Lee Majors Thinks His Bionic Eye Is Playing Tricks On Him by Jimmy Doom

Robert Downey, Jr. plays Iron Man. Even if you don’t like superhero movies, you probably knew that. Whether you know Robert Downey, Jr. because you’ve always wanted to fuck Jami Gertz or Andrew McCarthy, or you know Robert Downey, Jr. because you wallpaper your bathroom in photos of celebrities wearing county jail jumpsuits (Orange? Before Labor Day? Shameful!), or you know Robert Downey, Jr. because you got kicked out of your steampunk unicycle club for liking the Sherlock Holmes movies he’s in doesn’t really matter. You might not have known this: For playing Iron Man in the Avengers, Robert Downey, Jr. got paid fifty million dollars.

Before you have a nervous breakdown and go into some bleeding heart rant about people in this world who are starving, and you start posting pictures, gauzy pictures of cherubs sharing their Manwich with hungry Borneo tribeschildren and a fucking Tori Amos quote under it on your Facebook page, let me point out two things:

1. Blathering about in a rabid manner over shit that no one has any control over is my job, and -
2. Angelina Jolie and Lara Flynn Boyle are both starving, and they get paid seven to eight figures a movie, so that ain’t the point.

I realize Robert Downey Jr. is entitled to cash a check for that amount of money if someone is willing to write him a check for that amount of money. If nothing else, it demolished the notion that Jewish people are tight with their cash, at least until the next time Tom Arnold slips a Monopoly one hundred in a g-string and gets escorted from the lingerie aisle at Meijer’s. And I don’t have a problem with Robert Downey Jr., other than the fact that I didn’t hear one decent rumor of an unwanted pregnancy between him and Sally Kellerman when they were filming “Back To School”.

What I don’t get is how the producers arrived at him being worth anywhere near that figure in the first place. Were nerds going to stage a worldwide protest and immolate themselves in a pile of pocket protectors in front of theaters if Downey didn’t get the gig ? Let’s be serious, The Avengers was gonna have a line of serial masturbators out the door on opening weekend even if Andy Samberg played Tony Stark wearing his Dick In A Box wardrobe. Arby’s or Burger King (or whatever other fast food outlet did the promo tie-in) could have put prune juice and goat urine in the fountain machines and 32 year old guys were still gonna make their mom get them the collector’s cups. It was a guaranteed hit.

And since when is Robby the definitive Tony Stark anyway ? FYI, Actor John Vernon voiced Tony Stark in the animated series from the Sixties, and I think he would have made a damn fine wealthy industrialist in a live action movie.He made a damn fine university dean in Animal House, didn’t he? Yep. Dean Wormer and Tony Stark are the same guy. The fact that Vernon died in 2005 kind of put a damper on his chances of landing the big screen inventor hero, but the fact that Downey isn’t the true original should have sufficed to knock at least five million off the going rate for the role.
Even if your adolescence was spent setting fire to abandoned garages and trash picking Oui magazines, you know that The Avengers is a group. And Iron Man is not the Joe Strummer or John Lydon of that group. The Strokes off-stage keyboard player is gonna read this and ask for a raise! How in the hell do you justify paying fifty million dollars to one sixth or seventh (depending on which nerd you ask) of a group in a 220 million dollar film ? Especially one who is wrapped in a freakin’ costume for half the movie ? Downey could have been giving chlamydia to every snow bunny in St. Moritz while some guy who “won” a contest at an amusement park was getting his ass kicked in that costume in front of a green screen. Fifty Million ? They could have given Scarlett Johanssen four million per cup size per breast and saved some damn money without hurting the box office one iota.
I’m not knocking Robert Downey or his portrayal of the very well accessorized superhero. In fact, Brent Brozek of The-Not-So-Cool-Kids Podcast http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Not-So-Cool- Kids-Podcast/367253514999?fref=ts says that Downey’s portrayal is “nerdgasm inducing”, and Downey was “born to play this role” and I’m not going to dispute that. But even if we could put a dollar value on a “nerdgasm” ( I’m guessing that’s one that’s so intense you aren’t that bummed that you accidentally mopped up your errant jizz with your World of Warcraft cheat sheet), I doubt that if we added them up it would amount to the figure on Downey’s deposit slip. Even fellow Not-So-Cool-Kid Brian Titus admits “no one is worth fifty million” though he’s obviously never seen Natalie Portman’s thong scene in “Your Highness”.

And if the nerds don’t agree on something other than the age old rivalry between Star Trek and Star Search, you know damn well all is not right in The Cloud City that is Hollywood.

Should we pay schoolteachers more ? Probably. Should we pay firefighters more? Certainly. Shit, gay men who play straight firefighters in porn deserve to be paid more.
But it’s too late to discuss that now. The damage is done and here is the fallout from the ill-wrought decision to pay Robert Downey, Jr. that amount of money: Unless someone invents a drug that doesn’t have any side-effects, doesn’t show up on a piss or follicle test and costs five hundred thousand a gram, you’ll never, ever get the chance to wait in line for five hours at Comic Con in your Speed Racer costume to get a no eye contact autograph from the very wealthy man who brought Kirk Lazarus to life.