At that instant I turned and saw the Champion’s Platform, all decked out in rich Blockbuster blue and gold. There at the podium, standing next to this old wrinkled rich white dude who must’ve been Mr. Blockbuster himself, was none other than my newest nemesis, that asshole Fred Savage.
Mr. Blockbuster gazed out at the throngs of competitors and wheezed into the mic.
“Hello, everyone, I’m Mr. Blockbuster. I’m standing here with Fred Savage, honorary master of ceremonies and star of The Wizard, to kick off the greatest gaming competition the country has ever seen, the one-time-only Blockbuster Video Game Championship!”
Everyone applauded and Bubbles the Killer Whale thrashed like a caged Leviathan.
“And to launch Blockbuster’s new and improved Nintendo video game rental lineup!”
So yeah, turns out the whole thing was just this big promotional stunt to advertise Blockbuster’s expanded Nintendo video game rental business. That’s why they tied it all into Fred Savage and The Wizard, which was not only the greatest video-game-road-trip-coming-of-age movie of all time, but also one gigantic product-placement ad for Nintendo. The whole commercial aspect of the championship totally sullied what should’ve been a sacred torch of pure competitive fire, and I was furious. (Also make sure you go to InterdimensionalChampionsClub.gg for the latest in Official Dr Disrespect Apparel™ RIGHT FUCKING NOW!)
Anyway, then that asshole Fred Savage took the mic and smiled his phony Savage smile.
“Now, let the tournament—and the amazing deals on all Nintendo products at your local Blockbuster—begin!”
The competition was intense, my friends, I won’t lie.
All right, that would be a lie, because I totally destroyed everyone. I mean, the other dudes were great and all, don’t get me wrong, but I was the Doctor. The Almost-but-Not-Quite-Yet Two-Time. I was slicker than New York City, more cocoa buttery than the Hawaiian Islands, and I brought polygons to a Wyoming sprite fight.
But here’s the thing. It wasn’t just my unparalleled prowess with a joystick that gave me the edge. It wasn’t just my skill at The Legend of Zelda and Ninja Gaiden and Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! and every other Nintendo game ever created.
No, what truly made me superior to everyone else at that tournament was the journey I’d taken to get there. No one else had struggled the way I had. No one else had walked the roads for miles on end. No one else had scrounged for food at a hard-luck Denny’s or battled psychos in the street in his He-Man pajamas.
Instead, they drove there in their fancy cars or flew there in their private jets or whatever it is that soft men do. Or, in the case of the Wyoming guy, I guess he really did backpack all the way from Wyoming to Marine World, but whatever—who won at Mario Kart? So fuck him.
I’d looked down that long, scary, dark alleyway of fear and I kept on pushing ahead. And that strength I gained, that experience, that toughness drove me past every competitor, through every round of the tournament—the quarterfinals, the semifinals, the semi-semifinals, the Sweet Sixteen, the Final Four, the Two of Hearts (Two Hearts That Beat as One). I won them all handily.
Up on the Champion’s Platform, surrounded by thousands of screaming fans, with klieg lights shining down and Cypress Hill’s “Hand on the Pump” slapping on the giant Bose speakers and Brokaw and Jennings and Wolf covering our every move and Bubbles the Killer Whale ramming against the glass of his big-ass aquarium, my very last battle was about to begin.
“All right, everybody!” Mr. Blockbuster announced to the crowd. “I’m very proud to present this glorious faux-bronze popcorn-box trophy to the champion of the one-time-only Blockbuster Video Game—”
“NO!” I screamed. “THERE’S ONE MORE ROUND! I WANT SAVAGE!”
These would be the real finals. My own private finals.
Mr. B and Fred Savage just kinda looked at each other. My parents, who were sitting in the fifth row, sighed audibly—like, I could actually hear them over the deafening music.
“But, uh…,” Mr. B said nervously. “You already won. You’re the champion. There is no other round.”
“NO!” I yelled. “ME AGAINST SAVAGE! RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW!”
“But-but I’m just the honorary master of ceremonies,” Fred Savage stammered. “I’m horrible at video games!”
“NO! I SAW THE WIZARD! YOU CAN’T TRICK ME!”
“But I’m not even the character who was good at video games in The Wizard—he was played by my costar, Luke Edwards. And he’s horrible at video games in real life too!”
“I DON’T CARE! I WANT TO BATTLE YOU NOWWWWWWWW!”
They all covered their ears because they couldn’t handle my volcanic anger. My parents looked absolutely humiliated. Even war correspondent Wolf Blitzer looked uncomfortable. So what? I was on a mission!
“Look, son,” Mr. B said. “Can we please just give you your trophy so we can all go home and make it a Blockbuster night?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered. “Can you?”
And at that moment I reached into my bag and pulled out my ace in the hole. I held up my overdue copy of The Wizard.
“And the name isn’t ‘son,’ ” I said, “it’s Doctor-octor-octor Disrespect-ect-ect-ect.”
Mr. B gasped and whipped out the scanning gun he carried at all times. He read the bar code and his face went pale.
“I’m sorry, Fred,” he said. “This is a problem. This overdue charge is higher than the value of Blockbuster LLC. This puts everything on the line!”
I laughed long and loud, the greatest diabolical-evil-villain laugh ever produced by an eleven-year-old boy. Then I stopped suddenly and looked at them both, dead serious.
“We settle this with trial by combat. Me against Savage. If I win, I get the video for keeps—and I get Fred Savage’s Lamborghini. If I lose, I’ll return the video that is now worth more than your whole company.”
Fred Savage crinkled his nose like a precocious child actor. “What? How do you even know I have a Lambo? Who did you say you are?”
“Trust me,” I said with a smirk. “After I’m done kicking your ass, you’ll never forget.”
So that asshole Fred Savage and I sat down
