Run amok?

Well, that was fast...

Well done, Laura, and g'night everybody!

What? You want something else to amuse yourselves with?

All right:

1. What meta-cartoon animated short used word in question (altered slightly) in its title?

2. What television program did Harry Shearer first appear on? What famously hated character (on a different show) did he audition for?

3. What was the most famous U.S. unit that fought in the Battle of Santiago?

4. Why did Sylvester Graham espouse a vegetarian diet?

Damn, and I was going to guess "Get ketchup all over everything."

1) Duck Amuck

2) I heard this recently but forgot, and I'll say Frank Burns

3) Rough Riders

4) I should know this one, right? Damn. Bob Hope.

4) He could never catch Tweety Bird.

(Lubbly-jubbly! It was in this really cheesy book about a pirate called Mogul. Glad you had an extra quiz up yr pj's, Mr. Wombat! I'm shushing now. )

Scott's right about #1 and #3 -- Duck Amuck is the Chuck Jones cartoon where Daffy attempts to fight back against the artist (who turns out, I think, to be Bugs Bunny).

The answers to #2 may surprise you.

I'm surprised no one has yet guessed #4. Scraps?

4. He was a nutritionist, but I'm guessing his opposition to meat had pseudo-scientific overtones, e.g. it caused gout and quinsy. He invented the Graham cracker, which was supposed to be really good for you even though it didn't originally include cinnamon or chocolate.

2a. Hello Larry?
2b. Newman on Seinfeld?

2. It was some sitcom way before you imagine Harry even being alive, like Life with Father or some sort of title like that, but I'm probably getting muddled by a recent conversation with Boxjam where I learned that the current Dead Kennedy's lead singer, a Boxjam's Doodle fan, was Eddie on the Courtship of Eddie's father. and b) are you sure it isn't Frank Burns?

4) He didn't love animals, he hated plants.

This is too crazy to even contemplate having been the reality, but I'll say 2b. JR Ewing.

And for good measure, Susan Lucci's character on All My Children. or whatever soap she's on.

He didn't audition play Mr. Freedom on A Family Affair, did he?

Man, how I hated that guy, and all his thwarting of all that is good and just in the United Nations.

I saw a 10 minutes of a dreadful Christmas remake of Family Affair in which Mr. Freedom was played by Tim Curry. He's put on about 50 lbs. since Rocky. How low the mighty have fallen.

My tangential post has spun off into space. My next transmission will be verse.

Ah, Mr. Freedom. You know, you didn't see that many non-elderly characters with beards on TV in those days.

In fact, I think TV is overdue for a show whose hero has a big ol' beard. Hackly, you shaved prematurely -- I think the moment is just about due...

Some clues about Mr. Shearer's early career --

a. His first role was on one of the most popular shows of the day.
b. The character he didn't play was not Frank Burns, but essentially the same character in a younger incarnation.

About Mr. Graham --

The graham cracker is named after him, though it first appeared years after his death, marketed more or less to be in line with his principles of healthy eating. But the principle behind his whole-grain vegetarianism was not, as Scott has supposed, a hatred of plants. It was something else.

Ode to a Famous Marsupial
Silent swims the wombat
Toward the setting moon
Ripples mark his path and fade
No sign of him at noon

Quiet swings the wombat
Hammocked midst the boughs
Crickets tune a lullaby
His mind sweet dreams to house

Swiftly runs the wombat
Beat of paws and breath
Music on the dusty soil
Earthly shibboleth

4. To improve one's sex life?

Sara, if by “improve” you mean “squelch” then you’re exactly right. Graham believed that the endless rage of lust’s fever was a debilitating scourge, to be countered with a de-libidinous vegetative diet. Whole grains, in his view, would lead to a chaste lifestyle.

Re Jonathan’s poem: “The Earthly Shibboleth” is what I now wish I’d named this weblog. Nice.

Yes, I always mean "squelch" when I type "improve" on the 4th Friday of the month. Guess I'll go eat some refined flour products now.

I don't know fuckall about vegetarianism, Bill. Meat for me at every meal.

"Duck Amuck", besides being a Chuck Jones cartoon, was written by the brilliant Michael Maltese, whose contribution to many of the greatest Chuck Jones cartoons should go unmentioned.

Er, except when we're being fair, in which case his contributions shouldn't go unmentioned.

Scraps, do you know if he was the author of the line, "Monsters are the most IN-teresting people..." (from the one where Bugs is captured by a mad scientist who lives in a castle with a neon sign that flashes "MAD SCIENTIST...BOO"?

If he did, he is my own personal hero.

2a. All in the Family?

I'm not sure, because the first cartoon with Rudolph (the big orange monster), Hair-Raising Hare, was written by Tedd Pierce -- who is also terrific, Maltese and Pierce were Jones's two main writers -- but the second "interseting monster" cartoon, Water, Water Every Hare was written by Maltese. I don't remember which is which, at this point, except that Hair-Raising Hare is the one where Bugs is lured by the mechanical female rabbit.

2b Eddie Haskell?

(I really like the JR Ewing idea, though)

Stupid closed ital tag typo. It makes a neat effect, though, doesn't it? Like those bad nineteenth century suspense stories that end with a terrible twist. "The face was the face of Minky, the cat, but the whiskers were the whiskers of Colonel Claude Compbyne."

You're fast on the tag there, Scraps -- beating mine on the preview.

For some reason, I think it' "Hair-Raising Hare" -- the title just sounds familiar, and I think the robot was in the mad-scientist one.

Eddie Haskell it was! According to Shearer, though, although he'd done a lot of small roles by that point, his parents thought that his moving from an occasional actor to having a role on a series would be too much time away from school.

As for the answer to 2a: His earliest appearance was on the Jack Benny Show.

They're both mad scientist cartoons. And they both have manicure scenes in them, even.

Ah, it was Hair-Raising Hare, so therefore written by Tedd Pierce, according to this Salon piece, which incidentally argues, a bit fiercely, that Jones's reputation is grossly inflated.

Quite a demo job in that Salon piece there.

But I do think, with regard to "What's Opera, Doc?" that the writer has a point -- the cartoon is more famous than hilarious. I've always thought that the similar territory covered by "The Rabbit of Seville" far more memorable, fast-paced and laugh-filled.

The writer has a few good points, I think; Jones does have a weakness for slow stuff, he has behaved badly toward Clampett (who was great), and his career went through a protracted decline which people mostly ignored because he was beloved. He also got pretty curmudgeonly in his genial way; for example, he was dismissive abd disdainful of Animaniacs in a way that was disappointing to me, since they were doing (in my opinion) such a fine job of reviving the virtues of classical WB animation and could have used the validation from the elder statesman.

About the only thing I think the writer gets really wrong is underestimating Jones's contribution to the development of the characters. It's true he wasn't an innovator. But while the writer is giving ones credit for making a decade of masterful cartoons, he might notice that Daffy Duck, for example, reached his maturity as a great comic character in Jones's hands.

2b. Sergeant Carter.

On behalf of the vegan community, I'd just like to say that I'm feeling quite randy today.

(Hmmm. . . maybe that isn't actually soy jerky my wife insists I eat with every meal.)

Off-off topic: I'm usually embarassed by the new laws coming from my home state (commonwealth, actually), but I'm pretty happy about this one:

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/30/technology/30SPAM.html

Felonies for all y'all spammers in Virginia!