Other Things
Featuring things that do not fit anywhere else!

Real Fruit

"Family entertainment" can mean many different things. Traditionally, it might suggest films featuring cartoon animals who sing chirpy songs while constructing a ball gown out of mud, straw and happy bluebird saliva. Or perhaps taking the family to a restaurant that offers nearly-congealed pizza served up by large rodents wearing colorful shirts (in a losing battle to make them look less terrifying.)

But a growing number of families are giving their entertainment time over to an intense elderly gentleman who goes by the unlikely name of "The Juiceman." (Understand that by "growing number" I mean my family and perhaps The Juiceman's cousin, Terry "Skeeter" Juiceman. So to clarify, "growing number" is, like, five people.)

Should you happen across his infomercial for The Juiceman juicer, the first thing you'll notice about him is that he's insane. Friendly insane, to be sure. You sense immediately that he would never attack you with a hoe, sputtering and shrieking about being chased by "those little men with their sharp toes!" or anything like that. His craziness is kid appropriate. He tends to stop short of foaming at the mouth as he rambles on about how a big glass of turnip and parsley juice can revitalize your "one hundred trillion cells" (a term he manages to wedge into his harangue just shy of a hundred trillion times.)

Often, while, say, stressing the health benefits of parsnip skin, he makes emphatic yet incomprehensible gestures with his hands, as though he's adjusting the steam settings on a vintage locomotive, or checking the thread count on some sheets. Perhaps it's the novelty of it--we discourage rants about beet juice accompanied by psychotic hand motions in my house--but to my children, that is high hilarity.

Just behind his stark insanity, the next most striking thing about The Juiceman is his incomprehensibly huge, bushy eyebrows! They look like mini versions of Ted Kennedy's hair glued to his forehead. What with his athletic clothing and those wing-like, gray brows, he could be Gandalf's black sheep brother, who eschewed the family wizard business and became a decathlete. (Children, in my experience, love odd, renegade wizard-men in sweat suits.)

The strong advantage the Juiceman infomercial has over so many other entertainment options is that it's free, provided you don't feel compelled to buy the juicer. (Rest easy, for your natural fear of parsley-based beverages will guard against any danger of that.) Plus, unlike the Fox network, where, during the football games my boys and I watch, there are dozens of beer commercials featuring thin, grubby twenty year olds rubbing against each other in dingy bars, Juiceman commercials feature only other, smaller commercials for the Juiceman juicer. (I guess they're trying to catch unawares those people who didn't know they were watching a long commercial: "Hey, look at this, honey! They're selling the very same juicer that nutty guy in the workout suit was just talking about on the juicer show!)

Getting the family together to watch Juiceman infomercials shouldn't replace other family activities, like going outside, or hugging each other. But given that it's free of strong language and violence, save that done to cantaloupes (and who doesn't want a see a lousy stinking cantaloupe get what it deserves?), it's the one of the best things going for my family and our, let's see, four hundred trillion cells.

ARIGATO, BUT NO ARIGATO

Who makes the best giant clam stomach omelet in the world? Iron Chef, the oddest show since H.R. Pufnstuf, attempts to settle just that.

This is the premise of the show as I understand it: An eccentric millionaire named Kaga, who reminds one strongly of the devil, only gayer, has captured a small gaggle of Japan's greatest chefs and is holding them in his castle. Dressed like a cheap showgirl, Kaga referees cooking battles between his chefs and other great chefs of the world--though when I say "the world," I mostly mean Japan.

Why, is the question that immediately comes to mind? I don't know. His motivation is unclear, though I suspect it is pretty unsavory at heart. There's no good reason I can think of for a man to dress in sequined black satin suits with high collars and have chefs perform cooking contests for him. I'm from the Midwest, where, if someone tries to pull something like that, arrests are made, and long jail terms given. And the judge will more than likely add a stern speech on the dangers of dressing in shiny body suits of any kind.

A typical show goes something like this: Once the Iron Chef and the challenger have been announced, Kaga, looking fetching—in a Satan-y kind of way—reveals the ingredient for the contest. With a flourish, he pulls a silk cloth off a pile of something squirmy and says "Sea Urchin Roe!" or "Black Pig Gizzards!" or "Snapping Turtle Pancreas!" and then chef and challenger run up to the squirmy pile and begin heaping as many organs as they can onto a platter. Then they run back to their respective kitchens and begin tossing the ingredient with scallions and fermented shrimp eyes.

While this is happening, an unseen commentator speculates on how the battle is going, saying things like, "Iron Chef Morimoto appears to be adding jellied cuttlefish to the stingray chowder." Then, the oddest thing about the show, another unseen voice will cut in, saying, "Squeeze On?" When first I heard that, I assumed he had mistaken his co-worker for an obscure brand of mustard, or perhaps a squeezable margarine. (I have been told that it is a quick pronunciation of the commentator's name, "Fukui-san," but to me that sounds about as plausible as saying that "Uncle Mustard Hat" is a just a quick pronunciation of "Robert H. Walton.")

The four judges for the competition also throw in their comments. They say ostensibly helpful things like, "Oh, I am looking forward to eating those crispy cod fins." But their voices are dubbed from Japanese in such a way that they sound as though they've died, been buried in the Pet Semetary and horribly reanimated. After the judging, Kaga theatrically announces the winner, and right there is another of the show's quirks. The challenger never, ever wins. Week after week, some anonymous dope comes on, sweats his tail off in the kitchen, is judged harshly, loses and goes home, smelling strongly of fish innards. Why would anyone go on the show, unless it was court ordered?

Yes, to watch Iron Chef is to inhabit a strange world, something like a nightmare with recipes. If you are unable to see it in your area, you can get close to the experience by eating a bad oyster and slipping into a fever dream.

Don't Go Congo.

It seems nowadays that you can't swing a dead marmoset without hitting a monkey conservationist. But as the powerful monkey lobby grows more powerful, who's speaking out against their full out assault on our cinema? Former 5-time world champion figure skater Dick Button, that's who. No, wait, Michael J. Nelson is, that's who. (Don't know where the Dick Button thing came from, sorry.)

CONGO 1995, Paramount Home Video

PERSONNEL: Joe Don Baker, Tim Curry, Laura Linney, and Dylan Walsh as the bland, floppy-haired guy.

BRAND of MONKEY: Both regular, and Extra-Intelligent Killer Ape.

SYNOPSIS: A businessman sends a scientist to the Congo. She almost doesn't get there!

BAD HAIR: Joe Don Baker's back hair. No, it's not visible in the film, but you know it's there and you can't stop thinking about it.

WHAT'S FUN ABOUT IT?: You have to wade through some film to get to it, but there's lots and lots of flaming monkeys! And there's Joe Don Baker, wielding his face like a large, slightly expressive underdone pork roast.

REVIEW: Until I saw this film, the only thing I knew about the Congo was what I learned from the Billy Joel song, "We Didn't Start the Fire." Apparently, according to Mr. Joel, there were "Belgians in the Congo." When they were there and why remains a mystery, as he did not elaborate. But I now know that, in addition to Belgians, Ernie Hudson was in the Congo. Granted, it doesn't significantly contribute to my education, but it's more than is offered by, say, Billy Joel's other song, Pressure, which doesn't teach diddly about the Congo.

The movie opens as an expedition of scientist guys are scaling Mt. Mukenko in search of some sort of rare Congolese mineral they plan to use in the construction of lasers. They are killed and mutilated, which turns out to be kind of a waste, seeing as lasers already existed and not one of them was built out rare Congolese minerals. I can only imagine that once the scientific review board had finished dissecting the mission, they dished out some pretty stern reprimands:

"Dr. Bremer, in the future, if we're going to go to tremendous expense to equip, train and send members of our staff on dangerous expeditions to unstable countries, can we please make sure we're working on things that haven't already been invented?!"

"Of course, sir. I'll see to it personally. Now about our mission down the Nile to find parts for our new 'Clothespin Project" --

"See, that's what I'm talking about!" Anyway, cut to a research center where Dylan Walsh, an actor who reminds me of a listless version of "The Greatest American Hero," reveals that, using sign language and motion capture equipment, he has taught a monkey to talk. The fact that the monkey says things like "Grape has want wheel tomato hold," hasn't discouraged him in the least. He is somewhat discouraged though, and who wouldn't be, when Tim Curry immediately shows up sounding like an Eastern European version of the Frito Bandito.

Curry introduces himself as a Romanian philanthropist and offers to fly Walsh and his monkey -- a dependable, if not altogether flashy ape named Amy -- to the Congo to help curb Amy's nightmares and also to get her to tell them what the other monkeys are thinking (no kidding!).

This is a seriously stupid idea, of course, for as soon as you teach all the monkeys to talk, what's the very first thing they're going to do? That's right, they're going to cordon off great swaths of the planet and label them Forbidden Zones; they'll start wearing strange leather ponchos and comb their hair like Paul Williams; they'll build completely impractical white, blobby houses in a depressing Sixties Foam Home style. Once they've got that set up, they'll start netting us like snipe, and they'll shoot me in the throat and I'll have to share quarters with Nova and - hang on. Maybe this isn't such a bad deal after all.

They do fly to Zaire and on the flight out, Amy orders Walsh to make her a martini. The sensible response is, of course, "Eat me, Cheetah. Whadd'ya, think you're Nora Charles? Make your own damn drink. Oh, I forgot - you can't, on account of your substandard brain case." But of course, Walsh does not reply sensibly, but rather dutifully mixes her a dirty Boodles Gibson, up, the puss. He's totally monkey-whipped. It's painful to watch.

Not only does the plane arrive at a distant gate, it turns out there's a violent government coup and the expedition is arrested by militants. This prompts one of Walsh's assistants to quip, "This is pure Kafka!" A very odd line, for as we all know getting captured by African militants is no more than eleven per cent Kafka, and that's being generous.

The next act of the film plays a little like an off-episode of "B.J. and the Bear." They have trouble crossing into Zaire - not unlike the one where Sheriff Lobo harasses B.J. as he tries to get out of Texas with an overloaded rig. Then their plane is shot down by shoulder-fired missiles, which is quite similar to an episode in the second season when Sheriff Lobo harasses B.J. as he tries to get out of Georgia with an overloaded rig. Beyond that, the analogy begins to wear thin.

They do make it to Zaire and while crossing a river are attacked by a vicious Hippopotamus, beautifully played by Roseanne Barr, who lost weight for the role. When they come to a crossroads, they rely not on their maps, but instead follow Amy. Clearly they forget their history, for in 1858, on a hunch, Sir Richard Burton followed a gray-cheeked mangabey around for some time, thinking maybe it knew the source of the Nile. Sadly, it didn't, and consequently the great man wasted six months climbing through dense forest eating fleshy fruits and arthropods.

As it turns out, the Romanian philanthropist has ulterior motives for providing transportation to talking apes: he's actually looking for the lost city of Zinj, the site of King Solomon's legendary diamond mine. I hope this doesn't sound unduly prejudiced, but isn't that just typical of Romanian philanthropists? Not a one of them has followed through with his philanthropy before he's trotting off to Zaire in search of the lost city of Zinj.

The problem with the lost city of Zinj, as they soon find out, is that it's guarded by hundreds of evil white monkeys who murder and mutilate, beating and tearing apart any human who comes near the diamond mine. I suspect that all monkeys have this kind of hidden rage. Who knows, perhaps it's because they shot one of their own into space and NASA rushed in to take credit. Maybe it's the humiliation they suffered having to watch a diapered J. Fred Muggs sucking up to that idiot Dave Garroway. All I know is that after seeing Congo, I just can't be around monkeys anymore. Pinky, Professor Bubbles, Mr. Stripey, I'm sorry. It's nothing personal.

Back to the plot: realizing they didn't have one, the filmmakers conveniently placed the diamond mine atop an active volcano. That way, just as the film was petering out, they could explode the volcano and end the movie. The film peters out. The volcano explodes. But this is where it gets good: they linger a bit as hundreds of evil white monkeys get buried in lava, many of them bursting into flames as they leap through the air! (Thank goodness they're evil. It wouldn't be nearly as enjoyable if they were cute, cigar smoking, roller-skating monkeys bursting into flame and jumping into pools of lava.)

DVD EXTRAS: Nothing. Not a single "Making of the Evil Flaming Monkeys" featurette. No "Joe Don Baker Discusses Catering Trucks." Nothing.

INSTINCT 1999, Touchstone Home Video

PERSONNEL: Sir Anthony Hopkins, Donald Sutherland, Cuba not-very-Gooding, Jr.

BRAND of MONKEY: Saint-like gorillas.

SYNOPSIS: A scientist goes ape. An ambitious psychiatrist, played by Cuba Gooding, Jr. says to his boss, "Show me the nut case."

BAD HAIR: Anthony Hopkins's long, wispy gray wig makes him look like a member of the current touring version of Jethro Tull.

WHAT'S FUN ABOUT IT?: It's very entertaining to watch a Knight Grand Cross of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire crawl into the bush, forsake showers and agree to a diet of nits, tender bark and assorted mosses in order to live among some pretty listless gorillas.

SPECIAL BONUS: Donald Sutherland, for those still tormented by that moment in Animal House, does not remove his pants at any time during the film!

REVIEW: The film opens as Anthony Hopkins is being transferred from his prison cell in Rwanda where he was serving long hard time for having starred in Bad Company. Rwandans don't like it any more than we do when people show such utter contempt for their fellow man that they participate in Jerry Bruckheimer films directed by Joel Schumacher. It's a wonder, and something of a disappointment, that they didn't behead him.

When he returns to America, he goes berserk at the airport, beating up guards and pushing over his fellow travelers. Now, here I can't fault him. He probably got the middle seat in coach, not even in an exit row. I'm almost certain they didn't have his meal choice. Some kid was probably kicking the back of his seat, the businessmen on either side of him undoubtedly staked out both arm rests, reaching for their Maxim magazines with their non-armrest hands so as not to lose position. And if it was one of those older Airbuses and he was sitting over the engines, he likely suffered severe upper-range hearing damage before he'd even ripped open his lousy, bone-dry pretzels (a sad substitute for his beloved peanuts, yes, but apparently, one day in the mid-90s when we weren't paying attention, some idiot declared atomized peanut dust to be the most toxic substance on the face of the earth). I say, hey, beat on all the guards you want - you've earned it, my friend.

Once they subdue the grumpy traveler, they bring him to the Harmony Bay Maximum Security Prison for the Criminally Insane, a name that starts with a lot of promise, but turns ugly pretty quickly. It seems Sir Anthony had killed a couple of Rwandan park rangers and after his arrest had stopped speaking for two years. No one knows why. (I suspected he was just being petulant: "If you're gonna be all arresting me for killing a couple of stupid butt park rangers, then fine, I just won't talk anymore.")

Cuba Gooding, Jr. begs to be assigned to the case, admitting to Donald Sutherland that he wants to get a book deal out of it, and plans to call it either Chicken Soup for the Guy Who Kills Rwandan Park Rangers Soul or The Complete Idiot's Guide to Counseling the Ape-shit. Their sessions get off to a rocky start when Hopkins tries to stab Cuba (the actor, not the Communist dictatorship) in the hand. As a psychiatrist, however, Cuba has faced countless pencil attacks - often at the moment he presents his bill! (Thank you. I brought in guest writer Shecky Greene just for that line.)

Cuba goes to talk to Hopkins' daughter, played by a perpetually downcast Maura Tierney, whose gloom may be justified seeing as her father apparently left his family to go have an affair with a silverback. Armed with the knowledge that Sir Anthony is some sort of freakish ur-gorilla, Cuba goes back for another try. Again, Hopkins tries to stab Cuba with a pencil, which is either a clever metaphor or a plot point they forgot they already did. Sir Anthony is issued crayons and they start over.

We fade into a vision of Rwanda and see Hopkins cozying up to the gorillas, at one point saying, "I wondered, did the apes think of me when I was gone." Um, I can answer that. No. They're apes, you moron! After you left, probably the only thinking that went on was, "Should I fling my stool with my left or right paw? Let's make it right, and I'll see if I can hit that funny green bird."

Hopkins abandons his camp altogether and begins to sleep with the monkeys, which would at first blush seem to violate the Prime Directive. He tells Gooding, Jr. that for the first time in his life he felt peace, kinship and harmony while hanging around with the smelly knuckle-draggers.

Hopkins lays it on really thick in an attempt to convince Cuba that apes are divine saint-like beings, and that even the best human is a piece of contemptible filth in comparison. Then when Cuba says something he doesn't like, Hopkins beats and strangles him - a lesson he must have learned from his beloved and peaceful monkey teachers. Yes, he duct-tapes Gooding's mouth shut, threatening and tormenting him mercilessly, in the manner of his tranquil forest friends.

In an attempt to break through with Hopkins, Cuba brings him to the zoo and puts him in the gorilla cage. It should be pointed out that this has not yet been endorsed by the American Psyciatric Association, who still recommend at least a week living with flying squirrels before moving on to anteaters, and if there's progress, a couple of therapeutic months with the dik-diks.

The stay in the monkey cage works. Hopkins is ready to really talk, having now absorbed the deep wisdom of the zoo apes, not to mention their odor and, regrettably, at least some portion of their urine. In flashback, we see the park ranger descend upon the apes and begin shooting indiscriminately. The reason for their behavior is shocking. Or at least I imagine it must be, though the movie never gives any hint as to what that reason might be. The upshot is that they kill his gorilla mates, so he does the moral ape thing and beats two park rangers to death with his bare hands.

Cuba is moved by his touching story of benevolent murder and helps to get him a new trial. Unfortunately, on the day it is scheduled, Hopkins beat a guard nearly to death, making it a touch more difficult for his defense attorney to claim that his beating to death days are over. Hopkins remains behind bars like, yes, you guessed it, an ape. Or perhaps like a deeply evil man who beats others to death - I wasn't sure which message I was supposed to take away from it.

EXTRAS: A commentary track featuring all the gorillas, moderated by Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp. Mostly you just hear breathing, an occasional "Oo oo, ah ah," some bananas being masticated noisily, then some screaming, a commotion, then about an hour of wet scraping sounds that make it clear one of the group is licking the microphone and sticking it in his ear. (I'm joking, of course, there are no extras, unless you count a trailer and a half-hearted recommendation claiming that if people like Instinct they'll love The Rock. True as that may be, it's not all that helpful.)

Alarming Hat News!

In the aftermath of my post pointing out the many stupid hats for sale, quite legally, on the internet, I anticipated a sharp downturn in availability once their true horror had been exposed to the light of day. On the contrary, hat abominations have only increased in number. I swear to you, the headgear pictured below is real. The people modelling them have not, to the best of knowledge, been coerced in any way. May God have mercy on their souls.

The hat is called a "tweed trucker." The guy is called "that creepy guy in the tweed trucker hat who keeps cornering me and asking if I want to come to his place to watch 'Lost' and have some tacos."	"Yes, that's a Communist star you see on my beret. Look, I'm a dead center baby-boomer—it was either the commie hat/faux-Beat glasses combo...or a ponytail."
A description of this item claims this "straw ballcap is made by hand in a village in northern Vietnam." Well, lots of stupid things are made by hand in small Vietnamese villages. That doesn't mean we have to place them on our heads and walk around where people can see them.
Oh...oh, no. Please, no. Please tell me this is some kind of horrible, yet completely understandable mistake. Someone intercepted an email you sent to your girlfriend, mocking her by wearing the really stupid hat she bought at a flea market, right? That's it, isn't it? You're not wearing that for you? Please!?	I believe I can explain this one: that's wrestler and former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura. Sadly, this photo is not from his wrestling days, it's from his 1999 trade mission to Japan.
"...So like I was saying, I got to get going 'cause I'm the administrator for a 'Firefly' bulletin board—you should drop by sometime. I'll give you the URL. We're a really friendly community, very welcoming. Man, can you even believe they cancelled that show? It's like, hello, Joss Whedon is only the greatest genius working in scripted television today, so, like, let's give him free reign to create the best show since 'Quantum Leap' and then pull the rug out from under him when the going gets tough and—what's that? My hat? Yeah, it's pretty sick, isn't it? Hey, where are you going? I need to give you the guest password for the chatroom or you won't be able to post comments! Or you can lurk for a while before posting—don't leave! I'm so lonely!"

Mike Breaks His Silence on Dr. Doolittle 2!
An in-depth look at one of the hottest films of the 3rd week of June, 2001.

PERSONNEL: Jeffrey Jones, Raven-Symone, Kristen Wilson, Eddie Murphy (the filthy-mouthed comedian, not the hard-throwing right fielder for the 1914 Philadelphia Athletics)

BRAND OF MONKEY: Brief appearances by orangutan, chimpanzee. However, the minor role by a French-speaking lush of a monkey wearing a beret and a red and white-striped boat-neck shirt is one of the two or three most horrifying things I have ever witnessed. Truly, I tremble as I write this. As time passes, the nightmares only intensify. There is no balm in Gilead. I feel my soul fading...fading...

SYNOPSIS: A veterinarian has the power to hear animals talking to him, giving him something in common with Son of Sam.

BAD HAIR: There is an extended discussion of a bear eating his own hair in order to form a - forgive me - plug in his digestive system. That, I think you'll agree, is bad hair.

WHAT'S FUN ABOUT IT?: The animals are mostly amusing and it can be kind of fun to go faint with fear upon seeing the aforementioned monkey. Beyond that, the trauma it induces will most certainly spur you into a deeper examination of your own faith, which, if not exactly "fun," does have its own appeal.

REVIEW: I'll begin my review presently, but first. Ahem. AGGGHHHH!! AGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!! HE'S WEARING A BERET! GET IT AWAY FROM ME!!! AGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH! HELP! AGGGGHHHHH!! IT'S THE DEVIL IN THE FORM OF A MONKEY!! HE'S AFTER ME!! HEEEELLLLLLLPPPPPPPP!

Okay, then.

As the film opens, Murphy is visited by a kind of Goodfella possum who brings him an offer he can't refuse. (Don't think for a moment that the offer was for Murphy to star in a real, grown-up movie - that probably won't happen again in my lifetime.) He demands that Murphy pay a visit with "the Godbeaver," (as in The Godfather, not The Uncaused Cause) who needs his help to stop a lumber broker from cutting down the forest, displacing a few grubby animals and needlessly providing building materials for thousands of human beings. Bravely, Murphy agrees to obstruct the man's right to earn a living and with any luck, throw thousands of carpenters out of work to boot.

A single endangered female Pacific Western bear named Ava makes her home in the forest, so all Murphy has to do is find her a mate and the law demands that no one touch a single tree. (This is just another example of America's longstanding bigotry against single-by-choice bears, a small but increasingly vocal group. Says Smokey: "This is bullshit, man. I'm single 'cause I feel I'm doin' what's best for Smokey. I've got my forestry work, which puts a lot of demands on me. I just don't have time for marriage, but all my friends say, 'Oh, you just haven't found the right she-grizzly.' Well, some of us are going to raise our voices until this law is changed! Only you... can contribute generously to our campaign.")

Murphy sets off to find another Pacific Western bear who wouldn't mind getting himself some sweet Pacific bear loving. With surprisingly little searching, Murphy does indeed find a willing partner in the form of a singing, dancing circus bear named Archie. I had kind of figured that performing bears went out years ago, say 1665, right as the plague was sweeping through London and it was difficult to get a good crowd to your bear show. But no, bear shows are apparently thriving, since Murphy found one within six driving minutes of his home in downtown San Francisco. I've no doubt that if he'd also needed an accomplished Scaramuccia, he could have found a vibrant, commercially successful Commedia del Arte troupe right in Union Square.

He brings the bear into the forest to meet Ava and though he is smitten, she thinks he's a geek, no doubt because she suspects he juggles. Now, in order to convince the she-bear that Archie is matrimonial timber, he must show her that he's ready to be "wild." This could have been taken care of rather quickly if Archie had simply turned on Murphy, mauled him, consumed a portion of him, then buried the rest for later. (The audience would have cheered as well.) But instead they begin working on him Eliza Doolittle style (no relation).

Unlike Eliza Doolittle, however, converting Archie to a wild bear involves a lot, I mean a lot, of talk about his bowel movements. Now, I enjoy poop talk as much as the next guy (which I assume is not at all) but when the bear eats too much ice cream, starts to suffer extreme gastric distress and says about a restaurant toilet, "It's not gonna be big enough!" well, I start to regret my last meal. And when Murphy himself says, "I have to give my sphincter a little pep talk," I begin to regret that I ever ate anything, ever. Later, when Murphy describes in nearly subatomic detail how the bear has to eat hair and moss to plug up his, um, digestive system, I begin to wonder if I'll stop vomiting during the current administration or sometime in the middle of the next.

Archie the Pooping Bear finally wins over Ava with his lovable scatology and just when you think there'll be a happy ending, everyone begins pooping. I'm kidding, actually the lumber baron tranquilizes Archie and frames him on a breaking and entering charge with aggravated pooping. Murphy rallies the rest of the animals and they go on strike, cows refusing to give milk, chickens throwing their eggs at the farmers and, yes, birds pooping all over the bad guys! (I knew I wouldn't have to wait long for waste products!)

The bad guys relent and agree to negotiate, but during the proceedings, the raccoon pees on the contract. A pretty weak response, really, when he had at his hand the option to lay out a big old raccoon... I think you know where I'm going with this one. It seems like the movie really lost its nerve. But in the end, they get their way, and the animals celebrate by singing and dancing to Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive," an overly optimistic song for them to choose given the sheer amount of predators, leg traps, barbed snares, committed hunters, and chronic wasting diseases there are out there in the wild.

EXTRAS: So you say you want lots and lots of Dr. Doolittle 2 extras!? Well, this is your lucky - what's that? You actually want Dr. Doolittle 2 extras eradicated from the earth? Oh, well, then this isn't your lucky day, because there's kind of a lot of them on this DVD. There's an overly long "making of" in which Murphy tells us again and again how brilliant he is. And there are a number of extended scenes, which I would think you'd have to have severe head trauma to enjoy. There's "A Kid's Guide to Grizzlies," in which a wan middle-aged guy dispenses fairly dry bear information. If your children happen to enjoy Louis Rukeyser, then they'll probably go for this, too. The most entertaining portion of the whole disk is a commercial for canned salmon. There's a lesson there: if you're going to go to the trouble of shooting a comedy, take care to make it more entertaining than a commercial for canned salmon.

HarperCollins New Censorship Department Off to Exciting Start!

Thrilled by the success of their first major foray into censored books, HarperCollins has announced that it is launching a new line of harm-free censored images. Michaeljnelson.com was able to get hold of some of the early working sketches for this exciting new project!

Ready, or Not?

Hank Williams Jr. seems so earnest and enthusiastic, as though he really wants all my rowdy friends to come over tonight, after, and only after, I get ready for some football. But because I live in stoic Minnesota, it's tough for me to even find rowdy friends. Oh, on a good day, I suppose my friend Tom qualifies as rowdy; one time his ripple chip fell into his Mr. Pibb and he fished it out and ate it anyway. Tom's insane! The rest of my friends are far more cautious and staid.

And it's tough to even fake rowdiness when your team stinks. This year, the Vikings have so far played not so much like Vikings as they have, say, Minoans. Nothing against the Minoans: I'm sure they had a fine civilization, as ancient civilizations go. It's just that they're not renowned for their fierceness. Great clay pots. Just kind of a wimpy people.

So what can you do? Not getting ready for some football just isn't an option. I can't imagine how hurt Hank, Jr. would be if I had to lie and say, "I'm sorry, Mister Williams Junior. Maybe it's the weather, or maybe I'm just logy from eating that big brunch--but I'm really not ready for some football." His large brimmed hat would sag with disappointment.

Fortunately, there are plenty of ways fans with losing teams can get ready for some football, and encourage their rowdy friends to come over and prepare themselves for some as well! To start, try getting everyone ready for some foosball. It's a very similar game, except in football the men are larger and have arms, but otherwise it's hard to tell them apart. Foosball is a good warm-up, because it's about 1/18th scale, so it takes eighteen times less effort to get ready for it.

You might also try warming up your guests by hiring a clown. But instead of a traditional orange-haired happy clown named Coco or Tinkles, hire one of those sad European clowns with the tattered clothes and the three-day growth. Five minutes of his European sad-clownery and your guests will be ready for anything else, you name it: knitting, Adam Sandler movies, painting your house. Even if your team racks up negative yards and loses triple digits to nothing, everyone will prefer that to watching Shambles pretend to eat his own shoe.

Getting people rowdy is relatively easy. The most obvious ploy, and one I've used dozens of times, is to repeatedly poke them in the chest while saying, "Does this bug you? Am I bugging you?" If that doesn't work, raise their taxes, or steal their Coke out of the lunchroom refrigerator. If all of this fails, you'll have to covertly slip in a videotape of an old game that your team won handily and pretend it's today's game. If anyone notices that Fred Biletnikoff is in at wide receiver and that they're showing cigarette ads--and they haven't been legal since 1971--then just point out how ridiculous the stupid sad European clown looks and go get more cheese dip as a distraction.

If you pull all this off, when Hanks asks, you and your guests can say enthusiastically and without hesitation, "Yes, we are for the most part ready for some football, I suppose."

My Real Parents

Though everything's pretty much been a blur since that vicious bombardment game back in second grade, as near as I can make out through the ringing in my head, television has had a profound influence on my life. I'm unusually susceptible to the medium and from the very beginning, I've soaked it all in too readily, until I'm like a sponge, sopping wet with The Beverly Hillbillies, Kojak, and Gilligan. (That's as disgusting an image as there's going to be in this column, I promise.)

For many, Romper Room was a calming educational program, a soothing balm. For me it was like generic menthol balm rubbed directly onto my eyeballs. I found it to be nothing more than a terrifying nightmare of unchecked romping! Dozens of preschoolers, wired to the gills from all the sugary on-set snacks, running, screaming, throwing erasers and spitballs - in short, romping to beat the band. The teacher "in charge" of all this higgledy-piggeldy romping was Miss Nancy, a woman clearly on the edge of sanity. So desperate was she to get control that she introduced something called the Do Bee, I suppose to mellow the kids out, perhaps induce "the munchies", anything to stop the horrible romping. The Do Bee advised children, "Don't be a Don't Bee-Do be a Do Bee" (Who knows how many misguided children got it wrong and tried to be a Doobie Brother, only to be beat out by keyboardist Michael McDonald, or that guitar player who looks like Animal from the Muppet show?)

One day, horribly, Miss Nancy snapped and insisted that by looking through the frame of a large busted mirror, which she called her "magic mirror" (I know, it's sad), she could "see" the children at home. I for one did not want to be seen by Miss Nancy, knowing as I did that she was very likely insane and in command of several 3-foot long bees.

When a person is scarred by early romping-related trauma, like I was, doctors generally recommend the patient stay away from shows featuring gigantic furry mascots wearing sunglasses, ties and red "Kaiser" helmets. Unfortunately, I didn't know that at the time and so I took in many hours of The Banana Splits before more damage was done. Fleegle, Droopy, Bingo and Snorky were ostensibly a rock band, and they attempted to prove it by driving around in go-carts singing "Tra la la, la la la la. Tra la la, la la la la la," 1400 times in a row until you were powerless to disagree. I suppose kids were either expected to laugh and sing along, or begin screaming "Make it stop, for the love of all that is good and decent. I appeal to you, large elephant, and you groovy lion! Stop the horrible 'Tra-la-ing' and give me back my life." Because of them, I must now avoid Chuck E. Cheese restaurants lest I leap on stage and begin viciously beating the 8-foot animatronic rat.

And I might have been okay had Lee Majors starred in a 70s TV show called simply The Man. Or had they given him what he's worth and made it The Thirty-Seven Dollar and Fifty Cent Man. Unfortunately, some government agency overpaid by more than 5.9 million for him and I ended up wasting many hours on The Six Million Dollar Man, hoping that perhaps someday I could be lucky enough to have all my limbs sawed off and replaced with noisy robotics so that I could run around in a coordinated sweat suit beating up petty criminals. When it was clear that no government agency was going to do that for me, I latched on to The Incredible Hulk, now wishing that I could turn into a gigantic, thick-tongued brute with matted green hair and torn pants. (It took a number of years, but my dream did come true, at a college St. Patrick's Day party. I crashed into a table of seniors playing quarters with glasses of Special Export that had been dyed green. I wasn't any stronger or anything, in fact I barely got out alive - but I was shirtless, green and incoherent, and, man, was my hair matted!)

Luckily, I was able to tear myself away from such fantastical shows (okay, they got cancelled), take stock of myself and get down to the business of ignoring my schoolwork while watching The Dukes of Hazzard. Given my susceptibility, if Miami Vice hadn't come along and set me right in terms of fashion - I'm wearing powder blue espadrilles as I write this - I might have ended up like Boss Hogg, donning a white suit and a ten gallon Stetson, munching on a cheap cigar. I'd look like Tom Wolfe at a rodeo, and that'd do no one any good.

I'm older now, and obviously not still so impressionable as to believe that Ross, Joey, Rachel and the gang are my actual friends; they've ignored me every time I've invited them over for tacos. And I know I can't just waltz onto the deck of the Enterprise; I have to impress Captain Scott Bakula enough to earn my way on, by defeating tribbles or beating up mascots, whatever it takes. After all, I own all those Starfleet uniforms, might was well get some use out of them.

Here, Leo, Have Some Underpants

There were, at last count, 983 television shows featuring Anglo-Saxon men in upsetting shorts teasing dangerous animals. This is fine with me, as I suspect it necessarily squeezes out more of those dating shows that follow around intensely shallow Californians.

But is the preponderance of these nature shows good for the animals? That is, does it upset the lifestyle of a reticulated python, once living in obscurity in an Indonesian cave, to suddenly be thrust into the spotlight and given such enormous fame? After his episode airs, do his reticulated friends mock him, calling him "Hollywood" and asking him if he'd like some San Pelligrino to wash down his wild boar? And does the taunting of his fellow serpents hurt his sensitive snake feelings?

I for one don't care. I've never liked reticulated pythons. I know this may sound heartless, but what has a reticulated python ever done for me? Oh, they've eaten a rat or two in their time, but I didn't ask them to do it. And if I ever do need more rats eaten, I'll ask a Springer Spaniel; a considerably cuter animal that has to date never crushed a human in its coils and swallowed him whole.

And this fact raises an important question: do these programs feature the best animals the planet has to offer? How much screen time does a vicious whip scorpion deserve as compared to a friendly, eager-to-please yak? These types of decisions should be based on merit alone, without just giving away plum roles to whatever animal is currently "hot" (Yes, I am talking about you howler monkeys.)

Take, for instance, sharks. They have hogged more screen time than perhaps any other animal but the human, and even that is debatable. But really, sharks are a one trick pony. Yes, if you're looking for a scary animal to swim straight at your camera and show some huge teeth, a shark is your man. But that's all they've got. They don't deserve any more attention, and if they complain about it, I say get the actor's unions involved. If there's any shark out there that takes issue with that, then why don't you just come to Minnesota and we'll settle the matter, huh? Yeah, that's what I thought, you cowards.

Lions, too, have been in the spotlight enough and now they seem to know it, as I've seen more than one professionally styled mane. They should be given the year off, and the males shouldn't be allowed to appear onscreen again until they agree to wear underpants.

Wildebeests, gnus and water buffaloes, I suggest, should pool their resources and elect one representative. They are, from a viewer's perspective, essentially the same animal, and it makes no difference to me which one I see getting dragged down by a big cat or swallowed by an alligator. Brand confusion among them is a reason they aren't more popular.

Finally, I'd like to make a bid for an animal that I feel is seriously underrepresented, and that's the earthworm. They have toiled under our feet for hundreds of years now, recycling our filth in the dirtiest, darkest workplace you've ever seen without even uttering a word of complaint. And our thanks? Spearing them with hooks and drowning them. Is it too much to ask to give them an hour special called Worms: Sharks of the Dirt?

The preceding first appeared in TV Guide, if you can believe it.

Just the Overpriced Pabst, Please

There is a crisis in the world of mixology, one that threatens the industry entire. Fixing it will require the whiny hectoring of an incredibly petty man. I am that man.

An illustration: Say you're, I don't know, driving to Galyans to buy a turkey call and you suddenly realize you haven't had a beer in over six and a half hours. Happily, you spot a bar across from the mall, just kitty corner from the other mall, next to yet another mall, called W.D. Funnelcakes and you pull in for a quick one. The bartender, a red-faced man of thirty, puts down his French Dip, wipes his hands on his apron, walks to where you are, swallows, points at you and says, "What can I get you, buddy?"

So far, so good. OR IS IT?

Well, yes, so far it is, I admit, and I'm sorry to have panicked you in any way. But keep in mind THINGS CAN GO TERRIBLY, HORRIBLY WRONG IN THE WINK OF AN EYE!

They haven't yet, though, so I should probably leave the all caps key alone for a time. Sorry.

Back to your visit to W.D. Funnelcakes. Your first beer behind you, you set the empty glass on the rail, summoning the publican who says, "Get you another, there, Cap'n?" Yes, he can, of course. And when you've finished that one, he's back, this time with a slightly less hearty, "Set you up again, Senator?" Round four brings, "Time for one more, Sports Fan?" and after that, "Close you out there, Skeezics?" Just to see where he's going with this, you don't close it out, and by the time you hit your fifteenth beer he's completely out of insincere nicknames and resorts to, "Grab you a brewtowski, there, Willie Horton?" If you stayed for another ten or so, you have no doubt he'd be calling you "Mr. Bubbles," "Tommy Tutone," or "Johnny Tremain."

This is no way to live. Clearly, the hurried casualization of our society was brought about with little thought given to our liquor dispensers. Reform is desperately needed. It is time saloonkeeps cease the faux chumminess and return to the urgent business of getting us slightly buzzed.

"Get you another, there, Billy Pilgrim?"

So it is in a spirit of détente that I offer this suggestion to tenders of bars everywhere, from your P.W. Bildeberger's to your Jake's Sportsmen's Saloon: I don't need you to call me anything. Bringing liquor and the occasional fried meat or vegetable item is more than enough.

Oh, if I begin to show up ten minutes after you open and I hang out through the lunch rush, stay through the afternoon, past happy hour and into the early dinner hour, and I do that for a year or so, you're probably going to need to call me something. It won't do to say, "Whoa, stay on the stool there, Buddy Love" or "Hit your head pretty hard, didn't you, Mikimoto?" And it really doesn't work to say, "That gash on your head is bleeding like crazy. Might want to apply direct pressure, Teddy Ruxpin."

Mike is fine.

For my part, I promise never to order a Daiquiri. Is it a deal, Mr. Pibb?

Stupid Hat Round-up!

Here in Minnesota, winter is fast approaching. The signs are everywhere: leaves are turning, squirrels are openly committing suicide and a frigid, bloodless hand has gripped my heart.

And winter in Minnesota means one thing: it's stupid hat season! (Well, two things, if you count sharply rising sales of Cinnamon Schnapps.) I offer here a little preview to whet your outrage and sense of alarm at the direction the human race seems to be going.

Ooohhh. This is just adorable. For about the first minute, then it starts to grate. Even a doting grandparent is likely to say, "Well, aren't you just the cutest fish I've ever seen? Isn't you? Isn't you? Okay, let's put the hat away now, Emmy. Grandma has a headache. Emmy? Emmy! Stop crying and give me that hat, NOW!"

Again, irresistible. Not very effective in the ear protecting department. Five minutes exposure on a January day and her sweet little tympanic membranes are likely to freeze and rupture. Mom, Dad, get the arthropod off her head and buy the child a Patagonia, okay?

He is pissed. And with good reason. He probably got the your-aunt-went-to-the-trouble-to-get-you-a-nice-hat-and-you-are-going-to-wear-it-to-school-mister speech. His next bus ride is going to be the worst event of his life, even if he lives to be 90 and sees several wars and a handful of divorces.

Good, sir, have you no sense of decency?! (Don't even bother answering that.) Even if he's wearing this with a multi-layered, post-modern sense of irony, it won't save him from this type of comment some 20 years hence: "Remember that guy you kind of liked, and then he came to work with that one hat?" "Shut up. I never liked him."

Ahoy, Captain Dipshit! He looks just like Russell Crowe in Master and Commander...only doughier, and with smoked glasses and a dumbass look on his face. In fact, is this Hunter S. Thompson?

Aw, haw, oui, oui, mon ami! Or, rather, wee wee -- all over that hat the first chance you get. No one is going mistake you for a jaunty boulevardier with an atelier on the rue de la Tombe Issoire. They're got you pegged as the plate/nacho guy over at the Embers on Franklin and Cedar.

Here's a trick -- try wearing that hat without eliciting the white-hot contempt of everyone you meet. See, it can't be done.

It's the Great Wizard of the West, Bill Johnson the Gray. If he is able to acquire the Mystic Seeing Stones of Armalia, he just might be able to turn his weak little soul patch into an actual beard. (Try passing a construction site wearing this hat and you face a 90 percent chance of being beaten unconscious and stuffed into a cement mixer.)

"I like the warmth of a stocking cap but, I don't know, I just feel like I don't look stupid enough. You mean I could get one with a brim? Wrap it up!" I think this guy actually came to my door one night soliciting funds for the U.S. Marijuana Party.

I was talking with my guy friends and we all agreed: we LOVE when women dress up like 14th century apothecaries. The more ear-flap the better.

Finally, someone constructed a hat out of preserved tube worms.

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