Lesser-Known Transformers

What the Birds in the Park Think of Us

The Editorials of Mallard Fillmore,Right-Wing Reporter

The Poor Are Slowing Economic Growth
Maybe if they spent a few bucks they'd be better off

The Great Flood and Why English Should Be Our National Language
Once again the Bible directly addresses 21st Century American politics

I Don't Know the Difference between Iran and Iraq, Either
How Alan Jackson revealed the "Persian" myth

Liberal Media Fails to Cover Initial Location Scouting for Direct-to-Video Christian Film “To Heck with Satan.”
Typical

Is Sex Being Taught in Our Medical Schools?
Women’s “stuff” should remain mysterious, foreboding.

American NASCAR vs. European Soccer
Which gets better mileage?

Will Cloning Lead to Even More Catholics?
Remember, a lot of them are rather dusky

Global Warming Disproved by January Frost
Fox News scoops CNN again

What if I Can Turn Just Like That?
Why the gays should have their own gym

I Know What I Know
So take back your library card, eggheads!

Hannity Silences Colmes with Stirring “Yeah, But at the End of the Day” Closer
No way Colmes could argue against that

The Persecuted White Man
Why being in charge of evereything puts you at an extreme disadvantage

Debunking Evolution
If God didn’t create the world in six days then how do explain all these illustrations I found in a Sunday school primer?

Get a Load of What Some Nations Call “Country Music”
Toby Keith wouldn’t be caught dead with a tabla

The Democratic Party
Oh yeah. I said it.

Intellectuals and Their Crossword Puzzles
Give me a good Junior Jumble any day

Support the “Acceptable Arts” Bill
Art funding to go to Hummel figurines, “Do I Look Like A Grandmother?” T-shirts and candles in the shape of fruit

Because I Got Called "Fatty" in the Third Grade By Some Kid Who Might Have Been Black
The birth of The Mallard's political awakening

Charities Just Don't Make Financial Sense
Didn't anyone ever teach these people about the "profit margin"?

I Don’t Understand Today’s Doonesbury
Or last hour-and-a-half of Memento

Do Muslims Even Have a Word for “Love”?
Maybe, but dang if I know how to look it up

Rock Group “Foreigner” Should Be Deported
Award 70’s soft-rock combo “America” full security access.

Most Americans Agree
So why are we even having this argument?

Nation’s Teachers Espouse Lies, Deceit
An unflinching look at our schools’ “fiction anthologies.”

I Thought of Another Incisive Ted Kennedy Joke!
It's about him being drunk

Reel Evil: Hollywood Films Celebrate Other Cultures
Wait, is it “reel” or “real’? Which one is the opposite of “fake”?

My Name Is a Pun on President Taft
Just another perk of home schooling

The Blog Posts of B.C. Cartoonist Johnny Hart

"Why can a family gesture to themselves and say, 'We're Jewish' but I can't point at them and say, 'The Jews'? What kind of world do we live in where they can teach the Koran in a Muslim Studies class but not the Bible in a Macroeconomics course? When did women start wearing pants and writing things other then the annual family Christmas letter? We live in confusing times, people, and I for one blame hip-hop."

"The war in Iraq, the rise in terrorism, that Italian who got elected to our school board. These are all signs of the coming Apocalypse. Soon the righteous will be taken to God and the rest will see what happens when you no longer have school vouchers to help limit your kids' dating pool."

"The great thing about being born again is that guy who commited all those bank heists no longer exits, so I'm in the clear."

"Of course it is well within the right of a parent to hit their children should they be disrespectful. Why, just last week my son spouted some nonsense about 'other religions' and I immediately whipped out my trusty belt ('Buckles') to set him straight. But then his teenage daughter had to go burst into tears and his wife threatened to arrest me for attempted manslaughter, so I put 'Buckles' back on the nail by the front door as a reminder that no one gives credence to Episcopalians under my roof."

"Sometimes when I'm standing on back porch at night I look up at the stars and think I could almost touch them. Then I get up on a chair and give it a try. When that doesn't work I get a broom handle, hoping to knock one down. No luck so far but one day I'll possess Heaven's fire and then no zoning board will be able to tell me where I can and cannot shoot ducks."

"Science is the worst thing to happen to American society since the Bravo Channel. Why must we be forced again and again to hear such untruths as evolution, carbon dating and flightless birds? After all, life--all that we see around us--is the work of a sole, supreme intelligent designer. A designer with limitless power but only so much resources and time. That's why not every one got to be white."

"I think what I like most about 'The Flinstones' is its verisimilitude."

"While it is true that the United States of America was founded on the principle of religious freedom for all, that liberty was never intended to exalt other religions to the level Christianity holds in our country's heritage. I firmly believe USA's founders expected that Christians--and only Christians--would set the dialogue for our nation, be permitted to run for public office or walk outside after 6 P.M., be allowed dine on home intruders, be awarded as much land as could be traveresed in a fortnight by jetpack, all be named John and be imbued with the power to alter the very physical structure of trees with a simple stare."

"Charlie Daniels should be made our nation's Poet Laureate. He put the devil in its place. Robert Pinsky couldn't even play the fiddle."

"Some people say if gay couples can't be married because of religious doctrine then why can't they have a civil union? After all, some people say, that way their marriages can't be judged solely on one group's notion of sin but rather regarded in legal terms. Some people then go on to say that a lot of straight couples are married outside of the church and yet their marriages are still recognized by society, so why can't the same benefits be extended to gay and lesbian marriages? Some people apparently don't realize that freedom of speech is a gift that's best left unopened."

"When people ask me if B.C. takes place in prehistoric times or in a postapocalyptic future, I always say the same thing--'According to the Bible, comic strips don't exist.'"

Forgotten Sid & Marty Krofft Shows

For the greater part of the 1970's, Sid and Marty Krofft defined Saturday morning children's television with high-concept stories, ominous themes, alternative realities, hallucinatory production design, trippy music, giant puppets, inadvertent references to skin flutes and more abandoned children than a Dickens retrospective. From the fantastical and frightening H.R. Pufnstuf to the frightening and frightening Land of the Lost, the Krofft brothers spun magic time and time again with shows whose freakish images couldn't have burned more into a child's mind if they were attached to the end of a branding iron. But almost as fascinating as their hits are the series that failed to capture the public's attention and were sadly forgotten...until now:

Nice to Meat You (1971)
A young Mersey lad, Jimmy Jim, who eats nothing but fast food gets shot in the head and wakes up in Pattiesburgh, a city “founded, incorporated, governed in a democratic-republican fashion and outfitted with an extensive, financially-prudent mass transportation system by huge, talking hamburgers,” according to the less-than-memorable theme song lyrics. The show revolved around the town’s good-hearted leader “Burgermeister,” the power-pop trio “The Pickle Chips” and the curiously out-of-place “Asian Salad with Premium Spring Salad Mix” all trying to help Jimmy Jim get back to his own world. Unfortunately, the child actor playing Jimmy spent the entire series screaming in utter, unstoppable terror at the sight of the large-headed, anthropomorphic food puppets, resulting in every episode focusing on the costumed cast sitting around playing cards, talking about summer stock theater and dropping dead from heat exhaustion.

Crash Course (1976)
Three clean-cut teens (Pam, Billy and The Black One) find and fix-up an old jalopy only to realize that not only is it alive but it also embodies the spirit of little-known founding father Arthur Middleton (voiced by Richard Burton). "Artie"--as he is dubbed by the kids much to his dismay--tries to teach the trio about the historical significance of the Revolutionary War and the very importance of the upcoming Bicentennial, but the gang instead decides to enter the car in one demolotion derby after another to help raise money for their hippy band, "The Daisy Chain." Much of the show's humor derived from "Artie" slowly losing not only his posh accent but also his motor skills, cognitive abilities and eventually his very sense of self due to the horrible collisions he endured on the derby circuit on a daily basis. By series' end the immobile "Artie" could only form bubbles from his grille and demand pancakes at an ever-increasing volume, forcing the kids to abandon him for a sentient skateboard voiced by Charles Nelson Reilly.

Psychotropical Paradise (1974)
A young brother and sister make friends with a talking brownie inside a mirror-walled kewpie doll teetering on the edge of a teacup in a pirate ship sailing against the tide of button-up conformity, as embodied by Billy Barty playing a corn fritter festooned with talking medallions. Although Sid and Marty Krofft have categoricallly denied that Psychotropical Paradise was influenced by--or made any reference to--drug use, the show's 42-minute opening theme song (in which an old woman moans "I am the one scratching inside the wall behind your bed" over and over again while a xylophone learns to play itself), the use of the same plot for every single epsiode (boy and girl try to find way home, meet cow, the lichen take arms, a beatiful egg hatches from a constable's eye and the rain echoes the sound of chocolate) and host Syd Barrett (who would end each show demanding to know how the viewers found his home address before retiring to his mother's basement) all make for a strong counterargument. Despite attempts to impart life lessons (such as the importance of writing your name on your hand, phoneticaly, should you forget who you are), the program baffled critics and scared the bejesus out of four-year-olds, who were its target market. Eventually the show was pulled and replaced with another Krofft series, Clap, Clap, Clap, about giant hands that made thunder noise for a living and the little British boy who winds up in their world for some inexplicable reason or another.