In honor of Cole’s new feline overlord — hadn’t though about this carton since its original run, but commentor Cookie Monster pointed out that the BBC called it “Boss Cat” on that side of the Atlantic.
Speaking of antediuvilan cartoon grifters, here’s Gail Collins on “The Cheney in Waiting”:
… Lately, we’ve had a lot of politicians explain that they’re running for office because folks kept coming up and begging them to go for it. Generally, these are people whose plans are deeply unwelcome by the other members of their party. But nobody ever says, “I have decided to heed the clarion call of my insatiable need for attention.” Instead, they blame it on random pedestrians.
Everybody knows that no sane politician will actually decide to embark on a major campaign because the man on the street decreed it must be so. Particularly if you are in a place like Wyoming where there actually aren’t all that many streets and the people you are running into are attending your fund-raisers.
“I thought we were friends,” the blindsided incumbent, Mike Enzi, said of his new opponent. If he wins, he should definitely send her that statement embroidered on a pillow…
Dave Weigel refers to Cheney’s newfound roots as “neoconservatism’s last stand“:
Near the end of March 2010, as Republicans outside Kentucky realized that Rand Paul might actually become a senator, Paul’s opponent received an unexpected and important-looking endorsement.
“I’m a lifelong conservative, and I can tell the real thing when I see it,” announced Dick Cheney. “I have looked at the records of both candidates in the race, and it is clear to me that Trey Grayson is right on the issues that matter—both on fiscal responsibility and on national security.”
Paul’s campaign was half-unsurprised, half-amused. They’d seen this coming a week before, when former Cheney chief of staff Cesar Conda e-mailed some fellow neoconservatives and asked them to “help us get the word out about Rand Paul’s troubling and dangerous views on foreign policy.” Fun on its own, but by weighing in personally, Cheney had confirmed a white-knuckle panic among their least favorite Republicans. The Louisville Courier-Journal ran a cartoon about the news, in which two Kentuckians learned that Cheney (represented by Darth Vader) had endorsed Paul’s opponent. “On purpose?” asked one of the cartoon characters.
That joke rocketed around the inboxes of Paul campaigners. They kept on laughing, as Paul rose from a 15-point lead before the Cheney announcement to a 23-point “Randslide” on primary night. Their hard-won confidence explains why Sen. Paul came out so early against Liz Cheney’s candidacy in Wyoming, nearly a week before she actually announced it. “I don’t know much about her or her politics, really,” he said—a totally unbelievable statement that could only be read as dismissive. That reading was rewarded yesterday, as Paul claimed that when he “heard Liz Cheney was running for Senate I wondered if she was running in her home state of Virginia.”..
I do believe that “Cheney vs. Paul” is the sort of situation for which the phrase “rooting for injuries” was invented.
raven
They deserve each other.
raven
Looks like a pretty day in Scotland!
Cookie Monster
Fame at last!
… and here is the BBC’s intertitle for Boss Cat.
–CM
c u n d gulag
“Top Cat” was one of my favorite’s, back when I was a kid!
FSM – I AM old…
Linda Featheringill
Hey! I can get on BJ again!
Boss is a lovely name. And we like polydactyls. Hmmmm.
I suspect that Ms. Cheney has had a protected existence, being The Daughter. It’s not her fault of course but it’s still true.
She might be surprised at how rough the famous rough-and-tumble can get. Watching her might offer an interesting study in human psychology.
c u n d gulag
I don’t watch NASCAR.
And it’s been years since I watched Grand Prix racing.
And if I were to start watching it again, or started watching NASCAR, I would never root for some horrible accident – and certainly not death.
But as far as political horse races, like Cheney’s v. Enzi, and Cheney’s v. Paul, I’ll take ”The Fifth.”
And just thinking of any of them being successful, makes me want to drink a fifth.
geg6
Damn, talk about rooting for injuries on both sides.
And I’m with Linda Featheringill. That woman has lived inside the Death Star that is the bubble of privilege her father created. I don’t think she has a fucking clue how tough this might get.
raven
Here is the latest from my friend Katherine down under . Looks like they can come home if they choose to do so.
Living Through DOMA
Schlemizel
@c u n d gulag:
Mine too! It was yet another Hanna-barberra rip off of a sitcom. Flintstones was The Honeymooners while Top Cat was Sargent Bilko. As much as I enjoyed them once I recognized that it always bugged me
burnspbesq
I’m not going to “root for injuries,” because neither of the protagonists are going to get “injured.” Any “injuries” will be sustained by poor and working-class Americans, women, minorities, people who want to practice religions other tham megachurch evangelical Protestantism, etc.
When elephants dance, ants suffer.
Ben Cisco
I’m with Burnsie on this one. Nothing good comes out of EITHER of these two winning.
I think this album is going to be a good one.
Debbie(aussie)
@raven: so happy for them both.
c u n d gulag
@Schlemizel:
Actually, when I realized it, it made me interested in watching those classic shows. And I really came to appreciate how great they were.
Maybe without the cartoons, I wouldn’t have been as easily drawn to them.
Phil Silvers show was on in the afternoons, in NY City, and Jackie Gleason’s was on at 11 at night (and was, for over a decade – maybe two).
And so, when I came home from school, I’d watch Sgt. Bilko. And sometimes, I used to get up at night, sneak downstairs, and watch The Honeymooners with the volume turned down low.
And that show became my gateway to Johnny Carson’s monologues. Hey, I was up already – what’s a few more minutes?
And my parents used to catch me up at late, a lot, because as hard as I tried to stifle my laughter, if Ralph and Ed didn’t make me laugh out loud (even the 20th time I’d seen the episode – and this was when I was still only 13), then Carson surely would.
Ah, memories…
JPL
Trayvon’s parents are on CBS news.
OzarkHillbilly
@burnspbesq:
Well, that all depends on whether either of them are going to be in the same county as Daddy Cheney when he goes antelope hunting this fall. Maybe they can have a debate on that day and we can get a 2fer?
jamick6000
lol
Randy P
@c u n d gulag: Me too. And like many of the theme songs of that era, I could sing you the whole thing word for word. Our little minds are scarily impressionable at that age, aren’t they?
I seem to be the only human being on the planet who remembers a silly little sitcom called “It’s About Time” with Imogene Coca, that had some sort of time-travel premise involving astronauts stuck with cavemen. I loved that show too and now I’m beginning to think I only dreamed it.
But I could sing you the theme song from that one too. “It’s about time, it’s about space, it’s about men in the strangest place…”
Frankensteinbeck
Notice that powerful Republican insider Dick Cheney could do precisely bupkis and squadoo about Rand Paul’s election. The clowns are driving the car. That also really shows what Cheney is all about – war war war war war war war. He’s the One True Neocon.
cintibud
@Randy P: LOL, Not only did you not dream it, that theme song is now stuck in my head! That show was my favorite too, but I didn’t think anyone else remembered it!
WereBear
There’s two of us, right down to singing the theme song. Hello, Bro…
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Randy P: It’s About Time – theme song – article
raven
@Randy P: Remember “The Great American Dream Machine“?
Jay in Oregon
I find myself nodding along with this sentiment:
http://youtu.be/a88Z7YOh_us
c u n d gulag
@Randy P:
Oh, I LOOOOOVED that show!
Astronauts, going back in time, to caveman days.
And it had the great Joe E. Ross, of “Oooo! OOOOOOO!!!” fame, from “Car 54, Where Are You?”
Patricia Kayden
@JPL: They must be gearing up for a long fight. Not sure if there is any satisfaction his parents can get out of this tragedy.
gene108
As mentioned by someone in another thread, is there any interest in a Philadelphia area Balloon Juice meet-up?
c u n d gulag
@raven:
HOKEY SMOKES, BULLWINKLE!!!
I’d forgotten about that!!!
And it was good – unlike Howard Cosell’s variety show, which had to be one of the worst single things on TV, EVAH!!!
raven
raven
@c u n d gulag: It didn’t last long but it was good while it did.
Speaking of, ever see Raging Bullwinkle?
Chyron HR
@JPL:
And yet the lamestream media continues to ignore the GIGANTIC RIOTS going on in every American city as we speak.
OzarkHillbilly
@Jay in Oregon: Amen to that.
gogol's wife
Are you ever going to get unblocked on Firefox?
afishstick
The last few posts didn’t sync to the feedly cloud — not sure what’s going on with that. Visited last night to read all about the new cat! (Not sure how this is affecting other Reader clients.)
gogol's wife
@gogol’s wife:
Okay, I just got here on Firefox, even though there’s still a stop sign next to the bookmark. I’m confused. But whatever.
Schlemizel
@c u n d gulag:
I used to love summer, my parents never made me go to bed when there was no school so after they went to bed I would watch TV until it went off the air (usually around midnight 1 AM) so I saw a lot of old movies. Then I would go to my room, I had their old console model radio & in the dark listen to radio stations from around the country. It was the first I heard of R&B and the original version of songs coverd by clowns like Pat Boone. Used to laugh at Brother Billy, a faith healer broadcasting from Mexico, he would perform ‘miracles’ and then demand the crowd give a big round of applause for JAY-ZUZ! He also offered to send you a miracle in the mail for just $5. I sort of wanted to get one just to see what the deal was but wasn’t willing to waste the money.
That was how as a teen I discovered Beaker Theater & Clive Clifford on KAAY. I felt like I was in a secret club because nobody else had ever heard of it. Still amazes me that progressive stuff coming out of Little Rock AK
Botsplainer
@Frankensteinbeck:
The really sad part was that Greyson was actually a reasonable GOPer. The dude wasn’t ideological and had done an outstanding job as Secretary of State – there really wasn’t any election fuckery out of the guy, the office was managed in a professional manner, and the corporation side digitized before most other states, with free access and handy, easy to work widgets and electronic forms for updates and filings.
Everybody I spoke with about the guy, liberal and conservative (some who went to school with him and some who worked with him professionally), had nothing but great things to say about him, his work ethic, his character and his intellect. He was everything that Mitch McConnell ever wanted to be, but wasn’t, and given that Mitch blessed him, it should have been a cakewalk. He’d have been a really great Senator, possibly even more.
Instead, Kentucky being Kentucky, and not deserving better, the teatards drove him from electoral politics, and got their idiot in place.
Schlemizel
@Randy P:
I remember that show as very funny – I loved Coca. What a gift for physical comedy. People who rave about Lucy must never have seen Imogene.
OldDave
@Schlemizel:
Please excuse my pedantic moment: Little Rock AR, not AK. Arkansas, not Alaska. You may now resume your normal activities.
Question: where were you? If memory serves KAAY is a 50KW directional station – it threw quite a signal in some directions, but was difficult to receive 200 miles away in NE Arkansas, where I grew up.
geg6
@Randy P:
I remember that show very well. I, too, know the words to the theme song.
Damn, I’m old.
@Schlemizel:
Totally agree. Not a Lucy fan, but I love me some Imogene.
Botsplainer
@raven:
Closetcase Mitch has been hitting his opponent Grimes with “I’m a really powerful senator and doing a lot for Kentucky by being powerful and not a backbencher, and the best things I can do for Kentucky is to placate mine owners who want to grind Southeast Kentucky flat and sell off the tailings, and stall out Obamacare and all presidential appointments”.
Grimes is holding her ammo – she’s fighting uphill, but he is vulnerable.
geg6
@gogol’s wife:
Try cleaning your cache. That’s what finally worked for me.
Chyron HR
@OldDave:
Oh, that wasn’t a state abbreviation. He was just expressing the opinion that, “Little Rock–ACKKKK!”
handsmile
@Randy P:
One more fan of It’s About TIme here.
And from about that same golden (well maybe bronze) era of television, another short-lived but fondly-remembered program: The New People. After a plane crash strands them on a remote Pacific island, a group of college students must create a new society.
The refrain of its theme song (“The New People/Starting from Day One/And for each of them/Ti-i-i-i-i-i-i-me has just begun”) has been indissolubly lodged into memory.
Botsplainer
This is what Kentucky GOPers gave up in order to elect Rand Paul:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trey_Grayson
rikyrah
Published on Jul 16, 2013
July 15th, 2013 – 92 year-old Moral Monday arrestee and Civil Rights Veteran Rosa Nell Eaton speaks at the 11th Wave Moral Monday rally at the North Carolina General Assembly.
http://youtu.be/6yVdvABN3Hk
rikyrah
Statement by the President and Mrs. Obama on Nelson Mandela International Day
On behalf of our family and the people of the United States, Michelle and I extend our warmest wishes and prayers to Nelson Mandela on the occasion of his 95th birthday, as well as to Graça Machel, the Mandela family, and the government and people of South Africa as they mark the fifth annual Nelson Mandela International Day. Our family was deeply moved by our visit to Madiba’s former cell on Robben Island during our recent trip to South Africa, and we will forever draw strength and inspiration from his extraordinary example of moral courage, kindness, and humility.
On Nelson Mandela International Day, people everywhere have the opportunity to honor Madiba through individual and collective acts of service. Through our own lives, by heeding his example, we can honor the man who showed his own people – and the world – the path to justice, equality, and freedom. May Nelson Mandela’s life of service to others and his unwavering commitment to equality, reconciliation, and human dignity continue to be a beacon for each future generation seeking a more just and prosperous world.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/07/17/statement-president-and-mrs-obama-nelson-mandela-international-day
http://youtu.be/OKmZwceODBg
c u n d gulag
@raven:
ROFLMAO!
NO!!!
THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
c u n d gulag
@Schlemizel:
THAT must have been cool!
Sadly, by the time I got into R&R, it was 1971, and the time to have the kind of adventures you had, finding and listening to “The Devil’s Music,” was long gone…
rikyrah
@trymainelee
“Is this the intent for the justice system to have for victims.Trayvon wasn’t doing anything wrong” – Sybrina Fulton http://on.msnbc.com/11ZClnt
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@gogol’s wife: It’s now just a matter of propagation.
The internet’s underlying structure works a lot like the grapevine. It takes time for gossip to propagate throughout the contract tree. Likewise, it takes time for the various mirrors of things like the badware database to check in and get the new version.
Matt McIrvin
@Randy P: I’ve seen a picture of my dad dressed up as a caveman from “It’s About Time” for a costume party.
jake the snake
@Botsplainer:
Hey, PaulinKY, Zandar, and I do not derserve either of our Senators, thank you.
jake the snake
I had wondered where the 2nd Sith Lord was hiding.
Liz Cheney: All the authoritarianism of her father, but none of his winsome charm.
Geeno
@Randy P: I remember that show too.
gelfling545
@c u n d gulag: I liked them because of the associations. I had enjoyed watching the sitcoms with my grandparents as a young’un and the cartoons brought back memories.
hedgehog the occasional commenter
@cintibud:
I do remember it (yeah, another Old here), and I vaguely remember the opening credits (shudders). Congrats to John on Boss Kitteh–good news! And fuck Darth Liz.
Schlemizel
@OldDave:
Thanks for the correction – I was not thinking.
I was in St. Paul, MN. Didn’t know they were directional but did know they were 50k, the most the FCC will allow. The “Good Neighbor” WCCO was clear channel 50K & often got letters from people in the old Soviet Union who could get them on clear days.
Ted & Hellen
Barack’s New Grille
Schlemizel
@c u n d gulag:
Yeah, it was about that time that FM came into its power & you are not crossing time zones with that signal. Those early days of FM had some great moments, KQRS (which is now pretty much a shit hole shill for their Disney masters playing old guy rock & racist in the morning drive) was populated by stoners who loved music & played great tracks & never talked over them. They really worked at it too, I remember one golden hour where this guy played one song after another without interruption & each song started on the same note or chord as the end of the previous one! It was 3-4 songs in before I realized what he had done & was blown away at the planning that had to have gone into that.
ThresherK
@c u n d gulag: Part of me wants to , say “classic” is too used for cartoons from my childhood.
However, there is something about making stuff for television and making a go of a business that Hanna Barbera did and others could not. It was often referred to as “illustrated radio”, and recognized with those limitations there is a success to be had. Compare H-B’s best with Filmation or other kid-vid makers, or even the stuff from Harvey and Terry in the ’50s made for theater distribution.
Getting the voice casting right is an art in itself, so having an Alan Reed or Phil Silvers is a good start. (And knowing how much to use is, too: Would you sit through a half-hour show listening to Arnold Stang’s voice carry a lead role of the dialogue?)
By another comparison, I suggest that not much American live-action TV comedies I watched as a kid in reruns, from the ’60s, holds up so well today.
Villago Delenda Est
@raven:
Seems like McConnell is flirting with the Newt Gingrich style of leadership. The comity of the Senate only goes so far when you engage in that sort of shiv in the back maneuver.
rikyrah
Only 2 Republicans Attended Today’s Voting Rights Act Hearing and Both Left Early
By: Jason Easley Jul. 17th, 2013
Today the Senate Judiciary Committee held their first hearing on the post-Supreme Court gutted Voting Rights Act. Only two Republicans attended the hearing, and both of them left early.
Ari Berman of The Nation reported, “Beyond Sensenbrenner, there wasn’t much enthusiasm among Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee to revise the VRA. Only two Republicans attended the hearing, Senators Grassley and Cruz, neither of whom stayed the full time. Cruz praised the Supreme Court’s decision, while Grassley and witness Michael Carvin, a prominent Republican lawyer at Jones Day, suggested that Section 2 would be an adequate replacement for Sections 4 & 5. (Section 4 determines how states are covered under Section 5, which requires that states with the worst history of voting discrimination clear their voting changes with the federal government.)”
http://www.politicususa.com/2013/07/17/2-republicans-attended-todays-voting-rights-act-hearing-left-early.html
c u n d gulag
@Schlemizel:
Yeah, and I went right from about a year of listening to Top 40 AM, on WABC and WNBC in NY, to WNEW FM – and FSM, was THAT EVER A GREAT STATION!
Of course, we didn’t have a car with FM, because we weren’t wealthy enough to have one, so when I was in the car, back it was to AM Top 40 – which, at that time, was not horrible.
Though, you wanted to drive into a bridge abutment every time “The Night Chicago Died” or “Muskrat Love” came on.
And then, I’d go listen to William B. Williams – aka: Guillermo B. Guillermos – also on the AM dial, but he played Sinatra, Torme, Como, etc.
NotMax
@Randy P.
Yes, remember that as well.
Also remember one TV program perhaps more obscure – Grindl, in which Ms. Coca had the lead.
Had the pleasure of seeing her on stage once, in On the Twentieth Century.
This video of her show-stopper, done some years later in a different venue, is not a tenth as manic as the original but does show her classic comedy charisma intact still at age 75.
@c u n d gulag
Car 54, Where Are You? is still laugh out loud funny, 50-plus years on.
ThresherK
@c u n d gulag: Man, now I miss WNEW-AM all over again: Swing music, American classic vocalists, jazz and talk with real jazz geeks, and Cosmos soccer.
They used to cover opening nights on Broadway, fergawdsakes. Not “the grosses that the AP released”, but the actual openings. On radio.
rikyrah
Fox Guest Decries Immigration Reform: Naturalized Immigrants Can’t Be Exploited (Video):
CUTLER: I had a front-row seat to the ’86 amnesty. If you give lawful status to a bunch of illegal aliens who are being exploited, guess what, they will no longer be willing to be exploited. They will demand to be paid on the books, they will have the right to expect that they will be treated equally as Americans, but more importantly, they will have an equal standing in a labor pool that’s already unable to find work. An alien who is naturalized or given employment authorization legally cannot be discriminated against, so they could get the same jobs that Americans desperately need to avoid losing their homes to foreclose.
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/fox-guest-wants-more-cheap-labor-exploit
gogol's wife
@Randy P:
Oh, that was a great show. I still know the theme song too. It’s in there rattling around with F Troop.
@NotMax:
Grindl! I haven’t thought about Grindl in years.
I just read an article in the Times yesterday about some young hipster who wrote a movie named Imogen in honor of Coca, but they made her change the title to something bland like All my love or something I can’t remember.
gogol's wife
@gogol’s wife:
I can’t edit. Should have been Imogene.
Mnemosyne
Anne Laurie, would we be able to get an arts and crafts open thread this weekend? I think a lot of people here would love to show off their projects.
Paul in KY
@cintibud: Funny/campy sitcom. Loved it as a child. Think it was oly on for 1 or 2 seasons.
burnspbesq
@Randy P:
John Doe and Exene Cervenka remembered. There’s a reference to it in the X song “I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts.”
Paul in KY
Had this in a dead thread down below:
Man, if Sen. Enzi’s TV consultants can’t make up some good TV ads that (truthfully, IMO) make her out to be Satan’s favorite daughter who bathes daily in kitten blood & would sell your mother to slavers for another booking in Meet the Press, well then he just wasn’t in it & deserves to lose
Paul in KY
@Botsplainer: Conway had a decent chance of beating him, but effed it up (IMO).
Paul in KY
@jake the snake: Thank you, Jake for taking up for us!
No decent person in KY deserves the Mutant Turtle or Sen. Aqua Buddha.
Matt McIrvin
Hey, what’s this deal about unions hating Obamacare? It’s all over the Republican echo chamber (who have suddenly discovered they love the AFL-CIO, or else they’re just savoring the strife), but I can’t find any references outside of the bubble.
burnspbesq
@Matt McIrvin:
Some of the nicer health care packages that some unions collectively bargained for with some employers bump up against the so-called “Cadillac Plan Tax.” If I understand it, it kinds of puts the UAW and SEIU at loggerheads.
Matt McIrvin
@burnspbesq: Ah, OK, that makes perfect sense. I’m seeing it framed as the laboring salt of the earth suddenly discovering that Obamacare is a scam and everyone will pay more and jobs destroyed etc.
I’d guess that if I were still at Microsoft I’d be hit by the Cadillac tax too.
chrome agnomen
vis-a-vis the cheney/enzi race, and a host of others, many always say they’re ‘rooting for injuries’; i’ll come right out and say that i’m nearly always rooting for fatalities.
fidelio
@Randy P: Oh, yes. I recall the theme song, even though the details of the show are lost in the filing system.
Davis X. Machina
@burnspbesq:
@Randy P:
Not the only one, not even close…
Comrade Mary
Is John, like, WORKING today? Need Boss Kitteh updates!
Wally Ballou
The Iowa Supreme Court has upheld its earlier ruling that it’s legal to fire someone for threatening your marriage by making you horny.