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Holiday Gift Idea #1: Spice Things Up In The Bedroom With This Duck Dynasty Role Play Beard!
“And the good thing, honey, is that there’s no reason you can’t wear this with the Catholic schoolgirl uniform I like!”
$5.97 in Walmart’s toy section!
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Keeping In Shape, The Active Way!
LIKE YOU, I’d been thinking about switching gyms. Where I go now, the equipment’s old and a lot of the machines are constantly out of order. In the weight room, there’s little to work out with because every week more and more of the dumbbells and free weight plates have gone missing. And the worst part? Getting the goddamn third degree from the people at the front desk as I drag my backpack out of there each afternoon. I don’t have time for that, not when the scrap metal yard down the street closes at 4:30!
So I was thinking about trying out this place:
I’d heard of 24 Hour Fitness, of course, but I didn’t know enough about the type of clubs they have. But here’s what sold me – right there on the sign, it lets you know it’s an active gym.
An active gym – you know, as opposed to a motionless workout center. Oh, sure, some people are more at home at one of those torpid, idle, static, immobile fitness places where you come in and remain perfectly still, but not me, brother! No sirree, I’m a shark, always moving! That’s why a gym that says “active” right out front is the place for me!
Believe me, I learned my lesson years ago when I got roped into a never-ending contract at Performance ProFit and then after I signed I found out my membership was only good at their Performance ProFit Sedentary clubs.
Still, what a workout Alma put us through in her six p.m. pinochle class. Whew!
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When Huell Howser Met Heisenberg!
In eager anticipation of KCET’s Huell Howsgiving Day Amaze-a-thon – and I know you share my prayers that they don’t air that annoying bunny museum one yet again – here are some stills from the episode where Huell interviews Breaking Bad star Bryan Cranston:
“Well, I don’t know if you can really consider peanut butter donuts an addiction.”
“Now is it possible to make meth amphetamines from lint? ‘Cause I know this lady…”
“If you were cooking up a small batch, yes, I suppose you could set up a lab in a teardrop trailer. But it would be…cramped.”
Naw, I’m kidding of course. Actually, these are from the opening sequence of local Nashville, Tennessee program “The Happy World of Huell Howser” from 1973.
Clearly the interview subject above is a slightly older, time-traveling Chris Pratt, and while it’s been taped, Chris himself hasn’t actually taped it yet.
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One Fine Day At The Novelty Gaming Machine Company!
“Johnson! We need a name for our new line of steel claw game prizes! Something fun and playful that will appeal to young kids who want to try to win that favorite stuffed character while allaying their concerns about unauthorized use of trademarked properties!”
“I’m on it, Boss!”
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A Long Overdue Visit To The Filipino Market!
Say, we haven’t visited that Filipino market down the street lately, have we? What the hell’s wrong with me? I need to follow my own advice: Like I’ve always said, cultures different from my own are a wealth of untapped comedy!
Anyway, Thanksgiving’s just around the corner, and like you, I needed to stock up on fermented beans cake.
It’s just not Thanksgiving without the fermented beans cake. Oh, sure, you can have your turkey, your stuffing, your dinner rolls, your cranberry sauce, your green bean casserole, your mashed potatoes, your yams, your pumpkin pie – but brother, if you’re missing the fermented beans cake, forget it! Forrrget-it!
Call up Aunt Gail and Uncle Pete and Great Grandnana Betty and Joyce and Phil and Chuck and his latest wife and the cousins and the in-laws and all their kids and tell everyone to stay home: it’s not Thanksgiving – it’s just another Thursday. It’s just another Thursday without the fermented beans cake. No fermented beans cake? Then Thanksgiving is canceled! Because there’s something to be said for tradition, dammit, and I’m sorry, call me old-fashioned, but I can’t imagine a Thanksgiving dinner without the fermented beans cake.
…So I had to go pick up a can of fermented beans cake is what I’m saying.
Anyway, while I was there at the market, I noticed this stuff:
Can we get a closeup on the name of this stuff? We can? Excellent.
Black fungus!
People pay for this stuff…?
Hell, if that’s the case, my toenails are worth a fortune!
Print this one out and pass it around the table next week right after Dad says grace.
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My Latest Acquisitions!
HUGE collector of early Hanna-Barbera memorabilia here. Huge collector. I’ve got all the old toys and games and Little Golden Books and cigar bands and everything else, so what’s left to collect but vintage animation art? Nothing, that’s what!
Below is a trio of particularly magnificent pieces I picked up from one of those scumbag animation dealers – a hand-painted title card, a pan background and a hand-inked production cel on its matching background all from the same cartoon. Whoa. I know, right? Since it’s no longer the mid-1990s and original animation art is worthless again, I paid thirty bucks for the lot and that bastard – some asshole from Long Island – was damn lucky to get it.
The art is from a rarely seen cartoon where Sheriff “Ping-Ping-Piiing!” Ricochet Rabbit tries to keep notorious terrorist “Pecos Nabil” (accused of using “dirty bombs on innocent townfolk – and they was wearin’ their Sunday best!”) in custody until government agents can pick him up and try him in federal court.
Title card by Alex Lovydovy.
Desert background by Thomas Dick.
It’s the rare Ricochet Rabbit outing where the cartoon ends with the villain having gotten the best of the hyperactive good guy, but they exist. In this one, writer Warren Fester was apparently married to the idea of Nabil (Daw Sputler, in his best generic bad guy voice) yelling “Allie Akbar, an’ stuff like that there!” while triumphantly hoisting Ricochet’s decapitated head in the air.
Production cel on matching background.
Still, the lupine lawman gets the last word when his deputy drawls “Don’t lose your head, Mister Ricochet!” and the disembodied noggin responds with – what else? – “Too late, Droop! Toooooo late!” accompanied by a little five second musical sting back-timed from the end of Jack Shindig’s magnificent opus for kazoo and glockenspiel, TL#26374-J “Tapioca Sideshow.”
For you obsessive types, here’s the whole cartoon broke down, you know, musical-like:
0:00 – Ricochet Rabbit Sub Main Title Theme (Drape).
0:13 – PALSIED MOVEMENT (Loose-Stooly) – Opening narration – Don Sic’em.
0:33 – LAF-6-9 DIDDLING PIXIES (Shindig) – Close-up of Ricochet and Droopalong relaxing in jail office, to explosion.
2:22 – PH-7753 WHORE ON THE CORNER (Shindig) – Ricochet / Pecos Nabil chase scene, “I’ll put a fatwa on your fat head!”
3:08 – LBGT-77-4 LIGHT IN THE LOAFERS (Shindig) – Nabil checking map, “Gotta make sure I’m facin’ Mesa!”
4:16 – P-4456 SLEIGHRIDE CONCUSSION (Less) – Ricochet lays prayer mat over hole at edge of cliff.
4:54 – PBBT-3-2 TRUMPET FART PARADE (Shindig) – Nabil kneels, plummets down, “I ain’t goin’ back to… Guantanamohhhhhhhhh!”
5:30 – YV-667-2 MONOTONOUS WHIMSY (Shaarkrau?) – Pan across desert to Droop and Ricochet having pulled dresses onto dozens of saguaro cacti. “Well, Mister Ricochet, that makes seventy-two. I shore hope your idea works!”
6:25 – JG-647 MOTORBOAT TRAGEDY (Loose-Stooly) – Nabil isn’t fooled, laughs at Ricochet: “You forgot the hijabs, you hijerk!”
6:48 – TERMINAL FRIVOLITY (Chartreuse) – “Before I finish you off, to show you I ain’t all bad, I offer you salam.” “I ain’t hungry!” Machete chop sfx, Ricochet/Droop exchange, iris out.
6:55 – Ricochet Rabbit Sub End Title theme (Drape)Don’t worry, gang – he’ll be back, intact, in the next cartoon, probably called “Pest of the West” or something!
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Don’t Forget To Vote And Get Your Flu Shot!
WE’VE got a run-off election coming up here in my little corner of the toilet that is Los Angeles. (Square toilets – very fashionable right now. But a real bitch to clean!)
The race is between some guy named Matt Yabbadabbadoo, I think, and someone else who – judging by the sheer volume of political flyers Matt has sent out – doesn’t have a prayer. I forget his opponent’s name, but I voted for her. And not because I root for the underdog but because she didn’t flood my damn post office box with countless flyers! Let that be a lesson to you political hopefuls who someday may need the coveted Ted Parsnips endorsement.
So the run-off is a mail-in election, and here’s Matt’s latest p.o. box-clogging ad:
It’s an 8 x 10-1/2″ card, so that mailman is fairly large. And outside of a Lichtenstein print, those Ben-Day dots [industry term] don’t really read too well when they’re blown up. Oh, it looks fine up there, because it’s shrunk down for the blog. But in person, hoo boy!
Maybe a coupla closeups might prove my point:
The dot pattern is an especially odd choice since a very light flesh tone is laid down beneath them anyway and they’re only used for the skin. Everything else is solid color.
You’ll agree it gives our retro postman a rather sickly look.
So, with all that in mind, I think this might be a more appropriate version:
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Halloween’s Behind Us!
On towards our next holiday, Thanksgiving, and all the little things we need to start thinking about for that.
You know, like who’s going to carve the owl this year.
Ted Parsnips
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