The Reciter

The Reciter

 

Have you ever watched TV with a “Reciter?”  Mrs. Cranky is a reciter. You know, a reciter, someone watching TV who has seen the movie or show before and will recite lines in a scene just before the actor does.

OK…Like you’re watching “A Few Good Men” and right at the crucial scene where Jack Nicholson loses his shit someone recites, “You want the truth, you can’t handle the truth.”  See, you know what I mean, only Mrs. Cranky then goes on to recite every last word of that scene including the lines of Tom Cruise, Kevin Bacon, and the Judge.

Creepy right?

Mrs. Cranky watches a movie twice and she knows half the dialog.  She then cannot resist proving she knows the dialog by doing her reciting thing.  There are some movies where she knows not just the key scenes, but pretty much the whole dang movie. 

She can watch “Sex and the City” for eleven seconds and tell you exactly which episode it is.

The worst are her big four movies, "Pretty Woman," “Sleeping with the Enemy,” “The Wizard of Oz,” and “My Cousin Vinnie.”  The lines to these movies are committed to her memory 100 per cent, and she will recite them with the exact feelings and inflections as the on screen version…all exactly three seconds before the TV.

She has passed this ability and habit on to her daughter, the Step-crank.  When I watch a movie with these two it is like listening to it in stereo and on echo.  Even more disturbing is when they both are watching the same movie, but in different houses.  These two whack jobs will actually be on the phone and text the lines to each other just before they are stated on the TV.

Unfortunately there is no way to capitalize on this talent.  I keep hoping there will be a new quiz show, “Recite That Line!”

Contestants will be given a movie title and a scene in that movie.  They then compete for how few words in an actor’s line they will hear before they can complete the scene.

“Ok contestants, here is the movie, “The Green Mile,” Paul Edgecomb (Tom Hanks) meets John Coffee (Michael Clark Duncan) for the first time.

Sally?”

“I could recite that line after three words.”

“Mrs. Cranky?”

“Paul Edgecomb: Your name is John Coffey?

John Coffee: Yes sir boss. Like the drink, only not spelled the same.

Paul Edgecomb: Oh, you can spell can you?

John Coffee: Just my name boss. J-O...”

“Whoa, that is good enough Mrs. Cranky, you are the winner!”

She would make a fortune!!!