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Stan Lee's Superhero Pitch
SKETCH-O-VISION
A VERY GOOD USE OF YOUR TIME.
The setup
Watch on YouTube
Watch onYouTube
The premise
Here’s the bit.
A long-haired Marvel staffer interrupts a creative meeting to welcome Stan Lee, who has asked to stop by. Lee props a stack of poster boards on a creaky easel and unveils one hero after another built around retirement-age concerns: never falling in the shower, finding the bathroom at night, managing the thermostat, mastering gadgets, tailgating slow drivers and getting grown children to visit. The staff sits in pained silence until the meeting's leader politely says none of the ideas can be used and the room agrees. Lee appears to take it gracefully, then has a sudden flash of inspiration and pitches a new team of heroes defined by being fired, at which point the entire staff loudly declares that they love his ideas.
The funny people
Meet the cast. 5
Say it with us
Highly quotable.
He lives perpetually in his best year: 1982.
This ain't my first rodeo, sonny boy.
No matter how late at night he gets up to go number one, he always knows exactly where he is.
Behind the scenes
The people who made it.
A little extra
Notes from the archive.
Comedy Central posted this sketch as "Stan Lee's Superhero Pitch" a week before the episode aired; Comedy Central Africa later re-uploaded it as "Stan Lee Presents Boring Ideas." Wikipedia's episode summary describes it as Stan Lee offering superhero concepts to younger Marvel staffers.
Script
Automatically generated script; wording may contain errors. Speaker labels are inferred.
- 00:00
Marvel Employee ?
So the other thing I'm thinking is maybe the plasma bolts, instead of going the traditional way and having them actually emanating from his hands, what if they came from his aura and just came?
- 00:11
He's here.
- 00:12
Marvel Employee
Oh, thank you. Guys, this is so exciting. Marvel legend Stan Lee calls me on the phone a couple of weeks ago and says, I'd like to stop by. So I just thought that'd be a great treat. So he's-
- 00:25
Stan Lee
Excelsior.
- 00:25
Marvel Employee ?
Hey, Mr. Lee.
- 00:27
Stan Lee
All right, all right. Sit down, sit down. Let's get going.
- 00:30
Marvel Employee ?
Oh, you're here to pitch us some characters?
- 00:32
Stan Lee
You bet your bottom dollar I have. All right, let's see here. You got to... The easel works a little bit rusty. Don't touch that. Okay, introducing... Hay Day. He lives perpetually in his best year, 1982. His nemesis is the evil writer's block. He'll live forever as long as he continues to come up with great, interesting, and relevant ideas. That Well, that got nothing.
- 01:15
Marvel Employee ?
Mr. Lee, I just feel really busy this morning.
- 01:17
Stan Lee
Uh-uh, uh-uh, uh-uh. This ain't my first rodeo, sonny boy. I got a million of them. All right, Dr. Balance. He's an aging robotic scientist who never slips and falls in the shower. It's Where Am I, Man? No matter how late at night he gets up to go number one, he always knows exactly where he is. Thermostatro. He has the power to control any thermostat, which means he never has to be tormented by any sudden cold spots. Techno. He understands how to control any technological device, things like the computer or the little hand computer. Road rage. rage. He gets behind innocent drivers on the thoroughfare on their way home from the doctor's office, and he leans on his radioactive horn, and they say, hey, come on, get off of my bumper hot rod. We're going as fast as we can. Where'd you guys come from? Oh, yeah. Here's the Gray Chaser. her special powers are she's 40 has no kids and she's got a rocking hot bod she's only into older dudes with ponytails and liver spots home's dead he's got the mutant ability to force any of his busy adult children to come visit for a change i mean would it kill you to pick up a phone how about an evil villain huh the overweight jamaican maid also known as jamila she steals things
- 02:58
Marvel Employee
Mr. Lee, I'm so sorry. Just with all due respect, I don't think that, uh... I I don't think that we could use any of these characters.
- 03:10
Stan Lee ?
all of this. So, say, the room?
- 03:16
Yes. Yeah.
- 03:17
Stan Lee
Oh. Oh, I understand. Don't mind me. Sometimes you're just shooting blanks. I know when I'm not wanted. Just... toss the rest of them in the trash compactor. compactor, whatever you got these days.
- 03:37
Marvel Employee ?
It was a real honor, sir, to have you.
- 03:39
Stan Lee ?
Yeah. Eureka. I've just been inspired. Now, this is a superhero team, a ragtag group of multi-ethnics known as the Fired Bunch. They possess the testicular fortitude to bite the very hand that feeds them and are cursed to walk the streets for an eternity unemployed. Unemployed. What do you think?
- 04:15
Love we love it! Great!
- 04:24
Stan Lee ?
Excelsior!
- 04:26
Excelsior!
The rabbit hole continues
One more couldn’t hurt.
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