When Good Sherbet Goes Bad

Artist: Lenny La Rue, IPA
previous browse art next

When Good Sherbet Goes Bad

Camera pans the neighbourhood before centering upon a single, plain-looking but nice home. The only thing odd about it is the front door is open in the middle of the daytime and nobody is visibly present.

The camera slowly zooms in as if on a rail (because it’s on a rail) right up to the front door where it pauses and the first extremely faint sounds are heard on the soundtrack. They slowly gain volume enough to distinguish a harpsichord playing a forlorn melody very badly out-of-tune.

Camera eases into the house without knocking (Cameras in movies rarely knock before entering, ya know.) and slowly pans left and right in the carpeted entry hallway. It sees a modest living room furnished with modest furniture and the soundtrack takes on that ominous low string bass single note, also out of tune. The harpsichord increases in volume and a new completely annoying sound is introduced as the camera continues to drift forward in the hallway.

It reaches the end where there are two choices of direction: to the left a hallway where stray wisps of natural light wander thru the doorways before crashing into the off-white paint of the far walls. Then as the camera pans right, all hell breaks loose sonically and the cacophony is brutally loud and annoying to the extreme. The visual is a kitchen doorway with a standard oven seen thru the opening. The camera rolls forward and one gets the feeling of impending dread cuz the camera won’t stop going forward like some dumb blond teenager (gender non-specific since they are all dumb blond teens in horror movies) who can’t stop walking towards the place where death awaits.

Closer, closer, thru the threshold of the kitchen door and suddenly all music/noise abruptly ends – dead silence (no pun intended). The camera, left facing the perfectly normal white Kenmore oven ever so slowly turns to the left, slowly, slowly in silence. It stops focused on the freezer portion of a perfectly normal white Kenmore refrigerator but suddenly jumps forward 8.2 inches. We are immediately closer to the freezer. Another jump, 9.37 inches. The difference in jumps is easily noticeable and the dread is increased by the return of the out-of-tune harpsichord, alone slower than before but just as badly out of tune, if not a tad worse. Another jump: 11.31 inches and the music/noise of before is suddenly as horrific as before and we realize the worst: there are less than 12 inches left between the camera and the freezer door. Not looking good for the next jump unless the camera wants a solid steel facial.

But oddly and camera backs away slowly, slowly, more slowly and the feeling of dread turns to abject horror as we realize the camera’s withdrawal is identical to the pace of the opening of the freezer door. Noise max’s out, harpsichord, which has no volume control other than soft/loud becomes strangely louder, a disorienting notion for all the musicians watching the movie and a completely ignorable factoid to the rest. Then…

BAM. The freezer slams open and we are faced with one single carton of Mandarin Orange Sherbet from Safeway grocery store. Nothing else is there.

And as it is in all horror movies, the impossible happens: the container begins to tip forward, slowly, slowly. The lid begins to rise, slowly slowly, then…

BAM (again). We are faced with the most horrific sight imaginable: the remnants of wasted bliss moldering in ICE.

Silence then a crawling message across the top of the screen:

When Good Sherbet Goes Bad, the afternoon special on Fox Television, brought to you by Kenmore.