Smurftastic Imagination

Writing in The A.V. Club, Keith Phipps explores the outer limits of fan fiction, surveying such minority fanfic tastes as The Smurfs (which inspired a "sprawling trilogy [that] follows Hefty Smurf on an epic journey that spans several centuries") and ALF ("'ALF's Christmas Carol' opens with ALF pondering what he would do with an ice-cream machine"). On a related note, to read the Xena fiction of Reason's own Cathy Young, go here, and to enjoy Tim Cavanaugh's tales of Ronald Reagan, go here. And it's been far too long since I last linked to those stories about wrapping Roy Orbison in clingfilm.

Comments

[drf]

Jesse,

I mean Ulrich...

Fan-fucking-tastic. HILARIOUS.

for one with this sense of humor, might I recommend the site of Lumpy, Chirpy, Petunia, and Handy, the Happy Tree Friends.
happytreefriends.com
(i'm not afiliated with that site at all)

May your path be paved with wonderful, clean noam chomsky blow up dolls. And may the pavement be smooth. the beers cold. and the clingwrap be plentiful. plentitude.

[Sandy]

Be sure to check out the musical adaptation of the Roy Orbison Clingfilm piece.

[Warren]

it's been far too long since I last linked to those stories about wrapping Roy Orbison in clingfilm.

Jebus Jesse, I can't remember the last time I saw something that ... uh, that, ummm ... nitchy kitchy.

[NoStar]

Anyone interested in my fan fiction fantasies involving Smurfette, Wonkette, Virginia Postrel, myself, a large rubber sheet, and a gallon of non-fat mayonaise?

[smacky]

Ewww....non-fat mayonnaise.

[drf]

NoStar:

provided it's not miracle whip, you're on. might i recommend some socially responsible, no sodium, all natural peanut butter from whole paycheck - errrrr - whole foods?

then it could be great. then we could get Thoreau to get out his FozzieBear costume from the muppets, and Stevo can can tell his series of stories when he went seven days disguised as a rutabega living in a ramada inn...

[NoStar]

How about my fan fiction fantasies of cling wrapping myself, smacky and Jennifer. No mayo, but plenty of non fat strawberry-banana yogurt.

[Tom Crick]

"Tim, now I know why you never believed the one about Rod Stewart and the gallon of spooge."

What, are you sayin' that story wasn't true?

[smacky]

then we could get Thoreau to get out his FozzieBear costume from the muppets, and Stevo can can tell his series of stories when he went seven days disguised as a rutabega living in a ramada inn...

And I thought my posts were fucked up! That is some weird, crazy shit, drf. Color me impressed.

[drf]

LOL, Smacky.

what do you think NoStar's thing with non fat items is... hmmmmmmm. 🙂

hey - we hung out at the Chicago event - it shouldn't be all that surprising 🙂

[Eric the .5b]

In my blinkered opinion, no discussion of fanfic is complete without a mention of THE WITNESS. It's something from around 1994 that you'll have to scour Google to find, but I found it the most laugh-out-loud piece of fanfic that's ever been pushed in my face - a crossover between every current or recently-cancelled genre TV show (at the time) that was set in the present time.

Amateurishly written, but audacious and often intentionally funny.

[NoStar]

Re: NoStar's thing with non fat items.

A man my age must be careful as to what he puts in his mouth.

[Xmas]

Man, I hate to say it, but I've "appeared" in some FanFic.

http://www.eyrie-productions.com/UF/CORE/uf2.txt

[JD Mcoy]

Smurfs fetishes are one thing but Virginia Postrel??..pppplease..

[JD Mcoy]

Hey..but Wonkette though - now she's a cutie..guess I always had a thing for smarty redheads..

[Shem]

Wow. I was going to write some smarty comment about how people actually write Minesweeper fanfiction, but after reading that sordid little exchange, I think I need to go pour acid on my eyeballs.

[NoStar]

Shem, wait until you read of my fan fiction trysts with Supreme Court Justicettes Sandra and Ruth. Some like bad girls, others like bader girls.

[Stevo Darkly]

bader girls -- LOL.

I only skimmed one story so far, but the "Roy Orbison wrapped in clingwrap" site is hilarious.

(Put that under "Top 10 sentences I would never have imagined saying today when I got up this morning.")

Stevo can can tell his series of stories when he went seven days disguised as a rutabega living in a ramada inn

But to be real "fanfiction," it has to be set in the milieu of an existing media product, of course, like Sliders or Saved by the Bell. Or Star Trek. Make it a Romulan rutebega residing in a Ramada.

Not that I can really say anything ... once I did a series of erotic Star Wars fanfics for a kinda-friend that I would hate to see by light of day. The fact that I wove libertarian philosophy into the expository passages between the kinky scenes just made it even geekier.

And hey, JD -- ain't nothing wrong with Virginia Postrel. Don't make me come over there.

(ignites lightsaber; advances with steely glint in eye)

Now I have to go; I promised my beta-reader I'd have a draft of my smacky/Jennifer Baywatch fic ready by tonight.
I just got an idea for a non-con mayo scene in the boathouse.

[Jeff P.]

I will state for the record that I wrote both Star Trek and Space: 1999 fanfic back in the late 70s.
I also wrote a bit where the drifting moon encounters the survivor fleet from Galactica, and the Moonbase Alphans hitch a ride back to Earth, where they find it's been overrun by sentient apes. I still have my Best Crossover Award from a convention FanFic competition somewhere around here.
The 1999 fan club I was in published a monthly zine for four years, and we had original fiction every month. Gerry Anderson was so impressed with the effort we made that the first (and only) Space Con was held in Springfield Ma in 1981 and we were selected to run it. We had Sarah Douglas and Barry Morse there, as well as a LOT of spacesuits, ship models and puppets from Thunderbirds and Captain Scarlet on loan directly from Gerry Anderson. It was fanboy heaven.
About five years ago I pondered a Gremlins/ Predator crossover, but never followed through...

[mediageek]

For maybe the second time in my life, I feel like I am not on the right side of the geek-level bell curve.

You have no idea how weird that feels.

[Stevo Darkly]

Jeff P., I am in awe.

I cannot possibly outgeek you, but I feel the need to shore up my geek credentials.

My younger brother used to play a board/role-playing game called "Car Wars" by Steve Jackson Games. It's set in a future a little bit like the Mad Max/Road Warrior movies, but with a bit more advanced technology and more-recovered society. I used to read the background materials.

And I once wrote an essay trying to rationalize the economy implied by the game, and sold it (for about $20) to Autoduel Quarterly, the publication for "Car Wars" enthusiasts. It was the closest I've ever come to selling a work of science fiction.

(The essay was recently posted to the Web in all-but-unreadable yellow-on-black type. Please note that I wrote it way back in the 1980s, and don't pick on me if the historical references are wrong or simpleminded, since my primary source was my mom's copy of the Britannica Jr. encyclopedia, 1945 edition. [The article on World War II doesn't tell how it ends.])

[Umbriel]

Well reasoned, Stevo. I ran a Car Wars role-playing game once, but improvised it before all of the background material had been published, so it more closely resembled The Road Warrior with lasers rather than the more elaborate science fiction it became.

My own gripe with the setting was with all the "braintaping" stuff, which didn't seem like it conferred anything like immortality. While having a clone with memories matching your own to take your place when you're gone might appeal to a lot of little league parents, it seemed to have more benefits for governments and corporate boards of directors than for individuals. I'm just as dead regardless of my offspring's free will or lack thereof.

[Jeff P.]

Stevo, I think I remember your article. My friend and I did Car Wars for a summer.

[Akira MacKenzie]

It showcases plenty of fanfic for Buffy The Vampire Slayer...

According to some of my gamer friends, there is a series of Buffy fan-fics starring an "immortal" named "Steve" who becomes Buffy's lover and merrily slay vampires, demons, and other supernatural critters together.

Oh, did I mention that the author's name is also Steve?

[Eric the .5b]

Steve is also known as "Mary Sue" and has been used by many, many fanfic writers, Akira. 🙂

[drf]

Eric 1/2B:

i never thought those letters were real!!!!!!!

[Jim Walsh]

How about some more of that Star Trek fan porn; like the one where Spock goes into his Vulcan "once-every-seven-year heat" mode, and the only person on the planet with him is Kirk...

Actually, that's every Trek fan-porn story, isn't it?

[Stevo Darkly]

Umbriel:

Yeah, I thought the whole cloning thing in Car Wars was poorly reasoned, and it annoyed me to no end. There is a world of difference between actually transferring a person's consciousness from one body to another, and merely making a copy. Having a back-up copy might make things easier for the other people you leave behind (if they don't think about it too much), but as you point out, you, the original, are still dead.

[Dogzilla]

The Smurfs was the most sexist cartoon ever. All the male smurfs were known for what qualities they posessed...brainy, handy, etc. Smurfette was known for, well...being a girl. Gwen Stefani would sing about this several decades later.