Favorite moments: ‘Mad Max Power Wheels’

We all have our favorite moments in movies, books, and games, moments that stay with us long after the story is over. This column is my attempt to examine my favorite moments and see why they stick with me.

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The video:

Why it’s great:

Let’s pretend for a moment that you’re writing Hollywood’s next big film, the blockbuster that will finally earn you cinematic immortality and a big boost of friends on your Facebook page. But there’s problem: You’re writing a comedy, and you’re doing a big action scene of, say, soldiers attacking a fortress. The scene’s well-written, but it’s not funny, and nothing you do makes it work. What do you do?

Why not replace the soldiers with kids?

‘Mad Max Power Wheels’ is a near-perfect example of one of my favorite comedy tropes: Having children re-enact adult movies with a comedic bent. We expect to see little kids pretending to be police officers, paramedics, or firefighters when driving around in Power Wheels, not celebrating the release a of an R-rated post-apocalyptic movie by pretending to be hardened road warriors slaughtering each other for gazzoline gasoline. Yet, seeing that contrast between bloody death and ruin and innocent kids having lots of fun makes for comedy gold, and it only gets funnier the more mature, bloody, or gruesome said stories are. Captain Phillips, anyone?

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