The Mimes and Me

We open to a room staged with a black background and two seats facing the camera where a professionally dressed Francis Ford Cuppola and his ever-dapper-assistant Rodney P sit. The ever-catchy The Mimes and Me theme song plays them in.

Rodney P: Hello, and welcome to your freshly purchased, well I hope It’s freshly purchased, DVD copy of the Complete First Season of Francis Ford Cuppola Presents: The Mimes and Me. I, of course, am Rodney P, straight from the Southwest of Wales, coming to you through your T.V. screen. And this is…

Rodney presents Francis Ford Cuppola who is much more reserved then viewers are used to.

Francis Ford Cuppola: Francis Ford Cuppola.

Rodney P: Right on, right on. Double F C in the house. Heh heh.

Rodney settles.

Rodney P: So, we’re filming this now on the eve of yet another glorious mime battle in Pure Amusement Wrestling.

Francis Ford Cuppola: That’s right.

Rodney P: What’s the one thing you’ve learned from doing this series so far?

Francis thinks.

Francis Ford Cuppola: Well, I come from a very scripted background, as you know. Feature films is not factual/reality television. In the world I’m used to, we follow a script, we shoot based on the script with revisions as necessary, but nothing that can potentially alter our course drastically happens unless we run out of money. So, the one element, more esoteric perhaps than any other, I learned, perhaps even a pragmatic aspect of the novelty of what we were doing, was that everything about what we were doing was fake except the wrestling.

Rodney laughs.

Rodney P: Surprising, right?

Francis Ford Cuppola: Absolutely.

Rodney P: Okay, so back us up, Francis. Most fans watching this don’t know the whole story behind The Mimes and Me—

Francis Ford Cuppola: Most are just getting the memo now that it was a scripted television series based on a wrestling tag-team from France.

Rodney P: Exactly. So how did that start?

Francis Ford Cuppola: It started, like anything started, with an idea and a few chance meetings. I’d discussed before with some producer friends the possibility of doing some fact-based television but I was, honestly, never quite taken with any of the ideas or options available.

Rodney P: And then came the mimes.

Francis Ford Cuppola: And then came the mimes.

Rodney P: What was that like meeting them for the first time?

Francis Ford Cuppola: Odd. Obviously. I was working on development for a few features when, out of the blue we got invited to a wrestling show in Reims, and lo and behold there were these two wrestling mimes. Now, I’d always appreciated wrestling. I realize that the character I play leans towards making a mockery of it—

Rodney P: (laughs) To put it lightly.

Francis Ford Cuppola: It’s not done wonders for my reputation, either, believe me. (laughs)

Rodney P: No, I wouldn’t think it would. Been great for mine.

Both laugh.

Francis Ford Cuppola: I would think so. Anyway, I’d always been fascinated with the archetypal nature of wrestling. Of course, I’m older, my exposure to professional wrestling comes from a much earlier brand of the sport where everything was literally and figuratively black and white; villains were booed, and heroes were cheered, and there was a clear demarcation between them; so granted things have opened up a lot more now for a spectrum of talent operating fundamentally in gray areas. But, we meet these mimes, see them in the ring, and these guys were great. By now, everyone watching has seen it so I don’t need to back it up, but these two were seasoned pros, huge in France, playing a gimmick you didn’t really even consider.

Rodney P: And then you meet them and it’s not a gimmick.

Francis Ford Cuppola: It’s not a gimmick. Right. That was the first moment I thought we might actually have something. The whole idea originated out of the desire to find something unique and expose it to a new audience.

Rodney P: And here it was in the form of two mimes.

Francis Ford Cuppola: Right. And, I had a hell of a time trying to get it to fly for American producers because these two don’t talk, and when they do it’s something momentous. So the only way I could get them to run with the ball I was throwing them was if I threw in additional characters because there isn't a huge market for mimes.

Rodney P: Thanks by the way.

Laughs.

Rodney P: When did it come up that you would take on a starring role in the program? You’re not exactly known for your work in front of the camera.

Francis Ford Cuppola: No. And the persona I’ve taken is so far afield from where I usually sit it has chafed a bit, to say the least.

Rodney P: And yet, you became the focal point of the program.

Francis Ford Cuppola: I think everyone stood out in their own way. Tony Chu, Professor Scopes. We were blessed to have immensely talented people able to walk on and steal every scene. And, besides that, it was clear, early on when we were testing the formula at New Japan Fighting Championship’s Tag-Team Tropolis event that we were onto something.

Rodney P: But we didn’t know what it was!

Laughs.

Francis Ford Cuppola: No. My persona of course formed organically out of the need to create a funny man/straight man relationship between the Rodney P character and myself, while the mimes played foils to the hijinks of the Abbot and Costello on screen.

Rodney P: And it worked.

Francis Ford Cuppola: And it worked.

Rodney P: So, obviously the mimes didn’t win the Tag-Team Tropolis.

Francis Ford Cuppola: Casheville won it, I think.

Rodney P: Right. How did the relationship with P.A.W. form?

Francis Ford Cuppola thinks carefully a moment.

Francis Ford Cuppola: The tricky thing about what we were doing, because we had a double-edged sword of maintaining PAW Kayfabe and our own illusion. So the goal was to make it seamless, and natural. Obviously, there were numerous federations we could have attempted The Mimes and Me in, but I’m almost positive it wouldn’t work quite the same way as it did with Pure Amusement.

Rodney P: Because it’s such a unique promotion.

Francis Ford Cuppola: Right. It’s an amusement park running a wrestling federation. It lends itself to a more “out-there” mentality, perhaps.

Rodney P: A different breed of competitor. And ultimately you had to plant our team into the events, and yourself and myself as characters without drawing attention to the fact that we were filming a reality series at the same time as promoting a tag-team from France in America.

Francis Ford Cuppola: Exactly. And they let us. I’ll never stop singing the praises of the Wicked Entertainment team for letting us get away with what we’ve gotten away with.

Rodney P: Obviously, with the fact we had a general plot outline for how everything would go throughout the events, how did the fact that this wrestling’s real alter the course of the show?

Francis Ford Cuppola grins to himself.

Francis Ford Cuppola: In a myriad of stupid, frustrating, often awesome ways really. We went to Japan fully believing the mimes could win that tournament. It severely hurt my chances of proceeding with the show when they didn’t win.

Rodney P: So, behind-the-scenes success was riding on their in-ring success.

Francis Ford Cuppola: Absolutely. And, I mean, we didn’t choose a tag-team with no experience. The French Mime Assassins have been wrestling as a team for 20 years. So we tried to stack the deck in our favor while maintaining as much room to account for swerves or anything out of left-field.

Rodney P: Like, say, Sergio dying.

Francis Ford Cuppola: Right.

Rodney P: Difficult topic. A lot happened in between getting the agreement with Wicked Entertainment and Pure Amusement.

Francis Ford Cuppola: Like Mercy and Sin.

Rodney P: Exactly. One of those unfortunate moments that proves wrestling isn’t fake. We had the general outline for the story we wanted to tell leading up to PAW’s Bad Moon Rising Supershow, we knew what we were doing, we had the idea for how the Mimes would go, but then the match itself rolled around, and…

Francis Ford Cuppola: They actually won.

Rodney P: And we prepared for a loss, haha!

Francis Ford Cuppola: We were always flying by the seat of our pants throughout this first season. We had contingency plans for all the outcomes, whether the mimes won or loss, so we learned on the fly not build the show on their success.

Rodney P: But still hope for it all the same.

Francis Ford Cuppola: Precisely. If they hadn’t won those Tag belts at Bad Moon Rising, I’m sure the show would’ve continued with no real problem. But once we knew they’d won them in that mess of a match we realized that viewership would spike for us.

Rodney P: Sitting, literally, on a winner.

Francis Ford Cuppola: But then, shortly thereafter, you could tell that age and the rest of it was catching up to them.

Rodney P: It’s a sad truth of the sport that after a decade or two tying up with competitors your knees don’t bend quite as well as they used, your neck fuses, your spinal column stiffens, cartilage wears down.

Francis Ford Cuppola: Yeah. It became noticeable that we needed to use the mimes more sparingly. Have them less active, more sedentary, give them more time to rest and recover. Really, it became problematic for shooting.

Rodney P: And then the tag match against Mercy and Sin.

Francis Ford Cuppola sighs loudly.

Francis Ford Cuppola: Right. We knew, everyone knew, those two played rough. The mimes knew that and welcomed it. The problem is, and I think it’s an endemic truth of just about every wrestler, that no matter what physical limitations their faced with, a wrestler never says quit. It’s part of the DNA. You see a lot of these people pushing themselves well past the point they should be reasonably pushed. It’s the tough-guy mentality, I guess. The Mimes, after 20 years, I don’t know whether they thought they were invincible, or…

Rodney P: It catches up.

Francis Ford Cuppola: It does. The attack after the match left them with…. I think one mime had concussion symptoms—

Rodney P: From the shovel.

Francis Ford Cuppola: Yes. The other had a muscle tear and a sprained wrist which he kept from us.

Rodney P: Plus the fact they had a Francis look-alike down at ringside.

Francis Ford Cuppola: Yeah. My lawyers heard about it. That lawsuit’s on, apparently. So, some guy manages to break ringside who looks like me, urges those two for an autograph and they take him out with a shovel, and I get sued.

Rodney P: Another one of those unscripted moments that may never make it onto the DVD.

Francis Ford Cuppola: Lame outtakes, or deleted scenes, probably.

Rodney P: And now, knowing all these things, the mimes go in against… who..

Francis Ford Cuppola: Wolfe and Mikael. Or Genocide. Depending.

Rodney P: Right. More violence. Guaranteed carnage and ticket sales against two qualified competitors. And, frankly, I don’t know if the mimes are ready to give the belts up.

Francis Ford Cuppola: Again, that level of unpredictability. We’re filming this before the match so we could be celebrating another tag-team win after all’s said and done.

Rodney P: Or, we could be hosting two mimes without their beloved tag belts.

Francis Ford Cuppola: That’ll kill them. We’ll probably end up filming another set of commentary depending on the outcomes, depending on budgetary concerns. But they’ve been gung ho in the ring since the start. There’s 110 % and then there’s whatever the mimes are giving, so Wolfe and Mikael better bring their A-Game if they honestly hope to win this thing.

Rodney P: Wolfe and Mikael… pheh. The mimes got this.

Francis Ford Cuppola: They might. Hard to tell. Wolfe and Mikael aren't going to be easy for the mimes. When has it ever, I guess is the question.

Rodney P: What do you think is going to be the biggest shock for people when they see the first season?

Francis Ford Cuppola: Aside from the fact I’m not the character I portray?

Rodney P: I know!

Francis Ford Cuppola: I’m not sure. I guess we’ll have to wait for that audience reaction once the season concludes.

Rodney P: Until then… Keep on Miming!

Francis Ford Cuppola: Keep on miming.

Both laugh.