Small Shelly Fauna

They rob carrot patches

Yesterday I saw Bonnie and Clyde for the first time. I’ve seen the late-period Warner short Bunny and Claude countless times, so I already had a pretty grasp of the plot going in. (Although based on evidence in episode #9F07 of The Simpsons [“Mr. Plow”], namely a bullet-riddled vehicle labeled “Bonnie and Clyde Death Car”, I had a suspicion that the film [and reality] did not have quite as happy of an ending as the cartoon. I was correct.) Seeing this movie, I got to thinking about just how many of our modern cultural touchpoints (movies, TV shows, novels, etc.) are known to me only in cartoon parody form. Let me tell you, it’s a lot. For example, I’ve never seen Cape Fear, but I’ve seen plenty of “Cape Feare” (that’s Simpsons episode #9F22, by the way). (Throw in all the live-action parodies, like in Saturday Night Live and The Ben Stiller Show, and I’ve seen perhaps twice the running time of the original film in parodic format.) I’ve never seen an episode of That Girl, but danged if I can’t hum the theme song and describe all the major characters, solely on the basis of certain shows whose bread and butter is the pop culture reference. And there’s a difference between just plain not getting a reference (because you’ve never seen the source material) and “getting it” in a medium isolated from the source, accepting the reference as known Other. For example, on Mystery Science Theater 3000, the refs fly fast and furious, and one must have an overwhelmingly encyclopedic knowledge of modern culture (and classical culture, and Minnesotan geography, but I digress) to get them all. And God knows, I am wanting. (As such, it is rewarding to rewatch the old episodes every so often, and as I become older and wiser I get progressively more jokes, and to finally get a joke that has confounded you for years, Lord, it’s a feeling like no other. As a small child forever reading and rereading my Far Side collections, I was perpetually flummoxed by the entry featuring a group of down-on-their-luck frogs by a pond, sipping suspicious beverages out of brown paper bags, one of whom is commenting, “Yeah, I remember Jerry. Good friend of mine. Never understood a single word he said, but he always had some might fine wine.” Suffice it to say that the day I finally heard “Jeremiah was a Bullfrog” was one of glory and triumph, if one can call passive musical intake triumph.) But where was I? Ah, yes, reference as Other in modern society. These are the cases where you know what’s being referenced, know that it isn’t endemic to the current medium, but have all the same accepted the parody as your benchmark for the original. And the more prominent the original material, the more likely you are to have first experience it outside of the original material. I know I was introduced to Yellow Submarine, The Wizard of Oz, and Star Wars (to name just a few) via Muppet Babies long before seeing the actual versions. Kane, forget it. I sincerely doubt that there is a person alive under the age of 50 whose first introduction to Citizen Kane was actually through the movie. (Seriously, tell me the TV show that HASN’T done a Kane parody (if comedy) or homage (if drama) at some point. You can’t.) So where am I going with this? I dunno, I’m just rambling at this point, it’s what I do…OH! I’ve got it. I wanted to indict those snot-nosed whippersnappers who won’t get off my lawn. Yes. Anyway, with generations of material that is parodical, referential, or downright derivative (the former two I am quite keen on, the latter not so much) there is a disheartening tendency for the original joke to be lost all together in the public mind. I’m not suggesting that this is a new occurrence, as I’m sure that I am quite guilty of failing to recognize many a third-generation Chaplin gag. I’m just saying that it’s happening to me now, and I don’t like it. Key example: on the nigh-hallucinogenic casting call for the last season of All That, there was a character who was clearly just a younger cast member channeling founding cast member Josh Server, he whose entire schtick was a bush league impersonation of Ace Ventura (of course, Ace Venture itself was highly derivative of Shakespeare, who never had an original plot himself, but again, I digress.). And kids watching these antics don’t recognize the warmed-over mugging as Carreyan: frickin’ Ace Ventura! How could they have not seen that? What’s that, they weren’t born when it came out? That’s a damned lie and you know it. This is probably the most incoherent, pointless entry in the history of this web site. And now you’ve read it. Sorry about that. So let’s get back on the same page here to wrap up: Sandworms. You hate ‘em, right? I hate ‘em myself.

PS. Wolf-Spiders Ruleth the Land.