It's a Punderful World and The Joker Agrees

 

Warner Brothers: 100 Years of Celebrating Every Story, Even the Ones They Tell Themselves to Assuage Their Insecurities

 

Ed, Edd, n' Eddy 2026

 

Mr. Hollywood from 2 Stupid Dogs

 

Two-Sentence Horror Stories: Double Tap

FIRST STORY: The movie theater was packed with excited kids who couldn’t sit still for the start of the film. But instead of the Warner Brothers Family Entertainment shield flying through the clouds, it was a diseased penis covered in green slime and red sores that oozed yellow pus.

 

SECOND STORY: Helena screamed through her breathing apparatus as the great white shark swam towards her looking for lunch. She really started kicking her flippers when she saw that the shark was wearing a dental dam over his mouth.

Disconnect and Float Away

VERSE 1

Could’ve been an actor, but they never wanted me

They’d rather have a boy who doesn’t cry about sodomy

Instead of wildflowers and an Oscar or two

I dissociate and watch with a panoramic view

Let someone else fuck with the flying shield

Let Leo the Lion nip at someone else’s heels

Let the circle-eared mouse be the Speaker of the House

Let me wear a straightjacket, let them call it a blouse

CHORUS

Disconnect and float away

Fly to the same god in which you pray

Gravity may be a matter of physics

But crashing on your face is a matter of civics

VERSE 2

I hear the bootstrap rhetoric through a megaphone

But I dissociate in the comfort of my own home

Out of body experience, so I ain’t hearing this

Can’t buy a plane ticket, so it ain’t mysterious

A dick-shaped rocket can’t take me away from the discourse

Still get pissed on by the king and his horse

Send my brain into space, in a far away place

Where supernovas burn like a face full of mace

CHORUS

Disconnect and float away

Fly to the same god in which you pray

Gravity may be a matter of physics

But crashing on your face is a matter of civics

BRIDGE

Took a massive vacation from the deaths and inflation

Now the work has piled up like a crash in a train station

I could put it off until the end of my days

As long as someone else suffers and someone else pays

EXTENDED CHORUS

Disconnect and float away

Fly to the same god in which you pray

Gravity may be a matter of physics

But crashing on your face is a matter of civics

Disconnect and fly to the sun

For the time I’ve been given, it’s sure been fun

Come back to the earth, it’s a prison furlough

Freedom was nice, but I still hurt, though

Demolition Man

MOVIE TITLE: Demolition Man

DIRECTOR: Marco Brambilla

YEAR: 1993

GENRE: Dystopian Sci-Fi

RATING: R for violence and language

GRADE: B

Imagine a future where everybody is smiling and nothing could go wrong. No foul language, no unhealthy foods, no sex, no music other than TV jingles, no contact sports, no drug use…wow…That’s a lot of no’s for a utopian society. John Spartan, Simon Phoenix, and Edgar Friendly don’t fit into this new future’s plans. So what do they do about it? Edgar Friendly leads an underground rebellion, Simon Phoenix causes violence wherever he goes, and John Spartan does pretty much the same as those two, but under the guise of police work. So much for Dr. Cocteau’s perfect society. Taking the fun completely out of life isn’t utopian at all. It’s dystopian. Already this movie is sounding like the libertarian’s bible, right? But let’s not forget that most left-wingers don’t have a problem with so-called “degenerate” behavior either. We like sex. We like marijuana. We like good food. We like heavy metal music and hip-hop. Everybody has their own interpretation of what Demolition Man means to them. I’ll speak for myself and say that this is generally a fun movie that takes place in a boring society. That’s it. That’s all it needs to be. We don’t need to have bloodbaths across the aisle over this fine piece of cinema. Let’s just sit down and watch it with a bucket of popcorn on our laps. And by the way, that popcorn is going to swim in butter and salt until it’s unrecognizable. Be well indeed.

But of all the major food groups this movie represents, none are more heavily pushed upon the audience than cheese. Good old fashioned cheesy goodness. Enough cheese to open a few Pizza Huts in this world of Taco Bells. I’m of course being metaphorical when I talk about how much cheese this movie has. You can hear it in the dialogue, whether it’s ordinary citizens, police officers, Cocteau’s obese assistant, or the socialites hanging out at Taco Bell. First and last names are used so bloody often. The elite vocabulary sounds awkward and clumsy and it’s enough to make the audience cringe. The TV jingles that are on the radio could drive someone insane if they hear it long enough, let alone in the short screen time they’re given. I get that this cheesy dialogue is supposed to be representative of a new future with a new brainwashed culture. Foul language is banned, so that’s a huge part of it. But after a while, it can grate on the audience’s ears. It’s so noticeable that it keeps the movie from being pitch perfect. But hey, when you’re watching a movie with Sylvester Stallone in the starring role, you can expect a little cheese every few seconds.

Which feels weird to say, because Sylvester Stallone plays John Spartan perfectly. He’s gritty, profane, ultra-violent, and loves to have fun even at the expense of a perfect and pretty future. Instead of using the three seashells once he’s done in the bathroom, he wipes his butt with the tickets he accumulates for swearing so much. He eats a rat burger when it’s the only meat available (and he loves it). He constantly has to correct Lelina Huxley after she butchers a 20th century idiom. You know who else likes to have fun at the expense of the future? Simon Phoenix, who’s played by Wesley Snipes. He can make even the most mundane insult sound intense with his delivery. He comes off like a psychopath loony toon not just in his constant laughter, but also in his movements, be it martial arts or otherwise. Couple these things with a terrorist mindset and you’ve got the most dangerous criminal in the movie. And then there’s Edgar Friendly, played by politically incorrect rapid-fire comedian Denis Leary. When he says he wants to eat salty, fatty, and buttery foods while smoking a cigar in the non-smoking section, you’ll believe he’s like that in real life. Denis Leary could start a revolution right now if he wanted to; that’s how convincing he was as Edgar Friendly. The only other character with halfway decent dialogue was Bob Gunton’s character, Captain Earle, who can be strict and aggressive without breaking the 21st century’s new laws. If he wasn’t a brainwashed pacifist, he could take on Simon Phoenix himself.

Yes, this movie was made in 1993, but it has aged like fine wine. Demolition Man sounds like it predicted the future in a lot of ways, but make no mistake, it was a satire turned up to eleven of things going on at the time. Whether you see it as a “libertarian manifesto” or not, the very least you can do is have fun while watching this movie. It’s action-packed, it’s witty, it’s dramatic, and an all-around good movie if you’re not too bothered by the cheesiness of the futuristic characters. You don’t even have to be drunk or stoned to watch this movie; it can be enjoyed at face value. But if you want to be drunk or stoned in the privacy of your own living room, I’m not going to try and stop you. I don’t want to turn your home into a Dr. Cocteau dystopia. Give this movie any grade you want and have no regrets. Me? I’ll give it a solid B.

Game Night

MOVIE TITLE: Game Night

DIRECTORS: John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein

YEAR: 2018

GENRE: Black Comedy

RATING: R for violence, language, and suggestive dialogue

GRADE: Pass

Competitive gamers Max and Annie Davis have the chance to upstage Max’s obnoxiously successful brother Brooks when he sets up a live action murder mystery game with a Stingray Corvette at stake. As part of this role-play, masked criminals raid Brooks’s house and kidnap him, though the fight scene looks a little too realistic for everybody’s tastes. The deeper Max, Annie, and their gamer friends dig into this mystery, the more they realize that it wasn’t a role-play and that Brooks’s life really is in danger.

I know that this is supposed to be a goofy comedy movie, but it could easily pass for the thriller genre due to how well-constructed the mystery is. Every time you think Max and his friends have the answers, there’s always another swerve to cut them off at the knees. There are no easy solutions and not everything is part of a role-playing game. That’s the mark of a good thriller: it keeps you guessing until the climax. You don’t know how, you don’t know why, you don’t know who, but if you pay close attention and wait until the end, it’ll all become as clear as day.

And then you have the various subplots within the main one which make hopping between characters an interesting way of storytelling. Max and Annie are trying to have a baby, but Max’s sperm count is low because he’s stressed out by his brother. A black couple named Kevin and Michelle keep arguing over which celebrity Michelle allegedly cheated on Kevin with. Ryan and Sarah argue over Ryan’s blatant stupidity and ignorance while Sarah comes off as a posh and intelligent Irishwoman. Gary is a socially awkward cop who wants to join game night, but keeps getting ignored due to his weirdness. And then we find out that Brooks isn’t really who he says he is, though I’ll say no more than that, because I don’t want to give away spoilers. Bouncing from subplot to subplot keeps the movie from getting monotonous, though it’s hard for monotony to happen when there’s so much comedy going on all at once.

Yes, let us never forget that this is a comedy first and foremost. I watched this movie with my older brother and we kept guessing who the celebrity was that Michelle slept with. We were hoping and praying that it wasn’t Bill Cosby. Oh dear. Speaking of Michelle and Kevin, they received a clue from the mystery role-play where they’re looking for an object that holds whiteness together. Kevin’s first guess was Donald Trump, but it was actually a stapler since paper is white. And finally, another favorite part of mine is when Max’s bullet wound drips all over Gary’s dog, carpet, and shrine of his ex-wife. Yes, I said it: there was blood all over a shrine of Gary’s ex-wife. Let that sink in for a moment. I’d tell you more funny parts, but I’d rather you watch the movie yourselves.

If you’re in the mood for some good wholesome fun, watch Game Night, though I don’t really think wholesome is the word to describe it. It’s dirty, it’s dark, it’s funny as hell, and it’ll make you want to have a game night of your own, though hopefully yours won’t involve kidnapping and murder. Maybe you should just stick to Scrabble. They don’t kill people in Scrabble…as far as I know. A passing grade goes to this hilarious black comedy!

Stupid Rabbit

***STUPID RABBIT***

It’s no secret that Looney Tunes had a huge influence on me as a kid and still does as an adult. Many of my Poison Tongue Tales entries have been compared to Looney Tunes cartoons and I take that as a compliment. My mom is also a Looney Tunes fan, so much so that I got her a DVD collection of the cartoons as a Mother’s Day present one year. I guess you could say that it’s a family tradition to be a fan of this genre. That’s why when I saw a You Tube video of Yosemite Sam’s piano bomb prank on Bugs Bunny, I had to make it a part of my motivational self-talk.

What happens in this cartoon is Yosemite Sam rigs a grand piano with dynamite that’s set to go off when a certain key is struck. He then challenges Bugs Bunny to play a song on that piano where one of the notes is the detonation key. Bugs cracks his knuckles and plays the song without striking the key. Furious, Yosemite Sam yells, “No, that’s not it! Try again!” Bugs tries again and still fails to hit the trigger key. Sam then screams, “Oh, you stupid rabbit! Like this!” Although Sam played it the correct way, he triggered his own trap and blew his facial hair off. This piano bomb gag was common in Warner Brothers cartoons, but Yosemite Sam’s version is the one that sticks out to me the most.

Now whenever I make a grave mistake in either my writing or my drawings, I mentally yell to myself in Yosemite Sam’s voice, “No, you stupid rabbit! Try again!” It sounds negative on the surface, but it’s Yosemite Sam’s voice, so it’s actually a giggly form of motivation. And it’s true: in the world of creative work where introversion is the key to getting shit done, you get an endless supply of chances to make things right. You’ve written a first draft novel? Try again! You’ve miscalculated the limbs on a drawing? Try again, you stupid rabbit! Although, you won’t ever have to worry about your keyboard or colored pencils being hooked up to a bomb.

In a world where everybody is telling artists to give up and get STEM jobs, you need as much positive motivation as you can possibly get. Even though Yosemite Sam is yelling “Stupid rabbit”, I get a chuckle out of it instead of getting down in the dumps. Being able to laugh at yourself is the most powerful thing you can do as an artist. If you can’t laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at?

Although having a massive ego is completely natural (we all have one whether we admit it or not), being able to tame that ravenous beast is one hundred percent necessary. That doesn’t mean you can’t believe in your own ability to improve. It just means that not all critical advice is bad. I paid Marie Krepps to critique Beautiful Monster and she delivered the goods and more. Now I’m contemplating rewriting the whole story from scratch to accommodate the radical changes she suggested. And while I’m doing it, I’ll be hearing Yosemite Sam’s voice echo in my brain.

“No, you stupid rabbit! Try again!”

You have no fucking idea how good that feels. I love the Looney Tunes, damn it! I’m Garrison Kelly! Even when you feel like dying, keep climbing the mountain!

***PROVERB OF THE DAY***

“There are two motives for reading a book. One, that you can enjoy it. The other, that you can boast about it.”

-Bertrand Russell-

Robo Heck

“How in the hell did the mechanics fuck this one up?” blurted David Masters V as he twisted various bolts into his gigantic robot with a monkey wrench. Lost and alone in a remote island lush with tropical vegetation, David cringed at the smoke and steam floating freely from his machine’s engine. He tried rapping it several times with a hammer. Nothing. He tried pouring lake water onto it to cool it off. Nothing. He tried twisting even more bolts with that pathetic monkey wrench of his. Electrical storm that zapped the tip of his finger. The pilot sucked on his wound and murmured, “There’s going to be some fucking hell to pay when I get back to base!”

The earth shook beneath David and all he could think was, “Oh no, not again! What now?!” He frantically twisted bolts and screws with his monkey wrench thinking the big ass machine was going to explode in a cataclysm of fiery death. The engine smoked some more. The electrical storm zapped him in his other finger. While sucking on his new wound, he kicked his machine and ran off to hide in the bushes. The earth trembled some more and nearly flipped David on his back. All he could do was clutch the bush roots for dear life and ride out whatever the hell was going on here. Forget sucking his zapped finger, he should have been sucking on his thumb.

Just when he was ready to cry for mommy so many miles away, the ground ceased shaking. Slowly David released his grasp of the bush root and backed away with tender steps. He fell on his ass after colliding with something sharp, which turned out to be a toenail. “What the fucking hell?!” whispered David fearfully as he took one look at the sky above and saw a giantess standing over him with a menacing scowl on her face. David’s sick twisted mind, she could have been a looker if she was human-sized, with her braided blond hair, golden bra, flowing green leather skirt, and wicker flip-flops.

The giantess leaned her face towards David’s so that he could feel the venom and sickness washing over him some more. He shivered while trying to crab walk away from her, but a row of palm trees halted his path. “That’s it, I’m fucking toast!” he whimpered to himself.

The giantess aimed her treacherous gaze at David’s robot, pointed at it with her freight train finger, and asked, “How dare you bring this war machine to my island?!”

“W…war machine? War machine? Hehehehe! No, you have the wrong idea,” stuttered David as he used the tree bark to help himself to his feet. “I’m not a soldier. I’m just a civilian contractor. I’m a builder, that’s all. That’s just a cutting torch he’s holding.”

“Hmm…cutting torch, huh?” She yanked the machinegun out of the robot’s hand, aimed it at the robot itself, and blasted it to shreds until the weapon was out of ammo. David ducked down in the fetal position to avoid pieces of shrapnel slicing him to bits. They were already stuck in the trees and damn near knocked them over. And then the giantess tossed the unloaded rifle across the forest and watched it roll down a mountain hill before it crashed into the ocean and sank like a stone. “Nice cutting torch,” she mocked.

David stood up once again, but this time staggered around nervously and almost fell over. He tried his damnedest to be brave like the soldier he lied about not being, but all that came out were weak little squeaks. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done, missy? That was a million dollar piece of military equipment. The global government is going to be furious with you. There’s no telling what kinds of bombs they’ll drop on this place.”

“So you are a soldier, aren’t you? You had thirty seconds to lie to me and all you could tell me was that your assault rifle was a goddamn cutting torch. Maybe I should get a real cutting torch and seal your dick shut so that you can’t reproduce and create more war than there already is!” snapped the giantess.

David’s balls suddenly felt like they were the size of pumpkins when he took that insult. Arms akimbo, he shouted, “You know why they call me David Masters V? Because there’s five of us! Five generations of proud soldiers who would do anything to make this world a better place! You’re not only shitting on my family name; you’re shitting on the world as a whole!”

“So your idea of a better world is one where children and women are buried under rubble? Motherless children? Fatherless sons? You think you can win any argument with a war machine? It’s moronic men like you that made me want to stay on this beautiful island uninterrupted!” the giantess roared.

David chuckled, “For someone who hates war machines and how they kill tons of people, you look like you can just step on me and splatter my ass across the ground right now. What’s stopping you? Huh?”

“Trust me, I’d love nothing more than to stomp all over your military bases and government buildings, but if I did that, I’d be a massive hypocrite. Staying on this island is the only thing keeping me sane in times of war,” she said.

“Well, I hate to burst your bubble, Mother Theresa, but my superiors are going to figure out sooner or later that I’m MIA and they’re going to come looking for me. When they see what you’ve done with their million dollar robot, they’re going to bring the hammer down on your big ass! Bullets, missiles, bombs, you name it, they’ll drop it on your pathetic fucking island!”

The giantess gritted her teeth and scooped David in her massive hand while he kicked and screamed, “Put me down! You’re hurting me!”

“I hate to burst YOUR bubble, but your superiors aren’t coming to save you. You know why? Because you and that goddamn machine are fucking expendable!” the giantess belted, which nearly caused permanent ringing in David’s sensitive ears. “They probably think you’ve already died in the crash. They probably don’t even know this island even exists. You think you’re worth something to your government? Only in the form of yellow ribbons and god awful national anthem lyrics! If they cared so much about you, they wouldn’t have suffered you or any of your four ancestors to go to war in the first place!”

The more David Masters V squirmed in the giantess’s grasp, the softer his bones felt. The tightness alone made him feel as though his head would burst like a grape. Yet he remained defiant until the end. “You know how many times I’ve heard that crap from hippies like you?! My family has been protested so many times that we just shrug it off like annoying little gnats! Besides, what the fuck do you know about peace and love?! You’re squeezing me so fucking hard that I thought I heard my spine pop about three or four times!”

“I’m sure you’ve said this to your loved ones when they hugged you tightly enough that you couldn’t walk away from them,” said the giantess. David’s face grew solemn and long while she lectured him some more. “The reason us ‘hippies’ say these things all the time is because it’s true. You think I don’t feel the pain of war every single day? You think that just because I’m a giant that I can just shrug things off as easily as you? Wake up, dumb ass! I’m the enemy! I’ve always been the enemy! Anybody this goddamn tall is automatically a pariah!”

David tucked his chin to his chest in dark contemplation. His squirming and thrashing had ceased. His big fat mouth morphed into a big fat frown. He couldn’t believe he was feeling sympathy for someone who was capable of squashing him into jelly with one strong grip. He remembered all of the times he was picked on as a kid and during basic training. His mind felt like it was rubbed with Novocain all of those years, but when those memories came flooding back to him, he couldn’t resist any longer. Every swear word, every punch to the gut, every slap to the face, every obnoxious laugh, and every punch to the mouth flashed through his brain at a hundred miles an hour.

The giantess shook him hard to snap him out of his trance and he gagged at the gyro-psychotic sensation. “Sorry, I just…I just…Jesus, what the hell’s wrong with me?”

“It was all going to come out sooner or later, David,” said the giantess in a gentle tone reminiscent of a psychiatrist. “Nobody is immune to the ghosts inside their head, especially not in times of war. You can push them down as much as you want, but they’ll always come back stronger than ever. Your generals won’t admit it in public company, but it happens for them too. Believe it or not, it happens to me all the time. I can’t go out in the human world without getting a heedful of garbage. That’s why I like this island. It’s cool, it’s calming, and it’s perfect out here because I’m the only one.”

“Doesn’t it get lonely out here with just you here?” asked David while sheepishly turning his face away.

“As a matter of fact, it does, my friend. But it doesn’t have to be lonely anymore. And you don’t have to suffer those hideous thoughts anymore. You have no way of getting back anyways, with no war machine and no radio.” That last sentence was punctuated with a loving grin on the giantess’s face.

“Wait a minute…why are you…you’re not planning on….” David looked down at his groin and asked, “How exactly would that work?”

“It wouldn’t work, David. You’d be nothing more than a shit stain in the ground before you had the chance to blow.”

“Oh no, I wasn’t talking about that! I, uh…uh…” David’s face reddened like a strawberry at his own stupid assumption.

“On the contrary, my friend: I have much different plans for your permanent vacation therapy here. And while we’re on friendly terms, I have a name, you know: Amalia. Amalia Strom. But you can call my mommy if you’d like. Oh, do I have plans for you!”

David Masters V gulped a cannonball-sized lump down his throat while Amalia reached in her satchel for something that sounded fuzzy and leathery. Before the traumatized soldier knew it, his head was wrapped in a furry cap with pink bunny ears on top. Amalia cradled him in her arms like a baby and lovingly cooed, “My own little bunny rabbit! I will name him George and hug him and kiss him and squeeze him!”

After grimacing in pain from being hugged and squeezed, David formed a sweet smile on his face and said, “I loved that cartoon when I was a kid. And then I got spanked with a fucking belt for liking ‘faggot shit’. My bones hurt like hell, but keep squeezing anyways, Miss Strom!”

“And I will caress him and pat him and pet him and love him and rub him…”

David Masters V didn’t know if he felt warm and fuzzy inside because he could finally let go of his war trauma or because his organs were squishing together inside of him. For the first time in his life, his smile wasn’t because of a corny sex joke his drill instructor told him. His secret deep down wish came true after all.

Baby Looney Tunes

TV SHOW TITLE: Baby Looney Tunes
CREATOR: Warner Brothers Staff
YEARS ACTIVE: 2001-2002
GENRE: Children’s Cartoon
RATING: TV-Y
GRADE: Pass


Before they became cartoon icons, the Looney Tunes were just little babies in diapers trying to figure out the world with the help of Granny. They played together, they learned together, they even have little adventures together. The usual antics of the Looney Tunes such as dynamite, shotguns, and other slapstick moments have been replaced with bouncy and playful comedy as well as the development of these little kids’ imaginations.

I realize that the show is rated TV-Y and that it’s intended for children with single digit ages, not Generation Y members like me. I have nothing to gain from the lessons taught in these episodes because I’ve seen it all. But darn it, those little Looney Tune babies are so cute! Teeny tiny little animal children bouncing around and playing in little cloth diapers! I usually get this giddy when I visit the Humane Society and check out all of their kitties and puppies.

I wish there was a Humane Society for the Looney Tunes, because I’d scoop up Baby Bugs Bunny and rock him back and forth until he fell asleep and drooled on my arms! Aww!! I’d give Tazz a belly rub, I’d give Sylvester an ear scratch, and I’d even play with Daffy Duck’s bill! This show gets a passing grade just for the cuteness overload. Death by cuteness: what a way to go. Hehe!

From an educational perspective, the lessons learned by the little Looney Tunies at the end of every episode are actually useful to human children. Share your toys, exercise your imagination, be nice to each other, try new things, these are all ideals that parents try hard enough to pass onto their children. And now you have a cute and cuddly show like Baby Looney Tunes passing on these important values that permeate all belief systems.

The one lesson out of the items I’ve listed that I believe is most important is to exercise your creativity when you’re young. It all begins when you’re a little guy and you see something in a book or TV show that excites you and inspires your imagination.

There’s another lesson I’d like to add to that: don’t let anybody ridicule you for having a vivid imagination in the first place. Growing up to be a dull and boring person stems from such negativity. Look at the Looney Tunes all grown up now: do they look boring and dull to you? No, and it’s because Granny nurtured their little minds every step of the way and never told them they couldn’t do something (unless it was dangerous to themselves or other people).

I’ve earned the reputation of being a giant man baby around the house. I watch TV-Y and TV-Y7 rated shows and I find cuteness in everything those shows provide me. If you gain the same reputation for watching Baby Looney Tunes, embrace it. Embrace your inner child and never grow up. The real world is a cold and lonely place. But inside your overactive imagination, there’s a spiritual force that will never let you down.