Before Mr. Ed, a forgotten show of the 1950’s called The People’s Choice starred Jackie Cooper but the real attraction was a basset hound called Cleo who appeared to be talking or at least projecting her thoughts to the human characters…
Now Jackie Cooper was one of the few child stars who actually found work as an adult actor once his 1930’s role in The Little Rascals was over. In The People’s Choice (1955-1958), he played an aspiring politician who initially was secretly married to the mayor’s daughter. Cooper would later go on to play Perry White in the first three Superman movies…but this post is about Cleo, who would offer sardonic commentaries upon the human actions about her.
This was hokey 1950’s comedy, but the concept of a talking dog was innovative for its time, and Cleo often did steal the show,paving the way for Mr. Ed and future anthropomorphic animal characters. Hard to find now, some full episodes of The People’s Choice may be viewed free of charge on YouTube…Woof!
While Mr. Ed gets most of the attention, he was preceded by Francis the Talking Mule. The original Francis movie was released in 1950, and would go on to appear in a total of seven, yes seven movies! Elvis had not yet hit the scene, and people in the 50’s needed something to do, so they translated to film from three short stories written by David Stern for Esquire magazine about a talking army mule who would only talk to a dimwitted lieutenant, helping him in his military and other ventures…
NowFrancis was actually a female donkey named Molly, selected because she was easy to handle. She supposedly cost $350 to buy, but made millions from the film series. To create the illusion that the mule was actually talking, thread would be fed into the animal’s mouth which would cause the mule-actress to try and remove it by moving her lips. The same technique would later be used for Mister Ed! Francis would also appear in a 1952-53 comic strip, Francis, the Famous Talking Mule.
A talking donkey, however, preceded Francis in The Bible! In the Biblical Book of Numbers, Chapter 22, verses 21 – 39 we are given an extraordinary account of an Old Testament furry, a female donkey who had her mouth opened by the Lord to the extent that she was able at least temporarily to talk to her abusive master and engage in a dialogue with him!
It would seem that Balaam was a pagan non-Israelite prophet and diviner who was commissioned by Balak, King of the Moabites, to lay a curse on the Israelites. After divining and seeing that the Lord was really with the Israelitesand that they could not be cursed, Balaam relayed his message to Moabite king, who would not take no for an answer. Yahweh then instructed Balaam to to follow the Moabite delegation to the hill upon which Balak thinks Isreal would be cursed…
On route, Balaam rode his donkey, who alone perceived an angel standing in the road with a drawn sword in his hand, and turned off the road into a field. Balaam beat the donkey to get it back on the road. Then the angel stood in a narrow path through vineyards with walls on both sides. The donkey pressed close to the wall, crushing Balaam’s foot against it. The louse beat the poor donkey again…
So the donkey moved ahead, and this time the angel appeared in a narrow place where there was no room to turn either to the right or the left. The donkey simply lay down at that point under Balaam, and the crud became angry and beat the poor animal a third time!
Then the transformation happened. The Almighty opened the donkey’s mouth, and it said to Balaam, “What have I done to you to make you beat me these three times?” Balaam answered his pack animal, telling her that she had made a fool out of him, and that had he a sword in his hand, he’d kill the poor thing right then! The donkey’s words revealed that it had been trying to warn Balaam about the angel, to which Balaam finally bowed and admitted his sin. Sadly, the donkey kinda drops from the Biblical narrative at that point, but is an early example of an anthropomorphic being, as well as an early animal rights advocate. One can imagine them being voiced by Eddie Murphy as in Shrek…
So guys, if you come across a talking mule or donkey, give them a listen…you just might become a believer!
I rather like the notion of having anthropomorphic internal organs that can function outside of our bodies without killing us by their absence, and come complete with their own sets of organs, such as limbs, eyes, mouths, and apparently brains, as such ambulatory organs can talk. We’ve earlier seen commercials for stand-alone organs such as the bladder (Myrbetriq), who (below) kind of resembles a large red apple with very soulful eyes…
Now wouldn’tit be cool if you also could at will detach various of your internal organs, and take the whole family out for, say, a walk in the park? Or perhaps send them on missions to do your bidding, even to freak out or scare people? There’s got to be a good horror movie in that scenario, with you having a perfect alibi for the police while your organs went out to terrorize the neighborhood!– –This could give a whole new meaning to venting your spleen! Why, with autonomous, detachable organs, you could even bring new meaning to the old song, “I Left My Heart In San Francisco!“I’ll bet that the heart could really belt out the old standards, I tell ‘ya!
(A heart in a piano bar, performing a medley of Tony Bennett songs…)
But I weirdly digress…the heart in this Repatha commercial is a sweet if wounded soul, wearing a bandage on her head to denote having suffered a heart attack. I’m assuming here that the heart has the same gender as its possessor, as it does have rather feminine eyes, eyelashes, and lips…but we’ll leave the matter of secondary sexual characteristics in organs to wiser heads than mine, such wasn’t covered in my biology courses…
Repatha is used to control LDL cholesterol when statins alone don’t do the job, and both the lady and her detached organ don’t want another heart attack. Appropriately enough, the sound track to the commercial is the song, “Listen To Your Heart…”
So a Happy Easter to all, and please leave your organs within your body, or at least keep them on a leash…don’t leave your muscles in Brussels! And if you leave your heart in San Francisco, maybe high on a hill, it will call to you…
Little Caesars has brought back it’s Pretzel Crust pizza touted in this commercial, and it’s all that office anthropomorphic sheep worker Brian can think about…so much so, in fact, that he keeps bleating that “It’s BAAAAACK,” at one point pounding his hooves on his computer keyboard to bring up the BAAAAACK legend on his computer screen…
While bosses would like to have sheepish, compliant workers, I doubt that those hooves of worker Brian would be capable of hitting individual keys on the keyboard.Brian does, however, sport good office attire, so we can perhaps forgive him if he acts a bit sheepish…
A classic Looney Tunes feature from 1948 is brought to your attention here as it includes a fox! In What Makes Daffy Duck?, you’ll note that the characters are drawn somewhat differently from this time period, especially Daffy. The inclusion of a fox is wonderful, and it makes me wish that Warner Bros. had perhaps included an on-going fox character, perhaps as a foil to Bugs and Daffy, even if they couldn’t render fox hind legs properly. The ‘toon was still remarkably ahead of its time for 1948, and what a wonderful closing line for Daffy…”Obviously, I’m dealing with inferior mentalities!”
It would seem that poor Daffy can’t even take a shower in the outdoors without drawing the attention of Elmer, but also of a rather lean and determined fox, who is easily as bright as Elmer, and manages to hold his own against him in spite of not having a firearm. The fox does speak, in addition, and manages to make off with Daffy at one point, although Daffy never appears terribly concerned about either Elmer or the fox…
It’s interesting to see Daffy featured in a type of role that in the future would be largely relegated to Bugs, who generally is more sarcastic and cerebral than Daffy, who is more manic. At any rate, I’ve attached a shortened version of the cartoon for you to enjoy that is basically the beginning and ending. Longer full versions are available on line, but those on YouTube have review voice-overs on them, which I find annoying…
And just a reminder that the new feature-length cartoon, The Day the Earth Blew Up, is opening on March 14th, 2025, featuring Daffy, Porky, and Petunia…
People or furries who go to salons or beauticians seeking a “whole new look” are brave souls. I have worn the same hairstyle for decades, knowing what helps me blend in so I can almost pass for human…
Alpacas are adorable animals; who doesn’t like them? And so it’s easy to relate to this courageous little alpaca in the NJM Insurance commercial who goes to their salon seeking that total makeover. Her hairstylist is up for the challenge,and so demonstrates a variety of different styles on the client…
One hairstyle looks rather EMO; another is a Mohawk. Still a third may be a Mullet. But our customer Alpaca isn’t quite satisfied with any of these possibilities…
Sothe alpaca’s stylist summons the salon’s master stylist, Gloria. That woman appears in a portal, and in greeting says, “Come to Momma!” The alpaca makes a sound that may be a mixture of fear and excitement. Be careful what you wish for, I guess!
“Whatcha doin’,” inquires hubby of his wife in this recent NJM Insurance commercial. “Just shopping for new car insurance,” she chirps while on the internet. That’s all it takes, apparently, because then the Mascots come!
A bear is repeatedly ringing the doorbell…a rabbit is knocking on the window…the phone is ringing insistently…windows are popping up on the computer…and a pair of bird legs is struggling to emerge from the fireplace!
“We should have known!,” despairs hubby as he grabs an umbrella to jab at the bird legs, and repel the invader!
Now I, for one, have always wanted to seek out the furry mascot army, and join their hellish crusade, so I would embrace the invaders, and go off with them! Just let me grab my fox fursuit. – -My time would have finally arrived, Ahahahaha! 🦊
(What?! – –You think I’d rather watch the Trump coronation?! Not in this life! 😼 )
In a government public service promo, we are taken to a taxidermy shop where I suspect that the proprietor has not quite mastered his art, because the taxidermied animals there look creepy, more like road kill than a recreation of life…
These poor specimens present that vape smoke can contain formaldehyde, the same chemical used to preserve dead animals like themselves…badly! The talking animals banter among themselves, struggling to pronounce the word formaldehyde…
The promo is darkly comic and even disturbing, but conveys a serious message that vaping fumes are not simply harmless water vapor, but can contain toxic and damaging chemicals that will be conveyed to the lungs…and that’s a thought even more unnatural than these badly-preserved animals!
Now this is toxic taxidermy, and I feel sorry for my poor cousins for whom death was not the final insult!
It’s Election Day at last in America, and I’m sure that many of us are disgusted, exhausted, and burnt-out by the carnival sh*t-show that we’ve been forced to painfully endure for too many months.I really thought that we had put this to rest with the 2020 election, but no, it’s simmered for four years, and here we are again at a crossroads for the country…
So once more into the fray, dear friends, once more…let’s do this…you get it…let’s take out the garbage, the nightmares of neo-fascism…if you haven’t already done so, VOTE!
…and just think…if we elect the first female president, imagine having someday the first furry president…I’d vote for him (or her)!
Hello, Boils and Ghouls, and welcome to this special Halloween Edition of Foxsylvania! Halloween is special to me, always has been and always will be. It’s an occasion relatively free of suffocating family obligations and not awash in commercialism, a time of imagination and dipping into the dark corners of our psyche…here there be dragons!So gather ’round, kiddies, and let your Uncle Vulpes bring you items to thrill, chill, and amaze you…(well, maybe, just a little!) This is what we mean by, Cheap Thrills…
That’s it…come closer as I begin to be fired up, and my true form I share with you! For I am both man and beast, substance and shadow, flame and air…that’s really what a firefox is! I am fox, I am feral, and I am DANGEROUS!(Cue up that Michael Jackson number, please…)
(Firefoxdancing with dark animal spirits to Dangerous…)
Brief, all too brief is All Hallow’s Eve when we can take off the masks that society makes us wear to please others. Join me in this dark dance of kindred furry spirits! It is a fine kind of madness that we enjoy as we gyrate and spin faster and faster, until the dancers become the dance!
But no…soon, all too soon, the cock crows, heralding the approach of dawn, and I am drawn away by irresistible energies to another dimension to walk in boring human flesh until the calendar passes another dreary year and blessed Samhain arrives again…Best Witches, everyone, Ahahahaha!
FOXSYLVANIA 
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