The Big Bad Wolf continues to find new life in fresh incarnations, and this minute-long anti-smoking promo, while five years old, may have passed most of us by, and so bears visitation…
The Wolf here is kind of a pathetic figure, living a solitary existence is an apartment with a bare refrigerator. Seeking food, he gets in in his car, guided by his GPS, and goes to Straw City, which is populated by…surprise, pigs!
Now the Wolf used to be a seriously bad dude, you can tell by his leather jacket…but alas, years of smoking have so depleted his lung power that he now is incapable of blowing down their straw dwellings. Initially afraid, the pigs now look at him with a mixture of wonder and almost pity. Old Big Bad ain’t so bad anymore. One pig is so unconcerned that they walk past the Wolf while wearing headphones….
It’s too late for this Wolfie. He extracts a pack of cigarettes as he walks away, self-defeated. So toss the cigarettes…they ain’t no good for you! We preds have to keep our game up, ‘ya know… 🦊
I would be remiss if I failed to remind you that September 25th is National Comic Book Day! ‘Fess up now…how many of you grew up lingering over the pages of a comic book, and fantasizing about how great your life would be if you had a superpower…like, any one of them!
I had the rare kind of father who would actually bring me home a comic book or Mad Magazine occasionally when he came home from the store with the Sunday paper. It wasn’t just any comic book, either. Nope, it had to be a superhero one! My early years were spent paging through DC comics icons like Superman and The Green Lantern. Later, I would learn of the backstories of more obscure comic heroes like The Phantom and even Mandrake the Magician!“The Phantom is rough on roughnecks,” old jungle saying…
This led me down the rabbit hole in adulthood of discovering even more notable precursors such as The Shadow. When special effects reached a level where superhero movies were better than laughable, we were really off to the races with DC and Marvel characters, some more memorable than others, and renewing or finding new fan bases in the adult population…
And it all started with comic books, so remember this holy day. And I still have my Green Lantern ring, folks, two actually. If only the darn things worked, if only! Well, hope springs eternal, so they say…gotta keep trying! “In brightest day, in blackest night…”
The furries of summer are here! Originally conceived as an animated sequel to 1974’s Blazing Saddles comedy, Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank took a long time coming to fruition, and was originally planned with the less cumbersome title of Blazing Samurai. At last we have our Wild West saga with a Japanese tilt that retains the legacy of Mel Brooks, who even voices the character of theShogun!
Now if you’ve seen Westerns (or “Easterns’), there’s a little bit of many things you’ve seen before here, with elements drawn and blended fromKung Fu Panda, The Karate Kid, The Magnificent Seven, and Zootopia. An evil cat warlord (voiced by Ricky Gervais) seeking to destroy a town of cats sends an inept canine (Michael Cera) to be their defender, knowing full well that cats and dogs tend not to get along, and anticipating to sow internal chaos and destruction. Canine Hank, however, truly aspires to be a samurai, and finds a trainer and mentor in the unwilling, grumpy person (furson?) ofSamuel L. Jackson’s character.Overcoming feline xenophobia against dogs, the aspiring canine samurai gradually acquires their acceptance and cooperation while developing his own skills, and the rest is history…
Paws of Fury is already playing in theaters, and I may borrow a kid as an excuse to go see it….
I’ve never had an emu work on my vehicle, but I could argue that some gorillas have. We’ve all been at the mercy of garages and mechanics. Even the venerable Plymouth Duster chariot used by the dynamic duo of Doug and the LiMu Emu occasionally needs work, and in the Liberty Mutual “Tools” commercial, we are taken inside a garage housing a BatCave’s worth of assorted vehicles, all the brand’s trademark “banana yellow” color. I mean, there’s a motorcycle, some kind of utility vehicle, and even Skidoo-type things…
Doug is hard at work beneath the chassis of his Duster, but is he up to the job? – – Nope, and neither is the Emu, who hilariously brings his human partner the wrong tool specified for each step of the job. When asked for a socket wrench, the Emu brings a hammer. When a blowtorch is requested, LiMu deposits a stuffed animal into Doug’s hand…
At the end of his efforts, Doug somehow manages to extract what appears to be a distributor from the bottom of the vehicle! “LiMu,call a mechanic” are Doug’s closing words. Clearly one is needed to prevent this Duster from entering the dustbin…
The LiMu Emu and Doug are best buddies who dress identically, and have a long-standing history, the details of which we someday may learn…or perhaps it’s best not to ask!
I had earlier posted on Here Come The Mummies, a band whose members perform swaddled in mummy wrappings. We now highlight Car Seat Headrest, an indie rock band whose frontman Will Toledo isa furry who on his recent concert tour sometimes performed in a modified fursuit as his character, Mortis Jackrabbit…
Now the band Car Seat Headrestis described as “furry adjacent,” as in not totally furry, but next to furry, with their Twin Fantasy album featuring furry art of two canids hugging, and the album dedicated to “nervous young inhumans”with a cut by the same name...
Mortis the bunny is quite a presence on stage, appearing as if wearing a gas mask with uncanny, changing luminescent eyes…
So check out Car Seat Headrest, a very different band full of emotion and angst, and rooted in the furry fandom… 🦊
You probably won’t see many Icelandic folk-horror/fantasy films in your day, and Lamb is one of them. From the A24 studio that gave us such films as Hereditary, their latest film crosses genres, confounds us, and almost defies description. I had earlier posted on Lamb as a unique film that was coming prior to being able to view it, and now having seen the flick, I can confirm that Lamb is extraordinary, even though it is likely to mess with your head.The best films often do…
So submitted for your approval is the strange tale of Ingvar and Maria, two childless sheep ranchers living in a remote part of Iceland who one night come upon the birth of a mutation in their livestock, a lamb with humanoid features. They basically take the newborn into their house, place it into a crib in their bedroom, and raise it as their own, a sweet child with an ovine head but scattered human features which despite being a hybrid adapts well to life in the isolated world with human foster parents. This is comical but touching at the same time, and her “parents” are quite happy with their non-traditional family…
Now as a furry, I can probably transition to the world of anthropomorphic animals and animal-human hybrids more easily than most people outside of the fandom. I’m totally cool with the notion of folks raising something that is neither fully animal nor human, and in fact I am envious of them! You can dress such a creature in human clothing, treat it as a loved member of family, and even take them places with you, messing with mundane people as you do so. – -What could be better than that?!
What usually happens, however, is that other people won’t understand, will judge and condemn you, and in some fashion come after you as one harboring an abomination. I rather expected a mob armed with torches and pitchforks to come calling, and demand that this lamb be surrendered to them.Fortunately, this does not happen although there are a fewtense moments when we are led to believe that Ada’s “uncle” is leading her off to shotgun her. This too doesn’t happen, and “Uncle Petur” becomes a convert…
Now Ada the lamb-child is revealed to us gradually as a hybrid, having one human hand and a hoof. She uses bipedal locomotion, and is about the size of a four-year-old. She cannot speak, but understands and responds to human language. Ada plays with her human mother, and is very sweet! I’ve seen human brats behave far less lovably…
But unfortunately, the story doesn’t end well but in violence against a target we didn’t expect when Ada’s biological father comes calling, also anthropomorphic and true nightmare fuel. Talk about Ram Tough! When you mess with nature, there are consequences, it would seem. This points to the need to keep firearms out of the hands and hooves of beasts.- – Are you listening, Congress?!
At any rate, Lamb may leave you scratching your head, wondering what you have just seen, and perhaps questioning the lines of separation between humans and animals, as well as questioning our relationship with the natural world. And that’s a good thing, really….so two paws up for Lamb, which now can be seen on some premium networks... 🦊
Where hot funk music meets the paranormal and an iconic horror tradition, you have Here Comes the Mummies. Everyone has to have a gimmick, right? Well, the members of this band dress up as mummies at every performance, complete with subtle variations in their wrappings, make-up, and individual names such as Mummy Cass.– – Get it? A play on Momma Cass! Oh, some of you are too young to remember her. A pity, that…
There’s a backstory, too. It seems that these guys hit on Pharos’ daughter, and so were cursed. Yes, these guys suffered for their art! An early album of the Mummies is titled, Undead Live. Many of their concerts begin with the band members entering to an impressive throbbing drum line as an Egyptian-esque theme plays, with the lead singer roaring at the crowd when all are assembled. Then it’s on with the electric guitars and abrass ensemble that includes saxophones and trumpets as well as a keyboardist. These Mummies have their act together, and know how to put on a show! It’s comic and cool at the same time. Crowds leave their concerts smiling, so it’s a happy afterlife. Prepare to be mummified…Arrrgh! 🙀
Pharonic sax…no, not sex, get your minds out of the gutter!
Some early hits of The Mummies such as Believe include nice musical evocations of ancient Egypt and paranormal references, as in the lyrics, “Do you believe in things you cannot see? Do you take your superstition seriously?” Ancient astronauts theorists would be pleased…
It’s bizarre but wildly entertaining, and these guys are accomplished musicians who even incorporate some choreography into their numbers. I swear that I saw a mummy twerk at me! Anyways, I like these guys, and if that makes me a Mummy’s boy, so be it! They’re on tour this summer…
As the Mummies would tell us in Ra Ra Ra, “When all is said and done,/ we’re not the first to be here / There’s nothing new underneath the sun.” We could all use a little twisted ancient Egyptian revival in these mad times, right? So spread the word and rock on, bandaged brothers! 🦊
Say it ain’t so…Winnie the Pooh as a serial killer?! Yes, it is so in an upcoming horror movie. Winnie the Pooh and Piglet too have gone feral, abandoned by college-bound Christopher Robin and basically starving. It’s not exactly the beloved A.A. Milne characters from the original 1926 story here, nor their Disney versions. Nope, the boys have gone rogue, reverting to their wild roots and becoming seriously creepy. Piglet even sports tusks, and is clad in black…
In a scene which to me seems reminiscent of Steven King’s Christine, Pooh-bear is driving an ominous-looking vehicle. Just don’t bother looking for Eeyore the donkey, although you’ll see his tombstone. The boys have already killed and eaten him…
With the Winnie the Pooh tale now in the public domain, liberties may be taken with the classic story, although the film strives not to run afoul of Disney copyrights by omitting certain characters like Tigger, and changing the clothing styles of others. Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey is not a big budget horror movie, and was supposedly shot in just ten days.
So be afraid, be very afraid of Pooh and Piglet sneaking up on you in your bath. In this horror comedy, you might not even recognize them anymore.- – Aieee! 🙀
Jurassic World Dominion, the sixth film in the franchise, is set to open June 10th, and so it’s timely that Progressive Insurance’s iconic Flo and Jamie characters are shown at a drive-in screening the film. What makes this viewing different, however, is that the dinos are apparently able to walk off the screen and into the real world, a T-Rex doing just that, smashing and flipping vehicles at the outdoor movie event…
Chaos ensues…Flo and Jamie, however, are totally nonplussed as they stand by their RV, trading quips about how stinky dinosaurs are. With home, auto, and RV insurance bundled, they’ve got the situation covered, and will handle the cleanup. It’s all cool, they’ve got it taken care of , and it’s just part of a day’s work for your insurance professionals. They’ve been there, and done that…
Jamie notes how this shows why you should always go to the bathroom before the movie begins…and Flo is probably scarier than any T-Rex, anyways… Rawrr! 🦖
Walter, the Chevy Silverado ad cat, is impressive. OwlKitty, however, is awesome! The black female cat’s real name is Lizzy, and OwlKitty is an assumed stage name. Assume the stage she does, being skillfully edited by her owner, Tibo Charroppin, into parodies of iconic scenes from such movies as Titanic, Jurassic Park, Avengers Endgame, Star Wars, and more…
…and OwlKitty can do it all, covering a range from theromantic role of Rose in Titanic to Sith Lord Darth Vader in Star Wars. Give her an action movie, and she can morph in size to substitute for raptors or a T-Rex in theJurassic Park franchise, or perch atop Captain America’s shoulder in Endgame to seek out Thanos in singular combat, and send him flying, blue energies arcing from her small but mighty body. Still a proper cat, she grooms herself afterwards… 🐈⬛
Godzilla on the rampageagain? – – No problem, you need a Kong-sized OwlKitty to set that bad boy straight!
Sowhen you have a problem situation, the right man for the job just might be a cat. OwlKitty does lighter, comic-touches, too. The look on her face when Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) dances her around in the Titanic parody is priceless. We haven’t seen a cat this compelling and relatable since Ellen Ripley’s cat Jonesy in Alien…
FOXSYLVANIA 
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