In between plotting how best to ruin the "Ghostbusters" franchise (Bill Murray, if you are reading this, PLEASE keep holding out. You're our only hope), Dan Aykroyd is apparently also planning to dig up old pal John Belushi's corpse and desecrate it in front of a presumably larger audience than the ones who made the mistake of paying to see "Blues Brothers 2000."
He wants to redo "The Blues Brothers" as a TV series. Oh, but it gets worse. Former "Saturday Night Live" writer Anne Beatts - who is developing the proposed series with Aykroyd and Belushi's apparently still VERY bitter ex-wife Judy - describes the concept thusly:
"It would be 'Route 66' meets 'Glee'."
Just let that roll around in your brain pan for a minute or two.
Forget that the original was a fluke hit - an odd mix of musical, road movie, and surreal comedy - that succeeded largely on the charisma of the leads (this is back when Aykroyd could play stoic for laughs and didn't feel the need to attack the scenery like a feral wolverine) the strength of its soundtrack. I mean: Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Cab Calloway, John Lee Hooker, Sam and Dave? C'mon. What could a new version possibly hope to counter with? Chris Brown? Bruno Mars? Nicki Minaj? Please.
The next shudder-inducing thought falls, naturally, on casting. Who in the world could play the iconic Jake and Elwood Blues besides nobody?
How about...
The "We Need a Hit" Pairing
Attempting to recapture the "magic" of "Take Me Home Tonight," Aykroyd drafts Dan Fogler and Topher Grace into the roles. Fogler is like the screaming love child of Belushi and Chris Farley anyway, and Grace needs to retreat to TV where he is treated better than he is in the multiplexes. Awful, but you can see the reasoning behind it.
The "SNL" Pairing
Bill Hader can do deadpan like nobody's business, and since the "Blues Brothers" don't have to be brothers by blood, why not secure the zaftig lunacy of Kenan Thompson? It at least honors the Brothers' TV roots.
The "Dance" Pairing
You can almost hear the studio suit rattling this one around in his vacuous skull box: "Wait, don't these Blues Brothers dance a lot? Why do they have to be so schlubby? You get Maksim Chmerkovskiy and Derek Hough in there, and this is a done deal."
The "Law & Order" Pairing
Maybe Aykroyd has a twist up his sleeve. Maybe the "Glee" thing is a smokescreen, and he intends to reinvent the Blues Brothers as a gritty tale of two rogue cops ("Blue" brothers) banding together on a "mission from God" to rid the streets of tone-deaf crooks. Together with their souped-up Bluesmobile, Vincent D'Onofrio and Chris Meloni are soul men with badges.
The "Glee" Pairing
Sadly, the "Glee" thing probably isn't a smokescreen, so we might as well prepare ourselves for "hot, young, studly" Jake and Elwood. Because if there's anything tween girls love, it's cute boys paying homage to something their grandfathers thought was funny 40 years ago.
The "Please God Make it Stop" Pairing
Aykroyd probably can't let go of Elwood, and will insist on starring in the new series alongside...wait for it...JIM Belushi. Right? The only problem would be, of course, figuring out which one could be "the skinny one."