Captain EO

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🎙️ EPISODE 503: 07.05.22 Hooter just can't stop farting and fucking things up but maybe he's not farting; maybe that's just the sound a miniature space elephant makes? I didn't come here to judge anyone, and especially not Hooter. But, still, it is just a little bit funny to me that Frances Freaking Ford Freaking Coppola directed what, at the time, was the most expensive film ever produced on a per-minute basis (averaging out at $1.76 million per minute) and kind of the main take from at least the first 8 or 9 minutes of this 17-minute movie is that Hooter just can't stop farting and fucking things up. Shout-out the legend Tony Cox for manning the Hooter suit, though I don't think he had anything to do with the farting sounds.

Watching this at home on your TV or on your phone is of course not the real experience. The film was designed as part of an attraction with in-theater effects that played at various Disney parks from 1986 through 1998, and then again, for various length runs, in 2010 following Jackson's death. But it's still fascinating and funny and undeniably entertaining. And it finally answers the age-old question, why no Muppets ever do Star Wars movie?

Hooter also eats the map they need to find the Supreme Leader of a planet they crash into, but it's OK, they literally find her as soon as they exit the spaceship. Anjelica Huston plays this character and she is almost unrecognizable until Michael Jackson, through the gift he is there to present her with (the power of song and dance!), unlocks her metallic garbage state and reveals a quasi-Cleopatra look, though she has no lines of dialogue after the transition.

The plot of this is, naturally, very simple: Michael Jackson and these knock-off, mostly full-size Muppets being operated by little people in costume, are on a mission to deliver a "special gift" to the Supreme Leader, who lives on a darker version of some hybrid garbage and steampunk planet. This is gift is, naturally, two song-and-dance routines, for a couple of lost M.J. tracks that I don't even know where else they appear if anywhere: "We Are Here to Change the World" and "Another Part of Me." As soon as they start the first number, Hooter knocks into a keyboard and ruins the whole thing. But then he fixes it and they resume using the music to magically turn all the bad guys into colorfully-costumed Michael Jackson dance troupe members.

There are some delightful moments where stop-motion animation is blended in with the action...


At one point Anjelica Huston calls Jackson and his crew "infidel" and sentences Michael Jackson to "100 years of torture," which felt oddly too political and extreme for what is essentially a children's movie...


Jackson is not a good actor but the very novelty of seeing someone of his stature "act" sort of negates that. Everything about this entire production is captivating and beguiling. There's really not a dull moment. But the star of the show is Hooter, and so I made a little super-cut of all the best Hooter moments from 1986's Captain EO because I am a grown-ass man and what the hell else am I supposed to be doing with my time...




[Ed. Note: This is neither here nor there, but there is a line in the first song that goes "We're here to simulate, eliminate" and I misheard the latter part of it as "stimulate the lemonade." So now I have the phrase "stimulate the lemonade" etched in my brain.]

CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ EPISODE 502 - (YOU ARE HERE) - EPISODE 504 ⫸

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Captain EO is a 1986 American 3D science fiction short film shown at Disney theme parks from 1986 through 1998. The movie stars Michael Jackson, was written by George Lucas, and directed by Francis Ford Coppola (who came up with the name "Captain EO" from the Greek, cf. Eos, the Greek goddess of dawn). The film was shown as part of an attraction with in-theater effects. The attraction returned to the Disney Parks in 2010 as a tribute after Jackson's death. The film was shown for the final time at Epcot on December 6, 2015. It was released on September 12, 1986.