Hola, Sneakers! Welcome to the podcast that haunts itself!
This week: here on the eerie; over the covers; that shit is bananas; this blood’s for you; plugged in; Rocky Horror Picture Show time; midnight runs; digging El Topo; scaredy cartoons; name that cat; Porky’s plod; monkeying around; super animation studios; how-to win the war; rotoscope it out; bugging out on Mr. Bug Goes to Town; the giant cheque is in the mail; it’s a bug’s life; Honey trap; preying mantis; insects change; a decisive nope; breaking out all over; nun of it; those nutsy Nazis; Cabaret; Reveille-tion; dancing school; eyes of the world; gay parries; lip service; elusive butterfly; Dave goes to Sleepaway Camp; cookin’ hawk; short shorts; boiling mad; oh, bee hive; penis reveal; sequel bites; what in Avatar nation!; sentimental journey; sufferin’ suffragettes; foyer of fear; love for Love; Yes and…; unrelenting horror; blank check; hot for …Heat…; double talk; mall talk; and, finally, in praise of older women.
Question of the Week: What is a cartoon that scared you as a kid?
Sub-question of the Week: Who’s your favourite sibling?
Deportment of Corrections:
The Wiki plot description was a little unclear, but it turns out the songwriter in Mr. Bug Goes to Town was a human character. We still stand by all our other criticisms of a film we haven’t seen!
Thanks for listening.
You can watch Mr. Bug Goes to Town right here:
This is all the Sleepaway Camp you’ll ever need to see:
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
I’d have to say that I’m much closer to my sister than to my two brothers…since they presently reside in America. Our three-woman household is like something out of a Jane Austen novel, if Mrs. Bates in “Emma” had two spinster daughters instead of just the one Miss Bates. My sister does a lot of the grocery shopping and cooking and I handle the DYI home maintenance. Today I replaced a faulty toilet fill valve and am now filled with the glow of achievement.
As a kid, a scary scene in a cartoon for me was in “Horton Hears a Who” (1970). It’s the part where the Wickersham Brothers tie up Horton and put him in a cage. Then they chant “Boil that dust speck!” as they are about to drop the clover with the speck that the Whos live on into a cauldron of boiling beezlenut oil. I re-watched the cartoon this week to see if it was as scary as I remembered. Nope, it wasn’t. It was WORSE! Because now I know it was an allegory for real world ignorance and intolerance. There’s a song the Wickersham Brothers sing to Horton – here are some of the lyrics which sound eerily familiar to current right-wing rhetoric.
We’re the Wickersham brothers. We’re onto your plot,
Pretending you’re talking to Whos who are not.
It’s a deep, dire, evil political plot,
Pretending you’re talking to Whos who are not.
We’re the Wickersham brothers. We’re vigilant spotters.
Hot shot spotters of rotters and plotters.
And we’re going to save our sons and our daughters from you.
You’re a dastardly, ghastardly, shnastardly schnook,
Trying to brainwash our brains with this gobbledygook.
We know what you’re up to, pal.
You’re trying to shatter our morale.
You’re trying to stir up discontent
And seize the reins of government.
You’re trying to throw sand in our eyes.
You’re trying to kill free enterprise
And raise the cost of figs and dates
And wreck our compound interest rates.
And shut our schools, and steal our jewels,
And even change our football rules;
I thought that last line was a little silly. Then two days ago, I read that a certain president-elect posted that the NFL should get rid of its new kick-off rule. Wow, Dr. Seuss called it. But re-watching the cartoon was worth it. His story ends with a hopeful message about banding together and making your voices be heard even if you’re little. After all, “A person’s a person no matter how small.”
The first cartoon that came to mind was The Looney Tunes Daffy Duck classic, “The Great Piggy Bank Robbery” from 1946!! I distinctly remember the character Neon Noodle from this cartoon. I’m sure you guys remember this one, it’s a take off of Dick Tracy and all his crazy villains only it’s Daffy Duck as “Duck Tracy” going after some really crazy over the top crooks. It’s the painted frames showing the villains in dramatic detail that scared me, almost like they were lit from below as they chased Daffy through their hideout. Daffy screams all their names as they go through this horrific rogues gallery of adversaries and I’ll never forget Neon Noodle. That’s how I found the cartoon was by Googling “Neon Noodle” who scared the shit out of me as a kid.
I also found the cartoon online to watch if you aren’t as frightened of it as I was:
https://www.b98.tv/video/great-piggy-bank-robbery/
Favorite sibling? That’s easy because I only have one brother. Even though I’m seven years older than my brother, we’re pretty close and share many of the same interests. I may have mentioned in the past that my brother is legally blind, so if I’m not keeping up with him with a phone call, I’ll drive out to see him quite frequently, about 40 minutes away in Denton, Texas.
I have a Star Trek Con to go to this weekend and it’s literally 10 minutes away from my house…
I haven’t been to a Star Trek Convention in ages, so I’m looking forward to just attending with the hopes of meeting Anson Mount and Ethan Peck.
Wish me luck!
Live Long and Prosper all my fellow Sneakers out in the Final Frontier!!
(How was that Louise?)
I’ve never cheered harder than while listening to Dave recap Sleepaway Camp. I saw the movie a few months ago, on tubi maybe, and it was very bad. I don’t think I hated it as much as Dave but while watching it I couldn’t stop laughing at the death by bee scene.