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Episode Recap: Dong of the Dead
Have you ever wanted to watch a TV show that answers the question: What if John Wayne Bobbit was a zombie? Well, in this episode of Town of the Living Dead, you WILL see a zombie get his penis ripped right off.
Allow me to start from the beginning and explain how this zombie penis got detached. At a production meeting, Bryan, the lead actor of Thr33 Days Dead, pitches the astoundingly brilliant idea that a zombie should have his penis ripped off in the movie. "It's a horror movie and there’s no nudity?" Bryan asks. "What kind of horror movie is this?" John, the director, and Tina, the executive producer, think a zombie getting his dong torn off is a horrible idea, but they put it a vote and the crew overwhelmingly wants the zombie penis in the movie. "It will be HUGE!" Bryan says of the zombie-penis scene.
Everyone agrees that for a zombie penis to be exposed, you'll have to see the zombie's butt, too (because OF COURSE). So it's determined that butt auditions must be held to find an actor with a suitable zombie butt. Since the zombie-penis scene was Bryan's idea, the task of casting the actor falls to him. Laura, Tina's assistant, offers to help him, mostly because she'd like to spend a day looking at butts.
Both Bryan and Laura are too bashful to outright tell the auditioning actors that they'll be required to reveal their posterior, so they have them read a few innocuous lines about a teddy bear and later ask if the actor is willing to show his butt. After a bunch of butts are paraded through the room, Bryan and Laura cast Nguyen, an immigrant from South Vietnam. Laura compliments Nguyen on his butt, and he says, "I lotioned it last night."
Following the butt auditions, Bryan says, "Zombie penis? Best idea I ever had. Zombie butt auditions? Worst day of my life." This statement made me think that Bryan should be grateful that nothing worse than zombie-butt auditions have happened to him, but also VERY sad that his best idea ever is putting a zombie penis in a movie.
Leading up to the shoot, Tina enlists her "sort-of son-in-law" Michael to help her create the zombie penis. Michael, a wannabe actor who's been delivering pizzas for three years, is engaged to Tina's daughter and is the father of Tina's grandchild. As Tina gets to work, Michael asks, "Where did you learn how to make a zombie penis?" Tina only mutters, "All my church friends are gonna disown me."
On the day of the shoot, Chase, one of the lead actors, arrives to set hauling a "star trailer." The trailer he purchased couldn't have cost more than a hundred bucks as it looks like it's held together with Elmer's glue. John and Tina are instantly annoyed that their lead actors think they're deserving of a trailer, no matter how decrepit it may be.
When it's time for Nguyen to bare his buns and have his zombie penis ripped off, he steals the scene with aplomb. "My inspiration is Michael Jackson's Thriller," Nguyen says. Despite Nguyen's deft performance as the pantsless zombie, John can't seem to get the right take. "Hurry up!" Tina bellows at her director. "We gotta get the Jasper Dangler out of here!" I truly hope that Nguyen's friends call him the Jasper Dangler for the rest of his life.
After the crew gets the zombie-penis scene in the can, Tina wants to tackle a car-crash scene. Seems like a lot to capture in one day, but Tina's motives quickly become clear. In the first (and only) take of the car crash, Terry, the FX "expert," bulldozes a minivan into Bryan and Chase's star trailer, smashing it to smithereens. It might appear that this has been a destructive and not particularly productive shoot, but Tina beams an ear-to-ear smile and declares it the movie's best day yet.