Howard Hawks’ The Thing From Another World—the more optimistic adaptational forerunner to John Carpenter’s wonderfully bleak The Thing—ends with a famous bit of warning dialogue, extolling viewers to “Watch the skies.” At least one of the stars of Carpenter’s version appears to have taken that call for vigilance to heart, even if he’s actually (and quite reasonably) focused on the planet’s Antarctic research stations, instead. Don’t worry, humanity: He might have gotten Thing-ified in the movie, but in the real world, Wilford Brimley is still out there on social media, watching all of our backs:
The 84-year-old Brimley maintains a healthy social media presence, in fact, despite the deluge of “Oats” and “die-a-beetus” jokes he presumably has to deal with by the Cocoon-full. He took a break from promoting his country and western music brand with it tonight in order to make what was, on the whole, a surprisingly great joke about his 1982 horror classic, highlighting what could easily be the start of something very messy for the rest of us in an Antarctic research station. (Also, the guy in the accompanying news story, about Russian scientists going stir crazy and stabbing each other in an ice-bound locale, didn’t actually die, which makes the whole thing a little easier to laugh at.) Well played, Mr. Brimley…if that’s who you really are.