Forrest Gump Meets His Match: Horace Dump : Billy Frolick’s ‘Dumpisms’ takes on Winston Groom’s ‘Gumpisms.’

Move over, Weird Al Yankov ic. Billy Frolick, the twisted brain behind last year’s lusciously wicked book parody “The Ditches of Edison County,” has set his dead-on sights on this summer’s biggest film-and-quickie-book phenomenon, “Forrest Gump.”

As “Ronald Richard Roberts,” Frolick ran rampant over Robert James Waller’s “Bridges of Madison County,” selling more than 100,000 copies in the process. Now his nom de plume is Horace Dump, and his “Dumpisms: The Witless Wisdom of Horace Dump,” will be published by Plume with much fanfare Saturday.

In fact, “Dumpisms” is not too far afield from Winston Groom’s “Gumpisms: The Wit and Wisdom of Forrest Gump.” “Dumpisms,” as it happens, is the only book that pays homage to two of Tom Hanks’ most memorable phrases from the film: “Stupid is as stupid does” and “Life is like a box of chocolates--you never know what you’re gonna get.”

“You won’t find those in ‘Gumpisms,’ ” says Frolick. And while they don’t appear in exactly that form in “Dumpisms,” these two phrases are included: “Stupid am as stoopid doo” and “Sex is like a box of chocolates--sweet, gooey and nauseatin’ if you overdo it.”

Horace’s pearls of wisdom, which Frolick says took just 2 1/2 days to write, are “such a bargain!” he says--at $4.95, a nickel cheaper than Groom’s “Gumpisms.” Groom also wrote the novel on which the Paramount film was based.

Brian McLendon of Pocket Books, Winston Groom’s publisher, said that the author hadn’t heard about the unauthorized parody but was taking it in stride, saying only, “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”

Frolick, 35, is not about to stop there. He’s taken aim at James Redfield’s best-selling “The Celestine Prophecy,” which details a dangerous spiritual journey to find a life-changing ancient manuscript hidden in Peru. This time Frolick, a.k.a. McCoy Hatfield, has penned his adventure, “The Philistine Prophecy.” “Surely, soon to be a major motion picture,” snickers Frolick.

Before the success of “Ditches,” Frolick spent much of his professional life covering entertainment in Los Angeles as a free-lance writer. He also schlepped for eight years in show business as a page for ABC (“seating geriatric bus groups in tapings”); worked at ICM as an assistant (“my personal Vietnam”); worked for producer Sandy Howard (“I felt like I was in ‘The Producers’!”); did a little TV and script writing, and began developing a project called “Luck” he discovered while working at New World Pictures. It has since evolved into “Stars Fell on Henrietta,” which he says Clint Eastwood--currently starring in and directing Warners’ film version of “The Bridges of Madison County”--is developing.

“Our paths continue to meet,” he mused about Eastwood. “I feel like Forrest Gump, telling all these stories about my past.”

A childhood fascination with Mad magazine inspired the parodies. “I was always into Mad and loved making fun of stuff. Well, I had plenty of material after my Hollywood career,” which will undoubtedly end up in a book somewhere, he says. “You know, it’s the American way to trash things when they become successful.

“I think books like ‘Bridges,’ ‘Gump’ and ‘Celestine’ are good books, but they’re ripe for fun. My dream project is to write one of those ABC disease movies-of-the-week. It’ll be ‘Sluggishness: America’s No. 1 Killer’!”

Until then, he says, he hopes that talent will pursue a film treatment of “Philistine” instead of “Celestine,” now that Eastwood has missed his chance on “Ditches.”

“But I gotta tell ya, the movie (“Bridges”) is helping ‘Ditches’--it’s selling like hotcakes overseas. Only problem,” he adds, “is the U.K. They think Ronald Richard Roberts is a real person.”*