30 June 2008

The E! TV Entry

Okay, it really has nothing to do with E! TV, but if you read on - wait... why am I always having to explain stuff to you? Just read on! Now. Go.

The other day Zeeba and I were lying about watching some lame-ass television and having one of our typically rambling discussions about - hell, I don't even know what, because our chats are the verbal equivalent of Brownian motion - when Zeeba said, "Oh, I heard something today about that actress who attacked her husband with a fork! Reese... uh..."

I said, "Witherspoon?"

And she said, "No, with a fork!"

Heh heh. "With a fork." I totally fell for it.

On Saturday we went over to Johnny K's to finish off the caipirinhas, and granted, he was busy digging around in the fridge to bring out a flight of beers (because there was only enough cachaca left for one caipirinha each - inadequate!) so it's possible that he really didn't hear the joke, but after he said, "Witherspoon?" we totally had to explain the joke to him. Three times. Heh.

Today at work we were looking for some olive oil to make up some awesome food product or another - because that's what we do - and from olive oil the conversation naturally turned to Popeye and Swee'pea and the big question of where in the hell did Swee'pea come from, because as far as we knew he wasn't Olive Oyl's kid, he was Popeye's, right? I figured he was maybe one of those Korean War orphans that were so popular back in the day, like Dondi, but then it turned out that Dondi was an Italian WWII orphan, not a Korean War orphan. Maybe Annie was a Korean War orphan? Someone had to be. Big war, lots of orphans, right?

Dondi. Not Korean at all.

But as it turned out, Swee'pea just sort of ended up on Olive Oyl's doorstep where Popeye was a boarder, and he raised the child as his boy-kid - because a squinty one-eyed sailor man who gets into a bar fight every episode is the perfect role model for a strange little orphan boy. No wonder the kid never really learned how to walk.

In the course of the conversation I made a reference to Bluto, and this guy, Chris, said, "I thought his name was Brutus?"

Ah, that age-old question that has plagued philosophers and historians since... well, never, really. But it has confused a lot of reg'lar folk.

Because, of course, he was both Brutus and Bluto, depending on which particular bit o' Popeye you happened to be watching. In the same way that Dick York was replaced by Dick Sargent in the role of Darrin with no explanation, even though they looked completely different and acted differently and they were clearly not the same guy at all - the only thing they had in common was that they were a couple of Dicks - Bluto suddenly became Brutus for no apparent reason. The only thing they had in common was that... well, everything, really, except Bluto was squintier. And meaner.

Bluto came onto the scene in 1932. He was meaner, nastier, and squintier.

King Features Syndicate thought Paramount owned the copyright to Bluto, so they created Brutus. But come on... same guy!

This led to the obvious discussion of the two Darrins and the show Bewitched in general, which led to the revelation of the fact that Elizabeth Montgomery was irrepressibly hot, although someone in our group seemed to prefer Barbara Eden in her genie costumes in I Dream of Jeannie, but if you ask me that's just form over substance. It's a rehashing of the old "Ginger vs Mary Ann" debate. (Personally, I had always been a Samantha/Mary Ann kind of guy, until one time when Johnny K and I were in Evansville, Indiana, for work, and we saw that Mary Ann was going to be at the local Wal-Mart signing autographs. I went out and bought a camera - bought a camera! - so we could go down at the appointed hour and meet Mary Ann, and when we got there the octogenarian in the blue vest at the front of the store told us that Dawn Wells was a no-show! I walked through the rest of my week like a zombie. I was shattered. And people ask me if I watch Lost, the Gilligan's Island of the new century? No. I can't handle that kind of pain again. And now I am strictly a Samantha/Ginger guy. But enough about me... this whole blog is about me!)

Dick York.

Dick Sargent.

Sergeant York. (No relation.)

It's interesting that these two shows about women with magical powers should come out one after the other in the mid-60s. Marie (one of the women who works in our lab) commented that she liked both of these shows because the women were magical, but if you think about it, these shows were really about the oppression of women. Here are two empowered women - literally empowered - who are both kept from fully expressing those powers because the men in their lives won't allow it. What would Mary Astell have thought?

Somebody said, "Well, shame on those men!" and Marie countered, "No, shame on those women, because they're the ones that had the powers, and they didn't use them."

So the moral of the story is, if you have powers, use them.

Or shame on you.

The Last Five:
I heard it on the radio - 27 July 2008
Happiness is... - 26 July 2008
Do bears shit in the woods? - 21 July 2008
Politics schmoliticks - 14 July 2008
words and pictures - 14 July 2008

The E! TV Entry

Navigate

Contact Me...

6° of Saru-San:

Old Navy

A Photo Gallery

Credits

Notify List

Geek Stuff