L'Amore Is In L'Air!

So, I knew Valentine's Day was coming up soon, but I didn't even remember that it was today until the nice voice on the Sonic menu-com wished me a happy one. I'm not as excited over the hearts and flowers and x's & o's as I am with some other holidays, but it's a day that's all about love and I can't see anything bad about that so I think the occasion needs to be honored with a post of epic proportions and thanks to Lushie Peach over at Food With Eyes I've got just such a post for you today!

Lushie (and that is her real name, I've seen her driver's license) read the most recent of my Busch Garden's characters posts and promptly fired up her scanner and sent me over some truely amazing pics from a souvenir booklet that she picked up on a family trip back in the summer of 1980. Coincidently, this is around about the same time that my family began to frequent the park so I've naturally enough decided that we must have been there on the exact same day and most likely passed each other at some point during our visits, innocently oblivious to the fact that we would one day be linking blogs. I imagine that it was probably on that quiet, shady stretch of walkway that connected Hastings with Aquitaine back where the monorail to the brewery once stood. Perhaps our eyes would have met that day but for the fact that Lushie was probably distracted by a vendor's sign displaying a smiling faced Pig-In-A-Blanket wearing a kilt and playing the bagpipes while I was hiding from a giant beaver man.

The thing that is so amazing about these pics is not just the fact that the shy and noble big-headed creatures of Busch Gardens have been captured on film at all, but that the pics have managed to convey an accurate depiction of those critter's courtship and mating rituals! And offered further proof of my theory that they were all gayer than a Christmas tree wrapped in feather boas. Follow along with me and I'll point out all of the obvious sexual innuendo for those of you who's passe 20th century morals prevent you from recognizing it on your own...

Here's St. George and his life partner and future big game kill, Gordon the Friendly Dragon being serenaded with a lute by a pretty boy in tights (I know that it's a guitar, but we're in The Old Country now so pretend that it's a lute.) St. George hired the lute player as a special Valentine's surprise for his big green boyfriend, but from the knight in shiney armor's body language we can easily see that he has begun to regret this particular romantic gesture. Gordon is a little too interested in our lute-playing lovely. Perhaps we are witnessing the planting of the seeds of our loving couple's eventual, and rather dramatic, break-up?

Looks like they've kissed and made up! Here we see our couple tiptoeing happily through the dandelions while a very early version of the Cirque du Soleil and a hitman for the Rhode Island mob look on. I can't decide if what we're watching here is a sincere montage of true love's blossoming a la "Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid" or a tongue-in-cheek dissection of same a la "Annie Hall."

(And as an aside, may I please direct your attention to what a kick-ass dragon costume that is! Look at those layers of overlapping scales, those huge clawed feet and that great big giant egg tooth... I'd tongue kiss any one of those merry-melody-making doofuses in exchange for that dragon costume.)

And now here's Bebo, the non-alcoholic adult beverage shilling French fox being led away for a little of what those in the know refer to as "Midway Delight!" And you can see that he's none too pleased by the idea as he has very nearly torn his arm off at the elbow in an attempt to flee the grasp of Tracey Lynn, New France's own paper-flower-selling girl! And why is Bebo so reticent to 'tip the tissue paper...'

... because he only has eyes for Buford. Here we see that the Canadian lumberjack has invited the fox over to his sweat lodge for a little dry humping of the support poles. This is how a giant-headed costumed amusement park character lets another of his species know that they are ready to begin mating. Happy coupling, fellas!

From Butch & Sundance to Bob & Ted & Carol & St. George...

Looks like George has grabbed a pretty boy of his own and the two of them have hooked up with another couple for the evening. High fives for St. George! Everybody throw their lutes into a bowl and we'll get this funky renaissance started! That will teach that dragon to play with an armored man's heart!

Oh, this is all going to end so badly....

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And that's the end of Valentine's week. With our next post we'll go back to orange-colored text and less bawdy sex talk. I swear, it's only all the artificially cherry flavored ju ju hearts that I've been throwing back in the past week that have made me so naughty. They're worse than green M & M's.

Valentine Peanut Butter

Just thinking about the amount of shared slobber that must be on that marshmallow makes me a little queezy....

If you are really good with the Photoshop than you can fiddle around with those last two pages until hey line up perfectly, front to back and then print them up and make your very own peanut shell Valentine! Let me know how that works out.

Love In The TIme Of DSM-IV IED

"Loooove American style- truer than the red, white and bluuuuuue! Loooove American style- for me and yoooooooou!"

"Tonight's episode: "Love & the Bitter Pill!"

"Oh, darling! That was the best night of love-making we've had since that weekend in Turkey!"

"Yeah babe, it was hot! Who knew you could learn those kinds of moves at an est course."

"Everything is just so wonderful right now. I... I'd hate for anything to ruin that..."

"Nohing's gonna ruin it, baby. Nothing!"

"Darling? I'm pregnant."

"What the-!?! Pregnant? But you told me that you were on the pill! I've seen you taking the pill!"

"Yes, I told you I was on the pill... I just didn't tell you which pill! Those pills are actually a mood-altering drug that I take to help control these homocidally violent emotional outbursts that I've been prone to since adolescence! I've wanted a baby for so long, but I knew that you didn't want to have children, so... so I lied to you and pretended to be on the Pill!"

"A mood-altering drug?"

"Yes. I only hope that you can find it in your heart to forgive me some how!"

"Forgive you? Forgive you!"

"Oh, HA HA HA HA HA! What a crazy mix-up this has all been!"

"I don't understand? What are you talking about, darling?"

"I thought that you were the one who didn't want to have kids! I've always loved the idea of becoming a dad one day, so for the past two weeks I've been switching your pills with Tic Tacs!"

"Wha-!?!"

"Oh, sweetheart! You've made me the happiest man in the world today!"

"Oh, darling!"

"So for the past two weeks I've been taking Tic Tacs instead of my medication? I thought that my breath has been extra minty the last few days!"

"Ha ha!"

"What a crazy, crazy mix-up!"

"Ha ha!"

"YOU BASTARD!!!!"

"GLUURG!"

"YOU SICK, PASTY-FACED, HILLBILLY PIECE OF *beep*!"

"My eyes-!!!"

"I'LL TEAR OFF YOUR LIMP LITTLE *beep* AND SHOVE IT SO FAR UP YOUR *beep* THAT YOU'LL THINK THAT YOU'RE IN A PRISON PORNO!"

"No! I- ack! Gurgle..."

"Gurgle... gluck... wheeeeeeeeeze....... death rattle!"

"Okay... okay... breathe in the happy air! In with the happy air!"

"Mmmmmm.... aaaaaaaaahh!"

"Oh, baby! Always remember that your Daddy loved you!"


"And on a star-spangled night my love, you can rest your head on my shoulder-"

Saturday Starcade

Insert Train Pun Here

I just couldn't do it. I couldn't narrow the field of competing 'train,' 'track,' 'engine,' or 'express' puns down to a clear winner. It was a nightmare even trying. It was like trying to pick between the two Democratic frontrunners only a heck of a lot harder 'cause I know I'm not going with Obama because he's got the creepy Franken-brow. (Look at him!)

So you're just going to have to come up with your own title for this post...

If you have ever collected comic books (and there are probably similar examples in every other collectibles field) then you've met that old lady at the local antique mall with the box full of crumbling, coverless and written-the-high-hell-all-over comics from the last ten years, individually wrapped in gallon size generic sandwich baggies and reasonably priced for around twenty to fifty dollars a pop. It's okay to hit that old lady.

And yet, you can't help but to take a quick flip through her tattered offerings because, well you know... there might be something. And that's how I came upon the Sugar Crisp brand breakfast cereal Railroad Fun Book. And oh sweet mercy how it was tattered. And battered. And beaten and torn and brittle and musty, but it was also chock full of charm and only cost five bucks which meant that, even though it would more than likely dissolve into dust as I scanned it, it was well worth the money for its blog potential alone.

I shouldn't have worried about the scanning, because it practically fell to nothing as I carried it out of the shop. I left a pulpy four-colored trail behind me as I made my way around the display cases and out to my car. But it did make it home mostly intact and has now been digitized and html-ed for the edutainmental benefit of you and your children and their children after them. Please enjoy it at least five dollars worth-

Kids back in whatever day this was printed didn't need your damn Wii's or your iPod's to have a good time. All you needed to do was prop up a torn out comic book page in front of them and off they went to the wonderful world of Imagination Land! This is a classic example of what I call the "God, Kids Sure Were Stupid Back In Whatever Day This Was Printed In Theory."

Kids were so stupid back in whatever day that this was printed in that they didn't even know that there are fifty states! Duhrr!

Click it, print it, tape it and play it!

It was Mr. Toots in the roundhouse with a sledgehammer!

The trains of tomorrow will be just like the trains of today. It's the tracks that will be different, apparently.

Oh, hey! I have those two other train books somewhere!

Kids were so stupid back then that they even thought trains were faster than UFO's! Stupid kids!

Now that I stop and think about it, the kids of that day and age are now the old people of this day and age which folds in neatly with my "God, Old People Sure Are Stupid Nowadays!" theory.