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THE FRANTIC FLICKER
"The movie magazine that isn't..."
----Serving nonsense on a golden platter since 2004.----
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Issue #13: May 7, 2004
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www.franticflicker.com
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"And so they all passed away, every one. It was a short series, but thanks for your support.
That was the last episode. May they all rest in peace. Amen. And for the next series, we bring
you Cowgirl Ed! Ed is the main character..."
- Radical Edward, Cowboy Bebop
IN THIS ISSUE:
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==>I Said I Wanna Watch Cartoons
==>The Triplets of Belleville
==>All You Have To Do Is Ask
==>The Visiting of the Sponsors
==>Superatomic Giveaway of the Week
==>Whodunnit?
I SAID I WANNA WATCH CARTOONS
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Welcome to lucky issue 13 of the Frantic Flicker! We just did two weeks of more or less
straight-up horror (vampire cliches and Paul Naschy), so this week I wanted to do something
equally fun, but less serious, less confined to structure. Something more animated.
I know I don't talk too much too often here about the girl I'm about to marry, but here's
something that's completely on-topic: She's crazy about cartoons. Anytime she's home, the TV
is on and Cartoon Network is playing the background music to her life. She knows all the
backstory /mythology behind most of the shows, even the ones she says she doesn't really
like, like Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh. It's crazy how much cartoon ephemera is stuck in her head.
She could go on and on about cartoons for longer than I could talk about Udo Kier, Klaus
Kinski, or even weird movies in general (well, that might be pushing it, but it would be close).
At any rate, I know she digs on cartoons pretty constantly, so every chance I get, I
encourage her to watch cartoons that I think I might enjoy more than say, another rerun of
Totally Spies or The Kids Next Door. With that in mind, we've built up a pretty good collection
of cartoons that aren't just aimed at kids, including basic stuff like Heavy Metal and Fritz the
Cat, weird collections of cartoons from Canada and Russia, and some fairly recent
adult-oriented anime stuff, like Cowboy Bebop and Witch Hunter Robin. Of course, we've also
got zillions of kids cartoons too, but that's not what we're here for today.
Until I have kids of my own, and THEY memorize every episode of Scooby-Doo - here's to
cartoons that don't end with the bad guys tied up and unmasked. Cheers everybody. Now
drink up!
Eric
Yeah, I know it's not a terribly "sexy" title (even though I guess it could be), here's your
amazing and wonderful story of the week, a thoroughly animated tale I call...
THE TRIPLETS OF BELLEVILLE
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My dog Carl is a 350 pound Ukranian Gorilla Mastiff. Once every morning, and then again at
night, we walk around the block. We start off on Flounder (that's our street), turn right on
Mulch, right again on Belleville, and then right again on Smirnoff, which meets up with
Flounder and then we're practically home. Carl and I have been going this way for years, and
we've got the routine pretty much down: we know the location of every barking dog, every
smelly garbage can, every good spot to take a pee. It's always pretty much the same, except
for this one walk we took last week. That walk was quite a bit different.
Mrs. O'Keefe is a tall woman who lives on the corner of Flounder and Mulch, almost directly
across from us. Every morning we see her watering her lawn, and almost every evening we
see her drinking lemonade on the porch.
On this particular morning, though, Carl and I were both surprised that Mrs. O'Keefe was not
out watering her lawn. In fact, she wasn't in front of her house at all. I checked my watch,
and it was the right time for her to be out. I started to wonder whether she might have met
with some sort of foul play. Then a sound from above caught my attention. Mrs. O 'Keefe was
on the roof of her house, holding a tin can. She was scooping something, maybe baked
beans, out of the can with her hand, and then trying to eat it, but only getting about half of
the beans (or whatever it was) into her mouth.
"Hi, Mrs. O'Keefe." I said. That was what I always said to her, and after all, I didn't want to be
rude. But instead of answering me back, she just stared. I smiled, and Carl barked once. As
we started to walk away,
she made a this awful gasping, wheezing sort of sound. I looked up again, and she was
pointing at me. I pointed back at her briefly, then pulled Carl away down Mulch. Maybe she's
alright, I thought. Maybe she'd just decided to bring her breakfast out on to the roof for a
change of pace. And that pointing, it could have been some hipster greeting she'd learned
from her grandson or something. Still, it did seem odd.
As we walked farther down Mulch, we came to the yard where Coldboy lives. Coldboy is a big
dog, but just regular big, not Ukranian Gorilla Mastiff big. This morning, Coldboy wasn't there
at all, but there was another dog in the yard. It was a small dog, and it was foaming
profusely at the mouth. As we approached, it started talking:
"Hey, you dog! What are you doing here? I am new and Hotboy Junkerneck. My goal is to eat
and slobber, especially on tennis balls. You?"
I was pretty surprised that the dog was talking, but I didn't want to get into some big "thing"
with a talking dog, so I just kept walking. I tried to pull Carl behind me, but he didn't want to
go.
"Hey, hang on there, fella. I want to talk to this dog."
"Carl, I didn't know you could talk."
"I can't, stupid. Only to other dogs."
"He knows," said Hotboy Junkerneck. "He knows too much."
Carl turned to me with a look in his eyes that he normally reserved for strangers and squirrels.
"Yeah, that's right," Carl said, "You heard us, didn't you?"
"No. I didn't." I said, but I was ready to run. There's no reasoning with talking dogs.
"Sic 'em Carl. Get him," said Hotboy Junkerneck, but Carl was already after me.
Carl weighs almost twice as much as I do, and I'm usually a little bit faster. Carl was pretty
pumped up about this chase though, and as we rounded the corner onto Belleville, he was
right behind me.
There's one house on Belleville, right in the middle of the block, with a yard that has a big
stockade fence around it. I could never see what was in the yard, but I did know (because
Carl never thought twice about it) that they didn't have a dog. And in this case, that was all I
needed to know: No dog equals good. I climbed and jumped it easily, leaving Carl on the
other side.
Inside the fence, the ground was at least ten feet lower than it was outside, like I'd fallen
into the foundation of a two acre wide house. I picked myself up and realized I was in a
garden. There were gazebos and fountains and all sort of birds and flowers. I didn't see any
dogs, but I did see a table set up towards the middle, with three young ladies seated at it.
They looked like they were dressed up for an Easter parade or something, all bonnets and
bows and complimentary pastels.
"Hey, you got a phone I can use?"
The three women looked up at me in unison. They were probably all in their early twenties,
but the clothes they wore made them look older. But instead of answering me, they talked
amongst themselves.
"Someone in the garden, Nora."
"Running from a dog, Flora."
"Jumped over the fence, Dora."
But just when I thought I knew their names, they kept going.
"He's broken some rules, Cora."
"Have to teach him a lesson, Gora."
"He's naked, Deplora."
At that point, I looked down, and sure enough, I wasn't wearing a stitch of clothing. I did my
best to cover myself.
"I'm really sorry about that," I said "I didn't realize I was naked. I just need to use your
phone. My dog went crazy."
"The dog is crazy, Snora."
"Wants to use the phone, Ignora."
"Have to teach him a lesson, Gora."
At that point, all three stood up from the table. With their hand behind their backs, they
walked toward me. I was more than a little embarrassed, and tried to stay hidden, but I
thought maybe they were all holding cell-phones or something. When they got close enough,
I could tell that wasn't the case.
Maybe it was Gora who pulled her ax first, but it doesn't really matter. All three of them had
axes, and in a matter of seconds, they were chasing me across the yard with them.
"KILL HIM! KILL HIM!" one of them kept shrieking.
I consider myself a cool-headed person. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, and I
generally try to consider both sides of the story before making a decision. But in this context,
where I found myself naked with three ax-wielding women chasing me, I thought it would be
best if I didn't stick around to find out why. They were obviously in a deeply emotional place,
and there was something about me that they just didn't like.
With the ladies close behind me, it still took a few seconds to crawl up the wall of dirt that put
the garden at a lower level than the outside. I had a close call or two, but made it up pretty
easily. Now there was just the fence. I climbed to the top of that, and was seconds away
from relative freedom, when suddenly...
"Yoo-hoo..."
I looked down just in time to see the top of one of the axes fly into my face. It hit me square
in the forehead, and knocked me backwards over the fence.
When I came to seconds later, Carl was licking my face. He wasn't evil anymore, but he was
wearing my clothes. The pants were fine, but he had stretched my t-shirt all to hell.
"Thanks a lot, Carl. You know I never would have gotten into this if it wasn't for you having to
use the bathroom."
Carl just panted and wagged his tail.
"Alright, then," I said "Everything back to normal." I meant it at the time, but it wasn't true.
When we turned the corner to Smirnoff, the street wasn't there anymore. Instead, we were
at the top of a steep hill and it was snowing. I could see our house at the bottom, and
someone had left a tobaggan right there on the edge of the sidewalk. It didn't take long to
figure out the quickest route home.
We hurtled down the hill towards our house at a frightening speed, but it was less
frightening than the other things that had happened on our walk that day. As we approached
the bottom, the ground leveled out, the snow melted, and the tobaggan came out from under
us, sort of gradually. And a few seconds later we were walking on Flounder, almost home.
Across the street, Mrs. O'Keefe was watering her lawn. That seemed normal. But was I...
insane?
"Aw, don't worry. I just like to shake it up a little." It was Mrs. O'Keefe.
"What do you mean?"
"That was my trick for you. For April Fool's Day. Surprise."
"Today's MAY first."
"Surprise."
"I don't understand. How did you...?"
"I just like to shake it up a little."
And that was all the explanation I ever got. I felt around in my pocket. I still had the plastic
bag for picking up Carl's business. We walked around the block again to see if I could figure
out where he'd done it. But when we went down Belleville, we walked on the other side of
the street.
THE END
There's also a French animated movie that happens to be called The Triplets of Belleville. It
was an Oscar-winning big deal, and it's new on DVD this week.
ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS ASK
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In this section, I will happily answer any question you might have, whether I know the
answer or not. Just send them to eric@franticflicker.com with the subject line "I have a
question.". I especially like questions about regular school-type subjects, advice, or stuff
about movies.
QUESTION: I've been assigned to jury duty this week, but I've never done it before. What can
I expect?- Shannon
ANSWER: Well, Shannon, if you live in California, here's what will happen: When you first
enter the courthouse, you'll be led to a jury detention room, where psychedelic music plays so
loud that you can't think. You'll be instructed to put on a red robe with a Coca-Cola logo on it.
Then all at once, the music will stop, and you'll watch a short video entitled "Jury Duty: It's Da
Bomb" starring Super Dave Osbourne and Anne Heche.
After the video, they'll ask you if you feel sick. If you do, you can go home. If not, the testing
begins. First, you will be blindfolded and forced to eat three live crickets. Then you will enter a
room full of lawyers who will confront you with questions as to why you've eaten the crickets.
If you don't know, you will have to come back in two weeks. If you do know, then you enter
the general jury pool.
People with the largest shoe sizes enter the courtroom first. The judge will be obese, with a
huge nose, but if he catches you looking at his nose, you will be arrested. The lawyers will
pick twelve people and two alternates based on important considerations, like whether you
know who the President is, and whether or not you've ever gotten a wedgie. If you're chosen
to be on the jury, but you don't want to be, just slam your hand down and say "I object!" If
you're not chosen, but you do want to be, do the same thing.
Once you're on a case, you must listen to the evidence very carefully. If you feel yourself
getting sleepy, feel free to tell the judge that you need a nap. Remind him that a sleepy jury
makes a careless verdict.
Deliberations can be fun! Make sure that you are the jury foreperson. The jury foreperson is
the only one who can write notes to the judge. Make sure to send only important questions,
like "This case sucks, doesn't it?", "What time is lunch?" or "Hey, is this guy guilty, or what?"
If things aren't going you're way, make sure that the jury has access to ALL of the evidence
available to you. You might say something like "Well, I know they caught him with the gun,
but I had a dream that he nursed a little bird back to health."
When the time comes to read the verdict, and your juror number is called, say "I forget, what
did they say he did again?"
I've done jury duty in twelve different states, and almost all of them conform to these general
principles. The main difference is that in some states, you wear a blue robe with a Pepsi-Cola
logo on it. I hope you enjoy taking part in our justice system. - Eric
THE VISITING OF THE SPONSORS
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The Superatomic Giveaway of the Week awaits, but first you must follow the flimsy rope
bridge of responsible spending across the dreaded chasm of commercialism! Here's hoping
you fall in!
EBAY!
I have my grand master black belt in eBay (username mothra911, feedback rating 923 and
counting). Buy my ebay stuff! It is good. It is excellent. It is so good and excellent and cheap
that you feel like you must buy it. Still got some 7"s going on, a few cds, plus some early 90s
carded toys going up this week (?). Of course, those of you who are really swinging good
with the loot will want to place a bid on I LIKE NAKED, the first available-to-the-public painting
by the amazing Mr. HASBRO OTTO. Check it out by following the link below!
http://cgi6.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewSellersOtherItems&userid=mothra911&include=0&
since=-1&sort=3&rows=50
PREORDER THE ORIGINAL STAR WARS TRILOGY ON DVD NOW!
Star Wars / The Empire Strikes Back / Return of the Jedi and an extra disc of bonus material.
Sure, they're the "special editions" and not the "original" original trilogy, but lighten up,
they're almost the same. They come out in September and the current price via this link is just
$42.99, or at least it was the last time I checked.
http://www.dvdempire.com/Exec/v4_item.asp?item_id=601761&partner_id=90841311
FULL-SIZE ALIEN HEAD BUST - BIGGER THAN A BREADBOX!
Check out this crazy item - a 3 foot long Alien head. It's an exact replica of the creature's
head from the original movie in a limited edition of 500. Prove to your loved ones that you like
this classic movie more than they do. Prove it to your friends. Prove it to Jimmy Jones up the
street (uh-oh, Jimmy told me he just ordered his - you'd better click over soon if you want to
keep up!)
http://www.sideshowtoy.com/cgi-bin/affiliates/clickthru.cgi?id=franticflicker&page=http://www.
sideshowtoy.com/cgi-bin/category.cgi?category=props^item=2903
SUPERATOMIC GIVEAWAY OF THE WEEK
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Part of my whole reason for being here is to expose people to cool and/or weird stuff that
they might not otherwise know about, and one of the main ways I want to do that is by
giving stuff away for free.
This week's giveaway is a BRAND NEW DVD of the kooky compilation SPIKE AND MIKE'S SICK
AND TWISTED FESTIVAL OF ANIMATION: UNPROTECTED! More risque fun than in any 20 Robin
Williams movies (but fewer hairy backs). See the website for further details!
YOU MUST BE 18 OR OLDER TO ENTER! BY ENTERING, YOU CONFIRM THAT YOU ARE!
To enter, send an e-mail to superatomic@franticflicker.com. Put your NAME (first and last) and
ADDRESS in the BODY of the e-mail, and use the SUPERATOMIC SECRET PASSWORD in a
COMPLETE SENTENCE as the SUBJECT line. Your information will not be used for any other
purpose.
The SUPERATOMIC SECRET PASSWORD for this week is... QUARTER.
Visit the superatomic section of the website (www.franticflicker.com/superatomic) for
complete rules, more details and a photo of this week's prize. Contest ends late Thursday
night, May 13, 2004 (if the message says Friday, that's too late Thursday night), and the
winner will be contacted by e-mail and announced on the site on Friday.
By entering, you confirm that you are 18 years of age or older. US or Canadian entrants only,
please.
WHODUNNIT
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Written, compiled, researched, edited and published by yours truly, King Boss Man Eric
Henderson! Thanks for reading it!
The Frantic Flicker is a weekly e-mail newsletter published by Eric Henderson.
The official Frantic Flicker website is a site to behold, and updated with exclusive content
every week. It's not dumb.
www.franticflicker.com
If you have any questions or comments, pass 'em on to: eric@franticflicker.com. If you don't
want me to print your letter, let me know. I'll talk at you again next week. Until then, have
fun!
Eric
All content copyright 2004 Eric Henderson. All rights reserved, but feel free to forward this
e-mail or link to my home page. Thanks.
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instructions below.
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SEE YOU SPACE COWBOY
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