Interview: Mr. Belvedere

PV: I'm sorry to hear of your passing, sir.

MB: Quite the contrary, old chap. Although the gentleman who played me, Christopher Hewett, may have passed away in 2001, I'm charmed to report that the smarmy British butler lives on.

PV: Oh, you mean in our memories?

MB: Quite so, yes. As well as home video.

PV: Uh, I don't think so. Your TV series was never released on DVD.

MB: Tallyho! Well, well. By home video I meant of course VHS.

PV: Nope.

MB: Bluray?

PV: Hah!

MB: Nick at Nite?

PV: Not even Nick at Nite.

MB: Pirated VCR tapes of the original broadcasts?

PV: I'm pretty sure ABC taped over those, actually.

MB: Well then, if it's impossible to see my show anymore, at least my fine American teledrama shall always have center stage in the theater of nostalgia in the minds of those who saw the show and cherish its impact on them.

PV: Amen to that. It's too bad your show isn't playing nowadays, what with all this hullabaloo over illegal immigration. Mr. Belevedere, you've always been my favorite illegal immigrant.

MB: Illegal? Why whatever do you mean?

PV: Don't play coy with me. You're an off-the-boat, greencardless social security siphon. Probably the only reason Bob Eucker hired you as a butler was so he could pay you less than minimum wage.

MB: Whatever gave me away?

PV: You just have that look about you. That and then there was that episode where Wesley called INS on you and tried to get you deported.

MB: WESLEEEEY!

PV: Relax, the kid was 10. Plus he was a riot. Wesley was Bart Simpson before there was Bart Simpson. His antics were why the show was so popular.

MB: Ahem, I think not, young man. After all, was the show titled "Mr. Incorrigible, Undisciplined Twit?"

PV: No need to get snooty, Belvedere. You were good too. It's just that you were the straight man. It was a shameless role. You just stood there idly as Wesley lit your underwear on fire and poured Tobasco in your breakfast cereal.

MB: WESLEEEEEY!

PV: Hahaha, and remember the time he wrecked your car? Oh, man.

MB: Once I get my hands on that little brat I'll twist his spine in half and make her mother rue the day she gave birth to that demonic little twerp.

PV: And then there was that episode when you and him were camping and he made the tent fall down.

MB: WESLEEEEEY! Wherever you are, I despise your very nature with an unholy wrath that puts that of all the creatures of the netherworld to shame. One day I will destroy you and burn your corpse.

PV: Whoah there. For serious? I thought your anger with Wesley was playful yet curmudgeoningly understanding in a surrogate father sort of way.

MB: Yes, yes. It certainly was. I was just, uh, joking. Please don't call INS on me.

PV: Haha, don't worry, Mr. Belvedere. The INS doesn't deport fictional TV characters who are played by actors who are now dead.

MB: Whew! That's a relief. In that case, you can bugger off. I'll be going now. I need to track down Wesley and (trailing off)... kill... him.

PV: What?

MB: I said I need to go tend to the table.