Oh, ARGH!

Dammit, if I'd known there was going to be an Amnesty 2010 Challenge on the sga_flashfic community, I'd have posted Ten Tiny Tales there, first! I'd have amused myself by going through the tags and picking a different challenge that applied to each Tale. Well, I guess I can still do that part:


1: challenge: animal vegetable or mineral
2: challenge: gods and monsters
3: challenge: skeevy ancients or challenge: ancient history
4: challenge: not happening
5: challenge: must be dreaming
6: challenge: animal vegetable or mineral
7: challenge: continuing education or challenge: secret superpower
8: challenge: secret superpower
9: challenge: folklore
10: challenge: culture clash or challenge: family or challenge: backstory
Bonus: challenge: crossing or challenge: villains

Okay, that wasn't quite as easy as I thought it would be!

OMG, OMG, DOCTOR SEUSS ON THE LOOSE!!!

I first (and last) saw this (poorly) animated Dr. Suess special back in 1973. They're running it RIGHT NOW on ABCF, the ABC Family channel. OMG, it's as awesome as I remember it!!!! (so many exclamation points!) THE SONGS! THE SONGS ARE SO "LOVE AMERICAN STYLE"!!!

# Allen Sherman as The Cat in the Hat (of "Hello Mudda, Hello Fadda, here I am at Camp Grenada" fame)
# Hans Conried as the Narrator and the North-going Zax (Character actor of joy! He was on every show!)
# Paul Winchell as Sam-I-Am, the Grouchy Guy, and Sneetches

Paul Winchell was a god when I was a wee kid: we were all addicted to his kiddie show, The Winchell Mahoney Show*, wherein he acted as ventriloquist for various dummies that were quite similar to the Edgar Bergan characters that predated them, except way more subversive. He also spoofed kiddie puppet shows in general on an episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show, where he played a kiddie-show ventriloquist of a sarcastically snarky puppet snail named "Jellybean" who wanted Rob Petrie to write for his show. IT WAS SO META! The episode was called "Talk to the Snail", which anticipated "talk to the hand" about 25 years before that expression was used. PAUL WINCHELL - RENAISSANCE MAN AND POP CULTURE FORECASTER! He was a voice on about a thousand poorly-animated Saturday morning kid shows during the 60s, 70s and early 80s. Snidely Whiplash on the Penelope Pitstop show and Wacky Races, anyone?

From Wikipedia:

Winchell was interested in medicine and studied pre-med at Columbia University. He graduated from The Acupuncture Research College of Los Angeles in 1974, and became an acupuncturist. He also worked as a medical hypnotist at the Gibbs Institute in Hollywood.

He was not only a ventriloquist on a kiddie show and the voice of a thousand hackneyed cartoon characters, he was THE VERY FIRST PERSON TO PATENT AN ARTIFICIAL HEART, MAKE IT AND IMPLANT IT IN SOMEONE'S CHEST.

Yes, my kiddie icons were Jean Shepherd (genius curmudgeon) and Paul Winchell (genius snark-master). This explains so much.

So, back to the Dr. Seuss special... the Sneetches tale teaches a child not to be a racist, the Zax bit teaches a child to make nice (really, to not be an asshole) and compromise, and Green Eggs and Ham probably wants to teach a kid to try new foods before judging, but really teaches that you might as well do what a persistent salesman wants you to do, because he's going to harass you into doing what he wants eventually anyway... but the songs on this 70s show, the MUSIC THEY WROTE for this cartoon. Just so Hollywood Squares.

Jeebus, it turns out that ABC Family is doing a Dr. Seuss night of ancient animated specials! The Lorax** is on now! How The Grinch Stole Christmas is last and best (Chuck Jones did the animation for that one.)



*Theme song: "HOORAY, HOORAH, IT'S WINCHELL MAHONEY TIME, IT'S WINCHELL MACHONEY TIME, IT'S LOTS OF FUN!!!! And it was.

**STOP RAPING NATURE, YOU INDUSTRIALIST BASTARDS!