I Thought I Told You To Shut Up

October 19, 2015 1:21 PM

I Thought I Told You To Shut Up. In 1977 David Boswell created comic book anti-hero Reid Fleming, the World’s Toughest Milkman. 30 years later, the big screen Hollywood adaptation remains in contractual limbo. Narrated by Academy Award-Winner Jonathan Demme. Previously on M-F, with that comment .
posted by growabrain (30 comments total)

Aw yiss!
posted by Kevin Street at 1:36 PM on October 19, 2015

Had never heard of Reid Fleming before, but loved (and had my heart slighted battered) by the documentary.
posted by Gin and Broadband at 1:45 PM on October 19, 2015

I still occasionally use Ken's immortal quip 20+ years after first encountering Reid Fleming.
posted by ryanshepard at 1:47 PM on October 19, 2015

thanks, growabrain!

I just spent a day curled up with my spoils from an indy comic fest last weekend in MA, so watching this was all the more emotional. I'd never heard o this guy, so here's to a new titan in my pantheon of trailblazers!
posted by es_de_bah at 1:50 PM on October 19, 2015

Seventy-eight cents.
posted by Guy Smiley at 2:06 PM on October 19, 2015

I'M NOT BALD ,I GET MY HAIR CUT THIS WAY! I've been a Reid Fleming fan since the early 80's. Back then I saw Jack Nicolson as the choice to play the angry milkman.
posted by boilermonster at 2:07 PM on October 19, 2015 [5 favorites]

In 1977 David Boswell created comic book anti-hero Reid Fleming, the World’s Toughest Milkman. 30 years later...

I've got some bad news for everyone...
posted by Ian A.T. at 2:14 PM on October 19, 2015 [11 favorites]

Yay I'm only 30 again!!
posted by ian1977 at 2:30 PM on October 19, 2015 [4 favorites]

Man, I love Reid Flemming. Since you've already used the best quote for the title, I'll give you these:

Crabbe: This will cost you your job!
Reid: That's what I call good value.

Lena: Oh! My show is on . . .
*click*
TV: Keep your eye on the sky 'cuz Commander Bob and Betty are dropping into your backyard . . . in his Wingéd Boots of Doom, hurtling across the countryside . . .
 
posted by Herodios at 2:53 PM on October 19, 2015 [3 favorites]

I'M NOT BALD, I [also] GET MY HAIR CUT THIS WAY!

May I offer my testimony? I just went through my remaining comics a week ago and came across the RFWTM issues in their bags & boards. Love, love, love him. Reid entered my life about the same time as Bob Burden's Flaming Carrot, and they each crackled with a crazy, wild-eyed energy. The Flaming Carrot's was absurdist and free, while Reid Fleming's was black as diner coffee and twice as bitter. Both hit me at just the right age (eleven? twelve?) to knock me a little further off-kilter, and I often think of both characters. I had the t-short where he tears right out of your chest, but I kind of had to sneak it because I knew my mom wouldn't approve.

(The skeleton is awesome because he's so deadpan -- and also dead.)
posted by wenestvedt at 4:04 PM on October 19, 2015 [3 favorites]

Oh man do I love Reid Fleming. I am also a big big fan of "SCTV", and so when I saw Dave Thomas in the documentary I suddenly realized that seeing him play Fleming in a movie was something I'd been wanting all along without realizing it.
posted by Ipsifendus at 4:37 PM on October 19, 2015 [2 favorites]

But how will they appeal to the Milkman Dan generation?
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 5:22 PM on October 19, 2015

Like wenestvedt, I was a huge Reid Fleming fan at a young and impressionable age, and super into the craziness and old-timey movie vibe of his universe. I sent David Boswell a fan letter and some drawings of Reid, and he actually wrote back, sending me merch and autographed drawings and books. What a guy!

I can't wait for the movie, this thing's gonna be even better than "Horrors of Ivan"!
posted by sluggo at 5:40 PM on October 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

Came to see Milkman Dan represented, was not disappointed.
posted by WacoKid at 6:09 PM on October 19, 2015 [3 favorites]

This is relevant to my interests. I've still got all my Reid Fleming comics in a safe place (at the bottom of my sock & underwear drawer, if you must know). I'm waiting for my kids to be old enough to enjoy them.

"Hi Mom!"
posted by sneebler at 7:02 PM on October 19, 2015

Pardon the self-link, but:

Reid Fleming, World’s Toughest Milkman: THE ROCK OPERA

... which is referenced very briefly in the fillum.
posted by stargell at 7:23 PM on October 19, 2015 [3 favorites]

I only knew about ‘TWTM’ because in his office, Man-Thing has a giant panel of Reid. That is a terrific short documentary: Boswell (a notable name for a writer!) seems like a really good guy, yet another of the numberless masses screwed over by the whims of the powers that be in Tinseltown. Maybe with friends like Thomas, Pollak, Groening, Demme, etc., Reid someday will get to the big screen.

p.s. Moral of the Story: be extremely cautious when someone tells you they want to buy 'All Rights.'
posted by LeLiLo at 10:40 PM on October 19, 2015 [2 favorites]

Ipsifendus - I multi-plus you, sir. That would be amazing, especially if Harold Ramis were around to write it.
posted by lon_star at 11:18 PM on October 19, 2015

LeLiLo is correct, I do have a Reid Fleming panel in my office. In it, Reid is saying, "Make him drink coffee 'til it runs out his ears!" In a way, maybe I am the person responsible for David Boswell's dilemma. Way back in 1981 or 1982 he asked me for advice. Not having a clue, I never gave him any. (I wrote about the experience here.)
posted by Man-Thing at 4:54 AM on October 20, 2015 [2 favorites]

Reid Fleming and Milk&Cheese are some of my favorite comics characters ever. If you don't agree then you better give me $0.20 or I'll piss in your flowers.
posted by phearlez at 8:13 AM on October 20, 2015 [2 favorites]

Never heard of it. Sounds stupid.
posted by reidfleming at 9:22 AM on October 20, 2015 [4 favorites]

(Obvious imposter: not enough invective.)
posted by wenestvedt at 11:07 AM on October 20, 2015 [1 favorite]

Not Enough Invective could be RF's family motto.
posted by phearlez at 12:32 PM on October 20, 2015 [2 favorites]

i began collecting comics in college, purely by accident, after tagging along with a fellow freshman to the local comic book store, a one-room, two story walkup in annapolis, and while hanging out, starting to leaf through an issue of cerebus (issue 86, i think, with the albino as the bug's sidekick on the cover) and being amazed at the artwork, what comics were capable of in terms of visual storytelling. i never looked back. this was the time of weird indies like fish police and the reimagining of the superhero character in the dark knight, and watchmen. reid fleming was one of the amazing indies i encountered along the way, like flaming carrot and love and rockets. reid fleming on the big screen would be a gift to that same unsuspecting college freshman who was once seduced by the genre.
posted by buffalo at 4:40 PM on October 20, 2015 [1 favorite]

Relevant to my interests. And now I must buy some for my children ... I think ...
posted by From Bklyn at 5:05 PM on October 20, 2015

buffalo [I remember]...being amazed at the artwork, what comics were capable of in terms of visual storytelling.

People often slag off the glut of comics from the mid- to late-80s, but I saw some really neat stuff in that long box last week. Mage by Matt Wagner, Grendel, American Flagg! by Howard Chaykin, Lone Wolf & Cub with the Frank Miller art, a Fish Police issue, a run of the English-language version of Area 88...all sorts of interesting, inventive things.

There was tons of dreck, too, don't get me wrong, despite my trying (at age 12) to steer clear of the obvious trash, but I am having a hard time tossing it all out.
posted by wenestvedt at 5:31 PM on October 20, 2015

Shout out to anyone else out there who read Those Annoying Post Brothers.

As much as I love Reid Fleming, I wonder if the Reid Fleming movie could only exist in that 80s/90s era of hyperkinetic-agressive live-action comic book movies. Roger Rabbit, The Mask, etc. A Reid Fleming movie now would have a different visual to it that's a challenge to impart.
posted by quartzcity at 6:45 PM on October 20, 2015

I wanna read the screenplay now.
posted by hoodrich at 12:11 AM on October 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

Agree that a Reid Fleming movie now wouldn't feel right. Thought the short film focused a bit too much on the failure to get the movie done and not enough on the genesis of the Reid Fleming character, the cult-phenomenon and the milieu in which it thrived.
posted by stargell at 2:48 PM on October 21, 2015

I grew up on the coffee table books of Charles Addams and Abner Dean I was permanently warped, and was prepared for Reid.
posted by boilermonster at 10:33 PM on October 21, 2015