Things that have happened since I first visited the Atlanta office/studio/hard drive of Fathom Studios, creators of the limbo-encrusted animated flick Delgo:
- My wife got pregnant, had the child, and the child is prepping for her fifth birthday.
- Bernie Mac became a household name.
- This site went through like fifteen main contributors.
- Several members of the site and message boards got movie deals.
- Meg… well. Yeah.
- Bernie Mac became a tombstone name.
- Anne Bancroft shuffled away. Three years ago. This is significant because she’s one of the voices in Delgo. She got tired of waiting for the movie to come out.
- Delgo lead voice Freddie Prinze took his Scooby Doo cachet and parlayed it into douche. Then, a behind the scenes job in the world of WRESTLING. Read some of his literati. He didn’t just Delgo, he Delgo’d all the way out of his film career.
- The Wire.
- A Beautiful Mind, Chicago, and Crash won undeserved gold men.
- I found a glorious gray hair in THE PLACE.
- I was introduced to Mitch Hedberg’s comedy.
- Devin went from his parent’s basement to cable TV, movies, and direct-to-YouTube short films.
- One of my softball teammates was obliterated in a fiery motorcycle accident.
- Boxing became the 4th most popular sport involving punches to the face.
- The Grim Reaper was introduced to Mitch Hedberg’s comedy.
- Poor Challenger.
- Big Brother began to officially watch us.
- Clint Eastwood directed seven movies.
- Terrence Malick directed a movie.
- Another of my softball teammates was sliced into three pieces in a car accident.
- The Boston Red Sox became the most dominant team in baseball.
- I became an Atlanta Braves season ticket holder.
- The Atlanta Braves became a fucking joke.
- I hold my season tickets instead of using them.
- Divorces all over the place, some marriages, tons of kids, a few deaths, and even a blowjob or two.
- Three different artificial sweeteners kicked ass, became considered toxic, and still kick ass because of and in spite of their toxidity.
- Dermot Mulroney worked.
- I haven’t thrown up since 1991, so Delgo ain’t got nuthin’ on me.
- The music business continued to suck.
- Some world events and shit.
All the while, in the distant corners of the world lay Delgo. A sci-fantasy featuring a cavalcade of stars now in various states of popularity and being alive. It’s been a tough road for the film, first enduring the rigors of the competetive and oftentimes creatively bankrupt world of computer animated movies and then the rigors of being ignored by Planet Earth. In my boyhood when I last saw footage from the film, I found it to be derivate but fun and I was happy to see something that wasn’t an adaptation or anime remake or a lowest common denominator attempt at crowd pleasing. Then I forgot about Delgo the same way kids forget about their Shrinky Dink creations and the first time they realized that the Amish aren’t joking and actually really like that.
Well guess what? DELGO IS COMING.
December 12th, the day before my 11th wedding anniversary. It is coming. TO THEATERS I GUESS!
Freestyle Releasing, a company that has put out some decent films (well, The Illusionist at least) and a whole lot of not decent films, is bringing Delgo to the masses in theaters against The Day the Earth Stood Still, Doubt, and Defiance . The date will forever be known as “D-Day”, and not in infamy as all four “D” films bode to shred the ticket booth asunder with their wattage and clout. Especially Delgo. It’s like an animated Dead Sea Scroll, long thought lost or even mythical but suddenly shared with a world incapable of understanding its magnitude. If the Earth really did stand still for Delgo we’d all be motes in God’s eye.
I wonder if they’re still going to use the original theme song Beethoven recorded for it before his death.