So Divine

In our Divine Comedy headliner, Nickelcade Royale, many of the jokes in the sketch are the titles of Bond films worked into the dialogue. For example:

Mary: I don’t want you to kill anybody, I just want you to observe.

Scott: I see, a View to a Kill.

A View to a Kill is the title of a Bond film featuring Timothy Dalton as James Bond. That’s funny to me. However, nobody laughed. It is because they are not as literate in the Bond franchise to find the humor in it.  Chances are some of them have even been 80’s dancing and have heard Duran Duran’s wonderful song of the same title which served as the theme song of the film.  Sometimes we are experiencing media that connected specifically to another piece of media and we are unaware of it.

When I was a child I loved the television show “Dinosaurs.”  I remember particularly an episode where Earl sold his soul to the devil for a ceramic mug in the shape of the head of a popular television character.  He had the traditional angel and devil struggle to sway him for the right or wrong until he finally made his decision.  I absolutely loved this episode. 

When I was 22 I read “Dr. Faustus.”  While I read it I kept on feeling that it seemed very familiar.  Then it dawned on me that it was just like that episode of “Dinosaurs.”  A comedy series in the mid-90’s adapted a classic play to create an episode that was understandable for a child.  There was even an episode of “Animaniacs” which paid homage to “32 Short Films About Glenn Gould.”  I think that students could learn to appreciate classical literature and other forms of art if they were presented with media that was targeted towards them then shown where that media was adapted from.