Dig up an actual Kop quote.

diff --git a/dat/data.base b/dat/data.base
index 77e0597a7a0daa3ed8853f3b94e1344d18cedb47..78698572720b4390642325abea9e1512b4929729 100644 (file)
--- a/dat/data.base
+++ b/dat/data.base
@@ -2045,13 +2045,34 @@ knight
        Elven race, and will go out of their way to cause trouble
        for Elves at any time.
 *kop*
-       The typical policeman of 1920's movies, the Keystone Kop was
-       modeled like the English "bobby", with a long brass-buttoned
-       overcoat, carrying long nightsticks that he (more often than
-       not) whapped himself with, rather than anyone else.  The
-       Keystone Kops were very slapstick-like, relying on speed and
-       numbers to achieve their comedy, rather than sophisticated
-       wit.
+       The Kops are a brilliant concept.  To take a gaggle of inept
+       policemen and display them over and over again in a series of
+       riotously funny physical punishments plays equally well to the
+       peanut gallery and the expensive box seats.  People hate cops.
+       Even people who have never had anything to do with cops hate
+       them.  Of course, we count on them to keep order and to protect
+       us when we need protecting, and we love them on television shows
+       in which they have nerves of steel and hearts of gold, but in
+       the abstract, as a nation, collectively we hate them.  They are
+       too much like high school principals.  We're very happy to see
+       their pants fall down, and they look good to us with pie on
+       their faces.  The Keystone Kops turn up--and they get punished
+       for it, as they crash into each other, fall down, and suffer
+       indignity after indignity.  Here is pure movie satisfaction.
+
+       The Kops are very skillfully presented.  The comic originality
+       and timing in one of their chase scenes requires imagination
+       to think up, talent to execute, understanding of the medium,
+       and, of course, raw courage to perform.  The Kops are madmen
+       presented as incompetents, and they're madmen rushing around
+       in modern machines.  What's more, the machines they were operating
+       in their routines were newly invented and not yet experienced
+       by the average moviegoer.  (In the early days of automobiles,
+       it was reported that there were only two cars registered in all
+       of Kansas City, and they ran into each other.  There is both
+       poetry and philosophy in this fact, but most of all, there is
+       humor.  Sennett got the humor.)
+               [ Silent Stars, by Jeanine Basinger ]
 kos
        "I am not a coward!" he cried.  "I'll dare Thieves' House
        and fetch you Krovas' head and toss it with blood a-drip at