Hey folks, Harry here... Ya know, as I was surfing around the site tonight, I realized that we passed the 500,000th Talkback - and I thought... Jesus... I wonder who was number 500,000? Well it was difficult to find, but lo and behold it took place on Massawyrm's UNDISPUTED review... and it went without being heralded... Let's see who it was and what was said...
From: BurlIvesLeftNut
Subject: Juggernaut125
Comment:
Yeah, dude, I saw this the other day WITH Snipes. I WAS sitting next to him and eating popcorn while we were boning your mother. Sorry. Dumb joke. I am kidding dude... my grammar stinks and appreciate the effort you have made in improving my communication skills. Seriously. And nice guitar work doesn't really make a good movie for me. BUT conversely, Ralph Macchio does make a movie bad.
After reading that... I thought... What was the first Talk Back? That's one of those questions that you really don't want to ask yourself, because given the disorganization of the code for this site... there is no easy way to find it. You see, when this format was written, they put in around 1700 stories that I had already written at that point, but I had no idea when the stories that I created specifically for this new format came to exist... And what was the first Talkback. I called up David - the grand vizier of AICN's coded history and said, "HELP!!!" After about 35 minutes of hunting, we found that the new site design went live on July 29th, 1998... and that the first article with a talk back was a review I did for the recently deceased Doris Wishman and her film BAD GIRLS GO TO HELL The email address for that Talk Back was invalid, I believe it was posted by a web developer working for JamisonGold (the design firm that created the code for the site) named George. And here is what it says...
From: George
Subject: talking back
Comment:
Now I have a chance to talk back!
Ahhhh... what modest beginnings... now look what you've done to it... hehehehe, god bless all of ya... well except Elfkiller - he's a turd! A real helter skelter kitchen sink culture has formed around Talk Back. I'm constantly blown away by the types of people that really do take Talk Back seriously. The bruised egos and the inflated ones. The folks that love it, loathe it and obey it. The thousand needles stuck into me, Moriarty, Father Geek, Quint and on and on and on... It is actually kinda hard to remember what AICN was like when it was a one way street with no Talk Back. I remember when the first flamers came in and folks told me I would take down Talk Back within the first 3 months... Do I wish I had? God no. I may get a lot of shit from Talk Back, but frankly I deserve it, so does Hollywood and so do a lot of us. When Talk Back works, it is glorious - Watching the Oscars with y'all... Celebrating the coming of greatly anticipated films.... Tearing apart the stupidity of the industry... When we all did a big world wide community hug when September 11th happened.... Watching the last Presidential Election returns come in.... what a classic night of Talk Back that was!
I just couldn't let the 500,000th one come and go without a mention.... Because frankly... I think Talk Back is kinda friggin cool...
