Tale as old as time

Posted on February 3, 2004 @ 11:01 am

I think it’s safe to say that there are few places in the world more miserable and soulless than the laundromat. Well, maybe there are a few war-torn countries that are less pleasant — but just barely. Unfortunately, my wife and I needed to clean a couple of comforters over the weekend, and our washing machine simply wasn’t big enough to get the job done. So, we embarked on a trip to the local laundromat to take advantage of their industrial-sized “mega-washers.”

In what must be an attempt to stem the number of mid-cycle suicides, this particular laundromat has installed several televisions throughout the facility and shows movies to while away the washing and drying hours. Unfortunately, as my wife and I discovered this weekend, the people running the audio/visual division at the laundromat haven’t quite worked out all the kinks yet.

It started out innocently enough as they loaded the Monsters, Inc. DVD. The disc then began to play through its generous selection of previews — including trailers for the DVD special edition of Beauty and the Beast, Lilo and Stitch, Inspector Gadget 2 (”Inspect the unexpected!”), Treasure Planet, and Finding Nemo. When it was all said and done, this amounted to roughly fifteen or twenty minutes worth of previews. Then, it was time for the anxiously-awaited feature presentation. The DVD menu loaded up, the person at the switch selected “play,” and we were taken to a screen asking us to choose between the widescreen and fullscreen presentations.

Apparently, this is where the entire process broke down. After sitting at the widescreen/fullscreen selection screen for about five minutes, the “DVD technician” simply gave up, ejected the disc, and reloaded it.

So, we’re back to the previews. “Tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme,” and the whole nine yards. We spent another fifteen minutes watching the previews — who was the genius that greenlighted Treasure Planet, anyway? — before rencountering that tricky widescreen or fullscreen menu. Perplexed once again, the person at the switch ejected the DVD, reloaded it, and we were back to watching the (completely skippable) previews all over again.

How sad is it that Disney couldn’t even get Matthew Broderick back for the Inspector Gadget sequel? It’s not like he’s busy doing anything other than being married to Sarah Jessica Parker. Meanwhile, if I’m not mistaken, it looks like the Finding Nemo trailer on the Monsters, Inc. DVD is an early rough cut; the animation doesn’t seem quite as polished as the final release. But, that’s neither here nor there.

Two more times the laundromat attendant restarted the disc rather than gambling on the all-too-risky widescreen/fullscreen issue. All told, we spent over an hour watching the five previews on the Monsters, Inc. DVD. By the fourth time around, I thought my wife was going to beat the person running the DVD player to death with a jug of detergent. Eventually, however, the attendant simply cut her losses, gave up on the film, and decided to give Shanghai Knights a try instead. Thankfully, the disc only offered the fullscreen option, so we were able to get it up and running with no major glitches.

My wife and I had the distinct pleasure of watching about five minutes of the film before our comforters finished drying and it was time to leave. Now I’ll never know if Jackie Chan actually managed to avenge his father’s death! Or if Stitch returned to his home planet. Or if the Beast was transformed back into human form. Or if Inspector Gadget captured Dr. Klaw. Or if Ellen DeGeneres regained her memory. Or if Treasure Planet is as stupid as it looks.

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