Cowboy Bebop’s Andy and George “Five-Gallon Head” Bush:
Separated at Birth?
More Cowboy Bebop Precog?
A few days ago I posted about the Cowboy Bebop episode with its portrayal of the Space Shuttle Columbia and a re-entry that nearly destroys the ship. Well, last night I watched another episode that had strange parallels with today.
Called “Cowboy Funk” (Session #22), the story features a mad bomber, Mr. Teddy Bomber, who has been setting off bombs in various high rises. The episode opens on one of these, looking like a combination of the World Trade Center and Malaysia’s Petronas Towers (it has a connecting structure halfway up). Spike catches the bomber before he is allowed to detonate the bombs (disguised as teddy bears), but before he can handcuff him, another bounty hunter called “Andy” appears and screws the whole thing up, thinking that Spike is the bomber, and letting the culprit go free. The scene culminates in the connecting structure exploding and falling to the city below, creating a dust cloud not unlike the WTC aftermath.
As Andy is written, he’s a big dope, a brainless, righteous faux-cowboy who creates disaster wherever he goes. Sound familiar to the phony Kennebunkport cowboy set on destroying the world? Ya think? Later we see that Andy is actually a spoiled rich kid who lives on a large yacht, and Faye Valentine meets him for dinner.
FAYE: Um… So why are you a bounty hunter? If you’re so rich, uh, I mean if you have so much comfort in your life…
ANDY: Why, Let’s see… BECAUSE it suits me. That feeling a cowboy gets when he corners a bull.
Andy laughs heartily. Faye forces laughter.
FAYE: Oh… but you don’t have to go after such a dangerous bounty, do you?
ANDY: Yes! I don’t worry about things like that! Once I set my mind on something, I can see NOTHING else!
Sounds like our single-minded monkey king, no doubt. Purely a coincidence, but there’s further parallels. Spike and Andy get so wrapped up in their jealous hatred of each other that they lose track of the bomber, allowing him to explode several more devices. Sound a bit like the U.S.’s foreign policy? Just where is Osama “Wanted Dead or Alive” bin Laden, O Crawford Cowboy? (Trouble with this comparison is that Spike Siegel is our hero and not in any way like Hussain!)
And the bomber’s philosophy? Pure Ted Kaczynski: “I wanted to give a warning against all the unnecessary waste created by capitalism lacking philosophy. Planets that needlessly get colonized. Media that needlessly get circulated. And buildings that are needlessly tall to symbolize all of this! And by destroying them, I wanted to raise the question of how a true pioneer should be.”
This is one of the funniest episodes so far, in a series that can swing from sentimental to absurd, episode by episode.
Andy image by way of Bebopdabebop.
Chimpy McCokespoon image by way of George W. Bush: Smirking Arrogance