SYNOPSIS
The saga of the Champion of Reason unfolds in Addleton, which the Oracle of Addleton put on the map after being featured on Inside Edition. Tourism proceeded to spawn other addlebrained businesses, like Madam Leta's House of Séance, Tarot for Two, the 24-Hour Topless Donut Shop, the George Hamilton Tanning Salon, ad lunatum.
The singular city is controlled by a woman who won a fortune in the lottery and established an aristocracy with herself, the Duchess, at the helm. The corrupt Mayor Yaroborough, who dresses like the eighteenth-century French monarch Louis XV, is a member of the Duchess's aristocratic clique and firmly in her French period pocket.
Along comes Jake, a freethinking, traveling disk jockey, who's got a gig lined up at the Unicorn Club. The first thing he does after arriving on Main Street in Addleton is to run into (literally) an elderly man on a unicycle.
The unicyclist is Albert, a retired electrician and the ex-husband of the Duchess. He walked out on the 'noblewoman' because he couldn't stand the pretentiousness and now rents the upstairs of a duplex, where he has a huge collection of antiques and curios, including a fine, old British cavalryman's sword.
The owner of the duplex is Mrs. Knutson, an octogenarian who has a fixed color-cycle for a decorating scheme. On Blue Day, for instance, she uses a blue tablecloth, blue napkins, blue artificial flowers, blue candles, blue this and blue that.
While spinning his signature kick-ass rock 'n' roll at the Unicorn Club, DJ Jake makes eye contact with Kristy, a natural beauty who is a student at the local junior college, BVCC. He sees her again the next day at the town library, where many books, condemned by the Committee for Decency, are being pulled.
Jake watches Kristy as she is denied The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, one of the 'diabolical' books to be taken away and burned, and hears her retort that she can't wait to finish up at BVCC and get out of the town that she says is "self-destructing".
Later that day, Jake shows up at a cookout that Albert is having for his obese daughter, her 'plebeian' outcast of a husband, and their seven-year-old daughter, Jolly. Dressed as Wonder Woman, the superhero-infatuated Jolly listens to Jake rant about foolishness, and asks, "Why isn't there a superhero to fight foolishness?" – which inspires Jake to become the foe of folly, the Champion of Reason.
Brandishing Albert's sword and wearing Mrs. Knutson's blue tablecloth as a cape and one of her matching napkins as a mask, the Champ (sporting an R like Superman's S), crashes the Duchess's exclusive masquerade party. A few days later, he barges on stage at a local production of Hamlet, insults the Duchess and her condescending 'coterie', and states his mission: to lead the charge in the battle for truth, justice, and the rational way.
To keep suspicion away from him, Jake fakes a limp (claiming it's the result of an old motorcycle accident) and wears an I ♥ ADDLETON sweatshirt embellished with political buttons like VOTE YAROBOROUGH, CREATIONISM: TEACH THE CONTROVERSY, QUEERS ARE SINNERS, ABORTION IS MURDER, and THE CHAMP IS A CHUMP. Playing the fool becomes a full-time job, but it's not all just a game, for even a reasonable man can be a fool in love.
Jake 'borrows' the Duchess's white stallion from her ostentatious carriage, puts a horn-like device on the horse's forehead, and shows up, as the Champion of Reason, at Kristy's bedroom window on the 'unicorn'. He gives her ("the fairest maiden in all of Addleton") The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – and says that he's going to stop the town from self-destructing.
Things don't go according to plan, however, and the Champ loses control of his steed and is taken for a wild ride through the city streets with police in hot pursuit. After racing onto the football field where the BVCC Tomcats are playing a home game in their blue uniforms (which match the blue of the Champ), a group of team-spirited BVCC students form a tunnel and help the 'Blue Swashbuckler' escape from the gun-wielding police.
The furious Duchess breathes fire at Mayor Yaroborough for having appointed an inept chief of police, and threatens to send him back to the used-car lot he ran before she put him in power. With his approval-rating dropping, Yaroborough brands the Champ a "terrorist" and offers a reward for information leading to his arrest.
The esteemed Oracle of Addleton comes out with one of his trademark predictions: that the rogue who calls himself the Champion of Reason will be captured soon if the police do their best. When the outlaw is not captured 'soon', the police are accused of not doing their best, which makes matters worse for Yaroborough.
The police zero in on BVCC students, not only because of their complicity at the football game, but also because some of them, sympathetic to the Champ's cause, have formed a group called the Reason Fighters. That keeps attention away from Jake, who continues limping around and playing the fool.
The Champ appears at a pseudo-science class at Addleton High, where he blasts creationism and tells the students to start thinking for themselves – and delivers the crux of his message: "I'm not preaching, I'm teaching. People will tell you to believe this or believe that. I'm not telling you to believe anything. All I'm saying is, 'Be reasonable'."
Kristy, who put two and two together when the Champ gave her The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, exchanges notes with Jake while he's deejaying at the Unicorn Club. They get together and talk – and kiss. She then joins Jake's game and goes with him to events like a creationism assembly, an anti-gay march, and a pro-Yaroborough rally.
Thanks to Albert's helpful electrical wizardry, the lights are knocked out at the Miss Addleton Beauty Pageant, and the Champ delivers his diatribe in the darkness over the PA system through an outside telephone. With the exits blocked and police frantically searching with flashlights, the Champ tells the Addletonians that they are in the dark in more ways than one, and that they need to place less emphasis on how they look and more emphasis on how they think.
Yaroborough's approval rating goes into a tailspin, and he becomes desperate. At a highly-charged press conference, he calls the Champ un-American and labels him a champion of treason – and issues a challenge for the scoundrel to meet him face to face.
The Champ gets a hydrogen-fueled rocket belt from the science whiz kid that invented it, and the Gang of Three (Jake, Albert, and Kristy) make plans for the Champ's dramatic final appearance, code-named Operation Mashed Potatoes.
With his cape covering a mysterious hump, the Champ takes over WBVD, the local corporate-controlled radio station, and tells the listeners to tune in their minds and listen to the Voice of Reason. After delivering his harangue, in which he urges people to overcome manipulation and do some serious digging in order to get to the truth, the Blue Swashbuckler answers Yaroborough's challenge by saying that he'll be waiting for him, sword in hand, on the flat roof of the radio station.
Reason Fighters chant ("All we are say---ing is give reason a chance….") while the police contain the place and wait for the mayor, who shows up in a red French General's period coat. Brandishing a samurai sword, Yaroborough orders the Reason Fighters to be dispersed with tear gas, and then the man in red climbs a fire-truck ladder to the roof for a showdown with the man in blue.
Yaroborough squares off against his nemesis, but then tosses his sword aside and pulls out a .357 Magnum. With his legacy (and approval-rating) in mind, he points the gun at the Champ's chest and fires.
The Champ falls backward off the roof … but then zooms up, powered by the rocket belt. Through a fusillade of gunfire, the Champ flies up and away. One of the shots hits the rocket belt and causes the Champ to lose control … and come crashing down. But he eventually makes it to Albert and Kristy – and the getaway car.
Too much dust needs to settle, and the Champ needs to get out of town. In the farewell scene with Albert and Kristy, Jake promises Kristy that he'll come back for her as soon as she finishes up at BVCC, and the free-spirited Kristy tells Jake that she'll wait for him – and that she'll be ready to embark on a rafting-adventure down the Mississippi, like Huckleberry Finn. |
