Tag: general silliness

Oh, Those Dog Videos!

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Scary dog Stock Photos, Royalty Free Scary dog Images | Depositphotos

Maybe it’s a good thing there are so few viewers here today. I wouldn’t want to touch off a global panic.

I just noticed a line in my “Tags” that reads destroying America dog videos. Yipes! I don’t remember posting any dog videos that could destroy America! I tend to post dog videos that are humorous or cozy, or both.

I, of course, know all about not taking Tags too seriously. But how many college students would feel Unsafe after viewing that line in the Tags?

Maybe I should just dismiss it from my mind and go on outside to write. There won’t be too many of these warm sunny days left on the calendar.

‘Oy, Rodney’ Wins Literary Prize!

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a gripping page-turner headed for the top of the NY Times bestseller list | Romance novels, Funny romance, Book parody

Violet Crepuscular’s epic romance, Oy, Rodney, has won the Pokeweed Township Prize for Literature. The township committee has thanked Ms. Crepuscular for putting up the prize money.

But to return to the exciting story itself, in Chapter DXVI, Lord Jeremy Coldsore finally plucks up the courage to re-enter his ancestral home, Coldsore Hall, from which he has been absent several days, detained in a dungeon by the Lithping Knight Thir Lanthelot, who is actually Constable Chumley’s mother in disguise. Lord Jeremy has forgotten where he hid the spare key.

Williams the third under-footman answers the door. He has forgotten what his master, Lord Jeremy, looks like. He thinks Lord Jeremy is selling salve. “There is no one home,” he says-shutting off the sounds of frantic revelry within by shutting the door in Lord Jeremy’s face.

At this point Ms. Crepuscular interrupts the story.

“I feel it incumbent upon me to remind readers that today is November 6,” she writes. “I need hardly explain its significance!” So she doesn’t.

Byron’s TV Listings, Nov. 5

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TV Guide October 27-Nov 2 1984 (5) - Flashbak

G’day, shipmates! Byron the Quokka here–unlike that pantaloon Joe Collidge, I can find my tail with both hands–but even better, I’ve found your weekend TV menu! Here are a few samples to inflame your curiosity.

8:30 P.M.  Ch. 42  GRABBUM GENERAL HOSPITAL–Melodrama

Who said soap operas can only be shown in the daytime? What else would you call it when Dr. DiBono (Mendel Rivers) chases Nurse Knox (Joey Heatherton) all around the operating theater while the hapless patient (Sidney Greenstreet) tries to stitch himself closed after surgery? Guest star: Roderick Usher.

Ch. 44  RAWHIDE IN AFRICA–Western set in the East

What do the cowboys of Rawhide do in between cattle drives? They drink and gamble away their pay and have to take second jobs! And this job is a doozy–herding wild gnus across the Serengeti Plain, vexed by lions, leopards, and unfriendly local people. Eric Fleming and young Clint Eastwood star–with all footage shot in luxurious Scotland.

8:43 P.M.  Ch. 56  MR. FIX-IT NEWS–Yes, it’s news

Kill two birds with one stone! Bobby the Recluse shows you how to deal with clogged sinks and balky toilets while Carmen Miranda (computer-generated, but you’d never guess it) sings and dances the day’s top news stories. Weather: Johnny Cash.

9 P.M.  Ch. 06  MOVIE–Pastoral science fiction tragedy

In “Mistress Bumbles’ Labor Lost” (Pre-Columbian Studios, 2008), Director Pie Traynor improves on Shakespeare by ascribing his own script to The Bard. Mistress Bumble (Lucy Lawless) turns into Xena Warrior Princess whenever she emerges from her country cottage; and the man she loves, barefoot shepherd Jim Northrup (Omar Sharif), can’t make up his mind–about anything! Featured: the June Taylor Dancers as sheep.

Ch. 11  PLEASE DON’T EAT THE POISON IVY–Sitcom

Bucky (Max Von Sydow) wants to join the Spanish Foreign Legion, but Mom (Heather Locklear) and Uncle Fidget (Taras Bulba) try to stop him by walling him up in his room. Meanwhile, Poppa (Andy Devine) gets a job as a tightrope walker. Special guest star: a live Tyrannosaurus.

Well! You can’t miss these shows, can you? I guess you could, but you’d surely be the poorer for it.

Happy quokka says hi

Byron the Quokka, signing off.

Return to Coldsore Hall (‘Oy, Rodney’)

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a gripping page-turner headed for the top of the NY Times bestseller list | Romance novels, Funny romance, Book parody

Suddenly we find ourselves at Chapter DXIV of Violet Crepuscular’s epic romance, Oy Rodney… without a trace of Chapter DXIII. We wonder what was in it.

“I am not to blame for chapters missing from my book,” she confides in the reader. “All faxaltation aside, the important thing is that Lord Jeremy, having made his hairbreadth escape from Mom’s Dungeon, now finds himself back in the familiar embrace of Coldsore Hall.” She hastens to add, “‘Embrace’ is a figure of speech! Us authors use them all the time.”

It might be nice if she used a plot from time to time. I just work here, what do I know? Last we heard, a burrowing rhinoceros was making a shambles of the gardens in the vicar’s neighborhood. The latest development there…

“Well shut my mouth!” exclaims Willis Twombley, the American adventurer who thinks he’s Sargon of Akkad. He and Lady Margo Cargo are organizing a safari. He points to the earth, to three or four roundish white objects. “Y’know what those are?” Lady Margo does not know. Her upholstered wooden leg is giving her trouble.

“Those,” he proclaims, “are rhino eggs! We have found the rhino’s nest! I found one in Ohio once, but there was something wrong with it. Only chickens came out of the eggs.”

“This is a calamity which no mortal flesh should have to bear,” Lady Margo says.

The chapter ends before Lord Jeremy can actually re-enter his ancestral home. This is either a stroke of literary genius or merely running out of time.

Byron’s TV Listings, Oct. 29

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Garage Sale Finds: What was on TV December 15th through 21st, 1979

Blimey, only two days left till Halloween! Better get my El Kabong costume out of mothballs.

G’day, all! Byron the Quokka here, with indescribably wonderful TV viewing for your weekend. I mean, we’re talking “Soak your brain!” Here are a few samples.

4:37 P.M.  Ch. 06  QUICKIE NEWS–(It might give you a headache)

What do you get when you take last night’s 60-minute news show and speed it up so it can be watched in just three minutes? You get Rottnest Island’s most popular news broadcast! And maybe a bout of queasiness to go with it. Anchor: Sid the Parrot.

4:40 P.M.  Ch. 06  MOVIE–Underwater adventure

Now that the three-minute world news is over, relax with Who Be Digging Up the Coral? (Indo-Jamaican, 1987: 360 minutes, counting commercials). Rishi Vijaya Gupta stars as a cynical but idealistic chain store magnate who seeds coral reefs off Jamaica so he can plant “treasure” in them and dig it up later. The bloodthirsty but benign local sheriff (Elston Howard) opposes him. Mrs. Hashimoto: Heather Locklear.

5 P.M.  Ch. 12  JIMMY FRAUD PRESENTS–Variety

What a lineup! The June Taylor Dancers dance to the Guatemalan Runner-Up National Orchestra’s rendition of “I Got Coccyx Troubles,” Al Gore recites “Dinner With Dracula,” and The Amazing Bruno tries again to re-materialize, having de-materialized three weeks ago. Jimmy’s Monologue: “Why I Deserve a Raise.”

Ch. 20   WIDE WORLD OF STUPID–Sports

Chiang Kai-shek and Minnie Pearl host this hideous display of misbegotten fake “sports” shunned by the other networks! Now you can see ’em all: tightrope-pogosticking, wasps’-nest bothering, soccer with a bowling ball (those headers are murder!), getting stuck inside the clothing donation bin, and so much more!

5:30 P.M.  Ch. 26  JUMPIN’ SPINNIN’ KICKS–Kung-fu crime drama

Dragon Bone Hill, Iowa, has an all-girl police force–and criminals beware! Every one of these beauties can wipe you out with secret jumpin’ spinnin’ kicks, taught by Master Wong Wei (Claude Akins). They can also leap backwards 20 feet in the air! This week: Hot on the trail of a misgendering ring, Officer Schadenfreude (Christie Brinkley) accidentally leaps onto the wing of a jet plane passing overhead. Hysterical passenger: William Shatner.

How about that, folks? Did you ever think you’d see that kind of programming on your TV? I’m lucky if I get any at all.

Quokka - The Australian Museum

Byron the Quokka, signing off.

The Lost Chapter of ‘Oy, Rodney’

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a gripping page-turner headed for the top of the NY Times bestseller list | Romance novels, Funny romance, Book parody

First she lost her notes on Chief Oxyartes, whose appearance on the stage would have climaxed Oy, Rodney with a bang you could’ve heard in South Amboy, NJ (where big bangs make them nervous).

Now all of Chapter DXI, “the Dixie Chapter” of her epic romance, has gone missing.

Author Violet Crepuscular confides in the reader: “I find it necessary to confide in the reader–the gremlins have been at me non-stop! It’s enough to fulgorize you. No one ever said it’d be easy, being The Queen of Suspense! But does it have to be so hard?”

Nothing daunted, she declares her intention to proceed to Chapter DXII as if nothing has happened.

“Now I must conduct the reader to The Big Scary Woods, a little-known corner of the great forest that breathes down Scurveyshire’s neck,” she writes. No one from Scurveyshire goes there, it’s too crowded. (Strike that! Strike it, I say! She will not be permitted to steal jokes from Yogi Berra.) Actually, no one goes there because it’s freakin’ dangerous. In the barely recognizable Village of Evil dwell men and women who look enough like giant frogs to be giant frogs. (Now she’s stealing from H.P. Lovecraft! I want out of here!)

Here the chapter abruptly breaks off. The five toothpaste cupcakes that she had for breakfast seem to have disagreed with her.

Byron’s TV Listings, Oct. 22

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tv guide sears portrait studio 1987

Crikey, it’s almost November! G’day out there–Byron the Quokka, with another weekend’s TV viewing that’ll make you wish you could start your life all over again just so you could see these shows for the first time again… Oh, never mind! Here’s a sample.

6:30 P.M.  Ch. 12  NEWS WITH RUDE NOISES–News & commentary

Actually it’s mostly commentary, as the boisterous studio audience constantly interrupts anchorman Dan Rather with an assortment of disrespectful noises that we will not attempt to describe here. Inexplicably, the show became a mega-hit and was only canceled when Rather refused to allow hard objects to be thrown at him.

Ch. 42  MOVIE–Mostly stock footage

In The Bowery Boys Meet the June Taylor Dancers at Jimmy Fraud’s Lousy Barbecue (Swedish, 1996), a safari in unexplored Africa winds up in Muesli Township, NJ, just in time for a free-for-all! (This is the film that soured the relationship between the Bowery Boys and the June Taylor Dancers and prevented a merger). Captain Queasy: Rip Torn. Mrs. Picasso: Nina Khrushchev. Song: “I Got Chiggers”

6:45 P.M.  Ch. 08  HOLD THAT U.T.I.!–Medical game show

Which celebrity guest has the most awkward medical condition? Which member of the studio audience will be sacrificed to cure it? This week’s guests: Howard Da Silva, Chiang Kai-shek, Billie Jean King, Theda Bara. With Billy Martin and his orchestra. Host: (Refuses to divulge identity).

7 P.M.  Ch. 14  ADVENTURES OF WU WEI-SHU–Western

Gunslinger Chad Votingmachine (Cy Young) searches the Wild West for the baby-sitter who stuck him with the nickname Wu Wei-Shu, “the Tail-less Rat.” If only he could remember her name, what she looked like, etc.! Sidekick: Russ Tamblyn. Moping Minnie: Some stupid idiot in a toreador’s suit. Tonight’s episode: “Heee-yahhh!”

7:07 P.M.  Ch. 63  SEMINAR: SHAKESPEARE’S SUPER-HEROES–Academic twaddle

Everybody knows those dumb comic book movies would be a thousand times better if they had Shakespearean dialogue, according to our host, Prof. Edgar Gunnysack. “Then again,” he said, “Shakespeare would be better if he’d put some super-heroes in it! I mean, have you ever sat through Two Gentlemen of Verona, or wherever it was?” This week, “Batman” gets a complete dialogue makeover (“Forsooth, young Robin, I cly thee right well–but soft! What light through yonder window breaks?” “Beshrew me, Batman! Methinks they butt together well!”) You get the idea…

All right, all right! Maybe that Shakespeare thing is a bit too much to bear! But I’m telling you, the rest is solid gold!

378 Quokka Photos and Premium High Res Pictures - Getty Images

Byron the Quokka, signing off!

Jailbreak! (Oy, Rodney)

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a gripping page-turner headed for the top of the NY Times bestseller list | Romance novels, Funny romance, Book parody

Suddenly we are in Chapter DXI of Violet Crepuscular’s epic romance, Oy, Rodney. No signs of Chapter DX. Reconstructing the lost chapter from subtle hints in this one, we conclude that Constable Chumley’s mother has given up being The Lithping Knight Thir Lanthelot and gone on a world cruise; and Chumley and Jerrold Coelocanth, got into a shouting match that no one else understood.

“Ye fitthick skurn!” (That sounds nasty!–Ed.)

“Ooblz glquuwe!”

“Yar, soth varny yir buckers!”

“Mnng Cthulhu!”  And so on.

Also in the lost chapter, Lord Jeremy Coldsore escapes from Mom’s Dungeon and winds up fleeing from the hounds in a wooded tract in southern Transylvania. I am at a loss to explain how that could have happened.

Ms. Crepuscular takes a moment to speak directly to her readers, all four of them.

“I am taking a moment to speak directly to my readers,” she writes, “because I have failed to find my notes on Chief Oxyartes and am therefor unable to produce a climax and finish my book. Sometimes Brownies get into my house. Maybe they took the notes. I am on the verge of phrognostricating!”

As for what actually happens in Chapter DXI, it may be that the less said about that, the better.

 

What? No Oxyartes? (‘Oy, Rodney’)

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a gripping page-turner headed for the top of the NY Times bestseller list | Romance novels, Funny romance, Book parody

Introducing Chapter DIX of her epic romance, Oy, Rodney, author Violet Crepuscular (“the Queen of Suspense”) apologizes for having failed to introduce Chief Oxyartes.

“I am contrifusiated!” she confesses. “Chief Oxyartes would have tied the whole plot together! He would have resolved everything. Another half a dozen chapters, and I’d’ve been done! Free to go on to the next book!” (Oy, Rodney 2: The Interminable.) “Alas and alack and woe! The notes I jotted down for Oxyartes somehow wound up as the paper in my home-made fortune cookies.”

Meanwhile in Chapter DIX, Constable Chumley meets Jerrold Coelocanth, the Man with the Unpronounceable Word.

“Dith yon borda maken silphlessness?” the constable inquires.

To which Mr. Coelocanth replies, “Ygglth pkaa.” Chumley arrests him for public lewdness, even though they’re not in public. “Hir miggle mine gulph,” he would explain to Lord Jeremy Coldsore, justice of the peace. He says it anyway, not noticing that Lord Jeremy isn’t there.

Jeremy is still being held by Constable Chumley’s mother as a prisoner of love. He has scrawled pleas for help on his dinner plates and hurled them out the window to many of Europe’s most famous rivers. One washes up in Johnno the Merry Minstrel’s back yard, up against the bird feeder.

[We don’t have the rest of this chapter. She’s turning the place upside-down, looking for notes on Chief Oxyartes. I’m the editor and I have no idea who that dude is. I am reasonably sure we can get along without him.]

Byron’s TV Listings, Oct. 8

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TV Guide Oct 2, 1970 | Program pages from the Minneapolis-St… | Flickr

G’day, g’day, and happy weekend! Byron the Quokka here, with absolutely the very best in television, the best shows of the last 800 years! Brought to you by Quokka University, where a degree in Nothing Studies means just that.

Behold a few samples:

7:30 P.M.  Ch. 02  THE MICROBES–(Best sitcom ever)

Kate Smith and Stan Laurel star as Alice and Jerry Microbe, whose neighbors can’t see them without a microscope! (I don’t know why they put in that exclamation point. Someone please take it away.) This week: Alice gets lost in Mrs. Moseby’s rug. Mrs. Moseby: Shari Lewis. Sasquatch: Harold Stassen.

Ch. 08  THE NEWS IN DANCE–News & commentary

Join the June Taylor Dancers in presenting and analyzing the world’s news in interpretive dance! Tonight: Turkey, Paraguay sign non-aggression pact; Congress investigates pro wrestling match-fixing scandal; 450-pound pole vaulter sets record. Song: “Old MacDonald Had a Farm.”

7:42 P.M.  Ch. 17  MOVIE–Science fiction

In “Able was I, Ere I Saw Elba” (Hong Kong, 1975), the Shaw Brothers’ five-hour epic, kung-fu meets string theory. A drunken guard (Luis Tiant) falls in love with a pineapple from another dimension (Linda Hunt), who is able to look sort of like a woman when the mood takes her. Together they plot to bring back Napoleon Bonaparte (Gabe Kaplan)! Too bad they only brought back half of him… Mrs. Hsing: Li Lo Liang.

8 P.M.  Ch. 46  GET RICH QUICK!–Self-improvement

Host Alan Diphthong filmed 12 of these episodes before he was sent to prison for fraud. Tonight’s projects: raising fleas for sale to flea circuses; a radish farmer in California switches over to taking money not to scare small children; start your own sky-diving school. Special guest: Bill Moyers.

Ch. 52  KNIT THE RAVELED SLEEVE OF CARE–Game show

It’s celebrities Chuck Connors, Abe Ribikoff, and Sally Field against three schlubs from the studio audience in a battle to see which team can stay awake longest through a reading of Silas Marner by a not-very-talented W.C. Fields impersonator. Winning team gets Batman wrist watches! Losing team gets doused with ice-cold water. Host: Porky Pig (don’t ask).

Well, if you think these are great shows, wait’ll you see the ones I haven’t written previews for! One of our emus went hog-wild after just half an hour’s viewing.

Meet the Quokka

Happy viewing! Byron the Quokka, signing off.