They say that sometimes truth is weirder than fiction. Sometimes the truth is also dumb, brutally horny, and filled with wayyyyy too many Willie Wonka references. In the three part HBO Documentary, you get all of these things, along with a litany of other mind boggling, ostensibly true things.
The three part series follows aging pervert George, who owns the Texas Renaissance Festival. He knows exactly when he is going to die (according to him) and just wants to find love. He goes on several dates over the course of the show. Both women are 24 years old. George is 86. After the first date, the Festival owner muses that there is no point dating younger girls because they don’t read poetry and they don’t know how to bone. Then he goes on a date with another 24 year old. This, ostensibly, has nothing to do with the show. They just insisted on including it like a side quest in the show.
The show is actually about (or at least is supposed to be when we aren’t being forced to accept the fact that the octogenarian main character of this show is still bumping uglies) George deciding in the beginning that it’s time for him to work on his art, his garden, and find love. He then wrestles with the idea of selling the Faire or dying as the king of the nerd festival he has been running for 50 years.
The other main characters that the documentary revolves around starts with Jeff, a notably lame sycophant who spends the entirety of the show alternating between pretending that his life is as a character in King Leer and as Charlie, the do-gooder kid with the dead beat grandpa in Willy Wonka. He is the type of goober that says “You are going to love this” before playing a song from Shrek: The Musical. He has worked for the Ren Faire for nearly three decades and has recently taken over as the General Manager of the park.
The next character is Louie, a Red Bull chugging kettle corn vendor who wants to buy the park from George. He comes off as the most normal person on the show. He is hustling to grow his business and thinks that he can take over the Faire and make it much more profitable by running it with a business eye.
The other main character is Darla, some kind of executive who steps in over the course of the show to co-manage the Faire with Jeff when Jeff screws up…something. It’s actually not very clear what he did wrong, which certainly plays a part in everything coming off of the tracks.
AT THIS POINT, I’M GOING TO START SPOILING THE SHOW. IF YOU REALLY WANT TO SEE THE SHOW AND DON’T WANT ME TO RUIN IT, GO AHEAD AND STOP WATCHING NOW.
The show feels fake because of how impossible it is to track George’s thought process in any of the show. George has either always been crazy, or is just going senile at this point. He didn’t want to have to follow any rules when he was building his festival, so he bought 880 acres of land in Texas and incorporated his own city. Did he make himself permanent mayor? You bet your ass he did. Apparently, a lot of the performers live in various spots on the land. It’s part commune, part Phish fans cosplaying as jugglers or whatever was considered a profession back then, and has just a little bit of cult sprinkled in.
Jeff follows George around as a loyal servant, right up to, and then definitely after he gets fired by George. Why was he fired? George said he just plain didn’t like him. Again, Jeff had worked there 30 years. They tried to build a narrative around a story that came out that the water supply at the festival was bad, but Jeff was able to prove it wasn’t and get a retraction printed. George is just an old jerk, and that comes raging out as the show agonizingly continues to focus on him. He has someone who works for him whose job it is to scroll through dating sites all day long, looking for someone to love. He has a list of questions that he asks all potential sex partners and has such a distaste for fake breasts that leads me to believe his parents were murdered by silicone.
He talks over people, treats them with zero respect, and flies completely off the handle any time that anything he has ever done in the past is brought up. He spends the entirety of the show desperately needing to has his teeth kicked down his throat. Oh, and you know how I mentioned above that George was a sycophant who got fired because George decided he didn’t like him? He begged to get his old job as entertainment director back…and got it!
Louie, the kettle corn salesman, was setting up a purchase of the Faire for 40-50 million dollars (that’s a lot of kettle corn) but gets the rug pulled out from under him when Jeff, before he was fired the first time, begged George not to sell, and so George didn’t. Then George decides he is going to just die as king. Then he decided he is going to sell some shares of the faire to the vendors and employees so he could afford to chase skirts. Then he decided to sell to the greek food vendors. Then he decided not to sell. Then the show ends with Louie about to buy the show again. Then in the post script, it said the sale fell apart. As of now, George still owns the show and still apparently has quite a hatred for fake breasts while claiming to be sexually active.
Darla seems like the most business minded person on the show, which isn’t so much a compliment as much as it’s just being the smartest chicken at the slaughterhouse. Does Darla also get fired? You bet your ass she did. What was her crime? Having what appeared to be the closest thing to a backbone in the management office.
George comes off as an old, horny tyrant for a boss. I’m not sure we needed to follow him on a date to Olive Garden with a girl who was literally 62 years younger than him, and the forced small talk that happens with that kind of age difference. It was absolutely more cringeworthy than I could possibly make it sound. He doesn’t know how to talk to people, or how to even exist on this plane of reality.
I’m leaving a ton out for this show, because it’s actually worth watching. It will kind of make you feel better about yourself. I came close to walking away from the show, and am sure I wouldn’t have bothered to continue watching if it has gone more than three episodes. It is a fascinating look into the world of cosplay mind worms, and it’s good to know that, even when people pine for simpler times to the point where they choose to act it out, those simpler times still involve idolizing an aging sex fiend and so, so much back stabbing.
Fancy Boys Club 