Stoned Patriots: Redux by Steven Cameron (wesley) & Zavier Alvarez (dick-nixon) - Short, Comedy - When a madman threatens the stoner way of life, America’s founding fathers are pulled through time by a magical talking bong.   58 pages - pdf, format

Thanks to Don for getting the revision up. The major thing regarding this revision is that the original short and the sequel have been merged (Mike Shelton’s suggestion).

There is also some new content. A few people complained about the lack of music at Woodstock, so some scraped ideas have been dusted off, polished up and added. Lastly, the various mistakes brought up through out all the reviews have (for the most part) been corrected. Thanks for all the reviews and support so far.

-Zavier

Um . . . dude, bongs don't talk.

Nah just kidding. Seriously. This is one crazy script. It is refreshing to read an unproduced script on this website that isn't a formulic genre story. I can honestly say that this script is out there and . . . well, diffrent. But in a good way.

It is also laugh out loud funny. Sure not all the gags work but for every one gag that falls flat (tucker, Bratner gag) there are another five that work perfectly.

best moments would have to be the villian Herion Harry who used to be good but turned evil cause he was bored with being used for vaccine,

The scene where the heros are being transported in the Hercules was a crack up. You took a fish-out-of-water situation and milked as much humor out of it as was possible.  "Don't forget your magical bong!"

The giant panda was cool and the end result of Clinton and Bush escape from rehab was pure gold.

Several situations involving heros getting out of a tight spot where very contirved and convenient. But with all the silliness of the story it worked perfectly. I am not sure if you intended it to be that way ( contirved) to poke fun at your own story.

The only negetive I've got for your script is the ending. The end sucks.

It's bad writing to just stop the story like that. But how ever if you have plans to write a sequel to this script then I would quickly change my tune and say that this script has a cool cliffhanger and I can't wait for the sequel. So which one is it?

Whoa, the One Week Challenge entries buried this. I almost didn't catch your review.

Quoted from tonkatough The only negetive I've got for your script is the ending. The end sucks. It's bad writing to just stop the story like that. But how ever if you have plans to write a sequel to this script then I would quickly change my tune and say that this script has a cool cliffhanger and I can't wait for the sequel. So which one is it?

Possible Spoilers
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Yeah, the ending was meant as a cliffhanger. Another Stoned Patriots installment is on the way, not sure when, chances are early next year. Thanks for the review.

-Zavier  

This was hilarious.  Truly a comedy gem.  Where you got the idea to have the founding fathers travel through time to save stoners around the world with their talking bong is beyond me, actually, I may have some idea... In any case it worked out great.

There are a few errors that can be seen just by going through it and perhaps looking for places where you should have question mark, or accidentaly left out letters, that should not be difficult.

One suggestion I have is to work on their dialogue.  I'm not saying it didn't flow well, but it would just add so much more hilarity if they always talked with an older dialect.  Perhaps go through and just make them sound, older.  This will add contrast to the crazy shit you guys have them doing, like dangling upside down in a dungeon or shooting missiles.

Another thing, is that alot of this stuff they didnt have, and would have no idea what it is.  I'm glad you didn't make a huge deal about everything new to them, but I s till think you should mention it, perhaps have them mention it and blow it off on account of being stoned.  Something like that.

Also perhaps you could add certain historical allusions, just to define their characters a little more, it could be hilarious.

I was dissapointed sam adams wasn't in this, I guess he was more of a beer guy, perhaps in a sequel?

Once again, great job.  ANything with a crazy naked ben Franklin is bound to be just . . psychadelic.

-Tyler

Quoted from Higgonaitor Where you got the idea to have the founding fathers travel through time to save stoners around the world with their talking bong is beyond me

Yeah, the original idea came from Martin's Logline Generator thread.

Quoted from Higgonaitor I'm not saying it didn't flow well, but it would just add so much more hilarity if they always talked with an older dialect.

I'm not sure if it shows but I tried this in the first short (now the first twelve pages of Redux). It sort of lost importance when we were writing American Haze. The older dialect might make an appearance in the third, since a new group of founding fathers are pulled through time.  

Quoted from Higgonaitor I was disappointed sam adams wasn't in this, I guess he was more of a beer guy, perhaps in a sequel?

Yeah he's in the third installment along with his cousin John Adams.

Thanks again for the read.

-Zavier

I laughed outloud for the first time reading a script on this site when i got to:

WASHINGTON
(beat)
Well, it’s my country.

I can't wait to finish it.

I had really high hopes for this (Even though a talking bong has been done before by Ann Magnuson in Vandemonium).  It began well, funny,  thought out, pretty good characterizations.  Quite 70s, with a Cheech & Chong - The Furry Freak bros kind of feeling to it.  I was enjoying it.  Then it slowly devolved into a Team America rip off.  I have to say that was quite disappointed.

You have a great idea here. Where I think you started to go wrong was when you put Jerry Garcia in a fist fight. I’m not a fan or anything but I could tell right then and there that you had lost the whole point of your story. You have to idolize that time period.  By making it violent you are basically telling the audience you don’t believe in the ideology your heroes are trying to save. (I don’t think Garcia was at Woodstock either)

After that there were some amusing points – in particular the giant panda.  But I thought you chose tired and old villains, ones that were not credible to the story. I know this is a screwball comedy but you still have to suspend belief.

The whole George Bush stoner thing was not appropriate to the story.  It may have been amusing at points, but again it doesn’t win any sympathy points for the hippie elements of your story.  Junior is kind of the antithesis of a hippie and if anything he should be one of the villains here.  

Also, I think the drugs should figure into the story even more so than they already do.  They should be used to help your heroes get through sticky situations. Did you ever see “Mystery of the Leaping Fish”?

All and all I think you had good intentions with this and that you have the ability to write comedy – but I think you kind of lost your way somewhere in the middle of this one.    

I usually hate stoner movies like Harold and Kumar and “Dude, Where’s My Car?”.  As a graduate from Full Sail, I saw my share of short films where the majority of the plot revolved around kids sitting around a bong saying things like “Dude” and “bro” and “whoa”.  That’s crap and I’m not interested.  I thought that’s what I was in for with Stoner Patriots, but this was more of a thinking man’s stoner comedy. In between the bong hits and gratuitous swearing, this has a lot of political commentary.

First off, you hit the nail right on the head with Bush and Cheney’s relationship.  The dialogue here seems the most childish and stupid in the whole script, but I think that was the point.  You flash forward from the stoner bud Founding Fathers to coked out President Busch who doesn’t have a clue.  Showing how much we’ve progressed, or regressed over the last few hundred years.  I liked these scenes the best.  

I like the prank calls with idiot Bush laughing and provoking North Korea and how evil you depicted the Korean leaders, using a slave as his footstool.  They are just as cartoon evil as the Bush administration led us to believe all these years.  Nice.    

I also loved how you get Clinton and Bush forming a friendship based solely on them being locked up in rehab together.  Their narcissistic, addictive personalities are all they have in common.  Men communicate on the simplest levels.  Drugs, booze and sex.  

The Four Fathers going to Woodstock could've been better.  Jefferson and Garcia get into a fight.  Why?  These crazy situations would be more interesting if they were started because of something historical.  Just like Back to the Future or Bill and Ted.
Characters get into actual "historical" situations.  Marvin Berry calls his cousin Chuck and tells him he finally found that sound he was looking for.  He later writes Johnny Be Goode because Marty McFly played it at the school dance.  Stuff like that.      

The theme of your story seems to be that “drugs make the world go around, good and bad”.  Smokey is good and Harry Heroin is bad.  I don’t know if you’re saying that smoking weed is healthy and creates peace and prosperity, and that cocaine and heroin and other deadlier drugs lead to destruction, but that’s what I’m getting from Stoner Patriots.  It was interesting and thought provoking in its own stupid sort of way.  That’s what makes it pretty good.  You were able to sneak in your own political commentary into a ridiculous stoner bud movie.

If you’re gonna do sequels, I’d go back and tighten this script up first.  With Jefferson, Hamilton, Washington and Franklin you should go back and really try to distinguish one from the other.  You hint at Washington being the sad sack of the bunch and there were some funny lines about him only being on a $1 bill, but there wasn’t much else in the script that defined these characters.  They all read the same.  

Go back and do some more homework on these men and you can create some really funny one liners about all of their pasts and the things that they did for the country.  I think you have a gold mine with this and you should focus your humor more on actual historic events.

Lastly, lose Chris Tucker and Brett Ratner.  Ha-ha.  They suck.  We know that.  Stick with historic political characters and focus on poking fun of their personalities and the historic events that made them who they are.  You can squeeze a whole series out of this if you wanted to.        

              

Oh, yeah.  President Washington should definitely be the idiot of the bunch.  I think it would be more funny if he was always clueless, following the others advice.  I would want to read more.    

Quoted from ericdickson I usually hate stoner movies like Harold and Kumar and “Dude, Where’s My Car?”.  As a graduate from Full Sail, I saw my share of short films where the majority of the plot revolved around kids sitting around a bong saying things like “Dude” and “bro” and “whoa”.  That’s crap and I’m not interested.  I thought that’s what I was in for with Stoner Patriots, but this was more of a thinking man’s stoner comedy. The theme of your story seems to be that “drugs make the world go around, good and bad”.  Smokey is good and Harry Heroin is bad.  I don’t know if you’re saying that smoking weed is healthy and creates peace and prosperity, and that cocaine and heroin and other deadlier drugs lead to destruction, but that’s what I’m getting from Stoner Patriots.  It was interesting and thought provoking in its own stupid sort of way.  That’s what makes it pretty good.  You were able to sneak in your own political commentary into a ridiculous stoner bud movie. If you’re gonna do sequels, I’d go back and tighten this script up first.  With Jefferson, Hamilton, Washington and Franklin you should go back and really try to distinguish one from the other.  You hint at Washington being the sad sack of the bunch and there were some funny lines about him only being on a $1 bill, but there wasn’t much else in the script that defined these characters.  They all read the same.   Go back and do some more homework on these men and you can create some really funny one liners about all of their pasts and the things that they did for the country.  I think you have a gold mine with this and you should focus your humor more on actual historic events. Lastly, lose Chris Tucker and Brett Ratner.  Ha-ha.  They suck.  We know that.  Stick with historic political characters and focus on poking fun of their personalities and the historic events that made them who they are.  You can squeeze a whole series out of this if you wanted to.

Thanks for the read man. Even with all the problems this may have (I haven't read it since we finished a final draft which was back in 2007 I guess so a lot of it is not in my head anymore) it is still in my mind one of the better experiences as far as co writing goes. I don't think nixon and I had any long conversations as far as writing and content or anything really. We just headed in a general direction and never had any bumps.

"Stoner Comedies" are not something I'm into writing. I will watch them but not write them because they are cliche and not realistic which takes you out of the movie.

I think you're looking too deep into the meaning of Smokey and Harry Heroin. The magical bong was Nixon's creation, what was he thinking? Who knows. Harry Heroin was a suggestion as a villain whom at one point may have been Smokey's friend and they fought over a girl and he turned evil pumping people full of his drug making them evil too. Also his name rhymes with heroin haha.

At one point we were planning a sequel but it fell through for whatever reason and nothing ever came of it.

Again thanks for the review and I have finished reading your script and will post my review later today.

Have to say I liked this. Title page was a bit weird and amateur compared to the rest of the piece.

It's wordy, which is rich coming from me, but you know what I mean.

Ridiculous plot that works quite well. Made me laugh. And today I'm rather hungover so well done on that.

Some of it could do with trimming and tightening but most of it was deftly done. Very entertaining. Does another episode exist yet. And if not, why not?

Re

As far as another episode, like i said above it was planned and I believe we drew up a outline but it fell through. I think at that time Nixon was quite busy with other stuff and we just put it on the back burner.

Something may or may not yet be in the works.

I don't have a copy of this in Final Draft so any edits or updates is on Nixon's shoulders haha

Thanks for the read.