Rick Groel

The lives of two incompetent young men from Brooklyn spin out of control after a friend returns from Florida with guns to sell.

With an all-female cast, featuring Suzie Bright as John Lennon, Cecilia Dougherty's Grapefruit plays with the romanticized history of the iconic Fab Four, gently mocking John and Yoko’s banal squabbles and obsessive rituals of self-display. Based obliquely on Yoko Ono’s book, the piece works on many levels to reposition this mythic tale of the Beatles by casting '80s women in mod drag—effectively mapping the lesbian sub-culture onto heterosexual mass culture. Discounting the importance of reproducing facts and historical accuracy, Dougherty gives an incisive reading of the creation of pop culture icons: it doesn’t matter who plays John Lennon because ultimately John Lennon is not a person anymore. As a star, he is a projection of our society’s collective needs and desires.

Follows a day in the life of a young artist who longs for professional success and the attention of beautiful women, but who encounters only frustration and violence.

This is a bizarre documentary/mockumentary that I happened upon one day at my local Goodwill. It tells the story of a man who travels across country, from San Francisco to Brooklyn, dressed up as a clown. He does this in an effort to recreate a similar voyage undertaken by a man in the midst of an existential crisis some years earlier.

Disguised as mild-mannered fifth-grader Becky Botsford, WordGirl arrived on Earth when she and her monkey sidekick Captain Huggy Face crashed their spaceship. Now they fight crime and defend the town from a plethora of madcap villains and scoundrels, while at the same time enriching viewers' vocabulary usage.

Young Johnny is gung-ho and full of courage. Johnny's brainiac twin sisters, Susan and Mary, use Johnny as their guinea pig for their outrageous scientific experiments. If they can dream it up, Johnny will do it; as long as his genetically engineered super dog, Dukey, can come along.

The whacky adventures of Ned Bigby and his best pals Moze and Cookie at James K. Polk Middle School, as "every-kid" Ned shatters the fourth wall to share tips and tricks on navigating middle school or junior high hurdles. Ned's not super cool, and he has no superpowers. He is, however, witty, well-groomed, upbeat and self-aware. Moreover, with more than a little help from his two best friends, he's equipped to conquer middle school minefields. From crushing bullies to crushes, from off- the-wall, mean and cool teachers to pop quizzes, elections and detentions, Ned knows that nothing, including the seventh grade, is as bad as it seems, and friendship matters most.