The Antics of Brewster, the Old-Timey Dog

Bad dog, Brewster! Unspeakably bad dog!

"Nice marmot."

I left the candles and Scrubbing Bubbles mascot as is, to preserve the sense of gentle whimsy.

The original magazine cover and the 1970 LP.

An image as instantly powerful as the one above should not require any explanation, but I will provide one nevertheless. Back in September 1956, a now-defunct magazine called Man's Life ran a cover story with the extremely memorable headline "WEASELS RIPPED MY FLESH," accompanied by an illustration of a shirtless man actually being gnawed upon by angry weasels. The original story by Mike Kamens is available online if you'd care to read it. 

Meanwhile, those four magic words made such an impression on experimental rock weirdo Frank Zappa that he used the phrase as the title of a cacophonous, mostly-live album by his band, the Mothers of Invention, in 1970. That album's gory cover, with a ghoulishly memorable painting by Neon Park, has become an icon in its own right, even being included on Rolling Stone's list of the greatest LP covers of all time. 

Anyway, I thought I'd take the hapless adventurer from the original Men's Life cover and transplant him to a more domestic setting, specifically the bathtub of one Jeffrey "The Dude" Lebowski from The Big Lebowski. As Lebowski fans know, the Dude has his own memorable run-in with an angry ferret, though he famously misidentifies the creature as a marmot. Gaze upon this image, dear reader, and reflect that however badly your Monday may be going, it cannot compare to this fellow's day. Count your blessings then, scarce though they may be.

I'm not so sure I love this Lucy

"Do you pop out at parties?" Clearly, the answer is yes.

I have already expressed my love of wax museums in general and really bad wax museums in particular. I wish sometimes I could work in such an establishment, though it's probably less glamorous than I'm imagining. Well, in my Internet travels, I recently encountered this grotesque approximation of Lucille Ball from the famed Hollywood Wax Museum, one of the great tourist traps in LA. Like the infamous bronze statue of Ms. Ball in Celoron, NY this paraffin effigy is based on the indelible I Love Lucy episode called "Lucy Does a TV Commercial," better known as "Vitameatavegimin."

What is it about that episode that so stymies artists? They can't come close to capturing it. While the bronze statue looks like the Golem of Judaic folklore, the wax figure resembles a crazed, possibly murderous Reba McEntire. Why is Lucille Ball so hard to capture? Anyway, for comparison's sake, below is a picture of the infamous statue, juxtaposed with a photo of the real Lucille Ball.

Well, the artist got some details right. Lucy did wear a necklace in the episode.

I'm concerned that you haven't been having enough nightmares lately, so here's this thing.

He's saying, "Mom! Mom! Mom! Mom!"

"Let me say this about that..."

I'm kind of obsessed with wax museums, and I especially love bad wax figures. In my travels, I happened to come across this nice little roundup of 31 of them on Buzzfeed. I was especially taken with the hideous paraffin effigy of Richard Milhous Nixon which closes the article. Tricky Dick kind of looked like a ventriloquist dummy, so I decided to animate the image and make this little mini art piece out of it. I hope you don't enjoy it.

10 more grotesque pictures of "Spitting Image" puppets!

Another hideous Spitting Image group shot

Your nightmares begin here. Yesterday, I posted a group of photos of puppets from England's gone-but-not-forgotten satirical TV series, Spitting Image. Guess what, folks? Those were the cute ones. Today, I'm bringing you the rest of the pics, and it's here where we venture into some very dark territory indeed. Sadly, many of these photos are too big to be reproduced at a decent size on this blog, so I've had to shrink them. Consider yourself lucky. These are some very unpleasant puppets. Keep in mind, my original scans of these images are absolutely huge, so I've viewed them in excruciating detail. I will warn you: the image of Whoopi Goldberg's face floating in what appears to be a bowl of milk is not something to approach lightly.

Princess Di and Fergie

Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro, and Meryl Streep

Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud

Mikhail Gorbachev

Cyndi Lauper

Madonna

Michael Jackson

Mike Tyson

Tina Turner

Whoopi Goldberg

L is for Look (Day 12)

Look at the monster roar and rage!

Examine the work of any artist or author, and you are bound to see patterns. I was no exception. The picture for this entry shows the young man's continuing obsession with bear-like "monsters", and the text is yet more elementary Dick & Jane-ery. But I still like this page quite a bit, not least for its use of the word "rage" and the feral quality of the illustration. Yep, I was one disturbed kid.

H is for Halloween (Day 8)

Halloween is a scary time.

Rather a predictable choice for the letter H, I realize, but there is much to discuss even here. Note that even after 7 previous entries, I still had not learned to allow myself sufficient space to write each dictionary entry in the upper right hand corner. Also, for most kids, Halloween is a time of eating candy and having fun. But not for young Joe. No sirree. Even then, I knew Halloween was all about unrelenting terror. On October 31st, the ghosts of those who once lived are going to hunt you down and possibly kill or eat you. Be prepared!

E is for Exciting (Day 5)

Halloween is exciting.

Now that's what I'd call truth in advertising! A child dressed as a witch being attacked by an actual bear as the stars themselves rain down from Heaven? I'd say that qualifies as "exciting." Perhaps, though, that creature is meant to be a werewolf. After all, the moon is full in this picture. I was a kid, so who knows what was going on in my mind? Under the circumstances, I'd say the child/witch is being fairly zen, opting merely to say the word "help" (to the monster, I guess?) rather than run away. And notice that she has the presence of mind to hold onto her candy. Werewolf or not, one has to keep one's priorities straight.