Tag: Byron the Quokka

Byron’s TV Listings, Jan. 27 REPRINT

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Pin by Dale Lund on TV in 1967 | Tv guide, Tv guide listings ...

From January 27, 2024

G’day, g’day–and rain, rain, go away! Byron the Quokka here, with TV delights guaranteed to get you through the bad weather without your brains falling out. Like these, for instance:

7 P.M.  Ch. 08  CAN PEOPLE GET HAIRBALLS?–Panel discussion

Join a panel of non-entity celebrities–Beto O’Rourke, Alyssa Milano, Colin Whatsisname, and some ninny who broke in here one night, looking for designer undies–as they continue to discuss this fascinating topic. They’ve been at it eight weeks now! Featuring the June Taylor Dancers and their new number, “Coccyx Busters.”

Ch. 18  THE NEWS GAME WITH JIMMY FRAUD–Penance

Can you pick out the only news item of the night that’s not a fake? If our special guests can’t, they get a shock where it’ll do the most good! Featuring Artificial People in the studio audience!

7:30 P.M.  Ch. 14  MOVIE–Documentary

John Phillip Tossup stars as the legendary Barroom Head-Butting champion, Windy Weinstein in It Hurts You More Than It Hurts Me (Serbo-Honduran, 2014: 781 minutes). Was Windy’s head really indestructible? Glamorous CIA Agent Barbie Vavoom (Sandy Duncan, with voice-over by Luciano Pavarotti) needs to know! Song: “Ooh, Me Achin’ Head!”, sung by studio electricians.

8 P.M.  Ch. 62  HAVE FLEAS, WILL TRAVEL–Adult Western

(Yes, everybody in this show is an adult!) Gunslinger Lightnin’ Morose (Mel Allen) can’t get rid of them dam’ itchy fleas no matter what he does! This week: A sinister shepherd (Rin Tin Tin) offers Lightnin’ a bath in his sheep dip… with results that’ll keep you freaked out for a week! Little Nell: Dame Judith Anderson. Bystander: Walter Lippman.

Well, that’s that! You’ve got some great TV this week–

The quokka is the happiest animal on Earth! : r/pics

–or my name isn’t Byron the Quokka! And that’s me, signing off.

Trouble in Scurveyshire (‘Oy, Rodney’) REPRINT

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From June 9, 2019

I am happy to report that Byron the Quokka has returned. He was not able to squeeze Ms. Crepuscular through the bars of the holding cell, but he did succeed in rescuing the manuscript, along with a note from Violet to her readers. We quote:

“My dear readers, it’s really too silly for words, my being in jail like this for the sake of a few harmless toothpaste rolls which I eat all the time and have never gotten sick! True, Mr. Pitfall ate all two dozen of them–but it wasn’t my fault, I couldn’t stop him. And it’s not like he’s died or anything! The doctors expect him to be back on his feet in just a year or two. My thanks to Byron the Whatchamacallit for saving my manuscript! The detective who read it said he would surely destroy it, as a service to world literature. Yours sincerely, Violet M. Crepuscular.” She will not tell us what the M stands for.

Moving on, we now have a Chapter CCCI of her epic romance, Oy, Rodney, which is somewhat below her usual artistic standard–or anyone else’s, for that matter. In this chapter, all of Scurveyshire, led by the few survivors of the Peasants Benevolent Assn., is in an uproar. They have assembled at Coldsore Hall to yell at Lord Jeremy.

“They’ll skedaddle, ol’ hoss, if you let me shoot a few of ’em,” offers the American adventurer, Willis Twombley. “Back home, them Elamites was always tryin’ to riot their way into my palace.” He thinks he is Sargon of Akkad. “But they always gave up when my archers started usin’ ’em for target practice.”

“I’m dashed if I can see my way to that, old boy,” expostulates (I just work here) Lord Jeremy. “If they’d just stay away from that deuced wading pool in the vicar’s back yard, they wouldn’t get sucked under it in droves.” He finally placates the mob by promising to get rid of Black Rodney, the medieval sorcerer responsible for all these objectionable happenings.

“How you gonna do that, Germy?” wonders Twombley. “Him bein’ a ghost and all, and havin’ just blown half the roof off’n your house, I mean.”

Jeremy smiles slyly. “But we now know what he’s afraid of, don’t we?” he replies. “Antimacassars! We’ll drape antimacassars over all the shire!”

Here the chapter breaks off. She had to stop writing, Byron reports, because the jailer was coming to take her for a walk. He had only time to gather up the manuscript and, as he put it, “vamoose!” The quokkas have been watching a lot of old Westerns lately.

More False Facts! (Quokka U. Fund-Raiser) REPRINT

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Quokka in bushes, close-up Stock Photo - Alamy

(I have to get back outside and write some more of my book–but first here’s Byron the Quokka with a special announcement.)

G’day! Byron the Quokka here–that’s me inspecting the groundwork for what will one day be Quokka University’s auxiliary lecture hall. But we’ll need more money to finish the job, and that’s where this special edition of Acme False Facts comes in. For a mere $250 (you see they’ve lowered the price), you can get a set of False Facts Flash Cards which will enable you to dazzle your friends with your esoteric knowledge.

To whet your appetite, here are just a few samples.

*Cave men with guns killed off the dinosaurs. You could look it up.

*The first Club Med was established in Harbin, Manchuria, in 1952. It’s still the most popular Club Med in Manchuria.

*A 1969 poll by the Sons of Bacchus softball team revealed that hardly anyone likes cauliflower stewed in maple syrup.

*The first cell phone was invented in ancient Egypt in 1298 B.C. but was suppressed by Pharaoh Ramses II when he got one too many calls from Hittites selling time shares in a Syrian cave that turned out to be haunted.

*The Common English Pencil Bug can actually be used as a pencil. It even has an eraser!

So there you have it. Shoulders back, chest out, and head held high–deliver these guaranteed false facts with all the conviction you can muster, and enjoy your new career as a sage.

Quokka U., College Sports Colossus REPRINT

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From March 8, 2020

G’day! Byron the Quokka here, interviewing a famous college sports personality who may become the first coach of Quokka University’s pick-up sticks team. I have to protect her identity, this is a confidential interview, but the picture’s okay because she’s in disguise. If I told you who she really was, you’d just plain faint. Still, nothing will happen till we can agree on her salary. Quokka U. doesn’t have a lot of money yet. In fact, so far, we have no money at all. But we do have a cool Latin motto, Ipso loquitur mannimota, and that has to count for something.

Oh, there’s so much to do! Who knew that setting up a college would be so much trouble? Well, we’re committed to the pick-up sticks team, we need a bunch of buildings and a stadium, we have to hire professors and somebody to clean up, and someone has suggested we might want to have a jacks team, too. Personally, I’m holding out for a Clue team. Professor Plum in the Lounge with the Candlestick!

And now, on to the next interview. Ipso loquitur, everybody!

Cuscus and Baby REPRINT

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From July 17, 2019

Somewhere in the treetops in the jungles of New Guinea, a momma cuscus grooms her rather hefty child–that’s the big white thing scrunched up in her lap.

Byron the Quokka assures me that business will take off “like a bloomin’ rocket” if I hire a cuscus to assist him him managing my blog contests. He’s up to something, depend upon it.

Well, I remain open to persuasion. Toss in your two cents, anybody, if you want to. I have to get on to some nooze coverage.

Introducing: The Cuscus REPRINT

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From July 16, 2019

I’ve wondered about this animal ever since I saw it in a picture book when I was six or seven years old. It’s called a cuscus–“common spotted cuscus,” if you want to be formal–and it’s hard to look up in the Internet because the computer keeps trying to direct you to “couscous,” which is something altogether different.

The cuscus lives in trees in the jungles of New Guinea and mostly comes out at night, when it’s difficult to see them: they’re very shy. There are also a few in Cape York, Australia. They have prehensile tails, very similar to a chameleon’s.

Byron the Quokka has been dropping subtle hints about being able to do his contest-runner job better if a cuscus might be hired to assist him. “You just want more pictures of cute animals to pump up viewership,” I parry. “So that’s a bad idea?” Well, he’s got me there. Anyway, if you can’t trot out a cuscus or a potto now and then, what’s the point of blogging?

Fantastically varied realms of nature brought to you by God the Father, who created it all.

Byron Tackles ‘Oy, Rodney’ REPRINT

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G’day, everybody! Byron the Quokka here, with Chapter CCCXLII of Violet Crepuscular’s epic romance, Oy, Rodney.

[Nothing is written for an hour, to indicate an hour going by.]

What the dickens is this? Something about some unemployed shepherd with d damaged coccyx, and these twins, the Pottery sisters, Febrile and Facile. Come on, now! What kind of names are those? And I don’t want to know how to make twinkies with a toothpaste filling!

Y’know, that guy Unknowable had the right idea: wait till the Old Man’s better, and let him deal with this. By Jove, I’ll run contests for him till we’re both blue in the face, but trying to read and make sense of Oy, Rodney is just not on the cards for me. Just the one chapter that I read–sort of!–was enough to make my own coccyx hurt–and I don’t have one!

Management will endeavor to restore normal service as soon as management stops feeling like death warmed over.

 

By Request: Byron’s Baby Picture REPRINT

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From May 29, 2019

While I grow older and vegetate in the doctor’s waiting room this morning, we have a request from “Unknowable” for Byron the Quokka’s baby picture. Always happy to oblige, so here it is.

There is, of course, a whole family album to trot out; but Byron eschews celebrity status. I am not sure he knows what “eschews” means. The last time I used that word, he said “Gesundheit.”

All Right, One More Quokka Picture REPRINT

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From May 30, 2019

Byron the Quokka writes: Hi! This is me with my dad. His name is Edgar. He is a famous historian. He’s got proof that Queen Guinevere was a quokka! He’s always being asked to give lectures about it, and after the lecture we all have pretzels. He is also able to prove that Camelot was in Australia. I never get tired of hearing all his stories about the quokkas of the Round Table!

If you wonder why this picture shows Dad and me looking through a chain-link fence, well, the fence was there and the guy with the camera was on the wrong side of it. Sometimes they have to put up fences to keep the humans from wandering into trouble. It takes an awful lot of quokkas to pull one human out of a mud-hole.

A Minor Hiccup at Quokka U. REPRINT

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From May 23, 2020

G’day! Byron the Quokka here–and that’s the great Alvin Kasavubu’s blue bike in the background. I am jumping for joy because I found it!

Mr. Kasavubu very kindly agreed to be our first celebrity lecturer here at Quokka University. He is one of the world’s foremost experts on how to keep frogs from jumping off your head once you put them up there, and we were all very excited to have him.

Well, he showed up on his bicycle; and imagine our dismay when his bike went missing! I hope nobody thinks any of us quokkas tried to steal it. After all, our feet can’t reach the pedals. Anyway, poor Mr. Kasavubu, when he’d finished his lecture and wanted to go home, couldn’t find his bike. Was he ever upset! And we all had to go looking for it.

Happily, it wasn’t stolen, after all: somebody just moved it. We suspect wombats. They can’t resist a bit of joy-riding. If we ever find out who actually moved the bike, we’ll have to put them on academic probation. If we can figure out how to do that.

But at least we had the lecture, and a very interesting lecture it was!

We are well on our way to creating one of the world’s great universities.