I Liked Meme Films Before You (Part 2 – Paul Blart: Mall Cop)

24 May 2022

My last blog was about my most watched film, Bee Movie. The film I’m writing about now is the runner up in the contest of mildly autistic hyper-fixation. 2009’s Happy Madison produced action comedy; Paul Blart: Mall Cop.

Another favourite of my best friend and I, we would watch this most weekends. Unlike Bee Movie, however, I have very little interest in rewatching Mall Cop – I will let it live out as a happy memory in my head, I won’t tarnish the memory of me and my friend laughing hysterically as an overweight Kevin James shouts at someone before falling down.

It came at just the right time for me, I would’ve been 12 when I first watched it. I watched it by myself for the first time, if I recall correctly, I got the DVD from my local Blockbuster’s closing down sale. I was a huge fan of Adam Sandler as many pre-teens were at that time. Happy Gilmore was the first 12 rated film I was allowed to watch at age 10 and from that moment on I was a Sandler addict. Since most Sandler projects exists solely to split the majority of the Universal Pictures’ budget between him and his mates, via a sort of cynical Hollywood osmosis, I inadvertently became familiar with the likes of Rob Schneider, David Spade and, the Mall Cop himself, Mr Kevin James.

I think Kevin James is a professional. His stand up gets a laugh out of me occasionally, I remember liking King of Queens for the most part and I think he’s the perfect man to portray our chubby protagonist. He’s likeable, funny and a genuinely good slap-stick comedian. From what I remember anyway. I haven’t seen this film in about a decade. Why am I writing this, again?

Ok, anyway, story time. Like Bee Movie, me and my friend could recite Paul Blart: Mall Cop from memory up until about the 50-minute mark, where the action kicks in and the comedy dialogue is replaced by skate-boarding bad guys, and it becomes hard to get a real flow in your script recital.

One of my most treasured memories, but also one I can’t believe I am admitting publicly, is staying for a sleepover at my friends, sticking on Mall Cop, and designing a wave of Lego sets based around the film.

I feel I should clarify; we were big Lego nerds. In fact, my friend was so knowledgeable about Lego that you could read the serial number of a Lego Star Wars set and he could tell you which set it was, the year it came out and which minifigures it came with. I’m not kidding. At the time, I didn’t think much of it but looking back, Jesus Christ, that’s some Beautiful Mind type shit.

So, when I say we were designing Lego sets, I’m not talking about ‘it could be Paul Blart on a segway’, we were designing the full range. At this time, Lego would release waves of sets which would include a £10 piece, which would just be a single minifigure and a small build, around 3 or so £20 sets which would have a small build, maybe a vehicle of some sort, and 2 or 3 minifigures, a couple of higher priced sets of around £40-60, which would be a big build and 4 or 5 minifigures, and the flagship set of the wave would be a huge build with 10+ minifigures, like the Lego Death Star.

We designed about 8 sets, all drawn on paper, which included how many pieces would be included, the minifigures, the price and of course, a serial number.

This is one of the lamest things I’ve ever done, but I’m glad I did it. It was fun. And in case anyone wonders, the flagship set we designed was the Rainforest Café from the films climax. It would’ve sold horribly.

We went to go see the sequel, Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 at the cinema together. I don’t really remember any of the film other than it wasn’t very good. I do remember, however, opening a bottle of Sprite in the cinema just as the lights went out and it fizzing up and going all over me. I remember yelling “FUCK” loudly in a silent cinema populated with children and mums (who all gave me horrible looks after the film). Good memories.

I would end this with a Mall Cop quote to match the format of my Bee Movie piece but, alas, not even prolonged torture could make me recall a single quote from that film, so here’s one from Ridley Scott’s sci-fi classic, Blade Runner.

“All these moments will be lost, like tears in rain. Time to die”.