Name That Charlie!

by Jason Mittell — Middlebury College
February 28, 2011 – 14:50

I just finished watching the epic & winning Charlie Sheen live interview on TMZ. I’m normally not a big fan of celebrity meltdown stories, but this one has captivated me, mostly because Sheen’s brand of crazy is so fabulously entertaining and there seems to be an endless pipeline of his “Sheenius” ramblings. But is he truly original, or is he channeling madmen of a previous era?

Here’s my pitch for a new game show: Name That Charlie! Contestants would be read a quotation and have to identify the Charlie of Record who said it: Manson, Bukowski, or Sheen. As a test of concept, here’s a sample set of 25 quotations – offer your guesses in the comments! (No Googling allowed…)

1. “I don’t have burnout my gearbox. I only have go.”

2. “I think people misinterpret my passion for anger.”

3. “Sometimes you just have to pee in the sink.”

4. “I’m probably one of the most dangerous men in the world if I want to be. But I never wanted to be anything but me.”

5. “We are high priest Vatican assassin warlocks. Boom! Print that, people!”

6. “I ain’t got no magical powers and mystical trips and all that kind of crap. It’s kind of silly.”

7. “We’re not in Wonderland anymore Alice.”

8. “I got magic and I got poetry at my fingertips.”

9. “Read behind the f***in’ hieroglyphics…this is cryptology.”

10. “Some people never go crazy, What truly horrible lives they must live.”

11. “My motto now is that you must either love or you hate and you must do so violently.”

12. “When I go on the mountain and I say “Do it!”, it gets done. And if it doesn’t get done, then I move on it. And that’s the last thing in the world you want from me!”

13. “I got a disease? Bullshit. I cured it with my brain!”

14. “Remorse for what? You people have done everything in the world to me. Doesn’t that give me equal right?”

15. “Resentments … are the rocket fuel that lives in the tip of my saber.”

16. “You can’t process me with a normal brain.”

17. “Boring damned people. All over the earth. Propagating more boring damned people. What a horror show. The earth swarmed with them.”

18. “I will not believe that if I do something then I have to follow a certain path because it was written for normal people. People who aren’t special. People who don’t have tiger blood and Adonis DNA.”

19. “I can’t judge any of you. I have no malice against you and no ribbons for you. But I think that it is high time that you all start looking at yourselves, and judging the lie that you live in.”

20. “Never get out of bed before noon”

21. “Remorse for what? You people have done everything in the world to me. Doesn’t that give me equal right?”

22. “If people think I’m insane or they don’t think that what I’m saying is true, I have no interest in their retarded opinions. I’m gonna live my life the way I want, I’m gonna win inside every moment, and they can just find the most comfortable chair in their small house and sit back and enjoy the show.”

23. “Bad taste creates many more millionaires than good taste.”

24. “I’m not your executioner. I’m not your devil and I’m not your God. I’m Charlie XXX.”

25. “I am on a drug, it’s called Charlie XXX. It’s not available because if you try it you will die. Your face will melt off and your children will weep over your exploded body.”

And as a bonus round, imagine this great sketch from The Ben Stiller Show remade with Sheen!