Those of you Mooseheads who are fans of DC Comics know that Crisis on Infinite Earths was an attempt to consolidate the DC Comics characters into one universe, instead of having sixty million different universes, with versions of the characters living on different planets. (Which was recently adapted into a CW crossover series)

It was confusing, and, tragically, the original Barry Allen version of The Flash died in it, but it rebooted  DC Comics into something that was slightly less confusing than “Ulysses” by James Joyce.

And Wonder Woman was in it, and I LOVE Wonder Woman!

But, now, we here in the real world, are experiencing a different crisis. I call it “The Crisis of Infinite Streaming Services.”

I subscribe to more streaming services than I can count or afford. And I recently subscribed to HBO Max, which brings me back around to my topic of Wonder Woman, because that’s the only way you can watch that movie, without going to a theater, suffocating in a mask, and sitting miles away from your friends. (And how can you even eat stale popcorn, that you spent twenty bucks on, through a mask, anyway?)

I really love Gal Gadot, playing Wonder Woman. She is awesome, and hot, and her portrayal of Wonder Woman was the only remotely good part of Batman vs. Superman. Plus, she has a really weird name, and if we were dating, I could call  her “my gal.”

Plus 98% of my comics are about beautiful girls, like Wonder Woman, although, unlike Wonder Woman, (who does not like guns) my girls all have weirdly themed guns. Satie De Sade has a pitchfork gun that shoots fire, Melissa Dusa is a Gorgon girl, who has a snake gun that turns you into stone, and Dairy Star has an ice cream cone shaped gun that freezes you. (Wonder Woman would probably not approve of any of these tactics.)

I had to watch Wonder Woman 84. A lot of people said it sucked,  but I watched it anyway, since I love wonder and women, and I love the year 1984.

That was, after all, the year Gremlins and Ghostbusters came out on the same day.  So, George Orwell’s dystopian view of 1984 was clearly wrong, because, in the year 1984, we were blessed with both Gremlins and Ghostbusters! It was no dystopia! It was awesome! But how the hell would you even be able to decide which movie to go to see if you had to choose between two of the best movies EVER!?

And the Ghostbusters thing sort of relates to my main topic.

Kristen Wig was in the awful, unwatchable reboot of Ghostbusters, where they were all played by annoying women, instead of the actors who originally played the Ghostbusters. (It was more like watching an episode of  “The View” than watching a Ghostbusters movie).  Kristen Wig, of Saturday Night Live fame, was, objectively, the least annoying of these actresses, and she did a pretty good job, playing Cheetah in Wonder Woman 1984.

Now, if you don’t know who Cheetah is, you probably don’t know much about Wonder Woman, because she is her arch enemy in the comics. And, if you don’t know much about Wonder Woman, you probably don’t know anything about the guy who created her.

So, I shall educate you Mooseheads who don’t.

William Moulton Marston was the guy who created Wonder Woman, and he wasn’t just a comic book writer. He was also a psychologist, and he also invented the lie detector.

So, I have a love-hate relationship with this guy, because I love Wonder Woman, but I hate the lie detector test. Every time I apply for a job, and they ask me whether or not I’ve ever stolen a baby manatee from a marine park so I could keep it as a pet, and I say “No,” it says that I was lying about not doing it. (Now, to be fair, I was lying, but that’s not the point. It still pisses me off, and it’s an annoying process. Why the hell do they keep asking me that question anyway?) This is probably one of the reasons why Wonder Woman wraps her lasso of truth around people, to get them to tell the truth, and find out if they have ever stolen  a manatee.

Another reason why she does that is probably because William Moulton Marston was also REALLY fond of bondage, and every single Wonder Woman comic book that he wrote showed her being tied up. For some reason, he equated girls being tied up with female empowerment. (So he must have been an awesome psychologist!) I’m all for girl power, although I fail to see how girls being in bondage empowers them in any way. But, if any of you ladies out there in Mooseland think that it does, I do happen to own my own pair of fuzzy pink handcuffs! I didn’t, personally, buy them, but I donated to a charitable organization for wounded kittens, and they gave them to me, along with a tote bag, with a picture of a wounded kitten on it. (That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it!)

The Wonder Woman movies aren’t completely true to the comics, but I’ve liked both of them. The guy who plays the Mandalorian was in this one, and it was weird watching him do something where he wasn’t grunting through a Boba Fett mask, but he did a good job, and so did Chris Pine as Steve Trevor.

And  Chris Pine got to fly her fucking INVISIBLE JET in the movie, which is maybe the weirdest part of the Wonder Woman mythos. I mean, why would an Amazonian princess own an invisible jet?

From everything historical I’ve read about Amazons, they were, much like Wonder Woman, warrior women, who lived on an island, with no men. But the big difference was, they all cut one of their boobs off  so they could fire their bows better, and they did not have invisible jets. It would be way better if they had all had invisible jets, instead of cutting their boobs off. (They should have gone with the jets)

Anyway, I liked the movie, and there was a surprise guest star at the end (But I won’t give you any spoilers about who she is) The whole point of this column is to show off that I own a Wonder Woman lunch box. And here it is! Hope you all you Moosefriends have a WONDERful New Year!

How ya doin’ out there, Moosekateers!? Ya know, I have a feeling that 2021 is gonna be a really good year.

Because, no year I’ve ever experienced has sucked more that 2020, and, I think, the fates might just have used up all their “making everything suck” powers, at this point.

And, let me tell you, I’ve had to suffer through some extremely sucky years in my life (You would rather be in hell, getting pitchforked in the ass, than go through even half the shit I had to go through in sixth grade.)

Now, I’ve been saying, “This year is gonna be a great year,” every year since probably, at least, 1994, because I try to keep a positive outlook, even though I have absolutely no reason to have one.

So far, no year in my life has been great, or even remotely good, but I still keep telling myself that one will eventually be tolerable, because I don’t want to kill myself. (Tons of people do that around the holidays, but don’t worry about me! I  like myself way too much to kill me!)

If you do feel suicidal though, stop it! Because, in the great words of the Bee Gees I want you to keep “Stayin Alive!”

If you don’t keep stayin’ alive, you won’t be able to witness THE YEAR OF THE MOOSE!!

Yes, 2021 is finally gonna be my year! (OK, I probably just jinxed it already.)

The Chinese always name a year after something like The Year of the  Dragon, or The Year of the Three-Toed Sloth, or the year of the Hoary Marmot, and I love Asian culture! I’m immersed in it, even though I’m mostly familiar with the  Japanese stuff (Godzilla, Sailor Moon, Speed Racer, you know, the really important stuff).  I do love pandas, though, and eat at Chinese restaurants named after pandas. For example, I love eating General Tsao’s Chicken at Panda Express, in the Mall. I don’t know who the hell General Tsao was, but he sure made great chicken. He must be like the Chinese Colonel Sanders.

Also, I like fortune cookies, even though, every time I open one, the message in it says “Look forward to failure.” (That’s a reference to the title of a classic 90’s album by the pop punk band the Ataris, BTW).

Anyway, I’m just gonna copy my Chinese Moosefriends by doing that thing they do, and I’m gonna call this year The Year of the Moose. (Because Moose is my last name, and I’m an egomaniac.)

But, if I’m going to have a whole entire year named after me, I probably should make some New Year’s resolutions, to make myself a better man.

I mean, we all know New Year’s resolutions are promises that  you instantly break, after  getting drunk and eating cheese balls with Ritz crackers and pretzels, and watching the ball drop. We all drop the proverbial New Year’s resolution ball after the ball drops. Sometimes we even break a resolution before we pass out, while the cat eats the rest of the cheese ball. It’s what this holiday is all about!

So, I present to you now a list of my Moose Year’s resolutions, and the reasons why I will immediately break them all, without hesitation.

•  I will stop buying cheap, crappy beer constantly: I can’t afford to do that though, because I’m a freelance writer and cartoonist, and we can’t afford non-cheap crappy beer. The good part of that is you can drink like 50 of them and still not be drunk. So, it’s safer than buying actual beer.
• I will stop spending an absurd amount of money that I don’t even have buying useless stuff on ebay: But I won’t, because, even as I’m writing this, I was multi-tasking, and spending thirty bucks on a Masters of the Universe action figure on ebay. And the Pac-Man glass I bought on there the other day was awesome. Even though I will never, ever, ever use it, because it’s ancient, and God knows who’s drank out of it.
• I will propose to the woman I love: I won’t do this, because the woman I love (and you know who you are) would probably say no, because I do things like spend an exorbitant amount of money on ancient Pac-Man glasses they used to give away at Arby’s, and He-Man toys I don’t need.
• I will stop using the word “exorbitant” in columns:  I won’t do that, because it perpetuates the illusion that I am actually smart, since I know a big word.
• I will stop swearing:  But I won’t do that, because it’s fucking hard. Especially when you are using Windows 10, and the keyboard on your computer chooses only to type every other word you attempt to type.
• I will stop eating a ridiculous amount of candy: This is impossible, because I have a bulk supply of Sour Patch Kids in my cupboard.  I’m trying to stop drinking coffee, and the candy keeps me awake, so I can write interminably long columns, like the one you’re reading right now. (Spoiler alert: I probably won’t stop drinking coffee either.)
• I will stop getting pissed and starting arguments with people posting on Reddit:  If you’ve ever been on Reddit, for even two minutes, you would know why I’m going to break this resolution instantly.
• I will stop subscribing to every damn streaming service that exists: This, most likely, won’t happen, considering I already just subscribed to HBO Max, just so I could watch the new Wonder Woman movie, and that is probably the only thing I will ever watch on it. (Knowing me, I probably would subscribe to a streaming service that only showed old episodes of Family Matters.)
• I will finally complete writing and drawing a whole entire issue of one of my comic books: Ya see, friends, I started making comic books under the “Moose Comics” banner way the hell back in seventh grade. Now, a thousand years later, I still have yet to successfully complete an entire issue of one. Some are only half-done, and some only consist of just a cover. (What can I say? I have ADHD.) But, since this is gonna be The Year of the Moose, it also should be the year that my Moose Comics empire will be born!!

So, now, I’m gonna leave you with a picture of a cheese ball, that some culinary genius designed, to look like a moose. HAPPY MOOSE YEAR!!!

The New year is almost upon us, Moosekateers, and do you know what that means? Pork. Yes, pork.

There is this wierd-ass thing my mom once told me about how “You can’t eat anything that scratches for a living” on New Year’s because it’s bad luck. So, you have to not eat chicken, or you’ll be poor.

Not that this affects me in the least, because I’m a freelance writer and cartoonist. I could eat seven chickens on New Year’s, and it could not make me any more poor than I already am. I wouldn’t blame the chickens. I would accept the fact that it was the horrible choices I’ve made about what to do with my life and career that got me where I am today.

But not eating chickens, or geese, or turkeys, or pheasants, or whatever type of poultry, for one day, is OK with me, because I am a huge fan of pork.

And, because I also love advertising mascots, I’ve decided to write an entire stupidly long column about my top five weird mascots who advertise pork products, and this it.

• Oink (from Moo and Oink.):   Moo and Oink is some sort of long lasting urban Chicago meat establishment that is much beloved by everyone in Chicago. I’ve never even been there, but somehow, I ended up watching a bunch of extremely low budget Moo and Oink commercials on YouTube, which all looked like they were filmed with a camcorder in the early 90’s. And I don’t even remember how I found them.  They star a cow (Moo) and a pig (Oink) and they rap about stuff like chitlins.  Now, I’m embarrassed to admit this to you, Mooseheads, but I’ve never eaten a chitlin. I don’t even really know what a chitlin is, but I’m gonna find out and eat one, thanks to Moo and Oink. Moo and Oink also had an extremely infectious theme song, in which they just repeated the words “Moo and Oink” three hundred thousand times. It was awesome.

• Frankie, the Keener Wiener:  Frankie is the mascot of the Superior Meat Company, and, as his name implies, he is a hot dog.  His name name also implies that he might be a penis, which is a good segue into a funny story I have about Frankie. Once, a friend of mine and I went on a double date to a movie. I think the movie was  actually Herbie Fully Loaded, and we really just went as a joke, and so my friend, who I worked with at Dairy Queen, could mack on this girl we worked with. I was just there to be his wingman, and got to take some random girl, who I was not interested in, who we also worked with, who later tried to seduce me, after she followed us home (because being a wingman always leads to things like that happening).  Anyway, this girl that my friend, Josh, was attempting to go out with, had a boyfriend whose last name was Kiener, which sounds like Keener. So, everyone   who knew him used to call him the Keener Wiener. He did not like this. He also didn’t like it when he found out my friend took his girlfriend on a date. But, for some reason, instead of calling my friend, and yelling at him, at 3 o’clock in the morning, he decided to call me and yell at me, at 3 o’clock in the morning . (This is also the type of thing that happens when you are someone’s wingman.)   This guy wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. Then he made his girlfriend quit her job, even though I tried to talk him out of it. I hope she never married this dick. (Wiener, dick, see what I did there?) Anyway, the moral of the story is, don’t be named after a hot dog mascot.

• Hamlet the Sugardale Ham:  Now, a lot of of people don’t know the story of Hamlet, the Sugardale mascot. He once was a prince, whose mother was a queen, who cheated on the king, with Hamlet’s uncle. Then, Hamlet went insane and his girlfriend drowned herself, and Hamlet killed his uncle. Wait….. that’s a different story. The Hamlet I’m attempting to to talk about is a pig who wears a chef’s hat, and advertises bacon. But, I mean, you never know. Maybe Hamlet, the pig, experienced all that stuff too.
• Horni Porni:  Now, Moosefriends, I don’t even need to explain to you why this mascot’s name is funny. He was actually not a mascot for pork, but for greeting cards. ( God only knows what those cards must have said.)
•  Hambee:  The Honey Baked Ham mascot. He is a giant, ambulatory bee, who delivers delicious spiral cut Honey Baked Hams to families during the holiday season. Well, he doesn’t actually deliver them to you. Usually, he leaves them at the Honey Baked Ham store, and then, you have to go there, and wait in line for hundreds of  thousands of hours, with people who are all understandably pissed off, because they have to wait that  long. But, because of the trying times we are all going through right now, Honey Baked Ham says they WILL deliver to your house!  HOORAY!  Maybe the Hambee will show up, and deliver it to you, personally.  As I’ve mentioned, in a previous column, I dated a rich girl once, and her family always had Honey Baked Ham in the fridge. There is nothing better than a post-coital Honey Baked Ham sandwich! (Trust me! )  Here’s a picture of Hambee:

OK, Moosekateers, it’s time for round two of Larry vs. Jerry! LETS GET READY TO RUMBLE! (I’m gonna get sued for saying that because it’s trademarked.)  This is Part 2 in my two-part series about who was the worst director of all time, Jerry Warren or Larry Buchanan.  Yes, I’m sure you don’t know who they are, so, you probably didn’t even read the previous column.  But I’m still doing this follow-up column anyway because I love shitty monster movies that nobody watches other than me. (We all have our flaws.)

And speaking of flawed individuals, let’s talk about:

Jerry Warren:  Now, the biggest difference between Jerry Warren and Larry Buchanan was that Larry Buchanan took on a job. He wasn’t good at it, he wasn’t remotely qualified for it, but he did it, because he was asked to, and he needed money, so, he did it anyway.

Jerry Warren, on the other hand, was just a dick who also needed money, but chose to intentionally make shitty movies. He routinely lied to his actors about stuff, and then paid them with cheeseburgers. (Although, truth be told, I’d be willing to work for cheeseburgers right about now.  So, maybe that wasn’t such a bad deal!)

On a message board, I once read a post made by someone who said he had met him, and that he claimed that Jerry said, “Yeah, I really screwed those kids over, didn’t I!” (Referring to how he put out movies that teenagers would go to see and spend money on, despite the fact that they sucked, and he knew they sucked, even while he was making them.)

His best movie was called Man Beast. It was about Yeti’s, and a cult of people who, apparently, have had sex with Yetis, or something, to create hybrid Yeti people, which is illustrated by a guy showing that he has fur on his chest. (It was not good, but I liked it anyway because Yetis were in it and I like Yetis.)

They had a monster Yeti costume in that movie. I don’t know how he could have possibly afforded one, but my theory is that he stole it from somewhere.

Another of his movies, which was a failed attempt to be a Jules Verne style epic, called The Incredible Petrified World, starred an understandably embarrassed John Carradine, who he also, probably, paid with burgers.  They had a monster costume for that one too, but someone accidentally dropped it into the ocean (That person probably did not get any cheeseburgers that day), and they never found it. So, they just used stock footage of an octopus, instead.

He also made a movie called Blood of the Man Devil, which featured, once again, an understandably embarrassed John Caradine (He must have really liked his cheeseburgers!) and a desperate Lon Chaney Jr. who, probably, wasn’t embarrassed, because he was most likely drunk when they filmed it. (Fun fact: Lon Chaney Jr. drank a lot.)

In this movie, they have a scene where a guy is supposed to be turning into a werewolf, but they couldn’t afford that, so, they just put a crappy gorilla mask on him, and said he was a wolf.

But, then, Jerry came up with a brilliant idea! He was like, “Hey! Since I can’t  afford monster costumes, I’ll just pay a pittance to import movies from Mexico, where they CAN afford monster costumes, and then, dub them into English!”

Mexico had made a lot of monster movies, at that point. Most of them involved wrestlers called Lucha Libre, (which everyone should know by now are Mexican wrestlers, who wear superhero masks)  beating the shit out of monsters.  But that’s a long story, for another column, about K. Gordon Murray, who is another infamously terrible director, who imported Mexican movies, and ruined them.  I’m not even going to begin to start discussing him right now.

People say these Mexican movies Jerry Warren imported were pretty decent in their original form, but then, after Jerry got ahold of them, they became laughable train wrecks. The dubbing on all of them was so bad that I can’t describe it in words. You’d have to hear it.

Then he renamed them, and he called one Face of the Screaming Werewolf  (Which, admittedly, is an awesome fucking name for a movie ) and that movie also happened to star Lon Chaney Jr., who was probably so drunk he didn’t even realize he was in Mexico, making a movie about a mummy who turns into a werewolf. (But at least he got to play a werewolf and mummy again, like he did back in his halcyon days.) But then, Jerry also inserted terrible new expository footage into the Mexican movies, because he thought it would make them make more sense. It didn’t.

In one movie, he inserted footage of a morbidly obese actor named Bruno VeSota (Who was a great guy and, most definitely, got paid in cheeseburgers), getting a back massage, while he was attempting to explain the plot of the movie, which was ripped off from The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, which was an H.P Lovecraft story.  They shouldn’t have done that, because H.P Lovecraft is actually good, and this movie isn’t.

Jerry also made Teenage Zombies, which is a movie that had no teenage zombies in it.  But it did have a guy in a gorilla suit! (I love any movie that features a guy in a gorilla suit!) I have no idea how he got an entire gorilla suit for this movie instead of just a mask. I think, like the previously mentioned Yeti costumes he used for Man Beast, he probably stole it from someone.

He also made a movie called the Wild Wild World of Batwoman,  in a failed attempt to cash in on the success of the Adam West Batman show, which was massively popular at the time, and, for some reason, he thought he wouldn’t get sued by DC comics. He did.

So, he changed the title to She Was a Hippie Vampire, even though there are no hippies in it, and no vampires.

Then, he he retired,  and lived on a farm somewhere for 20 years. After which, in the 80’s, he made an ill-advised decision to make another movie, even though he has said in interviews that he had not even watched a movie in those 20 years. So, he was a little out of the loop, regarding what the public wanted to see.  Still, he said,”What the hell,” and,  inexplicably, decided to make another one.

I know I say “inexplicably” a LOT, Moosefriends, but, in this case, I have a very good reason to.

This movie was called Frankenstein Island. It was about a bunch of guys, stranded on an island, with  women dressed like cave girls, and Dr. Frankenstein’s wife.  Frankenstein’s monster was chained up under water, and then, he escaped, and fought the guys, but the cave girls all had guns, and helped the guys fight him.

Also, there is a dog, and a drunk pirate, and ninjas in it. And John Carradine is in it it, even though he was already dead, at that point, but Jerry Warren just used old footage of him that he had, in which John Carradine  was just rambling about random stuff that had nothing to do with what was happening in the movie. (Even in death, John Carradine couldn’t escape being in bad movies! Poor guy!)

Frankenstein Island was Jerry Warren’s magnum opus.

I’m gonna declare him the winner in the War of the Worst. Sorry, Larry Buchanan, but I’m giving the tittle of Winner of the War of the Worst to Jerry Warren.

And the curse of Jerry Warren lived on even after he wasn’t making movies. He had made this movie in the 60’s which was another insane train wreck in which he spliced together two Mexican movies about mummies, and dubbed it terribly, and called it Attack of the Mayan Mummy.

Now, even though this stitched together movie has two different mummies in it, the people who distributed the VHS tape of it chose not to show a picture of either of those mummies, and, instead, found an image of some weird-ass puppet mummy thing. Nobody knows where it came from, but I want to know. So, if you know, please tell me! Have you seen this mummy?

  Seasons greetings greatings Mooseheads,! I was just wondering, have you ever had a friend who suffered a severe brain injury, and decided they should marry someone?

This unfortunate, tragic occurrence has happened to pretty much all of my friends. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’ve suffered my fair share of brain damage over the years too. As I’ve stated in a previous column, I am, in fact, a hopeless romantic, and would gladly marry a lot of girls, at this point. I mean, I’m still selective. I narrow it down to only just most of the girls I ever went to school with, who looked at me. Except for that one girl who looked at me weird, when I put on a puppet show in class, to illustrate some damn concept or something. (She looked disgusted. It was like she had never seen a puppet show put on in a college class room before. What a bitch!)

But, speaking of puppets, one of my best friends has, at least, found a way to make money off other people’s matrimonial misery!  He has become a wedding videographer! He gets paid to film the weddings of these poor saps, who are convinced they need to be married, and have elaborate weddings. (Even though the bulk of them will, more likely than not, be divorced within the space of two years.)

Two of the weirder weddings he has filmed have been the one where there were acrobats and jugglers, (which sounds more like a Ringling Brothers Barnum and Baily circus than a wedding)  and one where the bride was a fucking FURRY! For those of you who don’t know what a furry is, congratulations. Count yourselves amongst the lucky. (And, no, I won’t tell you what it is. Don’t Google it. It will give you nightmares)

But my friend tells me he has come up with a great way to spice up these wedding videos.  Since most weddings end up looking like crap, because everyone makes stupid speeches when they are drunk, he’s just gonna make them look better, by reenacting them with CLAYMATION!

For the benefit of you younger Mooseheads, not in the know, I’ll explain Claymation. It’s a long dead form of animation where you make characters out of clay, then take a picture of them, then move the clay figure slightly, and take another picture of it, and then, take a billion more pictures of it, and run them all together, to make it look like it’s moving around. It is the most tedious task anyone could ever possibly undertake, and it takes hundreds of thousands of hours to do it, and I can’t believe people never committed suicide while attempting to do it, but it looked cool.

In the 80’s, Claymation was ubiquitous. There were Claymation commercials about a fictional music group, called The California Raisins, composed of ambulatory raisins, performing Motown songs, like “Heard it Through the Grapevine” (who, apparently, sold out their other raisin brethren, to do commercials about how people should eat raisins), and they were also in a weird-ass Christmas special that was hosted by dinosaurs, which I won’t even begin to attempt to explain.

These Claymation things were produced by a great man named Will Vinton (R.I.P) but they did not even begin to approach the level of bizarre that his other Claymation creation, The Noid, did.

The Noid is known to most of you, because you probably watch Family Guy, and that scene where Adam West beats the shit out of the Noid, and then says “Perhaps the Noid should have avoided me,” which is a joke about how, in the 80’s, there was an insane amount of Claymation Domino’s Pizza commercials about how you should “Avoid the Noid.”

The whole shtick was that this little freakish gnome, who was dressed in a rabbit costume, would mutilate your pizza, and make it not be delivered on time.

Now, let me tell ya, Moosefriends, when I was a kid, Domino’s Pizza was my absolute favorite pizza. This is probably because we had exactly one pizza place in our neighborhood, and it was Domino’s. It was right next door to a sleazy motel (where God knows went on), and they didn’t even deliver to our house (even though they were located like five minutes away from our house).

But the Noid commercials were more about the locations where you could order a pizza and have it ACTUALLY  delivered to you. Then, the Noid would try to destroy your pizza, before it even got to your house, by employing radical tactics, like stomping on it with a pogo stick, or something.  But he would be heroically thwarted, in every commercial, by valiant Domino’s delivery guys, who were determined to get  your pizza to your house, fresh, and on time, and hot.

So, for some reason, Domino’s decided to have the Noid be their mascot. Even though the whole point of the character was that he hates Domino’s Pizza, and wants to destroy it, at all costs. They even made Nintendo games about him, and a ton of other merchandise.

Every one of these commercials was claymated by Will Vinton, and they were inexplicably successful, up until the faithful day that an insane guy named Kenneth Lamar Noid took over a Domino’s restaurant, and held the staff at gunpoint, because he believed the Noid ads were a personal attack on him. The police report actually said “He was para-Noid.” (which is easily the funniest fucking thing any cop has ever said)

So, then, Domino’s stopped the Noid advertising campaign, and tried  to come up with some other mascots, in a futile attempt to replicate his success. None did. One of them was Donny Domino, who was just a hip-looking, talking version of the Domino’s logo, and one was Bad Andy, who was a weird, Muppet- looking, monkey thing (the less said about him ,the better), but nobody cared about them, and I’m the only person who remembers them.

Meanwhle, the Noid’s legacy lives on.  Perhaps, he can make an appearance in one of my friend’s Claymation wedding reenactment videos! (I hope he also makes little clay versions of Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson, to clay crash the wedding!) Maybe the Noid can play the part of the minister who marries the happy couple!

Of course, the couple will probably not be so happy, when the bridezilla sees that her wedding video is just a bunch of crudely animated clay figures, and has the Noid in it. And my friend won’t be so happy when she demands all of her money back, and threatens to kill him. Or, maybe he will be happy, because my friend is the type of guy who would spend countless hours on doing something stupid, that would result in tanking his career, only for the sake of being funny.

That’s probably why he’s my friend.

So, if you want to be Clay-Married, send me a message, and I’ll happily provide you with his information.

MAZEL TOV!

Now, listen up here, Mooseheads.  I have watched my fair share of terrible horror and sci-fi movies, and I especially am fond of the ones from the 1950’s and 1960’s.

Any true bad film connoisseur knows that Ed Wood was not actually “the worst director of all  time,” even though it became trendy to call him that. He was so weird that Tim Burton made a movie about him.

Ed Wood was a transvestite (No judgement here, but he was), and he made an insane movie about it called Glenn or Glenda, which didn’t make any money, but that not deter him. He still went on to make a bunch of other weird movies, like Plan 9 From Outer Space (in which, I’m pretty sure, the flying saucers were played by hub caps), and eventually, started making porn movies, and drank himself to death. (But, let’s face it, we’ve all been there. Haven’t we?)  However, if  you think Ed Wood’s body of work is bad, trust me, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

From that particular era, there are two directors who stand out as being the suckiest: Larry Buchanan and Jerry Warren.

I don’t, personally, hate their stuff.  I  watch their movies all the time, because I’m a masochist, and because I have insomnia, and they help me fall asleep. Those movies have a weird hypnotic effect that makes you pass out because of how tedious and bizarre and boring they are. Watching them is something akin to drinking a whole lot and then taking Benadryl.

Allow me to describe  the works of these two to you.  I’ll start with Larry.

Larry Buchanan:   In the 60’s, he directed movies for American International Pictures (also known as A.I.P), which were famous for their beach party movies and low budget monster movies.  Most of Larry’s  movies were  cheap jack remakes of movies that came out ten years earlier, made by the same studio, which were already pretty bad. But the studio wanted color versions of them to sell for TV syndication, because people started having color TVs around that time. (Everyone wanted to watch Batman in color!)

So, they gave Larry fifty bucks, and he went and made even worse remakes of movies that were already made, that nobody wanted to watch in the first place.

Like Zontar the Thing From Venus, (A remake of a movie called It conquered the world, which was about a big carrot-looking monster who shot bats out of his head, and SPOILER ALERT, didn’t actually end up conquering the the world) ,  Mars Needs women, (which, at least, starred Yvonne Craig, who played Batgirl on the Batman show, and who was super hot. May she rest in peace), and It’s alive!  which has nothing to do with another movie that’s also called It’s Alive, which was made in the 70’s by another guy named Larry. (I know, this stuff can be confusing)

That movie was made by a guy named Larry Cohen, who actually knew what he was doing. It was about a monster mutant baby, who crawled around, killing people. (Don’t all babies kinda do that?) The Larry Buchanan It’s alive! was about people trapped in a cave, with the lamest monster ever, who, I swear, had Ping-Pong balls for eyes. (Seriously, a friend and I once assembled a papier-mache octopus that looked more realistic.)

He also made two more movies that used the same Ping-Pong ball eye monster design. (Hey, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!) These movies were Creature of Destruction, which was a remake of The She Creature and  Curse of the Swamp Creature, which was a remake of Voodoo Woman. Both were also completely unnecessary remakes of terrible movies from the 50’s that nobody (other than people like me) liked.

And if you watch MST3K, you might be familiar with Attack of the Eye Creatures, which was a remake of Invasion of the Saucer Men, and actually titled Attack of the THE Eye Creatures. Yes, someone decided it was necessary to add the “Attack of the” part, even though the movie was originally just called “The Eye Creatures.” Then, they tacked it on, and forgot to take out the first “the.” So, the title has “the” in it two times.

Eye-ronically (See what I did there?) this is one of the few Larry Buchanan movies which does NOT feature monsters with stupid looking Ping-Pong ball eyes super glued onto their faces, because they used recycled costumes from another movie.

Larry, later, went on to make a movie called The Loch Ness Horror, which was somehow worse than the TV movie from the 90’s about the Loch Ness Monster, that had Ted Danson in it. (Although, I’m guessing Ted Danson probably doesn’t even remember being in a TV movie about the Loch Ness Monster, but, for some reason, I do). Then, Larry went insane, and started making weird, conspiracy theory movies, about how the government killed Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, and Jimmy Hendrix. Then, he started making completely factually inaccurate convoluted documentaries about Marilyn Monroe. (He somehow resisted his natural inclination, and didn’t glue Ping-Pong ball eyes on the actors playing these iconic famous people).

But, he’s most well-known for those TV movies he did back in the 60’s, and one time, when he was asked about them, his eloquent response was, “I gave them what they wanted. Exposed film.”

Most people who watched those AIP-TV movies back in the day thought they just imagined them, because it was late at night, and they were drunk. But, no, it turns out, they were real.  And, yes, I own every single one of them of them on DVD. I even based my Rock N Roll Porpoise Man comic book on parts of the movie Curse of the Swamp Creature, even though the mutant in that movie looked awful, and only showed up in the last two minutes of the movie, and then immediately fell into a pool of alligators, and died.

Fun fact: Curse of the Swamp Creature starred John Agar, who was famous for being in westerns with John Wayne, and he was in a Creature from the Black Lagoon  movie (which actually had a GOOD looking monster costume in it), and for being married to Shirley Temple, at one point. But, then, he became famous for just being a drunk. (One common, recurring theme, in all these movies, is that they starred washed up alcoholic actors, who used to be famous, and they all knew the movies would be terrible, but they did them anyway, so they could afford to buy booze).

Next time, in Round Two of “Larry vs. Jerry: War of the Worst,” our next contender is Jerry Warren, who once tried to make a guy in a shitty gorilla mask look like a werewolf. So, strap in, Moosekateers! It’s gonna be a bumpy ride!

Now, I’m going to leave you with the picture of the Larry Buchanan monster from Attack of the Swamp Creature, so you can gaze lovingly into his Ping-Pong ball eyes.

Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, “The first woman was created from the rib of a man. She was not made from his head to top him, nor from his feet to be trampled on by him, but out of his side to be equal to him.”

It gives one pause to think, “What would Holmes have said of the McRib sandwich?”

You see, Moosefriends, women can be elusive creatures. Sometimes they love you, sometimes they leave you. Sometimes they make you pick them up from some weird hippie guy’s apartment, in the middle of the night, and then make out with you in the back of your (understandably) aggravated friend’s car, and then never speak to you again.

But, as many times as I’ve been tortured by girls, I still love them. I’ve always been a hopeless romantic, just like the Bouncing Souls’ song. If you’ve never listened to the Bouncing Souls (and I’m sure you have not, because nobody listens to punk rock anymore), go and listen to them right now. (Listen to “Hopeless Romantic” and “Say Anything” first. Those are their best songs).

A lot of these girls I have been with remind me of the McRib sandwich from McDonald’s. Not just because of the Oliver Wendell Holmes quote, but, because, they get you to fall in love with them, you crave them, you think you are gonna have them around for a long time, and then they disappear. They are there for one minute and gone in 60 seconds. (Just like the Nicholas Cage movie)

If you’ve never eaten a McRib, you have wasted your life, and I feel sorry for you, but I will attempt to explain what it is. The McRib is like a burger, but it’s got rib meat on it, with BBQ sauce, and pickles, and onions. (Damn it! Even just describing one makes me want to eat one right now! ) Usually it’s a seasonal thing. They bring it back around the holidays.

I had a girlfriend like that once. We would be madly in love with each other and then she would just wander off and call me, randomly, right before Christmas. Then, we would get together, and she would leave, and we wouldn’t see each other again until another holiday season. Moosefriends, I refer to this particular phenomenon as being “McRibbed.”

It means something you love is given to you and then snatched away.

By the time you read this, McDonald’s probably will have already removed the McRib from their menu. And my old girlfriend will have probably shown up and then removed me from her menu.

I love women, and I love McDonald’s, and here’s a fun fact: I look exactly like Mac Tonight, the weird, moon-faced mascot they had in the 80’s, who rode around on a cloud, and played the piano, to advertise McDonald’s being open at night. He and I are both musicians, we both wear sunglasses at night ( just like Corey Hart!), and we both have enormous chins.

Maybe that’s why girls sometimes decide to date me. Because, you know what they say. Guys with big chins have big….hearts. (Well, Jay Leno doesn’t, but the rest of us do.)

I’ll probably end up writing a ton of columns about McDonald’s, just like that guy over on the Dinosaur Dracula blog.  He’s some kind of alternate Earth doppelganger of me who likes everything I like. It’s weird).  I have one planned that will probably bore you to tears, because it will be excruciatingly long, and will be about how McDonald’s ripped off the concept of Mayor McCheese from Sid and Marty Krofft (Even though most people under the age of 60 have never even heard of Sid and Marty, or Mayor McCheese). Nobody will read it, but I’ll write, anyway, because I’m a masochist, which is probably why I keep going back to girls who consistently break my heart.

So, Moosefriends, as the singer of NOFX  once said, “Follow what I say, not what I’ve done.”

Don’t get your heart broken by taking a girl back, whenever she comes around at the holiday season, and then abandons you. Listen to Oliver Wendell Holmes! DON’T GET MCRIBBED!

Unless she’s rich. Because, then, she’s likely to have Honey Baked Ham in the fridge at Christmastime, and there is nothing better than a post coital Honey Baked Ham sandwich!

Well, maybe, the McRib is better. So, you should run out and try to get one, before they’re, again, gone for a year!

Have you heard about “Kid Scoop”? Of course, you haven’t, because it’s a thing that’s in newspapers, and nobody has read a newspaper since like the year 2006. But they continue to publish them for some reason, and, since I’m an old timey newspaper man, (I’ve been getting fired from newspapers since I was  a kid)  I continue to read them.

Usually, there is no content of any value in any of them. It’s just Associated Press crap, or on the Opinion Page, it’s more people bitching about politics, or some damn thing, but recently, I discovered a new page called “Kid Scoop.” It is intended to be for kids, but I have the mentality of a child, so I decided to read it anyway. I’m so happy I did, because now I know what a pangolin is.

You see, “Kid Scoop” is a newspaper page intended to both educate and entertain the younglings. And they, like I, probably had no idea there was an animal called a pangolin, that is a weird hybrid mix of a lizard, an anteater, a porcupine, and a Chia Pet.

Now that I have learned what a pangolin is, I want to adopt at least seven of them.  One of the main reason is that they eat ants, and I hate ants.  Well, I do like Ant Man and I like the obscure toy line from the 90’s called “Army Ants” which had tiny, Monsters in My Pocket-sized ants, dressed up like soldiers and wielding weapons. For some reason, they gave them all removable asses that glowed in the dark. The 90’s we’re very different times, friends; times where kids played with ants garbed in military fatigues,  with glow-in-the dark asses you could take off, and throw at other kids.

Anyway, those ants were cool, but the ants in my house usually just end up drowning in my coffee or beer, in a fruitless effort to drink it. So, they can go to hell for all I care. The ants in my house are just jerks.

There was a fun quiz in “Kid Scoop,” wherein they make you try to decide whether you think a pangolin is a reptile or a mammal. (But, for some reason, they don’t give the answer! Fuck! I guess you have to wait for the next “Kid Scoop” to find out! Talk about a cliffhanger! )

Now, allow me to inform you about some other fun facts that I learned about pangolins from the “Kid Scoop” section of the newspaper:

•  Their nickname is “scaly anteater. (Even though they are not, technically, anteaters)
• They are the size of a large house cat. (Probably not as large as mine. If you ran into my cat with your car, you would end up being the one who died, and the cat would just lumber away. He’s a big fellow).
• They have have tongues that are longer than Gene Simmons’s.
• They fart on their enemies. (This not a joke. They do that.)
• They roll up in a ball, like Sonic the Hedgehog, to attack their enemies.
• Donald Trump is secretly a pangolin, who disguises himself to look something like a human. (OK, that was a joke)
• They are endangered. People kill them for their scales, for medicine, in China, and their meat is considered a delicacy, to some. I, hereby, vow never to consume pangolin jerky. As much as I love jerky, that would just be wrong. I will check the packaging of my jerky, from now on, to make sure it doesn’t contain pangolin.

The “Kid Scoop” page also had other fun and educational stuff on it. There was something about adjectives, and something where you had to search the paper to find five words that describe reptiles, and make a VENN diagram with them, and a pangolin-centric version of Sudoku. (I have no idea how to play Sudoku and I never will)

There was also a section on the page called “Similar  but Different,” which, for some reason, also involved VENN diagrams. (Do kids even know what the fuck VENN diagrams are? I’m a thousand years old and I’m still not entirely sure what they are!) So, for example, you’d have to say how bats and birds are similar but different. I guess I would say they are similar, because they both have wings, and they are different because bats sometimes turn into vampires, and birds usually don’t.

Well, I’m gonna go, and attempt to make a VENN diagram about that.  Thank you, “Kid Scoop,” for informing me about pangolins! Here’s a picture of one so you can decide for yourself whether or not he is a lizard or an anteater , but I love him either way.

Happy holidays, Moosekateers!

Well, I guess the holidays aren’t exactly “happy” this year for anyone, because we all have to have get togethers while suffocating in masks. (Have you ever tried to eat Honey Baked through a mask? I haven’t, and I’m pretty sure you can’t, but I’m gonna attempt to, because Honey Baked Ham is awesome!)

But, then, the holidays are never really happy for me. I’m always on Santa’s naughty list. I dunno why. Maybe it’s for having impure thoughts constantly, or because I swear constantly. Hell, even some of the comments I’ve posted on Reddit could be enough to get me shunted onto the naughty list.

But I’m trying to be a better person! I’ve started recycling my beer cans, I’ve volunteered to assist in the rehabilitation of wounded alpacas, and also to give emotional support therapy sessions to those alpacas!

So, I think I deserve to be on the “Nice List” this year. And, because I’ve been so nice, I have a wish list of demands for Santa Claus:

• THE MACH FIVE:  I’m in desperate  need of a new automobile, and no car is cooler than the one driven by SPEED RACER  himself!!
• SCUBA ATTACK SKELETOR:  This is an insanely obscure action figure from the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe toy line. It’s Skeletor wearing scuba gear. Skeletor never wore scuba gear or even swam, in the cartoon. So, there was no point in Mattel making this action figure, but, apparently, they did, and now that I know they did, I want one. (Also, for some reason, it’s worth like $3,000 on ebay.)
• A BIG BOY STATUE I CAN PUT IN MY LIVING ROOM:  Come on, who doesn’t want a Big Boy statue in their living room?
• METLAR:  For the grotesquely uninformed, Metlar was the main bad guy in the Inhumanoids toy line and cartoon. He is the only one of the three Inhumanoids that I  didn’t get when I was a kid, and I’m still bitter about it. I’m surprised they even made a toy of him for kids, because he comes from inside the earth, and he looks exactly like the Devil. So, he’s, basically, based on Satan. (Maybe that’s why some kids’ moms didn’t wanna buy one)  The other two Inhumanoids were based on a skeletal  dinosaur who could trap you in its rib cage, and Cthulhu. So, I guess, they figured, “Let’s do it, what the hell!”
• ONE OF THOSE GOLDEN GIRLS CHIA PETS:  Preferably, Blanche, although, I wouldn’t turn down a Rose or a Sophia.
• PEACE ON EARTH:  Even though that will never happen, you are are required, by law, to ask for that.
• AN INFINITE SUPPLY OF BEER, BEEF JERKY AND SOUR PATCH KIDS:  Do I even need to explain why I would want this?
• REEL BIG FISH TO PLAY A SHOW AT MY HOUSE:  As stated, in previous columns, they are my favorite band EVER! They could play their entire “Happy Skalidays”  album!  ‘Tis the season  to be Ska-lly!
• TALA ASHE TO DATE ME:  She is a beautiful and talented actress who is one of the stars of my current favorite show, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow.  BTW: Happy Beebo Day! (If you are one of the ten people who watch the show, you know what I’m talking about)  She’s really cute, and has big, cartoony-looking eyes, like Betty Boop. I would propose to her on our first date, even though she’s married. So, she would probably say no.
• A MANATEE:  Listen up here, Mooseheads. I’ve been asking Santa to bring me a manatee for YEARS!! He keeps on telling me, “I just can’t fit a manatee down a chimney!! They’re  enormous! WHY CAN’T YOU UNDERSTAND THAT!? ” And I keep saying, “Well, then, why don’t you just bring him through the front door!?”  and he’s always like “NO! I only do chimneys!” Seriously!? “What’s so hard about bringing a manatee in through a door!? Get your act together, Claus! “(Maybe if he brings me a baby manatee, he could manage to get it down the chimney)

Anyway, I might not get a manatee for Christmas this year. There are a lot of people who, tragically, don’t get manatees, and Santa needs to work on having a more efficient manatee delivery system.

But I’m still happy that all my loved ones are still alive and intact. That is the greatest gift of all.

Well, that and Doc Boy in the Garfield Christmas Special. (Have you ever watched that? My cousins and I think it’s the funniest thing ever, whenever he says, “Don’t call me Doc Boy!  You just need to watch it, to understand)

Merry Christmoose!!

“Ice to see you,”  Moosefriends!

Yes, I just used an iconic pun from everyone’s favorite Batman movie, Batman and Robin, which was, of course, said by Arnold Schwarzenegger when he was portraying the supervillain, Mr. Freeze.

Truth be told, it’s nobody’s favorite Batman movie. Even the actors in it ended up hating it, and wanted to commit suicide, after being in it, and George Clooney publicly apologized for his performance.

But I like it, because it’s unintentionally hilarious, and it has puns, and George Clooney playing Batman. At one point, he uses a “Bat Credit card,”  which is probably the most insane thing to happen in a superhero movie ever. (Other than the Emo dance from Spider-Man 3) and when you watch it really late at night, under the influence of alcohol, you will laugh your ass off . Plus, it’s a lot like the intentionally campy 1960’s Adam West Batman TV show. And that show was the show where Mr. Freeze made his debut.

Mr. Freeze went on to be a popular character in comic books, and the TV show, Batman the Animated Series, and he even got his own brand of ice pops!  Well, he didn’t actually get his own brand of ice pops. But there is a brand of ice pops named Mr. Freeze though. ( I’m surprised DC Comics hasn’t sued them for calling themselves that)

And it’s a chilly time of year, so, lets discuss a chilly subject.  Mr. Freeze ice pops were never as awesome as OTTER POPS!

You see, otters, themselves are adorable, and I would immediately adopt one, given the opportunity. (Remember when I said I would adopt a manatee in a previous column? Well, I wasn’t lying about that and I’m not lying about this )

Some otters live in Alaska, and Alaska is cold. This might have been the reason the Jel-Sert  Corporation stumbled upon the decision to make Otter Pops.

You’ve never had an Otter Pop, have you? No, you probably haven’t. Out of all the people I’ve talked to in my life (And I’ve talked to well over 35) no more than a handful of them have ever had anything but astonishment in their eyes when I’ve (Otter) popped that question.

That’s unfortunate though, because, if you haven’t, you are missing out on a great part of life, and you aren’t gonna understand what the fuck I’m talking about in this column.

Otter Pops are, in many ways, a lot like any other standard ice pop, just frozen juice in a skinny plastic bag that you could suck on.

But Otter Pops were better than Mr. Freeze ice pops, because Mr. Freeze just had a picture of a boring standard issue snowman on them, and Otter Pops had  a picture of a different damn cartoon otter on every pop! It was like you were sucking on an actual otter! (Well, no, not really. That would probably not taste as good, and the otter might not like that)

There were a whole bunch of different otters, and they all had their own shtick and personalities! There was:

• LOUIE BLUE RASBERRY: He was blue and  French ,and had a mustache, and wore a beret, and a striped shirt. He reminds me a lot of my cat, for some reason, even though my cat isn’t blue or French and and doesn’t wear a beret or a striped shirt. So, maybe, he doesn’t remind me of my cat. Never mind. Forget I said that. (My cat does have a mustache though!)
• SIR ISSAC LIME: He was green and elderly, and also had a mustache, but it was like an old guy grey mustache, which made him look wise instead of French.
• ALEXANDER THE GRAPE: Alexander the Grape was a purple otter who, I assume, was Greek, because of his name, and his outfit. I could be wrong. Maybe he was just at a toga party when they took his picture.

And there were a bunch more  but I will not waste your time, or mine, by listing all of their names and personas, because you’ve probably stopped reading this already. I know, some of you don’t have time to read about fictional otters all day. As adults, we have more pressing obligations.  (I’m also making a desperate attempt to write shorter columns that come in at under 4,000 words.)

When I was in college, I was always bitching to my friends that I could never find Otter Pops anywhere, so they ordered some for me, directly from the company that makes them, for my birthday. (Side note: They should make beer flavored Otter Pops for college parties)

The Otter Pops have their own website and their own band, The Otter Pop Stars. So, apparently someone other than me must have heard of them.

I have a whole box in my freezer. So, if you ever wanna come over and chill, (See what I did there?) we can always hang out, and pop an Otter together.