Cutting Up With Whimsical Will Volume 1: Summer Movie Adventures 1986-2001, Will's first CD, incorporates 16 of his most popular "summer movie" snippets, each one focusing on a particular summertime blockbuster or box-office turkey. Three tracks are devoted to the Batman movies, while three other break-in songs chronicle the Jurassic Park film series. Other summer motion pictures, including Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Dick Tracy, Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves, Twister, and The Flintstones all get a splice treatment on this CD.

How varied are the samples in a Whimsical Will track? Packed in "A Trip To Jurassic Park '01" are tracks from Creed, Uncle Kracker, Dido, Lifehouse, Destiny's Child, Eminem, Shaggy, Baha Men, and Nelly Furtado. Then Will adds chunks of dialogue from the movie, tosses in the theme from Survivor, adds the cyber-techno Internet hit "All Your Base Are Belong To Us" and Weakest Link maven Anne Robinson's catchphrase "You are the weakest link, good-bye."

In another side-splitting splice job, "Hey X-Men," Will interviews the mutant superheroes as characters such as Wolverine and Professor X find their voices have been replaced by Top 40 lyrics. For example:

Will: Professor X is addressing his mutants.

Professor X: You are the few, the proud, you are the antibody (from Smash Mouth's "When The Morning Comes").

Will: Professor X, when do you think people will accept mutants into society?

Professor X: Someday, when my life has passed me by (from Sugar Ray's "Someday").

Will: What's it like being leader of the X-Men?

Professor X: Late night, come home, work sucks, I know (from Blink 182's "All The Small Things").

Although some of the humor might seem dated (a track devoted to Howard The Duck is the most egregious offender here), Will's inventiveness in finding the right track or phrase to tweak a summer-film character's clichés or crutches shines through in nearly every track.

The disc contains three hidden tracks, including an alternate ending of "Hey Phantom Menace," where Will and Darth Maul slaughter Jar Jar Binks (the track listed actually has Darth Maul slicing up The Teletubbies); and a track called "Hey Dickie," where Will creates an interview with Goodman out of Goodman's original break-in records.

(Available at www.whimsicalwill.com or through The Demento Society, P.O. Box 884, Culver City, CA 90232.)
-Chuck Miller

[Reprinted by permission]

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