So, yeah. Finances are tough all over. Everybody’s got it bad, I’m sure many others are worse off than I am. At least I still have a roof over my head. While watching Teletubbies with Arcturo, I started to think about what it would be like if we get evicted and have to roommate with the Teletubbies. What follows is a fictitous account of how such a scenario might play out. Names have been changed (or misspelled) to protect my innocence.

ROOMIN’ WITH THE TUBBIES!

It all started this morning, when I awoke to find that all the furniture in my house had somehow made its way to the street curb. I walked outside to discuss this with the furniture when I saw an official looking paper taped haphazardly to my door. The paper explained that I was several thousand dollars in debt to the owners of the house and that I should probably consider taking up residence elsewhere while I try to figure out how I’m going to pay them. Since I have no friends (that I know of), I used the last remaining minutes on my cell phone to call the Teletubbies and see if they could help me out in my time of need.

I was surprised at how well the idea went over. “Stay with us! Stay with us! Stay with us!” said Po. “Yes, yes! Come here!” said Lala and Dipsy. Tinky Winky danced around shouting “Yes! Yes! Yes!” How could I refuse? So we packed up what stuff we could carry, and moved to Tubbyland.

It was all “oohs” and “aahs” as we arrived – lots of big hugs and dancing. I thought to myself “This is going to be great!” Nice rolling green hills with flowers and bunny rabbits everywhere. The weather is always nice. Everybody is so kind to each other. I might like it here. Arcturo took to it immediately. He can fly freely anywhere, play with the bunnies and flowers – it’s paradise for him! So while he went off exploring, I took our stuff inside the tubby hutch to settle in.

Po showed me the extra bed where I’d be sleeping. The bed was shaped like a bean, made of metal, and no bigger than my left thigh. No way could I comfortably fit on that, so I set myself up with a sleeping bag on the floor, next to the “bed”. Tinky Winky came home, and had obviously been drinking. He said a few things about not playing music loud at night and passed out at the table. I woke him and mentioned that Lala said I should get a copy of the key from him. He opened his purse, and felt around inside. Although I could see it was empty, he shuffled through it for a good ten minutes, finally proclaiming that there is no key. They leave the door unlocked all the time because there’s no crime in tubbyland. That’s when I heard gunshots outside.

I went out to see what the noise was, and Dipsey was sitting on a rock shooting the heads off of flowers with a snub-nose .38 pistol. I ran up, grabbed the weapon off of him and asked “Where did you get this?!?!”

“Po! He gave me! Bullets too!” So I took the gun and the rest of the ammo off of Dipsey and headed back to find Po. He denied ever seeing the gun. I don’t know if he’s lying to me, or if he’s just too stupid to remember anything from one day to the next. As the days went on I came to understand it’s probably the latter.

Arcturo came home with all sorts of stories – he was excited to be there and was having the time of his life. This makes it all worthwhile – if he’s happy, I’m happy. At least we won’t have to watch the same damn episode of Teletubbies every day. He went straight to bed with dreams of new possibilities and adventures in Tubbyland in his little head.

Things were quiet, so I settled back with a good book in my sleeping bag on the floor. I felt pretty content too, as I must have slipped off to sleep with the book in my lap.

I felt something breathing on me, and awoke startled to see all four teletubbies staring at me with their cold, dead, shark-like eyes just inches from my face. I instinctively shrieked and scuttled back against the wall. The teletubbies must have gotten frightened too, as they ran giggling and laughing around and around the tubby hutch. The Nu-nu came out to see what the excitement was and they all ran around the inside of the hutch, laughing and snorting.

I suddenly faced the uncomfortable realization that I was living with a bunch of semi-retarded alien life forms that don’t really understand the world around them. Eventually their attention deficit disorder gave them some reason to wander outside the hutch and do whatever teletubbies do outside at 3:00 am. Things were quiet again, so I settled in and had a fitful few more hours of sleep.

Arcturo woke me around 6:00 am and wanted to go outside to play, so I let him out and retired back to my sleeping bag trying to grasp a few more minutes sleep. I must have dozed off for a few minutes, because I awoke to find myself covered with tubby toast. Po, Lala, and Dipsey were running around the hutch in hysterics, while the Tubby Toaster spit out toast after toast. Tubby toast was flying everywhere! I stumbled over to the machine, and lifted a lever on it, stopping the torrent of toast. The machine was smoking and stunk like burnt crumbs, as the teletubbies danced around going “Yay! Hooway!” and giving me hugs. I don’t know how they survived so long, being as stupid as they are.

I went outside the hutch to get some fresh air and looked around to see if I could see Arcturo anywhere. I walked some distance and saw him in a tree, happy and singing like a Walt Disney blue-bird from Snow White, so I figured I’d leave him to enjoy himself. On my way back to the tubby hutch I saw Tinky Winky staggering home, obviously drunk again. He practically had to crawl up one of the hills, and when he arrived at the top, he drunkenly stumbled, rolling down the hill. All 3 other teletubbies came running out to greet him, and they all fell on the ground and rolled around with him.

I looked towards the horizon and saw the windmill was spinning madly, with crazy sparks flying off of it. At first, I thought it was another disasterous malfunction that I’d have to fix, when the Teletubbies all gathered at the peak of the hill and I remembered this is how the TVs in their tummies worked. Arcturo flew over and landed on my shoulder, so we sat and watched to see which teletubby’s TV would start working. First there was a lot of static then Po’s belly lit up. It’s showtime!!

I was disappointed to see that it was one of the episodes I had already seen over 2,398 times with Arcturo. It’s one of the recordings I made before we had our TV service shut off – the one with the little white Scotty dog named “Gesso” frolicking on the beach with some kids. “Gesso, get the ball! Gesso, get the ball!” Arcturo has a great time, it’s one of his favorite episodes – barking with the dog, and going “Yay Gesso!!!”

After the video intermission, all the teletubbies gathered together again and a voice said “One day in teletubby land, all the teletubbies had their favorite thing. Tinky Winky had his purse, Lala has her ball, Dipsey has her hat, …but where’s Po’s cooter?”

They all looked around, going “Where Po cooter, where Po cooter?” I stood up and said “Oh come on guys! I just saw you do this exact same thing last night on TV! The damn scooter’s up a tree!” but they went around looking everywhere for it, inside rabbit holes, under talking flowers that don’t even like scooters anyways, until eventually locating it up in the exact damn tree where I told them it was.

Po retrieved his scooter and they all gathered on top of the hill again with their favorite things. This time Dipsey didn’t have her hat. You know the drill – off they go looking for it. Hint: it’s in the same damn tree.

This goes on until each Teletubby loses and finds his/her own favorite toy. Arcturo flew off to do more exploring and I eventually figured out that, no matter how many times I tell them where to find their stuff, they’re going to go through the motions anyways, so I wasn’t really being much help. I found a nice shady tree with colorful flowers growing around it, and continued reading my book.

It wasn’t long before a small rainbow colored cloud rained colorful paint down on me, totally saturating the book I was reading. As I looked again, little flowers had sprouted out of the book where each drop hit. The book was totally ruined. It was an old paperback of Kurt Vonnegut’s “Wampeters, Foma, and Granfalloons”, I had read it twice already, so it’s no great loss. Except now I had nothing to distract me from the Teletubbies constant efforts to annoy me.

I headed back to the tubby hutch and on my way I saw the camera crew packing up and congratulating the teletubbies on another great show well done. I wasn’t going to mention the camera crew, because there might be some fucking kids reading this and I don’t want to spoil the magic illusion of teletubby land for them. But the camera crew were almost as clueless as the teletubbies themselves. I said “Man, didn’t you guys notice that they did the EXACT same damn thing they do on the show EVERY DAY?!?!”

“No, no monsieur” said the cameraman in a totally fake french accent (I could tell he was from Cornwall by his cockney mispronounciations of words) “Non, non! Thees ees new! Theeze cheeldreen weel get a rise from eet!”

Okay fine. As long as they go about their work and leave me in peace at night, I can deal with having a fake french camera crew around during the day. After dropping my flower saturated book in the recycling bin, I went back outside to enjoy the sunset. I was just about to call Arcturo in for the night when I saw lights flashing inside the tubby hutch and smoke billowing out the top. I ran inside to see what the matter was.

I burst in to see three of the teletubbies sitting at the table, egging Po on – “No Po, don’t push that button.” Po was at the central console inside the tubby hutch, randomly pushing buttons and pulling levers. He obviously had even less an idea of what each button and lever controls than I did. Every time he pushed or pulled something, things went haywire – sparks and fire everywhere. And each time the other teletubbies would pretend to fall on the floor and wriggle around in mock agony, laughing and screaming.

I reset a few of the switches Po had fiddled with and things stopped popping and fizzling. I grabbed Po by the neck and said “See?!?! See what you did by screwing around with the goddamn controls!? Now everything’s screwed up and I bet you have NO IDEA how to set them right again!” As I was shaking him like a baby, Lala ran up behind me and started flipping switches again. I spun around to stop her, and Tinky Winky caught me blindside with his purse, POW, right in the kisser. I turned to confront Tinky Winky and twisted my ankle falling off the platform around the console. As I tried to stand up and regain my balance, Dipsey bull-rushed me with a full body slam into the round metal table where they eat their tubby toast and stuff. It felt like I cracked a rib. In the confusion, the Nu-nu came out and started running around the console making snuffing noises. The teletubbies left me on the floor as they chased the Nu-nu around and around.

Arcturo came home at this point and thought it was normal merrymaking. He sat on his perch cheering them on and laughing. As things calmed down, I said goodnight to him and put him to bed. I didn’t want to let him know I had almost murdered some of his little teletubby friends in a barroom like scuffle.

After he had gone to sleep, I was feeling a bit hungry. Po offered to show me how to work the Tubby Custard machine, but it quickly became apparent that even he didn’t know how to use it properly. It wasn’t long before the place was literally covered with pink custard goop. Lala took this opportunity to track it all around the hutch and slap globs of it all over the walls and console controls.

I sat down with a bowlful of the pink stuff and wondered how I was going to eat it without any utensils to be found anywhere. It turns out the bowl is actually a spiralling straw that you can suck the custard through. I’ve seen them use these bowls on TV, but they never used the straw. I guess they just shovel it into their mouths like little pigs or something. The stuff tasted awful, like a plastic Play-Dough kind of taste that leaves a coating on your tongue. But it was a welcome change from the dry, stale, cardboard tasting Tubby Toast we had been eating. After dinner, Po and Dipsey immediately went to bed, so I found a rag and considered the task of trying to clean up the custard mess they had made.

The rag wasn’t your usual material – it was made of some space-age stuff that was shiny like plastic aluminum foil – the same type of textile they use as blankets when they go to bed. The rag was no help at all – it was very non-absorbent. I then remembered that the Nu-nu sometimes cleans up their mess, so I went to the Nu-nu chamber and kicked him, “Hey, get up and give me a hand cleaning up your friends’ mess here!”

The Nu-nu grumbled and snuffled, obviously upset at being woken so abruptly, but went to work snorting up all the pink custard off of every wall, floor and console switch. When he finished, I apologized for being rude to him and thanked him for cleaning up the place. He raised his hose in the air, said “Snuff you bish.” and crawled back to his little nook.

I was feeling a bit disheartened at this point, and wandered outside in the crisp night air to consider the events of the day. Earlier I noticed that one of the camera crew guys had left his newspaper behind. So I figured since I don’t have my book to read anymore, I’d hunt for that newspaper and check out the classifieds for apartments to rent cheap. I set off to find the newspaper, and I have to admit to being somewhat disappointed that it wasn’t up in the freakin’ tree.

Eventually I found the newspaper mashed in the bottom of a puddle. I saw the Teletubbies stomping in the puddle earlier, going “Splash splash splash, tubby tubby tubby tubby, splash splash splash…” I thought they were just having fun getting their feet wet. Seems they were simply trying to turn the newspaper back into wood pulp slurry.

I fished the newspaper out of the puddle and was able to peel off the classifieds section from inside it. It was sopping wet, but I laid it across the warm tubby toaster. After a while it dried out a bit and was marginally readable. I took it with me to my sleeping bag and, even though I had no money to my name, began frantically scanning the Apartments For Rent section. I was desperate, I had to get out of there somehow.

I eventually fell asleep out of exhaustion, and was awoken by the sound of cruise ship bullhorns outside the hutch. I ran outside to find the teletubbies were up on a hill and the rest of teletubbyland was flooded with rain water. Three ships were plowing through the water right towards the hutch with bullhorns and clarion alarms blaring! I slipped in the water but managed to narrowly avoid being run over by one of them as they sailed off into the horizon. The water receded and the teletubbies all clapped. I’ve seen this episode before, so I wasn’t surprised when a parade of colorful 3-D animated animals marched through 2 by 2.

I climbed down from the tree that I had sought out for safety, and started towards the tubby hutch to see if Arcturo was awake yet or not. He slept soundly through it all and was ready for a new day of exploring and adventure, so I made him breakfast and let him outside. Soon after he flew off, the teletubbies marched back to the hutch for their breakfast. I had hoped to have some peace and quiet with my meal, but of course it was the usual mayhem. Custard and burnt toast everywhere. I tried to ignore their antics, but they kept standing up and flopping down in their chairs – they have some kind of horn up their ass that goes “PRRFFFFTTT” when they sit. It was disgusting, but I tried to ignore it and ate my toast with my eyes down. I still had Arcturo’s jar of bird seed mix on the table, so I fished through it for something edible. Found a peanut! It wasn’t edible, so I spit it out on the floor. Let the Nu-nu clean it up.

As they commenced their meal time mess, Dipsey put on her hat and started messing with the controls again. I figured hell, they’ve lived here this long without killing each other, so screw it – if she wants to mess with the controls, let her. I’m not their goddamn mother for chrissakes. If any children are reading this, I should explain that just because there’s a big pretty yellow switch blinking on and off doesn’t mean you go fucking with it unless you know what the hell it does, okay?

So Dipsey walks up to the pretty flashing yellow switch and flips it like an idiot. Suddenly a thousand volts of electricity shoots through every metal item in the hutch, dropping us all to the floor like we’ve just been tasered naked at Coachella. The Nu-nu was screaming like a piggy in his hutch with smoke pouring out his eyeballs. I remember this awful electrical humming sound that reverberated with every wave of electricity surging through us. I grabbed Dipsey by her foot and slid her across the floor and out the door to safety. Po and Lala were spasming out on the floor. Only Tinky Winkey had the good sense to hop up on the non-metal part of his bed laughing at us. I made my way to a rubber mat near the console and flipped the switch back to where it was.

I think I felt a bit hysterical at this point, as I screamed at Lala and Po on the floor, “You guys almost DIED! That crazy bitch got at the controls again and now look at what happens! How the hell did you possibly get by without murdering each other before I got here?!?!” Po and Lala started quietly sobbing, while Tinky Winkey continued laughing like it was the funniest thing he’d seen all year. There’s no reasoning with these teletubbies! At least Dipsey might appreciate that I just about saved her life. I turned to see if she had made it safely outside, and as I looked I saw a rock come through the open door and nail me right between the eyes.

As you can imagine, this led to more confusion and fighting. Lots of things were said that I wish I hadn’t said, and I got pretty badly banged up. That rock hit me pretty hard and left a big goozer on my forehead. When I tripped in the spilled custard I think I knocked my shoulder out of the socket. But eventually everything calmed down. Arcturo came home just as the camera crew had set up for the show.

He was rapt with groupie-like attention, as the Teletubbies gathered up on the hill and the voice said “One day in teletubby land, all the teletubbies had their favorite thing. Tinky Winky had his purse, Lala has her ball, Dipsey has her hat, …but where’s Po’s cooter?”

I felt inside my pocket for that .38 snub-nose pistol. I may need it.

I’d like to dedicate this post to the one show that I actually enjoy – Big Comfy Crotch …I mean Couch. This also seems to be Arcturo’s favorite. I can actually deal with this show. It doesn’t make me feel like I was raised in a crack den as a child, like Barney does. It doesn’t put me into an LSD induced catatonic stupor, like Teletubbies. And it doesn’t make me want to destroy the planet from Mars, like the Diddy-Doodle Works show does. It’s the one sane thing about our daily triple feature.

Major Deadhead one of the coolest characters of any kid’s show. Arcturo loves making fun of the Foley Family (lots of crazy sounds to parody), and laughing his ass off with the spastic Dust Bunnies. Granny Garbonzo adds a bit of Twin Peaks atmosphere, and of course Loonette and Molly are loveably cute.

Auntie Macassar gets bigtime guffaws from Arcturo with her boisterous voice. We call her “Cameltoe in a Coolot” (not sure if I’m spelling “Coolot” correctly – you know, those short skirts that are actually pants). I’m probably one of the few people on the planet who knew what a Macassar is without having to Google it. It’s a doily type of thing like your great-grandma used to put at the top of the high backed chairs right about where the back of your head would touch if you lean back into it. It’s an archaic practice meant to keep greasy hair from ruining expensive furniture. Now-a-days we just throw the chair out on the curb and get another one.

Granny Garbonzo (Loonette’s apparent guardian) is a feisty old gal. In one episode we have recorded here,  Snicklefritz the cat crawls up Granny’s dress and she writhes around in orgasmic bliss for a few minutes. She makes a few sexually suggestive comments about the cat, and later on in the show, calls Loonette on the phone, breathlessly enticing the cat back home for “bedtime”. We all know what’s going on there, but Arcturo’s pretty naive about that sorta thing – he says “Goodnite, goodnight.” to the pretty kitty cat.

Granny Garbonzo’s got a not-too-obvious love affair going on with this creepy old alcoholic guy that pushes a cartload of junk around and fixes the hole in her pan. The shiftless old goat’s probably plowing a dozen other old ClownTown Grannies besides her. Loonette calls him Uncle Stinky, or something like that. 

Arcturo thinks he can talk to cats now – because he learned how to go “Meeow” from Snicklefritz the cat. He’s quite proud of this new ability. Now he can talk both Dog and Cat talk. “Arf, Arf! Meeow, Meeow…”. He also thinks cats can fly, since he’s seen Snicklefritz fly (thrown) across the screen numerous times. By the way, Jon Stewart was making fun of some politician’s name on his show and suggested “Snicklefritz”. Shout out to the kitty katz, eh?

Another reason I like this show is – it’s Arcturo’s trigger to say goodnight, get to bed, and leave me alone so I can work in peace. He goes through a whole ritual every night when Loonette says “Who made this big MESS!?!?!” Soon as she says that, he tells her goodnight, crawls up my arm going “Goodnight Poppa, Goodnight.” All part of his goodnight ritual. I don’t ever have to remind him to get his homework done and his pajamas on.

It’s been a while since I’ve contributed anything here. Sorry, I figured the time was better spent doing the “Liar, Liar Pants On Fire” wiggle with Major Deadhead on Big Comfy Couch. Arcturo thinks that’s how a sane human acts. He’s naive to our ways, so I humor him. Honest, I don’t enjoy it at all. Really.

I won’t be able to give a day-to-day account for a while. We’ve had to disconnect our satellite TV due to some financial setbacks. But Arcturo’s learning his ABCs and counting to 12, so hopefully somebody will hire him soon – once he learns to type. He wants to get into publishing or advertising, like his Papa. He also wants to drive a school bus, but I’m trying not to encourage that. 

For a while, I figured we could watch the ONE VHS tape that I recorded for him, so he could see his shows on the weekends, when they’re not broadcast. Watching the same episodes every day drove me insane, of course. But, like a dog that loves to chase the same stick over and over again, Arcturo loved the repetition. He knew exactly when his favorite parts were coming up. For me, it was sheer torture. I actually felt my brain playing solitaire. But I like Arcturo more than my brains, so I toughed it out. I wasn’t using those brains anyways.

So I had to do something. I have EyeTV on my computer, and I recorded a bunch of episodes of his shows before our satellite connection was cut off. But he didn’t enjoy watching them on the computer. I think his favorite thing about the shows, is that he gets to pull me away from the computer and pay complete attention to him. I converted these recordings to MP4s and loaded them into iTunes and onto my iPod. The next step was to get them to play from the iPod onto the TV.

I didn’t want to pay $90 bucks for the official Apple TV device, and I had read that you can use a simple AV cord which can be found on eBay for around $4. So being the cool guy that I am, I figured heck, I’ll go to RadioCrack and pick one up – it might be a few bucks more than $4, but I wouldn’t have to wait for delivery, right? RadioCrack wants $40 bucks for the freakin’ thing! So, off to eBay I go. Got one for $3 dollars, free shipping. RadioCrack can blow me. I’ll never learn though, I think I like to go in there just because I like the smell of electronics.

The AV cable arrived in the mail and I hooked the iPod up to the TV. The funny thing is, Apple “switches the colors” on you. On the AV cable, you have to plug the Red plug into the Yellow jack, the Yellow one goes in the White, and the White plug goes into the Red jack. I know, that’s crazy, but hey, it’s “proprietary”, right? The iPod feeds the audio and video through the headphone jack, so that end is simple.

To make a long story short, it worked like a charm – all for just $3 bucks. We’ve got some variety in our viewing now. I’m quite happy that we don’t have to watch Sheera and Loli’s Ditty Doodle Works anymore. Man, I hated the hell out of that show. I honestly wished harm on every person involved in that show. Don’t even get me started. In fact – maybe one of these days when I finally get over it, I’ll write a post here listing everything that I hated about that show.

Another thing I won’t miss is “Boner Boy”. That carrot topped Kid’s Fitness guy with the little penis. Arcturo doesn’t need to see him humping the ground yelling “Come on try it kids! Fitness is EXCELLENT!”

Yet another one we won’t miss is “Janet’s Planet”. We’ve been debating on alternate names for this one, it’s a toss-up between “Janet’s Anus” and “Janet’s Penis”. You’ve probably seen it – crazy lady dresses like Snow White in a Pants Suit. I remember her advice to kids being bullied was “If a bully says something bad to you, you walk up to him and say ‘Say that again’ …just walk away.” I want to give her a wedgie.

I may have this mentioned before, but Arcturo is very interested in learning to count to 12. Whenever Loonette does her clock stretch, he literally drags me to the TV and counts along as I point at each number and say “1, 2, 3, 4…”. He’s learning fast, pronounces most of the numbers somewhat understandable. Especially 8 – he likes saying 8. Once he gets it down I’ll test him on the individual numbers to see if he gets them right, as opposed to just counting them in order. Then on to Math.

He’s getting a kick out of the little commercials between shows where the kids do the “What can you do?” thing. He loves to parody the sounds the kids make, and laughs like crazy when we do some really silly sounds. He’s a ton of cute in a one ounce bag. See, I’m a big guy, and I’m used to his cuteness tricks, so I can handle it. A normal person like you, he’d melt your eyeballs. You know those cute little bluebirds in the old Walt Disney cartoons? He’d cute them back to Capistrano.

I’ll try to post more often here in the future. Once Arcturo gets a job and the money starts flowing in, that will give me more time to write. If you need to hire an artist, give him a shout. He’s only learning right now, so I’d be helping him for the most part. That way, you’re not only getting the cutest little bird doing your art, but me too for free.

Damn. It looks like they’ve finally ditched Teletubbies for a new show called “Shiera and Loli’s Dittydoodle Workshop”. I hope this show continues, it looks like fodder for some good snarkiness here. For one thing, they have a character called Icky Icky Cock.

Besides one of the main character’s abbreviated Lolita name (Loli) and a creepy old icky icky cock professor, the other main character is a fashion victim woman that does all the booty shakin’ on the show. Her name is Miss Molly, but she doesn’t look like a “Molly” to me. I’ll come up with a better name for her in time I’m sure. I hate people that encourage kids to stress themselves to the point of exhaustion because they think “it’s AWESOME!”

Well, the show went on and I’m not sure what really happened. Sheira and Loli got into an argument over whether to paint the room with hearts or stars. It’s like people from Daily Kos trying to decide whether to paint a room red or blue. Nobody got banned from the show so I assume everything went well in the end.

Barney and the gang are talking about going to the zoo. Not sure yet if they really ARE going – these things never work out on Barney. They usually just hang out in the caboose and pretend they went. Sure enough, some kid says her mom won’t let her go – ruining it for EVERYBODY!

Griff has a scheme to bring the zoo to Baby Bop. But he knows nothing about animals – just music. So his plan is to make a “Musical Zoo of the MIND”. But wait – now they’re talking about how it’s cold outside. I think their ritalin-induced short attention span has put the zoo of the mind idea on the back burner, for now anyways.

It’s a Fall day on Big Comfy Couch. Major Deadhead shows up at Granny’s in a winter snorkel jacket and snowshoes to prove that he doesn’t get the concept of seasonal changes. I shouldn’t make fun of the guy – after all, he’s got a job and all I’ve got is this snarky blog. I can make fun of Auntie Macassar though – she’s a deadbeat. And one monster of a coolot munching camel-toe! Today she plays dress-up with different shoes, and we get an extended view of her gams. Some shapely ham-hocks there for a big girl.

Arcturo likes today’s Teletubbies – it’s all about getting wet. Kids washing their hands, rain falling from clouds, etc. He likes seeing things get wet. Today’s color is SILVER. To avoid showing grey, they gave the silver color sparkles. Arcturo digs sparkles too. He makes me add sparkles to my photoshop projects. According to him, you can never have too many sparkles.

On Barney, the kids have a fashion show for dogs. The FCC needs to revise their disclaimer to read “No animals were harmed OR HUMILIATED during the filming…” These poor animals will never live long enough for the shame of being seen by millions of people in these costumes to be erased from their memory. Now it’s suddenly raining. They sing “If all the raindrops were lemon drops and gum drops… If all the snowflakes were candy bars and milkshakes…” If this happened kids, you’d be severely injured. Ever been hit in the mouth with a milkshake falling from 3,000 feet? Believe me, it hurts.

All the kids want to play bongos, they ignore all the other instruments and fight over the bongos. Barney calls BS on that and makes them pretend to make soup instead. That doesn’t work, they all want to be chefs. They then are entertained by a play where a rabbit is running through the woods and other animals follow her thinking they’re all being chased by something. Somehow this teaches the savage little bastards not to be so damn greedy. Personally, I don’t get it. And Arcturo doesn’t get it either. But we’re all for trying anything to calm them down at this point.

Big Comfy Couch is about something I can relate to – forgetting stuff. She goes to Granny’s house for a lesson in mnemonics. Mnemonics has never helped me one bit. Apparently it works for everybody else, since it’s always the first thing suggested to help you remember things.

If you want to remember the name of something new, they say, think up a different name that rhymes with it, to help you remember the original thing’s name. To me, this just introduces a whole ‘nother thing to remember. So essentially, you have to remember TWO things instead of one. How can that possibly help? To me, it’s a useless exercise. Arcturo’s got no use for mnemonics also. It’s just another stupid human superstition.

This episode leads to the sad story of an old lady with Alzheimer’s Disease being abused by her grandson for forgetting his name. He was going to kill her, until she somehow talked him out of it. I missed most of the story, but I imagine there was much violence before the happy ending.

In today’s episode of WTF is wrong with those idiot Teletubbies, we ponder why, with all the flowers around Tubbyland, they are suddenly transfixed on some bluebell plants. Maybe it’s because they plants are taking over, like kudzu. Suddenly the whole place is overrun with lovely bluebells. In honor of the event, Poe pens a song. As you may have guessed, it simply goes “Bluebell, bluebell, bluebell, bluebell…” This has somehow appeased the Bluebell gods, as all the bluebells are now disappearing one by one. The scourge is over. Teletubbies survive another ecological disaster!

On Barney, it’s Halloween. Can’t wait to see how they tip-toe around the occult aspects of the holiday, what with their insane christian values and all that. No ghosts, no witches or wizards, no bloody gore, and no razor-blade infused candy from strangers. What fun is that?

Hey wait – I just saw a WITCH! I’m sure the angry viewer letters are rolling in on that one.

I asked Arcturo what he would dress like, if it were Halloween. He says he’d like to go as a professor or teacher. He’s so innocent and naive. He later tells me he wants to grow up to be like Barney. But I’m guessing he means the “bossing a bunch of kids around” part and not the “big purple monster” aspect.

Loonette is bored on Big Comfy Couch, and must find something to alleviate the boredom. She fails. Although Arcturo was amused when Granny and Major Deadhead pretended to get into a car crash. VROOOM! ERRRRTT! CRASH! He had a blast, and added new crash sounds to his repertoire. Rides in the car are going to be an experience now.

Teletubbies messed with the controls. You know, the buttons, knobs, and switches in the middle of their tubby hutch – it’s apparently the thing that controls all of Tubbyland and keeps them from starving or whatever. It makes them dance and roll around in convulsions on the floor. 

Barney kids did a play depicting “The Emperor’s Gambit”. You’ve never heard of the Emperor’s Gambit because you’re not a mercenary. It’s a common term applied to when a government won’t fall, you present the population with a “bait-and-switch” that’s so insidious that they think their govt pulled a fast one on them, causing lots of executions, riots and lawlessness in your wake. It’s interesting to see this presented on Barney. Your kids will surely grow up to be fascists.

Big Comfy Couch has Loonette and Granny forming an all-girls club where they apparently get naked and poke only their heads out of the tent to make sure no boys are around. Look for the out-takes video coming to adult fun stores everywhere!

Stupid commercial featuring some kid that pushes sports because it’s “awesome”. He’s not old enough to break the news to his parents that he’s gay yet – maybe next year’s thanksgiving dinner would be his time, but for now, let’s assume he’s just a normal kid that enjoys makeup, hair products, and walking around in shorts. He’s trying to teach kids how to swim. These directions seem way too convoluted to follow, even for me, an avid swimmer. 

He says you need to put one hand straight out, bending at the elbow, bringing it straight above your head and cupping your fingers while your other hand goes down by your side. Then you have to look straight ahead and bend your elbow down towards your other hand down by your side while your other hand propels you through the water like a dolphin. Okay, gotcha. He ends the one-minute lesson by saying “just remember, always keep looking up and keep your eyes ahead of you.” Good advice I guess, but it won’t keep you alive in the deep end.

I sometimes wonder if people in Teletubby Land ever hunt Teletubbies for sport. Horrible, you say? Maybe not. I mean, sure, they have cute mannerisms, they seem to be self-aware and display feelings like love, and… well love. But look into their eyes and you’ll see the cold emotionless gaze of a snake. If a Teletubby could kill and eat you as carrion, you’d know. They’d eat you without any emotion or regrets. So face it – it’s us or them, and if you don’t start shooting we’ll all end up as compost for the flowers, people.

As I was about to write about how much fun it would be to also hunt down Barney and his gang, Arcturo caught me in the eyeball with his beak again. If you own a Nanday Conure, watch your eyes. Look at any Pirate. You can always tell which shoulder his parrot sits on – it’s the side with the eye-patch.

He didn’t do it to be mean or anything, He was just having fun and doesn’t know any better, so I feel bad about reprimanding him over it. He knows he did something wrong, hid in his cage for a bit, but I’ve got to get it across to him that biting eyeballs is a bad thing. After I felt he sort of got the message, I sat with him and explained that he’s got to watch what he does on instinct, and stop before it happens. He’s gotten the idea since the last time he accidently hit me in the eye. I’ve seen him start to go for the eye, suddenly stop himself, and give me a big hug instead. He was so sorry and apologetic, so I forgive him. But now everything is blurry in my left eye, so there may be typos.

Anyway – it sure WOULD be fun to shoot Barney.

On Big Comfy Couch, Major Deadhead’s bedhead hair grew too long today, so he sang about it. He says people will think he’s trippin’ because of it. This is why we love Major Deadhead – he’s stoned. Compare and and contrast his character with the creepy, alcoholic Uncle Wiggly guy. Pot is good – booze is bad kids.

Teletubbies are slacking. They do nothing but dance all day. The live segment had kids doing laundry. Pretty boring show all around. Who’s paying these people? Even Arcturo doesn’t classify this as entertainment.

Barney has some 12 foot tall kid come to show the kids that he’s a better basketball player than any of them. He explains that someday they might be able to put the ball in the hoop, if they do nothing but practice all day long. They’ll never be as good as him though, ’cause he’s 12 feet tall, and that works out to be an advantage in that sport.

Next thing you know, it’s suddenly night time. Baby Bop imagines a star falling and learns the difference between imagination and reality. The kids look at the people in dinosaur costumes and reconsider their own realities.

Loonette is celebrating The Longest Night on Big Comfy Couch today. That would be some time in December. She says that on the Longest Night everybody gets to stay up all night long! Arcturo looks at me and says “That’s a GOOD idea.” He thinks he’s going to stay up all night now – but I give him maybe 10 minutes into his bedtime before he’s headed towards sleep.

Sorry, I’ve been down for about a week. I had to have my computer serviced by a professional, if you know what I mean. Yeah, you know. It needed a complete strip-down, including a blow job behind the gas station with the high-pressure air hose. We slapped in a new face LCD panel, new brains and Logic Processor. It was a mess, and without the intervention of friends and loved ones (hi Apple), we’d have lost it completely from our lives.

It seems to be on the path of complete recovery and will be inadvertently downloading porno pop-up ads and copyright infringing face-book pages music just like before.

Today on Teletubbies, we learn about “On Top and Underneath”. I wouldn’t go there. On top and underneath are difficult concepts for children (and birds) to grasp – especially when you keep showing the same thing (stuff on top of other things) and calling it two different things. Seems Tinky-winky likes to be underneath. Again, not going there. The TV Guide said there’d be kids filling buckets with water. There were no kids filling buckets. We wanted to see buckets of water, dammit.

On Barney, the big purple monster turns all the kids into gay cowboys. A real adult gay cowboy cooks up a batch of chili in a blue bucket for everybody to ingest. Takes some time – the kids do a long montage in the meantime. I have a feeling it’s going to end up being “imaginary” chili. The kids are gonna kill the guy for wasting their time.

Turns out it really was chili. One kid is allergic to beans and he vomits uncontrollably, another is allergic to tomato sauce, her tongue swelled up and her face turned purple and fell off. Well, that’s what would have happened if this were the real world. I’m sure Barney had them all sign medical waivers before tasting the stew.

In between Barney and Big Comfy Couch there’s a “Learn Spanish” interlude with Fuego. I have a feeling Fuego means something derogatory in Spanish, but I’ll look it up later. In this one-minute Spanish lesson, today’s word is “PANDA”, which in espaniol is pronounced “PANDA”. Go figure. One person reads it in english – I counted maybe 200 words. Next, Fuego the dog translates the story into spanish using only 25 words. This was a frivolous exercise in stupidity. When the end credits roll, we see that it was made in Houston Texas by the Haliburton corp. This is kind of like Dick Cheney coming on TV and saying “Okay kids, you wanna learn spanish – ADIOS, that’s your name in spanish now get the f*ck outta here.”

On Big Comfy Couch we learn not to hit people. Lots of violence in this episode so it should play well to the kids. I wonder sometimes if the people that make these shows see the dichotomy of principals presented to their demographic audience. But then, it’s like the Buddhist Monk meditating on Nirvana and wondering if his friends think his robe looks cool on him or not. Once you notice that you’re levitating, you drop like a cartoon coyote.

I think my train of thought ran off the track and injured some bystanders there – I have no idea what the hell I’m talking about at this point. Blogging can be intense at times. Let me get back on topic…

Granny Garbonzo puts on a Punch ‘n Judy puppet show, but her puppets are called Paunch and Moody, because the male puppet is a fat woman beater and the female puppet is a bitch. He beats his wife and pets until he hurts his fists and realizes that he shouldn’t do it because it hurts them also. I’m sure he’ll find other ways of torturing them without the infliction of physical pain from now on. 

Glad to be back doing this. I hope someone’s reading this, and if you are… don’t do drugs. Send them to me – I’ll know exactly what to do with them.