Buckaroo Banzai In the Lesterverse

Blasting through a ten foot thick wall of titanium while testing his jet-car one day, Buckaroo Banzai experienced some reverse polarity in his Oscillation Overthruster. The vehicle skidded in that weird dimension, still inside the titanium wall. A lesser man with slower reflexes would have rolled the jet-car and perished, but Buckaroo eased it to a stop.

He was trapped in a phantom dimension where he found no people or animals, but found buildings of apparently human origin. Could a neutron bomb have wiped out these people? Inside one of the buildings, he found a normal kitchen equipped with oven, toaster, a telephone hanging on the wall. Tacky wallpaper, it looked new but nine years out of style. The devices all functioned normally. In another room he found a tv, already turned on to the start of the movie. He couldn't fix the Overthruster until it cooled down for a few hours, so he decided to sit on the davenport and watch the movie.

One hundred minutes later, Buckaroo stood, turned off the tv and departed the empty building, shaking his head. The Overthruster was easily fixed, but nothing could fix that movie.

Reporting his experience to his followers, Buckaroo Banzai said, "You wouldn't believe it. There's this hero of some exotic extraction who's supposed to be ultra smart, ultra skilled, the best in his field no matter which field he tries. He has all kinds of gadgets and vehicles he uses in his fantastic adventures, plus he has a group of elite henchmen to carry out his bidding. Each of them are the best and brightest of their field, although none of them are quite as good as their leader.

"I kept wondering, if he's so great, why does he need all these amazing sidekicks? They're window-dressing to make him look even better at everything he does.

"It's unbelievable that a movie like that could have gotten made, but it was so corny that someone must have thought it was campy, so they just ran with it."

Perfect Tommy asked, "What was it called?"

***

Doc Savage, The Man of Bronze, stepped out of the Scintillation Chamber to the booming laughter of Captain Seas.

"I see you shaking your head to clear away the pain!" Captain Seas cackled. "Now will you tell me where I can find the Overthrusting Oscillator, or shall I subject you to the Scintillation Chamber again, until your mind cracks!?"

"Oh, it's not that," Savage said calmly. "The effect of your chamber was quite bracing. I might try to replicate one of these in my lab. No, the thing that got me shaking my head was that movie."

"What movie!?" the upstaged Captain screamed.

"I was so bored by your torture device, I willed myself to have an out-of-body experience. I must have ventured quite far while your chamber wiggled, because I found myself in a dimension devoid of creatures. There were buildings of presumably human construction, filled with appliances that appeared to be almost one decade advanced from current designs. Probably nine years, I'd say.

"The sleek toaster and ceramic-topped stove functioned nicely, and I even found a television set broadcasting a movie." Savage glared at the villain with his bronze eyebrows cocked. "Why am I telling you all this?" Savage mopped the floor with Captain Seas, dismantled the Scintillation Chamber so no average humans would be harmed by it, recovered the missing documents and returned to his headquarters in a certain New York skyscraper.

Reporting his experience to his followers, Doc said, "You wouldn't believe it. There's this hero of some exotic extraction who's supposed to be ultra smart, ultra skilled, the best in his field no matter which field he tries. He has all kinds of gadgets and vehicles he uses in his fantastic adventures, plus he has a group of elite henchmen to carry out his bidding. Each of them are the best and brightest of their field, although none of them are quite as good as their leader.

"I kept wondering, if he's so great, why does he need all these 'perfect' sidekicks? They're window-dressing to make him look even better at everything he does.

"It's unbelievable that a movie like that could have gotten made, like a series of inside jokes so thick you don't notice the lack of substance beneath it."

Monk asked, "What was it called?"

[Return to start, repeat as necessary.]

...[Pete suggested I improve this story with hyperlinks, so click here to see it that way.]