Wizard People, Dear Reader

Wizard People, Dear Reader, released in 2004, is an unauthorized alternative soundtrack to Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, written by Brad Neely, a comic book artist from Fort Smith, Arkansas.

Brad Neely, in an interview with Chief magazine, described the beginning of the idea as follows:[1] Anyway, we were at a bar and were getting a good laugh at a guy who was playing pool all by himself while wearing a hoody over his hat, sunglasses under that and headphones on the outside of all of it.

In the following year, Neely also performed Wizard People live in several cities, until Warner Bros. took action against theatres that had rented prints, and forced them to cancel the shows.

[2][3] Rather than taking legal action, however, Warner Bros. reportedly told theaters which had scheduled a performance of the show that further movies produced by the studio would be withheld unless the dates were cancelled.

[2][4] In Wizard People, Dear Reader, Neely's writing ranges from simple childish mockery, to criticism of the acting and set design, to awkward metaphors, to over-dramatic philosophical speeches.

Hermione ("Harmony") is repeatedly described as incredibly ugly, Snape ("Snake") is referred to as a hideous woman, and at one point, Neely simply remarks that "Ron loves Twizzlers."

A range of other insults see less consistent use, and Harry is also described with various symptoms of dissociative identity disorder, at one point "leaving his multiple personalities in the locker room."

The work makes extensive use of simile: Professor McGonagall ("Hardcastle McCormick") is described as having a voice that is "chilling, like a piano made of frozen Windex," while her "eyes float like smears of fish-scales on her candle-wax stump of a head"; the face of Voldemort ("Val-Mart") "moves like a marmalade baby just out of the womb."

Instead of regaling Hagrid's encounter with a strange man in a bar, Hägar tells of how Val-Mart impregnated him with the egg, resulting in his survival of a shark attack.

Neely narrates Harry's daydream climbing his parents' giant rotten wedding cake thanks to Dumbledore's body ("using his old ribcage, mouth sockets and such for footholds").