Offseason Factfinding Junket: Sanford, FL

Last night, the Special Lady and I revisited Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright's ode to all silly action films: Hot Fuzz. Here's the synopsis from IMDB:

Jealous colleagues conspire to get a top London cop transferred to a small town and paired with a witless new partner. On the beat, the pair stumble upon a series of suspicious accidents and events.

The 2007 film is set in the village of Sandford. The townspeople there are obsessed with winning The Village of the Year Award, which is obviously a big to-do and worth murdering all the gypsies, street performers and punk asses that roam the streets.

Sanford, Florida is a real-life place where the police allowed some jackass to follow a kid around and shoot him dead. Then, they waited a month to arrest and charge him with some shit that will never stick. The following is a list of comparisons ... some of which may SHOCK AND SURPRISE YOU.*

*None of this will shock you. It might actually annoy you.

The city of Sanford's official slogan is: "Sanford. Great History. Great City." That sounds as if it was created by the Bartles & Jaymes guys; muttering under their yellowy-grey mustaches while they fan themselves with newspapers. What a bunch of fucking assholes.

Hot Fuzz's Village of Sandford's motto is "A Community that Cares." So, an awkward British twat can come up with a better slogan than a dozen fuckhead sod farmers serving on the Chamber of Commerce. God bless America.

In Hot Fuzz, a secret society of druid-like old farts rule the village of Sandford. They call themselves the Neighborhood Watch Association (N.W.A. for short). These ancient crustaceans sit at a round table and plan their evil deeds. Simon Pegg's character learns of their plans and teams up with his obese beaver partner to take take them down. Along the way, they lampoon some well-known action movies: including Bad Boys and Point Break. One of the enemies of the N.W.A. are the hoodies, pictured here outside the pub:

The hoodies don't really do anything except sit around and do their Assassin's Creed impressions. There is a moment when they help out our hero by spray painting some things. They also bum rush a sniper. All things considered, they're a pretty good bunch of kids.

In Sanford, people wear hoodies in solidarity with Treyvon Martin, the kid who was murdered by George Zimmerman because he was black and he wore a hoodie. He was also carrying a Brisk tea and some Skittles.

In the film, almost everyone in the Village of Sandford has a name that reveals their profession. Nicholas Angel is the by-the-book cop. The newspaper guy is Tim Messenger. The appliance salesman is George Merchant. You get the idea.

According to wikiname, George Zimmerman's surname tells us that he's a lumberjack. My knowledge of woodsmen comes from a rather famous musical cross-dressing Monty Python sketch and those bad ass chainsaw races on ESPN (Coming up next: THE HOT SAWS!). If that's not some top-notch investigative journalism, then I don't know what is.

HEY Y'ALL! Be sure to load up the wagon and come on out to Sanford's Better Neighborhood Better Life 2012 Community Expo this weekend. No word on whether or not you can bring your licensed concealed firearm. I'm sure it's totally cool, though. Remember to keep a round chambered, and if you see something, SAY SOMETHING!

Just kidding. Shoot their ass.