May 28, 2008

Italian Spider-Man Drinks Foster's, Not Peroni

The second episode of Italian Spider-Man, you guys.

You can watch the first episode of Italian Spider-Man here.

By this point in the saga it is clear that this is not real. Whether it's the Tim and Eric-style montage of gross tongue-wags, the guy's impertinent-even-for-the-60s question of how much it would cost to put his face in between that girl's tits, or the extended sequence of the guy pointing his finger and shaking his head at the Jesus Christ asteroid that tips you off, you know that you are dealing with beautiful lies. In fact, Italian Spider-Man was actually made by some Australian kids at Flinders University. Even just a cursory glance at the wikipedia page for this thing demonstrates conclusively that this is the most elaborately back-storied YouTube project ever.

Alrugo Entertainment was founded in 1961 in Palermo, Italy by orange-farming mogul Alfonso Alrugo. After accruing considerable wealth in the citrus trade, Alfonso decided to start a film production company that produced films that he felt "did the job". Alfonso was very supportive of up-and-coming practitioners and helped to nurture the blossoming careers of a spate of Italian directors like Gianfranco Gatti, Massimilliano Buonatempi, Carlo Zoffa and of course Giacomo Dentibiachi. Alrugo Entertainment began producing low budget, nudie-cutie pictures such as Busto Busto (1961) and Sex Cops II (1962). During this period, Alfonso was to discover two men who would play a large role in the next part of his life, director Gianfraco Gatti and actor Franco Franchetti. In 1964 Alrugo went into production of Gatti's opus, Italian Spiderman. Italian Spiderman was a heavily adapted and abridged interpretation of a novel Gatti had read during a summer in Moldova entitled Death Wears a Hat. When applying for the option, however, the author felt Italian Spiderman held such little resemblance to his work that payment was not necessary and felt that his name should be distanced as far as possible from the production. After three years of turbulent production and about $15 million later (a sum unheard of for any production of the time) Italian Spiderman was finally completed in 1968.
Even though Alrugo had survived the epic production period, a venture that Gatti described as "opening the gates of hell" (Gianfranco Gatti wrote about Italian Spiderman in his autobiography Opening the Gates of Hell[4]), the company was in debt. There was no money left to distribute the picture and Alfonso had pulled every last favour he had during the production process. In a desperate attempt to show Italian Spiderman to the world, Alfonso sent the only existing print across the Atlantic on a cargo ship to a distributor friend of his in New York - the ship, however, never reached its destination. In the summer of 1969, Alfonso Alrugo closed the gates to Alrugo Entertainment and donned his orange-picking glove once more. Gianfranco Gatti went on to direct hardcore pornography and Franco Francheti died in a spearfishing accident. On Alfonso Alrugo's dying wishes, his two grandsons Vivaldi and Verdi Alrugo led an expedition to scour the Atlantic for the cargo ship carrying the only existing print of Italian Spiderman.

On the 9th of January 2006, after four years at sea, they discovered the sunken vessel with the cans intact inside. In the excitement of this amazing discovery, Vivaldi and Verdi reopened Alrugo Entertainment and spent two years restoring the full-length print of Italian Spiderman from its watery grave. Vivaldi and Verdi believe that the Internet is the best device to expose Italian Spiderman to the world. In November 2007, they uploaded the theatrical trailer and in 2008, ten remastered excerpts from the feature will be broadcast for free over Myspace, YouTube, Yahoo and other video-hosting websites. Hopefully through the Internet, the world will now have a chance to behold Alfonso Alrugo's dream: Italian Spiderman[5].

Haha, remember when I said "cursory glance"? I'm the best, and I use words correctly.

I like that after developing this clever but ridiculous false history, they still try and keep it so real by saying that the fake people who fake found this fake film at the bottom of the Fake Ocean believe that the internet is the best way to distribute it. Yes. Naturally. That has such a ring of truth to it. I'm surprised this historical document doesn't include Alfonso Alrugo's other dying wish, that his grandsons not be selfish with any impending development deals with the interactive branches of Hollywood Studios, but rather share those glories with needy children in an island country, preferably English speaking, and probably Australia.

Posted by Gabe at 11:49 AM in Viral Video
Tags: Hoaxes | Italian Spider-Man