Last week, Disney announced its fourth consecutive poor quarter. A spokesman said the company needs to focus on "freshening our merchandise." We say sure -- but with some late-nineties reimagineering:

* Update of 1968 classic The Love Bug, featuring new VW Beetle in The Angst Bug, in which anthropomorphized coupe, Herbie, backs over pedestrians until its analyst lines oil filter with Zoloft. With John Malkovich in Dean Jones role.

* The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes remade as The ISP Wore Nikes. Slacker college student accidentally downloads all AOL e-mail into his brain, ends up blackmailing politicians and hatching plans of world domination. Starring Macaulay Culkin, with Kurt Russell as investment banker who takes him public.

* Bambi II: Still traumatized by mother's murder at hands of rifle-toting sociopaths, grown-up Bambi organizes fellow furry forest creatures into all-species, Earth First!-like guerrilla group pledging strikes on logging camps and upriver condominium development. Samuel Jackson provides Bambi's voice; Edward Norton is Thumper. Quentin Tarantino directs.

Related:

• Archive: “Gotham: Life in the New City”
• Articles by Michael Tomasky | Alex Williams
• Table of Contents: May 10, 1999 issue of New York | Subscribe!