First up, from an unknown day in December 1940, Vic suffers writer's block as he's asked to write an article for "Kitchen-ware Dealer's Quarterly". Rhymer's signaure names come a-plenty in this episode and sucks you into his world, a world I'd love to live in...and I think I did as a child in Montana.
The subject of Vic's article is to be H.K Fleeber from Grovelman, South Carolina who works at Plant #18, and his personal accomplishment of having an artificial tooth in his head from every state in the union (that's 48 teeth and quite a mouthful). Editor's T.J. Giggs and G. Tillman Feeb asked Vic to write this article and the patriarch of our favorite family dreams of doing a good job in the hopes that he'll be asked to become a regular contributor like J. Richard Sickbrain who write poetry for the magazine. Eventually Sade and Rush decide to leave Vic alone in his frustration and go see the picture at The Bijou. Gloria Golden and Four-Fisted Frank Fuddleman starring in "I Shall Love Thee Evermore, Lieutenant Corporal Glush!".
Dang this is good stuff! Enjoy!
Next up is December 17, 1940. Sade's perplexed as to the whys and wherefors of the Miller Park Zoo squandering their money on a new baboon named Leser, while Rush has a scheme to draw $50 (1940 dollars, mind you) from his savings account to buy a lifetime pass to "The Bijou Talking Picture Theatre".
Full of Sadisms that make my mother's voice ring in my brain, she tells Rush he's "as transparent as a horse" in his intentions, that he's "full of axel grease and peach butter" in his pitching of the idea and that he'd squander his hard earned money as fast as "send his undershirt to Detroit, Michigan parcel post".
Ah, the flavors and smells you can get from words when a real writer is at work. Enjoy!
Our visual treat this week is more text than anything and a little lengthy, but very worthwhile for any fan of this series. From 1979 and "The Journal of Popular Culture" (something tells me I want every dang issue of this thing) Volume 12, part 2 - Fred Schroeder's very in-depth look back at the series.
Seriously...where do I find the entire library of this thing?
Enjoy!
Talk to you soon.
Great article. While burdened in many parts by the usual flaws of academic writing, there are some very interesting points made and some great snippets from the scripts.
ReplyDeleteWhich leads me to wonder not what's in Jeff Overturf's head, but the size of his attic.
The beauty of the digital age, Chris. The size of your attic is no longer measured in square footage, but in megabytes. And you can fit thousands of those in your pocket. :)
ReplyDelete