The Gondry/Nickelodeon Connection

by Amelie Gillette February 21, 2008

In Keith's interview with Michel Gondry, the director said that he wrote the script for Be Kind Rewind alone, without collaborators. Well, that may not exactly be true. Thanks to an informative investigative piece recently uploaded to YouTube, new details have emerged about Gondry's writing process for the movie. Yes, he technically wrote it alone–save for the long shadow of his young, vibrant muse: Amanda Bynes. After watching the following video I now picture Gondry feverishly typing the Be Kind Rewind screenplay in a Nickelodeon-induced delirium, the complete Amanda, Please! DVDs scattered at his feet, pausing only to wipe his brow with a promotional She's The Man t-shirt.

One can only hope that Gondry's homage to this, the seminal Amanda Show sketch, does the original justice by including some hilarious, miscellanously foriegn accents.

Lest you think this is a coincidence, the Gondry/Nickelodeon connection doesn't end with this one example. I've always thought that Gondry's video for Bjork's "Human Behaviour" bears a striking resemblence to this one episode of Are You Afraid Of The Dark? I saw on Nick At Night this one time 11 years ago. Also, Clementine and Joel's relationship in Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind? Totally a Clarissa/Sam from Clarissa Explains It All redux.