Happy Hamsters in Hell

Background: This is a preview/interview of the upcoming story: Happy Hamsters in Hell. It is still being written by Derek J. Barbee, who is currently trying to spend more time on original work instead of FanFiction. He likes many types of animals, his favorites (pretty much in order) being weasels, cows, hamsters and chickens. Why? "Because everyone else likes cats and dogs, or some exquisite animal like a Jaguar or a Long-Snouted Wazoochit from Fraboshenkloppenheimer," replies Derek without taking in a breath.

The Happy Hamsters in Hell idea came from nowhere in particular, except maybe a combination of small events. His growing interest in hamsters, for one. Also seeing Doctor Doolittle and liking the guinea pig Rodney (Chris Rock) helped. But mostly the clincher was his enjoyment of writing spoofs and writing a song about were the world was dominated by cows. "The title is a bit eccentric," admits Derek. "But it does grab your attention, and that's partly what was going for. Something interesting, against the grain. There seem to be three types of movies out there lately. Number One is the classic Disney-type kids movies with all the happy endings and predictable stuff. Definitely not. It would be hard to make a kids movie with Hamsters taking over the US. How do you explain that to your kids?

"And there's the issue of violence. There are guns, people disappearing and FBI in this story. Not quite kid stuff, but more of what you see on a totally bizarre, comical NYPD Blue, at points. "Number Two is the always rated R scary movies with disemboweled people lurching here and there, heads and guts all over the place and absolutely no humor at all. Again, definitely not. First of all, the disemboweled people would probably scare the crap out of the hamsters, and I don't want to go on about the heads and guts."

"Number Three is the oasis; the elusive Good Movie. This movie can sometimes be funny, sometimes serious but a good plotline, and sometimes in the middle. The point is that I'm not trying to create a stereotype movie." Derek also admitted a comment about a number four movie, which was known as the "Boy Meets Girl, Boy Screws Girl" type of movie, but that was totally not what he was looking for. Mating hamsters wouldn't sell very well. This comment was supposed to be off the tape, but accidents happen, don't they?

audio trailer

"The Trailer . . . that was fun to do," comments Derek. "Sometimes when I'm writing a story, I can picture how this would look in a movie. 'Oh, cool, and then the Changeling would burst through the trees there, and Sally would be running, with the camera shot right there . . .' But having only audio sort of limited me, because here would be a scene where something blew up or something really weird happened, or you saw a cute hamster, but I couldn't do that. I could only make the voices and talk out interesting parts and have sound effects. But it was still fun to do, with music and all.

"There were originally two Trailers, but the first was scrapped because it was crappy. Just me fiddling around with the program (He had just downloaded it)," says Derek. " The second and better starts with 'Uptight' by Green Day, then switches to 'Brand New Day' by No Doubt, ending in a funny way. "It took me a little bit to get the music at just a level so you could hear the voices enough, but I'm fairly satisfied with how it came out. Even though I got different people, most of the voices sound like me. That's the only annoying thing."

The Story: The story itself takes place in normal time, in a large city like New York. The two main characters are Steve Monak and Leo Kilroy, who find their simple yet difficult lives caught up in a major conspiracy where hamsters are actually intelligent creatures, and attempting to overthrow the human government. They have been plotting ever since human settlers came over to the Americas. The hamsters are disgusted with the way humans are running things, and are also afraid that they will be discovered, so they choose to act now, while they still have the element of surprise.

One particular hamster named Iffiergyerkee, tired of the whole system, spills the beans when he is caught by Leo. He tells the entire story about the hamsters, and how they operate. Leo and Steve kidnap more of the hamsters, starting a small Safe Haven for hamsters that don't want to join in the fray anymore. Thus, a rebellion is born. The rebellion goes well, until one hamster leaks information to the Hamster Elite: the Hamster SWAT Team. The Hamster Elite shows up, taking Steve and Leo hostage and turning over the rebellion to the Hamster Government. They are taken underground, to something that the humans already trapped there refer to as Hell. Now they have to try to escape, and tell the rest of the world, for the hamster conspiracy has stepped up a level, as they are plotting a major assault on the White House to capture the President and demand better terms.

almost

Written by Rod Williams
tds_eye@excite.com