We watched with the little one. I was only half paying attention until the end, when I was curious to see how Disney would handle the flood part.

Naturally, nobody dies, and if anyone's life was descimated (-1sp) by the flood (lost homes, businesses, etc.), it was not addressed.

However, at the part when "Norman" is told that the Ark is meant only for himself and his family, my husband and I looked at each other and were suddenly glued to the tube (how embarrassing!).

We couldn't help feeling that we might someday (soon?) be in just such a position ourselves. Since it was Disney's production, all the folks in the community politely and orderly file hurriedly in, and are grateful for the 'lifeboat'. No one griped about having to sleep on the floor in the hay, or was hungry, or had to use the latrine. Not one person complained about the smell of the animals. No babies cried, and no couples fought.

If that's how the GP will behave, why, we'll just have everybody in our town over to our house on New Year's Eve. They can all sleep in the barns, and share the grain with the goats. They'll be happy and grateful, right? It was like that on TV, so it must be true, right?

LOL, and SOL, too.

(SOL = Snorting out loud!)

-- Arewyn (isitthatlate@lready.com), September 20, 1999

Answers

Yeah... shuffle... blush! I watched it, Arewyn. Was kind'a curious about how Disney would handle the issue with a modern day "take."

What I did like about the sanitized ending, was Tony claiming (paraphrasing here)...

"This is Norman's Ark, not Noah's, and on Norman's Ark everybody is invited."

Give's me warm fuzzies.

Now, to contrast, on Koskinen/Clinton's Ark, we won't know who's "invited" until the last minute. (But we have a good idea that it's NOT *most* of us--for fear of "spliting" the country!)

Diane

See thread...

Y2K Hot Potato Lands in Laps of Clergy

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id= 001QgE

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), September 20, 1999.

I really enjoyed this show. Too bad the Noah version that appeared a few months ago wasn't this intelligent and fun. I really thought it was a Y2K program--for instance, how his children dealt with their father being a nut, outside the social frame, in preparing. Moreover, Danza was telling the messenger (an angel, I guess--Wallace Sghawon) he wasn't going to do it until he had a vision of a heavy rain that no one else in town saw. He told Wallace Shawn that he wouldn't do it except for his boys! Sounds very Y2K to me.

I, too, was quite curious to see what would happen with the people who had made fun of him when they wanted to get on the ark. Okay, this was nice, but, really, how can this be handled?

-- Mara Wayne (MaraWayne@aol.com), September 20, 1999.

How fortunate for Norman that the population of his community didn't exceed the design limitations for his ark. Didn't see the show -- how was it reconciled that Norman disregarded instructions that the ark was only for himself and his family?

-- DaveW (dwood@southwind.net), September 20, 1999.

Who's the Boss?! Who's the Boss?!

NOOOOOOAAAAHH! NOOOOOOOOAAAAAAHHH!

Coulda used him over on the east coast last week!

-- @ (@@@.@), September 20, 1999.

I too saw the show and thought it very clever.. esp. the ending. Still playing with possible Y2K implications. Mixed message from the show.. on one hand the disaster was mitigated BECAUSE Norman listened to warnings and prepared.. i.e. because he "passed the test" the sun came out and the flood was just a lake. On the other hand you could take the polly position that it was just a rain storm all along.. worst that would happen is a lake (good for lakeshore property values), and there was no need to prepare in the first place. No need to build the ark, no need to spend the money, no need to lose his job, etc. Big question of course.. what would've happened had Norman NOT prepared - not done the work and not laid in the provisions?

Back from Disney's world we just had one humongous rain storm on the east coast. Not quite Ark-worthy, but we saw that very few were prepared in advance, shelters and evacuation plans were not quite up to the challenge (so they haven't been as prepared for those "contingencies" for Y2K as we might have thought), and the aftermath (at least in North Carolina) from the "3 day storm" is lasting a bit longer than Koskinen et al are leading us to believe.

Is Disney writing J.K.'s scripts? Always a sunny ending on the boob tube huh John? Too bad Y2K is not just a made-for-TV movie. Sometimes problems in real life DON'T get solved in such a timely fashion. Why some of them don't even get solved at all - shhhhh.... don't tell Koskinen.

It's a small world after all... it's a small world... after... all.

[yup... and that's the problem]

-- Linda (lwmb@psln.com), September 20, 1999.

I guess Dopey is still writing for Dizzyney.

Comments:

Noah's community was not Mayberry. Read the Book. "Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually."

You need to understand the word nephilim and its context to Noah's day. ("...the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose.")

You should know the orthodox Jewish understanding of Noah being "perfect in his generations." (translate: perfectly human)

-- Mumsie (Shezdremn@aol.com), September 20, 1999.

The story of Noah and the Ark caused me to remember something about the story which may be relavant to Y2K or any disaster for that matter. Actually reading through Genesis Ch 7 I see no reference to Noah warning people about the flood but we may assume that Noah did so.Anyway, in Genesis Ch 7 Verse 16:" And they that went in,went in male and female of all flesh,as God had commanded him:and the Lord shut him in." It was not Noah who shut the door to the Ark,thus sealing the fate of the ungodly,it was God who shut the door,thus God took the burden off Noah and put it upon himself. What I get from this story, real or not, is that when we see an impending disaster our responsiblity before God and man is to warn others of the coming disaster,not save those who failed to heed our warnings and thus endanger our own safety during this calamity.

burden off Noah and put it on himself.

-- Stanley Lucas (StanleyLucas@WebTv.net), September 20, 1999.

I guess Disney didn't show all the cross-eyed, inbred people and animals who were the offspring of incestous relationships after the flood.

-- coprolith (coprolith@rocketship.com), September 20, 1999.

Coprolith,...If you will assume the rest of the story to be true, for theory's sake, you then accept the premise that the genetic material was superior from being much closer to the original source. It was not affected by hundreds of generations of cells that mutated and passed on defects, or by the accumulation of modern day pollutants. I'm not trying to 'thump' this story, just set it straight according to original orthodox beliefs. I'm happy to agree to disagree.

-- Mumsie (Shezdremn@aol.com), September 21, 1999.

I must survive. Danza must die.

-- 666@thevillage.com (666@thevillage.com), September 21, 1999.