About 20 years ago PBS showed a filmed version of Jean Shepherd's antic short memoir Ollie Hopnoodle's Cabin of Bliss. Shepherd is, of course, the author of the collected works that was turned into A Christmas Story, and he had a long career as a writer, raconteur, radio & TV host and other things as interesting. Ollie Hopnoodle was about the annual family vacation to a lakeside cabin, and one bit was about the bee that annually invaded the family car on the way to the cabin, supposedly the same damn bee every year. In the TV version it was wonderfully staged: the late '40s car coming to a sudden halt on the country road and the four family members jumping out, most of them dancing around and swatting and the youngest taking off lickety-split down the road, away from the camera. The camera held on them for a little while and it became funnier as it went on, especially the youngest gradually disappearing into the distance.
Anyway, I remember that pretty vividly and I laughed when I thought of this strip. It's not real inspired, and when I make myself laugh it's usually a warning sign of lameness. But it did let me off the hook as far as thinking up the full title of Petey's comic book is concerned. If you get a chance to see Ollie Hopnoodle sometime jump at it, and read the book too.
Just a note- I had the title wrong, but I fixed it.
ReplyDelete"Haven of Bliss." The bee incident is about 7 minutes into this clip:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZWm6i8qMk0
I'm gonna send you a copy of my deadline schedule so you know what days to post these things and what days to forbear.
Hahaha, sorry, Mike.
ReplyDeleteYou all are too good to me. Next I'm going to mention the best recipe for Carolina barbecue and see who comes up with what.
How do your have a typo in a hand-drawn comic? Well, today you did it, and it's a very common one. In fact, my comment contains the reverse version.
ReplyDeleteNoVa, ouch. But thank your.
ReplyDeleteThough it was fixed in the published version- http://www.gocomics.com/culdesac/
ReplyDeleteDoes it involve mustard?
ReplyDeleteI wish we had learned the title of Petey's comic, because I've been wondering about it for some time now. Whatever it was called, I was sure it would be essentially the opposite of Andre's. My money was riding on its being something like "Captain Inaction and the Stationary Squad: Confined to Barracks".
ReplyDelete