The “Female Empowerment Fairy?” “Mr. Happy?” I have no idea what’s wrong with me.

I guess looking forward at the movies that are coming out this weekend, Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous served itself up on a silver platter to be made fun of.

I mean, first of all, you have Sandra Bullock who is all of 41 years-old playing an FBI agent trying to compete against 19 and 20 year-olds in a Miss America-type pageant. I don’t think there’s a bucket big enough for me to dump my disbelief into before accepting this concept.

Second, from all outward appearances, they decided to remove the one redeeming quality of the original movie, which was the potential romance angle with Benjamin Bratt. Instead, they’ve replaced him with… a back-talking, no-nonsense body guard in the guise of Regina King. Uh, okay. What kind of weird escapism is this?

Don’t ask me why I know this stuff, okay? I’m a married man, remember. Sometimes compromise means watching Miss Congeniality instead of taking a nap on a Saturday afternoon.

Anyway, instead of going the obvious route and apply my deeply entrenched male perspective on the “chick flick genre, I thought it was about time Tom was served a little comeuppance – even if it was in dream form. Needless to say, the result is somewhat… unique. Hopefully for the younger readers of this site, the joke will go over their heads.

Incidentally, Tom waking up startled isn’t a new concept for Theater Hopper. It’s kind of a cheap devise, but I have a lot of fun with it. Especially when I get to dust off the old trick and apply it in a new situation. It’s a little experiment to see if I can take something from funny, to not funny and back to funny again. I guess you’ll be the judge of that. At least the pajamas are changing from strip to strip!…

Not much else to report today. Stop by the THorum if you feel like saying “Hi.” We’ve been seeing lots of activity in there lately!