PORFLE PRESENTS: "AIRPORT '11"

PORFLE PRESENTS: "HORSE ATTACK!!!"

I don't go to the movies very often anymore, but last week I was having my house sprayed for fleas and needed a place to hang out for a couple of hours.  Since I no longer frequent pool halls and videogame arcades as I did in my younger days, the movie theater seemed to be my best bet.  Unfortunately, there was hardly anything playing besides Best Picture nominees, so I decided to take in a film I'd never heard of with the colorful title of HORSE ATTACK!!!

As I sat through the coming attractions, deftly applying several little packets of mustard and relish to the lukewarm, semi-cooked hot dog that I'd purchased for five bucks from an indifferent snack bar attendant, my imagination ran wild at the thought of the impending horse attack that would be assailing my senses in mere minutes.  Of course, your standard horse attack probably wouldn't be all that exciting, but with three exclamation marks in the title, HORSE ATTACK!!! promised to be a humdinger of a film. 

Little did I know that only a few months earlier, a pre-release screening of HORSE ATTACK!!! for the head of Imperial Studios had been less than successful.  A particular bone of contention came in relation to, not surprisingly, the big horse attack sequence.  The setting was a typical city street with ordinary people walking to and fro about their daily lives, when suddenly Natalie Portman leapt into the frame, pointed, and screamed, "HORSE ATTACK!!!"

"NOOOOOO!!!  YAAAAAAA!!!" bellowed another woman, played by fellow Oscar-winner Sandra Bullock.  She dropped her grocery bag, which had celery greens and an egg carton sticking out of the top just like grocery bags in movies always have, and ran away in stark terror.

The rest of the players began to scurry and hop around, flailing their arms and screaming at the top of their lungs.  "HELP!!! HELP!!! THE HORSES ARE ATTACKING US!!!" cried the film's director in his usual cameo role.

Frantic neighing and clippity-clop sounds filled the air as the characters on the screen rolled around in their death throes.  Sprawled between the sidewalk and the curb, a look of inutterable anguish on his face, Morgan Freeman croaked a dying lament in his distinctive voice.  "We...had no... warning...(gurgle)"

Then the camera panned to the right to reveal Jeff Goldblum standing there, assessing the situation.  "Horses...horses..." he was muttering to himself, making a series of eccentric hand gestures.  "Let's just stop for a minute and think about these...horses.  Where do they come from?  What do they want?  Now, if we could...discern...the answers to these questions...then...then...we'd have something." 

"Stop the projector!" boomed a commanding voice.  The screening room went dark, then was illuminated by the overhead lights.  Studio executive J. Warner Wanger turned in his seat to face the film's producer, Feldmar Burrito, who asked, "Is there a problem, J.W.?"

"Well, I do have a question," said Wanger.  "Where are the horses?"

"Horses?" Burrito responded, perplexed.  "What horses?"

"The horses that are supposed to be attacking everybody!" Wanger shot back.  "Where the hell are they?"

"Oh!" said Burrito, finally understanding the meaning of Wanger's words.  "Well, unfortunately, we ran out of money for special effects."

"What do you mean, you ran out of money?"

"CGI is expensive, sir.  Why, these days, just a single digital horse costs upwards of--"

"I know how much it costs!" Wanger cut in, irritated.  "So, why not use real horses?"

"Real horses?" asked Burrito, confused.  "Is there such a thing?"

"What do you mean, 'is there such a thing'?  Of course there's such a thing!"

"You mean, like, on some other planet?"

"No, no!" Wanger sputtered, not quite understanding the question.  "Right here on earth.  Horses are indigenous to earth!"

"THEY ARE?" Burrito marveled.  "WOW!  I thought they were just some kind of imaginary creatures whipped up by special-effects technicians for all those Westerns and Robin Hood movies and whatnot!"

"Don't forget NATIONAL VELVET," added a junior executive.

"Shut up!" said Wanger.  "Listen, Burrito--there's no way we can release this picture without horses it it.  Why, we'd be the laughing stock of Hollywood!  A horse-attack movie without any horses!"

Burrito thought about it for a minute, then snapped his fingers.  "I've got it!  We can stick a title card at the beginning of the movie, telling everyone to IMAGINE the horses!"

"IMAGINE the horses?" echoed Wanger.  "But...that's ridiculous!"

"Sorry, J.W, but it's either that or get rid of Portman, Bullock, Freeman, and Goldblum.  Well, maybe not Goldblum.  His mom wrote the screenplay." 

"And THE BLACK STALLION," added the junior executive.

"SHUT UP!" spat Wanger.  "Hmmm...'imagine' the horses.  Maybe this'll work after all.  We can tell people it's like a brand-new kind of 3D or something."

"Movies of the mind...IMAGI-MOVIES!" gushed Burrito, squirming in his seat.  "It'll be the greatest film innovation since...since that thing they invented where you could hear people talking and horns honking and stuff!"

"You mean 'sound'?"

"YES!  YES!  SOUND!" screamed Burrito.  "IMAGI-MOVIES WILL BE BIGGER THAN SOUND!"

And so, a few months later, there I was sitting in the theater watching HORSE ATTACK!!! and imagining the horses during the actual horse-attack scenes.  I heard a little kid on the next row ask his parents if he could go to the bathroom, and they told him to just imagine he was going to the bathroom.  Then I looked over and spotted a young couple sitting there imagining that they were making out instead of actually making out.  I tried to imagine that the hot dog I'd just eaten didn't give me gas and that HORSE ATTACK!!! didn't totally suck, but it was no use. 

I found out later that movie concession sales, where theaters actually earn most of their profits, were plummetting across America because patrons were imagining that they were eating popcorn and hot dogs and stuff instead of buying them.  Pretty soon, people simply started staying home and imagining that they were at the movies. 

This began to carry over into all other areas of popular entertainment as well, with millions of people avoiding concerts, video games, TV shows, live theater, sporting events, brothels, and even restaurants, and cavorting instead within a mental wonderland of their own imagining.  This lasted until studio executives put out a press release announcing that imagining things was "out of style", causing panicked theatergoers to rush back to the movies in droves.  

Well, believe it or not, I purchased HORSE ATTACK!!! when it was released on DVD, because the box promised extra nude scenes not included in the feature version.  It turned out the bonus footage consisted of Morgan Freeman applying medicated ointment to his left buttock after being bitten by a horse.  So I guess HORSE ATTACK!!! got the last laugh after all--the old "horse laugh", that is! (wink)



(originally posted at Andersonvision.com)

Thanks to Stripcreator.com for the image!

PORFLE'S OBSCURE MOVIE FACTS

Ah, Hollywood...that most mysterious of places.  Its dark secrets are legendary, its mysteries deep and often disturbing.  Even its fruitily fraudulent and fictitious fables of fanatastic fickle fate are frankly fascinating when foisted as fact. 

Here, then, are some of Hollywood's most tantalizing tales, titillatingly touted as truth, yet fabulously fabricated--and ribbed--for your pleasure...



"A VIN-VIN SITUATION"

Currently languishing in production limbo is a film biography of Vin Diesel entitled OUR VIN HAS TENDER GRAPES. 

Interestingly, he wouldn't be playing himself.  "I do not think that Vin Diesel would be a good choice for the title role," reveals writer-director Al Gore.  "I believe that it would be more interesting to cast someone like Paris Hilton or Haley Joel Osment as Vin Diesel." Vin Diesel himself would instead be portraying his mother, Mrs. Diesel, which insiders have already deemed likely to garner him a major acting award. 

When asked for his own opinion on this unique casting choice, Vin remarked:  "I like hot dogs."



"SCHLOCK-BUSTER"

Legendary comedian Buster Keaton was once hired by a studio known as Big Historical Pictures to write, direct, and star in an epic film about former president Millard Fillmore. 

During filming, however, Keaton was struck on the head while performing a stunt and forgot what the movie was supposed to be about, subsequently turning in a raucous comedy entitled ME WHAT HUH? OH HA-HA POTATOES.  Big Historical Pictures, which had already spent thousands printing up posters proclaiming "Buster Keaton IS...'Millard Fillmore'", retaliated by hiring an artist to replace the words "Millard Fillmore" with the words "a dumbass"  and distributing the altered posters to movie theaters, airports, train stations, and elementary schools throughout the United States and Canada, effectively ending Keaton's movie career. 

The aborted ME WHAT HUH? OH HA-HA POTATOES project was then augmented with footage newly shot by William Beaudine and transformed into a prestige vehicle for George Arliss entitled MARS NEEDS HAMSTERS.  Arliss' career never recovered, although nobody noticed and he went on to star in several more films as Edna May Oliver.



"BORIS TO TEARS"

Legendary horror film bogeyman Boris Karloff...was a woman. Born Wilma Henrietta Pratt, she first pretended to be a man in an attempt to win the lead role in a stage production entitled "Blarney on the High Seas." After landing in Hollywood, her desire to reveal her true gender as "Doris Karloff" was thwarted when the role of Elizabeth in FRANKENSTEIN went to Mae Clarke, forcing the tearful young actress to audition as the Monster instead.

In 1966, she welcomed the chance to reveal her true appearance to the world as "Mother Muffin" on the TV series "The Girl from U.N.C.L.E."



"SHA-KA-REE"

The role of "Star Trek"'s Captain James T. Kirk, which made William Shatner an instant star, almost went to...Sean Connery.  "I thought it might be a lark," the distinguished actor revealed to us over a late lunch of spaghetti and meatballs under glass in the Parisian Room at Toots Shor's.  "Wear a silly costume...shoot a ray gun...have sex with a few birds done up in green paint and sparkles.  I was tired of playing Bond." 

Things got a little real, however, when Connery discovered that he would be expected to wear a toupee.  "I was tired of balancing a rug on my head," the chrome-domed actor admitted while casually tucking into a rich dessert of banana split under glass.  "When I proposed doing the part sans hairpiece, they laughed at me.  'Whoever heard of a bald captain?' they jeered.  Well, I was proven right after all, wasn't I?  I mean, just look at the bloody 'Love Boat.'  So, I wished the next chap jolly good luck and hoped he didn't mind wearing the damned thing." 

When asked by the producers if he would consider playing a different role on the show, Connery offered a dismissive reply.  "'Listen', I told them," the stuffed actor recalled while contentedly passing after-dinner gas in Toots Shor's exclusive Flatulence Room, "I said, 'Tell you what--why don't you create a new character with ears like a jackrabbit, no emotions whatsoever, and hair like Moe Howard of the Three Stooges, and then get some unknown Jewish chap from Canada with a funny name to play him.'  Then I told them all to 'live long and prosper' on my way out the door.  Never did find out what become of their silly little space show."



"SCREAM-OF-CHICKEN SCOOP"

Although Universal Pictures successfully kept most of the rumors under wraps, insiders still whisper about the apparent curse of evil that plagued production of the supernatural comedy-thriller, THE GHOST AND MR. CHICKEN.

Filming began under a cloud of unease when director Alan Rafkin mysteriously misplaced his megaphone and was forced to shout instructions to the cast and crew, which by the end of the shoot had resulted in a painful sore throat. The missing item was later discovered in a pawn shop in Philadelphia. "To this day," Rafkin once told friends, "I sometimes I wake up screaming...still screaming at Reta Shaw to get away from the craft services table and back to the set."

More ill fortune, seemingly from beyond, continued to stalk the soundstage. Charles Lane, as malevolent bad-guy lawyer Whitlow, reportedly showed up to work for days at a time in a good mood. "He had a sort of lilt in his step," recalled co-star Robert Cornthwaite with a shudder. "Happy, whistling little tunes...and, God help us, smiling. It was ghastly. Finally, several of us had to physically hold him down and show him nude photos of Jim Begg on horseback just to snap him out of it."

The worst, however, seemed reserved for hapless star Don Knotts, who appeared to be the center of whatever evil forces hung over the set. Lurene Tuttle recalled: "One day, between scenes, Don was playing mumblety-peg with Skip Homeier, and something distracted him for just a moment, and the next thing you know, Skip was dead." Added Ellen Corby: "Donny felt terrible about it. He hadn't accidentally killed anyone since 'No Time For Sergeants', but that had only been a couple of extras from the mess hall scene."

She continued: "Well, the casting people had a dickens of a time scrounging up another Skip Homeier before we fell behind schedule. But luckily a group of anthropologists in Uruguay had just stumbled upon a tribe of wild Homeiers in a jungle somewhere and captured one of them alive. Oh, he was wild--much wilder than the other one. Don eventually had to kill that one, too, when he attacked him during the typesetting scene." Homeier's part was then completed by a double who was shot from behind, when Don Knotts' gun accidentally went off while he was cleaning it.

But the most horrific misfortune was yet to come. A distraught Dick Sargent explained: "I was there the day Don bent over to pick up an errant script page and split his pants. One moment he was happy, joking with Joan Staley about what a world-class rack she had, and then..." He mimicked the blood-chilling sound. "It was a gaping rip, right down the seat of Don's pants, and...Joan saw his underwear. She tried not to laugh, but that just made it worse. Pretty soon everyone was laughing...Joan, me, Jesslyn Fax, Nydia Westman...even Burt Mustin, who wasn't even there that day. And that's when the infamous 'Ghost and Mr. Chicken Death Curse' began. Don killed us all--tracked us down like a rabid timber wolf, eyes blazing with blood lust, and slaughtered us all in our sleep."

When later questioned about this startling accusation by his trusted family lawyer, Tom Hagen, Don Knotts was coldly dismissive. "I never felt as though I had to kill everyone, Tom--only my enemies. Now, are you going to go along with me on these things that I have to do? Because if not, you can take your wife, your kids--and your mistress--and move them all to Las Vegas."


(Thanks to Ted Newsom for the "Obscure Movie Facts!" idea.)
(originally posted at Andersonvision.com)

PORFLE VS. CONFUSING TRAFFIC SIGNS

I don't know about you, but my town is full of extremely confusing and sometimes downright ridiculous traffic signs.  It's gotten to the point where I'm afraid to try and go anywhere in my car.  I don't know how anybody ever gets anywhere with all of these stupid signs full of conflicting or confusing directives that seem as though they're designed to drive me totally insane. 

Take, for example, these "STOP" signs that you see everywhere.  Just last week I gaily hopped into my car, happily looking forward to a nice trip to EZ Mart to buy some of those really sugary donut sticks that taste so good with milk.  But before I've even gone half a block, I run into a "STOP" sign.  Dutifully, I stop the car like I'm supposed to and wait.  A minute goes by, then two.  Nothing happens.  I must have sat there at that intersection for two friggin' hours waiting for that stupid "STOP" sign to change to "GO."  But noooo, it was stuck on "STOP."  Doesn't the city hire people to go around and check up on these things? And I know I'm not the only one who was miffed, because there was a long line of people behind me, honking their horns in frustration.  I finally just turned around and went home.  No delicious, sugary donut sticks for me that night, darn it...and all because of some stupid sign.

Well, yesterday I hopped into my car again, this time not quite as gaily as before due to my earlier traumatic experience, and headed out in the other direction because that's where Dog Food City is.  They have this new brand of dog food there called "Dog Food" that's a lot cheaper than the name brands, and my dog seems to like it pretty well after it's been sitting in her bowl for about three days.  Anyway, there's no stupid "STOP" sign at the other end of the block, thank goodness, but there is a big, yellow "YIELD" sign. 

Okay, I've seen enough King Arthur movies to know what that means, so I stopped and got out of the car and held my hands up to show that I wasn't holding a sword or a lance or anything.  "I yield to thee!" I cried loudly to whomever could hear me.  Mrs. Wilson was out watering her lawn across the street and gave me a funny look, but she's always been a bit "off" so I blithely ignored her.  I don't know if there are still knights like in the King Arthur days, especially since I never see any hanging around the "YIELD" sign, but there must be somebody hiding somewhere, keeping watch.  So after I figure I've yielded to them long enough, I get back in the car and drive away.  It's a little scary, but so far nobody's tried to challenge me to a joust or anything, so I guess I'm doing it right. 

Whoever designs some of these stupid signs must be off his rocker, in my opinion.  One day I was driving along and passed a sign that said "NO U TURN."  Okay--text speak is irritating enough when it's used online, but on an official traffic sign?  You'd expect the city to hire people who can spell entire words, and speak proper English no less, to make these things up.  So now I'm wondering:  do they assume that I'm going straight and want me to turn?  As in, "No!  You turn!"  Or is this an inarticulate way of saying "You can't turn"?  I almost broadsided a turnip truck trying to figure the damn thing out. 

I finally decided the sign was telling me I couldn't turn, so I ended up driving straight to Fort Worth, which is, like, almost two-hundred miles away on the Interstate.  And wouldn't you know it--as soon as I got there, I came right up to another friggin' "STOP" sign.  Well, long story short, I sat there for another two or three hours with a whole bunch of other people behind me honking their horns at that damn sign until the police came and towed my car away.  I ended up taking a bus back home, which ate up all my shopping money, and by the time I got there Dog Food City was closed anyway. 

Some signs are just downright insensitive and mean.  There's an elementary school a couple of blocks from my house, and I guess it's where they stick the not-so-bright kids in town because right out on the street next to the playground there's a sign that says "SLOW CHILDREN AT PLAY."  I just don't understand why the city would find it necessary to announce this to anyone who happens to drive by.  Those poor little kids deserve to be judged the same as anyone else, without some big sign telling everybody how "slow" they are. 

Another sign that I find equally offensive is the one right before you get to my friend Bill's house.  Now, Bill may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, and in fact he's a little flaky at times.  But I certainly don't see why the city in all its supposed wisdom felt compelled to stick a sign on the way to his house that says, in big, black letters, "DIP AHEAD."  Who decides these things anyway?  The mayor?  Some committee of self-appointed "dip assessors"?  And to think this is what's being done with our tax dollars these days.  I told Bill he ought to move, but he said they'd probably just move the sign, which is just about right.

The one that bothers me the most, though, and infringes on my civil rights more egregiously than any other, is that idiotic "NO PARKING ANY TIME" sign.  You'd think that by now I would know better and avoid it, but every once in awhile I forget and pass right by it without thinking.  So for the rest of the day, or at least as long as my gas holds out, I have to just keep driving around.  At least I can go through the drive-thru at Jack-In-The-Box and get something to eat, since this doesn't really qualify as "parking", but the rest of the time I have to stay mobile in order to avoid getting a ticket. 

If I time it right, I run out of gas close to my house so I don't have to push my car very far to get it back into my driveway.  But I just don't see what good it does the city or anyone else for me to have to go through this whole pointless ordeal in the first place.  The last time I was pushing my car home a cop drove by real slow, obviously on the prowl for parking offenders, but before he could say anything I screamed, "I'm not parking!  I'M NOT PARKING!"  He kept on going but he gave me this weird look all the same, like I was nuts or something.  They're all in this together, the dirty rats.  And how the hell did he know that I drove by that stupid sign anyway?  It's creepy.

Oh yeah, and just today I got pulled over for going down a street that had a "ONE WAY" sign on it.  Well, duh...I was only going one way.  But this clueless cop couldn't seem to get that through his thick skull, so he gave me a ticket.  And when I started to turn around and go the other way, he screamed, "NO U TURN!"  I yelled back, "OKAY, I'M TURNING, I'M TURNING!"  The big doofus must've chased me all over town after that with his lights flashing and his siren going full blast.  I would've stopped, too, but I passed by that damn "NO PARKING ANY TIME" sign again and I didn't want to get another ticket. 

Luckily, he ran out of gas before I did, so after I got done pushing my car back home, I called the police department to register a complaint of "police harrassment", and they told me to stay right where I am until they send someone out to my house.  I'm waiting for them right now, and when they get here, I'm gonna give them a piece of my mind but good.  So for now, anyway, it looks like I win, ha ha. 



(originally posted at Andersonvision.com)

PORFLE VS. MADONNA

 

Madonna was driving by my house one day, when suddenly her car had a flat tire.  Since her cell phone had just been eaten by a gorilla (true story--Google it), and she didn't know how to fix a flat tire herself, she marched right up to my house and banged on the door.  I guess she figured there must be some peon in here who knew how to do drudge-type crap like that!

I opened the door and gasped in surprise.  "Madonna!" I cried.

"Yesss," she hissed with an expansive eyeroll, weary of forever being recognized and adored.

"Darn," I said, disappointed.  "I thought you might be the mailman with my sea monkeys." 

Madonna looked at her watch and tapped her foot.  She didnt have time for such nonsense!  "I have to be at some big-time showbiz thing that I'm supposed to be doing on MTV!" she exclaimed.  Actually, I'm just paraphrasing what she said, since I can't remember exactly what the thing was that she was late for.  But I do recall thinking that it must be a humdinger of a thing!

She jabbed her index finger toward her car, which was parked at the curb in front of my house.  "The tire is flat," she announced.  This was apparently my cue to spring into action!

I decided to try and inject a little levity into the situation.  "Well," I quipped, suppressing a sly smile, "at least it's only flat on the bottom.  ONLY FLAT ON THE BOTTOM!  HAAAAA HA HA HA HA HARRRR!"  I stood back and waited for her to appreciate my witticism and join in the laughter.  Then, I would be able to brag to everyone that me and Madonna were buddies and had shared the gift of mirth.

Instead, Madonna was instantly stricken with an intense, blazing rage that prompted her to scream like a banshee and hurl herself against my screen door, clawing at it like a caged baboon.  "I'LL KILL YOU FOR THAT!" she shrieked.  "GRRRAAAARRRRR!!!"

"MADONNA!  CONTROL YOURSELF!" I urged, trying to restore order to the situation.  Obviously, she wasn't used to not having her commands obeyed at once, so I decided that I'd better humor her.  "Okay, I will fix your tire," I lied.  "Just let me go get...uhh...my tools."  I closed the door and locked it.

"You'd better hurry up, you little TWERP!" came her voice from behind the door.  Figuring that she would simply give up and go away after awhile, I sat back in my recliner with a big bowl of cheezy corn and started watching reruns of "The Lucy Show" again.  Lucy and Viv were currently up on the roof trying in vain to put up a TV antenna.  It sure was funny! 

I laughed and laughed, until suddenly there came a deafening crash that shook my entire house.  Looking out the window, I saw that Madonna had found an axe in my garage and chopped down one of the trees in my front yard, sending it crashing into the house.  She was now in the process of chopping down another one.

Opening the window, I shouted indignantly, "Hey!  Stopping chopping down my trees!"

"FIX MY TIRE!" she bellowed between chops.  The second tree wavered tenuously with a loud creaking noise and then came down on my house with another deafening crash, almost going through the roof this time.  She scampered on to the next tree, which was even bigger than the first two, and started chopping again.

Alarmed, I ran to the phone and dialed 911.  "State your emergency," came a voice. 

"Madonna is in my front yard, chopping down trees!" I screamed into the phone.  "She's trying to cave my house in because I won't fix her flat tire!"

"Madonna...the singer?" the voice asked.

"Yes!" I affirmed.  "HEEELLLLP!" 

At that moment, I heard the ominous sound of wood splintering.  I ran to the window and looked out, and sure enough, the huge tree was swaying, getting ready to topple.  Madonna stood back, laughing, dancing around with the axe upraised and doing those fist-pumping "YES!" things.  But to her dismay, instead of crashing into my house, the tree fell the other way and landed on her car, smashing it like a pancake.  Instead of a flat tire, now she had a flat car!

"YAAAAAAAA!!!" she screamed, beside herself with naked fury.  Before I knew it, she had leapt onto my front porch and was chopping the door down.  The head of the axe broke through and Madonna stuck her head through the hole, her face contorted in a grinning rictus of insanity.  "HEEEEERE'S MADDY!!!" she screeched.  Using the only defensive weapon presently at my disposal, I hit her in the face with a banana cream pie.

Suddenly, the UPS truck pulled into the driveway.  It was my sea monkeys!  Madonna took one look, screamed, and started charging toward the truck with her axe, still spluttering as the banana cream pie oozed down her face.  The UPS guy saw what was coming at him and dived into some bushes with a squeal of terror.  Madonna jumped behind the wheel, backed up, and peeled out down the street in a cloud of burning rubber, crashing through mailboxes and trash cans.  I could still hear her insane shrieks of triumphant glee as she rounded the corner on two wheels. 

"Well, there go my sea monkeys," I said ruefully. 

The UPS guy staggered to his feet, dazed.  "Was...was that Madonna?" he wheezed.

"Yeah, she has some big-time showbiz thing to get to," I replied.


 

(originally posted at Andersonvision.com)

PORFLE VS. JERRY THE MOUSE

I love cats, so I hate Jerry the mouse.

Of course, the original, Academy Award-winning MGM/Hanna-Barbara "Tom and Jerry" cartoons are among the greatest cartoons ever made. I used to thoroughly enjoy watching them, and I would laugh hysterically at their antics. But in recent years these cartoons have become almost intolerable to me because of their blatant anti-cat racism.

The entire basis for the humor in these cartoons is seeing Tom, the cat, suffer pain and abuse. At the same time, we're supposed to side with Jerry, the mouse, and think that he's wonderfully cute. Well, have you ever had mice running around in your house? If you did, I'll bet you didn't go "Awww...isn't that cute?" Especially if you had just slaved over a hot stove all day to lay out a big, elaborate banquet for your guests and some rotten mouse climbed right up onto the table and started wolfing down your turkey legs, stomping through the potato salad, and wading around in the Jell-o.

Why do people side with Jerry against Tom? Tom is only doing his job. Actually, Tom would rather be stretched out in front of the fireplace, sawing some logs. But because of Jerry constantly rampaging through the refrigerator or cavorting all over the dinner table, with no regard whatsoever for anyone but himself, Tom is forever being pressed into service by his owners and ordered to "catch that mouse." In fact, he's frequently threatened with being thrown out into the snow if he doesn't.

So what usually happens? Jerry ends up stretched out luxuriously in front of the fireplace, gnawing on a turkey leg or a hunk of expensive cheese or sipping a bowl of creamy milk through a straw, while Tom stares longingly through the window in the snow with icicles hanging off his face, and we're supposed to go "Awwwww, isn't Jerry cute." Not me. I want to terminate that stinking mouse just as much as Tom does. Terminate...with extreme prejudice.

Let's face it--most of us would much rather have a cat living in our house than a mouse. Why? Because mice are vermin, that's why. Cute little Jerry gnaws holes in the walls, spreads germs and disease, and craps wherever he feels like it. Sticking big eyelashes and a jolly bowtie on the sorry little bastard doesn't change this one whit. If you saw Jerry running around in your Thanksgiving dinner, you'd be after his ass with a sledgehammer whether he was wearing a friggin' bowtie or not. Or you'd be pointing at him and screaming for your cat to "KILL! KILL! KILL!" Because cats in your house are a good thing. Mice are not.

Tom is often depicted in these cartoons as pure evil. Sometimes he narrows his eyes, rubs his hands together, and cackles just like Snidely Whiplash as he plots against the innocent little Jerry. Have you ever seen a cat do this? I haven't. Tom is also shown inviting his low-class alleycat friends into the house for wild parties while the owners are away. I've had inside cats for decades and I've never caught any of them doing this. Oh yeah, and of course Tom's friends are all a bunch of no-good, destructive alkies, while Jerry's friends are all--you guessed it--"cute." KILL! KILL! KILL!

I would love to be able to enjoy the great old "Tom and Jerry" cartoons the way I used to before I finally became enlightened to this horrific injustice. But I can't--it's just too horrific. Like I said, these cartoons are infused with blatant anti-cat racism that is just as offensive in its own way as those "Slap the Jap" cartoons from World War II. Instead of laughter and delight, they now fill me with rage and consternation. Instead of enjoying them, I now find myself on my knees in front of the television with my trembling fists raised to the heavens, screaming "NOOOOOOOOO!!!" When my neighbors hear this, they think, "Oh, my god--he's either being attacked by home invaders, or he's watching 'Tom and Jerry' again." Well, Jerry--cute little Jerry--is a home invader. And he deserves to die horribly.


(originally posted at Andersonvision.com)

PORFLE VS. PEOPLE WHO DON'T KNOW WHO LARRY STORCH IS

"What the hell do you mean, 'who's Larry Storch?'"

"I mean I don't know who the hell Larry Storch is!  Who the hell is Larry Storch?"

Infuriating, isn't it?  If you're like me, and find yourself in this situation at least once a day, you can understand why there are so many sudden, unexplained attacks across America every day.  Chances are, it's someone who knows who Larry Storch is attacking someone who doesn't know who he is. 

Here's an example that may sound woefully familiar to you: several years ago I got set up on a blind date, and I gallantly called the young lady up in advance to verify the time and place where we'd meet--which, by the way, was a Denny's on Wilton Boulevard, since I wanted to impress her.  She asked me what I looked like, and I told her (again, wanting to impress her) that I resembled actor Larry Storch. 

"Who's Larry Storch?" she inquired. 

"What the hell do you mean, 'who's Larry Storch?'" I screamed, a volcanic eruption of blazing hot fury erupting like a million geysers from every fiber of my tortured being. 

"I mean I don't know who the hell Larry Storch is!  Who the hell is Larry Storch?" she persisted, incredibly unaware of her own utter stupidity.

"What are you, incredibly unaware of your own utter stupidity or something?" I shrieked, kicking the glass walls out of the phone booth that I was standing in and repeatedly smashing my body into the frame until the whole thing fell over into the street with a resounding crash.  "ARE YOU SOME KIND OF A TOTAL F**KING IDIOT?  GRRRRRRR!!!  By the way, that's the Denny's on Wilton Boulevard, not the one next to the bowling alley on Burton Street."

Well, she never showed up.  She was probably too embarrassed by her own utter stupidity to show her face, and you can hardly blame her, but she could at least have stopped by my house later for the obligatory blind-date sex that I have come to expect over the years.  I've never actually had sex on a blind date, of course, but I have come to expect it.  Anyway, it's just as well, because I found out later that she looked more like Larry Storch than I do. 

I guess one of the reasons that women who look like Larry Storch don't know who he is might be that people are reluctant to tell these women that they look like Larry Storch.  But that's still no excuse for never having heard of him.  Anyone who's ever watched an episode of "F Troop" or "Ghost Busters" should not only know who he is, but should in fact consider him to be one of the greatest human beings who ever walked the face of the earth, next to Robert Loggia and Ben Gazzara.  They should also know who Forrest Tucker is as well, since he co-starred in both of those series with Larry Storch. 

Well, I brought all of this up at a political fundraiser that I attended several years ago, in an attempt to liven up what I considered to be some pretty boring chit-chat amongst a gaggle of pseudo-sophisticates who were standing around sipping drinks and tittering a lot.  When the mayor's wife gaily inquired, "Who's Forrest Tucker?" I poured my drink in her face.  As I congratulated myself for my restraint, another total moron--I think it was the mayor--chimed in with, "How dare you!  And 'Ghostbusters' was a movie with Bill Murray in it, not a television series!" 

Again I held my temper, and responded by merely flinging the hors d'ouevres table over, drenching several people with caviar and other gooey, expensive treats.  But then, just as I was returning to my usual casual demeanor, I heard a voice say, "Yeah, and who the hell's Larry Storch?"  The next few moments are still a blur in my memory, but the next day there was a picture of me on the front page of the newspaper in which some quick-thinking photographer had managed to catch me in mid-air as I hurled myself at the governor with the crazed look of a kabuki dancer. 

My interest in politics continued when I later attended the Carter-Ford debate and, after furiously waving my hand for several minutes, managed to get called upon to ask the presidential candidates a question.  When the guy held the microphone up to my face I took a deep breath, cleared my throat, and asked, "How do you feel about Larry Storch?"  A perplexed Jimmy Carter smiled uncertainly and asked, "Who's Larry Storch?" 

Just as I was about to charge the stage and hurl myself at him, Gerald Ford responded confidently, "Larry Storch is the greatest actor who ever lived.  Perhaps even the greatest human being who ever lived."  Banging the podium to emphasize each word, he added, "I...love...Larry...Storch!" The audience erupted with unrestrained cheers and applause! Well, I did, anyway.  And I sure as hell voted for Gerald Ford that year.  Jimmy Carter won, though, and, as you might expect, my extensive campaign to have Larry Storch's Birthday declared a national holiday was totally ignored by the government of the United States of America for the next four years.  Talk about malaise.  That, and possibly the Iran hostage situation as well, resulted in Carter losing his bid for re-election.  Take that, Carter!  Betcha know who Larry Storch is now!  BWAH-ha-ha!!!

Well, I've cut down on my attacks in recent years.  Maybe because of the wisdom and maturity that come with age, or maybe because I was getting beaten up a lot.  But the realization that attacking people because they don't know who Larry Storch is might not be a good thing to do finally came to me as I was discussing future attacks with my trusted consigleri, Tom Hagen.  Tom, not a wartime consigleri, is often the voice of reason in contrast with my unrestrained hostility, as can be heard in the following exchange...

TOM: Now, former President Carter and the Governor of Texas are on the run. Are they worth it? And are we strong? Is it worth it? I mean you've won...you want to attack everybody?

PORFLE: I don't feel I have to attack everybody, Tom. Just people who don't know who Larry Storch is, that's all. Now, are you gonna come along with me in these things I have to do or what? Because if not, you can take your "F Troop", your "Ghost Busters", and your "Dean Martin Celebrity Roast" DVDs...trade 'em all in for Adam Sandler movies.

TOM: Why do you hurt me, porfle? I've always been loyal to you. I mean, what is this?

PORFLE: You're right, Tom.  I should stop attacking people who don't know who Larry Storch is.

TOM: Well, you should try to cut down, anyway.



(originally posted at Andersonvision.com)