Bartholomew
In which we decide to get together, get drunk, and watch a beloved holiday classic.
A few weeks ago a few of us got together to rate old movies and get drunk and figure out how to get even with that time traveling jackass Agent 99,
It was so successful of an evening we have decided to have another little party, this time to watch one of the great classic Thanksgiving Holiday movies, right up there with Drunk Uncle Moneybags
We’re talking of course about “Bartholomew” the movie about a football playing Turkey that saves a school of orphans from rich unscrupulous developers and tastes great with gravy!
That’s right tonight we will be getting drunk and watching Bartholomew until we puke, I’ll be the master of ceremonies — IG Agent 77.
Also joining us tonight will be Agents 88, 18, 9, and 42 — Bill Fakespeare.
The menu for tonight will be a lot of cheap beer, some Jarritos if you don’t want to get drunk, sour cream and onion potato chips in the big red bowl and salt and vinegar chips in the large blue bowl, and Chile-rubbed Turkey. That last bit will be ready in a bit, still in the oven.
IG Agent 18: Uh, what are the blue and white stick like things mixed in with the chips?
IG Agent 77: Psilocybin Shrooms!
IG Agent 18 (in noncommittal tone): Wow.
There have of course been lots of movies about sports playing animals that can do what humans do only better —
The Beloved AirBud Series of Movies
Bonzo Goes to College
Gus
Matilda
Ed
Ok I could go on, but I guess we all know there are lots of movies in which Animals play human sports, and win!
But today we will watching Bartholomew, the first in this genre and arguably the best — although I probably won’t be taking the time to make that argument.
IG Agent 9 (Soto Voce to Agent 18): Max Steiner did the score to this, it’s rumoured he went mad afterwards.
We open up on shots of the orphanage, a happy place with polite obedient children that unfortunately are starving and reduced to praying over pumpkins and corn for something with protein in it.
IG Agent 88: Wait, has this film been colorized?
IG Agent 77 (pausing stream): Sort of, actually this version is the only remaining print existing in over 200 Universes in our current Multiversal axis. It is composed of fragments of a black and white release from Universe Thelio and a color version from Universe Ghalio — that’s..
IG Agent 9: It was the one in Universe Ghalio where Steiner did the score and then went crazy!
IG Agent 77: I guess, I haven’t kept track. Anyway a few years after the release of this movie the Ghalio Universe suffered large scale denizen madness and attempted to go on a murderous rampage through several neighboring Universes through a primitive portal tech some of their scientists had evidently developed. Basically they took down their own Universe, Thelio where the black and white clips from the movie were gathered from, and a couple other adjacent Universes, no explanation was ever found. WOOOO! (spooky voice) But anyway the Illuminati Ganga Cultural rescue squads managed to get quite a bit of stuff from those Universes, about 10 warehouses full, and we’re slowly but surely taking care of all of it.
Agent 77 resumes the stream.
Little Billy is crying because Thanksgiving is coming up and he won’t get enough to eat! A sad, small violin can be heard to play somewhere in the distance.
Agent 88: Frankly, this kid could do without a Thanksgiving day feast
In the lobby of the orphanage Mrs. Hanligan is on the phone with someone from the Bank.
“Please Mr. Scumbody I need just a little bit more time to pay the loan”
But Mr. Scumbody is having none of it
“I’m sorry Mrs. Hanligan, ten thousand dollars in two months or you’re out there and that orphanage belongs to me, bwah hah ha”
IG Agent 88:: Hey, it’s that guy
IG Agent 77: Lionel Barrymore,basically the same role he played in It’s a Wonderful Life.
But look, outside in the vast tumbleweed strewn backyard, an urgent tom tom is playing it’s beat. A cheerful many voiced harmony can be hear as we see the tumbleweeds being blown about. Voices singing happily in latin as Tiny Tippy Templeton the idiotic flag-waving flute tooting jingoist of the orphanage with some sort of genetic abnormality suddenly comes riding into the garden on a big juicy Turkey. The Turkey rears its little misshapen piebald head and screechily screams “gobble gobble”
Bill Fakespeare (Agent 42): So wet and lachrymal these entertainments, yet how dry my throatways.
Agent 18 passes Fakespeare one of the cheap beers.
Fakespeare: A True Friend, that keeps me irrigated!
On screen the kids are gathering around Tippy and the Turkey.
Cute kid 1: Gee Tip, where’d you get the turk?
Tippy: What’r you, a canuckistan spy?
Cute kid 1: gee no
Tippy: Likely story waffle-eater! Listen up losers, this great primortal beast shall be our feast come Thanksliving day!”
Many voiced rejoicing in Latin wells up as all the kids jump up and clap their hands as Tippy rides the monstrous Turkey around the yard some more, swinging his hat in the air and talking some stupid racist/nationalistic tripe.
Scene Change: Football game, Regional Bankers
Mr. Scumbody is watching from the side and talking to another even older and evil seeming banker. The same music from before is heard here, only shifted a tone lower and evidently some of the voices are played backwards.
IG Agent 9: What the hell?!? (gets out notebook, starts scribbling furiously)
Mr. Scumbody: things are going great, soon we will have the orphanage and be able to drill in to get the oil.
Other banker: drill deep, Scumbody, drill all the way to hell if you have to!
Nobody is really paying attention to the movie at this point because there is beer to drink and chips, mixed with shrooms, to eat. Turkey still not done. The only one really rapt with the action on screen is IG Agent #9.
Scene on Screen — Brandy Bobby (the orphaned son of alcoholics) is playing football on the field when Bartholomew comes out and takes him down.
Billy: Gee, Bartholomew can play! Do it again Bartholomew do it again.
There is an underlying tension to the otherwise cute and engaging scene, caused by the rapid playing of zithers in the score and the horrid screeching of Bartholomew as he mauls the poor orphan. Also the laughter of the orphans sounds like the cries of the damned.
Agents talking —
Agent 77: 𝌦 𝌧 𝌨⚞ ⚟𝌂☲𝌌𝌅
Agent 18: These potato chips are more powerful than I thought!
Agent 42 (Fakespeare): Vast tuberine armies I spy them in my mind?
Agent 88: What did he say?
Agent 18: He’s high.
Agent 88: what did agent 77 say?
Agent 18: I think he said We’re high.
Scene on Screen — Mr. Scumbody is threatening the orphans again, he’s in the hallway of the orphanage, the camera is shooting up at him, making him a looming, angry presence as he waves his hat about yelling about how he is going to kick the orphans out and take all the land and the banker’s football team is going to win the regional division trophy. The background music is somber with odd bursts of trumpets.
Agent 18: What the fuck, his football team what is he on about?!? Why would he even bring that up?
Agent 88: I think this movie is about football. And about evil white men with money.
Scene on Screen — kid with annoying gap in teeth shouting: We can beat your team any day of duh week!
Other kids: yeah, jumping and clapping.
Mr. Scumbody: Oh you can, can you!?
Mr Scumbody Bends real close so his scowling grinning face can be seen up close to the scared child’s. His voice is almost indecipherable, he says he will take him up on the offer and if his team loses the orphans can keep the job but he will have the kid delivered as a sacrificial animal (music full orchestra, howls of the damned in background)
Agent 9: This movie is evil, I have proof! (waving notebook in air)
Agent 9 gets up and runs out.
Mr. Scumbody: and he will extract all the bones from his body and have him rolled up like a tube of toothpaste before hungry dogs tear his skin apart…
Agent 18: WTF, is he really saying all this stuff, it keeps going on and on.
Agent 42 (Fakespeare): With tension ever-ambitious to make those that sit before us have stomachs too weak to eat the sadness or misery of the present., I feel in my countage the number that sayeth to go and darken no longer the door of Slam.
Agent 88: What the hell is that asshole saying?
Agent 42: Upward, the nourishment to god, it has nourished overmuch the mortal man who now near dies from its ambrosia.
Agent 18: He’s gonna hurl!
Agent 18 grabs up the nearly empty red bowl to give to Agent 42 who does indeed hurl.
Agent 77: This is probably the greatest movie ever made!
Agent 88: Take it to the Kitchen.
Agent 18 takes the red bowl to the kitchen and leaves it there, where later that evening it will be mistaken for cold gazpacho by IG Agent 99, a mistake that will have world-shattering historical consequences!
Agent 77: The only problem is the soundtrack sucks. Needs more Queen.
Agent 88: There isn’t any Queen in it.
Agent 77: That’s right, that’s why it could always use some more.
Agent 42 (Fakespeare): I shall now retire, to sleep perchance to not soil myself or the bedding.
Agent 88: Right, good idea (mumbling under his breath, man that guy does not make a lick of sense)
Scene On Screen — The gruff old coach makes Bartholomew’s teammates (remember Bartholomew, the football playing Turkey?) wheel about giant pumpkins to get in shape.
Scene On Screen — Oh No! The owner of the local newspaper— an oaf named Mr. Grarbooby who is in cahoots with Mr. Scumbody (they say that in the film, they say those two are in cahoots) , tries to shoot Bartholomew (The famous football playing turkey who is doing his best to make sure the orphans have a Happy Thanksgiving!)
Agent 18: That was funny, I think?
Agent 88: I think the blue bowl is more powerful.
Agent 99: (shouting from the Kitchen): Hey, is this anyone’s gazpacho?
Scene on Screen — The day of the big football game, the sky is black, lightning can be seen to flash in the distance.
Agent 99: I REPEAT — IS THIS ANYONE’S GAZPACHO!?
Agent 77: We don’t know anything!
Agent 99: Big surprise there.
Agent 77 and 88: What an asshole.
Scene on Screen — The bankers although bigger than the kids and more violent are continuously being outmaneuvered by their smaller opponents, there are strong undercurrents of the nature vs. nurture debate here, the bankers represent the upper social class and should be able to defeat the rough and ragged orphans, but the orphans have been toughened by life, they have grown up playing in these muddy fields, they have had to fight every moment of their lives, they..
oooh, banker steals football from Tiny Tippy Templeton and kicks him in the balls
Tippy: ow, a fucking Northern Territories love tap.
Bartholomew goes insane, bowls over 4 bankers in his way to get at the cowardly banker who is nearing the boy’s goal line and whimpering in fear at the terror of the swiftly approaching turkey. The banker isn’t man enough to take on the turkey and throws him the ball, dropping in the mud of the field exposing his midsection to the turkey’s razor-sharp spurs. Slash Slash, take that oppressor of Orphans!
Bartholomew has the ball and runs it to a touchdown, the score is now tied at 4–4. The banker is carried off the field in a stretcher.
Agent 18: Ok I’m not a big football expert but I think that would warrant some kind of penalty there.
Agent 77: I think the theory is that since a turkey can play because there’s nothing in the rule book that says they can’t then a turkey can also gut a man because nothing in the rule book says otherwise.
Agent 88: Good, consistent theory.
Agent 18: The sour cream and onion chips make the shrooms taste better than salt and vinegar does, which is sad because I really prefer salt and vinegar chips normally.
Agent 99 walks through the company carrying a big metal canister for soup, grabs a couple of Jarritos: I guess you all don’t need these.
Agent 88: Ever try BBQ shrooms, it’s nasty! Quit whining.
As Agent 99 walks out door to go downstairs to workshop Agent 88 yells after him: Yeah, just help yourself there bud.
The storm is now over the field. There is thunder and lightning and hail the size of quarters.
The bankers are whining that they can’t go on, it’s too dangerous to play in this weather. Mr. Scumbody grabs quarterback by the balls “Listen here, Crumbtemple, if we forfeit this game we might as well go to hell right now and jump in the lake of fire!”
Across the field the orphans are jumping up and down in the pummeling hail and singing their fight song “KILL, KILL, KILL, KILL”, Bartholomew is gobbling and shrieking with blood-lust.
Tippy: You money-grubbers will pay for my balls!
Agent 77: Queen could really have rocked this fight song.
Agent 88: I have to admit “You money-grubbers will pay for my balls!” is a classic Freddie Mercury lyric.
The orphans have the ball, they go into a huddle to discuss their next move.
Agent 18 (laying on floor, eating shrooms) : I think this means that only those who are not oppressed by the previous generations can lead us into the new utopia where humans and all animals, not just turkeys, shall live as one.
Agent 77: The word cornerback just doesn’t make any sense.
Tippy: Okay you shitbirds, here’s my idea! I get the ball, you Bartholomew go crazy and run over me I grab onto you and ride but from underneath so they won’t notice me! You run straight ahead, straight up the middle, the rest of you guys make a path for him by grabbing the opposing tackles about the knees — bite the knees if you get the chance — and scream as loud as you can “Look out, he’s gone crazy!” Bartholomew, when you get to the middle linebacker make sure to take a healthy chomp out of his tally-whacker. From there on run all the way, if you can’t make it I jump off and carry the ball home.
Bartholomew: gobble?
Tippy: No, there’s nothing in the rule book that says a turkey can’t bite off a man’s tackle, you’re in the clear.
Agent 18: No matter how we evolve, no matter all the layers of civilization, in the end Nature red in tooth and claw is still there to bite off our tackle.
On the screen they line up for the play…
Tiny yells: Alright, this is it, Down with Canada!
Agent 18: shouldn’t he say hut?
Agent 77: No, hut wasn’t in common usage when this movie was made.
The play goes off without a hitch, Tiny grabs on underneath Bartholomew and rides through the opening made the defense, Bartholomew takes out the middle linebacker — a big beefy banker named Muckbowl . The blood from Muckbowl’s mangled genitalia sprays up on Tiny’s laughing face. The banker defense is confused — who has ball? They don’t realize Tiny is being carried by Bartholomew, they’re already past the 10 yard line before the bankers start chasing Bartholomew even though they don’t know how they assume he has the ball somehow.
Touchdown! In crossing the 1 yard line Tiny disengages from Bartholomew’s undercarriage, the bankers howl with rage and betrayal. Tiny slams the ball and does a victory dance with a lot of rather disturbing pelvic gyrations for an undernourished orphan from the 1930s-40s to be doing.
The kids carry Tiny around, whooping it up.
The game is over, the kids and Bartholomew are gathered around Mrs. Hanligan as she accepts the deed to the orphanage from Mr. Scumbody.
As the bankers depart the field presumably for hell and eternal torment, and the kids depart the field for a well earned Thanksgiving dinner Mrs. Hanligan gently wraps her beefy hands around Bartholomew’s neck and gives it a quick vicious twist. Bartholomew is dead, Thanksgiving is SO ON!
YAY The Turkey is finally ready, but everyone is too high and freaked out from watching the movie to eat.
End tally:
Agent 42 sleeping on couch with dried vomit about his mouth.
Agent 18 laying on floor staring at the ending logo of the film studio
Agent 88 asleep.
Agent 9 ran off, probably insane somewhere.
Agent 77 writing on computer.
Resources:
For people who are not familiar with American Football and would like to read about the various bits we have these articles.
The article was written by IG Agent 77, after the party was over based on his best recollections of events, and also some surveillance cameras he had around.
