If You Play the Movie Backward, It Says ‘Ringo Was Really the Cute One’

Men Are From Moe, Women From Venus: For years, rock fans have wondered what might have happened if the Beatles had gotten back together after their 1970 breakup. Next month, VH1 explores the possibilities with “Two of Us,” a fictional movie in which Paul McCartney and John Lennon reunite in 1976.

The plot is still secret, but rumors are flying. According to one theory, the film shows John and Paul unable to recapture the glory of their Beatles days, so they instead release a series of increasingly banal and musically irrelevant solo albums. No, wait. That’s what happened in real life.

Here are some other rumors about the plot of “Two of Us”:

* The ex-Beatles go capitalist and turn their songs into commercial jingles such as “All You Need is Dove, the Gentle Cleansing Soap,” “I Am the Wal-Mart,” “JCPenney Lane,” “Help! (I’ve Fallen and I Can’t Get Up),” “Why Don’t We Just Do It in the Road (the Nike Theme)” and “She Came in Through the Bathroom Window--Which Set Off My ADT Home Security System and Led to Her Arrest.”

* After reminiscing about what made the Beatles so great, Lennon and McCartney sign a pact: John promises to never put another Yoko Ono song on his records and Paul destroys the tapes for “Silly Love Songs” and “Ebony and Ivory.” Then, unfortunately, everyone in the world wakes up and realizes it was just a dream.

* As a prank, Paul and John hire a homeless person to sneak into George Harrison’s house and “stab” him with a rubber knife. “He’s so paranoid,” Paul says. “This’ll lighten things up.”

* Lennon and McCartney join the disco craze with the release of “The Average White Album,” featuring the hit single “Get Back--and Get Down.”

* McCartney helps Lennon overcome a bizarre obsession with Moe Howard of the Three Stooges. The condition first surfaced in the song “I Should Have Known Better,” in which Lennon sang: “I should have realized a lot of things before / If this is love you’ve gotta give me Moe, give me Moe, hey hey hey, give me Moe.”

* After a disastrous Beatles comeback tour, Lennon and McCartney are relegated to guest appearances on “Hollywood Squares” (usually as fill-ins for Siegfried and Roy) and eventually wind up on VH1’s “Where Are They Now?”

Lunatic Fringe Bureau: A South Carolina psychic says comic Chris Farley is a drug counselor in heaven--and is doing so well that he will be reincarnated as a comedian and rejoin the cast of “Saturday Night Live” in 25 years, making him the first person to star on the show in two separate bodies.

Advanced Geography Bureau: Has the lost continent of Atlantis finally been found? Alaska Airlines is advertising a frequent-flier program that enables customers to “fly free to over 600 cities on eight continents.”

Eight? Antarctica is the seventh continent, so the eighth must be Atlantis. Or Donald Trump’s ego--we’re not sure.

Best Supermarket Tabloid Headline: “Stupid Crook Takes Store Mannequin Hostage . . . Then Threatens to Blow Its Brains Out, Amazed Cops Say” (Weekly World News)

His list of demands included $100,000 in unmarked $75 bills, a parachute and free passage to the eighth continent.

Unpaid Informants: Ann Harrison, Consumer Reports, Wireless Flash News Service. Off-Kilter’s e-mail address is roy.rivenburg@latimes.com. Off-Kilter runs Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.