Cel-Ebrity Deathmatch
A new idea will revive MTV's soon -to-die cliche.
Let's be clear about this. MTV's Celebrity Deathmatch is finished, a few weeks into its run. The sophisticated Cleveland Amory, once a critic for TV Guide, once described a sitcom as "one joke less than a one-joke show." That's Deathmatch to a T, or rather, to an MTV. It's a hairdresser's conceit to believe that celebrities are at each other's throats, and most of the time it's not true. Celebrities are in the business of pleasing as many people as possible, so they rarely say anything bad about anyone else in print. After all, the person they diss today might become their employer tomorrow.
Sure, Kathie Lee Gifford and Howard Stern are moralistic and stylistic opposites. Both are committed to their diametrically opposed audiences; Stern to people who enjoy a politically incorrect laugh, Gifford to lovers of puppies, kitties and Beanie Babies (probably made by child slave labor in her Korean factories). But the show biz rivalries shown in Deathmatch are ridiculous. Oprah versus Rosie? They're on the same station in many markets! Schwartzenegger versus Stallone? They're business partners in Planet Hollywood. The two rock-star Gallaghers (whoever they are) versus the Sledge-O-Matic Gallagher? They never even heard of each other!
But in the realm of fictional characters, rivalries exist. Sometimes characters are not consciously thought out; they come straight from the unconscious of their creators, that stewing mess of psychoses that is the heart of all creativity. Cartoon characters are far more likely to be opponents than real people.
With that in mind, here are a few suggestions for animation matches that we will never, ever see. Call them Cel-Ebrity Deathmatches. While setting up these matches, we can think for a minute about what these characters mean, and why they would be opponents in this low-class redneck form of entertainment.
Mickey Mouse vs. Mighty Mouse
He's the most famous cartoon character in history. He is a corporate icon. Even his silhouette is copyrighted by Disney; two small circles atop a large circle identifies a "Mickey," and the Imagineers have placed hundreds of "hidden Mickeys" throughout Disney structures. But who is this Mouse? Most young people don't know.
Ever since the 1950's, Mickey Mouse has been nothing but a corporate icon. Disney has kept him off-screen and off-stage as much as possible. Offhand, I can only recall Mickey's Christmas Carol, Runaway Brain and his cameo in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? as his public appearances. In Bonkers he was never even shown in silhouette or referred to by name. Maybe Disney is a little ashamed of the earliest Mickey cartoons, which contain cruelty and simple-mindedness. They don't want people to remember Mickey's cranking of a goat's tail in Steamboat Willie, even though that was typical humor of the time. (When was the last time you saw an intact print of Steamboat Willie, anyway?)
This fall, Disney is taking the daring step of bringing Mickey back in Mouseworks, which to all reports is a "classic" Mickey, the slapstick-y character from the weekly comic strips and early cartoons. That will mean bringing Mickey out of the shadows, a move that probably won't please those who think they "know" Mickey or those who never knew him.
His opponent, on the other hand, has had lots of public exposure. Perhaps too much. Paul Terry sold Mighty Mouse and all his other characters to CBS lock, stock and barrel. CBS ran him to death in his original Terrytoons incarnation, with the a Capella theme song echoing in the ears of anyone who was a kid during the 60's. Then CBS took the rare step of making two revivals. Filmation produced an hour series with Mighty Mouse and Heckle and Jeckle, creating childish but fun adventures. (For Filmation to produce anything fun was a miracle, and this cartoon show was the closest they ever came to fun.)
And then there was Mighty Mouse's ill-fated time with Ralph Bakshi. Bakshi began his animation career with Terry, and that animation rebel couldn't resist mocking the simple-mindedness of Terry's creations. Because of Bakshi, the Caped Cheese-eater enraged the religious right. The Reverend Donald Wildmon, one of America's Kristian Kiddie Kooks, decided that a scene with Mighty Mouse sniffing flowers was an invitation to cocaine use. CBS, frightened of its own shadow and apparently having no love of Bakshi, canceled the show.
Mighty must be mighty tired and mighty upset. But also mighty determined to keep any other rodent, especially a rich one, from claiming his place on TV.
In the Cel-Ebrity Deathmatch, Mickey stands with a platoon of lawyers, dozens of smiling Cast Members, and Michael Eisner cheering him on outside the ropes. Then, from the arena roof echoes the eloquent male tenor voice, "Hee-ere I come to save the da-aay!" Mickey can't manage a male anything voice, just a titter of a laugh. Mighty's trailing comet trail (as seen in his early cartoons) surrounds the minimum-wage Cast Members like a lasso and immobilizes them.
Mickey, clearly frightened, screams to the lawyers, "Get him!" The lawyers do nothing - they're waiting for Eisner to sign their checks. That's enough time for Mighty to use Mickey as a punching bag - each punch providing a sound effect like a bell, a bike horn, a gong, a fart. With one mighty haymaker, Mighty knocks Mickey into the back row, where Oil Can Harry and Pistol-Packin' Pegleg Pete are waiting to drag Mickey off to their home town of Katzenberg. (Sorry, couldn't resist.)
Thinking he has triumphed, the exhausted Mighty Mouse slumps into the stool in the corner, breathing hard, his mind focusing on a big hunk of Camembert and the caresses of Pearl Pureheart. He's imagining that maybe tonight, for the first time, her heart will be a little less than pure, if you know what I mean. But what's this? Michael Eisner sneaks up behind Mighty with security guards from Pleasure Island - the anonymous-looking folks in white golf shirts, black pants and headsets, who remain invisible unless there's trouble. They surround Mighty, forming their famous Ring of Terror from which no one can escape, not even drunk tourists. They spirit Mighty Mouse off to Disney's lockup, Mod Thirteen, the deep, dark tunnels under the Magic Kingdom, where he experiences terrors too unspeakable to describe here. The match is a draw.
Sailor Moon vs. Harley Quinn
Anime fans have had a hate-love-hate relationship with Serena, the anime character created by Takeuchi Naoko. The hard-core anime fans, the ones who call themselves otaku to pretend they're not whitebread nerds from Ohio, hate the character for her wimpiness. However, she is far more representative of Japanese animation than robots or sex-obscessed monsters.
Sailor Moon shows how different American women and girls are treated from their Japanese counterparts. As a superheroine, she has extremely limited powers, stopping monsters with a single trick, her magic headband. She has to rely upon other girls with more useful powers like fog, lightning and fire. She's a dumb blonde. She is infatuated with her male counterpart, Tuxedo Mask, but is too passive and incompetent to do anything about it, like ask him his true identity, ask him for a date or anything.
The original Japanese series explained that Serena was a princess of an ancient lunar kingdom, who was sent to Earth to defend against the extradimensional monsters that destroyed her civilization. When Serena finally regains her memory, she realizes she's consigned to a cruel but necessary fate; she and her companions must die to stop the advance of Queen Berol and her successors. And they do die in the original series, a plot element considered too frightening for the little girls that were the expected American audience. In every succeeding Sailor Moon series, she and her Sailor Scouts are reborn without memory of their past lives, and they must live and die all over again. Unlike Indian reincarnation, they don't even accumulate positive karma on each trip.
Sailor Moon tells a lot about the culture that spawned it. A powerful woman who survived after defeating her life's enemy would be far too threatening to the male-centered Japanese society. Serena has to die to keep Japanese sexism intact. Since Tuxedo Mask saves Selena's hash in so many episodes, she's obviously weaker, a one-shot warrior only good for the final battle. In the end of one of the Sailor Moon series, clones of the Sailor Scouts' boyfriends are the agents of their death; the romanticism and stupidity of women keep them from being effective warriors. Each series is identical in structure, and reinforces the belief that nothing changes, especially not for women.
Compare that to Harlie Quinn, who rose from a minor villainness in Batman: The Animated Series to a popular cult figure. She was a psychiatrist at Arkham Asylum who fell in love with The Joker. She suddenly realized she was tired of defending dull sanity when the Joker's mania was so entertaining. She helped him escape, and joined in his life of crime with her own lunatic style of criminality.
She began as a romantically-blind sidekick, coyly following the footsteps of her "puddin'". But there is more. In the graphic novel Mad Love, series writer Paul Dini clearly showed that Harlie Quinn is codependent, a woman who accepts and even enjoys Joker's beatings and humiliations. It is the only way her twisted soul can understand love. This maladjustment exists all too often in the real world, as you can discover in any women's shelter. Her psychosis gave Harlie depth and heart - no matter how tortured that heart might be.
The animated series could only suggest this lightly and tangentially, but Harlie's codependency is visible in many of the classic episodes of the show. Then the producers discovered that girls were watching the cartoon, and they admired this spunky, silly female courageous enough to take on The Dark Knight. Newer episodes established that Harlie was getting tired of being Joker's punching bag, and she sought an independent criminal career without ol' Green-Hair. In one episode, Harlie mocked her former weakness in a torch song to her estranged Clown Prince of Crime: "Life used to be so placid/Would you please put down that acid?"
The battle between Serena and Harlie would be epic, meaning it contains more depth of meaning than a simple fight. It's a battle of Fate against No Fate, Asian predestination versus Occidental free will, Japanese passivity versus American initiative. Serena steps forward from her corner to make her stock speech: "I am Sailor Moon, champion of goodness, defender of the weak, chicken of the sea, et cetera, et cetera...", makes her poses, and goes through that elaborate CGI sequence of her costume change. (The CGI sequence is an American addition; the Japanese version shows her topless, which is no big deal in their culture.)
During this colorful procedure, Harlie is clearly unimpressed. She sneaks up behind the girl, clubs her with a rubber chicken filled with lead shot, and knocks Serena on her Sailor Moon. She then poses coyly and says "Ta-daaaaah!" Serena, shaking her head to clear it, speaks to her translator outside the ring. "Ta-daaaaah? What is this Ta-daaaaah? Oh, I knew I should have paid more attention in English class!"
But wait! A single rose embeds itself into the ground like a spike. Serena looks up, and her eyes grow as wide as dinner plates. "Tuxedo Mask! Oh, God, I have the hots for him!" The mysterious young man in a formal tux with cape floats to the ground, staring through what looks like his mother's rhinestone-encrusted eyeglasses. "Your evil will end here," he says smoothly. "Goodness, niceness and style will never be defeated."
"Oh, how would you know? Since you think you're Fred Astaire, let's face the music and dance!" Luke Sky...no, The Joker...leaps over the ropes and into the ring. Now we have a battle royal! Tuxedo runs out of gimmicks - his cane can't compare to Joker's acid-squirting flower, and soon the Joker knocks Tuxedo back to Tennessee. (Where else?) And in the main match, Harlie's elegant savate kicks keep Serena at bay; it helps that Harlie is more fully animated than the frame-skipping Serena.
In the finale, Harlie flings a strange colorful garment at Serena, and it fully wraps around her. It's a kimono made with spring steel restraints, which encases Serena in a magenta-flowered straightjacket. Harlie kisses the entrapped Serena, to the latter's disgust, and leaves the ring with a cheery farewell; "Next time you're in town, kimono my house!"
Thomas E. Reed is a television engineer in Orlando, Florida. He has several more match-ups for Cel-Ebrity Deathmatch, but he's really interested in hearing about yours. Send him suggested match-ups between animated characters from different companies, and explain the reasons why these characters want to fight one another. He will reprint the best ones here. Send your entries to tomreed@sundial.net.
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