Tomb

Thank goodness for editors. Every week, I submit a page full of incoherent ramblings to this fine publication and my editors transform it into something that's actually readable and print-worthy. Then, once everything's been fixed, I take all the credit. It's awesome.

A film editor has an even bigger job to do, which is to physically construct a film out of many, many strands of unconnected film stock. On top of this, the usual duty of protecting the audience from the artist’s stupidity is as vital as ever. This comes up in comedy a lot, when unfunny jokes must be expunged from the final version of the movie. Sure, that abortion gag might have seemed hilarious when you and James thought of it at 2 a.m., drunk off your asses, and sure, you went to the trouble of scripting, performing and filming it, but now everybody can see how awful it is, and it's gotta go.

The following comedy films once contained jokes that are not only unfunny, but are so dark and inappropriate that it's amazing that they were ever even considered.

• Clerks (1994): In the original ending to Kevin Smith's breakout comedy, a robber shows up and shoots the main character dead. Blam! Roll credits, as a suddenly no-longer-laughing audience stares in shock and shuffles silently out of the theatre.

Smith explains that he wrote this ending when he looked at his script and realized that it was “nothing but dick jokes.” He eventually realized that the abrupt change in tone spoiled the film, and removed it.

• Bruce Almighty (2003): Bruce (Jim Carrey) is given all the powers of God (Morgan Freeman), and uses his newfound abilities to embarrass rival newscaster Evan Baxter (Steve Carell), by making Baxter babble like an idiot on the air. Carell gets big laughs by making absurd noises and facial expressions. Funny!

But wait — an extended version of the scene was shot in which things go quite a bit further. The hapless anchorman gets an uncontrollable nosebleed and pumps blood all over the desk. Then his head catches on fire. Yikes!

The “telekinetically induced nosebleed” idea was stolen from the unfunny Chevy Chase comedy Modern Problems (1981), and it was just as creepy back then. Throw in a terrified, screaming man slowly burning to death, and you've pretty much got the opposite of a joke.

• My Name is Earl (2005): In the 16th episode of this popular sitcom, Christine Taylor makes a guest appearance as an attractive psychology professor. Near the end, she receives several bee stings, and an allergic reaction makes her face puff up.

The first season DVD set shows us an alternate version of the scene in which the makeup artist did too good a job on the lovely Taylor. She looks bad in the broadcast version, but in the deleted version of the scene, she looks ghastly. Fearful, enflamed eyes peer sadly from behind a grotesque balloon of flesh that was once a face. She is no longer recognizably human. The effect was so horrible, most of the crew members on the set couldn't even bring themselves to look at her.

• Zoolander (2001): OK, this one's a little weird, and I don't have a lot of evidence to back it up, but stick with me. About a decade ago, an article appeared in the excellent British magazine Total Film describing the filming of a scene in the then-upcoming Ben Stiller comedy, Zoolander. The scene involved a “burn gag,” which is a term for a stunt in which a stuntman coats himself in protective gel and is actually set on fire. These scenes frequently appear in action films and are done under safe conditions, with fire extinguishers close at hand.

Zoolander, you might remember, is a lightweight, goofy comedy about airheaded male models. In one scene, three such airheaded male models get into a silly mood at a gas station and start playfully hosing one another down with gasoline. This is filmed in slow motion, with upbeat music, as if the lads were engaged in a harmless water fight. Naturally, the gas ignites, but all we see is a big fireball, with no human shapes inside.

So why were the stuntmen and protective gel needed in the first place? Surely they never actually filmed people burning to death in a comedy, did they?

As crazy as it seems, I suspect that they did actually film a full-on burn gag. The Total Film article describes safety preparations that would have been completely unnecessary for the scene as it appears in the final film. No burn gag appears in any of the deleted scenes on the DVD either, but check out the alternate version of the end credits. It's a montage of random images from the film, including a brief shot of three men engulfed in a huge ball of fire.