The Freak Brothers Factory Store

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Since I came to work for Rip Off Press in 1975, there have been at least half a dozen Freak Brothers movie deals. Only one movie was actually made, though - a porn film that ripped off the Freak Brothers, Mr. Natural and Cheech and Chong all in one go with the title "Up in Flames."

I got my hands on a pirate VHS copy of this (from Something Weird Video) the other day and watched it. Unless the grandkids are visiting, our house is now free from underage hangers-on. It was pretty bizarre. None of the three characters called Phineas, Franklin and Fat Freddy even remotely resembled the comic book characters, though the credits featured a picture of the cover of Freak Brothers #3. "Fat Freddy" was a tall, thin dude with straight brown hair and a little moustache. I don't think they were even smoking any dope—mostly just getting it on with some pretty skanky-looking chicks by 21st century standards. But since this was probably made in 1974 we'll have to cut them some slack.

In 1979 the most promising movie deal of them all was penned. We received $250,000 for a five-year option on a live action Freak Brothers movie from Universal Pictures. That money bought us a state-of-the-art typesetting machine, a computer system, a year's worth of Freak Brothers comix to sell and a very expensive retail mail order catalog that took 8 months to complete (these days, I run our monthly unillustrated product list out from the database and the whole thing takes about half an hour).

Although there was a script produced, that featured San Francisco hillside car chases, geriatric sex and plenty of blow (one gets the idea there was plenty of blow all over the place in connection with this project); the movie was never made. Industry rumors had it that Universal had only bought the rights in order to prevent somebody else from making a Freak Brothers movie, in competition with the Cheech and Chong franchise for the stoner market. With Hollywood, who can say?

Over the next 25 years there were several more options taken on the movie rights, all negotiated by the same guy who'd done the Universal deal but none of them remotely as lucrative for anybody. None of them ever generated any footage, either, though one of the more recent ones (with Film Roman before the shakeup there) was so close to being real that if you Google "Freak Brothers Movie" you'll pull up a listing on IMBD.com for a supposed movie that was "made" in 2000. Nope.

But now, the project is happening for real! The Bolex Brothers, best known for their animated The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb, are producing it with director Dave Borthwick, Gilbert Shelton as artistic director, and Wallace and Gromit team member David Alex Riddett. They're working with Celluloid Dreams, who have an extensive track record with animated features.

The shop reel was shown at the Brighton Comic Expo and at a film festival in Germany last fall. It's now believed that funding is about to be achieved, and they will be going into full production on a feature length film, to be entitled "Grass Roots." (NEW! Visit the movie's web site!)

The film is loosely based on the story from Freak Brothers #5, in which the Freaks come into a large stash of cocaine and sell most of it (keeping only "a year's supply") for cash. They use the money to buy their ideal "back to the land" homestead, and move to the country with three foxy hippie chicks they pick up hitchhiking along the way. In the comic, most of their travails have to do with discovering that cocaine doesn't lead to good decision-making, along with some problems with local law enforcement.

Here's a synopsis of the movie plot from the Celluloid Dreams web site: "Adapted from the comics books THE FABULOUS FURRY FREAK BROTHERS by Gilbert Shelton By the director of THE MAGIC ROUNDABOUT & THE SECRET ADVENTURES OF TOM THUMB. For once the Brothers find themselves with plenty of cash and some righteous weed. But this is no ordinary marijuana: it's been genetically modified as part of a sinister government plot to take over the dope market. When Norbert the Narc, secret agent and rock-jawed defender of the law, decency and the American way, accidentally hands some of the prototype weed to the Brothers and they discover its bizarre side-effects, the feds are soon hot on their trail and the boys have to leave town fast. Now is the time to fulfil their long cherished dream of retiring to grow marijuana in a remote spot in the country. But what is going on in the Secret Government Research Centre just the other side of the hill? Surely the Brothers can't have chosen to hide right next to the very place where the genetically modified 'product' is being tested... Can they?"
It's all going to be animated in the same "clay animation" style as the hugely popular films from Aardman, and all I can say is I'm really looking forward to it. But after 30+ years, I'm also not holding my breath!

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