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While reading through the bags full of Trailer Trash fan mail I receive each week, I sometimes come across the occasional criticism of my reviews: I am, it seems, just "too darn hard" on trailers. I personally think that's a damned shamefaced lie — even a casual reader of the site could immediately see that I'm an objective paragon of unbiased virtue. Take a look at some excerpts of my past reviews, for example:
If, against all reason, my focus group enjoys the trailer for Dumb and Dumberer, I will have to entertain the idea that I'm too hard on Hollywood, and learn to be more forgiving in the future. This path, I can see, will lead inevitably down a slippery slope into a dark, dark valley from which no light escapes, where a future Me reclines forever on a plush couch eating spoonfuls of bacon fat and laughing like a Down's Syndrome-afflicted hyena at non-stop viewings of Joe Dirt. Naturally, I was hoping my focus group would pull through, or I'd have no recourse but to beat them savagely. "I'm sorry, what?" asked a member of my focus group. "I said I'll have no recourse but to beat you savagely. Let's begin."
Experiment #1: Trailer Viewing In a controlled environment deep within the heart of Trailer Trash's high-tech laboratory, I gave all fifty members of my focus group a laptop with the trailer ready to play. I toyed momentarily with the idea of using metal devices to keep their eyes open like in Clockwork Orange, but abandoned this on the grounds that it seemed like a lot of work, and I had no idea how I'd be able to race around moistening the eyeballs of fifty subjects, short of spitting in their eyes. This suggestion was shouted down by my focus group, and we abandoned the eye clamp idea entirely. The Dumb and Dumberer trailer was then cued up, as my fifty test subjects watched it and checked off their impressions on an impartial survey.
Results of Experiment I leafed through
the surveys while my focus group played Minesweeper on their laptops.
Some of the results:
Suddenly it dawned on me. Through whatever twist of fate I'd somehow chosen morons — fat illiterate morons — for my focus group. "Test Subject #23?" I said to the group. "Could you please stand up?" A heavy-set teenage girl with a glazed blank look struggled for a minute with the sheer weight of all her superfluous chromosomes, then stood. "Test Subject #23, you are aware that Jim Carrey isn't actually IN this movie? His character is being played by someone else entirely." Test Subject #23's brow furrowed. "Was too Jim Carrey. Had a chipped tooth an' everything." I stood up slowly. "Test Subject #23, the character was eighteen years old in the trailer. Jim Carrey's in his thirties." "'S'a good actor," she said, folding her ample, dimpled arms across her ampler, bad-to-think-about chest. "Yeah, he in that Truman Show," said someone else. "He winned an Oscar and everything." "No he didn't!" I protested, to blank stares. "Did no one here notice the roles were played by completely different actors?" "That chipped tooth was the awesome comedic gem," someone in the back piped up. "I loved it when he will fart," added another with an air of authority. "Okay, new experiment," I decided.
Experiment #2: Supervised Trailer Viewing
Test Subject #37: "Huh huh huh…" Me: [open-palm slapping subject's face] "No! Wrong! Wrong! That is why you're wrong!" Trailer: [shows Coke machine falling on actor; actor farts] Test Subject #37: "Uh huh huh huh huh…" Me: [slapping subject's face with such force a rear molar flies across room] "NO! STOP! EVERYTHING YOU THINK TRUE AND PURE IS WRONG!" [slap slap slap slap] "I WILL BEAT SMART INTO YOU OR KILL YOU TRYING!"
Results of Experiment 19 minor injuries, 12 hospitalizations, some blood loss. I was forced to conclude that you can't actually beat stupid out of someone. You can, however, beat a glutinous pink jelly-like substance out of someone, if you hit hard enough. It comes out of their noses. I hadn't known that before.
Experiment #3: Trailer Viewing w/Shock Therapy Results of Experiment: FAILURE Experiment #4: Trailer Viewing in Centrifuge Reaching Speeds of 300 rpm Results of Experiment: FAILURE Experiment #5: Trailer Viewing w/Russian Roulette-Style Firearm Motivation Results of Experiment: FAILURE Experiment #6: Locking Subjects in Room; Burning Building to Dust & Ashes Results of Experiment: UNQUALIFIED SUCCESS
Conclusion As I sprayed the gasoline around, I could hear muffled yells from the other side of the locked door. "We liked the trailer, stop!" Then some hushed whispering. "Okay now we didn't also like the trailer! It was not the comedic gem!" As I lit the match on my way out, my heart filled with gladness that I'd finally managed, somehow, to reach them. Moments like that — and of course the screams, always the screams — are what make these efforts worthwhile. So: given the deathbed confessions, I can state for the record that not one subject in the Trailer Trash Focus Group enjoyed the trailer for Dumb and Dumberer. And, as the only witness to their confession, I can additionally state for the record that their choices were not coerced in any way. With this inarguable evidence at my side, I can proudly say to the naysayers: eat me. I'll take out the trash because I speak for the people, goddammit. Also, I guess the
trailer wasn't that bad. Two and a half Billys. RATING:
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These
seem fine to me. I don't get what all the fuss is about. However, in
the interest of total fairness in reviewing the New Line Cinema trailer
Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd, I have elected for a
Trailer Trash first. I have assembled a focus group, randomly selected
from average, everyday people across America, to assist me in this review.
If they find the trailer for Dumb and Dumberer as reprehensible
as I do, it will prove the even-handedness of my reviews to those slack-jawed
meatheads who thought otherwise. I am merely a voice for the people;
alas, my words are not mine, but instead the words of history. 
In
this experiment I chose to supervise the subjects, one at a time, as
they watched the trailer. At the first sign of any enjoyment at all,
I would open-palm slap them, as hard as possible, across the face.
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