And now, for something completely unnecessary: Waking Norman 3.

It had been a tough week. Aaron and I, as we often are, were feeling the strains of being adults – working our 9 to 5’s and coming home to freelance work we had very little interest in doing. We hadn’t had much fun in a while and the long, tedious, soul-crushing days were beginning to take their toll on us. So we did the most sensible thing we could think of: take a small break from grown-up life and be kids again – to go back in time 5 years or so for just one day.

In the true spirit of our younger days, we wanted to run around and film ourselves beating each other up and only worry about devising anything that resembled a plot in between takes. We did this so many times as kids, but it was always Aaron and Jon who got to do all the fun action stuff while I ran around with the camera. This time would be different. I thought back to a similar day sometime in 2006. Aaron and Jon stayed at my house overnight and we woke up around noon to eat a healthy hamburger breakfast at Burger King. We walked over to the nearby thrift store, bought some cheap suits and decided the best thing we could do with them is film some sort of action sequence. We did just that, but got kicked out of our location (on top of a train) before we could finish. Not wanting to have wasted the previous 3 hours, we somehow came up with the idea of turning what we had filmed into a sequel for our movie from a year or so before that, Waking Norman. After another couple hours at a park, we ended up with a real treasure, Waking Norman 2: Caleb Strikes Again – probably the worst thing we have ever uploaded to YouTube.

So we thought: what better way to return to our carefree days of youth than to make probably the most unnecessary sequel since Batman & Robin?

The Ice Man cometh!

We borrowed a little handycam and met at my house around 2 in the afternoon. It was the hottest day in recent memory, likely 204 degrees. Jon, Steve, Aaron and I sat around in my room and joked around for a while as my window AC unit struggled to keep the room at a comfortable 86 degrees. Jon and I, despite the weather and the knowledge that we’d likely lose our lives to heat exhaustion, were eager to go out and pretend to bash each other’s faces in. We coaxed Aaron and Steve out of the house and let the fun begin.

We started by filming some improvised dialogue between Jon and me that continuously ended in me doing my best impression of Will Smith. Once we finally finished a take, something bad happened: an improvised fight sequence. I decided to kick Jon, and he, being the martial arts expert that he is, caught my leg midflight and in one smooth motion, slammed me to the ground. Instant headache. To Jon, lethality is second nature, a reflex – and I was going to spend the next 6 hours fighting him. What had I signed up for here?

I shook off the pain and we proceeded to do 86 takes of Jon punching my face. Then our battery died. But this was a blessing, it gave us a chance to cool off for an hour or so in my 86 degree room and devise a plan for the rest of the day. Aaron helped Jon and I choreograph a fight sequence and we trekked back into the sun. Before fighting, however we decided it was necessary to do about an hour’s worth of sprints.

Before the day was over, Jon jump kicked me in the throat and I returned the favor by delivering a legitimate punch to his face, busting his lip. We were both as dirty and sweaty as we had ever been, and we were adequately exhausted for such a days work. I may sound like I am complaining here, and true to my nature, I most likely am, but the Saturday I speak of, the day we filmed this ill-conceived sequel to Waking Norman 2, was the most fun I had in months, and despite the soreness that crippled me for a whole week after shooting, I would not hesitate to do something like this again.

I hope you enjoy watching this at least 4% as much as we did making it. I also hope you will find this at least 4% as amusing at Batman and Robin (but I doubt we’ll succeed there).

Ladies and Gentlemen: Waking Norman 3.

Watch it here!