Today, I was talking to [Matty](http://www.capndesign.com/) about [Superbad](http://www.areyousuperbad.com/). So sure, the original trailer is great, but the “red band trailer” (distinguished by the red MPAA screen) is fantastic, possibly even the stuff of legend.
But [the YouTube link](http://youtube.com/watch?v=FPc28FASaEE) I had posted before has been pulled. Now, seemingly, the only way to get at it was through the official site’s [age verification section](http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/superbad/site/agegate/index.html).
An abridged list of things we’ve learned on the Internet in the last ten years:
* CAPTCHAs don’t work.
* Cats are simultaneously hilarious and adorable.
* Anti-spam methods don’t work.
* Talking like an idiot never goes out of style.
* Age verification methods don’t work.
I’d like to focus on the last one, obviously.
The form to verify your age looks something like this:
The fine print on the same page reads:
>I understand that I am allowed to enter the Restricted Area only if I am 18 years or older and have a valid driver’s license. To verify my age, I hereby authorize Verification Financial Assurance Corporation (“VeriFAC”) to confirm the accuracy of the information I have provided against government-issued records. I acknowledge that the information I am providing on this page will not be collected by Sony and that it will only be accessed and used by VeriFAC to verify my age and for no other purposes.
So you have to have a driver’s license and be 18 or older. It would be easy to question the wisdom of forcing people to have a license to operate a motor vehicle to view an awesome movie trailer, but let’s not argue with that decision. It’s not like kids could just use their parents details – no kid under 18 knows their parents first *and* last names, let alone their birth day and their zip code. That’s some strong four-factor authentication.
Anyhow, the truly amusing part for me is that so much of the original trailer revolves around one character (Fogell, played by the incredibly named Christopher Mintz-Plasse) getting a fake ID with the name “McLovin” on it.
In what may be the greatest wasted opportunity in movie web site hisotry, the form does not successfully validate if you use a last name of “McLovin”, with a birth date of 06/03/1981 and a zip code of 96820. You get an error complaining that you didn’t fill out the first name field. Jesus, people, don’t you get it? He doesn’t even *have* a first name. HE **IS** McLOVIN.
I guess all you kids under 18 are out of luck if you want to watch [the red band trailer](http://flash.sonypictures.com/video/movies/superbad/site/SB_redband.flv), and you’ll have to wait till you’re older to see the DVD of what may be the greatest summer movie of all time. Sucks to be you, kids.
Sucks to be you.