Maybe. But the real question is can I fuck them?

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Walter Watched Movies, 2022 edition!

1/2010. Cruella (2021)
Yeah, it looks good, and yeah, it's got a good soundtrack, but this became the first Emma Stone movie I could not make it all the way through. It's not her fault, exactly. She does manage to marginally soften an inherently vile character, but Cruella's character arc is about embracing the evil within. After the end-of-third-act twist making bad people even worse, I decided I just didn't want to spend any more time with any of the awful, awful characters that apparently populated 1970s London. Burn it all to the ground.

2/2011. The Line King: The Al Hirschfeld Story (1996)
Technically, this documentary of the famous Broadway caricaturist was not really new to me. I had forgotten that I originally saw it in college as one of the films the late lamented Bill Marriott showed aspiring artists in his drawing classes. Hirschfield was a master artist who lived an interesting life, and I heartily recommend this to any art (or Broadway) fans out there.

3/2012. The Great Dictator (1940)
I started watching this in 2021, but couldn't get into it. I forced myself to finish it here, and I can understand its historic (and political) significance, but I wouldn't want to watch it again. What can I say? I just don't enjoy watching Chaplin mugging for the camera as the Tramp or as Hitler.

4/2013. Josie and the Pussycats (2001)
Unlike The Line King, I thought I had seen this, but apparently I had it confused with its contemporary, Spice World. My mistake. There's no way I would have forgotten some of this content if I had seen it before. ("I still don't understand why you're here." "Because I was in the comic book.") Spice World is a parody of the music business, but Josie is satire, an unflinching social-commentary satire masquerading as fluff. It's maybe even more relevant to life in 2021 than it was to 2001.

The over-the-top overt product placement in this film about subliminal influencing is very, very much the point of this spear. It's become well publicized that the producers received no extra funding from placing the corporate intellectual products in the film, but that sort of misses the point that brands like Target, Revlon, and, yes, Coca-Cola *still* benefited from putting their logos before the eyes of movie audiences, even as a punchline. The beast knows that the only bad press is no press.

You know you want to drink a Coca-Cola right now.

More to come.

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Watched just in time for Christmas:

146. (2005.) Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984)

This movie is infamous because of how public response to its Santa-with-an-axe ad campaign ended up getting the movie pulled from theatrical release. But what it should be infamous for is how it twists the Batman's origin into a (lame) horror story.

As my Christmas gift to the world, I've translated the movie back into comic panels.

Now you can say you've seen Silent Night, Deadly Night (just like how for years I said I'd seen the R-rated Robocop when I'd only read the PG-rated Marvel Comics adaptation). Merry Christmas!

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from "The Canine and the Crooks," Superman #19, November/December 1942

You tell 'em, Superman!

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Twitter very helpfully reminds me that today is Batman Day 2021. Explains the site: "Fans pay tribute to the DC Comics superhero on Batman Day, which is celebrated each year on the third Saturday of September." The only problem with that description is that it is not true.

Maybe Batman Day is held on the third Saturday of September since 2018, but it wasn't always. As I have documented elsewhere, Batman Day has been all over the calendar since it was first recognized in July 2014. But that's not the part I'm really bothered by.

The word "fans" in that description is misleading, unless you'd describe the corporations who own the Batman intellectual property as fans. Unlike Star Wars Day, which began as a genuine celebration of its source material before being taken over as a marketing exercise by The Walt Disney Co., Batman Day has never been anything other than a marketing exercise by WarnerMedia.

I wonder if whoever crafted that description for Twitter wasn't having a little fun with the wording. The phrase "pay tribute," which has come to mean a figurative giving of praise, was originally meant quite literally. A tribute is a tax levied on conquered peoples. Give your thanks (and dollars!) to your corporate masters, Bat-fans!

Which is not to say that I don't like Batman or think it's uncool to say how great the Caped Crusader is. I'd just like a little honesty in why we chose today to do it, is all.

Batman #119, October 1958

Honesty! It's what Batman would want.

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Disappointment is a side effect of expectations.

I liked Executive Producer Mike Richards as Jeopardy! MC. I thought he was among the best of the "guest hosts" who have been substituting for the late, great Alex Trebek. I wanted Richards to have the job permanently.

But Richards (or his bosses) made a mistake. When they told the general public that the new host would be "one of the guest hosts," that set the expectation in the minds of the public that the job would go to the host they personally liked best. Hence the widespread disappointment from LeVar Burton's legion of well-earned fans when the least known (but best connected — and probably also the cheapest) of all the temporary hosts got the gig.

Thus the door was opened for the inevitable amateur yellow journalists digging up every negative thing Richards has done or said in his 46 years on the planet. Sadly, not everyone can be as perfect a person as Alex Trebek.

If any of Richards' innumerable sins (mostly misogyny & bad jokes) is truly unpardonable, it was that as Executive Producer he had the inside track on selecting and auditioning hosts. Even if he didn't have the final say himself, he should have known that when you're in the race, you can't also be the referee. Americans expect their game shows to be fair, and they're always disappointed when they aren't.

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Every Batman fan worth his salt knows "The Joker's Comedy of Errors!", better known as "The Joker's Boner" story. Originally presented in Batman #66, Aug/Sep 1951, it can be summed up in one panel:

This is but one of 6 "boner" newspaper headlines in this story.

If you haven't read the story or you struggle with context clues, you might find it helpful to know that my trusty 1977 Webster's New Twentieth Century Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged defines "boner" thusly:

bōn´ẽr, n. a stupid or silly blunder. [Slang.]

As Batman #66 proves, newspaper editors love boners. Which brings us to the point of today's post.

In order to fill column space As a public service, The Newnan Times-Herald newspaper reprints food inspection reports from county restaurants. It's usually a lot of repeated warnings that store managers aren't checking the mold levels in their ice machines. (Come on, guys! It's right there in the Georgia Department of Public Health Rules and Regulations, Chapter 511-6-1-.05-7-b-5-iv-II!)

This month, in honor of Independence Day, the paper rewarded loyal readers by giving our local hot dog stand a boner of its own:

Oysters really are an aphrodisiac!

For the record, the restaurant calls itself "The Half Shell Oyster Bar & Hot Dog Shop." Rumor has it their menu was selected because the city wouldn't let them install an oven in their original location downtown, so they chose items they could cook with steam. (Welcome to Newnan!)

I've never had the oysters, but the chili dogs *are* pretty exciting.

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From the Family Business Department:

This is not a Red Bee appearance. It is a Red Bee reference.

Inferior 5 #5, March 2019

And it's a weird reference in a weird comic book. Let me explain.

No, there is too much. Let me sum up.

Inferior 5 was a 12-issue monthly comic book mini-series that began publishing in September 2019. It was intended to continue the story of Invasion!, a mini-series published in 1989 by the writer of that series. But Inferior 5 didn't find much of an audience for a 30-year old story that hadn't been particularly popular the first time around, so it was reduced to a 6-issue series mid-stream. Then The Pandemic came. Comic publishing was put on a hiatus, and Inferior 5 #5 and #6 were simply abandoned.... until they were released online in March 2021.

Now, as to Red Bee's involvement: Red Bee was *dead* by the time of Invasion!. He'd died fighting Nazis on February 23, 1942, as revealed in 1984, remember? Which means the Red Bee captured by the aliens in 2019's 1989 story couldn't be the same Red Bee.

Whew. Even summing up took a while, huh?

I'm speculating here, but a little known fact is that Rick "Red Bee" Raleigh had a grand niece who would take up the family business in 2007 (with robotic bees, which are so much easier to train). Maybe the alien invaders in 1987 knew something that we didn't. Maybe young grandniece Jenna was the Red Bee in custody. Children and legacies *are* prominent themes of Inferior 5, at least insofar as I can make out from the messy pile of leftover panels presented in issues 5 and 6.

Stranger things have happened. We are talking about a series of heroes who fight crime with bees, after all.

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Independence Day is my favorite day of the year, but I really, really hate it when it falls on a Sunday. That means 2 full nights of non-stop fireworks. (From sundown until after midnight! There oughta be a law!)

Spidey Super Stories #17, 1976

Everyone who shoots fireworks in a residential neighborhood should be reincarnated as a dog.

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Celebrate Christmas in June with Superboy!

What I heard: solve poverty by giving poor people money. That Superboy, he's a thinker.

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