Pootie Tang; Leaves a bad taste in your film going experience

[Paul Westbrook]

Just last night, I was subjected to a horrible torture test. This  ordeal consisted of siting through this nauseating movie titled POOTIE TANG! Just what a "pootie tang" is, no body knows. What I know, is that this movie, was a blatant rip-off of that 70's cult classic CAR WASH. Viewing this garbage, was equvilent to watching your grass grow. Any body forced to see this picture should have two bottles of sleeping pills at the ready. Better yet, forget the pills. Just trying to make sense of the whole mess, will do the job on it's own. MY RATING; TWO THUMBS WAYYYYYYYY DOWN.

[mmv3000]

That's still in theaters??? I could have sworn they pulled it after, oh, 2 days....

[BoyScoutKevin]

If I remember my Black street jive correctly, then a "pootie tang" is a woman's sexual organ, as in "I'm gonna get me some pootie tang!"

[Flangepart]

Realy?  I thought it was some kind of drink mix for lonely guys. "Pootie tang! New from Nestle! Now in new lemon mint!"

[jabberwocky]

Heres some words I found from the director (Louis CK) of the movie on Usenet,

"I named the movie and the character.
Pootie Tang is a guy who speaks in a language which I invented.  He's
basically saying things that sound cool, that sound expressive but
aren't in any real words.  When spoken right, however, anyone can
understand what he says.   In the movie, the main character (pootie
tang) only ever speaks in this language.  everyone else speaks english
but they always understand pootie.  No one ever goes "Huh?" .  There's
also sort of a feeling that, he is so expressive as a man, his
personality is so shiny, that he does not need words, he is macro-poetic
and beyond syntax and vocabulary.  So when he utters the words, "Sine on
the lematane, my damie"  Women scream really loud and lose their minds,
guys run into brick walls in admiration.

Contrary to what people may think, this language is not related to jive
or Eubonics, it doesn't really have anything to do with pootie being
black.  The fact is that I invented most of the words he uses when i was
about ten years old.  I loved to talk that way when I was a kid.  I made
up all kinds of words that i would say around the house.  I would dress
up like a superhero and make people call me "Panertan Man".  Pootie says
Panertan sometimes.   The fact that lance and most of the other folks in
the movie are black is due to the fact that i was part of the chris rock
show community when i wrote it.  Lance Crouther who plays Pootie is one
of the funniest people I ever knew and a great actor.  Chris is great
and obviously i am lucky to have him in the movie too.
I don't know, i would probably have made pootie black anyway.  When I
was a kid, all my heros were black.  Mohamad Ali (sp?), Bill Cosby,
Martin Luther King Jr., Richar Pryor, Bruce Lee (thought he was black
when i was seven), Doctor J..
But anyway the language is just a nonsense language that i made up as a
kid.   And Pootie's name (to finally get to your question) just sort of
flowed out of that.  Believe it or not, the fact that it sounds like
slang for vagina or p***y is a total accident.  I HONESTLY didn't think
of it that way when I came up with it.  It's just fun, silly sounds
Pootie tang!  Hey, pootie tang!  what you doing?  "I'm a tine cappy my
damie.  Whadataaah!"  See, it just sort of fits in with the rest.
The original name of the movie was "Pootie Tang in Sine your Pitty on
the runny kine" but i knew that would never make it to the marquis
(sp?).

So that's where it came from.  It isn't dirty, sexy, or a play on
rappers, pimps or any other stereotypy s**t.  Pootie is a very positive
role model.  Kids love him, but he refuses to trade on his fame by
selling them unhealthy products and sneakers they can't afford.  Instead
he makes PSAs telling them to eat their vegetables.  Women fall all over
him, but he doens't exploit them.  He's above that.   And while he
fights gun-toting drug dealers, he doens't turn to guns himself.  he
doesn't fight murder with more murder like some action heros.  He dodges
bullets by just dancing around and being too cool to shoot and then
gives the bad guys an old fashioned daddy ass-whupping with nothing but
his belt.   That's Pootie Tang, not a word for p***y.  People might ask,
why didn't you come up with another name that sounds less like p***y?
Well, I didn't sit down with a bunch of candidates and pick a name out
of many.  It just came out.  As soon as I saw him in my head, I knew he
was Pootie Tang.  And he could never, never be anyone else.  That's just
the way it feels sometimes.

The most unfortunate thing, I think, that came out of the re-thinking of
the movie by the studio, is that they actually ran away from the
language.  Many lines by Pootie were cut.  He's almost Chaplin in this
film.  I gave him very few anyway, because it's hard for pootie to carry
a long dialogue, but what little he had they cut down too much.  If you
see the trailer, you'll notice that he only says 'sa da tai" twice and
that's it.  And he's the star, and his language is the whole reason the
movie exists.  But when they showed the movie to the test audience, they
asked "did anything confuse you?" and they said 'the language.  I didn't
understand what he was saying.  It wasn't english."  So they went "Holy
s**t!  We gotta get that s**t out of there!" and there I was going, "um,
but that's the whole...."  I better stop there.  Great experience,
thankful for it.  God bless america."