Kolchak Factoid....

Hello, Happy 3000 to everyone,

Now, this is a short second May entry. It is not a big article. I will likely write June's article about the Montreal Canadiens hockey team. If they make it through the first round of the playoffs and set their eyes on Lord Stanley's Cup... I will be overwhelmed and compelled to write about them. If they don't.... I'm gonna probably write about something else, I guess, next month.... maybe something like ... I don't know.... something good too, hopefully.

Until then, I think I've grown quite intrigued by something I have noticed on an episode of Kolchak. I am fantastically intrigued by an erroneous credit at the end of an episode that has led me to believe that a certain person may have ghost-written parts if not portions if not large parts and/or portions of Kolchak.

Kolchak, of course, is a show from the 70s where the titular character solves fantastical mysteries of the super-normal and of the para-normal.

Now, after the episode where he fights energy earthquakes from a local hospital that was built on some kook's burial ground (or something)... we see the "Janitor" is credited as being portrayed by Robert Mitchum's brother, John Mitchum.

Yet this character does not look anything like Robert Mitchum's brother John! It compels a person to wonder aloud as to what manner of foolery is afoot. Surely, this wasn't a simple mix up in the credits department for Robert Mitchum's rotund yet less famous frère to be stated as being this Janitor in which he most surely was not.

One must surely ask themselves... why was this mysterious Janitor... who is on the show for about thirty seconds... who's name is apparently "Don't Know" as he tells Kolchack during their brief conversation...  credited as being portrayed by Robert Mitchum's brother... even though he looks nothing at all like John Mitchum? It's a fantastic mystery is what it is, friends. It is nothing short of a fantastic mystery!

First of all, Kolchak and the proto form of it known as the "Kolchak Papers" were apparently written by a mysterious author named "Jeff Rice"... yet no wikipedia entry or any records seem to exist for this so-called "Jeff Rice" .... leading some to question if this man ever really existed at all. A writer with no corporeal form? A ghost? Writer?

Hmmmmm.

Seems to me.... the reason there's no "Jeff Rice" in any wikipedia pages or historical records is because... there was never any "Jeff Rice" to begin with! He's a nom-de-plume as the french often say or a pseudonym as others might. There's scantly any mention of this man throughout the annals of history and time. 

So, if one can deduce that there probably was no "Jeff Rice" then who was it who wrote the brilliantly crafted words that exit Carl Kolchak's person on every TV movie and episode if there is no "Jeff Rice"? 

Can we go by writing style? Possibly, I must say.

It is in my opinion that the Janitor who doesn't know his own name in the episode where Kolchak investigates the whacky Energy-related event in the hospital (and subsequently fights it) ... is, in fact, "Jeff Rice."

Let's now show a short montage of what Robert Mitchum's brother John resembled... the man purportedly who portrayed this nameless Janitor, shall we?

A rotund and jolly fellow... slightly Santa Clause-esque in nature one might describe him as.

Now... let us see the Janitor who didn't know his own name in Kolchak....

Is it not safe to say that this fellow is definitely not John Mitchum in the least!? The man, indeed, looks nothing of the sort! This man looks nothing like him! Not even a small resemblance exists between The Janitor and John Mitchum (Robert's brother). But come to think of it, haven't I seen this Man before? This Janitor reminds me of someone... but who you may ask? Where have I seen this devilish bearded profile before? That snaking beard that suggests an air of intrigue.... have I seen this man before? 

....and, to further press the boundaries of veracity ... what Janitor have you ever met in your life .... that didn't know his own name? What manner of Janitor does not know their own name? So much mystery surrounds this fellow.

You ever see the guy in the line in "A Christmas Story"... the guy with the snakey beard and the bowler's hat?

That man is Jean Shepherd there in line to meet Santa in "A Christmas Story" .... now, it is of my opinion, I being a fellow of sound-ish (or sound-enough) mind... and I believe this with close to 75% of my knowledge. Yes, I believe these two men to be One and the Same. I believe The Janitor is the Man in the Bowling Hat in Line in A Christmas Story. He has the same beard, the same ear... I think even though the greying of the hair is there... that it's the same person.

I'm not saying this with certainty or total clarity but I think there's about a 75% chance that "Jeff Rice" was Jean Shepherd.... and it wouldn't be that surprising, really. 

If we look at his "I, Libertine" prank from the 50s...

(See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I,_Libertine)

This wouldn't even be the first time he did something like this. I wonder if Kolchak could be an "I, Libertine" for TV instead of literature. Very possible, I think. In fact, I think it is even likely.

But...

...in the end, it seems like most things in life ... that it shall forever remain a mystery. A simple after-thought of history like anything else. Just like the Night Strangler, The Night Stalker, the Shape-shifting Diabolero, the Cajun Swamp Monster... etc, etc....

It will forever remain a mystery... we'll just never know for sure if any of it was true or not.

The only known photograph of the Mysterious "Jeff Rice"

(Note: You should read this article in Kolchak's voice... it makes the article better)





Edit (May 26th): That Janitor seems to actually be John Mitchum. I was mistaken. I am still 75% sure that "Jeff Rice" is Jean Shepherd though. I believe he is the man in the only photograph that exists of "Jeff Rice" still.

We've seen Jean Shepherd with a fake beard before in "Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss" where he looked like this:

Here he is in disguise, with a fake beard... he doesn't look like him but it's him. Knowing he does stuff like this, I think, made me try to find if he had a cameo appearance on Kolchak. I was looking too hard, I think. That Janitor is John Mitchum even though he looks totally different than John Mitchum usually does.

It's Almost 3000..... Also Titled: "A Pandemic in Words"

About three real years ago, I wrote "It's Almost 2000....."

(See: https://www.writingsonsubjects.com/2018/10/it-almost-2000_98.html)

It was about how the narrator of this blog (who in a lot of ways is a "character", one however, decently based on me)... gave up on standard Time and started chronologically ordering his thoughts based on the Count from Sesame Street counting on Twitter.

Well, now, according to the Count from Sesame Street... it is almost 3000!

What an eclectic last 1000 moments it has been... and if memory serves me right... The Count stopped counting for a long time during the last year or so.... but then again... didn't we all? Didn't we all sort of lose track of Time this last year? Count Standard Time took that into account...I guess.

A fun thing I just noticed about this long living novel I write is that I still wrote every month in it during the pandemic and I wonder if looking back on it would be interesting. I wonder if in the future someone might read it and be interested how a person lived through this and how they felt, thought, etc, about it.

I started writing as soon as it started with this one:

"Loneliness and Stayin' Home"
(See: https://www.writingsonsubjects.com/2020/03/loneliness-and-stayin-home.html)

To just think about how much fear was going on back then... like this was written the second things were starting to get weird like empty grocery store shelves and rumors of lock downs. I mean, the two previous articles were like centered around Tag Team Wrestling and Orange Nehi soda! The main thing on my mind in March of 2020 from what I remember was how cool PAC vs. Orange Cassidy was and one of the top things I was thinking about was stuff like "Gee, I wonder what this Orange guy is gonna do next?" and then the next week it was... all of a sudden.. all my thoughts were total fear of the uncertain.

If March 2020 was a song it would be "Rest Aria" ... which is a song by The Residents. It's a song of cautious leisurely bings n' blongs and then all of a sudden total crashes and distress. I would describe the month of March 2020 as Rest Aria come to life....

A song who's life is of some Bing bing bings and some doot doot doots (silly life stuff not a care about nothing) ... then things start to be discordant... then haywire.... then... a sort of hap-hazard frantic attempt to keep things on track.... then.... CRAAAAAAAASH ...  followed by a soft echo that comes out of the crash trying to rebuild and to try and re-find those times of fun days of the Bings and Doots.... and ends on a fading-out yet also fading-up trumpet of Hope.

Looking back, my loneliness article was a sort of bracing of oneself for the uncertainty to come. A gigantic fear of the unknown that back then we had NO understanding of as of yet.

It's almost as if by envisioning extreme forms of Loneliness and using prior experiences of it... my mind did sort of create a way of pre-emptively coping with the uncertain incoming stress it knew was coming.

I almost knew what it would feel like to live through an era of loneliness and in a strange way it's almost as if my mind, knowing what it had to prepare for, kicked into gear and really helped me evade a larger problem. My mind focused on prior feelings of loneliness and wondered what it would feel like if those previous experiences were then amplified and then my mind braced itself for these perceived amplified feelings of Super Loneliness. 

... my mind was mentally simulating inoculation to Super Loneliness by simulating perceived notions of what it could entail and then being prepared for when they occurred.

Physically, this is how vaccines work. This is what inoculation means. We now have vaccines for the physical aspects of the virus. We can use past experiences with viruses and make our bodies go into a "brace" mode so it can easily learn to cope with the virus when the body has to deal with it.

Mentally, Loneliness was a factor I don't think people were bracing themselves for and I think the tone of narrative in here writing-wise switched to...thinking maybe my method of Loneliness Inoculation will interest others.

So after my Loneliness one.... 

Next was the Turkey... which was spelled out in the intro what it was attempting to do which was to create a Hero of Loneliness or maybe even a Champion of Loneliness. It was based off a guy from the 1900s who hibernated. For me it was to keep a routine. I woke up in the first days of the lockdown not knowing what to do... so... I needed to assign my self a routine... Turkey was written each day for two weeks... and it retained a semblance of routine for myself. I would wake up, make coffee, n' write some Turkey.... it was my routine... each and everyday for about two weeks.

....when this pandemic initially started I thought it was gonna be for TWO WEEKS and planned Turkey to end when everything opened back up again! Gosh.

Next came some palette cleansers and stuff like Speed Racer and some others....  and as the pandemic was not ending... I thought it was a good idea to make another two week long story. It would last through October and end on Halloween. This again, for me, was to give myself a "routine" but I wrote these at NIGHT as opposed to in the morning. The happy go lucky style of the Turkey became the paranoid darker side of my Loneliness Inoculation methods as time wore on.

I don't know if Lights Out through Halloween was a good idea in retrospect. My Loneliness Inoculation may not be suitable for all. The darker paranoid part of what Loneliness could entail was far more ... uh..... dark, I guess.

I was already leveled out of the Residents by that point for that side of the Innoculation. Not even Ginger Bread Man was working so I started listening to Lights Out by Arch Oboler every night in the dark for a few weeks. It was scary. Some of those things are scary. My story, I think, was VERY close to the tone of Lights Out even getting the "pitchman" right (who ironically is the villain at the end of my story). 

The Ghostbuster portion of my Lights Out story reminds me that one of the first things I did to cope at the start of the pandemic was to go on Twitter after writing Turkey chapters and just posting songs from Ghostbusters II.... I don't know why... but I think as a kid who grew up on the GBs.... I think my brain has a sort of "When all else fails.... GHOSTBUSTERS, man, GHOSTBUSTERS! Just Ghostbusters!" switch in it.

Ghostbusters saved the sad ending in my Arch Oboler homage story... because it is very much how my mind actually works on a functional level.

Then after my second routine-keeping long-form short-story through October of 2020... came some more palette cleansers and the Twitter Awards which is a long running article on here.

The next big story one came in February of 2021... almost the anniversary of the pandemic at this point. It opens by telling the entire world that I was "down" which is a thing I don't think I've ever done on this before. After one full year of the pandemic.... we were all down, no? This one was about my memories of a concert where I was one person amid 499,999 other people. My recollections of going to SARS FEST '03 were all true and 100% a real story about going to the first SARS FEST in Toronto decades ago.... which is still strange to type "SARS FEST"...  but just thinking of it reminded me that something like this not only happened before but Rush, AC/DC, The Rolling Stones and others lifted people's spirits when it was over.

This article in many ways was the trumpet portion in a Rest Aria sense. After the crash and the frantic attempt to re-gather the semblances of the bings n' doots ... this article was my Trumpet of Hope.

I was reminded of this concert by seeing people on Twitter speak of a certain upcoming event which sought to get a framed picture of the picture of the picture of the Geddy Lee picture that got Re-Tweeted 2112 times once again get re-Tweeted 2112 times.

(See: the "Tweet": https://twitter.com/WizzurdX/status/1388300166076063744)

Now, from what I can gather and understand about this, the original picture was from the Thon's creator's father... who whence he first got on social media, like many older gentlemen who aren't very familiar with social media... he didn't really understand it and would just post these photos of 70s rockers on it. Now that social media post has grown into a Global International Event... so if you're reading this in May of 2021... please re-Tweet the above tweet to help get it to 2112!

(Note: I was interacting on Twitter with the Thon of late and I hope they don't think I'm some sort of Rush purist who is up-in-arms over the lackadaisical attention given to Rush on the Thon. I quickly realized while interacting with many of the Thon folk that it's a very fun-for-all experience that is a joyous celebration of many many things.)

So yes, I was down in February of 2021 but was reminded of being at SARS Fest '03 which helped me remember that these things end and celebrations occur... so I felt good again. So, yes, just to re-iterate... the Thon was a key factor in three ways to getting me un-down.

1) It reminded me of the power of Rush... which is an awesome power. I was listening to Moving Pictures and 2112 on loop some nights while playing Dragon Ball Z: Card Warriors and it was the best. I was having a blast.

2) It reminded me of the 2003 SARS Fest which I wrote about here... which is a good reminder that things like this do end and things get fun again.

3) The comedy of the people who do this Thon are really funny. They are great. The Bizarre Internet Comedic Stylings of Phil Braun are top notch.

So yeah... after the SARS story came Estelle Geddy and another one... and here we are! I feel with the vaccine inoculating everyone and our society gradually re-opening up....  I'm going to probably revert back to normal too. 

We'll see light fun stuff back here in the future... I hope people liked Turkey... and I hope people weren't weirded out too much by Lights Out Homage.

Now... well.... I guess I can just get back to caring about what I was caring about in March 2020, I guess. I was thinking how cool PAC vs. Orange Cassidy was.... 

....I hear a re-match is on the horizon for these two stalwarts combatants.... in possibly a sold out venue. A full arena of fans for PAC vs. Orange Cassidy.

....that's some full-circle stuff for me. It really is.

Health Care CRISIS!!! A Nation in Disarray! Oh No!

This blog isn't as popular as it used to be. If I have any new readers from the last 2ish years.... they might not know that this blog used to be more about "matters of the day" rather than humor and stories and fun stuff. I was actually quite known in the world of promoting rational thinking and being pro-science and stuff.

I took down about 50 articles, some which were quite good, but I didn't want the problems that arise from having opinions on real life matters anymore. A lot of the articles taken down were just opinions on global issues and stuff. They weren't as funny as I wanted to them to be because they dealt with opinions on real life matters.

"To Deric, James Randi"

I think I'm going to venture to do one again. Maybe there's some older readers left who remember the more sciencey "D" of yester year.

I remember meeting James Randi once many many years ago. He signed my copy of Carl Sagan's Cosmos. That's a lot of name dropping in that previous sentence but it's true (See photo on right hand side). Randi, passed away fairly recently. I became sort of very passionate about rational thinking after meeting him. I remember feeling like it was normal to be the way that I was after meeting someone who devoted his life to it.

Now-a-days on the internet and in real life it's far more "ok" to be a Rational person who doesn't take much interest to magicks and fantasy... but a decade ago, especially on the internet, fantasy n' magic n' craziness was the norm. I see in the young people world it's very "ok" to be a rational person these days. But, to be this kind of person two decades ago was still quite difficult. I was in a complete minority, for the most part, as a person being an advocate of rational thinking and science and who openly did not believe in any hocus, nor pocus, or even hallomagocus.

I stopped writing those essays for the most part... not really because I stopped caring about that... but because I saw the pendulum swing closer to the center and felt the need to promote science and rationality had dissipated due to other people taking the mantle and the young people world embracing it far more easily than older generations did. I do not see the same fervent rejection of rationality that I did twenty years ago.... so I just let it be and moved on... and started writing fiction about alligators or whatever.

One I deleted which was too heavy to think about and bringing people down was about that the 2020s era was likely going to be a health care crisis due to the stats I had seen regarding Canadian demographics. All baby boomers were gonna hit elderly age at the same time, most baby boomers are over weight, and the health care system and our leaders were mainly worried about whether we could cure silly things with magic.... so yeah... that one wasn't received well and was written probably in 2017, I think.

It doesn't seem so "heavy" now though... as it is now 2021... and Canada is in a health care crisis. So... let's think about some stuff.

I don't want to be an "I told you so" kinda guy and I'm not a problem pointer-outer either .... I think that both of those qualities in a human is redundant and pointless. So, let's think of some things that can possibly help us in this current crisis instead of doing any of that.

What are the main three problems that are causing hospital over crowding? I believe now it is:

1) Vaccine Hesitancy
2) Obesity
3) Large Amounts of People Aging into Elderlyhood at the Exact Same Time

Three is a fact that can't be altered or changed. It is how it is. 

Two has always been an issue. I mean, I was reading in the city of Houston that close to 65% of people by 2025 will be considered Obese. Not over weight but legit like physically handicapped due to their own eating. That's not good... but I don't have the answers to this. I was watching this British show called "Only Human" where they do a lot of over weight people segments... and yeah.... obesity all over the world is probably our #2 global health care problem. I don't have any suggestions for Obesity pandemic, which is a minor pandemic in its own right, so I won't throw any out.

So today's article is about "Vaccine Hesitancy in Canada"...

Why only in Canada? Because USA isn't having this issue. They are clocking in at 150 million people vaccinated and it's only April. That's all their at-risk population and they are now climbing into a good chunk of their non-at-risk as well. One Hundred and Fifty MILLION! That's actually quite amazing to think of. They are good at this!

So what's the hold up in Canada? I think they can't move away from the "at-risk" population and hit the rest yet because of hesitancy amongst the 60+ population.

So what is the biggest difference between USA and Canada? Is it supply? Maybe. Is it roll out? Maybe. Is it something else?

It's honestly..... lack of celebrities. I know that sounds silly.... but..... it is.

I have seen on twitter... literally almost every American 50+ celebrity I follow from sports to movies to tv shows to music... all posting photos of themselves getting it. All of them. Band aids on arms ABOUNDS! It is a proud thing for them to do and the rest of their people are saying to themselves things like "hey if it's okay for Fergie Jenkins... then it's okay for Me!" or "hey if it's okay for TV's Frank then it must be okay for Me!"

The United States of America will probably be at 250 million vaccinated by next month and will be entirely re-opened by July with some caveats and eceteras. Canada? We're lucky if we get those numbers by the end of the year or more at this rate.

Celebrities? You gotta show people you are getting the vaccine. Wait... are there even any Canadian celebrities? Fergie Jenkins was born in Chatham Ontario but is more famous in Chicago (where he's gonna get a statue next year... congrats Fergie). He's more American.

Who's Canadian and getting it and showing it and being proud? I don't know. I saw actually the Tennis star, Genie Bouchard, on twitter showing she got it, I think. Other than that... I can't think of anyone. I really believe the hesitancy rate in Canada is even double or triple that of the USA.

We can't open until it hits a certain level... I don't know what it is actually... but I would estimate it is 90% of vulnerable (55+) people. Canada won't get there until 2022 at this rate.

Canada's route with this is to continually punish people until they get through this crisis. We can't go outside until we get all the vulnerable people done it seems. Curfew is 8pm and it is heavy fines to go outside and stuff. It's a measure that won't work.... the key to this now is celebrities showing they got it so the hesitant portion of the vulnerable population gets it in turn. That's what, I think, USA's path to success was.

Who's a Canadian celebrity who could convince 55+ people to get the vaccine? Hmmmmm. I don't know. Who's famous here? Hockey people no? Can we show like Wayne Gretzky getting it?

Here's my idea okay... and this IS NOT a joke. Okay. This WILL reduce Canadian Vaccine Hesistancy by a huge margin. Alright this is an idea for a commercial that would air on the main Canadian channels that elderly people watch like CBC and uhhhh..... CTV.... and uhhhhh.... I think those are the only two Canadian channels now.

So.... here it goes... this commercial should air 50 times per day....

A darkly lit arena lights up. The crowd is empty. Lo.... who is skating in this barren well-lit arena? Surely it shan't be Wayne Gretzky? Oh my... surely enough it shall! Why is he alone in this arena skating all by his lonesome? Oh my... he's skating to center ice.... there's some sort of table there waiting for The Great One...

....SKKSKSKSKSKSKSSKSKSKKHKSHKSSHKSHKSHKSHKSHKSHSKHKHS!

(sound of ice skates stopping briskly and ice shavings shoot up all over the person waiting for him at center ice!)

"Oh wow! Nice to see you here, Wayne Gretzky! What brings you to center ice?" says the Doctor.

"I'm here for my vaccine, Doctor Alice." says Wayne Gretzky.
(Note: The Doctor is HOT. So more people think it's cool and good.)

"You don't say? Roll 'em up Great One let's see what you win!"
(He has a coffee cup tie-in... because if there's one thing Canadians trust is a coffee shop named after a hockey player!)

....Wayne skates away from center ice and takes a massive slap shot into an open net and the puck tears through the netting! Wow!

"I just got mine.... YOU should too.... take it from ME... Wayne Actual Gretzky... the greatest hockey player who ever lived... ten times better than anyone else!" Says The Great One Wayne Gretzky.

Vaccine Hesitancy? After that commercial you'd be lucky if people aren't rioting to get one after this spot!

(Note: For French Language spots Wayne can be replaced with Mario Lemieux)

THE END


(After Note: This is not a joke or satire or anything. I truly believe the higher rate in Canada than the USA in vaccine hesitancy is due to the lack of famous and respected Canadians who are superly known in Canada saying and being proud that they got it.)

Stop! Or my Mom will Shoot!.... Two?

Hello everyone.

Everyone is freaking out and everyone is going bananas! I saw recently that trending in the Twittersphere was "Stop or My Mom will Shoot" which has led to wild rumors and out-of-hand ruminations on the matter. Is a sequel on the docket? It really seems that many are saying this.

Yes, many are familiarizing themselves with the work of Estelle Getty. It seems younger generations are finally catching on to the true talent of Estelle Getty, not only from her work on the popular series The Golden Girls but are also finding her less known work as well. Her body of work is truly remarkable. She is quite possibly the greatest actress of her era.

If you're new to Estelle and Golden Girls, just remember when watching Golden Girls that it isn't like the Ninja Turtles and you don't have to have a favorite Golden Girl... you are allowed to like them all... unlike on Ninja Turtles where you have to have a favorite one.

Anyways, I have so many ideas for Stop or My Mom will Shoot 2 that my head is almost literally SPINNING right now. I have to get a game plan and a formula for this article or it's gonna be a mess.... okay,

1. Possible Titles
2. Sample Dialogue from a theoretical Good script of SOMMWS 2
3. An ode to Estelle Getty, who is no longer with us, probably with many Golden Girl Gifs

Okay, that's an easy article that will calm the raging torrents of ideas smashing through my brain's both hemispheres.

Writing is becoming my main hobby since the Plague began... and a lot of it is done in secret with hopes of completing stuff to get bought. I'm writing three secret movies right now. A Geddy Lee bio-pic that is similar to the F. Mercury one but 50% of it is set in Canada (and winter) ... Stop or My Mom will Shoot 2 (of course) ... and The Golden Child 2: The Return of Sardo Numspa.

If these ever do come out, my name might be a different one in the credits, because my main art is writing non-movies so my movie scripts will be written under a funny name like Dizzy Sizzly Gillespie Jr. or possibly Arthur Bagelson.

Okay so....let's get to the point here... my premise for Stop! Two! is a play off of My Mother the Car (the Tv Show where the mom's spirit gets trapped in a car). In my idea for this sequel to the smash-hit comedy Stop! Or My Mom will Shoot! ... Estelle Getty gets trapped inside of Sylvester Stallone's gun.

This way... Estelle Getty can still be in the movie... but just from soundbites of things she said in the first movie and also old .wav files from Golden Girls episodes ... like these great lines:




It makes an interesting caveat to write this movie now... because the dialogue has to be built around things Estelle Getty has said on Tv Shows and Movies. It's harder to write this movie than it sounds... I'm already experiencing difficulties. Basically, the Gun/Mom character as portrayed by Estelle Getty, can only be written with very certain fragments of dialogue that were already stated and the entire film needs to be built like blocks around the Gun's/Mom's dialogue fragments. Oy vey!

Alright let's get started now with the titles....

Possible titles for Stop or my Mom will Shoot 2 are:

-Stop! Or my Mom will Shoot! 2: First Blood
-Stop! Or my Mom will Shoot! First Blood: Part 2
-Stop.... or my Mom will Shoot........Again!?
-Stop! Or my Mom will Shoot! 2: My Mother the Gun
-Stop! Or my Mom will Shoot! 2: Look who's Shooting Now!
-Stop! Or my Mom will Shoot! 2: Say your Prayers you Bad Guys!
-Stop! Or my Mom will Shoot! 2: Estelle Getty's Revenge
-Stop! My Mother is a Gun!
-Stop! Or My Mom (who is now a Gun) will Shoot!
-The Estelle Getty Preservation Society Presents: Stop! Or My Mom will Shoot 2
-Stop! Two! Electric Boogaloo!

 

Alright those are all pretty good. Now we get to the fun part where I shall share with you some sample dialogue scenes from my super-secret script I am typing up....

Scene 1
Setting: At Sylvester's house
Characters involved: Sylvester, Mom/Gun, robot butler (Hubie)

Sylvester arrives home after a tough day at the job...

Sylvester: What a day, that case will never get solved and on top of it all it seems as though the cartel will attack the city in two months instead of three now! We simply don't have the man power down at the precinct to handle an attack from the cartel right now! You know!? There's gonna be like thousands of them! The cartel has more guys than us, you know?

Hubie: Young sire, you mustn't get so worked up over such things... that cartel always boasts of an attack yet they never follow through and you know that, young sire. Beep Boop Beep.

Sylvester: You don't understand, you know! It's just... I got too much on my plate, Hubie! What's for dinner?

Hubie: I have prepared braised leeks over duck d'orange, young sire... with a cream of mushroom soupe.

Sylvester: Again? How 'bout a burger for a change, you know?

Hubie: Burg? Ger? Beeep. Apologies, young sire, yet my high class memory banks fail to compute such a ghastly abhorrent concept of a dish as this. You mustn't request such low class menu items.

Sylvester: Hubie! You're ten seconds away from becomin' a toaster, you know!

A third voice enters the scene from an undisclosed location....

Estelle: Soooo... another tenants meeting I wasn't told about. What's the topic this time... how to lose the old lady?

Sylvester: ....

Hubie: ....

Sylvester: Hoob, where did your memory circuits get that voice protocol from?

Hubie: Young sire, a harsh and low class voice such as that one would never be saved to any of my high class circuits and state-of-the-art processors.

Sylvester: Well then who was it, you know! I know that voice! If you think this is funny, Hoob, you know, you're gonna be in the scrap heap! You know!?

Hubie: Young sire, please hold thy temper. I shall scan the environs for the source of the broadcast. Please keep calm and carry thy self with stature and grace, young sire.

Sylvester: Stop callin' me young sire! I'm like old, you know?

Hubie: Young sire... the source of the broadcast seems to be originating from your.... gun?

Estelle: Good one, sherlock. Who'd you think it was, Molly Ringwald?

Sylvester: Ma! Not now! Wait..... Ma?

Hubie: Young sire, it appears your side-arm is speaking to you. Shall I bring it to you? Here you are, young sire.

Sylvester: Ma! No offense or nuthin', you know, but... you're gone! I was even at your funeral, you know?

Estelle: I am? Okay, pretend you didn't hear that. I'll see ya tomorrow.



Scene 2
Setting: In the Shower
Characters involved: Sylvester, Mom/Gun

Sylvester: La laaa la laaaaa... and the eye of the tiger is the king of the crop... he's got all of the eyes of the tie gers! Ba ba baaa ba... and he's the last known survivor when he's leadin' the pack, you know, with all of the other tigers maaa ba naaa na! I'm gonna be the eye of this tiger and sing in this shower all day and until it something-something-something 'til the eeeeeeeeeeeeend...... Of the Tiger!

Estelle: So, I thought I'd pop by the station today, you know, see where you work n' meet a couple of your friends.

Sylvester: Ma! I'm in the shower singing my tiger songs! I need some peace for at least a coupla minutes a day... you know!?

Estelle: Well, forgive me... my arthritis is bothering me, my social security check was late... and I realized today that I haven't showered with a man in twenty two years.

Sylvester: Ma, Pops' been dead twenty seven years.

Estelle: What's your point?

Sylvester: ..............

Scene 3
Setting: The Underground Lab of a Weapons Expert's Lair
Characters involved: Sylvester, Mom/Gun, Hubie, Weapons Expert "Low Dog" St. Claire

Low Dog: Lemme get this straight, you want me to turn this side-arm into a bazooka? Why wouldn't you just throw this crappy gun out and just buy a brand-new bazooka, mang?

Sylvester: You see uhhhh.... you know.... uhhh.... you know .... uhhhh... it's just that.... you know....

Estelle: The thing is....

Sylvester: Ma! Not now! No, no, no... that wasn't the gun talking! It was just the wind, you know?

Low Dog: ...?

Hubie: Let me field this conundrum, young sire. You see, Sir Low Dog, my young sire's attachment to the side-arm is purely sentimental as it was awarded to him for his honor and service many sorties ago and he would like to take all the components of this gun and re-fit them so this fine piece of equipment becomes a bazooka that can be mounted atop of me... so when I transform into my battle-tank mode... I shall be able to fire rockets at The Cartel... you see, old chap.

Low Dog: You two gotta be the craziest S.O.Bs that ever strolled into my secret under ground weapons laboratory... and I gotta say.... I'm diggin' it!

They all high five and the scene ends...



Scene 4
Setting: Rendezvous point during Counter-Attack mission against The Cartel
Characters involved: Sylvester, Mom/Gun, Hubie, Colonel Arnold

Hubie: Young sire, according to my maps, we are close to the rendezvous point with sir Arnold. It's only but a mere stone's throw away!

Sylvester: That's great, you know.... but part of me can't trust that shifty Colonel Arnold... something about him rubs me the wrong way.... you know? Oh no! Bogies at 5 o'clock!

Hubie: Shall we let your mother handle this attack, young sire?

Estelle: Let me at 'em!

Hubie: Oy! Vey! I must say!

Sylvester: Ma! Fire all rockets!

BOOM!

Estelle: See you in hell.... you HUMAN MATTRESS!

Hubie: Bloody good show, old gal!

Sylvester: Mom! I'm so proud of you!

...they arrive at the rendezvous. The Colonel lands down in his exquisite chopper.

Arnold: Sylvester, is that you, there? Are you, here, now?

Estelle: Hey pussycat!

Arnold: Oh hello there bazooka, my name is Colonel Arnold! I am happy that you are now here.

Sylvester: You aren't freaked out that my bazooka can talk?

Arnold: No, I'm used to it... for you see.... my fatha is a helicopta!

Estelle: Oy! Vey!

Sylvester: We have so much in common, Arnold! What's your helicopter's name?

Lee Majors (as the Helicopter): My name is first lieutenant Lee Majors... of the U.S. Air Force!

Estelle: .......what a hunk!

Lee Majors (as the Helicopter): Well, hello little lady.... what a nice chassis you have.... what's your rocket-fire-per-second ratio on that fast-action propulsion launcher?

Arnold: Fatha! Behave yourself!

Estelle: Wouldn't you like to know?

Sylvester: Ma!

Arnold: Save the baby-talk for later you two! The Intel Squadron has given to me the exact location of Jackie Chan.

Sylvester: Jackie Chan is the head boss of The Cartel!? I should've known, you know!?

Lee Majors (as the Helicopter): Hop inside of me... I'll get us all to the next rendezvous point... come on Estelle I have a special seat reserved for you... right in the cockpit.

Arnold: GET TO THE FATHAAAA! COME ON! THERE'S NO MORE TIME! GET IN THE FATHA!



Scene 5
Setting: The Final Showdown with Jackie Chan
Characters involved: Sylvester, Mom/Gun, Hubie, Colonel Arnold, with a special appearance by Lee Majors, and featuring Jackie Chan.


Jackie Chan: So. You've finally found me? I'm not going down without a fight.

Sylvester: Yes.

Jackie Chan's Nunchucks: See! Told you! I told you, Jackie Chan! You always make mistakes! They found you! They found you! You should have listened to your auntie!

Jackie Chan: Auntie! No! Not now! Please!

Jackie Chan's Nunchucks/Aunt: Your uncle told you many many times, Jackie Chan, how to be a bad guy without getting caught ... but you don't listen. You just don't listen. You never got straight As in school either. Your parents were nice people but they did not raise you properly, Jackie Chan.

Jackie Chan: Auntie, I thank you for all you've given to me in my life... I am humble... but now is not a good time. I must fight them!

Jackie Chan's Nunchucks/Aunt: Don't swing me so fast Jackie Chan! That's why you never got straight As and good grades in school... like your cousins did! You are too reckless, Jackie Chan! You should be more thoughtful.

Jackie Chan: Auntie!!!! AAAAAIIIIIEIEIEIEIEIEEEEEEEEEEIIIIEEE!

Hubie: By the Gods and through the goodness of the graciousness of the Lords... this man seems to be having a mild conniption due to his aunt's, who also seems to be his nunchucks, constant naggeries! Please do something, young sire.

Estelle: Let me handle this... yoo hoo! Over here! Yoo hooo! Young man.... I know I am not your mother but I am a mother... and I was just thinking you can talk to me if that's all right....

Sylvester: Ma! It's serious over here! This is life n' death stuff, you know!?

Lee Majors: She has the voice of an angel..... Estelle.... I .... I.... I think I am falling for you.

Jackie Chan: Let this woman speak!

Estelle: I just want you to know that the man next to you... is my son... and God knows he and I have had our difficulties over the years... you see he was very small for his age and I made him this cute little dress and wig... he was adorable!

Jackie Chan: Oh my goodness... and I thought I had it bad. You have it so much worse than I do, Sylvester. Auntie... I'm sorry I swung you so fast.

Jackie Chan's Nunchucks/Aunt: It's okay Jackie Chan.... I was being too hard on you. You are a very good nephew. You are an intelligent and diligent nephew... maybe even the best an aunt could ask for.

Jackie Chan: Auntie......

Arnold: Jackie Chan, now that you are not crazy anymore because of the constant nagging of your nunchucks which is also your Aunt... maybe you can disband The Cartel... and return to being a respectful citizen.

Jackie Chan: I will, Arnold. I will become a good citizen now. Hmmm, I can't help but notice your helicopter seems to be very infatuated with the bazooka that talked me out of my conniption. I know someone who can mount bazookas onto helicopters... one of my uncles. If you are interested.

Lee Majors: I would want nothing more than to be forever bound to my new-found beloved. Please mount this bazooka onto me so we can fly around and blow things up for eternity.

Arnold and Sylvester are in tears of joy.....

Estelle: Come on Girls... let's go get some Cheese Cake!

Hubie: None for me thank you very much madame... I am watching my figure.

Everyone Laughs and the screen slowly fades....


END.


I don't think we'll do part three as the dialogue went on too long. Let's end this article on this happy note... of a helicopter and a bazooka living happily ever after.

2003's Now-Forgotten SARS-a-Pa-LOOZA!

This pandemic is getting HOPEFULLY to the end of its run...I hope. I mean... honestly... I really really hope it's almost over.

I've been down to be honest. This second-round of lockdowns in Canada's two biggest cities (Toronto and Montreal)... has really drained my staying-positive reserves to its limit, I'd say. I'm having some difficulty envisioning the "light at the end of the tunnel" now.

But..

Then I was reminded of a certain celebration after a previous SARS-related scare...one back in 2003... where a 500,000+ human-attended crazy concert was born out of it... a concert which was very cool but also a concert which was buck and great.

Pandemic-wise, it was not comparable to today's one. The 2003 SARS scare was contained, I don't even think it had any like deaths, if I remember correctly. It was a scare though. People were avoiding Toronto like the plague and their tourism numbers were going down a lot. 

To re-iterate it was not comparable, in any way, to this current SARS outbreak. It was not even really a big deal and ... honestly, no one seems to remember Toronto had this, it seems. One of the main things I remember about it... was it was a sort of negative and difficult time for Asian Canadians. I was reading an article the other day that Asians in the USA are having a hard time because people are blaming them... as if they personally, just some kid who was born in the USA, but has Asian facial features... are somehow personally responsible for the pandemic. Which is not true. That was, as I remember, the main scary thing about the '03 SARS thing in Canada was a lot of Asian people were being treated badly and rudely .. as if somehow they were personally responsible for a timeless human problem because of their facial features or accents. I think Asian people are going through a hard time now too and I just want you to know that I love you guys.

Anyways, I hope somehow this pandemic concludes, soon. This second lockdown is not scary like the first one... it's just emotionally draining... and it's becoming harder to remain positive.

So, to remain positive, I'd like to now.... I'd like to.... walk back in my mind... back to 2003.... and remember...I guess in a Jack Kerouacian way... going to the 500,000+ attended SARS-a-Pa-Looza bash in Toronto... because yes, friends, I was there. 

Now, I think this will be good to remember this. It is an instance of how society responded to a troubling time, to re-pump-up itself, after a scare, and it was Buck and Everything.

So..... I'm going back in my mind now... you can come with me if you wish... to the 2003's Toronto SARS FEST!

(Yes, This is a real thing, not making it up:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molson_Canadian_Rocks_for_Toronto)

 

Down Memory Lane... to 2003.... to Toronto!

(If anyone read my short stories... this article is not like those... this is not fiction... this is really a thing I was at in 2003... that I am trying to mentally remember because ... I have the pandemic blues... and want to remember Pure Buckness in the face of rampant global disease).

Setting: Downsview Park, Toronto, In Canada, Planet Earth

Me and my friends went to it... and....

...I was separated from my friends almost RIGHT OFF THE BAT. Now, as I remember it I was separated from them as so...

I'm from Montreal, which is a buck city... like, when I go to CFL football games to see Alouettes... it's common for a person to "go buy beer" and this endeavor is like they trot down to the stand, buy like 16 of them, 4x4, stacked on the cardboard holders neatly, come back to their seat and pass those sixteen beers out to everyone around them...

...this is NOT how you buy beer in Toronto! In Toronto, you can buy ONE beer at a time at sports events and concerts! It's insane. It's a one-beer-per-person law at the concession stands, there. It's twilight zone stuff, guys.

So here I am, at this concert, this SARS Fest, back in 2003, it was like the afternoon right now, and so far there's like maybe 150 people in the park... that's it. At most like 200 people there as of then.

So, I go to my friends with me... "Hey, I'm gonna go get beers."... thinkin' it's like going to a CFL game and I will get 4x4 (stacked x2) and bring back like 8 cups of beer for me n' friends to gently enjoy.... but, no.

I had to go buy BEER TICKETS at a BEER TICKET TENT... then walk to another tent and show my ID and proof of age at the ID TENT... then take my tickets and voucher proving my age... to the BEER TENT.... where finally I was allowed to purchese... wait for it...... ONE BEER. Yes, after all that trouble I was allowed to purchase one unit of beer and had to consume it in the "Beer Tent" area. I could not take beer outside of the designated Beer Tent.

Fine... great. Whatever. Now, this took me close to 45 minutes to purchase One Beer (which is ludicrous). I exit the "Beer Tent" and guess what? There's no longer about a few hundred people in the park.... there's HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE!

My concession trip, that I thought would take 5 minutes, to bring a buncha cold beer back for me and my friends (maybe find a poutine too or a little bit of that smooth brunswick stew).... turned into a clerical fiasco of immense bureaucratical proportions. I didn't know where they were any longer. My friends, were gone.

Finding them in a sea of people would have been like finding a Human Needle inside of a Human Haystack... so I gave up after about one minute of searching and then made my way for the center of the stage... because I logically thought... "if I was them, what'd I'd do?" ... and thought that they'd go to the front of the stage... that's where people go, no? To the front and be like right next to the band....but no....they weren't there.

I was at the fully front of the stage like right next to it, now. I saw the first half of the SARS Fest... next to the bands. I was at the guard rail. These bands were guys like Dan Akroyd's Blues Brothers, and the Isley Brothers, and The Flaming Lips and stuff. It was cool.

But alas, all wasn't fun and game. The audience was not into Justin Timberlake, at all. They were really mean to that poor J. Timberlake. Fans were pelting him with water bottles. I felt bad for him... but I think the booking of this show was slightly hap-hazard. You can't get like AC/DC and Rolling Stones and then make them do duets with teenage pop stars. It's a weird mix... I felt bad for him.. but understood why the concert people were throwing junk and garbage at him.

Speaking of water bottles... they were scarce. They had no water fountains or free water and at the beginning of the concert they were selling water for 7 bucks for a small bottle... it was the worst concessions at a concert in History of Concerts. Though, I'm reading this Fyre Fest thing was quite bad. Eventually, they understood people will die of heat strokes if they don't just start giving out water bottles to people. I mean, you can't pack 500,000+ people into an old airport or whatever this land was and then have like 100 bottles of water on hand that you are charging people 7 bucks. It was poorly thought-out... like amazingly poorly thought-out.

I had bad like heat-stuff. The left side of my face was peeling off... and I had to find water... bad. I found a station where they would give people one free bottle of water and stuff... and it may have saved my life...

...but the sucky part was... that I was no longer in front of the stage after going to find water... so I saw the main concert bands (Rush, AC/DC, and Rolling Stones) from WAY FAR BACK... like I didn't try to get closer... I just sat like against a tree and listened to it... the acoustics were not that great to be honest.

I understand why Rush doesn't like to do outdoor concerts because they are more of an arena band who know how to do an arena show extremely well. I've seen Rush in arenas more than once and they put on an amazing show in arenas. Seeing them in an arena playing with green lazors shootin' around is an experience, for sure. Rush at an arena is an experience. I've seen them twice at arenas... and they were amazing. They were probably my favorite at the SARS thing too... but I am biased.... because I like Rush a lot.

There's bands who are good outdoors, there's bands that are good at small pubs shows where they are intimate with the audience. Rush is a great arena band... they have honed how to play to 20,000 people in an arena to perfection. 

Outdoor concerts aren't always the best acoustics and presentation....

Maybe the best band of the concert, honestly, was the Flaming Lips who knew how to do an outdoor show... they had like balloons and fun stuff. I mean they got the audience involved with bubbles and balloons and cool stuff. The Flaming Lips were memorable.

The Timberlake performances were very memorable too for another reason... he was good... dancing and skillfully dodging water bottles... but I didn't find it funny... or nice for the audience to do that. I mean, I think the people who haphazardly threw this thing together should have had a set goal in mind for what it was going to be. The audience around me at the front of the stage were like rock and roll types, rocking out, and stuff.... they were probably a bit perplexed at why he was there.... but... throwing junk n' garbage at people is dumb.

The main acts were good but ... I'd suggest seeing those three... Rush, AC/DC, and The Stones... in arenas where their sound and their stage performances are exceptional.... outdoors...they are still good and cool though.

So...

Let's recap:

I got sidetracked by beer-bureaucrats... I got separated from my friends before it started, gradually made my way to the center of the front of the stage, almost died of heat exhaustion and of thirst, the left side of my face peeled off... I remember the Flaming Lips throwing balloons at me... which was really cool... and Rush had a washing machine or a dryer on the stage with them... which was also cool.

Oh ... a key item missing from this story was that I did not have a cell phone in 2003. I was a cell phone hold out and didn't get one until like 2004. So, no young people, I couldn't text my friends and ask them where they were, ok?

SARS-A-PA-LOOZA 2.0 

This article was short so let's learn from the mistakes of SARS 1.0 so we as a nation, Canada, can plan a cool concert after this current SARS thing is over, ok?

Item 1- Water:

The water must flow like wine. It has to. People might actually die if it does not. I'd have drinking fountains and fire hoses shooting water like blood at a GWAR concert if I was in charge of a concert.

Item 2 - Beer:

The beer must flow like wine, too. I don't mind if it's Coors Light or Bud Light and it's from the tap and it's watered down more too even... but I should be allowed to go to a concession stand, buy beers, and like... drink them.

Item 3- Separation of Genres

I think pop stars should have one COVID festival after COVID ends, rockers should have one, Metal heads should have one, punk rockers should have one.. all in the same week... but on different days.

So my theoretical COVID ENDS FEST should be a week long event:

Monday: Country
Tuesday: Rap
Wednesday: Rock n' Roll
Thursday: Punk Rock
Friday: Funk n' Soul Day
Saturday: Pop Music
Sunday: Heavier Metally Rock
Special Monday All-Day Encore: Duets and Cross-over Medleys

Makes sense.

Item 4- Cool People

I think celebrities should be there too. Like the fun and cool ones.... not the bad ones, though.

Personal Ideas:

This is stuff I'd find cool, but it is only suggestions... for the COVID RELIEF FEST.... they are not mandatory...

Maybe on Funk day George Clinton and Bootsy Collins could come up with a global uniting sort of number that really globally unites society under a more singular groove... you know... just for the funk of it.

I think after the stunning success of Bill and Ted 3: Bill and Ted Face the Music... that our hosts for the week-long extravaganza should be Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves. I think they would really know where to go with it... but also be respectful and at-times demurred because even though we want to rock it loose... we still have to still remember that these are still difficult times for many even though by then the pandemic shall have passed.

I think some newer acts should get a spotlight... I think Nick Lutsko, who was stunningly snubbed by J. Biden when The President was choosing artists to preform at his inauguration... should be on the roster, on multiple days, doing multiple genres and in multiple time slots.

Cross over day... I'd like to see like Dionne Warwick sing a Residents song.... and I guess Devo doing a one-hour long performance with Mojo Nixon. Is Gary Numan still around? Maybe he can sing some numbers with Devo too. Flula Borg and Rage Against the Machine could make for a nice mix and timely duet... and let's try a Yodeling Kid with Kid Cudi number, if time constraints aren't at their limit. 

Anyone have any other suggestions? I think mine are good but they are just personal to me though not the mainstream world, you know?

Sit-Com Parodies

Not a real Piston-fire or a gentle whirlwind article this month... just a fun shortish one to meet my personal quota of writing I self-assign myself to do.

We are gonna look at sitcom parodies, today, which is a much harder genre to narrow down and discuss than you'd think. Since there's been over ten thousand of them since the 1950s... it's very difficult for it NOT to be a self-parody by the five thousanth one. I mean, even things like Seinfeld, hugely popular ones are in-themselves parodies of sitcoms. I think J. Seinfeld got his start parodying Soap Operas on "Soap" even.

More mundaner ones are even self parodies at this point. I think any sit-coms still on TV at this point are parodies. Ones that are still going are for-sure parodies of themselves. I find it hard to take at face value that the Roseanne show still exists without the titular character and that the titular character was written off with a very mundane drug overdose ... and the family just went on familying like nothing happened minutes after their fictional mother over dosed on drugs. This is a show that's supposed to be seen as a normal family sitcom. It's quite bizarre to really watch this show.

So, to actually start out and say you want to make a show that is a parody of sitcoms is already a difficult task. This is a hard task to declare you are making a parody of sitcoms... for you're saying that you are attempting to parody something that in-and-of-itself is already a parody of its own self. The four we are looking at today declared they were parodies of sitcoms, thus, giving themselves the daunting task of making fun of something that already by default makes fun of its own genre.

 

Our esteemed entries are:

My Mother the Car
Small Wonder
The Brady Bunch Movie
Beef House

I think the Beef entry will be shorter this time... I've written about this show now in more than one article since it came out. It's not a big reveal that I am a fan of this show.

The thing that fascinates me about all entries is that they make it clear that they are parodying a parody which makes all of them almost insanity to some degree yet since the actors act like this is totally normal like any other sitcom... it becomes slightly even more insane.

 

My Mother the Car

My Mother the Car... is a great show. I bet people who watched this in the era it was out would disagree but it is a good show.

My favorite episode of My Mother the Car, is when the Mother (who's a car by the way) is ecstatic to hear that Sonny Tufts has officially made a comeback after being maligned from Hollywood for his drunkard behavior.

Sonny was a man of ill-repute in the years prior to this guest appearance on My Mother the Car. He was doing bad stuff and phoning in his lines in films... especially in Cat-Women From the Moon where there are scenes of Sonny just mumbling and walking off set instead of delivering his lines. You may ask how these scenes were not edited out of Cat-Women From the Moon... I do not really know the answer to that... that's more of a production thing... you can't really blame Sonny for the director leaving those scenes in.

As her son reads her the paper in the garage concerning the films playing at the local drive-in, The Car, is shocked to learn Sonny Tufts is back on the scene.... for My Mother the Car... is totally infatuated with Sonny Tufts. She loves him!

Now, a lot of people, don't realize that prior to being maligned for his drunkard's behavior and previous to being a fellow of grossly ill-repute... Sonny Tufts played dashing war heroes and starry-eyed military men on the Big Screen. In the era where The Car was still alive (and a human instead of a Car)... as a younger woman back then... she was enamored with Sonny like most women were.

....but the road Sonny chose to travel down was not a bright one. His lust for the fairer sex and his out-of-control behavior ... led him to make many bad decisions after bad decisions. His glory days were far behind him and many wondered what had become of the once handsome leading man.

As The Car learns that he will be appearing in a teenage beach rock-and-roll bop-style film as the father figure character... the Car almost bursts a gasket! Her hero has returned! The entire family piles into her (The Car) and drives down to the drive-in to see this teenage bopper picture.

The weather was not on their side that fateful evening as a rain storm broke out and the drive-in had to close... but The Car was resilient... and refused to leave. In the end, The Car, with her son, daughter-in-law, grand-kids, and their dog were the only Car left in the drive-in.

....or were they?

Lo, who could it be at the back of the drive-in? Another car? Surely no one else sat through such a poor film in the bitter cold and rain on this fateful eve? Who could it be?

.....SONNY TUFTS!?!?

Yes, friends, it was he. It was Sonny Tufts. The kids eyes light up like Christmas morning, their parents are in utter amazement... the dog barks at the handsome man! Alas... the Car... she finally has met him. She's met Sonny Tufts after all these years of wishing to see this larger-than-life fellow in the flesh... there he was... right in front of her headlights. Sonny Tufts his actual self. What an episode.... what a great episode.

Other memorable episodes are the ones that feature Avery Schreiber as a vintage car collector who will stop at nothing to acquire My Mother the Car for his collection and is constantly refused by her son who does not want to sell her for any cost. Avery, thus, begins to resort to outlandish scheme after outlandish scheme to outwit the owner and seize the vehicle for his vast collections. He challenges him to a motor-car race and even goes as far as to fake his own terminal illness to guilt the sale of the vehicle. Does Avery Schreiber have no shame in show? No, he does not.

 

Small Wonder 

Small Wonder is a meticulously strange show. A robotic engineer builds a young robot girl and brings her home to his wife and son to be the newest addition to their family. It's odd... but it's played straight like nothing is amiss... which I've found is the real key for these shows to work.

I find this to be a show no one seems to remember for how good it actually was. It was the My Mother the Car of its era. There's a lot of real small things in this show that keep it from becoming redundant. It lasted for FOUR seasons! I've noticed even some of the most stalwart of 80s kids have never heard of this great show.

It works as a sitcom, a better than average one, even if the robot girl wasn't on it. The Dad, the Mom, the Son, the trio of annoying neighbors... are all good on it... PLUS the daughter is a robot! It has it all.

I'm always taken by how normal the show feels as you watch it. It's almost like a perfectly normal sitcom... even better than many of its era... and oh yeah we almost forgot... the daughter is a robot. I even think the actions of the characters on this show are MORE human and less robotic than most sitcoms of its era. They say things that are more natural to a real life environment even though we're to believe this is a crazy fantasy world with robots.

There's scenes with the "Warren" character, a Charlie Brown kid, who falls in love with the robot that are the most Peanuts-like presentation of the Peanuts in a non-cartoon form. The kids behavior on this show is more kid-like than other shows. They act like how silly dumb kids act unlike on other shows where you see kids reading Harvard Comedy School Writers lines as if they'd actually ever say or act like that in real life. Kids in real life are actually mean like Lucy in the Peanuts.

The Robot character tends to repeat the things she's just heard, like a person with echolalia... but that's actually what kids that age do in real life at that stage. They repeat whatever they hear. The robot is actually more of a kid-like kid than kids on other shows... which is strange... in that its trying to be an off-the-wall crazy show. I find the behavior of the kids on Full House to be much more bizarre than the behavior of the Robot on Small Wonder. Kids in real life are fish-out-of-water characters who do not understand the world around them and tend to just repeat things and execute half-understood behaviors of things they've seen. I find the kids on Small Wonder, both the human ones and the robot one, to be very realistically kid-like.

There was a cool game from Japan that never made it to the USA called "Wonder Project J" ... which naming this game with "Wonder" in the title makes me wonder if it was influenced by Small Wonder... maybe that show was big in Japan, who knows.

I played a translated version of this game in the early 2000s and still remember this game well. You build this robot son and just interact with him... you don't outright control the robot... you just watch him interact with his environment and give him cues, suggestions, reprimands, and rewards for his behavior. The first time I played this I didn't get all the story chapters correct ... and if you don't... your robot son dies at the end in a heroic fashion.... and even though he's a robot... and even though it's just a video game and he's not even a real robot... that game is sooo sad.

Kids in real life are sort of these unprogrammed robots who's behavior and speech are dictated by their surroundings. Both in Small Wonder and in Wonder Project J... I felt the characters to be very believable as humans... even though they were supposed to be robots.

Other than the monotone voice and machine-like behavior... I think the Robot on Small Wonder is a very believable kid. She says half-understood regurgitated sentence fragments she'd heard her brother, neighbor, or parents say. She learns bad behavior from her bratty next-door neighbor. She interacts rudely with icky boys who like her. It's surprisingly more natural behavior you'd see from a child being displayed here.

I heard they cancelled that show Caillou, which parents hated, recently. I think that show would have worked if they made that bald boy a robot. Then again... from start to finish that show is not good. Even the theme song to Caillou is not any good. I take it back... even if they made Caillou a robot child... it still would be bad.

Alright so, Small Wonder and Wonder Project J are both things I recommend.

The Brady Bunch Movie

This isn't really a TV Show... this is actually a movie. I like this movie, too.

The fun thing about this compared to the other old TV Shows turned into movies is they totally made this into an outright Brady Bunch parody instead of a reboot. It is the Brady Bunch in the current era (that it was made)... literally. The Bunch didn't age or change from the 70s... but the world around them did. The Brady's were in the year 1995 but were this bizarre time-capsuled copy of themselves... preserved like jam for decades... never changing with the times.

It's a great idea!

My favorite character in this movie was the middle-kid of the female trio set of kids... Jan. Every line, every mannerism, and every movement of this actress was funny. I think this movie is a great starting point for females who want to do comedy ... they should watch Jan in the Brady Bunch Movie.

I'm looking at the actress's IMDB page and am surprised she wasn't more famous after this. Jan Brady in The Brady Bunch Movie is a fantastic comedic performance. Utterly fantastic.

I don't remember if its in this one or the Very Brady Sequel where she absolutely LOSES her MIND over her jealousy for Marsha, has a nervous breakdown, runs away from home... and meets the original Alice (Ann B. Davis) from the original show. That's so good that part.

I love her paranoid-ass face when her full distain for Marsha finally boils over in her messed-up brain and she starts hallucinating, talking to herself, and basically snapping. This was Oscar caliber acting here.

How she walks at one point in this film is amazing. It's like a scene where she gets glasses or something and it's one of the best comedy walks of all time... Monty Python (and the Ministry of Silly Walks) would be proud.

 

If the Oscars were ever given to Truly good performances in films ... this would have gotten something. Every Jan scene is great.

I would love to have been in the writers room, people pitchin' ideas for this, and someone goes "let's make Jan Brady a paranoid schizo!" ... and then the rest of the room going... "great idea!" .. I would have loved to have been there for such an historic moment in film history.

I'm a huge Jan-Head and I love this movie. What other ones were good? I remember The Beverly Hillbillies was okay... the movie of it... but Jim Varney is in that as Jed... and believe-you-me... there is very little that Jim Varney ever touched that did not turn to gold... so it's not a big surprise to anyone that Beverly Hillbillies was good... because Jim Varney is always good. It was a BIG surprise, however, how absolutely good the Brady Bunch movie was. While we're on the topic let's work in the Brady Bunch Variety Hour too for this entry. Why not? You know? On second thought, nevermind, it's not that good.


Alright let's move on...

 

Beef House

As stated, I've already written multiple times, I think, on this show. It is the My Mother the Car and the Small Wonder of its Era... 100%.

I hope someone realizes its great and throws mucho deniro at this thing and make more of them. It is already probably ahead of Car and Wonder already and there's only like six short episodes. Then again maybe it's not the best all time as of yet.

That Sonny Tufts episode on My Mother the Car is outright wonderful. From second One to second Last it is a masterpiece. A true Master's Piece in every sense of the term. That was one of the last episodes too so it had time to work into itself and really start to brew, you know?

I'm not sure Beef House has made its full Masterpiece episode yet... it needs more shows. It does. I know they will make a Masterpiece. If it doesn't get more shows... I think either Prunes or Crab Dip is their Masterpiece episode so far.

Because Brady Bunch Movie is a movie and not a TV Show, I think it should be omitted from the final tally of rankings.

So as of right now I'd say because there's only six Beef House shows it is pound-for-pound the best show but the longevity isn't yet there. Small Wonder had the most episodes of any of the entries but I'm not sure it's necessarily a longevity thing this contest.

Why even make a rankings? I love them all. They are all winners!

Bonus Entry

In the old old old internet of the late 90s... I remember a Geocities site called "Football Dad"... I can't seem to find it on Internet Archive or anything.

It was a website about an old show... where the father of the family dies... but comes back as a football. It was such a dumb site... and it wasn't popular or anything... I don't know why I found it so funny... or even remember it. It was a good idea for a show though. This show never actually existed, of course, but if you read the "guestbook" of the site (which was an archaic version of a comments section)... you had people remembering it like it was yesterday and others who never heard of it but wanted to find it.

Football Dad. I'd watch it if it ever became a real show. It would have to be casted properly though.

Googling "Football Dad" the only thing that mentions it was this very website in 2011.

Did I dream this or something? Does anyone else recall Football Dad?


EDIT:
I have found an archive of Football Dad!:
(https://web.archive.org/web/20031219083459/http://meltingpot.fortunecity.com/gilford/796/FD/index.html)

The Lawrence Welk Show, but more importantly, -30ism and its Impacts on Current Day Life

I think I've mentioned the fantastic Lawrence Welk show previously on here. I will now search to bring it up... I know which one it is... it was the one with Macho Man. It's called:

"The Deceased Celebrities that I Miss the Most"

"I went to an old folks home this one time and I was very shocked to see all the oldoes just sitting in the dark and thinking about stuff and being boring. People think old people in these homes are on their last legs and the blood doesn't pump anymore in their veins but you're wrong. In the frail chassis of each elderly person beats the heart of a person who wants to flip out and do flips and do the funky chicken and get fucking crazy. These old motherfuckers just want to hot-diggity-damn set it off but they just can't find the spark that'll spark up their asses and make them lose their shit anymore. They wanna be young again, they wanna turn it up and turn it out to some Myron "Mother Fuckin" Floren like in the olden days. You think these oldoes were always old? No way, they used to fucking flip just like you do but now their brains and their hearts just lack the spark to make 'em kick out the jams and lose it, that's all....but it's still there somewhere....deep down in the bowels of their souls the need to get buck is still there.

Volunteers at old folks homes should do a test and play Macho Man's rap album and see what effect it has on their old brains. I bet you 80% of the time, even if they don't understand it at first, these old fuckers will get up and get down and smash some shit up. These old sons-of-bitches and old hoes'll fucking start launching their rockin' chairs around the crib and just plain power-slamming their pillows onto their beds and just getting fucked up and wild. All of those Oldoes n' Grannies will be back-flippin'."

-Me (5.5 years ago)

Now, 5.5 years ago Me's writin' style was quite different. It was a more youthful joie-de-vivrier time to some extent. I have like joie-de-vivre now... but back then I was more young and vivrier. I haven't swored in like over three years I think in any article here. Swearing is Old Hat, I find. It's not edgy or fun anymore. When the internet first started, or satellite radio went this road too... and it was like "you can say whatever you want"... people wigged at first... but later we noticed that if there's no line in the sand to begin with (like, where the "edge" is).... there's no point to cross the edge because the edge no longer even exists or really means anything anymore.

I first noticed how Old Hat swearing was long before I stopped though. I remember Beetlejuice used to not know any of these words like "F" and "S" and stuff were bad to say on the terrestrial radio Howard Stern Show... and it would be such a big deal when they'd just ask a question like "How are you today, Beet?" and he'd respond with "Me? Oooooooh, I'm pretty f'n good. Pretty f'n good."

...the show would come to a halt and almost stop and everyone would be like, "Beet, no, no, no... please don't say that, Beet." It was a big deal when a line in the sand existed and when they moved to satellite and you could just say "F" and "S" a million times without a care ... it just felt pretty Old Hat and kind of cheap. 

It's kind of cheap now and Old Hat, swearing is. It is.

Reading that Macho Man portion of the article I wrote, I didn't mention Welk there, I mentioned Myron Floren the head Accordionist of the Welk show in that swear-filled joke in 2015. Those familiar with Myron would know that this was a reference to the Lawrence Welk show, though.

Anyways, my first idea to go with this article was the following, my thesis was going to be:

"The Lawrence Welk show is fascinating to me as one of the leading 1900ists of the era, because it was from the 1960s yet somehow managed to feel like it was from the 1930s."

My big hook-line-n'-sinker joke was gonna be this:

"No one had seen such a juggernaut of entertainment that the Lawrence Welk Show was providing... since the days of Lauritz Melchior!"
-Me, thinking about lines for this a coupla days ago

I thought this joke would kill, like, a Lauritz Melchior reference in 2020? Readers would do a double-take! It would be placed in the meatiest and led-into paragraph of my article too. That's like so anti-hip that all the kids are gonna wig at how super lame it actually is. All the cool kids and cats would think I was so anti-hip and thusly more hip for how anti-hip I was for layin' out a Lauritz Melchior reference in 2020... they'd be all like, "damn this guy doesn't care about anything, which is so cool, he's so irrelevant and lame to the times that he's actually relevant and not lame at all... in a weird way!"

...but.... I'd throw the audience a curve-ball at the end because my Conclusion would be.... really out-of-nowhere and good (which would completely floor them by the way)... they'd be sitting there readin' it pretty much like...

"Man, these 1960s people wishing it was still the 1930s sure are lamezoids... but wait... what is 30 years ago from right now? 1990? Oh noooo.... am I, the reader, who's currently aged thirty-to-fifty years old who is currently reading this spellbinding conclusion ... the Lawrence Welk of my era? How can this be happening?"

Then, the reader would stumble from his reading chair and open his dimly lit room's lights until they are but slightly brighter, and face his/or/her mirror... pause... and be frozen in fear by who was now looking back at them... for thanks to their already-paranoid mind due to this weird-ass era of Rampant Global Disease that has made us all slightly mad ... they would not see their own reflection in the mirror before them...

...but they'd see ...

...Lawrence Welk staring at them with his somber eyes peering into their very fragile human souls like an ancient specter!

"Surely it is not me! But it is! I have become what I have dreaded!
Is this what I have become, my sweetest friend??

The reader would then be so taken aback by my constructive satire that they'd enter a self-introspective malaise that would last for days! All those days spent in the 2000s yearning for life to be more like it was in 1989... a year which is now more than 30 years ago... yes, the face looking at them in the looking glass... is a face they no longer recognize anymore... they have become Lawrence Welk... and they didn't even realize it or feel it as it gradually happened.

Frantically scurrying about their abode, the readers would pull themselves away from their own reflections that they no longer recognize, and in a daze, run to their closest family and friends and yell aloud... "What has become of me, cruel world! What has become of me!? Hath I becometh... lame?"

Yes, 1989 was more than 30 years ago. It is so long ago that it's a bygone era. There was no internet in that year. Life was not the same as now. I noticed when I watched the Lawrence Welk show recently... that living 30 years in the past is... odd. Yet, we don't seem to apply that oddness to today's standards. 

But... that's not the article I want to write today. Because I realized something. When I mentioned Myron Floren in that paragraph in 2015 about the "Macho Man" Randy Savage it seems to have been in an intense and positive way. I know it was a joke to sort of poke fun of the past but part of me knows it wasn't. I think I like accordion music. I think that's why Myron was given an honorific nickname in that paragraph.

I notice as I re-read that paragraph from that Randy Savage portion from 2015... that I think Myron Floren is a cool guy. I watched a few Lawrence Welks to refresh my memory for this article and the numbers of the variety show ranged from.... fairly bad, to gaudy, to sort of good, to cool... and I'd say most of the cool numbers were on the accordion.

It's an interesting instrument. It's like somebody had a piano near a fire place and they took that thing that's sometimes near fire places that breathes air when you squeeze it to add air to the fire... and then must've looked at the piano next to the roaring fire... and wondered..."what if I remove the keys from my piano and fasten them to the air thing for the fire place? Would that be very cool? Yes, it would!"

It's a fascinating machine, the accordion, it truly is. I mean it's not an obsolete device. It is still a wondrous piece of music machinery. I don't think because something is old automatically makes it lame. I think my original idea for this article is short sighted. I like Old stuff. I'm a -30ist for the 80s n' 90s... and it's A-Ok. There's stuff from the past that sucks but there's also stuff from the past that rules and is cool... like accordions.

I will not make us aging folks feel all Lawrence Welky in this article because it serves no purpose. Instead here is just a memory from many years ago...

A Lawrence Welk Memory

In my youth, I wasn't as lame as now, I was a wicked cool kid who was fresh and happening with the times. In the nineties, PBS, starting showing reruns of the Lawrence Show at supper time around six'o'clock. I would watch this show, as a thirteen year old, deeply fascinated by it.... it was in color and apparently from the 1960s ... but something was very off. It felt so strange. It wasn't hip and cool like Adam West's Batman or that Hey! Hey! We're the Monkeeees! show that was on sometimes. There was nothing 60s about it. It was deeply strange to me... and I would watch it every day it was on...

My mother told me that it was her least favorite show of all time. If it was on when we ate supper (which is when they showed it) she would NOT watch it. Apparently this was her father's favorite show... and as a kid in the 60s her and brother wanted to watch The Man from U.N.C.L.E. or maybe The Montreal Canadiens vs. The Boston Bruins or possibly a very special episode of the Brady Bunch... but their father would put the television on the Lawrence Welk show... which by any era's standards was a lame-ass show.

I wanted to watch it...  because it was fantastically fascinating to me just how strange this show was.... I mean, it was completely different than anything else on T.V. and it captivated me like other "bad" shows did. The big bands! The solo singers that seemed to sing for what felt like hours... and of course, the outrageous accordion Polkas that would bring down the house!

I mean... it's almost like...

I would almost venture to say that it's likely that no one from the 1960's had seen such a juggernaut of entertainment that the Lawrence Welk Show was providing... since the days of Lauritz Melchior!

To observe it as a strange relic of the past is one thing... but I tried to put myself into the 1960s and into the place of my mother and uncle... and wondered what it would feel like to actually HAVE TO watch this while I knew that Lost in Space or like Gilligan's Island was on the "other channel" ... it must have been excruciating for a kid in the 60s to watch this show. Simply excruciating to watch this show instead of say Bewitched.

In the era of One T.V. per house at about three channels per T.V. that the sixties was... this show must have been like a jail sentence for kids...but that just made it ever MORE fascinating for me.

At around 24:23 (following a great accordion performance by Mryon) of the above clip... they have some fare for "the kiddies" down at the zoo (or "soo" as Mr. Welk pronounces it here) and it is not something a kid up at night would be into. It's not the sort of thing a young person of the sixties would dig, daddy-o. I don't know for sure...  but maybe this is how young people feel nowadays with the sort of "Old Hat" content of yesteryear that is thrown at them all the time?

Do young people of 2020 think programming aimed at them is lame? I think so. I was reading an article that was saying ratings for Cable T.V. all across the board are way down and going down every year... but is the answer to hire some fresh new forty year old P.R. person who bills themselves as a young-people expert the way to go to try and save a sinking ship?

I think one thing Beef House (from the people who brought us Tim and Eric's Awesome Show) which aired this year, got right, was making fun of that whole thing... the idea that networks think they can save their sinking vessels and gain younger viewers with some "youth expert" who "gets youth culture" ... the parody sitcom world of the Beef Boys works this in well ... some lines in Beef House are read by the actors almost as if they don't even think these lines make any sense in the context they are used as they are saying them .... it is really hitting the nail on the head, that show, in regards to accurately parodying this current situation.

Kids can smell a non-kid for miles... just because a super-savvy network exec adds a few "WTFs" and "OMGs" to their show's dialogue isn't gonna help it pass the kid test. Kids know it is ungenuine and tune out faster than you could ever imagine to things like that.

I think it's time in many regards to pass the torch and let the young people decide what they want in the Mainstream World for a change instead of being relegated to the weird parts of the internet. We're Lawrence Welkin' these young folks, I think in some regards, sweet Society... and I don't know 'bout you... but when I look into the mirror lately.... I'm starting to see a little Lawrence lookin' back at ol' me...

...but I'm sorta pretty okay with it. I like accordion music and that's A-Ok... I don't have to stop thinking accordions are cool just because they are not hip anymore. To me they will always be hip. I don't fret when I see my increasingly lame visage lookin' at me in the mirror ... I've grown to be okay with him. There's nothing bad about aging... it's natural and normal.

When Mr. Welk appears in my mirror these days... I don't run and hide or wig out or tumble down the stairs or nothing like that... I just wonder aloud...

 "Oh hey there Lawrence Welk... how's Myron Floren doing?"