The Original Script
Most movies start out with an original script written by a screenwriter(s), then are changed, revised, and revamped by writers, directors, producers, etc.. So a movie, obviously, is rarely ever even 90% of the original script and idea.
Zak Penn, one of the original scriptwriters for PCU, was gracious enough to send me a copy of the first script. While I can't reproduce it here due to copyright laws and whatnot, I can give you a whole new insight into this terrific movie, including the origins of the Pit (originally the Zoo), cut characters and PC groups, and tons of classic quotes not seen in the movie. So sit back and enjoy... PCU: The Original Script!
PCU Original Script
October 2, 1992
by Adam Laff and Zak Penn
BRIEF SYNOPSIS: The storyline and many concepts of PCU were already established in this plot. Tom Lawrence, a pre-frosh, is touring Port Chester U. during graduation weekend, and has been assigned to Droz for a weekend host. He falls in with the Zoo and is illuminated on the current PC culture of the campus. While Tom attempt to look for a "normal" group on campus, the Zoo members raise hell by pissing off every PC group they can. They fall into crisis when the President slaps them with a 16 grand fine, and decide to throw an all-campus party to raise the funds. Gutter manages to snag the band Nirvana (yes, Nirvana) for the party, and they pull it off. Many smaller plots are happening: Droz' love of Sam, the Trust Fund Babies (who become Balls and Shaft) conspire to reclaim the Zoo's house, Ed McMahon comes to campus as the graduation speaker, Pig Man is completing his thesis, Tom manages to piss off every PC group on campus, etc.. It ends with a riot, much like the movie but with Ed McMahon coming to their aid as well. Overall, it has a remarkable freshness to it, but there are spots that were refined beautifully by the movie. Although I wish they had left the exploding meatloaf in the flick...
NEW/CHANGED CHARACTERS:
- Droz is instead entitled THE DROZ
- Instead of the Daves, there were two Pit members named NEEDLEMAN and NOSENTHROAT (the former thin, the later fat). They go around arguing about every little thing. Called "the Idiots" by the Zoo.
- ERNST THE PROTESTER is the leader of the soon-to-be CauseHeads. Moonbeam still exists as a member, serving drinks and food in a PC club.
- PRESIDENT WALLACE LEECH is somewhat akin to the dean in Animal House. Leech is anti-PC, but more of a publicity hound than a individualist.
- ED MCMAHON was intended to be the graduation speaker. In the script there is called for an impersonator for McMahon, possibly someone of SNL.
- THE GROVELER is the WPCU deejay who was seen for only a bit in the movie, but had a fairly big part in the script.
TRIVIA AND CHANGES:
- Based on the script, PCU would most likely have been an R-rated movie instead of a PG-13 due to lots more profanity and sex.
- The Pit was The Zoo (based off of the Eclectic, a housing group that Laff and Penn were members of in Wesleyan).
- PC Groups that made it through the cuts: Causeheads, Womynists, Computer Geek (and thesis mob), Jocks
- PC Groups changed: MALCOMS to Afro-Centrists, DEADHEADS to Jerrytown, TRUST FUND BABIES to Balls and Shaft
- PC Groups cut: FILM MAJORS
- Instead of Droz' phallis named "Mr. Pokey", it was "Mr. Pony"
- The Zoo owed $16,400 instead of the $7,000 that made it to the movie.
- Nirvana was the band originally written for the script.
- Note from scriptwriters: "The word 'suckah' is used several times by various members of the Zoo. It is intended to be more of a sound effect than a word, a la Homer's 'Groan' on the Simpsons."
- Katy and Tom have sex.
QUOTES FROM THE ORIGINAL SCRIPT:
[during "meat" protest, a porkchop boinces off Tom's car]
Father: What the hell was that? Damn shame if it rained on Graduation.
Tom: [under his breath] It looked like a pork chop.
Mullaney: I've gotta get to the Registrar. If my drop for for Molecular Basis of Environmental Pollution isn't in today, Kemper's gonna fail me.
Droz: You failed Sh*t In The River? That's the easiest course in the school.
Mullaney: Not if you never go.
[Moonbeam has told Droz that all his favorite coffee brands are out]
Moonbeam: Can I get you something else?
Droz: Yeah, I'll tell you what you can get me. I'll have a bacon, lettuce and baby seal steak sandwich served on a red-dyed roll with a side order of humpback whale salad in a 32 oz. styrofoam party cup. And triple bag it.
Leech: Now pay attention, because I'm only going to say this once...
Droz: [to Gutter] Bet you three bucks he says that again...
[Gut nods]
Leech: Mr. Andrews! Be quiet... Now pay attention, because I'm only going to say this once...
[Gut forks over the bills]
Leech: You have been cited for Bestiality Awareness Week, A March held for People of No Color, a Smokathon on Earth Day...
Mersh: Don't boke on me, brah! That's three eighths of primo thai skunk...
SUBTITLE: Don't cough in the water pipe, friend! My marijuana is of the highest quality...
DEADHEAD #1: This stash is skank, man.
SUBTITLE: These drugs are inferior.
DEADHEAD #2: Yah, well biz the bindle Ferbie. Casey can richter sesh, lunking over with Jonny Law...
SUBTITLE: I've smoked so much pot that I'm incoherent.
Needleman: Predator's fighting for sport, Alien fights to survive. Alien wants it more, he wins.
Nosenthroat: But the Predator's got that crazy shoulder missle that can blow a hole right through his chest...
Needleman: Yeah, and then he gets sprayed by acid blood and melts. Once again, Alien wins...
Needleman: Don't be an idiot, of course it goes off.
Nosenthroat: That's what the refrigerator people tell you, but you don't know it for sure...
Needleman: The second before you close it, you see it go out.
Mullaney: Ah, Rand McNally and the Charter Members of The Aryan Nation.
Sam: I don't think pesticides are particularly male.
Womynist: Don't be dense, Dam. Crop drusting is merely a condoned, group scale extension of ejaculation.
Sam: [to Droz] It figures you'd pick a carrot. Always promoting the phallocracy. [Droz stops chewing] I'm kidding Droz.
Sam: [reminding Droz on why she fell in with the Womynists] My dorm room burned during your Earth Day Smokathon.
Droz: You wanna know what I think about you guys?
B.D.: Yeah, what?
Droz: I think you're a bunch of lyle-knit-polo-shirt blousing, designer beer bellied, triple-legacied, optional spoilered, Daddy's boat-borrowing, Semester in Florenced, cookie-cutter Kidder Peabody wannabee, crew rowing, lacrosse ball throwing, Hamptons going, Board of Trustees blowing, pre-washed, button-flyed, econ majoring trust fund babies with silver spoons jammed so far down your throats that you can lick the creamy filling out of the tea bags of ass-shoved Mint Mialnos lodged high into your oversized money manager butts without getting cocktail peanuts on the waistbands of you moleskin Orvis pond waders.
[Film majors sitting around a table]
Student #1: I'm bored.
Student #2: I'm impotent.
Student #3: I'll masturbate if you film it.
Needleman: But if you freeze to death you'd be numb before the serious pain set in.
Nosenthroat: Oh, and like you'd really be conscious after being boiled for an hour.
Droz: Deadly Zulu Protest. Haven't seen one of those since Skanky Bimbo Night my third sophomore year.
[Droz and Katy drive to New Hampshire for beer and return]
Droz: Twenty minutes, including snack stops, two speeding tickets, and four dead pedestrians...
Katy: ... not bad.
Droz: [about Kurt Cobain's rather unintelligable speech] Your friend seems to have a hampster lodged in his throat...
Pig Man: Yo Droz. Shower scene, man.
[Droz hurries over]
Droz: Full on zest-backed soap-dildo Police Woman wet-down. Yes.
[Droz handing out a thesis to a Comp. Lit. 19th century English novel major]
Droz: Alright, "Vagina as Syntax: The Clitoral Grammar of Henry James."
[Womynist accepts a brew dog]
Womynist: I can't believe you, he's a white male oppressor.
Womynist #2: I don't know, he seems pretty harmless. Besides, he's got a bulge in his pants the size of a Cadillac.
Mullany: Leech is the President. He's got the authority, he can kick us out.
Tom: What if he wasn't President anymore?
All: [getting excited] We kill him!
Tom: Hold on, wait a second!
Droz: Okay, it's clear we've all been swindled. But that leaves us with two choices. We can get up from our seats and shout and scream and protest all day...
[Everyone starts to riot]
Droz: Or... [crowd quiets] or we can do something totally unprecedented... We can sit down and discuss this rationally.
[long moment of silence]
Droz: I say we protest the hell out of 'em.
Droz: [faking like he has a gun under his gown, terrifying the board members] I want a written guaruntee that the Zoo will remain open for good, a million dollars in unmarked bills to be wired to a Swiss Bank account, Diplomatic Immunity, and a helicoptor to fly me out in fifteen minutes...
© 1997-2003 Justin Olivetti
|
