Question of the Week 06/11/03:

According to ancient mythology, there was a time when gods and goddesses walked the earth. What would happen if they came back today? Would Dionysus settle the "Tastes Great, Less Filling" debate once and for all? Would Thor become a truck driver so he could finally put the hammer down? We want to know:

WHAT WOULD THE GODS OF MYTH AND LEGEND DO IN THE MODERN WORLD?


We'll find out today, on VH1's "Behind the Muses"!

These gods and goddesses aren't stupid.  They know that these days, celebrities like them can have a ghost-writer crank out a scandalous memoir, sell a grillion copies, and live the cushy life of endless book tours or just penning new prefaces for the latest editions.  Expect to see these titles on bookshelves this holiday season: "Me and Mjolnir: The Thor Story", Persephone's "Winter in His Arms, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Death", the shocking confessional "'A Fish Ate Them' and Other Lies I Told Osiris" by Isis, Hephaestus' tell-all "Nymphs in the Hands of an Ugly God", and "Wet Dreams: Dread Cthulhu's Dream Diary".

Expect to see Roe vs. Wade amended to outlaw the swallowing of children after birth.

Odysseus: "What we need is a giant wooden horse, see...  We'll wheel it to the outskirts of Baghdad and tell Saddam-- oh, screw it.  Let's just drop the MOAB."

I certainly hope that Nike will have words for her corporate namesake. "What's with the swoosh, anyway? I don't get it. And if you think you're going to pay Tiger Woods more than you're paying me, you've got another think coming."

Every day, Artemis buys movie ticket, sees the Orion Pictures logo, sighs, walks out.

Eros spends weekends at the Neverland Ranch.

Well, if I was Hermes or Sisyphus, I'd probably get a contract with Red Bull. What? Really?

Vulcan lives long, prospers.

In today's tort-happy environment, I figure the Greek Gods would initiate a class-action lawsuit against the Roman pantheon for identity theft.

"He's a philandering Greek all-father with a bucket full of thunderbolts. She's a virginal divine huntress who shoots beams of deadly moonlight. They fight crime!"

Loki's actually been back for a while. You know how his first batch of kids were Hel, Sleipnir, the Fenris Wolf, and the Midgard Serpent? Well, his more recent offspring include Britney Spears, Mister Ed, Spuds Mackenzie, and the Midgard Bunny. What? Oh - she balances the world on her head. At least she's GOING to, once she's all growed up.  

The usual meteoric rise to fame, followed by a nightmare descent into addiction and porn, followed by... uh...  classier porn.

Odin reveals that he's not drinking the mead of Kvasir, he's drinking Kvasir Mead Twist. And he's not actually Odin, he's Charles Grodin.

Well, Loki would change his name to "Altria."

Nemesis, the divine justice, would go undercover at a strip club to expose a criminal scheme. Why, yes, I am a Cinemax producer. Why do you ask?

Tonight, on a very special episode of "Are You Hot, and a God or Goddess?"...

Enlil is the Sumerian god of earth and air.  He separated his parents, An the god of the air and Ki the goddess of the earth, and mated with his mother to produce mankind. He later wrote a book about the Oedipus Complex entitled, "Mommy Dearest : What's All This About Eye-Gouging?".

Invade Iraq. All the cool kids are doing it.

Talk about how much better the world was "in the good ol' days"

Unfortunately, Ares has been very very busy of late......

Ganymede saw his autobiography, "Cupbearer", reduced to an Adam Sandler adaptation known as "Waterboy".

Start a cookie company. If a bunch of elves can do it, how hard can it be?

Kivati, the trickster god of the Puget Sound Indians, is responsible for the necessity of remedial patches in MicroSoft technology.

While chasing after his latest concubine, Zeus took the form of a rabbit with a pancake on his head. And then somebody slapped him on the back and he stayed that way until he died as a mortal....

Jerry Springer has a field day. "Today's episode: I married my brother and he ate my kids!"

Aren't they all already on "Passions?"

I hope that they'd finally set Shazam straight. "Wisdom of Solomon" my ass…

Well, at the moment, I'm answering the Question of the Week.

Mars attacks!

The same thing they do every night…

Hermaphrodite, son of Hermes and Aphrodite, is in a road-show production of "La Cage Aux Folles" and is up for the Edna Turnblad role in "Hairspray".

Jove would finally get that mess sorted out in "Cymbeline."

Thor's still entangled in a protracted lawsuit against Marvel Comics for libel damages.

Venus is your Venus, she's your fire, your desire.

They're going to Disneyworld!!!

Lung, the dragon of Chinese folklore, worked briefly as a commercial spokesman for LaChoy.

Thor, Zeus, and Raiden join forces to start a new band, "The Fabulous Thunderbolts."

Share a cell with Martha Stewart.

Zeus gets totally frustrated when the babes don't fall for his romantically inclined animal forms... until he discovers certain AOL chat rooms.

Didn't you see the wisdom of Athena guiding our generals in Iraq? Me neither… just wondering if I missed it.

Odin has written his autobiography and is hoping to get Peter Falk to play the lead. "I realize an actor of a more classical stature - like Sir Ian McKellan, - might be better suited for the role," says Odin in an exclusive interview for Playboy.  "But there's a matter of 'been there done that' with the Gandalf thing.... With Pete, we see eye to eye."

Who else would've been behind "Temptation Island?"

Play Black and White.

Get a place on line for Star Wars Episode 3. This one's going to rock, dude.

I'm guessing that Zeus would be pushing for an end to the double taxation of dividends.

Hanuman the Monkey God works as a cashier at the Edison Hotel.  Day shift.  Ask for Mr. Chan.

If you liked "The Osbournes", just wait until you see "At Home with the Zeuses"!

Aeolus gives tours of his amazing Cave of the Four Winds, though mumbling acknowledgements that his cave is not the economic powerhouse that is the Cave of the Winds near Colorado Springs.

Poseidon hangs out in karaoke bars, performing "There's Got to Be a Morning After."

The lot of them sue for back royalties tied to unauthorized use of their good names on half the stuff in Western civilization and retire with the judgements to a sunnier and warmer mountain.

Spend most of their time telling Steinbrenner to just stop calling them already!   Sheesh!

Get those gods some Prozac!

Laugh. Then destroy us all.

Oceanic creator goddess Tiamat drowns Gary Gygax for his sins.

Having a go as contestants on "American Idol"

I understand the Aesir and the jotuns have come together to start a new chain of clothing stores, the Ginnunga Gap.

Spend hours agonizing over new questions and cleverly witty responses for the Question of the Week.

Still plenty of "deus ex machina" work to go around...

Hestia, goddess of the hearth, is running a bed and breakfast in Penobscot, Maine.

Apollo signs an endorsement contract with Comcast and becomes "The God of Broadband Cable" who's mission is to "Bring you the internet, faster!" Zeus
strikes him down for the spam filling up his inbox.

Loki'd probably do all his work by blog.     

They've all become arrogant professors specializing in myth and legend.

Pan is a movie producer who got his start in porn.

Try for the Democratic presidential nomination. It's not like there's any competition.

Start a boy band.

Everybody knows Hercules is still around, acting under the name of Kevin Sorbo.

Point and laugh.

Daytime talk shows.

Anyone else thinking Bikini car wash?

Become a bloody pathetic pavement artist in Paris.

Create television show called Buffy:The Vampire Slayer

Write for tabloids, naturally.

After Catwoman (Julie Newmar) fell to her death in the caves, Bastet the Egyptian cat goddess filled the lifeless body with her celestial spirit and continued Catwoman's criminal lifestyle. But in the meantime, Tia Mara (Eartha Kitt) - a former IMF agent - took on the Catwoman identity when she turned to a life of crime. Betty Jones (Lee Meriweather) also assumed the Catwoman guise after Bastet tired of the ruse.  That's how she met Barnaby Jones' son; he was the cop who took her into custody after she was stopped by Batman.  They married while she was still serving time. Bastet now makes a fortune through her stock holdings in Fresh Step, Nine Lives, and Fancy Feast.
Well, that's our story in Toobworld and we're sticking to it!
 

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