Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Harding Humor Exclusive: JD Zuckerman

As the road to the Oscars begins and the Hollywood Awards Season kicks off, many new movies come out and capture the hearts of their viewers and critics. One such movie that has just opened is The Bucket List, starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, directed and produced by Rob Reiner, and written by Justin Zackham. This heart-warming film about two terminally ill gentlemen who escape from their cancer ward to complete a list of adventures before they die. Many fans and critics are already teeming with praise for this film, but what's the story behind this film? Can we really thank Justin Zackham and Rob Reiner for this heartwarming story? Well, yes you can. But there is another important man whose contribution to the story is being overlooked by critics. That man is JD Zuckerman. JD Zuckerman is a greengrocer in a small town in Georgia. He also attended NYU film school with Justin Zackham, in fact they lived down the hall from each other. Now JD did fail out of NYU film school, but not before doing something very important, providing Zackham with a list of all the ideas he had for movies, but would never get to finish. One of which lead to the creation of The Bucket List. The original concept was for the two cancerous man to make a list of people to say hello to when they went to hell. This was changed to make the film more accessible to families.

Below is the original "List of people to say hello to in hell". Written by JD Zuckerman and Justin Zackman. With comments by Zuckerman.

The Hello List:
1) Audrey Hepburn- She was real pretty, so we wanted to let her know we were sorry she was in hell.
2) Joey Fatone- He was the cool looking member of N*Sync and we wanted to tell him that we tried several times to get on The Singing Bee, but just couldn't manage it.
3) John Madden- We wanted to tell him that they are renaming his video game series to Don't Go to Hell Like John Madden Did 2009.
4) Tommy the Green Power Ranger- Well, he was the evil power ranger, but he was still the coolest.
5) Dr. Phil McGraw- We just figured he could help us cope with our hellishness.
6) Richard Nixon- I wanted him to "sock it to me".
7) Paula Deen- We were hoping that with all those flames, down there, in hell, she could make us some real good barbecue.
8) Roy Rodgers- We wanted him to know that he was in hell, because his restaurants sell horsemeat.
9) Trigger- We wanted Trigger to know we never ate him, no matter how good he smelled.
10) JD Salinger- He has my name, so we were gonna tell him that to cut down on confusion I would go by JD Z. and he could just go by JD.
11) Jamie Lynn Spears- We were gonna tell her how she ruined TeenNick and taught pre-teens everywhere that its cool to "Get With"
12) Harry Potter-wizard, enough said
13) Lassie- We were gonna ask her why she didn't warn any of these people they were going to hell.
14) Jack Ruby- Even though he's a murderer, he murdered an assassin. So we were gonna tell him we thought he was a decent fellow.
15) OJ Simpson- We were gonna try and find out if he really did it, I mean why lie when you're already in hell?
16) Mao Tse-Tong- We've always liked the color red
17) Nathan Bedford Forrester- We were curious about whether or not he was surprised he ended up in hell.
18) Dr. Kervorkian- We were gonna ask him if he had ever worked for free

PB '11, AE '11, RH '11

3 comments:

prb said...

Disclaimer: We are not trying to judge anyone by implying they are in hell. Most of the people in this article are not even deceased yet. We are not trying to make light of eternal damnation either. We are just trying to get a laugh at such an absurd idea spurred by our culture's celebrity obsession and curious nature.

Becca said...

12) Jamie Lynn Spears- We were gonna tell her how she ruined TeenNick and taught pre-teens everywhere that its cool to "Get With"
13) Harry Potter-wizard, enough said
14) Albus Dumbledore-gay wizard, a whole new realm of enough said

Those three in a row killed me!! I've been laughing at Jamie ever since I heard the news!

Alex said...

OJ Simpson--hilarious.