The Funday Sunnies featuring Duncan closes out 2012 with a glimpse at one of those holiday parties that allow us to catch up with people we’ve lost touch with:

 

 

Some auld acquaintances are more easily forgot than others, it would seem.

     Just a little something to tide you over between Christmas and New Year’s…Mr. and Mrs. Cousins spent a jolly hour at the optician’s about a week ago, getting their peepers tested so they could get new glasses before the time period for doing so on their munificent government health insurance ran out. To make a long story short…Mrs. Cousins wonders if there’s anybody else out there who feels that it’s possible to fail an eye exam, if you don’t study hard enough. Please reply c/o this space—and while you’re mulling over your answer, listen to this old sketch by Mr. Cousins on the general subject of ocular intimidation (click on the blue letters, as always):

“The Optometrist”

     I think you’ll agree, there’s more to all of this than meets the…no, no, I can’t bring myself to finish that one, somehow.

Uncle Fun

This week, The Funday Sunnies featuring Duncan reminds you that Christmas is a time for romance to blossom…

…or something.

(As our Christmas gift to you, we decided not to make a pun about “romantic ice capades”.)   

     Well, that’s one Christmas wish taken care of. As long as we’re on the subject (and we are, whether you knew it or not), I thought I’d share with you a conversation all of us had recently, while putting up decorations for our Christmas dinner-theatre pantomime and peep show at the Ashcan Club. (For those of you whose web browsers normally display the dazzling array of eye-pleasing fonts ordinarily used in this space, the transcription was done by Captain Literal—a.k.a. Mr. Cousins—so you’ll have to live with boring old university-grade Times New Roman. Think of it as your chance to see how the other half lives, Dickens-Christmas-Carol style.)

     Now that you’ve all channelled your inner Alastair Sim, we’ll begin…  

UNCLE FUN: Well—Sparky, Miss Moose, darling M’Dear…I assume you’re all hard at work on your Christmas wish lists.

SPARKY: [butting in] I wanna glyptodont.

MOOSE: A….what is it—a glyptodont…? Do I even want to know what that is?

 

UNCLE FUN: I believe it’s more properly called a “glyptodon” nowadays. It’s best described as a cross between an armadillo and a Hummer. He’s had his heart set on one ever since he saw it in a natural history museum we once frequented.

SPARKY: Ya mean, we used ta use it as a crash pad.

UNCLE FUN: Be that as it may, Sparky—every Christmas, you ask me to get you a glyptodon, and every Christmas I have to explain to you that they’ve been extinct for 10,000 years. Wishing for the next 10,000 Christmases, while hoping evolution comes full circle, is probably the only way you’re ever going to get one.

SPARKY: I was figgerin’ someone could DNA me up one outta fossily bits, like in Jurassic Park.

UNCLE FUN: Moving on…Miss Moose, your Christmas wishes, please?

MOOSE: Since I’m a girl, I guess I’m supposed to wish for peace on earth and all that claptrap.

M’DEAR: I don’t know about the “on earth” bit, but I’m one girl who’s always wishin’ for a piece.

 

M’DEAR: As you can see, I already got another one of my wishes—a new font for my speech balloons.

UNCLE FUN: Highly aesthetic. Anyway…back to something a little less in the “NC-17” category…your wish, Miss Moose, is…?

MOOSE: Well, what I really wish for is the chance to forget I’d ever seen the “Gangnam Style” dance…not to mention Sparky’s assorted versions of it.

UNCLE FUN: Yes, I’ve seen a few of them. They make the original look like it was choreographed by George Balanchine.

M’DEAR: Or choreographed at all.

SPARKY: Ever’one’s overflowin’ with terpsickorreyun expurteez alluva sudden.

M’DEAR: Honey, just because I’ll never be in Les Sylphides doesn’t mean I don’t know the difference between a grand jeté and a grand mal seizure.

SPARKY: No skin off my leotard…anyhoo, startin’ in th’ Noo Yeer, I’m bringin’ back a revivull’a my tribute ta Gene, Gene, the Dancing Machine.

MOOSE: Not by popular demand, I can assure you.

UNCLE FUN: Time to short-circuit this discussion before it leads to fisticuffs…or more dancing. As for myself, my needs are few.

MOOSE: Yes…what do you get for the man who has anything that isn’t nailed down, before you know it’s missing?

UNCLE FUN: I’ll thank you to be respectful of the hard work and practice that lie behind my acquired storehouse of skills.

MOOSE: And your acquired storehouse of other people’s property.

UNCLE FUN: All legally obtained...to the best of anyone’s knowledge, at any rate. It would be nice if it were also legal to put a tracking chip in a certain someone’s ear, the way you can with a dog or cat.

SPARKY: You referrin’ to any certain someone fer a p’tickular certainty there, Unc?

UNCLE FUN: [aside to the others] I’ve tried radio collars on Sparky, but he always finds a way to slip them.

MOOSE: Darn you all to heck and back again, Sparky—you said that was the latest style of choker from Paris you were giving me.

SPARKY: Honest mistake. What do I know ‘bout hot couture?

M’DEAR: I think an ankle bracelet is the fashion statement you want to go with—if experience with ex-boyfriends and court orders is anything to go by.

UNCLE FUN: Whatever the case, there has to be a better way of knowing where he is and what he’s up to…other than waiting for the inevitable crash, that is.

SPARKY: If that method’s good enuf fer eckonnamists, it otta be good enuf fer you.

UNCLE FUN: I can’t essentially argue with your assessment of that profession.

     From there on in, the chat devolved into an uncensored airing of opinions about the fiscal cliff, the Eurozone crisis, and the inappropriateness of a non-interventionist Friedmanite model of public debt management during the festive season. As Times New Roman sinks slowly in the west, perhaps we should leave the last word on Christmas wishes to Frank the Alligator, the Ashcan Club’s lovably (?) curmudgeonly tapster:  

 

     We can’t end on a sour note like that, so we’ll leave you instead with something resembling a Christmas gift. All of you who’ve been waiting for an update on the exploits of our old friend, the possibly authentic explorer Vasco da Gama…

 

     …will have to continue waiting. In the meantime, we bring you the Christmas episode of the radio comedy series Vasco da Gama, which in the best traditions of ambiguously-named comedy shows, has a bit—but not a lot—of Vasco in it. In the best traditions of holiday specials, it’s 20 years old, so most of the cultural references are out of date. The Christmas bonus there for you is that, for all you know, they may have once been topical and on the mark. The link below to find this stocking stuffer is in a seasonally jolly font if your browser reads it, and something boring if it doesn’t:

“Deep and Crisp and Vasco”

     Thanks to the larger virtual boxes for files now available on Box.com, we present it to you in its entirety, with no cuts to disrupt the intricate narrative flow that really ought to be present in something that takes a half an hour to listen to. Expect to hear more of these in the New Year, as proof that the world as we know it ended long before the latest Mayan calendar scare.

     And so, with best wishes of the season for one and all, and visions of sugar plums dancing in my head from when I misjudged a low-hanging beam while stringing boughs of holly over the bar, I remain your obedient servant,    

Uncle Fun

The NHL may still be locked out, but hockey is alive and well in

The Funday Sunnies featuring Duncan:

 

 

In a related piece of news, the Carolina Hurricanes have been downgraded to a tropical depression.   

 

Credit where it’s due: for once, Sparky actually made my life easier. I was stuck for a topic for a presentation I had to do in Music class, when I discovered that Sparky had invited himself over to my house, as usual by way of the basement window. Before I could ask him how he got in without tripping the burglar alarm we’d had specially installed to warn us of his visits, he rushed me over to my laptop and plugged a thumb drive into it. Fearing the worst in the form of a revelation of Sparky’s long-suspected downloading habits, I was pleasantly surprised instead to hear the voice of Mr. Cousins (well, as pleasantly as anyone can be surprised by that), telling me an anecdote from the life of Ludwig van Beethoven.

Now, I thought I already knew everything worth knowing about Beethoven. For example, (unlike Sparky), I knew that “Ode to Joy” was not an outstanding debt to some random girl…and that “Für Elise” wasn’t key money he paid his landlord. Well, it turns out old scowly, wild-haired Ludwig Van is still good for a surprise or two. First of all, I found out that, if you paid him enough, Beethoven could be just as big a hack as anybody else. Second, I learned that the panharmonicon is an instrument I never want to hear—not recorded, and definitely not in person. You can either google to find out what a panharmonicon is, or listen to Mr. Cousins’ description of it, by clicking on the link below:

“Had Beethoven Heard a Hurdy-Gurdy?”

That, by the way, is the unofficial title of this piece, which aired about a decade ago on Canadian taxpayer-supported radio’s cultural uplift service. Whether Mr. Cousins is either cultural or uplifting is still very much a matter for debate—if not in the rest of Canada, then certainly in his own household. One of the more culturally uplifting features of what you’ll be listening to, in fact (should you choose to expose yourself to it), is that Mr. Cousins eventually does stop talking. You can hear the first part of the composition referred to in the broadcast—“Wellington’s Victory”—when this happens. The second part, for those brave enough to press on, can be found by clicking on the blue letters that say “Wellington’s Victory, Part 2”. I won’t spoil the experience for all of you, except to say this: if you cherish and revere Beethoven’s memory, and are looking for a way to celebrate his birthday a day early, I am deeply, deeply sorry for what you’re going to hear.

Oh, yes—and I’ll also tell you that I got an A on the presentation I gave, which was based on the (surprisingly verifiable) subject matter of Mr. Cousins’ little talk. I’m not sure if I would have gotten quite such a good  mark if I’d let Sparky accompany me on the panharmonicon he constructed out of things he found in neighbourhood recycling bins and dumpsters behind pawnshops. Then again, what’s another trip to the school psychologist among friends?

Moose

Today, The Funday Sunnies featuring Duncan draws your attention to the annual descent into the deep freeze in what are comically referred to as the “temperate zones”:

Up north this time of year, “fashionable” means “anything that goes with a skin tone that isn’t blue”.

 

Howdy, y’all:

     Excuse the informality and folksiness of the greeting. It’s hard not to get a wee bit down-home and countrified when reviewing my notes (yes, I make them—IOU’s have two sides, you know) for this long-overdue account of a recent journey. Upon hearing that Our Old Friend Mr. Cousins was heading down to Nashville last month for the annual conference and hoedown of the American Society for Theatre Research, we-all (note the folksy hyphen) piled into the Funmobile and high-tailed it for Music City. The purpose of our trip was threefold: 1) the standard search for adventure; 2) the opportunity to slip whatever samples of home distillates we obtained into The Cousins Family’s checked luggage for their flight home, thus avoiding the watchful and censorious gaze of what were once locally termed the “revenooers”; and 3) as Sparky is aptly wont to put it, to throw a barrel of monkey wrenches into the lives of all we encountered.

     Sparky got an early jump on Phase 3 of this master plan during the trip down. You haven’t really lived until you’ve tried to keep a car out of the ditch while a back-seat passenger sings the theme to “Tennessee Tuxedo” non-stop across five state lines and an international border (crossed twice due to an unforeseen detour occasioned by the distraction of this endless serenade). As I said, you haven’t lived, but you can probably get through life just fine without it. The inevitable variations to the lyrics that crept in through the course of constant repetition didn’t help much, either. “A small pen-guin/ who tries but can’t succeed-o” is scarcely improved when modified to “A small pen-guin/ who likes to wear a Speedo”. The resulting mental picture is also much, much harder to shake.

     Sparky’s singing went over rather better at the conference. By then, he’d changed his repertoire to something more appropriate to a gathering of theatre scholars, sung to the theme of the old “Davy Crockett” TV show.

     The similarity between this and something Mr. Cousins broadcast live during the Belle Epoque Before Y2K is evidence that Sparky has: A) finally conquered the combination lock on Mr. Cousins’ personal archive; and B) learned to operate a cassette player without turning a tape into an unravelled mass of acetate spaghetti. I’ll link you to the original version, and leave it to you to decide which is easier on the nerves. (Apologies in advance for the sound quality of the pre-digital-technology air check recording.)

     Well, time is pressing, as they say in the dry cleaning business, so I’ll sum up the rest of our sojourn among the Nashvillians and Nashe villains (evil characters from the works of an Elizabethan dramatist, that is) directly from my notes:

     -In spite of local residents’ near-constant invocations of their bucolic heritage, the extensive preparations for Christmas which were already underway by Halloween did not extend to even the tiniest of ornaments featuring the likeness of Rudolph the Redneck Reindeer. (Yes, such a critter exists—and the internet is ready, willing, and able to prove it at the click of a mouse.)

     -Although it wasn’t baseball season when we went, the Nashville Sounds still have one of the most eminently collectible mascot-style logos in the minor leagues. Here he is, under the watchful eye of his batting coach:

     -For reasons best known to herself, Milady M’Dear (plucking the mandolin in the illustration that leads off this post) got a kick out of telling total strangers that she was in town to film the new TV series Nashville. She’d say that she was playing Shelley Duvall’s character, going on to explain that she’d let herself go a bit over the years. The fact that the series is in no way based on Robert Altman’s 1975 movie of the same name (which features the willowy Ms. Duvall) may have some bearing on your assessment of whether this qualifies even as dry wit.

     -Speaking of wit (?), the name “Cousins”, when used south of the Mason-Dixon Line to make restaurant reservations, is guaranteed to spark off quips-a-plenty among bartenders and other wait staff. Depending on the nature of the remarks and how long they persist, this may or may not result in tips-a-plenty. 

     -On the subject of restaurants (isn’t it amazing how these random thoughts somehow segue into each other, folks?), you wouldn’t expect one of the best fondue restaurants you could ever hope for to be located in Nashville, but there you have it. You also wouldn’t expect it to be part of a continent-wide chain of fondue restaurants, but there you have it as well. (The very idea of a continent-wide chain of fondue restaurants is probably not something you’d expect, either…nor should it be.) One thing you would expect is to see Sparky in said fondue restaurant, wielding his fondue fork like a harpoon and hectoring hunks of wounded bread foundering in a sea of melted cheese with shouts of “ahoy there, Moby—taste the revenge of Ahab!”   

     -Another hidden Nashville gem is Historic Fort Nashborough, located right downtown on the banks of the Cumberland River. Austere but authentic, this recreation of the city’s original site is…oh, let’s be honest—it’s a palisade of sharpened logs surrounding a patch of dirt. In spite of the more salient defects of sticks and soil as a tourist attraction, there is one very clear attraction for tourists. You can walk in whenever you like, stroll around at your leisure, and get your fill of early Americana, unsupervised, unsanitized, and free of charge.

     If one of your party of tourists happens to include Sparky, however, all this freedom comes with a price. The fort’s proximity to the stadium where the NFL’s Tennessee Titans play their home games, combined with the presence of throngs of supporters of the Chicago Bears, who were in town to play the Titans, gave Sparky too good an excuse to test out the range of his slingshot as a frontier defense weapon. He didn’t help matters by once again invoking Davy Crockett as the inspiration for his behaviour. Historical precedent or not, I wasn’t keen to see how well Sparky’s justification that Mr. Crockett had shot a bear when he was only three was likely to wash with the authorities. Fortunately, the Cumberland isn’t as unpleasant to take an early November swim in as you might think.

      All in all, our idyll in The Land of Opry left us neither Flatt nor Haggard. In fact, our Parton of the ways with this great Urban centre found us full of Pride (especially at our ability to make low-grade puns based on the names of country music stars past and present).  As for Cousins (non-country variety), he has a continuing reminder of his place in the world of theatre history studies, thanks to an impressive new collection of Tennessee Williams…or, as they’re known down home, back home, and in any other home you can think of—Bills.

     And, as I like to tell the bill collectors who drop by my home (in the notes I leave for them, that is)...Y’all come back now, y’hear?

Uncle Fun

Santa’s least favourite song? “Light My Fire”…

 

Season’s Greetin’s, an’ all sorta stuff like that there:

Tonite is a big nite fer all us youngsters here in Funsville. This is a nite when we go ta bed early, pr’tend ta sleep, an’ wait fer a speshul vizitur ta bring us gifts.

No, it ain’t Sanna Clozz. He shows up on th’ 25th, same as fer th’ rest’a ya. We may be young, but we ain’t so nayeeve that we’re gonna pass up th’ chance ta cash in two times in th’ space’a less’n three weeks. Tonite is Morrison Eve, or, if yer bent on bein’ pedantickull about it, th’ nite’a th’ day b’fore Jim Morrison’s birthday.

As holladays go, it’s lessuva observunts innits own rite than a kick-off ta th’ two-month countdown ta Ray Manzarek’s Birthday. (Click here fer a further explanashun of what that is. Yes, Vurginya, Th’ Doors are that big in Funsville. There’s a entiyure strip mall on th’ edge’a town d’voted ta selling bootleg copies’a outtakes frum th’ album Waiting For The Sun.) Still an’ all, itza good way fer fam’lies ta get together one more time (Uncle Fun sez he hazza hand-dipped Owsley candy cane — whutevur that is — fer anyone who knows whut Doors song that phrase is copped frum), b’fore th’ Crissmus rush b’gins.  

So, here’s whut happens on Morrison Eve. Fer th’ conveeniyunts a’ those’a ya who likes ta see things propurrly spelt, I’ve cut-an’-pasted it frum The Funsville Book of Days.

On Morrison Eve, good children do all their chores and homework, clear away the dishes after dinner, and head straight to bed to say their prayers, hoping to be rewarded for their virtue. They’re shit out of luck as far as that’s concerned, but that’s another story.

Meanwhile, Jim Morrison makes his merry way around the world, in a miniature sleigh pulled by eight tiny groupies. Pausing only at any bar with an extra-long happy hour, he flies from house to house, passing the time by playing chicken with unsuspecting commercial aircraft.  

If you’re very good, and very, very quiet, you may just be able to hear a tell-tale tip-tip-tap on your roof. Do you hear it? Jim Morrison’s sleigh has landed; the tapping is the sound of his groupies teetering on their stiletto heels, as they all regret accepting Jim’s dare to down that extra tequila shooter at the last bar.

What’s that? You say the tapping is at your window?  That can only mean one thing. Jim has fallen off the roof.

It’s alright, though. All good boys and girls know that they should leave their windows open and their doors unlocked on Morrison Eve. It saves on home repairs in the long run.

Just make sure to hang your leather pants on the mantelpiece, so Jim Morrison can fill the pockets with toys, candy, and assorted items of contraband. Or, he may try the pants on, decide they’re a good fit, and take them. Or, he may forget where your house is, and not show up at all. You never really know.

No matter what happens, there’ll be a big surprise waiting for you at dawn the next day. Will it be that pretty dress you’ve always wanted for your favourite doll? Will it be a new engine and extra track for your model railroad? Or will it be Jim Morrison, passed out on your couch? If it is, let him sleep a little longer before calling the police. He’s had a long and busy night.

Well, there ya have it. I’ve gotta leave a li’l sumpin’ out b’fore Jim Morrison arrives (Uncle Fun sez ya can never go wrong with boilermakers), so I’ll leave you a li’l sumpin’ I found in a box’a Mister Kuzzents’ things marked “Never listen to these, or I will mummify you in Saran Wrap, and run you through an industrial book-binder. That means YOU, Sparky”. I don’ think th’ voice you’ll hear when ya click on this link (well — whatcha waitin’ for? Crissmus er sumpin’ ? Click, already) is th’ real-an’-honest Jim Morrison, any more’n I think th’ one at Funsville Children’s Village is. Fer one thing, th’ real Jim Morrison don’t let no-one under th’ age of consent sit on his lap…an’ b’sides, that deal is strickly on a “no boys need apply” basis.   

In keepin’ with th’ spirit of th’ Crissmus an’ Morrison Eve season, hope ya got the world locked up inside a plastic box (there’s a extra Owsley-cane fer anyone who knows whut Doors song that line’s frum).

Sparky

This week, The Funday Sunnies featuring Duncan presents the ceaseless struggle for survival in the animal kingdom:

 

Even ceaseless struggles take a little downtime, folks.

     Your pal and mine Mr. Cousins has been having a bit of foot trouble lately. By “lately”, I mean “over the past two years”, which is roughly the time he’s been suffering in silence (not counting the more-than-occasional swear word) with plantar warts. The most recent part of “lately”, however, has seen insult added to injury. Now that they’ve upped the dosage of the treatment (i.e., something akin to battery acid, only less gentle) used to cure (i.e., burn away) the aforementioned plantar warts, Mr. Cousins’ every step has become an exercise in uncompromising dolor. Desperate for succour (and remember, folks, there’s a succor born every minute), The Feet of Cousins have sought solace through regular dunkings in a solution of the crystalline panacea known to the world of science as magnesium sulfate, and to the rest of us luddites as plain old Epsom salts.

      Curious about the efficacy of this traditional remedy for tortured tootsies, Cousins conducted an exhaustive web-search lasting upwards of a minute, before making a momentous discovery.  It would appear that Epsom salts are far enough up The Great Chain of Being to warrant the existence of something called The Epsom Salt Council to maintain and defend their interests. You can find the website of this august institution by clicking on these pretty blue letters.

     From The Epsom Salt Council, you can learn of the myriad uses for the eponymous mineral compound, beyond its most obvious ones as a pedal palliative. The Council touts Epsom salts as a must-have for every corner of the home and garden, as well as extolling their virtues as an indispensable aid to household arts and crafts (Christmas is coming—take note, all ye merry fabricants of homemade ornaments). They even offer a link to something called “The Epsom Salt Song”.

     It’s agreeable enough to listen to, if you’re in the mood for that sort of thing, I suppose. I can’t say I’m not disappointed that neither Mr. Cousins nor the Epsom Salt Council ever looked us up here in Funsville. They’d have found out that one of the town’s unofficial anthems is a much more tuneful paean to Epsom salts, sung to the melody of “Edelweiss” from The Sound of Music. 

     The visual of Christopher Plummer gives you a rough idea of the flavour of this little ditty, but to get the full effect, you have to hear it played by the 112-piece Funsville Epsom Salt Sinfonia and Chorus. This is an experience you will scarcely fail to have at least a dozen times during Funsville’s annual week-long Salute to Epsom Salts, the indisputable highlight of which is the Epsom Salt Derby. This is not a horse race, but a hat, worn by the Grand Marshal of the parade which runs (or limps, as the case may be) from the swank but hilly Footsore Promenade district on the edge of town to Funsville City Hall’s communal sitzbath. Due to a hearing defect (and other impediments to comprehension) on the part of the chairman of the inaugural Salute to Epsom Salts, the parade Grand Marshal is referred to by the title “Buddy Epsom”.

     Random googling of the sort that turned up the photographic basis for that cheap gag also yields unexpected nuggets of information, such as the existence of multiple images for the name “Jedi Clampett”.

     The one above (minus the semi-amusing speech balloon) can be found at the MySpace page of quite a fine little bluegrass combo called (it should come as no surprise) Jedi Clampett (click link to see and hear more).

     But I digress. And as long as I am digressing (and there’s no point in doing anything else—we’ve come too far now to turn back), it’s worth noting that Buddy Ebsen (a.k.a. Jedi…er, Jed Clampett) was the first choice to play the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz.

     He had to stand down after nearly asphyxiating on the aluminum powder used for his make-up. That’s something not even Epsom salts could help with, I’m afraid—song or no song.

Uncle Fun

Today, The Funday Sunnies featuring Duncan is taking a coffee break:

 

Sometimes when you take a coffee break, it’s the coffee that breaks you.

Hello there, folks, it’s Moose again.

Before we get started, I want to get one thing straight. I’m neither one way or the other about Hostess going all Twinkies-up. People look at me and assume that the little fat girl must have a deeply held opinion on the subject of snack cakes, but as far as I’m concerned, if you’ve tasted one cream-filled hunk of extruded Styrofoam, you’ve tasted them all. It’s Sparky, not me, who has a Proustian epiphany whenever he remembers what a Vachon Miami smells like (google the name—it’s beyond a simple explanation). It’s Sparky who can distinguish between a Moon Pie, a Wagon Wheel, a May West, and a Jos. Louis, based on the sounds they make when you step on them.

It’s also Sparky who can’t spell his way out of a Ding Dong wrapper, so he’s dragooned me once again into taking dictation for him. None of the speculations that follow are based on anything that resembles clear thinking or common sense. That doesn’t mean they aren’t worth mulling over, though.

First of all, I want to stress that Sparky knows that the victims of the Hostess bankruptcy are not the consumers. Things like the Donner Party, he says, are proof that people will eat anything. In fact, as Sparky sees it, a snack food company could put something called “Donner Party Mix” on the market and count on basic human curiosity to sell out the initial production run.

No—the sad fact of all of this is that people will lose their jobs. Prospects being what they are these days, a lot of them may be forced to seek out sources of income that aren’t, strictly speaking, legal. This situation is no respecter of persons, either. The uncertain future of the individual Hostess brands means that many of the company’s most trusted faces could be thrown back on their own resources, and be forced to earn their living by their wits—or worse. Fruit Pie the Magician could certainly put his skills of legerdemain to lucrative use by running a successful short con…

 

…and Happy Ho Ho is already dressed for a career in highway robbery.

 

That’s bad enough for sure, but more troubling still is the threat to commercial shipping that could be posed by Captain Cupcake, should he place his navigational experience and expertise at the service of high seas piracy.

 

Not even Hostess’ most beloved corporate icon could resist such a temptation, if things get tight for him. What bank vault or armoured car could keep its treasure safe from the larcenous lasso of Twinkie the Kid?

Thank goodness he’s no longer kosher. If Israel could use him as a mercenary, all bets would be off for a cease-fire in Gaza.  

Moose

(dictated by Sparky )

This week, The Funday Sunnies featuring Duncan looks at the relationship between theory and practice in the visual arts:

 

 Manifestoes are well and fine, but it’s results that count.

This iz one’a them times when I feel even sorrier fer journimalists than usuwall. Y’see, them whut reports th’ news iz only allow’d ta tell whut they’ve found out happen’d er whut someone told ‘em happen’d, an’ not whut their own kids could tell ‘em iz ackchewally goin’ on — as if they dint already know it yet. As both a kid an' a fickshunal-type cartoon character one at that, I'm under no such prohibishun, so here goes my mouth about ta run off with itself again. Now, I dunno if this whole whatchamacallit with Petraeus (notiss how I spells th’ complickatud names kurreckly, folks?) iz er iz not a spy story (betcha a nickel it iz, tho’). All’s I know iz, if th’ best th’ C.I.A. an’ th’ U.S. High Kummand has ta offer iz a couple’a guys who come up short in th’ discreetness an’ discreshun d’partmints ta Gen’l Halftrack frum Beetle Bailey, then th’ whole world’s in kinduva mess.

 

That’s all’s I gotta say.

Sparky

The Funday Sunnies featuring Duncan welcomes the proprietor of this blog back from the American Society for Theatre Research’s annual convention:

 

This probably isn’t one of the things they research, but every brick added to the edifice of knowledge is…well, something or other.

When a mathematician wins a Nobel Prize, should there be a separate award for Best Supporting Factor…?

     Breathe easier, all you who yearn for explanations for the inexplicable: I’m here once more to make your lives make sense again. You remember me—I’m…

…Science Boy.

     Uncle Fun thought it would be appropriate for me to address all of you on the subject that keeps him from having time to blog this week. This year, he’s chairman of the decorations and kitsch committee for Funsville’s annual Russell Johnson Day festivities. The name “Russell Johnson” may not ring as many bells as, say, Quasimodo or Mike Oldfield, but he’s probably a familiar face to most of you. Perhaps too familiar, some of you would say, since he’s best known for his role as the Professor on Gilligan’s Island.

     It’s a thankless job, but somebody’s got to do it. AC generators powered by stationary bicycles constructed out of bamboo don’t just make themselves, you know. Russell Johnson Day recognizes the necessary but often overlooked contribution made by those selfless men, women, and sometimes androids who have set aside dreams of personal glory to keep film and television plots moving along by providing exposition phrased in long-winded and confusing scientific-sounding jargon. Having served in this capacity on many occasions, I can tell you how hard it is to keep a straight face as I look at a more important character and say words that amount to “something akin to magic is about to happen, because the writer has written us into the impossible situation of having to rely on magic while still believing that magic doesn’t exist”. So here’s to you, all you folks in lab coats and vaguely unfashionable haircuts, who have to use phrases involving words like “interface”, “matrix”, “threshold”, “anti-matter” and “polarity”, as if they actually meant something. I salute you.

     At the same time, I have to warn you that your days may be numbered. This development is thanks to rave reviews generated at trade shows and supermarket demonstrations by the ExposiTech 1550.  This bold advance in user-friendly expository dialogue operating systems was achieved by combining software used to predict complex weather patterns with the random sequencing platform originally developed to help Jerry Bruckheimer create forty-seven “CSI” spinoffs using a single limited premise and set of characters.  Not only does the ExposiTech 1550 deliver exposition with a higher degree of accuracy, relevance, and narrative continuity than its predecessors, but an improved wireless capability and a wider range of downloadable apps make it compatible with almost any hand-held device. The day is not far away when all a main character will have to do to get plot-ready science talk is subscribe to a Twitter feed.

 

    Even the venerable James Bond franchise, which boasts a state-of-the-art level of pseudo-scientific exposition, may soon hand it all over to the next generation of ExposiTech products.

 

     If further field tests prove successful, the ExposiTech 1550 will soon replace the venerable but much-maligned Expositron “C” series as the new industry standard…not to mention replacing a host of underappreciated but essential secondary characters. No more will a crime lab need a computer tech who can mine the most heavily-encrypted networks at the Pentagon for traces of code so faint that a Commodore 64 could conceal them on its hard drive. Coroners in cop shows will be mute walk-ons, handing their reports to detectives and district attorneys, then scurrying back to the morgue. Spock and Data will fall silent. Doctor Who will be played by a different actor every nineteen seconds, since no-one will bother to ask why he shouldn’t keep bumping into an infinite number of versions of himself.

     By the same token, though, the origin of the Doctor’s evil adversaries the Cybermen will finally be revealed.  As it turns out, each Cyberman is a replica of a prototype designed by a robotics engineer and entrepreneur named Cy Berman.

 

         So it shouldn’t be a total loss.