And the winner is...

Apologies for the delay. We got called out of town on short notice and the trip wound up being both longer and more tiring than expected. But we're back now, and turning to the 8/28/09 Friday Challenge, Southern Knights: The Movie, we find we're disappointed that Henry missed such an obvious opportunity. No, Dragon's replacement, "Gator," should not be a local dirt-track racing legend. Rather, Gator clearly needs to be a retired professional wrassler, who beneath his scary exterior is really just a big lovable teddy bear, a really swell guy, and a hero to little kids everywhere. As such, the part becomes tailor-made for Duane "The Rock" Johnson, and the potential for WWF cross-promotional tie-ins, well...

Speaking of which, we see that Al is really thinking along the right lines in "Southern Knights Rocks!". The casting ideas are well-nigh brilliant, and the idea of the Brian Daniels battlesuit ending up being plastered with NASCAR sponsor stickers is one we wish we'd thought of. This is a really strong and funny entry that fizzles out at the very end, but understandably so. Having written a few pieces like this—although admittedly not many that were as funny—we know it's really tough to exit with a bring-down-the-house punchline. If we thought there might actually be a market for this sort of thing, we'd encourage you to rework the ending—but we don't feel like deluding you this week, so we won't.

(As an aside, though, we have to repeat here the comment we left on Al's site. Given the title, we were quite disappointed to find that Al's pseudo-review made not one single mention of all the great original Lynyrd Skynrd, Molly Hatchet, and Allman Brothers tunes that would simply have to be incorporated into this movie's soundtrack. Again, the spinoff music sales and MP3 download cross-promotions alone...)

Arisia's entry, "Southern Knights: The Movie," threw us for a bit of a loop, as it is far too serious to be handled with the same flippancy that we're handling the rest of this. Creative? Yes. An interesting departure in some unexpected directions? Yes. But just a little too serious, given the subject matter? Unfortunately, also yes. Good try, though, although not one of your best.

And thus we come to Topher's entry, "The Treatment." There is an unmistakable, undeniable, all-pervasive sense of slimy, disgusting evil simply oozing out of this piece, which leads us to wonder: you've worked in the film business before, haven't you? Or at least done a little screenwriting?

In any case, in the end, we came down to a split decision between "Southern Knights Rocks!" and "The Treatment." Both are very strong, but in different ways. Al's piece has many deadly funny moments—literally, as the mere mention of Hayden Panattiere made me laugh so hard I nearly fell out of my seat, which, considering that I was driving at the time, was not a good thing. But Topher's piece scores slightly higher on the snarky cynicism scale, and besides, Al won last week.

So in the final cut, we decided to invoke Longyear's Law and give the win to "The Treatment." Ergo, Topher, you are this week's winner; now come on down and claim your prize!

And for everyone else who submitted an entry, thought about submitting an entry, or just read the entries: thanks for giving it a try, and remember, the next Friday Challenge is already in progress!