Author: Michael Swaim

Categories
LEARNING DAY

Learning Day: The Walnuts Concludes 🌭

A few months back, I celebrated Pride Month with an appreciation piece about the Burt Reynolds sitcom Evening Shade, for showcasing basic human decency around trans issues.

But I’m not done yet!

It’s not enough simply to support trans rights and queer people…true allyship demands that I likewise denigrate and toxify heteronormative sex until it surrenders. Hence, it’s time for a real gut-punch to the libido that can only be categorized as a pretty Fucking Upsetting Learning Day, and elsewise described as…“YIKES! EVEN MORE PEANUTS PORN PARODY!”

The Walnuts has returned. Have returned? Anyway, Charley Brown’s dick is out, I guess let’s not get hung up on grammar. Last time we covered parts 1 and 2. This time – I SWEAR – we conclude the series with parts 3 and 4. In case your neural defenses already scrubbed the relevant brain-footage, part 2 ended on quite the cliffhanger! Charley had just learned that the sexual relationship he had with Lucy when they were both ten resulted in a daughter. Lucy grew up to marry Shrolder and they pretended to have adopted the child, but she’s actually Charley’s bio-kid, and also having sex with Shrolder, her stepdad! AAUGH!

As part 3 begins, Charley tucks that issue to the back of his mind and pivots hard back to what’s really important, the outstanding question of who’s going to be wearing his balls for a chinstrap tonight (presumably with a single pube curlicued across their otherwise bald surface).

We pull out (unlike ten-year-old Charley, amirite?!) to reveal he’s in bed with a background character, whose rude tiddies have here been tastefully censored with some walnut jpgs.

Her postcoital advice is both actionable and incisive, but as someone who writes professionally about porno comix I’d be a fool to claim I even see the folly of my own ordeal, let alone Charley’s. Also please note how little sex there actually is in this comic for the third outing, and let that underscore our shared shame – me for having spread this dark knowledge, you for having imbibed it. Why does this thing exist? Who was this even fashioned for?

Don’t worry though, tons of sloppy tentacle sex coming in part 4! I wish I was kidding.

I WISH I WAS KIDDING.

Being a typical cishet piece of shit, Charley Brown would rather take life advice from a sketchy drug-dealing dog with a penis than stoop to admitting the wisdom of a human female, so then this happens:

I like to think that Charley fell asleep between panels and the rest of the story is a dream. Or hey, even better, he had a massive aneurysm and this is his vision upon dying! Either scenario would go some way toward explaining the chaos that comes next, none of which ever touches on Shrolder or Chuck’s estranged daughter ever again. It’s almost as if the guy who made this pervy Peanuts comic lacks formal training??

Spoilers: even though he gives off huge Joey Pants in The Matrix vibes, Charley’s going to pick the red pill. On the plus side, this will NOT derail the comic by turning it into an incel manifesto or other political screed. See?

On the downside, neither will it “continue the story” in any real way, nor answer any of Charley’s problems, which are now our problems. Instead, we’re treated to what you get whenEVER you take a pill a dog handed you…an insane trip whose only theme is being upsetting.

Again, I barely even have to censor this image because the team of maniacs at JRKcomix have lost all interest in making you cum. This is no longer masturbation material; this is an earnest mashup of some stuff they remember from The Big Lebowski and some stuff they remember from The Peanuts. The perfunctory nature of the art and storytelling makes me wonder if this artist was working on a deadline, but how could that possibly be true…someone was WAITING for this? There was MONEY to be made off this if delivered in a timely manner?

The drug/dream sequence ultimately ends when Snoopy flies his doghouse into a giant open vagina, here covered by a jpg of an open walnut. Witness how its shape echoes your fragile human brain, now ruined.

Sobered, Charles wrestles with his options. The only sound is that of a bird pecking aimlessly at the shiny, wormlike penis of a dog. Whether it expects to earn nourishment or sexual gratification from this is left unexplored. Spyke, for his part – impassive, Al Swearengen-like – checks his watch and delivers a terse monologue about a prostitute he watched die delivering a deformed baby and how that relates to gentrification…sorry, I’m stretching the riff a bit because what really happens next is so filthy I needed more time to make bigger jpgs of different kinds of nuts to cover it up.

Please rest assured though! All the genitals in The Walnuts are so poorly-drawn as to be entirely non-sexual anyway. I censor them only out of courtesy; if you can masturbate to this shit, I’d imagine you could masturbate equally well to an office chair, Focusrite USB-C Scarlett 2i2 desktop preamp, or third thing I look around my office and see – a rubber vagina, let’s say.

“Hey Bill, part 3’s still on track for a Friday release, right? Remember, our whole Q4 is riding on this!”

“You know it, boss! I already added the onomatopoeias and everything!”

“Great. And you spelled “fuck” right, right?”

“…”

“…Bill? You spelled “fuck” right, right? Can you not hear me?”

(muffled gunshot from next room)

Hot cashew-on-pecan action aside, it turns out we’re now in a scene of Charley banging Lucy again so he can get her take. Her take on what to do about their trauma history and the daughter they share? Of course not! I meant the other thing, the “who to date tonight” thing. First though, more of what the people really came for – a bit of the ol’ ugghh-and-splerph!

I just showed you Charley Brown cum on Lucy’s face, so I hope you’ll believe me when I say I’m not cutting anything out at this juncture. I mention it because this next transition is pretty abrupt…the scene is literally just the beloved Peanuts kids banging one out, then Lucy says:

True to the source material, Charley is in the end unmasked as a pathetic people-pleaser just waiting for someone to tell him what to do. In this case, he tried to listen to a random hookup girl, but his misogyny prevented him from being able to absorb her advice. Then he tried listening to a dog, but the dog’s drugs were wack, an equally common scenario. Finally, Charley has returned to his roots and played “move the football” with his ol’ pal Lucy, and the path forward is clear.

Astute readers may recall that Peppercorn Patty is supposed to be a lesbian, but as it turns out the people who make Peanuts characters fuck each other aren’t too hung up on accurate labelling. What Patty really seems interested in is a polycule with Charley and Marcia, her current girlfriend.

aaaaaand that’s sort of where we have to leave it. Despite the fact that the movie they’re watching is called “THE END?” this is emphatically the end of Charley Brown’s Walnuts adventures. We shall never find out what happens with his daughter and Shrolder, nor what word was accidentally dropped from Patty’s final sentence. Here’s some guesses though:

“I mean who wouldn’t like to get their _______ in some good ol’ fashion lube?”

  • baseball
  • life savings invested
  • cheap high from eating a couple pumps of hand sanitizer diluted

Hahaha, we have fun. Well…we used to. Now it’s time for The Walnuts Part 4, an issue so hideous it shut down the franchise. And not because offended people demanded it – let’s be honest, no one read this – but because the creators themselves realized they could degrade Charles M. Schulz no further. Once they uploaded part 4 their work was done, the defilement was complete. As someone once famed for fucking pumpkins, its cover presents what I can only describe as a worst-case scenario. In Soviet Walnuts…pumpkin fucks YOU.

Also Lynus has scrupulously coaxed his adult body into being egg-shaped; I’ll let you decide which is the more disturbing offer.

In a surprisingly expository lore dump for a Peanuts porno, Charley’s little sister Sally explains that although they only recently became a sexually active couple (see the events of The Walnuts part 1 [No, wait, don’t.]), she’s apparently been humoring his strange obsession with The Great Pumpkin for over a decade. If you’re not a Peanuts fan, you should know that The Great Pumpkin is canonical, and also a totally made-up character Linus expects to appear to him some fateful Halloween night with the faith of an ultra-Christian doomsday prepper.

Although Schulz never revealed what made Linus think that, by applying Occam’s Razor – “the explanation with the fewest assumptions is usually the correct one” – we can deduce that his parents (and therefore all the parents in the Peanuts series) were probably cultists running a The Village-like experiment on the children during which they fetishized Halloween and only spoke using trombones to rob their subjects of a comprehensible rubric by which to strive for approval. That or too much dog drugs. What’s important is: then Lynus eats Sally’s pussy out.

Aside from talking with his mouth full, which almost certainly compromises his labial game, Lynus seems proficient enough at the act. We know this because Sally passes that age-old test of a lover’s passion…cumming enough times to summon The Great Pumpkin. It’s how the Director’s Cut of Brazil originally ended!

Lynus and Sally have pumpkin-patch sex in various positions for a while, to what I imagine are the rhythmic sloshing sounds of water moving inside his ovoid stomach. Ever the good blanket boy, he splerphs momma.

They do love each other though, which makes it kind of beautiful.

Making it kind of less beautiful, if you look carefully in the background of that frame you can juuuuust make out the tentacle-monster that’s about to rape Sally for the duration of the column, until you click away in embarrassment, or until you go insane, whichever comes first. Don’t worry, though! Pecans will hide it…pecans can fix all of this.

It’s not exactly the end of the Silent Hill movie starring Sally from Peanuts, but it’s as close as you can get without a TimeCop stepping out of a rift behind you and bludgeoning you to death for the good of not just this, but all realities. Now LOOK UPON LYNUS’ DUMPTRUCK ASS AND BE DAMNED BY IT.

It’s hypnotic. It’s as if you carefully balanced the egg that is his torso on another, sideways egg. It doesn’t stop there, either…I can’t in good conscience show you his egg-shaped penis to prove my point, but let’s just say the skewed cashew I used to cover it up in the above “Splerph” frame doesn’t spare a pixel, width-wise. Guy’s dick is all about that base. A trapezoidal chode is what I’m describing. Anyway, Lynus pervs out and runs off to get a camera to document the assault. It’s like a form of bad Japanese hentai!

God, please don’t do that to me because I said that! Is that the standard punishment for saying that now? Fuck. Or should I say “Fuk?”

Sally then gets veggies shoved in her every orifice, an act Gen Z refers to as “the salad shooter” whenever they get together with real-life friends to explore their sexuality, so fortunately it hasn’t actually come up yet.

Did I do it? Did I ruin Peanuts for you irretrievably? No? Fun Fact: The Little Red Haired Girl is based on Schulz’s real unrequited love and muse Donna Mae Wold, to whom he proposed after landing his first big syndication deal. She said no. Said Schulz of the relationship: “I can think of no more emotionally damaging loss than to be turned down by someone whom you love very much. What a bitter blow that is.” Hey, try gettin’ facefucked by a cucumber, Chuck! A bitter blow indeed. Also, Lynus missed his big moment because he left to fetch the camera, and the JoKeRs at JKRComix can’t even fucking spell “splooge” right, so it’s a bummer all around.

Obviously that isn’t actual SPLOONGE but rather just green plant juice so I don’t need to censor it, like how 90’s cartoons would have robot baddies spray neon pink oil everywhere as they fall into a thresher screaming in hideous TV-PG-rated anguish. Lynus likewise lets his disappointment be known, looking for all the world like a snowman with a traffic cone for a dick.

Fourteen years of slavish devotion have yielded him naught but a satisfied girlfriend and an immortal legacy in comics that we’ve now tainted down to the molecular level. End of episode, series, and karmic punishment. From incest to xenophilia, pumping kin to a Pumpkin King, truly The Walnuts had it all…or at least all the parts we had to scrape off to pass the surprise health inspection. Now go eat your vegetables kids, but not in that way! NEVER in that way.

———————

BONUS ADDENDUM

Thanks for reading along with me, beloved Hotdoggers! I’ll see you next time for more of my never-ending series on comic strip porn parodies…next up is MILField, then Calvin and Knobs, followed by Poonsbury, Fuckme Winkerbean, Non Squirtur, Fuckstrot, and The Jizzard of Id.

After that, Broom-Filleda’s on deck, which sets us up nicely for a run of some Mother Goose and Cumm books, a few Hagar the Bangable, Big Abner, and Bloom Cunty collections, six months’ worth of Luanal, and some cherry-picked For Better or For Tits strips. Then we’ll really double down when we cover the whole of The Pooncocks, The Family Circle Jerk, and Get Fuzzy, plus one panel from an old Crankshaft I really like, which I’ve censored here with another old Crankshaft panel from a different strip, sometimes called “frotting.”

Sequential art was a mistake.

This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Honk, the living embodiment of lust and impulse. But today, dear readers, Honk will get no joy or satisfaction from the hours of sweaty rhythmic slapping of meat. Instead, Honk will think about that time the great pumpkin sploonged all over, and Honk might never become aroused again.

Categories
LEARNING DAY

Learning Day: The Japanese Pornographer who Invented ASMR and One Other Simpsons Thing 🌭

What feels like an eternity ago, you and me really got into it over a metaphorical Flight of Simpsons Weirdness, which is to say three things. I showed you three things, all Simpsons-related, and in case you don’t recall you absolutely loved it. “Simpsons me again, Simpsman!,” you begged, cobbling the clumsy portmanteau together on the fly and through a thick haze of HomEros, which is a much stronger portmanteau. Now I’ve got two more Simpsons things I want to show you, and yet although they are both arguably even more fascinating…some part of me still refuses to type. Probably the fingers. The reason things feel so different is painfully clear. Between writing that first jolly column and sitting down to etch this one I suffered the birth of my first child, referred to hereafter as A. Baby.

Mr. Baby and I became acquainted through a friend of a friend’s vagina, and have since become very close, almost like family. And having that – that “almost-family feeling” – well, it changes you. There are some significant tax benefits, for example. But it also raises new and frightening questions: what kind of world will I be leaving to my heir? What kind of cursed Simpsons media will be molding him into the ideal man when Treehouse of Horror LV premieres? To answer that question, we must peer into the minds behind two of today’s most powerful Simpsons-intensive indoctrination delivery vectors: public education and YouTube.

And so, fingerefusal aside (which is a portmanteau whose elegance ranks somewhere between that of the previous two), the column must and will begin. If you can guess what I’m typing this with instead of my fingers, please don’t.

THE SEVEN DEAD-IDDLY-EDDLY SINS

Rock Eisteddfod was an attempt by the Australian public school system to get kids interested in dance, healthy diet choices, and abstinence from things like alcohol and ciggies, which is one of the stupid things they call them there. The program culminated in a yearly dance competition pitting high schools against each other for backroom betting purposes. As you might imagine, the vast majority of schools – basically all except this one I found – would do something tame and sensible, like a hiphop routine where they out-breakdance and shame a faggybutt (the Australian government literally reached out and made me call it that; I’m very sorry).

But when Harristown State High comes to play, they don’t not go immediately unhinged insane, as evidenced by the supernova eyes of their spokesperson, seen here explaining to the hosts that what they are about to witness is inexplicable and therefore she isn’t actually there and this isn’t even happening right now.

Obviously you know it’s a Simpsons thing, so let’s not obfuscate that fact. In fact, the Harristown routine starts with a valiant attempt to dramatize the intense creative anguish Matt Groening must have gone through while fucking around and giggling at his own doodles. Again, by contrast, your average one of these routines starts with some kids making a bunch of Australian flags form into a food pyramid of healthy snack options. Instead, overwhelmed by the Szyslakian despair of his task, Harristown Matt skips right past overeating, drugs and alcohol, or wanton sex, and attacks Australia’s problems at their root – ALL SEVEN DEADLY SINS FUCK IT. Like the mythical hydra, we must decapitate all the fell beasts at once and put the nation’s children back on the True Christian Path Matt Groening Intended!!!

Yep, it’s a government-funded religious guilt trip in the form of a High School Simpsons musical from dawn unduh, myte! We begin with greed, avarice, the lust for money. Who better to embody it than Springfield’s own version of famed plutocrat Mr. Snrub, Montgomery Burns?

There’s upbeat synth music, Burns juggles a little and piles up big stacks of cash – it makes sense! In fact, if things stay this grounded it almost feels like a stretch to target this for a column.

Has the part of my body I’ve been typing with instead of my fingers been perhaps a tad hasty? My ex-wife always said that part was hasty, if you know what I mean! My penis is the part if you don’t know what I mean. Indeed, as we work our way up the SIN-O-METER from Greed to Gluttony, even my famous typing penis is forced to admit this concept might work fine, actually?

Homer, Gluttony, sure. Makes sense. You got dancing beer and donuts, lead kid in a funny Homer costume…and look, they made the cooling tower! Cute.

Oh okay, there’s the bump. See, I knew it would be in there somewhere. Bart taking pics of sexy Lisa while a bunch of Lisa clones lunge through the darkness bears discussion. The staging doesn’t make it totally clear whether the above tableau represents Lust or not, but I’m going to give Harristown kids the benefit of the doubt and assume it’s going for a Pride/Envy combo thing instead. The point is, my penis should trust my fingers more. Frankly, lately they aren’t on the same page at all; trying to masturbate is like plunging a rock tumbler.

Next to take the stage is Margaret Simpson, who by process of elimination should represent Sloth, which is a pretty heavy trip to lay on a baby.

Hopefully she won’t develop any weird complex or need to overcompensate to dispel the perceived stigma of her slothfulness.

Then she backflips off a skateboard! It’s a classic Simpsons undermine. Why Bart is now a frog is a reference that goes over my head, much like Maggie as she continues to flip up up and away as if to say “Hey! You out there! Don’t be fat like Dancin’ Homer! Be skinny like a Backflip Baby getting violently shaken all around!” But it’s just as well the minors have left the room (except for two of them), for what comes next can only be described as an ideogram or kind of living hieroglyphic, the essence of Wrath and Lust conflagrating as one.

Also is Marge about to pop an understudy Maggie out? What’s with that pose? Anyway, Bart and Lisa roll away and Marge and Homer split into a domestic abuse situation on the left and violent humping on the right.

Like, they dance those things, but the message is the same: “Get it? Sex and rage are in each of us commingled? You know, the point of David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence?”

“That’s true, we largely consider this a routine responding to A History of Violence.”

Just kidding. What they actually say after they’re done doing that to a bunch of other kids is – “This really opened our eyes to what children are watching on simple cartoon shows, for example The Simpsons. We’ve noticed that it’s not always a good message or a good moral coming through and parents need to realize this before they let their children watch it.”

So EITHER this was an anti-Simpsons routine, which is evidenced by Marge being the one to deliver the above buzzkilling monolog, or it was a pro-Simpsons, pro-Sin, pro-fun Ozzie creep-down I can really get behind. The only evidence tipping the scales in that direction is the subtle brilliance of starting your final line with “This really opened our eyes…” while dressed like this:

THE JAPANESE PORNOGRAPHER WHO INVENTED ASMR

Okay, so, unfortunately our investigation into what the schools are pounding into our kids’ brains, Simpsons-wise, was inconclusive. They say satire is dead, and I agree because I am unimaginative and was never taught close reading skills. Just kidding, I’m not! That was satire! Or at least irony, you gotta give me that. And now I gotta give you this, a video I first encountered in 2010 and have since rewatched in both good times and bad. All the time, that same question pounds in my brain: is this satire? What is this?

Nominally, it is a YouTube poop-style video of ideas for a potential Simpsons movie, the real Simpsons Movie having been announced the year prior. The intro music takes up half the video, will compel you to hit someone you thought you would never hit in your whole life, and is perfectly embodied by this freezeframe:

It’s “the kind of music you’d expect to be paired with imagery like that,” and I’m confident you know what I mean. As for the rest of the video, it’s a crudely-animated horrorshow I will now try and probably fail to adequately describe. In fact, I think this is such a writing challenge I need to get my penis and my fingers involved, like I do with my patented sex move “failed attempted anal because if it’s been a while you forget how awkward it actually is mechanically to get it on in there but I do really appreciate the token of intimacy and willingness to try things.” Works* every time.

Unsurprisingly, the star of the episode is a new character with a broad Australian accent. Clearly the animator was radicalized as a child by participation in the Rock Eisteddfod program. He introduces himself to Ned Flanders-through-a-Ren-and-Stimpy-filter as Fishbone or Fishface or something, then quickly dispatches him and takes up residence in his home. Shortly thereafter, the brutalized corpses of Rod and Todd are unceremoniously dumped from the second floor windows into the gutter.

Sorry, gut-diddly-uttler. Once Fishman has stripped the Flanders home bare of resources and presumably found and defiled Maude’s body, he swiftly moves on to the Simpsons themselves. In this reality, Bart is a little older, and a little less naive. Of course by that I mean he’s graduated from “El Barto” tags to “Fuck U Homer” and his usual pranks have been replaced by the simple but effective technique of throwing bricks at his father’s face.

Naturally, this results in some household tension.

And admittedly, some of the dialog about the modern legacy of Iran-Contra politicking is spot-on, but also here’s what Homer looks like:

If I know my anime, that tear means he’s sick, the snot bubble implies he’s flirting with Fishberg, and the butter smear across his bottom lip means he’s a pro and he’s ready to go. But Homer’s usual heady mix of Wrath and Lust isn’t enough to satisfy Fishbone, who angrily seduces Marge with lines that are so distorted and Australian I can’t transcribe them, then demands Homer move out, which he does.

He cries about it. The end.

Oh wait! I almost forgot that Homer comes back home at the very end to find Marge going full reverse cowgirl on Fishbutter’s churn-stick. Please note the pool of blood implying her defloration and Homer’s absolute all-timer cuck status. Homer then lets out the final line of the video, that rings clear and true like a sad sad bell in my head to this very day.

“Maaaaaaaaarge. You’re breaking my heaaaaaaaart.” Click, and be forever changed. WAY more than having a kid, by the way, which I can now confirm.

So, given that I will be offloading my son’s development to cool stuff like the above, I’d like to dive just a little deeper into the video’s poster, who goes by “virgin teen” on YouTube. His channel appears to have been active from 2002 to 2012, boasts 2.36 subs per video he’s released, and bills itself as “the official cannel [sic] of internet pioneer, millennial “asmr” inventor, cyberartist and patron saint of online, virgin teen.” Here he is reacting to the death of Michael Jackson.

And that’s the thing about virgin teen, who as I write this must be a virgin dad himself I imagine…he’s not far off about inventing ASMR. Because the invention and description of that phenomenon is widely credited to a 2007 post wherein a user named “okaywhatever” described the experience and it resonated with so many people that researcher Jennifer Allen conducted the first study into it in the 2010’s. Meanwhile, every single one of virgin teen’s videos is like the above – a static shot of him smoking one whole cigarette while he whispers about the nominal topic so quietly that all you can hear is lip on paper and whispers and vibes, man. Of hundreds of videos, turns out the Simpsons one stands alone amidst a sea of uncredited ASMR genius.

Some of v. t.’s videos predate the widespread use of the term ASMR, and include topics as diverse as “Re: Ask Olga K [Episode 7],” “Movie 17,” “Re: my internet’s gone down,” “Re: cat scratches parrot’s head,” “Re: Michael jackson has die – Michael Jasckson is dead,” and “Re: Yaprak DĂśkĂźmĂź 71.Blm 1.Parça [www.EsenlerDizi.com].” Each is a susurrating soundscape he probably meant to be ironically funny, but which actually come off incredibly soothing because satire is dead.

But virgin teen lives on, as does the spirit of ASMR, as does The Simpsons, and as does A.Baby, whose own gravitational journey towards pop cultural artifacts that will mark the ages of his life has only just begun. But you know? I think we’re in good hands.

He also does a pretty funny twitter feed of Japanese porn titles!

*As decreed by the National Genital Board following my disqualification from the league, I must include an asterisk whenever implying my dick works.

—

Michael also releases content through his outlet Small Beans, wrote a Sci-Fi/Fantasy novel you can read or listen to, and launched a hyuuuuuge Simpsons project June 1st on the old Cracked YouTube channel, so look for that!

This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Honk 𝑤ℎ𝑜 ℎ𝑎𝑠 𝑎𝑛 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑛𝑎𝑙 𝑚𝑜𝑛𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑢𝑒 𝑛𝑎𝑟𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑦 𝑣𝑖𝑟𝑔𝑖𝑛 𝑡𝑒𝑒𝑛, 𝑠𝑜 𝑖𝑡 𝑙𝑜𝑜𝑘𝑠 𝑙𝑖𝑘𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠.

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LEARNING DAY

Pride Day: The 1994 Burt Reynolds Sitcom That Nailed Trans Allyship (Because It’s Not Hard) 🌭

Once, I went to a history museum and read a letter from 1620 that powerfully changed my view of the transatlantic slave trade. Maybe I should say “deepened” instead of “changed,” since I was already pretty soured on it. Regardless, standing there, ruminating on those 405-year-old words and waiting for museum security to swap shifts so my part of the heist could go off, I quietly had my standard for basic human decency raised. See, this letter was written by a white ancestor – already a colonizer, already complicit in a genocide – reacting to the first slave ships from Africa reaching their shores. Disbelief and rage still sang in their handwriting four centuries later as they relayed the news to some inland cousin that people were going to be displayed in chains and sold as property later that week.

And folks? THEY WEREN’T HAVING IT. I’m not an expert at old-timey lingo unless I pretend to be for the purposes of a column, but as I recall the gist was something like:

Something like that. The point is, there is no excuse to disregard another’s humanity. There never has been. No being is so important they can usurp the rights of another – not because your boss told you to, not because it’s just business, not because you were only following orders, not because everyone else is doing it. We knew that in our bones four hundred years ago and we’ll know it four hundred years from now, even when we pretend we don’t.

See? And although I first absorbed that Noble Truth from an old letter in a glass case as a museum heist fell hilariously apart behind me, it’s far from the only cultural artifact showcasing the simple respect for one another we seem to find and lose again so often. Four centuries ago, that letter-writer found it. Four decades ago, it was Burt’s turn.

This is Burt Reynolds. In the 1970s and ’80s, he represented the absolute PEAK of mainstream masculinity. He starred in movies with words in their titles like “cannonball” and “smokey” and “sharkey’s” and “gator” and “Texas” and “whorehouse” and “run!” His most notable characters had names like The Bandit, Hooper, and Stroker Ace. He starred in one movie about playing football in jail, then another movie about murdering some guys for forcing gay sex on him.

Do you understand what I’m trying to tell you? Burt Reynolds shone upon the face of the Earth like a great testicle rising over a vast field of erections, bathing them with endless waves of cowboy-grade sperm, runoff T, and motorcycle-peeling-out sound effects. His hair was easy to get a secure grip on, and his leathery face caused moisture to bead and wick away naturally. In short: one of our premiere mustache rides.

Somewhere in there, Mr. Reynolds also starred in a sitcom called Evening Shade for four seasons and exactly 100 episodes. In case the name Evening Shade sounds too feminine, please note that Burt plays an ex-pro High School football coach named Wood Newton. A “newton” is of course a unit of directional force, making his character’s name essentially “Coach Dick Pushpower.”

The show’s intro sequence does nothing to dilute Burt’s formidable All-American Coach/Man/Dad status. Within the first fifteen words of the theme song, the lyrics have name-checked “front porch swings,” “glasses of lemonade” and “a baby on my knee.” In classic sexist fashion, every single member of the cast is depicted with a photo from their youth except Marilu Henner, who’s seemingly not allowed to appear in any non-bangable context.

Literally everything about Evening Shade is in tonal lockstep with the cultural mores of middle America’s “TGIF Belt” of the early ’90s. It’s uncontroversial, funny but not too funny, and puts a phenomenal cast essentially to waste. As was the style at the time, casual homophobic jokes are absolutely not off the table. Not hatefully homophobic, per se, but the kind of sitcom joke where the punchline is “what if you were gay, imagine that – huh.” Aunt Frieda might say “I found Ponder the perfect woman” and Wood will reply “Oh good, I hope you two are very happy together.” Big laugh.

Or the Beta-coded comic relief character will burst in and Wood’ll lay him out with “What are you doing, trying out for The Village People?” HUGE laugh right underneath the “Written By” credit because that was the money line!

Even the final shot of the intro is a classic case of “straight dudes accidentally stuck being naked together is always funny!”

And yet…on the off-chance you recognize that credit, it’s probably because Linda Bloodworth-Thomason also wrote and created a much bigger show called Designing Women. Danny Zuker would go on to Executive Produce Modern Family fifteen years later. Both shows have been credited for making strides for Queer representation on television, but even way back in ‘94, Linda and Danny and Burt and the whole Shade crew were already doing for Trans Rights allyship what that letter in that museum highlighted for me so long ago – THE BARE-ASS MINIMUM.

That’s right, I’m talking about “The Perfect Woman,” a campy mid-’90s sitcom episode about Ossie Davis getting set up with a trans woman! But the weird thing is? It all goes FINE. Her name is Ginger and Burt Reynolds gets her pronouns right the whole time because he BARELY GIVES A SHIT and readily acknowledges that it’s NONE OF HIS BUSINESS!! This is about as nonplussed as he gets in the episode, and it works whether you define ‘nonplussed’ the one way or the opposite way:

I’m aware that most folks reading this column already understand the way political interests pick randomly-selected out-groups to scapegoat whenever they need to get dumb people to be mean to each other instead of rebelling. Even going in with that mindset, it’s no less shocking to watch this whole Evening Shade episode unfold and never get offended. Check this fucking scene out:

It was fucking that simple! This aired on CBS at 8pm and almost no one gave a single, solitary shit! And the few who did give shits were free to give them in whatever restroom best suited their gender identity, and again – no one else murdered them over it or even cared! Like a good, detached ’90s dad, Wood simply compliments Ponder on being so secure in himself and goes back to banging on footballs with pipes in the garage.

Here’s Wood kissing both his kids because that’s a Fine Upstanding Alpha Male thing to do.

Here’s Ossie’s character, Ponder, explaining that the great thing about ketchup is that it can meet a burger, meet fries, meet some mayo and turn to thousand island dressing – “the important thing,” he says, “is that the possibilities are unlimited!” It’s literally a lecture on fluid identity using the most American fluid you’re allowed to show on cable TV.

There’s even a B-plot designed to mirror the main plot in which two hamsters named after famously gay Vegas stage magicians Siegfried and Roy navigate a maze of ducts only to discover that Siegfried is a girl!

Crucially – and perhaps most surprisingly – they also nail the scene of Ginger explaining her own situation. Here she is being played by Diahann Carroll, a legendary model, actress, singer and activist in her own right. The scene goes…

And that’s it. Respect for one another; that’s the bar. It’s very low. In fact, if someone you know chooses not to clear it, maybe punch them in the fucking mouth and show them this letter, then this episode of Evening Shade.

Like all episodes of Evening Shade, “The Perfect Woman” ends with a little narration from Ossie over the closing credits. This time around, he says…“Life can be full of surprises, and one of the nicest of them is discovering a friend you might never have met or even recognized, except in a place called Evening Shade.” I’ll add only that evening is the time of twilight, when day and night dance and melt together, and the universe demonstrates once more that almost everything is a spectrum, and nothing as separable as it seems.

Except for the main wife lady Marilu plays, who’s an insufferable giggly TERF the whole time.

Like I said, for 1994? Prescient.

–

Michael is proudly Queer, as well as the host of a new podcast about The Simpsons you can check out right now in audio or video form. The two facts are largely unrelated.

This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Moexu, a master of pronouns and respecting the shit out of people. Moexu wrote a thank you note for this dedication and mailed it out before this article even went live. Just a complete class act all the way.

Categories
LEARNING DAY

Learning Day: The Walnuts 🌭

“I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable.” – Lisa Simpson

I forget which episode that’s from, but it always stuck with me, much like every line of every episode of The Simpsons Seasons 3 through 9. But I didn’t call you all into the parlor to talk Simpsons, or even because by converting my entire studio apartment into a parlor it has become the default option. In fact, I discussed The Simpsons in a previous column and do so regularly for a living – emphasis on “disgust.”

Point is, like Lisa I contain multitudes, and most of them are Upsetting. Unfortunately I listened to too much John Mayer in college and now I’m constitutionally incapable of staying inside the lines, so today I present a Learning Day column where we’re going to learn about something very Upsetting together, and I sincerely apologize about the fact that this was unavoidable and for how it will make you feel. No one asked for it, you got it – it’s The Peanuts comic book porn parody!

Again, very sorry. Here is a column with Cheech and Mr. T if that’s more your speed. Neither of them gets fucked by tentacles in it, which is more than I can promise when it comes to The Walnuts. This is an artifact unearthed from particularly deep in the bowels of the internet, where equal page-space is dedicated to content as to ads promising things like THIS GAME WILL MAKE YOU CUM IN 2 MINUTES or JERK OFF WITH SOMEONE NAKED (which is honestly an excellent way to jerk off with someone). Obviously, given the sensitive nature of the subject, I’ll be censoring some of the more graphic bits with a few of my favorite Far Side comics by Gary Larson.

Also if y’all could make sure Alex Schmidt never sees this one, I think we’d both really appreciate it. So like, when I post on Bluesky to promote, don’t tag him in the replies or anything, that almost certainly wouldn’t be very very funny. Alright, let’s get to work on this column! But don’t you do that, because masturbating to what I’m about to show you is illegal in the state you’re in – and I mean metaphysically, like on this plane of existence.

You can’t tell from the cropped cover, but the Walnuts gang are indeed grown up in this, which is itself a relief. The team behind this comic don’t want to fuck kids, just your childhood. Also, as a professional comedy writer I’m duty-bound to note that Peanuts is already so close to “penis” that they probably could have done something with it. But don’t you do something with it, because masturbating to what I’m about to show you is so taboo that as soon as you do it your more judgmental parent automatically knows.

Packing Peanuts. Much better title. That’s free, you can have that.

Great, we’re two panels in and nothing irredeemably evil has yet unfolded. That said, a few things to note about The Walnuts as a work thus far:

🌭 You don’t email a letter.

🌭 “Am I doom to” isn’t anything.

🌭 Uh-oh, Lynus has read The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists.

🌭 Lastly, “Linus” is again so close to the word “penis” that’s probably how I would have handled it. But don’t you handle it, because masturbating to what I’m about to show you is so unnatural it will bring tamagotchis back. And not in a cute, nostalgic way – they’ll be everywhere you go, their electronic cries to be fed and cleaned ubiquitous and inescapable, forming the hideous backdrop of your new Nermal (they are Garfield-themed).

Oh hey, only three billion women? If my googling is accurate, that implies this comic was either poorly researched or made in 1999, although I prefer to believe it takes place on another planet far, far away from here.

Our first exposure to actual human lovemaking is in silhouette, which shows some restraint from the publisher. What doesn’t is calling your imprint JKR COMICS, which given that you make porn could equally represent the words “joker” or “jacker.” Then there’s the elephant in the room – Lynus is a piece of shit. Like, real human garbage. He’s not against same-sex relationships, he literally doesn’t believe they exist. Dudes are out here fuckin’ and Lynus is all “I don’t buy it.”

Protip: if a girl says “come with me” in a way where you can definitely tell she meant “cum” in place of “come,” you’ve entered Sure Thing Territory. Welcum to Favor Cuntry, my friend! This is happening. Not to mention, your mouth is shaped like a white kidney bean and her’s is shaped like a black kidney bean, so it seems like your mouths will probably fit together or snap into place in a pleasing way! It’s kissmet.

Next, Peppercorn Patty asks Charley out, or rather orders him to date her.

Cum to think of it, “Peppermint Patty” is so close to “penisy penis” that I kinda can’t wrap my head around how they missed that. But don’t you wrap your head around a penisy penis, because sucking dick to what I’m about to show you is considered a stain on your Klingon Honor that lingers down to the seventh generation. Even Alexander would bear the shame of your discommendation! Anyway, FYI Charley Brown and Marcia are about to get down to business (sex business), so fair warning. TRY NOT TO CUM IN 2 MINUTES.

Like most sexual encounters, things kick off with Charley either sucking on or repeatedly greeting Marcia’s breast. He continues to sup upon it eagerly until Marcia, wild with desire, falls to her knees to return the favor. The expression on Charley’s face as she wraps her head around his linus is unmistakable – sheer ecstasy.

Maybe mild surprise. Definitely one of those two. The comic then cuts outside to reveal that they’ve been banging in Snoopy’s impossibly large dog house the whole time. This implies either that Snoopy is thirty or the Walnuts gang are still children, just long, poorly-drawn ones.

It’s like they say: if the doghouse is rockin’, Charley Brown’s got his cock in, Marcia’s talk is shockin’ and Tupac’s glock – oh wait, there’s still more.

Gotta be honest, the mental image of jizz squizzing out of Charley Brown’s penis with a mighty SPLERT while he promises more to cum is maybe the most Upsetting moment of this whole Learning Day. So there, that’s one thing we’ve learned already! Learning is fun! For example, after apparently hours of just sitting there on the floor of a dirty doghouse with his penis getting soft inside his mate, Charley again tries to dunk on Marcia’s “performative lesbianism,” thereby learning what bisexual means.

Hey, asked and answered in both cases. Frank and open communication is key to cultivating a healthy DL cheating fuckbuddy hall pass situation with the bisexual girlfriend of the girl you’re taking out to the movies tonight. It’s your basic Three’s Cumpany-type scenario.

Charley does a classic “sad George Michael” walk over to see Patty, wrestling with intricate complexities like a girl not liking you back and casual sex as a concept. Fortunately, he’s about to have an Upsetting Day in Learning Day’s Clothing of his own that’s going to spark a lot of growth and explain a lot.

Wow. So that “we have to find my pussy” thing from earlier was a joke setup. In the writer’s mind they were laying pipe, and not in the way I hope you aren’t right now, because if you are then what I just showed you has caused a hungry Korean ghost to affix to your family as punishment.

That’s essentially the end – or “punch” – of the first issue, and admittedly Lynus wiggling his dump truck ass underneath a beloved childhood blanket long browned from use and age is an image that, for me, will endure. At least until the atrocities of The Walnuts #2 come through and scour them away like brain-Metamucil. As a starter, please note that I was forced to censor the cover because Snoopy (still asleep mind you) is sporting a big hairy red hard doggy dick.

What’s really messed up is, he’s having a sex dream about Woodstock – presumably named Woodsuck in this reality – blowing his brother Spike. It’s non-ironically maybe the best thing I’ve ever seen, and my firstborn son was born a month ago. He’s next to me right now as I write, and instead I’m looking fixedly at this bird sucking this dog’s dick. For you.

Dude, he’s bored of it! He’s not even into it! Major missed opportunity that “SUCK SUCK” isn’t “IIII IIII,” though. Charles Schulz would probably take issue with that, and nothing else about this comic tribute to his life’s work.

As the issue actually picks up, good ol’ Charley Brown is still reeling from walking “in” on his best friend tagging his sister from behind fully outdoors, Crank-style. In retrospect, it’s pretty wild that he didn’t shout “GOOD GRIEF!” but let’s set that aside for now. No Peanuts porn parody would be complete without Lucy, who is apparently still making a living by providing unlicensed psychiatric services from a cardboard box as an adult. That or, again, this is illegal child pornography that you’re reading. Here’s that Alex Schmidt social link again.

There you go, “married for many years.” My pedophilia concerns have finally and at last been put to rest, leaving ample room for other disturbing things to take their place. Lucy is naturally upset to be texted a pic of her man “tickling the ivories,” as they might say in “piano school.”

Wow, that’s…actually true. And like, kind of wise? I suppose whatever Lucy and Charley get up to next will truly define them.

Implied pedophilia is BACK, baby! The young lovers waste no time doing the psychiatrically responsible thing in the face of marital infidelity – rutting like animals.

I tried to pick Far Side comics that actually captured the mood of those middle, filthy panels, so hopefully that gives you some understanding of what lies beneath. Here’s a hint: the snake represents a penis and the dirty dingoes represent that Lucy is about to get anally assaulted by a dog and I really didn’t want that to sneak up on you. Put on your 3-D glasses now.

Seeing Snoopy’s dick is something you can’t take back, much like my place on various government registries upon the release of this article. It doesn’t help that he is by far the best-drawn character in the book, with by far the veiniest cock. Our only real consolation is that he doesn’t appear again after this panel, which I take to mean he was imprisoned and shanked to death by other, less odious inmates. And in fact, that’s all of the sex in the comic done, but not all of the implied pedophilia.

Wait, not implied – explicit and confirmed beyond doubt.

SHROLDER?! Fucking Shrolder? When it already sounds so much like “penis?” At this point, you might be wondering what kind of porn parody has a bunch of backstory it needs to deploy at the end, after the final sex scene. Pretty sure the only other porn parody I’ve ever seen that did that was the gay Memento parody, Guy Piercin’. That made sense though, since it went back-to-front. Don’t you put your back against a front though, because fucking while you read what I’m about to show you is considered the Eighth Deadly Sin and is punishable by Kevin Spacey.

He just gets you. He has you and he gets to do whatever. Although if you are able to have sex during this next part, honestly, kudos. You’re a worse, more disgusting person than I am, and I admire that, which I think makes us tied again.

What comes next is truly shocking.

That’s right, it wasn’t a typo, his name is really Shrolder! Fucking ew. Again, I’m not sure why we’re still locked into the story at this point, but the important thing is that we can tell from Charley’s facial expression that he’s cumming exactly as hard as he did when Marcia sucked him off in the magic doghouse.

Charley Brown’s O-face is most people’s Oh-no-face. Which indeed he yells, which reaches all the way to Shrolder’s ears, since he is also fucking outside like we all do every time. In a wild twist, Shrolder is fucking Charley’s daughter, who he thinks is his own daughter. You might recognize this as the opposite of both the Oedipus Complex and all that is right and good.

In the face of such ruinous filth, one could not be blamed for regressing mentally just as a means of escape! This concludes my essay on How I Spent My Summer Vacation. My best subject is History and when I grow up I want to be a Marine Biologist.

This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Eric Christian Berg, who paid extra to make sure this one wasn’t free

Categories
NERDING DAY

Nerding Day: The Magic of the Golden Bear 🌭

Gather around children, for the fire is warm upon the hearth and my grandfatherly voice is just the right amount of gin-soaked. It smells of old leather, even though there is none in the room. And, if you’ll all just close your precious peepers and shut up for five minutes For The Love of God, I’ll tell you a story – one sure to entertain the whole family in their home theatre. See?

Tonight’s tale is called The Magic of the Golden Bear, and then in parenthesis “(Goldy III).”

Do you know what parenthesis are? Can you explain why the movie subtitle is in parenthesis? Because I can’t! Nor can I tell you why the number is in the subtitle, even though the first two Golden Bear movies have it the normal way.

Also, how do you go “Last,” then “Saga,” then “Magic?” How is that a build? Oh, and of course by “movie,” Grandpa means the bedtime story he’s about to tell you. We should probably start since my premise is already slipping.

This is the story of Goldy III: The Magic of the Golden Bear!

Once, there was a big fluffy bear, and not the kind that became Daddy’s new best friend when Daddy and Mommy stopped being best friends (even though all three of them still love you very much). This bear’s name was Goldy, and she was the very last Golden Bear. Being the last of something is called being “rare,” like how you don’t see a diamond very often unless you work at the place where they keep big piles of diamonds to keep diamond prices high. Or a steak can be rare, or cows can become rare because steak is so common. Words sure can be confusing!

Here’s some confusing words, letting you know that sharing the story I’m about to tell you is a big no-no, especially if you ask all your little friends for a nickel to hear it. This is called copyright law, and it’s something you won’t have to worry about when you grow up because of A.I. technology. Now, in this story there’s a very scary character called the Ghost Man, so try to be brave. To make the Ghost Man a little less scary, let’s imagine him as someone silly, like Mr. T.

Not Mr. T from our alphabet book, I mean Mr. T the man from the YouTube compilation I showed you. His real name is Laurence, did you know that? What a stupid name. I don’t think a name could get any sillier.

I stand corrected. Cheech’s real name is Richard Anthony, but he shortened it to Cheech because of marijuana. Marijuana is a plant that helps grandpas relax, and the reason you can only eat the brownies in the vermillion tupperware, never the cerise, even though I placed them side-by-side within easy reach and swap them occasionally to keep you on your toes.

There will be other people in the story too, all of whom have porn star names. There’s Danny Woodburn, Jeff Handsomeguy, Fuck Blower, Kevin Broseph and Dick Millionaire. Can you think of a funny porn star name? No, Jonny Spaghetti is not a good porn star name. You suck at this.

Anyhow, one day Goldy’s very best friend, a little girl named Geraldine Vajbyrne, was getting oo-mox from her cranky old teacher Mrs. Dowrimple. Mrs. Dowrimple was mad because Geraldine always had dirty bare feet at school. Even though her dirty bare feet were how Geraldine made most of her income, she didn’t care one bit, and only wanted the schoolhouse to stay clean. Heck, she was such a mean old crow, she even got upset when Goldy stole her bicycle, rode it past the school at breakneck speed, immediately ate shit and totaled the bike against a tree, sprinted back to the schoolhouse, ate all the kids’ lunches and took over control of the classroom!

That old Mrs. Dowrimple sure was a bitch! Can you say “bitch?” That’s right, you can’t. That was a test. Good job. Old Mrs. D was so angry, she made Geraldine and Goldy both wear dunce caps and sit in the corner.

Well, the school only had the one dunce cap, so Goldy had to use a spare Klan hood. This was the rural 1860s, after all. Now to intercut, weaving various threads of the story together in a fashion that disjoints time to maintain a feeling of dynamics. But I shouldn’t patronize – you know how bedtime stories work, you’re seven. So meanwhile, the cantankerous racist who lent Mrs. Dowrimple the hood and his two dumbshit sons wandered through the scrub, probably sucking each other off and murdering buffalo, the absolute assholes.

This sort of behavior made the Ghost Man very mad, so mad that he also decided to indulge in some 1860s-style racism. He jumped out at the men, shaking his appropriative rain stick and looking fierce in his appropriative face paint and headdress! Spellcheck urged Grandpa to change that to “appropriate rain stick” and “appropriate face paint,” but that would be inaccurate.

Realizing that he is fighting racism with racism, which is another big no-no, the Ghost Man came up with a better plan. He fought racism…with fire!

This scared the bad men all the way back to town, where there would be no more racism at all (as long as you don’t count wooden drugstore indians).

Needing to further dirty her feet for reasons Grandpa will explain to you when you’re older, Geraldine headed out into the wilds, her loyal bear and companion Goldy by her side. The only problem was, at least one of them – and maybe both – were fools, to be pitied. The Ghost Man had no choice but to scare them away too, even though Goldy has a bite power of roughly nine hundred pounds per square inch, which would act upon the Ghost Man’s bones much like an industrial press upon a bundle of reeds.

The Ghost Man would probably have chased them all the way home! Luckily, his reasonable crow friend talked him down, explaining that he had observed Geraldine and Goldy, and knows them to be friends to animals, lovers of freedom, and owners of some of the filthiest feet around.

CAW! said the crow! OH! said the Ghost Man! I DIDN’T KNOW THAT! THANK YOU CROW!

The Ghost Man could talk to animals, see, or else was seriously mentally ill. Or both! Sometimes more than one thing can be true at the same time, like how Grandpa’s drink can be tequila AND rum AND vodka AND triple sec AND lemon juice AND simple syrup AND a splash of cola. Anyhow, the crow had been canceled for his previous work on Dumbo but was trying to make a lowkey comeback in the world of straight-to-TV. Sorry, I mean straight-to-bedtime-story-I-wrote-for-you.

That night at dinner, Geraldine told her clod-hopping family all about the Ghost Man. While they were distracted, Goldy ate their pie right off the windowsill! It made everyone laugh, both because it’s just such a silly thing to do, and because of the bite pressure dry reeds thing I mentioned earlier.

Seriously, Grandchild, look at the guy on the right – that’s a terror-smile. But it’s nothing compared to the terror-smile an egg-eyed little person with a fu-manchu mustache had just at that moment given to a poster of his master, the great magician Borgia.

For Master Borgia’s first trick, he kind of did a match cut between the poster and himself making the same face…kind of. In your mind’s eye, please imagine legendary stoner comic Cheech Marin as the great magician. If you also get a little high, some of the back half of the story will make more sense. Go ahead, Grandpa won’t tell. Look, I’ll go first. What are you, chicken?

Anyway, trick two was to shove a sword right through his throat, which was pretty wicked.

Master Borgia also had the power of hypnosis, which he showcased as his third and final trick. That was the whole show: a knife to the neck and the power to bend men to his will.

Keep in mind, this was history times. The Masked Magician had not yet taken to FOX to reveal The Magician’s Secrets, so people were more easily impressed by simple tricks like mind control.

Using his power to see the future through a crystal ball, which arguably would have been a good way to pad out the show a bit, Master Borgia became aware of Goldy. Since Goldy was the very last Golden Bear in the world, she was imbued with a lot of natural magic, and the evil magician decided to try and steal her to make her part of his show. It was a real 101 Dalmatians situation, if the dalmatians could have swatted Cruella to the ground and crunched her face off at will.

Of course, fifteen minutes had passed so it was time for another long look at Geraldine dirtying her feet. What’s that? You don’t like that part of the story? Shh, let Grandpa have this. Let Grandpa cook. Anyhow, once Geraldine’s feet were nice and filthy, she said goodbye to Pa and set off barefoot with a pair of boots over her shoulder.

Then, in a surprise twist, the story pulled out to reveal that they apparently live in Chernobyl.

She swiftly made her way back to the town concentration camp, I mean schoolhouse, to scrabble in the dirt with the other drab moppets and learn about what her life was unfortunately going to be like.

This meant Goldy had to stay home alone with Pa, which made her none too happy! She missed Geraldine, and wasn’t afraid to say so.

ROAAAAR! said Goldy. Pa just stood there a-cleanin’ his rifle until she got the idea and went and threw on one of Ma’s old dresses (rest her soul). Then Pa and Goldy did some roleplay, which Grandpa will tell you about when you’re significantly older than you will be when Grandpa tells you about the dirty feet stuff.

Finally, it was time for the Big Town Talent Show that I forgot to mention until now! Everyone was very excited as they filed under the big poster with the traditional symbol of a talent show on it: one black cat with a neck ruff standing atop two kittens who are themselves stood atop two kittens apiece, astride three balls of yarn that form the base.

Master Borgia was in town looking for Goldy, and took the stage first. He dazzled everyone right away with a trick even better than mind control or immortality – the ability to vomit paper for a long long time. Think of the applications!

Geraldine knew she would have to pull out all the stops to win against such a magical magician, so she and Goldy practiced all night on their acrobatics routine, which they had to perform that afternoon for the whole town.

Goldy didn’t do shit. Geraldine flipped all around and cheated her feet toward camera and did everything that was asked of her, but Goldy just sat there trying to use forced perspective to make it seem like she was standing on a ball. She wasn’t. “This is going to be harder than I thought!” thought Geraldine. “Fuck!” It was the first time she had ever sworn in her head. It felt good.

But with Goldy unable or unwilling to do any proper tricks, Geraldine knew she had only one hope of winning that Big Town Talent Show. Taking the stage, she forgot all about her acrobatics routine and fell back on pure instinct. Thus, after a brief Ace Ventura impersonation, she bent all the way over and let out a long, high, keening whistle of a fart for four whole minutes.

And then everyone clapped.

Even Master Borgia had to admit it was the finest work of art and affirmation of the human spirit he’d ever been privileged enough to witness. That fart was so beautiful, in fact, that it shattered the will of Master Borgia’s assistant, who left town to “go find himself,” which in this case meant working shifts as a night watchman at a feed and grain operation up in Tulsa.

Spotting his opportunity, Borgia tried to hypnotize Pa into giving him Goldy, but Pa passed a Will Saving Throw and shrugged off the attempt.

This left Borgia no choice but to try and rig the big shooting contest, so he could win a pot of gold and buy Goldy anyway. Again, owning the bear would amplify his magic abilities for reasons I can’t and won’t be goaded into explaining.

Somewhere, a rainbow wept and a leprechaun went without, because that pot of gold was brimming, let me tell you! Everyone in town took a turn shooting at targets, hoping to win that big shiny pile of coins. There was Calamity Ma’am…

…Gentleman Jim “Dandy” Léon…

…Brad from Homeroom…

…and of course, Jesse Plemons.

When Pa’s turn finally came, Master Borgia unleashed his most powerful spell of all – a handful of loose glitter!

And believe it or not, that was enough. Pa missed his target, leaving Borgia to win the gold. He then immediately tried to buy Goldy from Pa, a man who had just that morning resisted magical ensorcellment. Shockingly, that also didn’t work, since Pa could just say “no, I don’t want to sell you the bear for a pot of gold” and then Borgia was essentially out of moves.

…and that’s how Goldy the Bear and Geraldine the Foot Model didn’t win a pot of gold but did turn from pitiable fools into the ones pitying the fool, which their rival the magician Master Borgia now had become. Honestly, pretty straightforward. Dry stuff.

Oh, you’re not asleep yet? But the fire is no longer warm upon the hearth. Okay, shit, well, I guess we haven’t checked in with Mr. T in a while. So, realizing Goldy didn’t rightly belong to anyone, Geraldine and Pa released her into the wild, where she and the Ghost Man hung out and did bear stuff for the rest of their days.

What? Who ended up with the pot of gold? I guess Borgia did according to plot logic, but that doesn’t seem right – bad guy leaving with the gold. Hm…okay, let’s say Ghost Man beat Borgia to death later outside town. That wise old crow ate his eyes, I guess. Goodnight!

—-

Michael has moved from X to Bluesky. He also has a Patreon and a Substack, and releases new videos on the Cracked YouTube channel every Sunday.

This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Russell Bauman, who is very relieved nobody fucked the bear in this one.

Categories
UPSETTING DAY

Upsetting Day: Why Must I Destroy What I Simpsons?🌭

I’m going to be honest, I tried pretty hard not to make this an “Upsetting Day” column. Like any little sniveling weirdo, I hate being identified as such outright, and scuttle away from that appellation like coal workers fled post-WWII Appalachia. I also use big words and really esoteric references to ensure 80% of the HOTDOG audience doesn’t make it past the first paragraph. New paragraph!

When I pitched Sean and Robert what I’m calling “A Small Flight of Simpsons Weirdness” to tie into the launch of my own Simpsons video series on Cracked, I asked if they had anything to throw onto the pile before I got writing. Robert immediately responded with, “no I’m not aware of any upsetting Simpsons porn, sorry.” Couple that with a recent comment that said “Every Swaim column is an Upsetting Day,” and you can guess what I’m lying awake at night agonizing over instead of spending that time giving to my friends who’ve been impacted by the latest climate catastrophe, like some Grade-A Prick (pictured here for reference):

Michael (N.) – Grade-A Prick with a grade-C prick.

Refusing to be so easily pigeonholed, I set out to prove everyone wrong with a cute collection of kitschy Simpsons stuff we could all share a Munsonesque chuckle over. “HAWHaw!” we’d all say, delighted and not the least unsettled by a Japanese Homer robot that actually eats shorts, then craps them out into the hamper perfectly folded. Try as I might though, by the time the dust settled, the most innocent artifact I’d unearthed was straight hardcore live action Simpsons porn.

Talk about a couch gag!

#deepthroat #throatgoat #MargeILF #Ijustthinktheyreneat #awfulawfulhair

Hoist with my own weird, moist petard, I resolved myself to the grim task of pinching off a fresh plop of Upsetting Day for those of you brave enough to step behind the beaded curtain. Let us dig deep into yellow horror, as deep as Sting can dig. And lemme tell ya, Sting’s a good digger.

Bort talks back to Morge! ☠️ #morge #bort #simpsons #cursed #meme #memes #funny #fail by Soggy_Nugget

The problem with most cursed Simpsons stuff at this point is the market is flooded with people intentionally trying to cast a curse, and trying too hard. Here’s a textbook example – the words you can’t read are the lyrics to “A Whole New World.”

These are the kinds of Simpsons memes AI will probably start spitting out when the tech bros realize AI pizza delivery and AI emojis and AI headstones aren’t monetizing as well as they’d hoped. And indeed, our first example in this collection is riiight on the line. So watch yourself, nasally, blue-haired counselor!

You can tell the guys behind the “Bort and Morge” TikTok series are intentionally doing a meme, both because of the subtle “Bort” nod to those in the know, and because they hashtagged each episode with “meme” and “memes,” but also “fail,” which is to “meme” as “23-skidoo” is to “skibidi,” in that I don’t know what any of this means and I’m confused and scared (pictured here for reference):

Michael (N.) – Middle-aged man yelling at pre-cloud vapor condensate.

The vid I’ve chosen to highlight starts with Bart literally cooking up some drugs like the scamp he perennially is.

This upsets Morge, who bursts in wearing a homemade costume composed of blue paper, scotch tape, a green dress, pearls, a ping pong ball cut in half, some dots drawn on with a sharpie, and – perhaps most importantly for our purposes – an angry Australian(??) man shouting incoherently.

The two fall to arguing, which sounds like a beach full of sea lions at mating season, then Morge quite predictably punches her son’s face in and feasts on the goo inside, which looks to me like a mix of tomatoes and meat. For the Simpsons-unsavvy, “meat” is what Lisa doesn’t eat and “tomatoes” are half of a tomacco.

After extensive research, the only other things I can tell you about these dudes is that they call themselves “Soggy Nugget,” they have more YouTube subs than me, and their most popular video is a 3D scene of some Jabbawockeez #failing to drink a saucer of milk at you.

I think the great Ethan Gillespie summed it up best in the channel’s most recent comment when they said:

Drawing Mr. Burns from The Simpsons by Intrigue Me

If you’re like me, you might experience an engaging piece of art like that above and feel energized to try and make your own. But what if you don’t have drugs, or a friend, or a pan? One easy workaround is to get into the notoriously easy animation field – but first, you’ll need to be able to draw. And naturally, your first step toward drawing Simpsons characters is to draw what look like off-brand knockoffs of the Simpsons characters. Enter YouTube coach Intrigue Me.

Who knew Patty and Selma had a third sister, Also Selma But Not Quite? I bet Homer hates her fucking guts and for similar reasons. The unnamed host of all the Intrigue Me tutorial videos draws pretty much all the Simpsons regulars, but he didn’t always. Early on, he flailed around from subject to subject, seemingly unsure what sort of mediocre drawings people out there were desperate to replicate.

For a brief period, all of his videos were paid promotions for something called SCRIBIT, which is to “skibidi” as “rizz” is to “RIBBIT.” As far as I can tell, it’s a futuristic device for drawing the goatse image anywhere you want at Banksy sizes. Frogs, the reasoning goes, are attracted to the ‘RIBIT’ in ‘SCRIBIT,’ and can be easily captured as they leap floppily and ineffectually at the false gaping butthole drawn on the wall of your breakfast nook.

If you’re interested, you can buy your own SCRIBIT at that mall store, Wider Image. But what I’d like to refocus on are Intrigue Me’s Simpsons sketches, like this one of Mr. Burns.

It actually looks okay, but the real highlight is the endless urge our guy has to explain the show as he works, in the deadest terms possible. Here’s his relation of the classic Simpsons banger “Release the hounds!”

Dude, I love this. The next time I’m with friends I will absolutely be like “Remember that joke in The Simpsons where one of the titular family members, possibly Marge or Barney Simpson, strangles someone who has displeased them as a showing of their negative feelings toward the smaller person, resulting from what they had previously done with ill intent, the smaller human being called a child, I think it was Bart?” Incidentally, the opposite move also works; for instance I once recounted the whole of Homer’s The Odyssey with just a gif of Bender saying “I’m back, baby!”

The Simpsons couch gag by Lee Hardcastle

If the first drink in your Small Flight of Simpsons Weirdness was a shot of bourbon, and the second was a pickleback, our last entry would be the gasoline you siphon from a stranger’s car at dawn so you can drive home. Which sucks, because that means two out of three weren’t even drinks, really, and this metaphorical bar should be review-bombed immediately. But no amount of one-star reviews will save us from claymation animator Lee Hardcastle, whose mind is definitely in the running for “most likely to bring back the descriptor ‘twisted.’”

Lee mashes up The Simpsons with gruesome horror and crime flicks, which usually entails mashing up large amounts of Play-Doh too. Here’s his “parody” of You’re Next, in the sense that the rat-cleaned eye sockets of your dead loved one are a parody of the life that once resided there.

After watching Jimbo Jones cut her baby up with a machete, Marge gets scalped, wrestles a shotgun away from one of the bullies, and slaughters everyone in the room before dying herself. It’s so fucking disgusting the only thing I can think to compare it to is Shakespeare, the most lauded author in all of the English language. It’s that despicable.

Lee’s done a whole series of these, one of which mashes up a scene from Reservoir Dogs with the Pixies song from Fight Club, which I believe is how you summon Rick Sanchez. Highlights include Hans Moleman getting his head blown off at the tender age of thirty-one and Moe Szyslak doing his best impression of experimental torture-porn film Begotten.

Of course, Begotten is a meditation on the violence inherent in creation, endless cycle of decay, and existential threat humanity poses to the Earth that sustains us, whereas Lee’s video is kind of a downer. Also I’m not sure why they couldn’t make Marge hotter? Really pisses me off.

Until next time…

…I’ve been the Joker, babies.

Michael (V.) – The Joker.

This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: FancyShark, a bootleg Bart whispering in the night, ‘Eat my scream.’