The Comic Strip, Part 30 - And here I am again my girl, wondering what on earth I'm doing here

"Les Dogs" - March 8, 1990


My dreams frequently involve me finding myself in strangely familiar settings where I don't quite know what is going on, but I sort of wander through making sense of some of it even though no sense is there. And then there is an explosion of violence.


This is more like my dreams than many things I've seen that have tried to be "dreamlike." I think it's because there isn't so much effort put into being surreal. There isn't that sort of Yellow Submarine "This is a dream" telegraphing of nonsense going on - you sort of think that there is a logic to it, and at the end it will all make sense in a real-world framework. Twin Peaks would premiere in America a month after this was first shown in the UK. Interesting coincidence, but I don't know what it means.

And nice to see Kate Bush as the "Mystery Bride." She did the soundtrack for an earlier episode this season, and here she is acting. Was she a friend of theirs or did they just decide that she was the logical person for the part. Either way is fine with me, I can't imagine anyone who would fit the part quite as well.

File under "You're trying too hard"

This fall on Saturday mornings:

SHAGGY & SCOOBY-DOO GET A CLUE: Ruh-roh! Everybody's favorite quivering sleuths, Shaggy and Scooby-Doo, are back in a new adventure that will anchor the "Too Big For Your TV" programming block. In this comedy, also produced by Radomski, Shaggy and Scooby live in the bling'd-out mansion of Shaggy's Uncle Albert, solving mysteries with the help of a transforming Mystery Machine which, at the click of a remote, can morph into one of a number of modes of transportation. New Scooby Snacks infused with a top-secret nano-technology allows our canine hero to fly, become a towering robot or even turn himself into a giant magnet, which comes in handy as Shaggy and Scooby-Doo carry out their new mission: protecting the Scooby Snacks and keeping them safe from those who want them for evil. Shaggy & Scooby-Doo Get A Clue! is executive produced by Sander Schwartz and Joseph Barbera.

I am enthused!

The BBC has posted their prototype searchable Programme Catalogue. Naturally, I had to poke around.

A search for Dave Gorman shows his two television programs (The Dave Gorman Collection, and The Important Astrology Experiment) as well as a bunch of appearances on television and radio, but not his radio show, Genius.

Searching for "Doctor Who" doesn't work. The show is cataloged as "Dr. Who."

I just reported an error on this page. Let's see how long it takes to clear up.

It's fun to pick words at random and see what comes up. The more amusing the word, the more likely it is to get hits from children's shows and sketch comedy.

My favorite new find so far is The Enthusiasts, a show that seems to pop up on television and radio from time to time, and is about precisely what the title suggests. Each episode is about a different group of people who are enthusiastic about something. Book collectors, Ham radio operators, Baton Twirlers and so forth. I really want to see/hear this show.

just for the record

I don't speak Italian.

The title of the previous post is a song lyric by Fiorella Mannoia, an Italian singer that I have been a "sort of" fan of for a while now.

The Babelfish translation from Italian to English is quite wonky. Because of this, there is a possibility that she is a genius or insane. I don't know for sure. It's like a great big puzzle.

The Comic Strip, Part 29 - Stancamente sto qui ad aspettare un'altra estate di belle speranze e di belle di bianco vestite davanti ai caffe

"Spaghetti Hoops" - March 1, 1990

It is hard to believe that for all of the different formats, and all of the excellent cinematography that we've seen, this is only the second episode in black and white.

I love black and white, and this is gorgeous.

It is also quite dark. Everything that seems to be a comedy element (The protagonist's family, the comedy assassins) is so overwhelmed by the atmosphere, that they are not so much funny as strange. I think that one of the things that they have been discovering as the show evolves is that they don't really need to be funny anymore. I like that.


The post-climax of this episode refers to the Thames Barrier, which was sort of a plot point in GLC. I have a feeling that this was not done on purpose, but it's nice to have a little bit of continuity.

Buying the New Yorker 1996 - page 2

1996 saw the completion of the Grove Hill Tower in the Coconut Grove section of Miami. The advertisement, used to help sell all the units for opening day occupancy lists the price spread as $350,000 to $1,700,000.

A quick look at Zillow.com (disclaimer: Zillow is a beta site, and the algorithms used to price property may not accurately reflect the property's actual value or potential selling price) tells me that the "zestimate" for a condo in this spiffy high rise can range from $472,277 to $3,080,500. Zillow also tells me that of the 76 units in the building, 32 of them have yet to change hands.

It isn't hard to understand how Zillow freaks people out.

Question of the Month

"What made you think this was a good idea?"

--Bob Saget has no idea why Northwestern students are writing phone numbers on tampons and throwing them at him.

Captain Billy's Whiz Bang

Here is an article about Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, a humor magazine that was popular from the 1910s to the 1930s. "Captain Billy" was William Fawcett, a war veteran who started the magazine as a newsletter for troop morale ("whiz bang" being slang for early incendiary rockets). Troop morale is, as always, a beast of curious hungers:

The techniques of the humor are even more old-fashioned than the content. Rambling narratives that build up to an often feeble punch line and the question-answer or he-she pattern made obsolete by the New Yorker are common. The style of humor resembles that of 1880 more than that of 1980. The kind of linguistic mayhem committed by Josh Billings, Petroleum V. Nasby, Bill Nye, and other late nineteenth-century humorists is represented by anti-proverbs and mock quotations and especially by puns.

The magazine was a success, to the point where Captain Billy was able to set up a swank resort in the middle of Minnesota (the magazine was published in Minnesota, a fact still commemorated by the annual Whiz Bang Days). Unfortunately, paper shortages and the death of Captain Billy caused the flagship of the Fawcett fleet to undergo a major revamp. The title was shortened to "Whiz" and it became a superhero comic, memorializing its founder in the name of its marquee hero, Captain Marvel and his secret identity, Billy Batson.

Buying the New Yorker 1996 - Interior front cover

There are folks who believe that there is currently a renaissance in car design. Looking at the 1996 version of the Mercedes E-Class, I can sort of see what they are talking about. Heavens, what a dull car.


To start this off, I'm not sure if it will be easier to count up what the original price was or the current price is, so I'll do both:

Mercedes E-Class in 1996 - $39,900 (starting price)

1996 Mercedes E-Class in 2006 - $6,000 (average price on e-Bay)

Buying the New Yorker - Cranking it up a notch

If you take a look over at the archives for February 2006, you will notice that I spent a chunk of time figuring out how much it would cost to purchase (more or less) everything advertised in an issue of The New Yorker.

Since I did that, I have been itching to do the same thing again. The ads for lateral corduroy pants and jet-powered swimming pool treadmills have been crying out for my commentary.

But what to do? It took me ten days to get through a magazine that comes out every week. I can't keep up with every issue at that rate.

And then I realized: I have the Complete New Yorker! I can take a look at ads back to 1925! At a more leisurely pace!

The issue that I deconstructed was dated January 16, 2006. Let's go back ten years and see what we get.

More side links

I've added to my link list, some are ones that I've mentioned before, and all are ones that I have been stopping by regularly:

Booksteve's Library is run by a fellow who seems to have been accumulating interesting stuff longer than I have, and is doing a much better job at going through and commenting on it.

I've mentioned Cool Blue Shed a couple of times. He's now got a clever little album cover trivia game up. I got a 64 (out of 100) which I didn't think was too good, but "Ned the Warehouse Guy" said that I did quite well. I think "Ned the Warehouse Guy" is being charitable.

Do Copenhagen started out as a events list for the live music scene in Copenhagen and has slowly turned into a general music blog. If I had to choose one place to learn about music from, it would be here.

PCL Linkdump is not a blog. It is a collection of links. They like to make that clear from time to time. Amazing things can be found here - music, art, pop culture ephemera. Currently they are spending a lot of effort discussing what vinyl record albums smell like. It's much a more interesting topic than you would think.

I mentioned Blackwing Diaries just a little while ago.

I've just found Something Old, Nothing New very recently, but it is one of those blogs that I have to compulsively read from the first post to the present day. It is just that good. I am in awe of it.

The best of all possible Candides

Here is a page that goes into far more detail about all the different versions of Leonard Bernstein's Candide than I knew possible: maps to all the different versions, song variations, two full libretti (the 1956 original and a draft version of the 1974 redo), even Voltaire's original novel.

I've long noticed that Dorothy Parker was listed as one of the lyricists, and always wondered what bits were hers. Now I know! She wrote this bit:

Lady Frilly, Lady Silly,
Pretty Lady Willy-Nilly,
Lady Lightly, Lady Brightly,
Charming Lady Fly-by-Nightly.

My Lady Fortune found me.
What a joy to have around me
Lovely ladies, six or seven.
This is my idea of Heaven.

The Comic Strip, Part 28 - A pretty face can hide an evil mind.

"Oxford" - February 22, 1990

Somewhere, deep in the bowels of my video collection is a copy of a film called Oxford Blues. In this film, handsome young Las Vegas hustler/scholar/competitive rower Rob Lowe realizes the dream of handsome young Las Vegas hustler/scholar/competitive rowers everywhere by scamming his way into Oxford. Square-jawed culture clash hilarity ensues, and while hitting every possible cliche (apart from teaching the entire campus to do the funky chicken), Rob Lowe learns what is apparently some sort of lesson about "commitment" or "responsibility."

So, when this episode opened with plucky straight-shooting American (She claims to be from New Orleans, but sounds like New Orleans by way of Long Island and Australia) Hannah van Hoesenstratt, who wants to study Byron so much that she is out thumbing up the M40 so she can moxie her way into Oxford, I thought I knew where we were headed.

Wrong! It's a spy thriller.

I love the way this episode changes gears a third of the way into it. For all of the over the top "I refuse to let you touch a pencil" woo-ha, this is a really well made piece. In the middle of it is Lenny Henry, who as I mentioned a few episodes ago is always clearly enjoying himself (just listen to the way he delivers the line "I was sent to the KGB comedy training camp in Minsk.") but manages to be genuinely menacing.


Finally, I have to say that I also quite enjoyed how the climax all of a sudden reminded me of Tod Browning's Freaks. I don't think that it was intentional, but it was cool.

Little Johnny Damon Gets no Respect

Here's a cute little story. Apologies to all my international readers who won't understand it.

Little Johnny Damon did not know what to say. He hadn't felt so disrespected in all his life. Plus vegetables were yelling at him and it kind of freaked him out.
"Nobody cares about your plans for a Jesus beard or how women one day will think you're hot," the organic Romaine lettuce added. "You're a loser. You look like a retarded caveman and you're a loser. We spit on you."
"I don't understand what's happening," Little Johnny Damon cried. "Why do the vegetables hate me?"

vronk splat z-zwap

Here is an oddly fascinating list of the cartoony fight sound effect intertitles used in the old Batman TV show.

"Kapow" was the most popular, used in fifty different episodes (I believe that the same sound effect was never used more than once in the same episode) followed by "pow" (49 eps) "boff" (43) and "zap" (42).

Some of the lesser ones are also interesting: "awk" and "awkkkkkk" are both used four times, but "awkk," "awkkk," "awkkkk" and "awkkkkk" are never used. Likewise, "zzzzzwap" is used four times. I suspect that the images were recycled.

I also noticed that the first two episodes of the second season have a lot of pseudo old English spellings: "whack-eth," "wham-eth," "clank-est." Sure enough, it's the one where Art Carney plays a sort of Robin Hood-ish villain.