Fresh Garbage gives us an insight into a brainstorming session between old friends who love to poke fun at the world around them and want to present their own, unique view of the world. This is done through parody, mockery, and old-fashioned fart jokes. They use a variety of styles, modeling their work after pop-culture narratives, mock interviews with people famous and fictitious, or just popping up their own personal pensive perceptions of the public persona.

What makes Fresh Garbage writers Baughn and Muckler unique is the amount of personal respect with which they approach their fictitious subjects. It’s not a bitter biting dirty critique, but rather a respectful consideration and estimation of things from our past and things from our present. For the most part, the things are parodied precisely because of how respected, feared, or important they are for the writers themselves.

Fresh Garbage is undeniably fresh, in the many meanings of the word. And therein you will not unravel the secrets of ancient mysteries, except perhaps how cannibals properly prepare dinner. What you’ll find is a moment to step outside, glance around, and chuckle, with two guys who are just in it for a good laugh and some comic reminiscing.

TB Koskie
T&R Reviews

Fresh Garbage is the off-the-wall product of a collaboration between David Baughn and Craig Muckler, both veteran comedic horror film writers, who bring the world of the grotesque to the world of the mundane. An irreverent look at modern American television, the book employs satire within satire to expose the ubiquitous entertainment/information media for the “garbage” it really is.

Presented as a series of short screenplays with recurring themes and characters, the book spoofs American cinema, rewrites history, and delivers a political superhero cliffhanger series that has all of the gore, adolescent sexuality, and absurdity of the great “bad horror movies” of the authors’ pasts. Frequent interruptions by product advertisements, public announcements, and news interviews, make the reader actually feel as if he is flipping between channels on TV, discovering the shocking humor found in bodily discharge, radical lifestyles, and commercialism.

From the glamorous stars of Hollywood, who endorse products marketed as “improvements” that actually pose serious bodily harm, to the everyday man, such as Elroy Sludge, the “Garbage Guy,” who built his fortune on rotting trash or Dr. Kill Dare, an Indiana physician who specializes in surgical amputations without the benefit of anesthesia, no social status is immune from the audacious lampoonery of Baughn and Muckler.

Nor is any topic considered off-limits to their brassy recreations. From the suggestion of a revolutionary new presidential election process in which the winner is determined by a light game of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey to the shocking restructuring of the judicial system in which a coin-operated psychic machine determines guilt and the sentence is always death, the authors offer wacky solutions to many contemporary issues.

At its best, Fresh Garbage is an electric combination of MAD Magazine and the graphic novels of Rob Zombie. More often, however, the book wallows in a juvenile and tiresome obsession with offensive bodily functions and extreme violence. Those who reliably find humor in the ridiculous, bawdy, lewd, crude, and unconventional (and possess an iron stomach) may find this book fresh; others will most likely take it out with the garbage.

BookWire Review
April 12, 2006

Author Biography

David Baughn & Craig Muckler

David spent most of his career as a producer/writer/distributor of motion pictures including creative marketing & advertising. Highlights include Theatrical Branch manager of MGM in San Francisco, Seattle, and Portland, and National Sales Manager for Russ Meyer’s films, responsible for the commercial success of this bold genre. David formed IFI/Scope III, and released over 400 films. Under this banner, he produced, co-wrote and distributed 2 internationally successful horror films, Beyond Evil & Graduation Day. He left his company to join Crown International Pictures as VP & General Sales Manager supervising domestic sales & marketing, in-house development and acquisitions. He has written articles on independent distribution for Filmmakers - Film and Video Monthly, a lead article for Film Row - Motion Picture Market Black Book, interviews with Variety, Hollywood Reporter, and numerous television & radio stations. He is also sought after for seminars on independent production & distribution.

Craig graduated from the Theatre Arts Department at the University of Minnesota, relocating to Southern California to align his talents directly with the Film industry. To establish and strengthen his skills, he took courses at UCLA in Cinema Arts & Screen Writing. His career started as an actor, with numerous roles in film & TV. He became official movie reviewer for an entertainment magazine and wrote, produced, and hosted his own TV comedy/talk show, Hollywood Showcase for Group W. With his focus on film, Craig has written many movie scripts and treatments. Ultimately, as Producer/Writer he made two feature films, Malibu High, a story of an attractive high school student turned Mafia hit girl, & a worldwide cult classic, Microwave Massacre, a tongue-in-cheek comedy/horror movie.

David & Craig are partners in Fresh Garbage Enterprises which has just finished writing a screenplay sequel called Microwave Massacre II - Don’t Go in the Oven.