Hi, Everybody!
As we do:
Mondays!
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Kickstarters:
There's all sorts of neat little limited add-ons. I'd tell you what they are, but they'll probably be gone before you get there. (And then the guy who put them all in his pledge basket will pull them all out at the last minute. DON'T BE THAT GUY! Only take what you can actually afford. Be a better Cerebite...)
Friend to the Blog, Steve Peters' latest Comicverse book, as Steve himself says:
For Cerebus readers, "Cerberus," our 3-headed, 31st century version of Cerebus, returns and figures prominently in one of our stories; we also have the 2 "Sparkybus" micro-prints that Matt Dow masterminded and Dave Sim signed, plus 3 different variants of "Tails of Sparkybus" that Dave drew stuff for and signed on a tipped-in plate. These are very limited editions and quantities of some are running low, so this could be the last chance to get them.
It's a Kickstarter-Palooza! (It's amazing you have any money left in this economy (amIright?)
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As you all should know by now, Dave's CONTINUING the Please PAY For Dave Sim format. If you want more '82 Tour Book discussion, go HERE, and pay for "Dave Sim 82 Tour Book". But if you'd rather hear more stereotypical Please Hold (*shudder*) "content", go HERE and pay for "Please Hold For Dave Sim". I...really...need...to start editing the hours of Audio in the "on deck" circle....
Speaking of Please Hold...
Jesse Lee Herndon has caught up to Dave and I on the Please Hold Transcripts, And since I'm out of Proto-Strange Death of Alex Raymond pages, I may as well start knocking out these transcripts.
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Matt: Alright. Let’s do this thing…
Dave: Actually I'm not ready to go right now.
Matt: Okay.
Dave: I should have clarified for you I only do all five Muslim prayer times precisely during Ramadan. The rest of the year I do the morning prayer, the night prayer, and the evening prayer. But the two in between I just do straight 12 o'clock and 3 o'clock.
Matt: Okay.
Dave: And then to make it even more complicated, I just do the preamble to the prayer at 1:53, acknowledging the 153 fish in John's Gospel and at 3:16, John 316. So what we're going to try and do, I will do my preamble prayer in 20 minutes, and then call you. And I've written the whole Please Hold for Dave Sim. Once I started thinking about it, I wasn't going back to sleep at 5 o'clock this morning, so I went there's no point lying here pretending to sleep, Dave, get up and start working on it. It's just about ready to go. So you will be officially en vacances as the French say, on vacation, and just listening to Please Hold this time.
Matt: Okay!
Dave: So I will talk to you, God willing, in about 22 minutes.
Matt: Okay, that works!
Dave: Talk to you then.
Matt: All right! Bye.
Dave: Byebye.
Matt: Hello again, Dave!
Dave: Hello again, Matt, and again, happy 4th of July to you there.
Matt: Thank you! Happy Thursday to you.
Dave: [laughs] Yeah, it's three days after Canada Day. Where are we here? Oh, I got my page one. Okay, I thought maybe I left it downstairs. This is apt to… are we recording?
Matt: We are recording.
Dave: Okay, this is apt to need some some editing on your part ,where I'll just go, mhmm, wanted to do it all in one breath. Let's see if we can set a record for fastest Please Hold for Dave Sim ever recorded. And if I start getting way ahead of my mouth or my mouth gets way ahead of me, I'm just gonna go, okay let's stop there, and double back, and we'll just pretend that I did it all in one breath.
Matt: Okay.
Dave: So, “It's the 2024 Independence Day ‘hurry up offence’, largely Matt Dow-free, ‘let's get Matt out in the sun ASAP’ edition of Please Hold for Dave Sim! It's the time for the holding. Oh, the holding. And we begin with you, remembering Jeff Seiler. And it better be good one. None of these…“ Now here I'm going to have to break my own rule and actually drag you in here. What is ouroboros?
Matt: It's a snake eating its own tail.
Dave: Oh! If you live long enough, you will find out everything. Okay! “Remember that time we remembered Jeff snake eating its own tail memory? Not one of those, one of them good ones that make Zipper feel he needs a shower after hearing. No pressure. Okay, first down and seven, everybody go wide right, wide right. Spatula, you button hook towards me. Zipper, put out three yards and cut to the center. Essler, go for the hand out.” Robertson Davies famously remarked that men die of their work being done, which is true, I think. In most cases, though men die from running out of money and I think that was the case with Jeff Seiler. Sometime in the 2010s, he and his twin brother and his half sister inherited a property from their mother who passed. I'm fuzzy on the details at this late date, but the upshot was that Jeff share of the sale of the property came to roughly half million dollars, give or take. Jeff promptly took early retirement and indulged many of his material desires. Beaucoup de flights and hotel rooms to see Jimmy Buffett. Baseball fantasy camps. A share of a beach property in Florida. He got caught in the nutcracker of a couple of market corrections. Most of his money was in blue chip stocks and didn't really want to know how much of the half million was left. Which is conventional investing wisdom, stay in for the long haul and you'll come out okay. But he could plot the trajection. “I had a half million x number of years ago, and last time I looked I had y dollars left.” Coupled with what I call the Fat Elvis Syndrome, “I might be running out of money, but I can afford a half dozen cheeseburgers no problem.” And a beer Jones, there was no way he was going to make it to 60.
“Then we have a non-question from the undisputed,” I'll go along with you on that one, “the undisputed star of Steve Peters Week, Steve Peters!” “Hey Matt, would you read this on Please Hold and/or post it to AMoC? Thanks. The Cerebus/Dave Sim rewards were really popular on the last couple of Kickstarters. I'm going to offer the original art for the ’Tales of Sparkybus’ cover. The highest cash donation that is not including reward items, but an added donation or a donation for no reward made in the last 24 hours of the campaign from 5:00 pm Eastern Standard Time on July 10th to 5:00 pm Eastern Standard Standard Time July 11th.” And you quite a astutely put, “You hear it here first! 24 hours, largest cash nonrewards donation on Steve's Kickstarter, the link to which is in the audio portion description, and is flashing on the video portion as I speak, or Matt’s fire. For the ‘Comicverse Subspace Chatter’ softcover collection featuring one panel of art by A Moment of Cerebus’ very own Manly Matt Dow.” Wow! I didn't know that. “Buy two, this is sure to only increase in value over time. Would we lie to you? Okay, would we lie to you twice? Ah, listen, you people have serious trust issues. Have you considered seeking help for that? You know what's a good way to work on that? A podcast from a space station in the future. Steve's got a whole collection he's Kickstartering right now, that is just with the doctor ordered. Take two and call us in the morning. And, second down and one. Push the line back. Essler, you're going straight up the middle. Spatula, head to the sideline and cut left. Matt's right, but the investment potential is only a part of it. In these ‘lunatics are running the Asylum’ days where excess stomach acid, migraine headaches, five more minutes of this and I swear I'm going to have a stroke, and ‘was that a tingling sensation in my left arm?’ days which has only worsened exponentially since Hobbes wrote in the 17th century in Leviathan, ‘No society; and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short’, describes, let's leave aside working hours, most people's lunch and break times. You can't afford to not have this collection. This is as close to a return to the womb as I'm going to experience in this world. Fentanyl-like calming effect. Goo goo goo. You can only get from ‘Comicverse Subspace Chatter’ softcover collection. It makes Ernie Bushmiller's ‘Nancy’ look like the last three ‘Saw’ movies. It makes ‘Bone’ look like Mia Goth and Ti West’s recently completed ‘X’, ‘Pearl’, and ‘Maxxxine’ Trilogy. The recommended 75 to 90 minutes or so you will spend reading ‘Comicverse Subspace Chatter’ softcover collection will be your only break. Your only break between now and the November showdown between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. But you must act now! The clock is ticking, with less than a week to go. Please, please, however brief, however transitory, save the sanity of your future self. I'm begging you!”
“And now questions from you, the people. #1 Manly Mat Dow asks, well okay. Me, the people. Dave, posting from your 6,000 page graphic novel Cerebus, currently available in a digital format for the paltry initial asking price of 18 American dollars from Humble Bundle. The link to which is in the audio portion description and flashing on the screen of the video portion format. It’s seriously fire. Offer ends on the 17th, with a portion of the proceeds going to the Global Food Banking Network. Do good and get an ardvark as your reward. I noticed when President Weisshaput first appeared, he's preceded by this panel. And pass complete on the 40. First down. As Chico Marx famously remarked, [as Chico] ‘Okay! Now I ask you. When did the Octopus first appear? After the 1946, or before the 1946? Because this a’sure looks to me like what's-his-gloves in the very first Alex the Raymond's ‘Kirby the Ripper’ comical strip. Will Eisner, he's a’steal from Alexander the Raymond, or Alexander the Raymond he's a’steal from the Will Eisner? Or maybe they both have another hand in a five and dime Jimmy Dean Jimmy Dean twelve finger discount.’ [as Groucho] Your honor, that's irrelevant. [as Chico] That's a’right, there's a lots of ir-elephants in the circus.”
Matt: The Octopus first appeared in July 14th 1946.
Dave: Simultaneous, cause the “Rip Kirby” story was March 1946. Huh, what do you know about that? Shirley Sewall asks, 6/17/24, “Hey there, Manly Matt, and the far northeier Dave Sim. I love ‘Cerebus in Hell?’. It's amazing how crisp and especially topical the jokes are in every issue. Question for Dave, how do you keep up on current trends in the world generally, and comic book industry happenings specifically? Since you famously don't use the internet, is it all from reading newspapers, or does the Cerebus Brain Trust help keep you current? How exactly do you put those ‘Cerebus in Hell?’ comics together anyway?” And I got a letter here from Mike Sewall as well, that he starts off, “Hello from the extreme left coast. No, we have not fallen into the ocean yet, but the weight of stupidity near Sacramento should accomplish that inevitability any day now.” To which I would reply, dealers choice handoff. Receivers are all wide left. I'm old enough to remember when the Sacramento panic was about the “Bedtime for Bonzo” movie star with the three six-letter name, Ronald Wilson Reagan. Instead of him, “Why can't us University of Berkeley alumni be running the show before he destroys the whole state?” Well here we are. Happy now? Thank you Mike for having the guts to admire “Cerebus in Hell?” in public. I write on Post-It notes… and gonna have to edit this part too. Some of the, I knew this wasn't going to go smoothly. I write on Post-It notes stray humorous thoughts. Electric vehicles and artificial intelligence are the magic beans of 2024. May the rest of us please have our cow back? What about, not my Palestine sexual identity Jewish Game Preserve of Neo white South Africa? And if you don't like that one, how about everything I know about nuclear power I learned from watching “The Simpsons”. Sympathy for the incompetents. And this one, I want to share my favourite cat videos with my cats. What do you suggest? Declare a cat's Bill of Rights Health Emergency and sue the government for a trillion dollars for violating your cat's rights. Or I just transcribe things out of the newspaper verbatim. Here's an example from the Toronto Sun’s careers page yesterday morning, “Research/search/learn” it says here. It has me in stitches. “It's evident that skills gaps can put business priorities at risk. Delay critical projects, and make it difficult for businesses to move forward with key plans potentially impacting their growth. Companies need to be forward focused when it comes to their hiring and training strategy to ensure their teams stay skilled and equipped to successfully navigate advancements.” [laughs] It's like you can read that paragraph 20 times and never extract a coherent thought from it, and the guy who wrote it is probably pulling down seven figures a year. And then I graft those onto superhero tropes supplied by the “Cerebus in Hell?” team. It's an interesting time period because the internet supplies everyone with instant cover stories on both sides of the aisle. What Haldeman and Ehrlichman used to call, “plausible denial.” Here's the smoking gun on the front page today, and here's the all caps MOST LIKES popular cover story in the comment section near hours later. “Experts agree that health risks associated with firearms and tobacco mean that no personal protection device of any caliber should be smoking vaping or using experimental and unproven patches. At the same time, A, guns will smoke, and B, we need to be accepting of the strongly held personal identities of protection devices with which we have fundamental ethical disagreement. We are the New York Times. Don't make us come over there.” Quarterback sneak, fact to the line of scrimmage, boom
Matt: Okay.
Dave: Now, we hang on, that was… “Keep up the stunning work,” Dodger Sewall, that California dude writes. “That goes for the ‘Cerebus in Hell?’ team as well. Thanks and cheers.” Matt says, “This would be the place to plug the newest ‘Cerebus in Hell?’ Kickstarter if there is one. Why isn't there one? Geez, Dave! Mike/MJ/Dodger/”Shirley”(?)/Michael/”The Accused”/Etc. tees you up with a softball and you let it with past like it's a 96 mile, wait, Canadian. Like it's 154.32 kilometer an hour fastball. Get your head in the game, Sim, as your little league coach used to say! Anyway, thoughts, answers, comments?” And we'll try this one on for size. The next surprise Kickstarter was ready to launch in Canadian dollars, run by Rolly, in a week or two, but then a surprise curveball from Dallas, Texas. Tim S left a phone message asking if I was interested in having for the Cerebus Archive, which he had just heard about from another Cerebus fan, the original script for “Spawn” 10 which he won in a charity auction at the Heroes World trade show in 1993. Well, YES YES YES! THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU. Then he asked if it was okay to delivere it in person, bringing about our first ever “Alone With The President” event here at the Off-White House, named after the 1993 book of the same name, which is why you're looking at these pictures of Richard Nixon along with Elvis. Richard Nixon, Sammy Davis Jr, and Richard Nixon and Debbie Reynolds with the pre-”Star Wars” daughter Carrie Fisher in tow. Tim won't actually be alone with the president, he's coming on a Thursday, so Rolly can be here taking pictures as Tim and I reminisce and compare notes on our memories of that 1993 auction. So watch for “Spawn 10: The Script” with commentary, and the surprise Kickstarter will be announced in August. Over the shoulder Immaculate Reception touchdown.
Then we move on to, oh there it is, okay, then Daniel F asks, “Hello Dave, I was very excited to see that you had teamed up with Humble Bundle for a digital bundle of the Cerebus phonebook PDFs. How did that collaboration come about? Were you able to decide which charity would be donated to?” Global Food Banking Network, for those unaware. “Are the PDFs the most current mix of remastered/non-remastered as available on CerebusDownloads.com?” Yes, I think they will all be remastered and then supplied to The Humble Bundle people as they become available to supply to their customers. The same ones as available at CerebusDownloads.com. “If you haven't already, I highly recommend plugging it on one of your Weekly Updates. Personally, I'm a little disappointed that there isn't an option to decrease the slider amount past a certain amount for Humble Bundle’s portion of the total payment, as they take a pretty decent minimum amount of the total, about 30%. But I'm glad to see this collaboration and I hope Aardvark-Vanaheim gets a decent payout. Daniel F.” “Yes, yes!”, writes Matt. “Link in the audio description, flashing banner on the video, or else! You're getting very one note, Sim. Very one notes. Anyway Dan had a question, yes?” Yes he did have a question. About two years ago, Dallas M from Humble Bundle phoned me and left a message asking if I was interested in participating, and citing a Humble Bundle campaign just recently concluded from which Terry “Strangers in Paradise” Moore had grossed a six figure amount. I infer this to be, A, the Job rule is always in effect, and B, God's whoopie cushion. That the deal had been for physical inventory, which I had just dispersed for free over 2017, 2018 after the Leamington warehouse closed its doors. I could have made six figures. Better luck next time. Then I heard again from Dallas about six months ago, and left him a phone message explaining the situation. He called and left a message that no, it wasn't a physical package, it was digital. Well, that was that “horse of a different colour” you've heard tell about. JDG did some online research for me on Humble Bundle, explaining that they support charities that I would probably consider red flags, abortion counseling being one. So near and yet so far. I faxed Dallas my regrets, but offering a hail marry option, a feed the poor charity of some kind. Some weeks later I heard back from him again that that was no problem. I signed the paperwork and Dallas scheduled the launch for June 27th, ballparking the revenues at between 100,000 and 200,000, of which AV would get half. He promised to call and leave a message on June 28 letting me know a more accurate ballpark based on the first day's revenue. Which he did, which surprised me! [laughs] He did what he said he was going to do. $26,000 the first day. Their algorithms now charting the three-week campaign to produce a total of $160,000. “But who knows,” he said in answer to my question “how often are you right?” They do one of these a week. Humble Bundle is a juggernaut. Dallas explained that they can't introduce new material to their audience. All that they know that works is ”things people have heard about and are curious about at a price that's no brainer”. I have to say I never asked him what the price they were going to charge was. So tentatively, AV stands to have an $80,000 payday, because it's passive income that means Gerhard will get 25% instead of his usual 4% or $20,000 and the Food Bank Waterloo Region will get the 20% zakat, or 16,000. The Humble Bundle charity is their charity, I see it, leaving AV with $44,000 worth of Strange Death of Alex Raymond drawing time money. How long that last I don't know. It's 2024 and as far as I can see inflation is all cover story. I have no idea how bad inflation is and how bad inflation is going to get, but anytime that I can get a pile of money that will see me through to whatever it'll see me through to, I'm putting that one in the the win column. And the point after is good!
Then we go on to… oh here we are. Here we are. From the home office in Easton, Pennsylvania, Michael R checks in with, “Hi Matt, I hope you enjoyed your birthday and potentially celebrating and enjoying the 4th of July. Here's my question for Dave. Hi Dave, on Saturday June 16th, Matt posted my email and two attachments for my proposal for the book plate pricing on A Moment of Cerebus. There were four responses that I'm aware of. All four thought the prices were fair. Here are their responses. Spatula, aka Agent 11, aka That Larry Guy said, ‘I ‘feel’ Spatula on the book plates and the oversized item may be what I ask for if aliases are allowed. As far as cost, fine by me, but I'm easy.’” Yes, no problem with aliases or whatever name one put on the book plate, just make sure that there's no, understand, no misunderstanding. I enlarge the book plate 200% and then hand letter on the enlarged book plate and then the other book plates are reproduced from that. And I think, probably, we're going to make that a package. Michael asked what happens if somebody just wants the enlarged book plate with the handlettered name. But I'm leaving that decision making up to Rolly this time, to give him some hands-on experience with probably the most difficult part of this business or any business, which is pricing. So, thank you Michael R as always for doing the research that you did on this, and for packaging it all together. I made a copy of it and put it out back at Camp David with notes for Rolly saying, here's the raw materials for your decision making. You make the decision in time for the next Kickstarter, which is now not starting next week, or the week after that, but sometime after July 25th, when Tim S is here for his being alone with the president session. But again, thank you very much Michael for your concern and your help with this. And if I have to take a hand at some point in the pricing , I'll probably bring it down a bit, and I'm going to suggest to Rolly, crunch the numbers, see what happens if we charge in Canadian dollars. The Canadian dollar is sagging right now, exchange rate is about 32 cents on the dollar. So everybody would be saving about 30% just by paying in Canadian dollars what Michael is recommending in US dollars. But like I say, I'm gonna leave that up to Rolly in this case.
Matt: Okay.
Dave: Getting back to this question, “When's the next Kickstarter?” Like I say, this is, you want to talk about a snake eating its tail, that's the situation that we've got. It's somewhere up ahead, but the fact that the “Spawn” 10 script came out of nowhere. I don't have a copy of the “Spawn” 10 script, and I definitely was looking for it when we did the remastered “Spawn” 10 to go, okay, what was Todd working from? It's like, no, I sold the script as the only copy. So that was the name of that tune up until 48 hours ago. “#5 Al Nickerson commented on a video last month.” “ I suppose I can also answer some of Dave's questions here. Since College, throughout my work for hire comic career, as well as creating my creator owned comics and graphic novels, I've been inking with a #2 Windsor and Newton Siri Sable seven Sable brush and a Hunt 102 crowquill pen nib. These were the tools that one of my teachers, Will Eisner, recommended us using to ink comics and graphic novels. The ink that I use now, and since a little after I started working in comics, is the Pelikan Tusche, a drawing ink, waterproof black ink, although recently I have found that the Pelikan ink not being as dark a black as it had been for decades. Don't know why that is. #MakeComicsGreatAgain.” And I would, in terms of personal experience on that, I use and have used for years and years, the Speedball Super Black. I used to buy the large bottles, which were like 20, 26 ounce, or something like that. And I found that the same thing that happens to the ink in the little bottles happens in the big bottles, but then you've got a five year, six year supply which is going bad. So, although it's definitely counterintuitive, also known in 2024 as stupid, to buy the regular small bottles, I regularly get Rolly to pick up two of those, and then I open both of them, and as I'm using up the ink in the first bottle, the level of the ink is is getting lower and lower in the small bottle of ink, I open up the second one and without mixing it pour it into the first bottle to top it up, so that I always have the ink up near the top of the bottle where I can access it with the pen nib and with the brush and know exactly where the pen nib and the brush is touching in there. And then by the time I've topped up the first bottle out of the second bottle, by the time the second bottle is starting to get down to the point where I really have to focus to see, okay, how much of this ink is going to come pouring out of here? Because I can't really see it, and I can't tell from the weight how much ink is in there. Then it's time to have Rolly go and get two more bottles of ink and start the process over. So I have probably about 15 or 20 bottles of ink at this point that are all down at the 3/4 gone level. And I don't have the heart to throw them away. I do tend to use those for solid blacks. If you're looking to fill in solid blacks, by the time that you've gotten down that low in in the bottle of ink, and then haven't used that bottle of ink for a week or two weeks or however long it is, it's definitely getting tarry, but boy, you want to talk about solid black. You want absolute solid black for a page that's almost all blacking in? That'll do it for you. So that's my personal experience, my personal recommendations, is to make sure that your ink is always in a static state. If it gets to the point where it's evaporating, now you're dealing with a whole different density of ink. Then that becomes problematic, because it's, okay, now it's either too thin or it's too thick, and that's what I'm focusing on is why is the ink not spreading correctly? It's not spreading correctly because it's not fresh, and it's not predictable. Whereas if you're replacing the ink every couple of weeks, wasting a lot of ink but making sure that it's always consistent, then you don't you don't have that problem. No if it's not going down properly, it's because I'm not focusing the way that I should. It's not a matter of the ink not being at the proper density. That's OCD Dave Sim ink theory for those inclined in those directions.
Matt: You know, you could sell them 15 almost empty bottles as souvenirs to people. This is, “I used this bottle for these pages and this is what's left.”
Dave: [laughs] That's a thought! That never even occurred to me. Might be my policy going forward. And now Dave Sim wishes he was anywhere in the US of A today. This is being recorded on July the 4th. And the Ron Essler marching band, and all male, not that there's anything wrong with that, chorus. Three minute warning! 2, 3, 4. [sings] I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy! A danky doodle do or die! A real life nephew of my Uncle Sam! Born on the fourth of July! She's my Yankee Doodle sweetheart! I'm her Yankee Doodle guy! Yankee Doodle went to town just to ride a pony! I am that Yankee Doodle Guy! [talks] Okay, just the percussion! Strike up the band here comes the sailor! [bum-ba-bums repeatedly] Okay! Now the all male not that there's anything wrong with that chorus. [sings again] Be kind to our fine feathered friends for a duck maybe somebody's mother! Be kind to your friends in the swamp, where the weather is very domp! Well you may think that this is the end, and it is. [stops] [muffled voice] “60 seconds, Mr Sim.” I stole that from Mitch Miller of “Sing Along with Mitch Miller” fame. If you consciously remember Mitch Miller, show of hands, show of hands, congratulations, you are far closer to death than 87% of the people alive today worldwide. [muffles voice] 30 seconds. Best to Paula, Janis Pearl, Bullwinkle, Bonnie, Clyde, and whatever the other dog's name is. [muffle voice] 15 seconds. And as TV star Allan Brady once said, “When you walk down the road of life, keep a smile on your face. You'll be surprised how many people will come up to you and say, ‘what's so funny?’” [muffled voice] Okay, we're clear.
Matt: Wow, we we did it under 50 minutes.
Dave: [laughs] I'm gonna make the 3 o'clock prayer time.
Matt: This is the first Please Hold for Dave Sim where I technically didn't have to work that day, and we could have done this really early in the morning, except for the fact that neither one of us wanted to do that. And it's the second Please Hold on the 4th of July, but the first one was Please Hold for Eddie Gahanna[sic].
Dave: Was it?
Matt: And I completely forgot it was the 4th of July until halfway through the phone call! [laughs]
Dave: [laughs] Okay, alright. Let me try the Yankee Doodle Dandy again, since we've got like 15 minutes here.
Matt: Okay.
Dave: [sings “Yanky Doodle Dandy” and the rest of the bit from earlier, verbatim]
Matt: I remember there was a Daffy cartoon. It was either Daffy or the 90s version of the Looney Tunes where Daffy sings, “Be kind to your web footed friends.”
Dave: Oh does he? I knew it from a record that Joan Briden brought to school in, I'm going to say grade four? So that would put it at 1964 or so. And I only heard it the once, but you can see that it stuck with me.
Matt: Yeah, trying to remember, the first time I heard it it was either Daffy, or in the 90s they did “Tiny Tunes” which were new versions of the characters, but they're not. It's like they’re teenage versions of the characters, but it's not Bugs, it’s Buster. And all the cartoon animals go to Acme University where they're learning to be better cartoon stars, and the old Looney Tunes characters are the teachers. And it was Plucky Duck was the duck in that. It might have been him singing it. But if I remember right, it was kind of a, he's getting hunted and he's singing it to the hunter, you know, like aren't ducks so great? And at the end the Elmer knock-off ends up shooting him.
Dave: Okay. What year would this be? Ballpark.
Matt: 1991 or 92.
Dave: Okay. Alright. It would be interesting to find out how far back it goes, and who came up with it, because like, Mitch Miller didn't do a lot of new stuff. That was the whole point of “Sing Along with Mitch Miller” was that these are the classic tunes, so you get to hear them with the full orchestra and the full chorus with Mitch Miller directing. You don't remember Mitch Miller? You're too young for that.
Matt: It doesn't ring any bells. It may be one of those, I know this, I know the tunes. I've heard them but I just didn't know who was arranging it.
Dave: Well, I'm sure you'll find several photos of him online. Okay!h I'm going over my prayer time you. You enjoy the rest of your 4th of July. I am green with envy. There is nothing like the American Independence Day, and there is nothing like American Thanksgiving, and I always think on both of those days, Red State or Blue State, I just want to be in the United States of America!
Matt: It can be amazing. The greatest fireworks display my parents ever saw there were two rockets went off, it was a barge in a river, and the first rocket went up and it blew up and everything looked great, and the second one went up and the whole audience went ooh ah, and the third one went sideways and blew up the barge.
Dave: Yii!
Matt: Nobody got hurt on the barge. All the workers managed to jump free, but instead of it being a 15 minute show, it was a three minute show, but the ending was spectacular cause everything went at once!
Dave: Oh right . Right. Right.
Matt: My dad saw that one.
Dave: We had, it was just Canada Day on Monday. Same thing, fireworks display, and what they were having was 17-year-old delinquents shooting Roman candles into the crowd and shooting Roman candles at the police. That's one of those makes you go, hmm. Yes. If you have a day that is, you're officially not considered suspect about anything walking around with Roman candles and other explosives, there's a lot of ways that that cannot end happily if a good chunk of the population are not happy campers, which we know is getting to be the new normal.
Matt: Right. I stopped doing fireworks years and years ago just because, well, I was becoming a third shift guy, so it's, “Hey, everybody's going to gear up to start blowing stuff up” and it's like, yeah, I got to go to work. But when we had the kids, it's, “Hey, are we going to get fireworks?” I'm like, no, no, I remember my childhood where we're lighting off bottle rockets. We're lighting off firecrackers. And at the end of the night, we'd have a coffee can full of firecrackers my Dad just didn't want to have around anymore, and he would light a match and turn the can up over on top of it and run, and all the firecrackers would go off at once.
Dave: Uh-huh.
Matt: And he did that I think two or three times before the neighbors started complaining about the noise, because not only was it a loud explosion, but there was also the sounds of my brother and I going, “Do it again, Dad! Do it again!” on the top of our lungs!
Dave: Right, right. Let's make that a one generation thing. Let's not that pass that down to Janis Pearl and Bullwinkle.
Matt: I'm pretty sure if I did it now I'd end up on a watchlist somewhere.
Dave: [laughs] That's right. Okay, I'm going for my prayer time!
Matt: Well, enjoy the rest of your evening, Dave.
Dave: Okay, take care.
Matt: You too!
Dave: Have a good night, Matt. Byebye.
Matt: Good night. Bye.
Next Time: Jen comes back, takes over as E-I-C, and I'm never seen again... Yeah, I don't believe that either.
