| Normal-sized limbs are passé. It’s the guys with the eight-foot-long arms that get all the chicks. This week, Video Vulture looks at characters that have been blessed with extendable and/or extremely long arms or legs. Enjoy!
· Inspector Gadget (1983-1986) – Go, go gadget legs! This once-popular animated kid’s show features a bumbling detective bristling with bionic devices. In addition to extendable limbs, he’s equipped with retractable binoculars, roller skates, helicopter blades and an inflatable trench coat. Despite all of these contraptions, he usually has to rely on his clever niece Penny and her dog Brain to do all of the actual detective work. Two live-action films followed in 1999 and 2003.
· Master of the Flying Guillotine a.k.a. One-Armed Boxer 2, a.k.a. One-Armed Boxer vs. the Flying Guillotine (1975) – There are plenty of bizarre fight scenes in this wonderfully entertaining kung fu flick from writer/director/star Jimmy Wang Yu. Jimmy plays the One Armed Boxer – an amputee martial artist targeted for death by a blind assassin who wields the title weapon – a deadly hat-on-a-string that can decapitate a foe from 100 paces. One of the many adversaries Jimmy faces is a turbaned Yoga practitioner from India who can stretch his arms until they’re five feet long! The fight scenes with the Yoga master are unforgettably weird, with the master strangling his helpless foes from a suitably safe distance.
· Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life (1983) – One of the most bizarre sequences in the movie is the "Find the Fish" sketch, in which outrageously attired characters speak directly to the audience, make absurd vocal sounds and gestures, and encourage the audience to participate in locating a missing fish. One of the characters (Terry Jones as "Strange Man") has extremely long arms that bend at weird angles.
· Green Wing (2004-2006) – This one-of-a-kind British sitcom could be described as Monty Python meets Scrubs, with a dash of South Park. It’s an hour-long sketch-comedy-drama-soap opera filled with some of the most outrageous characters to ever staff a major metropolitan hospital. The strangest character by far (amongst some stiff competition) is the insane staff liaison officer Sue White (Michelle Gomez), who goes to extreme lengths to "weird out" any staff member foolish enough to enter her office. In one memorable scene, she regales Dr. Statham (Mark Heap) with a ludicrous monologue on the nature of God while wearing ridiculously long arms like the ones seen in The Meaning of Life (above). When the flustered doctor departs, Sue uses her enormous arms to grab his ass, before waving a cheery goodbye and making an obscene gesture in his direction. Once alone in her office, she does an absolutely hilarious dance, which the camera records at double speed.
· The Fantastic Four (1994) – As we all know, the leader of this Marvel comics superteam is "Mr. Fantastic," a genius scientist with stretching powers. In this first threadbare attempt to make a live-action movie version of the comic, the effect looks like something you and your buddies could do with a camcorder – a rubber hand and a long sleeve. Another film adaptation came in 2005. It had better special effects but still managed to suck. The sequel is due out next year. Oh joy.
· The Muppet Show (1976-1981) – Who could forget the Great Gonzo getting his limbs stretched by increasingly irritated guest star John Cleese? Classic stuff.
· Fight for Survival a.k.a. Lady Wu Tang (1977) –Terrific kung fu silliness with Polly Shang Kwan as a heroic martial artist who sets forth to retrieve a stolen book of secret fighting techniques. One of Polly’s foes has mastered a technique that has left him with permanently elongated legs and the actor who plays him does his fight scenes while wearing stilts. Another thief has similarly elongated arms. The bad guys are awestruck by Polly’s ability to not only stretch her arms and legs, but to also retract them back to normal size – an ability the thieves lack because they aren’t pure of heart!
· City Hunter (1993) – This wild ’n’ woolly Jackie Chan flick is chiefly remembered for one inspired fight scene in which Jackie, his opponent (Gary Daniels) and two bystanders get transformed into characters from the Street Fighter 2 arcade game, complete with tinny music, "hadoken" energy blasts and end of battle "gloating" moves. Jackie starts the fight as sumo wrestler E. Honda, but soon turns into female kickboxer Chun Li! One of the bystanders becomes Dhalsim, a yoga practitioner who can stretch his limbs and breathe fire. He delivers one good kick with his stretchy leg. The character of Dhalsim would also appear in animated and live action movie versions of Street Fighter.
· Buddha’s Palm (1982) – The main villain in this hyperactive Wuxia epic is "Foot Monster," also known as "Heavenly Foot of Ten Thousand Swords Clan," This white-haired gent can extend his leg across a room and deliver a kick that can flatten a building. That’s just a warmup – when he’s really mad, he’ll expand his foot to the size of a bus and crush his foe Monty Python style.
· Baby Bottleneck (1946) – A classic Warner Brothers cartoon from the period when Porky Pig and Daffy Duck worked together as a comedy duo. This time the boys are filling in for the Stork, automating the birth process with their unreliable baby-delivering factory. At one point, Daffy gets one of his legs stretched until it resembles a 50-foot noodle. This really complicates his next chase scene. When I first saw this as a kid, I laughed myself hoarse. |
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