There’s cheese, then there’s cheese sprinkled with a healthy dose of cinnamon and pure sugar cane. You know, a loony idea that will give you a mind-blow buzz and halt your heart, all in one convenient package.
During the past two decades, as the costs of movie production inflated exponentially, studios became cautious about the types of projects they assembled. Original, unproven scripts became increasingly rare because of financial risk, and producers resorted to sequels, franchises, remakes, literary works, even video games (remember Wing Commander and Doom?).
But that still doesn’t explain Elf Bowling the Movie.
Back a bit before the turn of the century, before Homestar Runner and Weebl and Bob became cottage industries, Flash oddities still were little more than fun time-wasters created by stressed-out programmers slaving away at the dotcom rack. In the Christmas season of 1999, a slightly off-color seasonal game starting making the rounds, featuring a miffed-but-still-jolly Santa using his striking (heh) elf workers as bowling pins. The game was stupidly bemusing, with the elves mooning and taunting Santa, even “cheating” by occasionally moving out of the way of the ball. My stressed-out publishing office loved it, and soon little high-pitched voices yelping “Who’s your daddy?” and “Is that all the balls you got, Santa?” floated daily above the gray cubical walls.
See? Exactly the kind of material on which to construct a Christmas children’s toon.
Even in a cinematic age where few films are truly original and studios are digging out the most obscure properties to develop, a movie based on a 9-year-old, free Flash-in-the-pan game sounds more like a mad movie hoax than an actual project, z-grade level as it may be. That’s because Hollywood isn’t to blame for this one: Fiji is. Yeah, Fiji. The island. Apparently, they have a film industry now. Maybe it makes cottage, too.
It says something about the home video market when a little island country can produce a full-blown animation feature based on barely-remembered game and get it released on DVD by a major Hollywood studio. I’m not sure what, but it says something.
It also says something when said game has produced several sequels that are not remembered much at all. The movie version includes elements from Elf Bowling 3, which introduces Santa’s brother Dingle Kringle and his couch-crashing ways. There’s even a bocce version. Bocce!
Americans’ constant obsession with shiny techno variations of the Pet Rock may speak to an inner child, but with Elf Bowling, static seems to have mangled the transmission. A harmless joke is dragged too far, substituting absurdity for humor. Yet, that common creative error becomes fascinating by itself, and the obsession continues on, slightly mutated. We simply can’t look away, dazzled by disbelief.
Like watching a car wreck. Involving Cool Whip and chickens.
The same day but a couple hours before Scott “I Paid to See Drop Dead Fred” Foy alerted the denizens of the B-Movie Message Board to Elf Bowling the Movie’s existence, I had just rescued my aged Hewlett Packard from the junk room and turned it on for the first time in six years. First the forgotten Michael Whelan painting reclaimed its backdrop spot on the screen, then all the little time-waster icons popped into place, including three little bowling pins. I had completely forgotten it was there.
When synchronicity calls, I can’t ignore it. Yes, I will see Elf Bowling the Movie. But only because I prefer nutmeg on my Muenster.
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