A Wisconsin Yankee in Walt Disney's Court

I couldn’t help but be thrilled by the recent story of the woman who tried to sue Cap’n Crunch because after 4 years of eating Crunchberries she realized they weren’t real fruit. A judge was forced to write a non-condescending opinion in dismissing the case that sounds like something from The Onion. My favorite line, from the Consumerist write up: “This Court is not aware of, nor has Plaintiff alleged the existence of, any actual fruit referred to as a ‘crunchberry.’”
Simply classic. But what could the mentality of the person who brought the lawsuit be? And how could any being who’s supposedly smart enough to pass a bar exam represent them? There’s apparently a legal precedent from another nutball who tried to sue Toucan Sam because Froot Loops don’t contain any real fruit. You’d think “Froot” would’ve nipped complaints like that in the bud, but you can’t be sure anymore. In a world where most people can’t spell “fruit” they must’ve seen it coming eventually. I knew a guy who didn’t learn how it was spelled until sometime in his forties, and went around pronouncing in “froo-itt” like everybody else in the world was an idiot.
It’s a personal favorite, the naive moron tale. The best may be the story of the numerous people who complained about one of those animatronic dinosaur exhibits at a zoo because the dinosaurs weren’t real. I’m pretty sure that was in Tennessee, but still. And Texas was beset by reports of giant flying pteradactyls after a famous find of a pteradon fossil in the 1970s. Bible belt anti-evolutionists thought they were under siege and mistook every small aircraft they saw for a monster chasing their car.
Anyway, the good Cap’n survived another hit. They took away his Jay Ward commercials, cool little plastic toys in the box, and made him look bad by making every other cereal on the planet “healthier.” They’re even adding fiber to Apple Jacks, the quintessential sugary emptiness for Saturday mornings. But Cap’n Crunch hasn’t given in, and the legal system and America’s morons won’t be the ones to take him down.

Click for full size. I’m not sure what this illustrates. I didn’t hunt down the associated article, though, because I’d rather wonder how somebody ended up with a wheelbarrow full of baby orangutans almost exactly all the same size. It’s not like they have litters, like kittens or in vitro-fertilized barren humans. I like to keep the hope alive in the back of my mind that the story is that they’ve found a way to mass-produce baby apes who will never grow into giant brutes who can snap your limbs like twigs and will alway be docile. On the other hand, it may be about Sumatra being over-run by the orange-haired freaks and this batch is heading to the incinerator. I don’t want to know that.

Other ape news: Cuter than seems remotely possible, this chimp has adopted two white lion cubs at a zoo. Cute, but all three will be willing and able to eat your face off in just a few months, so enjoy it while it lasts.

Japan may be way ahead of us in every kind of technology, but they might also be the first to fall to our monkey overlords judging by this story of two macaques running a sake bar near Tokyo. Click on the video link to see a bipedal monkey in a tiny robe plot the overthrow of his cruel masters between drink orders. The owner of the bar is already training more, so as soon as this little guy gets his army in place it’ll be viva la revolution! just you wait and see.

Of course, my real reason for moving to Florida was to search for the infamous Skunk Ape, the most plausible of the American Bigfoot variants. While my trailcam mounted on the patio has failed to get a hairy apeman picture for me yet, I haven’t given up hope and plan to spend the winter wading through the Everglades tracking him down.

I don’t know how mainstream this has gone, but you may have heard that some yahoos in Georgia claim to have a Bigfoot body in a freezer and are, as of this writing, planning a press conference for Friday. Of course it’s all a scam, with a continually changing story and at least one principal who’s been involved in the past with false claims of a Bigfoot body in a freezer that he used to bilk people $14.95 a month to view his monster-cam on the web. The bigfoot itself looks remarkably like a costume you can buy through the mail, and varies from what they initially described as an almost-human hairy guy.

Still, you’d be amazed at the believers who haven’t given up hope. The cryptozoology forums are rife with folks seeing things in the picture that aren’t there, and using any rationale imaginable to justify the incoherent story behind the whole thing. Some people just won’t question anything. And when the body is hauled away mysterious;y by the Men in Black or some malarky, they’ll continue to scream conspiracy and lament the scientific proof that might have been.

Myself, I have to hand it to the guys who pulled this off, getting as far as an interview on FOX News last night, and mentions on every talk radio show in the country. They did it with the expense of a California PR firm, but mainly built up their notoriety with a simple website and a few props. Their story wasn’t very good, or even consistent, but a certain group ate it up anyway. What a world this web thing has made.

Here are some links explaining the whole tale:

Cyptomundo is the web’s best clearing house for your weird animal news, and has crashed the last couple of days as a result of the publicity. Host Loren Coleman was off the bandwagon, briefly on, but I think back off again.

The Bigfoot Field Researchers Orginization doesn’t have much of a sense of humor and doesn’t buy any of it. And they’ve bought some questionable tales in the past. I think they’re jealous of the publicty they aren’t getting, and I think, like Loren Coleman, upset that they weren’t invited to be in on the story.

This Bigfoot discussion board has a nice rundown, followed by various belivers and debunkers. See the conspiracy theories starting early.

This guy did some nice work to show how closely the Bigfoot looks like a readily available costume. And here’s where you can buy it.

The Anomalist has more, including the FOX footage, and has a good assortment of weird news links every day.

Funny, funny stuff, and until I find the real thing down here, as close as we’ve got…

I’m not much of a sports fan anymore; I was as a kid, somewhat, going to baseball and football games and watching enough of them on TV that I remember hearing the news of John Lennon’s murder from Howard Cosell.

Later, I just got sick of it, I guess, and would rather go out and do something or read than follow sports. Mainly, I hated the fanatical “Our lives depend on the Packers’ win-loss record!” attitude that possessed my family and most of the rest of the state. My brother still misses work the Monday after a Packers loss, and openly started bawling during the first quarter of their 3rd Super Bowl win when they fell behind early. He and my dad, and my mom for that matter, spend an entire game screaming and berating their team, even if they’re winning, for any perceived lack of effort or athletic failure. My brother stood up and screamed at the TV during the aforementioned Super Bowl after it was all but wrapped up, ranting that certain players on the sidelines shouldn’t be given Super Bowl rings for sitting on their asses. In reality, it was a couple of 350-pound linemen who’d been forced and/or drugged into basically running wind sprints for two hours and were nearly suffocating on diesel fumes from an elaborate halftime show. My parents in later years had come to the conclusion that it was all fixed, which makes me wonder why they bothered at all. Other relatives came up to during that Super Bowl party in reverent tones saying “Nothing like this has ever happened to me before,” as if the accomplishment was theirs, or the birth of their children was as meaningful as a trip to the bait shop. My mother called them all posuers for not being born in time or old enough to recall the ’60s chamionship teams.

At some point I realized that I could appreciate the drama of sports without being an obsessed mullethead; the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat, that was enough, as Jim McKay used to say. Along with my obsession for games in general, that got me watching football again. I don’t own a jersey, and I’m annoyed at a loss but it doesn’t stick with me long. Just don’t bring up 4th-and-38 again in my lifetime.

The era before Brett Favre came along may have been another factor in my disillusionment, actually. Years of following the Packers barely got me a winning season, let alone a playoff berth, during my childhood; I was 2 and 3 when the first Super Bowls took place, and don’t recall those (Posuer!) I remember my dad lamenting during an early ’90s NFL Films special that they had to go back 3 decades for a Packers clip worth highlighting.

You have to take that into account when you consider Favre’s impending sainthood in Wisconsin (forget Hall of Fame eligibility in five years– wait 50 years, when they’ll dig his uncorrupted corpse from the ground and display it in a glass case inside Lambeau Field where old women will wail over it with the same fervor that they floss the gap in the Vince Lombardi statue’s teeth with rosary beads while they pray to beat the Bears twice this year). Titletown USA was the league doormat and the butt of sportscaster jokes everywere until Favre came along. In a country, state, and city obsessed with football, what more could you want? And not only a Superbowl, but a trip to the playoffs more years than not. And for more icing, just about every quarterback record in the books?

And the drama! Last-minute drives and impossible throws are afterthoughts. What about drug addiction, a wife with breast cancer, or his father dying 2 days before a Monday night game where his receivers managed to catch anything he tossed out there for the most dramatic win in NFL history? How could Green Bay let this guy go? They have a street named after him without being a president and/or assassinated, a tough deal these days, usually reserved for enticing a corporation to build a factory in your state (I lived near Jelly Belly Drive when I was a cheesehead).

I haven’t heard from my family back home to gauge the reaction up there, and maybe it’s not so bad. Listening to sports radio after any loss the last few years, you heard caller after caller demand his head in a basket, or at least a trade. They’re a fickle bunch, like most sports fans, really, who don’t recall the Lynn Dickey years or the quarterback before him nobody can name. Or the 10 seasons straight they couldn’t beat the Bears.

My wife credits me with calling the unretirement months ago, but even I had given up on it. We all should’ve seen it coming, especially the Packers. He kept them hanging the last two off-seasons, so of course he’ll change his mind again. Offer him the 20 million dollar “marketing” deal on the way home from the tearful press conference, morons, and maybe it won’t come back to haunt you.

In the Pack’s defense, he did keep them waiting 3 years, this time more than humanly allowable. In Favre’s defense, he’s probably been holding a grudge since they let Holmgren leave and seethed with each inept draft and ill-thought free agent aquisition, capped by last year’s pass on Randy Moss and brilliant 3rd round pick of a receiver with a broken arm. If he was ticked at Green Bay last year and still played his heart out, the Jets made the deal of the century if they can keep him happy in New York.

Favre broke yet another record this week, selling more Jerseys in one day than the rest of the NFL this century combined. I’m guessing most of those went to Wisconsin, and hoping Lambeau Field is filled with green and white on opening day in protest. And I hope the Jets out-perform the Packers this season, and for the next 25 years. The Packers are due another quarter century of sub-mediocrity.

Has there ever been a catchier tune, anywhere? I think not.

I mainly remember this song from their train commercials in the 1970s. I know they might occasionally still run an Amtrak commercial here and there, convincing you that you won’t die on the rails before you get where ever you’re going, but these were primarily for freight trains, as far as I can recall. How the world has changed.

This clip is a little long, and it gets slow with an interlude through the middle, but around the 4:50 mark, Bam! Judy Garland shows up to bring the whole thing home. Forget that the uncredited players in this thing have more talent than a season’s worth of American Idol finalists– if Simon Cowell was half the hard-ass he claims to be he’d get on stage and beat all the contestants to death with Judy Garland’s tombstone. Who do we have now, for a Hollywood singing starlet? Lindsey Lohan? For shame.

I’d like to see Family Guy do a take-off on this scene, like the Shipoopi scene from The Music Man. I imagine that was lost on most of today’s viewers, so here’s the full number if you didn’t “et” it: