full of money.
They advise where to invest this money
and that senator gets to
vote on getting it done.
What about the ones
who already have money?
Nobody ever seems to have enough money.
You don't see Bill Gates
picking up his pension check do you?
You make it sound so tawdry.
The fact remains that no
matter how poor a guy is
when he first gets elected,
by the time he retires, he's wealthy
and all because he knows
how to vote on the job.
Sounds to me like the real
problem is the lobbyists.
He's just providing a public service.
The question is why should anyone
give a contribution to a candidate
unless he expects to get
it back a thousand fold.
And yet some people do.
I've contributed to a
few political campaigns.
I mean, I wasn't expecting any favors,
I just felt the candidate
would have best represented my concerns.
There's a word for people like you.
Responsible citizen.
Sucker.
Would you agree that
nothing beats organized sports
for turning young boys into real men.
I'm just a little old lady angel,
so what do I know of such matters.
Still, it always struck
me as a whee bit odd
that organized athletics
called for 30 to 40 robust
young men to shower together,
when everyone knows that's the main reason
10% of them join the
team in the first place.
Looking back over your career,
who are some of the other
artists that stand out.
Picasso was almost as
cute as he thought he was.
Dali, crazy as a poodle.
Remprant never took a bath.
Wooslier was a mama's boy.
And the biggest pain in the
neck was that Botticelli.
Why was that?
He's the one who insisted
on painting us angels
in those sappy robes and the big halos.
The flowing ribbons and all the
rest of that silly faldural.
But you're not dressed that way now.
That's because we're not working.
When we're on the job, we
have to be in full regalia,
it's how people expect to see us,
all because of his goofy paintings.
The man wasn't an artist,
he was a costume designer
with a paint brush.
If we showed up not looking
the way he painted us,
people assumed we were just ghosts
or the end result of too many dry martinis
but if we appeared looking
like something whipped up
by a French pastry chef,
people took us seriously.
Did Botticelli become
an angel when he died?
Why do you ask?
I just thought it would be very ironic
if he himself wound up having
to spend all of eternity
looking like a piece of wedding cake.
Yes, I suppose that
would have been ironic but,
ol' Botticelli didn't
exactly get his wings,
what he got were his just desserts.
What happened to him?
He's busting tables at the cafe limbo.
I bet he wishes he stuck to landscapes.
Too late now.
What ol' Botticelli didn't get I'm afraid,
is that angels don't
get irony, we get even.
I was wondering whatever
happened to Christopher,
the one who used to be the
patron saint of travelers?
Ever since the demotion,
he was plenty bitter.
Only time he'd even leave the house
was in the middle of the night
when he'd run out to airports
and mix up people's luggage.
So he is the one.
Yes but he's okay now.
Ever since he and the Mrs, got cable,
he seems satisfied to stay at home
and watch old travel logs.
Well in the old days after
all, things were pretty brutal.
With the Mayans, the loosing
athletes were sacrificed
to appease the, you should
excuse the expression, gods.
These days, if worse comes to worse,
they get traded to Milwaukee.
There are those who feel
that winning is everything,
are you one of those people?
Hardly, I am firmly of the
opinion that it doesn't matter
if you win or loose, it's
how you play the game,
unless of course you're an ancient Mayan.
Who are some of the
great chefs you've known?
At the top of the list
Charles of the Ritz,
famous for his toasted cheese sandwich.
He invented it?
No, but he did perfect it.
He was the guy who first burnt the cheese
around the edge a little.
The man was genius.
There are people who claim
it is immoral for us to eat meat,
do you agree?
That's really not my area.
The way I look at it, if
it tastes good, eat it.
You're saying morality
doesn't enter into it?
Keep in mind that,
what appears to be a question of morality
is very often only a matter of geography.
Cows are held to be sacred in some places,
in some dogs are considered snacks.
Or take bugs, in one
country they're pests,
in another they're protein.
When you start talking morality,
you get into a big gray
area, for instance,
there are definitely those,
and I count myself among them,
who saw it as a giant step,
up the evolutionary ladder,
when people started eating mutton
and gave up dating it.
I don't know if this comes under
the category of air travel,
but I am curious about one thing?
Don't ask, I still don't understand
how frequent flyer miles work.
No, it's those people who
you read about all the time,
that get hit by trains,
they can't all be committing suicide.
I have a newsflash for you.
None of them is committing suicide.
Then how do they get themselves killed,
I mean a train doesn't sneak up on you,
a train for god's sakes is
bigger than a herd of elephants,
louder than a teenager's boom box
and they can't jump off the
tracks and chase you down,
so how does it happen that
trains kill more people
than disgruntled postal employees
and botulism put together.
Does the number 49 have
any significance for you?
Bill O'Reilly's hat size?
Close, but no cigar. No.
That's the average IQ of people
who get run over by choo choos.
In the wild kingdom it's
referred to as thinning the herd.
Do you have a favorite sport?
Professional wrestling,
nobody gets hurt.
Which sport was the worst?
Christians Versus The Lions.
Even the bookies didn't
care much for that one.
What's the strangest
sport you've ever seen?
Without a doubt, that would
have to be early Water Polo.
Really, why is that?
It took them a while to figure out
it just wouldn't work with horses.
Finally, Ms. Minerva,
if you weren't in charge of sports,
what job would you like to have.
Well lately,
I've been thinking of
giving real estate a whirl.
What would you do in real estate?
First I'd send Donald
Trump to Milwaukee.
BURT: Do you have hope for the future?
Of course I do, why wouldn't I?
Sometimes I worry,
that technology is moving too fast for us
and that, I worry that
it will do away with us.
No matter how big the
machinery or how intelligent
or how powerful, that will never happen.
At least not so long as
we remember one thing.
And that is that we were
created in god's image
and that there's a spark of immortality
in each and every one of us.
No, the one thing we mustn't ever forget
is to always include an off switch.
When the next pair of
angels stood before him,
he looked around, and he realized,
they were the last angels left.
He tried to figure out
what their roles were but,
what was left?
The angels of medical mal-practice?
The angels of insurance injustice.
The angels of small household appliances.
In the end he was to learn,
that not only do cocker
spaniels and chihuahuas
have higher standing in
heaven than we humans,
but so do toaster ovens
and electric blankets.
How have things changed over the years.
Well we've certainly had to adapt.
To go along with the flow as it were.
Along the way we found the need to expand
to include philosophy,
mythology, dietary law.
And don't forget military
strategy and medieval torches.
It's certainly been a
broadening experience.
Yeah, I'm sure you could have guessed
but it was getting late
and he had quite an evening.
That's why he was rather taken aback
when Julie and John told him
that their arena was religion.
Yeah yeah yeah, sure
you would have guessed.
Right, have it your way.
I'm sure you also would
have guessed that Mary
was the dog angel.
Well in the old days there
were very few religions,
nothing fancy.
Truth is, if all of the services
had been conducted in Latin,
then you would have closed your eyes,
you'd never know where you were.
Yeah. But you know how people are.
Complicated.
Well, let's just say not too bright.
So before you could say
Moses and the bull rushes,
there were more religions,
cults, sects and covens
than you could shake a stick at.
Tempted as you might be.
They just sprang up like toad stores.
It seems like every
time you turned around,
there was people speaking
in tongues and channeling
and reading backwards,
twirling around in circles,
playing with snakes.
What's religion like in heaven,
I mean do you go to church,
does god give sermon?
No.
Why not?
We don't need it.
The main point of religion
is to remind people that god exists.
We don't need reminding god exists.
And if you need reminding,
try turning your stereo on
sometime after midnight.
If you could tell people
one thing, what would it be?
I think people should remember
that although god answers all prayers.
Sometimes they have to
accept that the answer is no.
The only thing wrong with people,
is they keep on asking questions,
long after they've been provided
with all the answers they'll ever need.
You mean the 10 commandments?
Yeah.
The trouble with most
people, if you ask me,
is that they seem to think
that there are six commandments
and four suggestions.
John, Julie, there's one
thing that I have to ask.
Of course.
You wouldn't be human if you didn't ask.
God, what's he like?
The waitress.
God looks like a waitress.
God is the waitress.
God is the waitress.
Hey guys, I didn't just
fall off the turnup truck.
Suit yourself, but that's the truth.
If you don't believe us, just ask her.
If she is god, then
I'm a monkey's uncle.
Close enough.
Come on honey, let's call it a night.
SAMMY: Now we get to my favorite part.
Prelutsky doddled.
I love that word, couldn't
you see him doddling.
He's worried that John and
Julie are playing a joke on him
and he doesn't want to embarrass himself
by asking an old woman if she's god.
But how could he resist.
I mean, as Prelutsky writes,
what could it hurt on a night
where I've already met
a room full of angels
to ask an elderly waitress if she's god?
I'm yet to meet a waiter
in the Jewish (MUMBLES)
who wasn't half convinced he was god.
So what did he have to loose?
I don't mean to be rude,
but those two told me that you were god.
So, what's the question.
My question is, are you her?
By her, do you mean me?
Well I do, if you're her.
Well if I'm not, then who is?
So you really are her.
So help me, me.
Are you telling me that god
is waiting tables in crummy bar?
I've seen worse.
In fact, right at this moment,
I am sweeping up a cafe
in downtown Beirut,
makes this place looks like Versailles.
That's not the point.
God waiting tables in a
bar, that's outrageous.
You're right, I suppose,
and to tell you the truth
a little hard on my feet
but, I soak em good when I get home.
But it's honest work,
we got a nice clientele,
and I get Sunday's off.
What was that all about.
Oh, you noticed I left.
Wasn't I supposed to.
That was a darn good trick.
I must be slowing down.
It used to be, I could be
everywhere all at the same time.
Where were you just now?
A giant comet just crashed into Siberia.
Comets, volcanoes, tidal waves,
I just love all that stuff.
What are you doing here?
Mostly staying in
touch with my workforce.
Like a CEO who is lunching
at the company cafeteria?
That's the idea,
it shows that you're just one of the gang.
It's supposed to boost morale.
I read all about that in a book
about modern management techniques,
oh and I just joined a bowling league,
I can't tell you how hard it
is for me not to throw strikes.
Speaking of books.
How would you suggest I go
about getting published.
I heard about all those hot shot writers
that tried and failed,
and if they couldn't get
published, how can I?
Frankly, I wouldn't mind
a little positive publicity.
Lately, the only time I
see my name is in print,
is when Time Periodicals
announces my demise
or some crazy cult leader
says that he has me on hold.
What do you think I should do?
When you write your
book, you give me holler,
I'll make a few calls.
You know people in the book business?
I wrote a bestseller you know.
I forgot.
So did they.
I'm still waiting for
my first royalty check.
Oh, by the way, your car is ready now.
ROBERT: I have to admit
that is quite the tale.
SAMMY: Now you understand why this book
is so important to me.
ROBERT: I guess I do.
Look, I know I'm a joke.
I've owned paintings,
and I don't even know how to
say the names of the artists.
But that doesn't mean I didn't
appreciate their beauty,
believe me, wallpaper would
have been a whole lot cheaper.
But I love beautiful things,
and I want Angels to be a beautiful movie.
Good luck.
Sometimes, I know this
is gonna sound nuts,
but sometimes I feel like my mom
was standing as close to me as you are
and she's been gone for nearly 20 years.
She is the real reason I bought this book.
So I could dedicate the movie to her.
She is the real reason that I
know that angels really exist.
She'd like that.
(SOFT MUSIC)
Well it was nice meeting you.
Thank you.
Peace.
From your mouth to my ear.
(SOFT ORCHESTRAL MUSIC)
(BRIGHT MUSIC)