Sally Takes a Bow

From the Dick Van Dyke Show episode “Stacey Petrie, Part 1”:

The imagined context:

“Hey listen, Rose Marie, I know you’re disappointed about Mary being the big female draw on the show and how all the chatter is about her being lovely and wifely and pretty and charming and then we made Sally a flat, dateless wonder. But we have a compromise for you: bows. We thought it would be a nice character touch for you — and Sally too, really — if you always wore bows on the show. And here you’ll be wearing a bow so big it will look like you were shrunk down to subhuman-size — like you some sort of living doll wearing human-scale accessories. People will be like, ‘Yeah, that Mary Tyler Moore is great, but what about the chick in the bow?’ That will be your thing. But just don’t go outside with the bow on, because we did a test run on the assistant wardrobe girl and holy cow! She just walked outside and the wind whipped her over the embankment and she looked like she was hurt pretty good. And maybe don’t wear the bow between takes because the bow-maker said it could permanently damage your vertebrae. Anyway, you’re going to enter the scene and everyone is going to be like, ‘Ew, look at Sally in her stupid bow. How old is she supposed to be really?’ But don’t take that personally, because it’s about the bow. Oh, and the wardrobe girl totally died. So maybe send some flowers. It was a pretty windy day, I guess.”

And it’s not the only time the Dick Van Dyke Show suffered from off-the-mark styling:

I... I don’t even know what that’s supposed to be up there.

Hunkules and Derperus

I'd assume Estonian painter Johann Köler wanted to direct the viewer's eye towards Hercules' junk, obscured by the gravity-defying lion hide swooping in for a mid-air grope. My eyes, however fixate on Cerberus, who is depicted being dragged out of Hades as part of the twelfth labor of Hercules. "Which head?" you ask. Easy. It's not the sad head. It's not the angry head. It's the head closest to Hercules — the derpy head.

He's all "Hey, buddy. Wha-what's goin' on, huh? I was-a just, just nappin' here, buddy. Durrr."

Making fun of the visual arts, previously:

• Finally, definitive proof that Caligula is creepy
• Portraits of people with their silly severed heads
• The Portrait of Lorina Dunlop
• St. Agatha only has eyes for you
• We really need to talk about The Apotheosis of Washington
• Do you need some tweezers to put that thing away?

How This National Geographic Cover Came to Be (A Work of Fiction)

First, the cover in question:

And now the scene: an editorial meeting in the main office of National Geographic’s headquarters in Washington D.C. All relevant departments direct their attention to the editor in chief, who asks what species could most deserve the cover of the long-awaited exotic pets issue. The room immediately erupts into frenzied suggestions. “Lions!” “Antelopes!” “Perhaps a lemur wearing a dog collar?” “I like ibexes!” But eventually, the rumble dies down, as each attendee realizes that his or her idea doesn’t perfect capture the spirit of the issue. A timid voice from emerges from the back of the room.

“What about hedgehogs?”

The rumble returns, but with a different focus. “Oh, there she goes again.” “Sit the fuck down, Nedra.” “She’s always talking about fucking hedgehogs.” “Who hired Nedra, anyway?” The editor-in-chief indulges her: “What is it about hedgehogs that makes you think they deserve the cover, Nedra?”

Right hand tugging nervously at her left elbow, Nedra begins. “Well, I’ve always thought they were neat. They are kind. They are clean. And I know it’s an unpopular opinion, but there’s more National Geographic could be doings for them…”

The editor-in-chief nods cautiously.

“And also my hedgehog’s name is Mrs. Bananas and she eats bananas and I have to keep the lights off in my house so she feels safe and she also likes peas.”

The rumble begins again. “Fuck this idiot.” “She’s insane!” “I think she’s simple.” “I’ll bet she doesn’t even own a fucking hedgehog, this dumb, crazy liar.” Realizing she’s losing her chance, Nedra gives it one last shot, her voice no longer timid.

“And also sometimes Mrs. Bananas rolls into a ball and it makes her sneeze and it’s cute and also I disposed of all the photo files.”

The room quiets. The EIC: “What did you say, Nedra? You got rid of our photos?”

“Umm. Maybe.”

“Young lady, are you saying you got rid of each and every photo that National Geographic has or ever will run of a wild animal?”

“… Yes. I threw them all into the Potomac last night. Mrs. Bananas and I broke in. No one notices us. You have no other options now.”

“But why would you do that?”

“Well… because now you have no choice but to acknowledge Mrs. Bananas. And hedgehogs everywhere.”

The editor-in-chief looks sternly at Nedra for a few moments before once again nodding his head. “Well-played, Nedra. Mrs. Bananas shall have her day.” And then the rest of the National Geographic begins a begrudging slow clap. As the EIC walks over and puts his hand on Nedra’s shoulder, she scoops Mrs. Bananas out from the pocket of her olive-green blazer. She cuddles the little critter next to her face,weeping tears of joy. And in a voice almost too quiet to be heard, she says, “We did, Mrs. Bananas. We did it.”

{ FIN }

And that, my friends, is the only way I can imagine how anyone thought that the wildest, most exotic animal National Geographic could put on the cover of this issue was a fucking hedgehog.

Encyclopedia Drew and the Confounding Cleanser

Below appears an advertisement for soap. I’m not sure when it comes from, and I’m not sure where it began its second life online as a quaint, re-postable novelty. (I first saw it on Tumblr, and the original Tumblr-er didn’t see fit to include details.) The advertisement is a rebus that I think I’ve solved, though I’m not sure. Your input is appreciated.

The mystery crew’s best stab at it: “Trying to be wise, you / don’t at once succeed / You won’t be long before you do if you this information read / All use Davids Prize Soap, for thus they save in many ways / They use no other / Finding that no one other pays.”

Of course, that doesn’t entirely make sense, though we can maybe forgive the demands of the rebus for some of the more awkward constructions. I’m bothered by that dented “U” in the second line. It seems like it should actually represent the word it, but I can’t for the life of me imagine what that symbol is supposed to be.

Also mysterious? That brand name: Davids Prize Soap. Thought apparently spelled with the apostrophe elsewhere, searching online for more info on the subject may in fact lead you to the Wikipedia page for King David, where it describes a very unusual sort of prize. “Saul made David a commander over his armies and offered him his daughter Michal in marriage for bringing one hundred foreskins of the Philistines but David brought back two hundred, saying ‘God was with me.’” So there you go. David’s prize was foreskins. Maybe you can use this old-timey soap to clean your two hundred foreskins.

Freak.

The Video Game That Gregor Mendel Never Asked For

I stumbled across the box art for a 1989 Nintendo game that I barely remember — I only rented it, just the one time — but the sight of the cover graphics took me back. Really, 1989 marked an aesthetic sweet spot: when the brightness of the 80s was beginning to give way to the grittier 90s.

via game abyss

I may even prefer the in-game rendering of the box art — or at least the Japanese art that clearly inspired the American box art.

via hardcore gaming 101

You can see how the American artist tweaked the original characters in an effort to better suit American gamers. It’s funny now to consider how “Japanese-looking” art would ever be considered a minus, as far as marketing to video game nerds goes. 

The Mendel Palace art, in either form, takes me back. It will never fail to take me back. There’s even something to be said for the TV commercial.

It’s actually surprising to me that this game actually got an on-air commercial. I don’t think I ever saw it back at the time Hudson Soft was rooting for Mendel Palace to become a big hit. It wasn’t enough of a success to spawn a sequel, but the game’s developer, Game Freak, kept at it and eventually created the Pokemon franchise, and now grown people wear Pikachu hoodies out and about as if that were a normal thing to do.

The game had you solving puzzles by skittering around a grid of squares, and I have to wonder if the game’s title comes from the vague resemblance to Mendel squares. (Hardcore Gaming 101 points out that the original Japanese title was Quinty and that the original aesthetic skews way more cutesy.) With a six-by-five grid, these aren’t squares, however. Yeah, these kids are going to come out looking funny.

via hardcore gaming 101

Cute and colorful, but funny-looking nonetheless.

Deep Red (But Mostly Chartreuse, Taupe and Umber)

Back in October, in apparent preparation for Halloween, I posted a collection of stills from Suspiria, Dario Argento’s gorgeously colorful 1977 slasher movie. I wanted to prove that it’s beautiful, I suppose, but that’s no difficult task: Nearly every scene is a nicely composed, color-saturated work of art.

Today, in apparent preparation for… St. Patrick’s Day, I guess, I offer you a collection from Argento’s film immediately before Suspiria: Deep Red, also known as Profondo rosso. It’s more restrained, more noir, and its color palette skews more ’70s. You see less of the pure red, blue and green of Suspiria and more colors filtered with yellow — which is appropriate, considering it’s a giallo. Lack of Technicolor surrealism notwithstanding, Profondo rosso is still a beautiful film.

And here are a bunch of stills that prove this claim.

Also, I enjoy how the film ends by reminding you what film you were watching, just in case you’d gotten confused.