It’s kinda like the “Island of Misfit Toys” from the 1960’s Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Xmas classic…NJM’s “Basement Storage” commercial, that is!
From their “No Jingles or Mascots” campaign, we see a rather remarkable animatronic elephant wheeled in, complete with a well-articulated trunk. Activating once his human depositor leaves, the elephant wonders if he’s in mascot heaven. He’s not in mascot heaven or hell, but purgatory might be more like it…the elephant has landed in a basement storage area for mascots unwanted and unused by NJM, mascot-companions for the elephant that include a gorilla and lion… 🙀
Unfortunately, the rejected would-be mascot elephant appears to short out, then repeating his initial query about whether he’s in mascot heaven. ” Oh boy!,” comments the gorilla…
Yes, there’s something in the barn, and it’s not a moo-cow but rather a Norwegian barn elf in this black horror comedy that plays like the movie Gremlins run through National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation…
It seems that a rather annoying American millennial-type family has inherited a Norwegian farm estate where their distant relative died trying to expel or exterminate the barn elf, succeeding only in dying a fiery death. Oblivious to Norwegian traditions and mythology, the Griswold-type family tries to impose gaudy American holiday traditions on the estate in the process of converting it to a bed-and-breakfast type inn…
This serves to make the barn elf angry, as they are creatures that despise change, bright lights, noise, and modernism in general. Only the family’s pre-teen son Lucas understands this, solely believing in the entity, and forging an alliance with the being by giving it cookies. If you are nice to such an elf, they will do service to you such as remove snow and split and stack firewood. Offend an elf, however, and open warfare results, with the mythical beings being able to call in reinforcements of their fellows…
You wouldn’t like such elves when they are truly angry. They are tribal, not adverse to killing, and will use primitive and environmental weaponry. When they stumble into your liquor cabinet, they’ll indulge themselves, and throw raucous parties…
The Americans are guided in their struggles by an expert in Norwegian folklore, who chides them with such admonitions as “This isn’t America. We don’t go about shooting each other in the faces!” A sensible people, Norwegians prefer negotiation.
Cookies are also powerful negotiation chips, if used in a timely fashion. Proper respect for folkloric beings is always in order, too. So be nice to your barn elf, should you have one… 🦊
Allstate’s Dean Winters as the redoubtable “Mayhem” is doing animal impersonations again, this time as a wild bird stuck in the attic of basketball legend Larry Bird. – -What, you’ve never seen a bird in a suit before?! That absurdity is part of the humor. Well, once again Winters pulls his animal act off, bonking his head against an attic window to show his entrapment, knocking stuff about, and announcing that he’s “going cuckoo…”
All of the ruckus draws the now senior Bird out of his comfy chair into his attic, where he encounters the bird-Winters, and arms himself with a lacrosse stick! “What ‘ya got, Larry? May the best bird win,” declares Winters. It’s no contest, however, as Winters-as-bird handily dodges basketball Bird’s swings. Jumping to reach Winters, Larry Bird crashes through the attic floor, his legs dangling comically through his living room ceiling…
“You may be a legend on the court, but you’re an amateur up here,” mocks wild bird Winters from the rafters. “Now YOU’RE the bird stuck in the attic!”
Once more, nature prevails…as does Dean Winters, whether as a cat, raccoon, deer, St. Bernard puppy, or bird.- – Can he do a fox next?! 🦊
There is now a 2023 movie based on the popular video game, Five Nights At Freddy’s. For those who have been living in a cave, Freddy’s envisions a closed and decaying 1980’s kiddie pizza emporium much like Chuck E. Cheese’s where the animal-resembling members of the house robotic entertainment band continue unnaturally to lumber around, stalking and killing intruders on the premises…
Now I’ve seen one of these animal robot bands performing in Florida, and it was creepy, because budget-level animatronics do not approach Disney World standards, and the robotic animal performers don’t move fluidly. Because of this, cartoon-like animal robots make suitable fodder for horror movies, kind of like Jason or Freddy with creaky hydraulics…
I’m usually not a fan of video games turned into movies, but this one is not without its moments, probably because I am a damn furry, and likely wouldn’tmind spending my afterlife as Foxy, the robot pirate-fox. Just be kind to him, because he’s been knocking around since the 1980’s unattended and without proper maintenance. Foxy is the worse for the wear, much like I myself…
The robots, ‘ya see, are inhabited by the spirits of deceased children who mysteriously vanished. While they are murderous, their mayhem is not graphically rendered on screen, and one reviewer termed this an introduction to horror movies for the video game generation, “baby’s first horror movie.” There are some novel concepts here, even if the film itself is not especially scary. This probably would have been better suited for presentation on the SyFy channel instead of the big screen, but it did play well in theaters. Similar themes were developed in The Banana Splits Movie, which didn’t have a video game pedigree. But catch this one on Amazon Prime if you have it. It’s fun, but won’t haunt your dreams. It just can’t be taken seriously, but there’s nothing wrong with that, and robotic furries are a kick…
(Foxy’s looked better, but haven’t we all?!And I could definitely get into the Robo-pirate fox scene, yarr!Lower yer flag and stand by to be boarded by the scourge of the Seven Seas, Matey!) 🦊
See y’all at Freddy Fazbear’s…or maybe the funny papers!
*Laughs hysterically and is taken away by nice young men in clean white coats* 🤪
Private eyes…gumshoes…private dicks….I’ve always loved ‘em, especially in retro versions, or neo-ones like Rorschach of Watchmen. So when I saw this private eye walking into a dimly-lit diner, soft jazz playing in the background, this fox was hooked…
This private eye had the full look, complete with fedora and trench coat. His client, however, was an oddball…not that I should talk…and what exactly was he? When I first glimpsed him, I thought that he looked like ALF, the Alien Life Form popular for a few years on 80’s television. He seemed at first to have an elongated snout, and was definitely a furry…
…but no, not ALF. Maybe some kinda bovine, I dunno. Anyway, the detective brought him the information he sought, but he wasn’tgonna like it. It seems, ‘ya see, that NJM only had their customer’s best interests at heart, and there was no way that the mascot client could compete with that…
And ALF, I still remember ‘ya, buddy…but don’t even think about eating my cat!
Those Arm and Hammer cats are back, from the same people who brought you a feline John Travolta at the disco a while back! Disclaimer: If seeing cats in bed makes you feel uncomfortable, stay out of their bedroom! But I’m a furry, this is my world, and so just cope with it, OK? No one forces you to be here, after all… 😸
These cats in their bedroom and alternative universe just love to watch videos of the crazy and stupid things that humans do, the same way that folks in our benighted reality love to watch cat videos…and humans do some stupid things, like throw balls of used cat litter around, to see how hard it is. And how hard are they? Crazy hard!
This is lightweight HardBall Litter, after all, and you can even hit clumps of it with a tennis racket against walls. Or throw it downstairs. – -Tsk, the things that these stoopid hyoomans do! Always makes you laugh, though…
And isn‘t this a handsome couple, just enjoying themselves? So what if they’re sharing a bed? We’ve come a long way as a society since Lucy and Ricky Ricardo had separate twin beds in their bedroom! And how do you suppose that kittens are made? Cats got needs, ‘ya know…but we’re not gonna get into that here, this being a semi-respectable blog, and all. Meow… 🐈🐈⬛
If you’re an arachnophobe, you’d better steer clear of Adam Sandler’s movie Spaceman on Netflix, because Sandler, as an astronaut in deep space, winds up sharing his spacecraft with an intelligent, human-sized creature that strongly resembles a gigantic spider, complete with multiple eyes and jointed appendages…
The movie isn’t a comedy, but might remind some of either an extremely good or bad acid trip, depending on your personal perspective. When Sandler gets over his initial shock and horror over the uninvited stowaway, he doesn’t reach for the can of Raid or Black Flag, finding instead that the arthropod is an explorer like himself who has studied Earth languages, and is more than capable of carrying on a thoughtful conversation…
The spidery alien assures Sandler that he doesn’t want to harm or consume him, and is adept at probing into Sandler’s mind where he finds that Sandler has what might be termed “relationship problems” with his wife on Earth. The empathetic “Spider-Man” has a soothing voice, is endlessly patient, and frankly appears to be a natural therapist who wants to help Sandler with his feelings, emotionality, and relationship. I swear that I am not making this up…
Sandler’s character, a Czech astronaut on a solitary mission to the purplish Chopra Cloud, is a morose and gloomy individual. The spider-alien, while repellent in appearance, becomes rather endearing, providing who he calls the “skinny human” with psychotherapy. The movie has an identity crisis, becoming an oddball psychological drama rather than traditional science fiction. As such, it may leave many viewers confused and unsatisfied, with an ambiguous, “write your own ending” resolution. The movie may change your opinion of spiders, however, terrestrial or otherwise. I just doubt that I’ll ever want to give one a big ole hug. This is high weirdness, indeed…
Jeff Goldblum is an awesome dude. He knows dinosaurs, has blended his genes with a fly, and is equally comfortable with aliens, fighting them or otherwise. In a recent Apartments.com commercial, he is part of a group having a first encounter with arthropod aliens that have been described as giant ants, but I also see some resemblance in them to Star Trek’s Species 8472. In either case, they’re quite cool as well. The hard-headed military types in the group of humans seem all too willing to open fire, but Goldblum knows better. These aliens are just looking for a rental apartment, probably in a good location, and not too expensive…
And these aliens argue amongst themselves as to whether they want a one or two bedroom apartment; two would accomodate her mother when she comes to visit, so of course the guy is in favor of a single bedroom model. In either case, Jeff Goldblum is tuned to their wavelength, and sure to be able to fix them up. They’re just extraterrentrials. Some things seem to be universal, after all… 🦊
Here comes Peter Rottentail! It seems to be a recent trend in movies to reverse iconic benevolent or virtuous characters such as Santa, Winnie the Pooh, Peter Pan, or Bambi to make them menacing and malevolent.– -Well, Easter is coming, and we’ve got a bad egg for your basket in the form of a malevolent Jackalope terrorizing a Texas town!
A jackalopeis kind of a shape-shifting creature that is part human and part giant horned rabbit, and it appears that local legend holds that such ravaged the area a century and a half ago. Guess who’s making a comeback, leading a demon bunny army, and just in time for the small town’s Easter-palooza!
The horror-comedy opens in late March, and you know about those mad March hares! It’s up to Texas determination and a professional bunny slayer to split a few hares… 🙀
What?!- – Say it ain’t so! Progressive Insurance’s Jamie in cahoots with bank robbers, and ones wearing cat masks, to boot? Well, Jamie is the eternal innocent, and when he signed on to be a wheelman, he didn’t understand that title to mean an escape car driver. Rather, wheelman is an old family name for Jamie..it’s Irish!
So when three cat animal-headed robbers make a hasty exit from the bank, Jamie cheerfully asks them if they’ve gotten their banking done.Unfortunately for the robbers, Jamie’s in no hurry to burn rubber leaving, either.He pulls out slowly, almost immediately stopping at a stop sign where he times the stop by counting 1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi, etc.Jamie deals with their befuddlement by sharing that he has Progressive’s “Snapshot” feature, which rewards good, but not speedy drivers. These robbers are screwed…
And I guess that you could saythat these were cat burglars. I envy them their masks…
FOXSYLVANIA 
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