The Feline Furries of Star Trek…

Posted July 7, 2020 by vulpesffb
Categories: aliens, anthropomorphic, furry, furry fandom, furry television, television
Tags: ,

 

There are furries in the Star Trek universe, cat-people who were introduced with the character of  M’Ress in Star Trek:  The Animated Series in the 1970’s.  A lieutenant and operations officer, she was a felinoid-type alien of the Caitian species modeled after African lions, and included originally with the cast to make the series more friendly and attractive to young children.  While the artwork is stylized and somewhat minimal, it established the species well, and M’Ress remains a most attractive and intriguing lady, even if she does have a habit of purring or murring after every few lines of dialogue…

Caitians have also appeared briefly a handful of other times in the Star Trek universe, at times depicted with more feline characteristics than others.  In Star Trek IV:  The Voyage Home, two Caitian males, completely fur-covered, were depicted as members of the Federation Council.   This depiction of the species is far more formidable, almost with a Klingon-type vibe.  One imagines that these cats could play rough…

In Star Trek:  Into Darkness, a young James T. Kirk was depicted romping in bed with two females generally regarded to be Caitians who had bare skin(?), but prominent moving tails.  I don’t know if these Caitians practiced full body shaving, represented a hybrid, or if it was just considered too disturbing to represent human-furry sex on the big screen.  Kirk, of course, is legendary for having had intimate relations with any number of female aliens, and a discussion of his libido and sexual conquests would consume far more space than we have here… 

In Star Trek:  Online, Caitians are playable characters, and I personally  like their more serious depiction.  The majesty and power of felines really shines through here, and I’d be proud to serve on board with any of them…

 

In a new upcoming animated series to debut in August 2020 titled Star Trek:  Lower Decks, we will again see a Caitian in the person of Dr. T’Ana, ship’s physician to one of the least important vessels in Starfleet, the USS Cerritos.  I’ve heard her described as Dr. Pulaski in feline form.  Lower Decks is billed as an adult comedy, although it will supposedly still deal with some serious science fiction themes and issues.  Detailing the exploits of junior support officers on the Cerritos, the series will debut in August 2020 on the CBS All-Access network…

 

So there you have it…a species depicted in different ways, from ‘toonish to sex-kitten, to impressive and formidable.  You can choose your preferred incarnation, I suppose, and I eagerly anticipate further expansion of the species in future developments of the Star Trek universe…

 

Comments: 5 Comments

Progressive’s Motaur “Herd” Commercial…

Posted July 3, 2020 by vulpesffb
Categories: absurdities, advertising, biomechanical, commercials, Questionably creepy, strange, twisted reality
Tags: ,

 
Apparently, there are others of his kind…Terrence Terrell’s Motaur, that is!  We had previously seen Progressive’s unlikely motorcycle insurance icon in 2019 as a solitary bio-mechanical being appearing to wondering young humans at an isolated gas station.  In the latest commercial, our Motaur appears with a fully-human companion on a mesa, observing with binoculars at some distance a herd of other Motaurs milling about before them.

As his companion babbles about how amazing it is to see them in the wild, he is shushed by our familiar Motaur who just wishes to become lost in the moment…then we hear motor sounds of the dirt-biking Motaur herd, buzzing about like angry hornets.  They individually do wheelies, accelerate, and bound over the terrain.  Terrence Terrell then raises his front wheel in a salute to his “people.“

Viewers may find the commercial cool, creepy, or incomprehensible but it celebrates the close bond between many bikers and their “rides.”  I worry that perhaps these cyborgs have something to do with Skynet, soon to be followed by an imposing black leather-jacketed guy with sunglasses and an Austrian accent. Perhaps we really don’t have to be afraid of the Motaurs as those seen in the field appear strangely generic and not especially menacing…and hey, wouldn’t Don’t Fear the Motaurs be a great comeback song for Blue Oyster Cult?  Bio-mechanical beings just wanna have fun, after all, although if their herd passes through my neighborhood noise ordinances may need to be deployed.

The recurrence of Motaurs continues to pose unanswered and troubling questions for me.  Do they both eat and gas up, or is one act sufficient?  Do they see both doctors and mechanics?   How do they sleep, or do they? Are Motaurs born, assembled, or somehow pieced together in some kind of unspeakable Borg-type lab?  Is there a cross-over into the Transformer world, or would Motaurs be their rivals if not enemies? Do Motaurs reproduce, breed only with their own, and if so, how (now there’s a disquieting thought!)?  Anyhow, untold stories reside here, and inquiring minds want to know…

 

 

Comments: 2 Comments

“A Quiet Place” Has It All…

Posted July 1, 2020 by vulpesffb
Categories: aliens, anomalies, creature features, doomsday, horror
Tags: ,

In this time of the pandemic, it’s perhaps understandable that many of us would be drawn to apocalyptic fiction and cinema, and A Quiet Place (2018) is one of the best done and most striking films to emerge in this gendre in recent years.  It’s edge of the seat horror and  science fiction that blends elements reminiscent of the Alien, Cloverfield, and Walking Dead franchises, depicting humanity overwhelmed by vicious and powerful aliens who are blind, but hunt very effectively by sound.  Human survivors of this meteor-borne invasion are therefore forced to live furtive and hidden existences, avoiding the generation of sound, and communicating by sign language.  As a result, there is little spoken dialogue in the film, although captioned subtitles appear to translate the signing to the audience.

As for the aliens depicted in Quiet Place, they are neither warm and friendly nor possessed of high technology; they simply want to eat you, and are well-equipped to do so, possessed of clawed extremities and impressive dentition.  There is no evidence of higher cognition here, but rather animal cunning.  In appearance, they are somewhat insectile or bat-like, possessed of an armored exoskeleton of sorts and ambulating briskly on all fours but capable of rearing up on hind legs at which times they can appear disturbingly humanoid.  They use echolocation, and might not be able to perceive you as prey from several feet away if you are perfectly still and quiet.  Their auditory aurifaces when open dwarf any human ears…

Although a horror movie, A Quiet Place is of the rare type of horror movie with heart, as a family and its relationships is at the center of it.  There are unpleasant things to see such as the death of a child family member, but it’s handled non-graphically; a blur of motion, and he’s carried off.  The tension conveyed in the film, however, is almost palpable.  The survivalist husband and father (John Kasinski) and his wife (Emily Blunt) are rock-solid, and their  eldest child (Millicent Simmonds), a gifted young hearing impaired actress, projects a wonderful adaptive kind of Wednesday Addams darkness; she adapts and prevails.  The surviving female family members left standing at the end of the film are more than the equal of the vicious monsters headed their way, kind of like Ripley and Newt in a farmland showdown.  Catch A Quiet Place if like myself you enjoy intelligent innovative horror with heart… 

 

 

Comments: 1 Comment

The Forgotten Gold of “Rango”

Posted June 29, 2020 by vulpesffb
Categories: anthropomorphic, fantasy, feathered friends, furry, furry films
Tags: ,

You might easily have missed the 2011 film Rango in the theaters, intended as a quirky western comedy and featuring Johnny Depp as a chameleon house pet stranded in the Nevada desert who becomes the sheriff in the town of Dirt inhabited by a variety of desert anthropomorphic animals who move faster and more convincingly than most animal characters in films intended for children. Pictured above is the alluring vixen Angelique (Claudia Black), who is the secretary to the town mayor, an elderly tortoise.

Now Rango satirizes a number of western traditions and films, and there’s even a virtual Clint Eastwood character who appears rather mystically as The Spirit of the West. Although essentially a kid’s movie, there’s enough subversive darkness and hidden spoofs in the film to keep adults happy, and a furry like myself enthralled. The animal characters do smoke, drink, and shoot at each other. The film was actually criticized for promoting smoking, and because of this some actually wanted it to have an R rather than a PG rating… but hey, this is a western after all, and it isn’t real…Lighten up!

So if you haven’t seen it, you can probably catch Rango on your small screen. Johnny Depp is a hoot as always, and Angelique could own me in like two seconds…I’ll forgive her for the cigarette!

Comments: 7 Comments

Living the Fantasy…

Posted June 24, 2020 by vulpesffb
Categories: current events, retro cool
Tags: ,

When I was a child, I often fantasized about being a superhero; you know, one with powers!  Such superheroes often wore masks or cowls to hide their secret identity.  Well, now with the COVID-19 pandemic, it appears that I can live out my superhero boyhood fantasy everyday, wearing a mask out in public wherever I go without being hauled off to the asylum. And to think, had I worn a mask out in public even six months ago, people might have thought me an armed robber! Now I can wear a mask, and just blend into the crowd undetected, ‘cause everyone’s wearing a mask! 

Now the type of superhero mask that just goes around your eyes like the Lone Ranger or Green Lantern wore won’t pass muster in the pandemic. It’s got to go around your nose and mouth, which is more concealing and mysterious.  So concealed, I could be The Shadow, decades ahead of the curve with the power (acquired in the Far East) to “cloud men’s minds!”- – Don’t certain politics do that to some? The trouble is, such masks tend just to cloud my eyeglasses, and crime fighters who blunder into things make a poor nemesis of crime.  Criminals might, however, be disabled by laughter…

So I’ve got official blessing to wear a mask out in public, and in fact am strongly encouraged or even required to do so. Now if I could just get a similar blessing to wear a dramatic cape, I’d really be on my way to my boyhood superhero look! Capes are dramatic, you see, just by their very nature, and you can really swish about with them, assuming that they don’t trip you or get caught in the door, which might be embarrassing…

Eventually, of course, the aspiring superhero must acquire a sidekick, sort of a crime-fighting associate who is kind of learning the trade. I’m still working on that one…      

Comments: 1 Comment

E*TRADE’s “Bear Market” Commercial

Posted June 9, 2020 by vulpesffb
Categories: advertising, animal elements, animal spokepersons, animals, anthropomorphic, commercials, furry, furry commercials, television, twisted reality
Tags: , ,

 

Bears have not gotten their proper representation or respect in commercials, with the toilet paper obsessed Charmin bears a case in point. One cannot readily imagine them functioning in a species-specific parallel world either, as the Chantix turkey appears to do so effortlessly in a number of memorable commercials. That may now change, as at long last, we are finally given a peek into a world where bears have meshed into the trappings of human civilization, courtesy of E*TRADE.

These bears calmly prowl the aisles of a supermarket on their hind legs, sniffing at cantaloupes and filling their shopping carts with generous amounts of honey, appropriately in those little bear-shaped clear containers. A bear family stops at the fish counter where they’re waited on by one of their own; there’s even a disabled bear who whizzes by in a motorized shopping cart! The cashier is likewise a bruin, calling for a price check on a honey container that stubbornly refuses to scan while the customer moans his annoyance.

“If this is your idea of a bear market,” we hear in the closing voice over, “maybe trading’s not for you.” We’re advised not to get mad, but rather get E*TRADE, and get more than trading…and I’d like to get more glimpses into the universe of these very relatable bears! They’ve evolved so far from the days of Yogi…

Comments: 3 Comments

COVID Masking, and Identity Expression…

Posted June 1, 2020 by vulpesffb
Categories: current events, furry, the human condition
Tags: , ,



A few months ago, facial masks were rarely seen in public, and there was little interest in them. With the Coronavirus pandemic, however, masks literally became “must have” items almost overnight.  Your choices in them were originally quite limited and dreary, but demand has spawned a thriving cottage industry dedicated to their creation and marketing in an otherwise mostly depressed economy…

From just a few listings, places like eBay now offer for sale literally thousands of different homemade cloth masks in a dizzying array of colors, patterns, and presented images.  They have become almost fashion accessories, an expression of personal interests and identity.  One may procure a facial mask that proclaims one’s favorite sports team, or represents an affiliation or hobby.- – Who knows where a comment about one’s “cute mask” might lead?  (from a safe distance, of course!) 

The proliferation of more colorful and creative masks has become almost a daily Halloween for the masses, kind of a passive outreach tool in an age of social distancing.  So will you be a face mask fashionista?- – Show your colors!  What will your mask reveal about your inner self?!

 

 

 As Billy Joel’s lyrics noted in The Stranger, 

“Well, we all have a face

That we hide away forever

And we take them out

And show ourselves when everyone has gone

Some are satin, some are steel

Some are silk and some are leather

They’re the faces of a stranger

But we’d love to try them on”

 

 

In a way, self-disclosure can be quite…liberating!  May we all have a happy, more nearly-normal June…

Comments: 3 Comments

Of Giant Monsters…

Posted May 20, 2020 by vulpesffb
Categories: animals, horror, insects, movies, sci fi, twisted reality
Tags: ,


There’s a special place in my heart for 1950’s horror movies, especially those featuring giant monsters…and it’s hard to think of a better tag line for one than, “This was the day that engulfed the world in terror!”  More than 60 years after its 1957 debut, The Deadly Mantis continues to be entertaining as a high camp classic, more amusing now than horrifying.  The clumsy and dated not-so-special effects of the giant mantis flying are alone worth watching the film for.

In these times of invisible horrors like the coronavirus, it’s so nice to see our fears embodied as something gigantic and readily identifiable that we can shoot artillery at, and direct flame throwers towards; we know that we’re going to win against it at the end.  I doubt, however, that bleach and bright lights would be effective against this thing.  Perhaps we can get a large number of regular praying mantids together, and make one really big one like this that we could threaten murder hornets with.  A Universal Picture creation, one yearns to see the Deadly Mantis locked in mortal combat with some creature from the Toho Studios world…Mothra vs. Mantis has a nice ring to it.  Now that’s entertainment…I’d go bugs over that one!

 

https://youtu.be/G8R9OoQh4q0

 

 

Comments: 5 Comments

Creepshow’s “Bad Wolf Down”

Posted May 15, 2020 by vulpesffb
Categories: animals, anomalies, anthropomorphic, furry, furry horror, horror, television
Tags: , ,

I freely admit that I’m more of a werewolf than a vampire fan, but what would you expect? I’m a furry, and werewolves are kind of an amplified furry. I was therefore in seventh heaven to see that werewolves were featured prominently in the Bad Wolf Down segment of the new Creepshow series by Shudder, now available for viewing on the AMC network. This series draws heavily from the earlier Stephen King and George Romero movie by the same name which aired in 1982.

Meshing horror comics with live action, this S1/Ep2 installment plunges us into a furious firefight of WWII American troops overwhelmed by Nazis. Seeking sanctuary from annihilation, the few remaining Americans flee to an abandoned building where they encounter a woman locked in a cell who turns out to be a female werewolf! Seeking the release of death, the woman wants only to swallow the silver cross of one of the Americans. They accommodate her, but not before requesting that she bite each of them, transforming them in turn into werewolf soldiers that are more than a match for the pursuing Nazi elite troops.

Now the werewolf transformations are budget-restricted yet still effective, and the gore-fest which follows is not for the squeamish. It did, however, provide me with a satisfying spectacle as well as a reminder of the power of shape-shifting. I found it an uplifting experience…You might, too, if you are into horror, werewolf sub-classification. Other episodes look equally promising, so gratify your dark side by checking out the new Creepshow series; it’s a worthwhile indulgence…

 

Comments: 4 Comments

Our Insectile Savior…

Posted May 8, 2020 by vulpesffb
Categories: current events, insects, Invertebrates
Tags:


Just as it appeared that we had no defense against the nasty and invasive murder hornets, a champion appears who can beat them at their own game…the praying mantis!  We haven’t seen a battle this epic since Species 8472 handily beat The Borg in Star Trek.  Come to think of it, Species 8472 somewhat resemble praying mantids, who do look rather alien with their triangular heads and all.  It’s a good thing that they don’t grow to six feet in size, or they might want a piece of our action…

It’s no mercy in a viral video depicting such a match-up between the hornet and the mantis, who gets right to work, latching onto the hornet, and eating his head!  Yes, this video is not for the squeamish.  As the hornet operates more through nerve ganglias than a brain, the remaining parts of the hornet continue to try and sting the mantis, all in vain. – – Can we get a collective ewww here?  Thank you…

 

So it would appear that the bad boys of buzzdom can be beaten, and it’s all in a day’s work for our backyard beneficial buddy, the praying mantis.  He’s mean and green.- – Who can blame him for doing a victory dance?  Oh yeah, who’s bad?!

 

 

Comments: 2 Comments

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