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!
Aww!–It’s Xmas season again! And what could be a better antidote for that than Dean Winters playing an overworked elf!? Doesn’t the above scene look Christmas-y? A coating of snow, seasonal yard decor, and…gasp!– –Santa and his sleigh on the rooftop!
But there’s a rub…the Mayhem dude is playing Santa’s overworked assistant, and he’s ready to call it a night! Mayhem is wearing his suit, but clearly the worse for the wear. There’s soot on his face, maybe some bruises,and his tie is askew…it’s been a long night! Clearly, the elves need to unionize..
But I’ve always disliked elves of the relentlessly-cheerful variety. I like my elves world-weary, and a bit sarcastic, and Winters fits that bill perfectly! He’s already had a hard night, and so when he hands Santa his pack (“here you go, Boss!”), he fumbles, and the gifts go tumbling down the chimney! It gets worse, too, ’cause there a fire burning in the hearth! An expensive Apple laptop impacts and is broken open, and other gifts ignite! If you have ever dropped electronic devices even a short distance much less ignited them, you’ll know that this does not bode well for their functionality. Yuppers, Allstate insurance sure is needed for protection of these electronics, or as as our elf tells us, you’ll be “Ho-ho-SO out of luck!“
I alsolove the fact that Winters apparently has names for the reindeer other than what we are used to, referring to one of them as “Cliffton.” I’d be in favor of re-naming most of the reindeer, giving them relatable names such as Frank, Harry, and Clyde. This reindeer looks somewhat startled by the spectacle that he has just witnessed…
Dean Wintershas given us Xmas elves before, memorably playing The Elf on the Shelf just a few years back. That elf was dressed in traditional elfish attire, and as human-sized, brought the shelf down that he was sitting on due to his weight. “Elf down!- -Elf down!,” he alerted from the floor…
So enjoyDean Winters in this year’s holiday offering…he’s a national treasure, really!
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)!
Alright, Halloween is sadly over, and I’m in mourning over that fact…so what better time to celebrate The Day of the Dead (El Dia De Los Muertos)! It’s more closely tied to Catholicism than Halloween, anyways… 💀 Now can someone get those kids off my back?!
So cue up your George Romero movies, everyone, and let’s have a drop-dead time! Just always remember to aim for the brain with the walkers… 🙀
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!
Walter Lantz cartoons often play a distant third to Disney and Warner Bros. creations, but they can be worthy of your attention, and display a level of creativity and simple exuberant ‘toon fun that’s really noteworthy. One of my fave Walter Lantz characters is Smedley, illustrated above.Now Smedley is a dog, but his tail looks rather foxy to me, and if you stare at his face and body type, you can almost see a bit of Yogi Bear reflected. What really struck me is that Smedley’s voice sounded very evocative of Huckleberry Hound…
No coincidence, that…both Smedley and Huckleberry Hound were voiced by legendary voice performer Daws Butler, who also voiced Yogi Bear for many years as well as numerous other cartoon characters. One of those characters included Fibber Fox, who of course I have a personal affection for!
Fibber Fox was drawn somewhat cat-like, and I consider him likable and a good guy, in spite of the fact that he was an antagonist to Yakkey Duck, and would try to eat him while never succeeding. We all knew that Yakkey would never be eaten, however, as he was almost unbearably cute! Death itself in cartoons, of course, is at worst a temporary inconvenience, with many characters sustaining what would have been mortal poundings and mishaps only to emerge whole and none the worst for the wear in the very next sequence…
Getting back to the Walter Lantz stable, Chilly Willythe penguinwas another memorable character who sometimes spoke not at all but communicated with expressions and gestures, and at other times spoke in kind of an abbreviated English (example: “Yes, me like!”) . Chilly Willy was largely concerned with finding food and keeping warm, and while cute and appealing was far from defenseless…
The kingpin of Walter Lantz cartoons was of course Woody Woodpecker, he of the iconic laugh, who took on a variety of antagonists, mocking and thwarting their most insidious schemes against him…
All I am saying is that Walter Lantz cartoons are frequently overlooked, and don’t get their proper respect…and voice actor Daws Butler was like the legendary Mel Blanc, but without the size of Mel’s WB paycheck…
I’ve got bad news, and I’ve got good news. First, the bad news: the movie Coyote VS. Acme has been shelved, perhaps forever, even though the film is complete. While I would have been thrilled to see Wile E. Coyote headlining in his own feature, perhaps Warner Brothersdecided that this was too much of a niche audience for a full-length film, and decided to take a tax write-off...
Now, the good news; The Day The Earth Blew Up has officially received a theatrical release in Europe, and will be all over the U.S. in late February!
Featuring Daffy Duck and Porky and Petunia Pig, The Day The Earth Blew Up is the first theatrically released Looney Tunes movie since 2021’s critically-panned Space Jam: A New Legacy. The trio of unlikely heroes team up to prevent an alien invasion that threatens life on Earth…
The film is released by Ketchup Entertainment, which bought the rights from Warner Bros back in August. Cartoon Network writer Pete Browngardt directs, using Looney Tunes voice talent. Playing in Europe, the film has been well-received, is true to its heritage, and appears to be set up to become one of the most beloved feature-length Looney Tunes outings of all time, playing off vibes of 1950’s-1960’s science fiction films.I do think, however, that Marvin the Martian could have bested this film’s villainous alien without breaking a sweat…I’m a Marvin loyalist!
So while Americans must wait until February 28th to begin seeing it, The Day The Earth Blew Up should be worth the wait…
Exploding Kittens on Netflix is a hoot, although not for those who prefer their religion unpilloried…
It seems that God is felt by a divine council to need to be rehabilitated, and so He is sent to Earth in the form of a talking cat, devoid of his most useful but not all powers. He is to help a human family who prayed for his assistance, all the while contending against a similar demonic cat sent to thwart him… 🙀
This is pretty wild stuff that plays like Sunday School on heavy psychoactive medication. God-Cat has not long arrived on Earth before He is corralled by an animal control officer, and sedated. He escapes confinement, and goes on as a strange mixture of deity, human, and feline, railing against his cat incarnation while gradually embracing it. He learns the ways of man, and has frequent epic but hilarious battles against the opposing Devil-Cat.
You might say that God becomes a better fur-son because of all this, but you’ll just have to watch Exploding Kittens to learn of all the enabling details… Meow! 😸
(Foxsylvania proudly endorses Harris-Walz in 2024!)
It’s well-known that Disney studios have shelved Song of the South, a 1946 production that depicted such racially-insensitive stereotypes as happy, servile black slaves. Song of the South has never been seen on home video, DVR, or released to streaming, and has remained in the Disney vaults since 1986 where it will likely remain forever. I guess that means we won’t be seeing Br’er Fox anytime soon, although frankly he hardly represented the best of my kind…
Disney has also eliminated the “crow chorus” from the 2019 live-action remake of “Dumbo,” as the crows have been called racist caricatures for their minstrel show-like behavior. The leader of the crow clique was even originally named Jim Crow, a reference to a blackface character who supplied the name for the Jim Crow laws…
Fantasia was edited in the 1960’s to remove Sunflower, a dark-skinned centaur who acted as a ladies’ maid to several other white centaurs! Her stereotypic look was enough to raise concern, and the character was fully removed in 1969 from the film’s re-release…
The Siamese Cat Song was completely revised from the new version of Lady and the Tramp, as the original Siamese cats were considered Asian stereotypes, despite being cool cats and smooth operators…
“Liver Lips McGrowl” from Disneyland was removed from the Country Bear Jamboree at Disney World due to fears that the inebriated character was offensive to alcoholics, and transformed into the character of Romeo McGrowl…
Even the iconic characterof Tinker Bell from Peter Pan has been considered as a negative role model for her vanity and jealous possessiveness of Peter Pan when Wendy rolls around. While Tink is under some scrutiny, she appears safe in Pixie Hollow, at least for now…
Cultural standards change public perceptions over time, and those characters cited represent only a few examples. When it comes to extreme political correctness, however. I often find that I just don’t give a “Zip-a-Dee-Doo–Dah”…
The buffalo in the Buffalo Wild Wings commercials appears to be a party animal, and as he shows in the Box Out ad, is a bit of the “bull in the china shop” beast as well, not that a pub equates to a china shop! The buffalo spokes-animal still manages to trash stuff pretty impressively, and that’s without being mad!
I’ve always kinda admired the Wild Wings buffalo as a rather well-rendered and impressive chimera, and he’s certainly articulate and expressive to the point of being brash or domineering. I doubt that his wings would be adequate, however, to enable flight, and support his massive bulk. They’re nice wings, nonetheless...
The buffalo, whose name is Hank, is voiced by Beck Bennett. Crafted for the March Madness event, the commercial is certainly mad and wild. Hank, who thinks that he knows a bit about playing defense, goes into a demonstration by unintentionally knocking people about, even breaking out the window, complete with a bodily ejection and flying glass. One would certainly want to be on this bison’s team, as his opponents might not survive him!
I’ve never posted about a buffalo before, but Hank does cut an impressive and imposing furry figure in this ad; you’d just want to think twice about inviting him to your apartment, however! Unanswered are the questions of whether Hank will be held liable for damages…
And BTW, this fox was born in Buffalo, New York!
And by the way, I just happen to have been born in Buffalo, New York! My university mascot was a bison!
FOXSYLVANIA 
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