Snob Riffs!: A Day of Thanksgiving – Transcript

The Cinema Snob: Young America Films presents a short that no young American will watch, unless someone is making smartass commentary over it. A fake educational short film by Eli Roth. Co-directed by legendary filmmaker Lawrence Kansas from Tennessee. (laughs) Nahahaha! Oh, that Mallard Fillmore! You can't stack taxes up there! (normal) Pardon me, let me turn down the scotch…

Dad: I'm Bill Johnson. Around here they just call me "Dad".

The Cinema Snob: "Dad" is our safe-word…

Dad: I'm trying to read but I just can't seem to do it. I keep thinking about today…

The Cinema Snob: National Literacy Day!

Dad: We Johnsons had a good Thanksgiving. The best we've ever had…

The Cinema Snob: Grandpa Johnson only used the N-word twice.

Dad: … A real feeling of thankfulness. And that's odd too when you consider the shape things were in when I got home from work yesterday.

The Cinema Snob: Danny had scattered my papers all over the floor and all I tried to do was pull him up – slight momentarily loss of muscular coordination.

Dad: As kids will, mine were living tomorrow right along with today.

The Cinema Snob: All of their trouble seem so far away. Now they need a place to hide away…

Dad: Mother instead of me had to break the news to them.

Susan: Tommorow is thanksgiving!

The Cinema Snob: Billy, it's speaking to us again…

Dick: … and pie and cake.

Tommy: And fruit-salad and whipped cream and cranberries! Gee!

The Cinema Snob: And tutti fruttis and crackerjacks and Big League Chew and a bottle of old Harbour and a glass of cane sugar!

Mom: Well, your father and I thought that…… Well, the truth of the matter is; there just won't be any turkey this year.

The Cinema Snob: Because we want hilarity to ensue like in "The Hoboken Chicken Emergency".

Mom: … pumpkin pie, we'll have plenty to eat but… Well, we just have to get along without turkey.

Dick: Mom, you don't mean it!?

The Cinema Snob: Next thing you're gonna tell me that women will get to vote!?

Susan: Even the pilgrims had a feast. After all, isn't that what Thanksgiving's for? I don't think it's fair…

Dad: And it was right there that I came in.

The Cinema Snob: It seemed like the best time to tell them that Christmas had also been cancelled… (talking gibberish) Hey, hey Ralph! Eh show me the bo…! I'm in the wrong house!?

Dad: … Dick, Susan? (a beat) Now what's been going on around here?

The Cinema Snob: Why am I the only one who's five whiskeys slighter deep into 3 in the afternoon?

Susan: … no good thing!

Dick: A fat lot we have to be thankful for…

The Cinema Snob: Yeah, dad! You're a loser! I overheard mom wondering why you can put in 12 hours at work but can't manage 3 minutes in the bedroom.

Dick: … gonna have it this year. Same as always!

Dad: Yes, we've always had turkey, just as a lot of Americans have had it and we'll keep on having it.

The Cinema Snob: Huh, do we look like a family of commies? Ha!

Dad: But what you kids are saying makes it sound as if the turkey is the only thing we have to be thankful for.

Dick: Oh gee whiz. No, dad.

The Cinema Snob: Huh, yulk!

Dad: Oh I know, Dick.

The Cinema Snob: Father knows dick…

Dad: It's easy to loose sight of what Thanksgiving really means.

Mom: And don't think we're just making excuses, because we don't have any turkey this year.

The Cinema Snob: Your father has convinced me that it's all my fault.

Mom: … it'll mean a lot more to us the next time we do have it.

Dick: Well, sure. Suppose we don't have a bang-up feast, we're still a lot better off than the pilgrims.

The Cinema Snob: Yeah! Stupid pilgrims – the true victims of the new world.

Dad: Turkey or no turkey, we still got all the freedoms and privileges the pilgrims gave us.

The Cinema Snob: Except for witch-burnings. I've been told that tradition is now frowned upon…

Dad: … that pilgrims never even dreamed of.

Tommy: Why, we can make a list a mile long!

Susan: Why don't we do it?

The Cinema Snob: And if any of the names are anti-pilgrim/-American we can get them blacklisted from Pilgrim, Hollywood, we sure can!

Dad: You got to feel down deep before you can really be thankful for anything. I tell you what we'll do… Let's take a little more time to think this over.

The Cinema Snob: Because I'm not gonna remember this after I pass out in 5 minutes… Your mom is nervous-stirring again, isn't she?

Dad: Your life? Sure, that's one thing you can't get along without. But do you know that there are some places in the world today, where you have to get along without just about everything else?

The Cinema Snob: Like properly structuring a sentence…

Dad: I guess I kinda got carried away…

The Cinema Snob: Sorry you got to see me like this. Come here swift, I'll beat the memories out of you!

Dad: When we sit down to  WHATEVER mother fixes to eat tomorrow…

The Cinema Snob: Which will no doubt be garbage.

Dad: … that will really have a Thanksgiving dinner! (Next scene) Well, that's how it got started. The Johnsons didn't have any turkey…

The Cinema Snob: And thus I created the original "First World Problems"-meme.

Dad: … to make something special out of a special day. So we fell back on something as old as the pilgrims.

The Cinema Snob: Prostitution!

Dad: … the common, ordinary blessings that we had to be thankful for. (Next scene) That night I'd see Dick there, building his model airplane.

The Cinema Snob: Often times I as well daydream about dick…

Dad: They'd mellow things over, thinking big thoughts for such young heads.

The Cinema Snob (as baby Janet): Let's see – the pythagorean theorem states that the square of the hypotenuse is equal or…  opposite of the two sides? (as dad) Hmmm, on second thought. Funky Winkerbean kinda sucks…

The Cinema Snob: As you can see, mother lost the first round of strip-thanksgiving.

Dad: And then… Well, we all knew it. There are some things you just can't say.

The Cinema Snob: For instance, why did I agree to so many flowers on the wallpaper and the artwork?

Dad: … and this was a time to think about it.

The Cinema Snob: Dearest secretary Khrushchev…

Tommy: I am thankful for getting plenty to eat all the time.

The Cinema Snob: But I don't understand the need to always throw up after dinner…

Tommy: Like mom says – I'm hungry all the time anyway and if I didn't live in a country where there is plenty to go around… Golly!

The Cinema Snob: FUCKING LANGUAGE!!!

Tommy: And I am thankful for the free public library…

The Cinema Snob: Where I can laugh at the homeless people and beat them with a bag of money that I then set on fire.

Tommy: … the way they tell a story is as good as being there yourself. And it's free with only a library-card.

The Cinema Snob: Which, according to the internet, the government uses to spy on its middle-class suburban white citizens.

Dad: And somehow, turkey and trimming seemed to matter a whole lot less than he thought they did yesterday.

The Cinema Snob: Because he snuck out at 3 in the morning to steal the turkey from the Salvation Army.

Dad: You never credit her with thinking beyond her doll.

The Cinema Snob: Since she's a woman, you see…

Susan: I am thankful for having what we need to wear.

The Cinema Snob: Mom, was that a bulimia joke in the previous prayer?

Susan: I never thought before how many clothes it takes for all kinds of weather or how it would be to have to do without the right ones.

The Cinema Snob: I can't imagine living in a world of mixing blue jeans with black t-shirts.

Susan: I'll go to any church I want any sunday.

The Cinema Snob: Except for the protestants.

Susan: I am thankful for my mother and daddy that they're here with us. That both of them aren't too worried about things to take time to have fun with us.

The Cinema Snob: Like teaching us about grammar.

Susan: … that families are still important in America.

Dad: I guess Dick, being the oldest, was having some pretty serious thoughts.

The Cinema Snob: Dick often has serious thoughts about dick-oriented dick-activity.

Dick: … education. For living where our schools, all schools, open their doors to a guy who wants to learn.

The Cinema Snob: As long as his skin is the same color as Jesus.

Dick: Where a guy is rated by how much he knows and a community is rated by how well it teaches him.

The Cinema Snob: By the proper size of their family's dicks…

Dick: … banging a ball 'round once in a while.

The Cinema Snob: Dick often marvels at how fun it is playing outdoors with his balls.

Dad: Sure, baby Janet…

The Cinema Snob: I'M RUNNING ON EMPTY HERE!!! BRING MOTHER OVER TO POP OUT THE RUM-TITS!!!

Dad: … even to tell us the things that makes her happy.

The Cinema Snob: She's thinking about the time when she gets older and questions why there was a group of men filming her in the bathtub.

Dad: … thinking about the fun, splashing around in the tub and about how good it feels to be clean.

The Cinema Snob: Oh, this doll was sent to us from uncle Ed in Edlery in Warren.

Dad: … she feels in her mother's arms. (next scene) And as for mother…

The Cinema Snob: She has no thoughts unless I give them to her.

Dad: Cooking, ironing, tending children daylight to dark.

The Cinema Snob: Contemplating would stop the meeting of a razorblade and the wrists.

Mom: I am thankful that my children had the privilege of being born safely.

The Cinema Snob: And American and white and not poor and christian and white again…

Mom: I am thankful that I have the privilege of guiding them that they become useful men and women.

The Cinema Snob: Soon change their names to "Cowsill".

Mom: And I am thankful for all the things our American system makes possible for the Smiths and the Browns… and the Johnsons.

The Cinema Snob: But more so the Smiths and the Johnsons over the Browns…

Mom: Hot water out of the tap.

The Cinema Snob (screaming in pain): AAAARGH!!!

Mom: And a telephone to call the doctor when one in the family is sick.

The Cinema Snob: Yep, the rickets again… And pink eye and brown eye. (as dad) I'll be back soon, honey. Gotta meet Woodward and Bernstein and another parking garage.

Mom: I am thankful that when my neighbor drops in to borrow a cup of flour, we got the right to talk about anything we want to.

The Cinema Snob (whispers): My baby is black!

Mom: … future project, the new mayor or Jane Jones' hat.

Lloyd: *meeeoow!*

The Cinema Snob: Yes, they're thankful for you too, Lloyd…

Mom: I am truly thankful for the peace of mind…

The Cinema Snob (as dad): I hope those broads aren't talking about my new hat… (as dad's boss) Yeah look, Johnson… About the turkey-bonus, we decided to send you home with a certificate to the "Jelly of the Month Club"… and you're fired!

Mom: I'm glad dad doesn't work slave-hours.

The Cinema Snob: Because if there's one thing our family can relate to; it's slavery.

Dad: That's mother for you…

The Cinema Snob: Always passing out at the dinner-table, thinking about slavery…

Dad: And now for me… I've got so many things to be thankful for.

The Cinema Snob: Such as a full head of hair and a straightened tie.

Dad: It may need a coat of paint, it has a mortgage but it's ours. A place where we can be together in privacy.

The Cinema Snob: With the relatives of the previous owners I've never bothered looking for the potties.

Dad: The happiness here, not just today or on Christmas morning, but on a day-to-day basis all things here…

The Cinema Snob: It'll make us happier if we had some turkey instead of POPCORN, DAD!

Dad: … knowing that a knock on our door means nothing to fear.

The Cinema Snob: House Committee on Un-American Activities, open up!

Dad: … or kids selling magazines, you never know what to expect.

The Cinema Snob: We hear you're hiding turkeys…

Dad: It's not going to be some political gangster coming to drag one of us off to jail because we believe in freedom.

The Cinema Snob: Questioning our fine government is a treason of offensiveness in this household!

Dad: … that freedom we've got let's me choose the kind of work I like and can do best.

The Cinema Snob: But no one would hire me as a graphic designer, so I fix cars!

Dad: … makes me feel that somebody got to his work or wherever he had to go just because of me. A feeling like that gives me a lot of satisfaction.

The Cinema Snob: And makes me, yet again, think of Dick…

Dad: And I am thankful for my newspaper. Just a few sentences and words of printer's ink in paper.

The Cinema Snob: It still seems like too much of an expense to print anything from Charles Krauthammer.

Dad: The editor has got the privilege of printing what he thinks and I got the privilege of agreeing with him or not.

The Cinema Snob: For instance their questionable use of the term "legitimate rape"…

Dad: And both of us, the editor and I, have the right to act on our opinions on Election Day.

The Cinema Snob: No son of mine is gonna share water fountains with albinos!

Dad: And finally…

The Cinema Snob: Oh right, this was supposed to be about Thanksgiving…!

Dad: In spite of everything, that somehow someway, the unity we've got here in the Johnson family will someday…

The Cinema Snob: My son's name is "Dick Johnson"?

Dad: For all these things we are truly and humbly thankful. Amen…

The Cinema Snob: Mazel tov! Mother, I don't want you and neighbors talking about hats anymore! Dick, I'm sorry for the inevitable school-beatings. Baby, we'll come up with a name for you sooner or later! Billy, stop fattening your sister! And remember, this is a Nixon-household! Oh ehm…, THAT'S IT! Our baby's name is Checkers!

(The End)