Who: The President of the Unites States of America

What: Conning the hell out of Snake Plissken

When: 1996

Where: Escape From LA

Why it's a Great Moment: Let's say you're the president. There's one thing that makes you a great president, and that's amassing a weapons system capable of destroying (well, disabling) the entire world or just those chunks of it which you decide no longer need E-Z Bake Ovens, cell phones and pacemakers. You're also President-for-Life with the Sword of Damocles, a correctly named superweapon, and have established a martial regime to keep your power intact. What's next on the agenda?

Well, have your daughter, metaphorically named "Utopia," steal the only remote and hide in America's new Australia, Los Angeles. That didn't work out so well, actually. Okay, now for plan B. Who's America's best fugitive supersoldier? If you answered "Captain America," then you're in the wrong medium. The correct answer is "Snake Plissken." Where is Snake, you ask? Why, you just happened to apprehend him for his various crimes against your theocracy!

You think, "Let's get to work. Surely this eye-patched gent will retrieve my stolen possession from the hell-hole of Los Angeles," and you're wrong. What's a cunning, theocratic dictator of the only country with a satellite-based superweapon and an arsenal of nuclear warheads going to do? You try blackmail, that's what! And since Snake Plissken is as uncooperative as a mescaline-injected badger, you've got to get dirty, so dirty it's microbial.

That's right. You infect Snake with Plutoxin 7, a deadly, deadly virus capable of killing Snake within 9 hours. How your scientists managed that one is anyone's guess (though we have the lab reports showing how it was done). In any case, you now have the famed Snake Plissken wading through the muck that is apocalyptic LA on a mission to retrieve the remote (but not your traitor-daughter because, you know, screw her).

The best part of these shenanigans is that Plutoxin 7 is really just a "fast, hard-hitting case of the flu" according to Wikipedia. Now you get to guffaw wildly since the remote is back in your possession, your daughter's heading to the electric chair, and you just conned the not-dead, not-as-tall-as-you'd-expect Snake Plissken into doing your dirty work.

Too bad the remote Snake gave you was something owned by Steve Buscemi, and Plissken just used your superweapon to turn off the world. But, hey, at least you're still President-for-Life!

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