Author Archives: Rob MacD

Or “Everything’s Ducky”.

Last night, I was out with Dave S and after a couple of pints, we decided if we could come up with a sure-fire terrible movie. One that was sure to flolp.

This is what we came up with (a couple of additions I’ve made this morning): Cox’N’Ducks is about a single mother, Sandy Cox (played by Posh Spice with voice over-dubbed by Elizabeth Taylor) and her two kids (Johnathon Lipnicki and that girl who was recently in those Pepsi tv ads, the Curley Sue type girl). A rich relative has died, and in his will, he bequeaths a large amount of money to the Cox family. Providing that they take care of a family of ducks for a defined period of time; and provided that they can spend a night in the haunted house.
The care-taking of the ducks takes its toll on the family and tensions are high. The night of the haunted house arrives and everyone is angry at each other. Various creepy things happen: a horse chase (or was it a nightmare!!), a talking dog and a talking cat (both voiced by Nathan Lane) who live in the house, set up traps to get the family to leave. And the appearance of the (animated) ghost of the rich relative (voice of Emeril), who gets the family to understand the true value of family, by having them look at how well the duck family gets along.
It’s the morning of the big duck inspection, duck inspector (Rowan Atkinson) arrives. One of the ducks is sick, however, and the Cox family asks the talking cat to dress up as the duck, to fool the inspector. In return, the Cox family will adopt the cat and dog. Cat agrees. The inspection occurs, ducks pass inspection, the Cox family wins the money. But more importantly, they learn the true value of family.

Can you make it worse?

…suddenly, under the Lazy Susan in the kitchen of The Annekenstein Monster, on Sunday, December 14, 2003, of A. Pesky Mouse. Age one month.
Survived by Hopefully No Other Mouse. Hated nemesis of Resident Cat, Arista. Resting in the Green Compost Bin until Next Wednesday. Visiting hours anytime before that, if you’re into that kind of thing. Interment later in Island Waste Management Corporation’s Compost Facility.
In lieu of flowers, memorial donations can be made to help defray the cost of the mouse trap.

My son is 10 years old. I am ready to give up the Santa Claus thing. I think he’s already given it up, but is smartly playing it because he theorises that it means more gifts.
So, how to find out he’s given up the jolly ghost without blowing it if he hasn’t? Any ideas?
When I was a kid, I don’t know how old exactly, but young enough to still believe, my older brothers stole my letter to Santa and took it outside. I followed, frantically trying to grab it back. My brothers held the letter out, and lighted it on fire. It burned to bits, the ashes floating here and there. I wailed. My brothers told me that this was the best way to get your letter to Santa. The ashes magically find their way to the North Pole.
I may have believed in Santa, but I knew a load of bull when I heard it. I knew there was no way to get all those ashes back together. How would Santa know I wanted a slinky if the ashes were strewn over our back yard? I wailed.

Well, I thought, this year, I’ll pull the same story on Cameron. I’ll threaten to burn his list. If he gets upset then I’ll know he still believes. If he doesn’t then chances are he’s beyond Santa.
Out in the yard we go, me with the little propane lighter, him with his list. I tell him we’re gonna burn his list. He doesn’t comprehend this, mostly, I assume, because it’s a ludicrous and foolish idea. So, I explain carefully the reason behind this technique of letter delivery. The ashes magically find their way to the North Pole. As I explain, I’m looking closely at his reactions to see him smirk or wink or anything that’ll clue me in to where he’s standing on Santa. Nothing. Nothing, that is, except “Cool, let’s torch it.”
Up it goes, in flames. No wailing. No worrying that his list won’t get to Santa.

There you have it. Proof he no longer believes.

Right?

I consider myself someone who is able to play devil’s advocate in most every situation. Whether it’s a situation of personal calamity, or something that doesn’t involve me in the least, I take a bit of pride in the fact that I can look at the situation from the other point of view. I can be objective.

When I saw the video of Hussein being swabbed, mouth open wide, red-aflame from the flashlight, I saw the emptiness, sadness, tiredness in his eyes and I felt bad for him. Yes, of course: He’s a murderer of the worst kind. He’s a human of the worst kind. He deserves punishment in the extreme. And, yes, I understand that the anguish, humiliation, fear, suffering that he was feeling at that time doesn’t come close to the angusih and suffering he and his torturers have forced countless Iraqis to endure.

Still, watching the video of that moment, I felt for the man. I guess seeing a Fallen Human, no matter how despicable he is, in such a moment of weakness, touches the humanity in me.

Sigh.

When I lived with my parents, we had an artificial tree. It wasn’t a great plastic tree, but it was all I knew. Then, when I got married, we made the leap to real trees. We didn’t go so far as to trudge into the woods and cut one down. Our Christmas Tree Hunting involved little more than, a coupla weeks before The Day, driving to the Zellers parking lot, quickly looking at a couple, picking one out and buying it.
The first number of years, I really liked the concept of the Real Tree. Tying it to the top of the car; family driving home slowly; sawing off the bottom of the trunk; lugging it in the house; sweeping up the needles; letting it settle and acclimate for a day or so; sweeping up the needles; putting lights on; sweeping up needles; watering; decorating; watering; sweeping; watering; etcetera etcetera…
I think it was last year, the tradition of ‘getting the tree’ began to wear on us. So, this year…today in fact…we made the decision to get a fake tree. It was like we were letting Christmas down. Somehow it seems like putting up a plastic tree is another nail in the coffin of the tradition of Christmas.
We got a tree that has the lights already built into it. All white lights. It’s a nice 7.5 foot plastic pine tree that actually looks pretty darn good.
There’s no smell of pine (that can be, I assume, managed with potpourri), and that’s too bad. But there’s no needles on the floor, no watering.

Christmas, I hope we haven’t let you down.

Okay, I’m granting you the chance to go back in time, to any place in the world, to any time in the 20th century to witness your favourite band/performer play one song live in concert. You will arrive in mid-concert amid the crowd already there, two minutes before the artist plays the song you chose, and then leave two minutes after the song is over.
You have to tell me who the artist is, where (time and place) the venue is, and what the song is. I’ll even let you give me three choices. The best one choice gets to go.

My three choices are:

1) The Beatles in The Cavern in Liverpool in 1963 performing “Twist and Shout”
2) The Clash in any venue in London in 1977 performing “Complete Control”
3) The Pixies at U-Mass in Boston in 1990 performing “U-Mass”

3a) XTC anywhere at anytime playing any song.

Seriously, this is not for everyone.

If you don’t want to see a video of a guy shoving his head into a sheep and then being dragged (or is it drug) around a barn, just don’t click on the link, okay.

Just don’t.

Feral Skunky…you know, instead of Feargal Sharkey. Ha ha.

I had just started writing a comedy sketch about a couple of wild-men discovered on PEI as being raised by skunks (don’t ask), when I came, quite co-incidentally, across this site listing feral children. Reading some of these stories kinda takes the fun out of writing my “Skunk Brothers” sketch.

Quite a while ago, on an online message board I use to frequent (which is now pretty much dead from inactivity), I developed an online version of Survivor. It was quite successful amongst those who frequented that board, and lots of fun. There were actually two ‘seasons’ of Survivor, and the same fellow, Kreskin, was the ultimate survivor each time.

Basically, those who chose to play were randomly divided into two teams (and then later, the remaining players played individually), and each team had to answer challenges that I gave (they would email me the answers, which I would then post for all to see). I was sole judge and jury of the challenges, and with some of the decisions being judgement calls on my part, there were a few accusations of favouritism and cheating. The losing team/players had to then vote one of themselves out of the game.

My all-time favourite answer, from all the answers to all the challenges, is below. It was given by Frankie, who sometimes visits this site. This answer allowed Frankie to win that challenge.

Here is that challenge, and Frankie’s answer beneath it:

——————-
The Challenge:
I am a big-wig, hot shot producer of a sitcom called “Bottomless Cup”. The sitcom airs on NBC on Thursday nights. The sitcom is about a happy, friendly, somewhat naïve man named Bill Timmons. He has a sarcastic wife and 3 precocious kids. Bill owns his own internet café, called Bottomless Cup. He has a wacky staff of 4 (a doltish male, a sexist male, a sexpot female, & an unassuming pretty female). Many characters frequent his café, some recurring.

The sitcom divides its time between Bill’s ‘work’ life and Bill’s ‘home’ life.

The sitcom is a huge success for NBC, and has just been renewed for 2 more years.

You five are my team of comedy writers. (at this point there were 5 players still remaining)

Here is the problem:

This week’s episode is almost ready to be filmed (before a live studio audience). The script is great. Trouble is, one of the jokes just isn’t working right. It’s just not funny. We’re about to film the scene and we need a joke right now.

You each will submit a joke or punch-line that fits into the following scenario and script. The one who posts the joke that I will ultimately use in the episode will get a huge raise and will win immunity.

Scenario:
The police have just arrived at the Bottomless Cup because a prudish customer, whom nobody likes, complained that she saw some explicit and potentially illegal pornography on the café computer she was using.

Officer: Mr. Timmons, I’m afraid we’re going to have to confiscate that computer.
Bill: But officer, that’s not pornography!
Officer: It’s not? Well, if that’s not pornography, what’s that giraffe doing with that stewardess?
Bill: (insert joke here)

We need a big laugh joke here, because right after this we break for commercial.

——-

This is your challenge.

Good luck.
———————————————-

This was Frankie’s, and the winning answer:

Officer: Mr. Timmons, I’m afraid we’re going to have to confiscate that computer.
Bill: But officer, that’s not pornography!
Officer: It’s not? Well, if that’s not pornography, what’s that giraffe doing with that stewardess?
Bill: Well, uh, she’s…..checking his baggage.
———————————————–

I just thought that was perfect.
Anyone got another punchline for this?