De Planes!! De Planes!! (Fantasy Island)

Member Name: "420565

Product:	Fantasy Island
Date:	04/04/03 (1219 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Guns, Illness, Death

Disadvantages: Charity, Fame, Philanthropy

SHORT DESCRIPTION (with emphasis on the word SHORT): "An old American television show with a crotchety Mexican guy and an angry French midget."

I'd just like to say how pleased I am that such a description is considered viable, as I am responsible for it. There's nothing I like more than to see my masterfully woven linguistic tapestries, no matter how concise, posted for all to view. Thank you, Buddy Jesus. And now I start the rest of this review.

It all comes down this-- a terminal liver disorder can either be interpreted as a tragedy or a great stroke of cosmic wit. Most of you would probably cast your votes to the former. Well guess what? I suffer from a severe deficiency of moral fibre. I'm totally and utterly devoid of all the cardinal virtues that render a man human. I kick puppies and laugh at retards. So you are right in assuming that when it comes to terminal liver disorders resulting in ghastly dwarfism, I make no exceptions.

To set the stage for an unfurling social commentary, I'll briefly biographise a very important man, without whom the world would be deprived of a splendid opportunity to laugh itself pink at mankind's frailties and worst evolutionary shortcomings. This jaunty genetic mishap was one certain Herve Villechaize. I don't know many cold, hard facts about him, but that's not really what's important. I do know, however, that he was born in Paris in 1943 and enjoyed a successful acting career. He starred as himself in a cameo role on Diff'rent Strokes, a heartstring-plucking situational comment featuring fellow Lilliputian, Sir Gary Coleman. But his greatest claim to shame is the programme Fantasy Island, the plot of which is somewhat as follows--

There's an island somewhere. Kind of like that in The Prisoner. (See my review entitled "We'll Be Seeing You" for further information.) It's a seemingly ordinary island, save
for the fact that an ethereal aircraft transports unsuspecting victims to and fro, where they then can fulfill their wildest fantasies. I don't know the extent of this island's ability to satisfy my most deranged desire, as the said desire would be a rollicking ride through beautiful downtown Chernobyl on the back of a rabid dinosaur, but the Fantasy Island writers never took my needs into consideration, the silly sods. Anyway, as the airplane approaches the island, a Mexican guy comes out of a hut and does the necessary things. He's accompanied by Tattoo the darling little midget portrayed by Herve Villechaize, who hypnotically chants "de planes, boss! De planes", much to the scornful delight of his audience. That's just a rough synopsis of the show, or so I've heard. I've never actually seen it myself, but as this is indeed a category intended for Fantasy Island reviews, introduced to Dooyoo at my suggestion, I felt morally obligated to at least mention something about it other than Tattoo. And I've just done so, so I can get back on topic.

Like Sir Gary Coleman, Herve Villechaize suffered from a rare liver disorder. It was a fatal disorder, but unlike other more merciful fatal disorders, he languished through a very stunted adulthood riddled with physical and emotional torment. He endured chronic gastrointestinal pain and misfortune at the hands of the vengeful diety who quenched his thirst for wicked mirth by employing some form of dark magic and causing Villechaize's internal organs to grow at a normal rate, while his shell remained the size of an eight year old. So, had he lived long enough, his pancreas probably would have come shooting out his rectum. With his luck, it probably would have happened in the middle of a wedding or some other greatly formal event, bringing him much embarassment. But that's a mere speculation, and we want facts here.

Misery loves company. Villechaize
9;s sleepless nights and persistent maladies just weren't enough for whatever divine jester cast his twisted die that determined the sorry French bastard's fate. No. He had to be consumed psychologically by a maddening, nauseating depression. Which also had the side effect of a terribly unfriendly disposition, thus alienating himself from his peers and only made matters worse. The Devil's Spiral, I call it. This depression manifested itself in a form I find funniest of all, given the rest of the man's situation-- a gun obsession that pervaded every aspect of Tattoo's developmentally stunted life.

Close your eyes. Isolate yourself from the distractions of surrounding reality. Project yourself into a pool of pure dopamine in which you drown the world. Now think about this, and let it be the sole thing in your mind. A French midget with a gun obsession!! Can it get any more hysterically outrageous? No, you say, but I beg au contraire. Whereas I may be a hollow shell of a human being, dry of all compassion and sympathy for the less fortunate, Herve Villechaize had a shred of decency despite his outward vileness. He sacrificed the greater part of his life contributing to charitable causes and donated a whopping sum of money to helping underprivileged or otherwise handicapped children. And he adopted about twenty of them. That's what does it, as far as I'm concerned. That's the absurd frosting on this already perversely hilarious cake. A gun obsessed French midget with a nasal voice living with twenty crippled children of indeterminate ethnic background.

What you've read may seem like the stuff of nightmares. But think about it in reference to Herve Villechaize's crowning accomplishment, and you'll find a stunning contradiction to this assumption. It's not the stuff of nightmares, mate, it's the stuff of fantasy!!

Summary: