Green Sky At Morning, Dioramist Take Warning

There are people who can quote every line from Godfather 2; Cinephiles who deliver dialogue from memory with a conviction only achieved through multiple viewings, burning holes in you with that Pacino-stare, so you know they mean business. That’s not me. As this week’s project suggests, my Godfather 2 is Joe Dante’s The ‘Burbs, which means nobody knocks off an old man in my neighborhood and gets away with it!

The ‘Burbs. A cult classic.

Years ago, I worked in a video store where the employees occasionally got to choose the in-store plays for the day. Normally, it would be a rotation of the latest releases interspersed with some classics, all running on the five overhead monitors throughout the store. To keep things fresh, though, every once in a while, the boss felt generous and let us pull a deep cut from the shelves and add it into the rotation. One day, we rewarded his generosity by choosing The ‘Burbs.

“He's got the best lawn on the block. And you know why? Because he trains his dog to crap in my yard.”

If you haven’t seen the movie, it stars Tom Hanks and Rick Ducommun as neighbors in a suburban cul-de-sac who may or may not live next door to murderous ghouls. The ‘Burbs centers around that one house on the block — you probably have one in your neighborhood — that one, hair-raising house that everyone walks by a little quicker at night. That’s the house Ray (Hanks) and Art (Ducommun) have decided to keep an eye on during one disastrous, week-long staycation.

“I just wanna hang around, be lazy, listen to the ballgame, drink a couple hundred beers…”

Now, if you’ve seen the movie, maybe you loved it. Welcome friend. Or maybe you hated it. To each his own. There’s no accounting for taste. I, however, adore this movie like a mother adores her newborn. It’s an ‘80s-style comedy-horror that has just the right combination of funny, scary, and stupid. And I’m not ashamed to say that once this video became part of our in-store play, we ran it straight into the ground with unending, all-day play loops.

Artist’s rendition of my old boss when he realizes we put The ‘Burbs in for the fifth time in one shift.

Speaking of things in the ground, this week’s diorama is a cartoony recreation of a scene in The ‘Burbs where Ray and Art are horrified to discover that the bone Ray’s dog dug up near their mysterious neighbors’ property may, in fact, be a human thigh bone. Possibly one belonging to another neighbor who hasn’t been seen for a while.

“Your neighbors are murdering people. They're chopping them up. They're burying them in their backyard.”

About those all-day play loops: The repetition tattooed The ‘Burbs onto our brains so that, in time, the other part-timers and I spoke in ‘Burbs quotes like it was a legitimate language we’d studied. We ran that movie back to back so often, day in and day out, that our boss was ready to bury us in the neighbor’s back yard. At the time, I didn’t understand his frustration. Did the mall-crawling homemakers who patronized the store and kept Doris Day rolling in residuals not want to see Tom Hanks dig up dead bodies? He was America’s sweetheart, for pete’s sake!

“Art’s got a gun.”

Perhaps we were a tad obsessive. Maybe we were idiots. But if we were, then I’m still an idiot all these years later because this past week, as Michelle and I watched the movie on repeat, using it as reference for this diorama, I began speaking in ‘Burbs again. What’s more…it’s catching. And now Michelle is speaking ‘Burbs as well. And yeah, being on the receiving end, I can see why my old boss thought it was super-annoying. But I figure if you can’t take the heat, get out of the cul-de-sac.

And thinking long-term, if we get enough folks to watch The ‘Burbs and adopt this language, we can form our own nation-state, develop our own currency and customs, maybe even rake in some of those sweet tourism dollars. Just as long as we never have to go to war with the Godfather 2 fans. Those folks mean business.

“Ray…this is Walter! Nooooooooo!”

All that said, Michelle and I had a barrel of fun putting this diorama together. If you want to see how we did it, there’s a link to the video below.