Seth MacFarlane -- A Reasonably Flatulent, Reasonable Human

Family Guy's Stewie Saves Brian -- Free World Rejoices, The Taliban
Mutters Threats; China Goes To Defcon-Bozo

The UK Guardian reports that

After the [episode where Brian is run over by a car and killed] aired, Family Guy ... creator Seth MacFarlane told his followers on Twitter that they would have to be "f***ing high" to think they had killed off Brian for good. He tweeted:

"Oh and hey… thanks for caring so much about the canine Griffin.  He is overcome with gratitude...  I mean, you didn’t really think we’d kill off Brian, did you? Jesus, we’d have to be f***ing high...  And thus endeth our warm, fuzzy holiday lesson:  Never take those you love for granted, for they can be gone in a flash."

“You’ve given me a beautiful life,” He told them before flatlining. “I love you all.” 

"Brian has been reunited with the Griffins in time for Christmas... after Stewie staged a daring rescue. Fans of the... show were up in arms after the beloved canine was killed off in a car accident last month. But Brian was brought back from the dead in last night’s episode, entitled 'Christmas Guy'.

"The miserable one year-old goes on a trip to the mall with the Griffin family’s new dog, Vinnie and tries to bring Brian back by asking Santa for his return. He sobs:  'I want my friend back. My best friend, my dog, Brian; he’s dead. It’s our first Christmas without him and no one has even mentioned his name! I don’t care about this stupid carnival, or Christmas; I don’t care about anything but Brian ! '
 
"Stewie spots himself from the past in the mall and remembers that there is a time machine in his backpack ... steals it as Vinnie distracts past-Stewie, and goes back in time to the moment just before Brian gets hit by a car.

 "He tells him: 'You’re alive, my friend! I couldn’t live without you, so I came back from the future to save your life! '  Brian replies: 'Thank you for saving my life. A lot of other families would have just gotten another dog and moved on.' "

(In completely unrelated news, Nelson Mandela, Joan Fontaine and Peter O'Toole have actually died, and unfortunately are not anticipated to be rescued by a time machine.)

___________________________________________________________________

Dog Dominance

More Random Barking: Friday Edition



I'm not sure what Neil Genzlinger is, other than desperate for a topic with which to fill the virtual space of his column as television critic for the New York Times online.

Today's frothy concoction was, "There’s a Canine Conspiracy! Television Reveals It!", wherein we learn that dogs in America are depicted on various cable programs (The Dog Whisperer; It's Me Or The Dog; and Petkeeping With Marc Morrone) as "a collection of neurotic, insecure, bitchy, bullying creatures".

Neil claims, all tongue-in-cheek, aber natürlich, that the causes for so many problem dogs, as shown on these teevee programs, are (1) The Media; (2) Liberal Democrats; and (3) Overregulation.

My opinion? Neil just didn't know what to write about when he got up this morning, after doing Shots from that Exmass gift bottle of Tres Generations, with the person in his life who allows him sexual access, last night.

As his submission deadline approached, he had nothin'. All he could do was slump, poleaxed and semi-comatose, on his sofa, watching whatever he surfed across on his 42" LCD-screen teevee device. Lookit all these shows about dogs, he thought -- though it took a while for the images of dogs to be recognized by his pre-frontal cortex as dogs, and not as, say, home appliances or his third-grade teacher.

And then, he stumbled across Family Guy:

Then came the slobbery “Beethoven” movies... and the even more slobbery “Turner & Hooch... And now there’s Brian, the more-human-than-the-humans dog on “Family Guy.” It’s no wonder your postmodern mutt, after spending hours watching this kind of stuff, thinks there are no rules.

Frankly, Having This Dog, Running The Country, Might
Not Be A Bad Thing At This Point (Photo: Intertubes)

Hey... Brian the Dog. Yeah; that's what I can write about, he thought. Simple; ties in wit' cable teevee... I'll use the Winger argument that it's all because of liberal permissiveness; little snarky ironic social comment, there... yeah, they'll take it. Sure.

He also still had a sufficiently high blood alcohol level to believe that this idea wouldn't be perceived as an act of desperation -- but of bloody genius; total Shakespear, man. Awesome.

Do I know if any of this is actually true? No. Did I indulge my taste for satire to make a point (that the column sucked)? Well, yes. Do I believe, as Neil claims, that there's a Canine Conspiracy; that dogs have it in for humans? No.

No, Neil. Not true. We just have it in for you.

---

All Mongo All The Time

Wherein Our Mongo Claims Primacy,
And -- Hey!! Other Dog!!


Steal My Persona And Go To Doggy Hell, Buddy

Looking around the Intertubes a bit, I found a reference that was both curious and disturbing -- not that everything on the 'tubes doesn't strike me as disturbing in some fashion.

Apparently, The South Magazine, a Regional print and online magazine celebrating that part of the country that gave us [Redacted], [Redacted], [Redacted] and [Redacted] a [Redacted], apparently has a mascot -- the owner's dog, an English Bull Terrier, named Mongo.


Not Me: Someone Else's Mascot, 2009

I've been blogging since 2008, and have been a Dog so much longer than that. The name 'Mongo' (aber natürlich) comes from the mid-seventies film, Blazing Saddles, and was won by me after a night of drunken, smoky collegiate revelry that resulted in, uh, "an incident". I was known to a small cadre of fellow-travelers as Mongo, A Dog, ever since.

I just want it made clear: That Mongo is not me; I am not them. I am, much like Brian, The Other Dog, a Free Dog, not anyone's property, able to make a living, and waste your time with stuff like this.

By the way: Ted Both, Author Guy, wrote a book entitled Mongo: Adventures In Trash in 2004, and noted that



According to Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang, the word mongo was coined in New York in the 1980s. It refers to trash, or more specifically, to treasure found in trash: books, artifacts, furniture, even food. Ted Botha’s book explores a whole culture, and various subcultures, that revolve around mongo.

We work; We bark; We blog. We put our noses into women's crotches; they appear to enjoy it.

Just so we're clear.

---

Housekeeping

It's turned out to be that kind of week already.

Family Guy, Season Six, Episode 6; "Padre De Familia": After the cliffhangers of Episode 4 ("Stewie Kills Lois") and Episode 5 ("Lois Kills Stewie"), Peter opens the show by, in his normal fashion, by becoming enraged and self-righteous... this time, towards any immigrant in America. Peter begins organizing a campaign at the Pawtucket Brewery to uncover and fire any undocumented aliens who might be working there. This makes Peter (as usual) a mildly humorous, self-focused, insufferable prick.


BRIAN: Why did you have my acupuncturist arrested??
PETER: Because he was a terrorist.
BRIAN: He's an eighty-five-year-old Buddhist!
PETER: Or is he the secret head of Al-Qaeda? I guess time will tell.

Visiting his mother (Voice: Phyllis Diller), Peter learns that he was born in Mexico after several (disgusting) attempts by his mother to induce a miscarriage -- but she never registered Peter's birth after returning to the 'Murrika. "As far as the U.S. government is concerned," she tells Peter, "You're an illegal, Mexican alien."

Newly-illegal immigrant Peter comes home to tell Lois that he was fired from his job because of his undocumented status. Lois takes it well (given that she's taken everything, including sex with Peter, fairly well); Peter wonders what kind of work he might do next as an illegal -- possibly, a hotel job.

This bit has been going through my head in an unending loop, all day:

PETER: ...'Housekeeping Wanted'. Aw, sweet! I could do that!

(Cut To: Medium Close-Up Shot, Exterior, Day); PETER, dressed in a blue domestic maid's dress, pushing a cart with cleaning supplies on the upper deck of a motel; he stops in front of room 105 and knocks on the door.)

PETER (Strange Accent): Housekeeping. (Pauses; knocks again) Housekeeping.
MAN'S VOICE INSIDE ROOM: Come back later, please!
PETER: Housekeeping.
VOICE: Not now!
PETER: (Frowns) Housekeeping.
VOICE: Go away!
PETER: I come in anyway?
VOICE: No; go away!
PETER: (Pause) I come in anyway.
(Takes keys and opens door)



(Cut To: Medium Long Shot, Interior, Day); PETER, entering the motel room at Left; a man and a woman are in bed at Right and who sit up, shocked, clearly interrupted in the midst of having sex.)

GIRL: Oh, my God!!
MAN: I said, 'No'!!
PETER: Okay I clean?
MAN: No! Get outta here!
PETER: I clean now?
MAN: No!
PETER: I stay and watch?
MAN: No!
PETER: I get involved?
MAN: --- What?
PETER: I get involved with lady?
MAN: Whu -- Whu -- (Turns to GIRL) What do you think?
GIRL: (To PETER) -- turn around!

(PETER turns around, but, hey; we all know what his physique is like, right?)

GIRL: (To PETER) I don't think so.
PETER: Okay. You lend me money?
MAN: No.
PETER: You drive my grandmother to Doctor's appointment?
MAN: No! No; I'm not doing that.
PETER: I stick my finger in your mouth? (Long pause)
Housekeeping?
MAN: (Sighing) Okay...
PETER: Okay. (Begins picking up clothing thrown on floor)

---

It's Been Another Brian Griffin Kind Of Weekend (Again)

Family Guy, Season Four, Episode 12; "The Perfect Castaway": In a takeoff of Castaway and Perfect Storm, Peter's fishing boat (crewed by Joe, Cleveland and Quagmeyer) is sunk during Hurricane RuPaul. The boys float to a tropical island on a raft made of inflatable Love Dolls, and are rescued months later by a passing cruise liner.


The Love Boat: Peter and crew approach Tom Hanks' island.

Returning home, Peter finds that Lois has gotten remarried -- to Brian. But, while it seems like a dream come true (for Brian, anyway), there are problems...



To Brian's frustration, the marriage has never been consummated.
A la 1950's Teevee, Lois and Brian sleep in separate beds.


With Lois, The Perfect Sucker Gentleman.

BRIAN: So -- do you think this is the night we push the beds together, Lois?
LOIS: I don't think so, Brian. Not -- not yet.
(Brian sighs and gets out of his bed) Where are you going?
BRIAN: I'll -- be in the basement.
LOIS: Doing what?
BRIAN: What do you think?

Lois initially refuses Peter's advances -- Brian provided financially for Peter's family after his disappearance, has been there for Chris and Meg; Lois says she's made a commitment to Brian and intends to keep it.

However, she finally succumbs to his, uh, irresistible charms and begins to see Peter on the sly. Brian catches her leaving the house one night ("Ah -- it's a meeting of my garden club!" "But it's ten-thirty at night -- and you're carrying a saddle"), she distracts him with a yellow tennis ball.

LOIS: Well...it's a...I...um... [takes out the ball] What's this? What's this, Brian, huh? What's this, huh?
BRIAN: It's a ball.
LOIS: Oh, is this your ball? You want it? You want this? Huh Huh?
BRIAN: Ah ... Yes, I would. I would like it, please, yes.
LOIS: Yeah, you want this? Huh? You want the ball?
BRIAN: Yes, I would.
LOIS: You want it? Huh? You want the ball?
BRIAN: Yes, I would like to have it very much.
LOIS: Want the ball? Huh, huh?
BRIAN: Ah, yes; I would enjoy having it. Yes. Give it to me.
LOIS: GO GET IT!! (pretends to throw the ball; Brian runs after it, then returns)
BRIAN: Ah, I - I'm sorry, Lois. I was mistaken. I thought you threw the ball, but I can see now you still have it.

Brian sees Lois' love for Peter is undiminished, and understands that keeping them apart serves nothing. He tells her they should divorce, so that she and Peter can remarry.



A bit later, with the family once again gathered around the living room sofa, Lois expresses her relief that everything is back to normal -- unfortunately for Brian.


Another of Brian's chances for love, lost.

LOIS: And to think, Brian, I was like a day away from having sex with you. I was gonna push those beds together and take you around the freakin' world, Brian! But, a nice pat on the head is just as good, huh?
(She pats Brian, who sits glowering at her, on the head. Then she holds up the yellow tennis ball) You want your ball, huh? You want your ball?
BRIAN: No. No, Lois; I -- I don't want the ball right now.
If everyone will excuse me, I'll be in the basement. (Jumps down from sofa and leaves the room)
PETER: Doing what?
BRIAN: (Off camera) What do you think?

UPDATE: Seth MacFarlane is making more money than you or I will ever be able to dream about in our entire lives even if we exercized and ate all the right food and swallowed a half-pound of Reservatrol every day for the next decade.

Here's the proof:



But -- they didn't show the Giant Squid on the game box. They show Ernie -- The Giant Chicken?? Yeah; right. They put the Giant fucking Chicken on the game box. They even give him a name -- But not the Squid. Never the Squid. No one ever cares about the Giant Squid.

But they will -- oh, they will...

Oh The Humanity

( Mongo, At Work )

Well, don't expect a taut, gritty analysis of modern life. On the weekend? Possibly.

Apocalypse? Well; I Just Have An Answer To THAT...

This weeks' banner is a publicity still from the website of Columbia Pictures' end-of-the-Planet-and-all-humankind film 2012, to be released this November 13th -- absolutely, a Friday. Nothing like opening a film (with a theme of eliminating humanity) within weeks of major festival days of several religions. Too cool, Columbia!

Yep; that's the Indian Ocean in that picture, rising over the foothills of the Himalayas -- about 10,000 feet above sea level. If that were actually happening, the entire Indian subcontinent would be under several thousand fathoms, and something tells me the movie can't last another ten minutes after a scene like that.

There is a good bit of disaster-mongering hucksterism surrounding the 2012 Winter Solstice. Depending upon whom you read, it's either a once-in a thousand-plus generations celestial alignment; the conclusion of a single, 26,000-year Great Progression of the Earth's axis; the end of one of the Great Yurgas and the end of the Mayan Long-Count Calendar, which opens the Underworld / the Human Unconscious, and usher in the Return Of Chtulu -- or an opportunity to raise the collective consciousness of the species a la Tielhard de Chardain's 'Noosphere'.

Others have said that by the Winter Solstice in that year, as our Solar System's orbit reaches a position relative to the plane of the Galaxy, reaching the completion of these cycles will mean some combination of celestial and natural disasters which have wiped out life on the planet before -- and about which the calendars and religions of the Ancients were warnings to future generations, presented in the symbols of their mythic worldviews, or mathematical puzzles. It also could be that whether 12.22.2012 is the last gasp of humanity or not, Columbia intends to make some money out of that possibility in the meantime; a very human attribute.

Even if it is CGI hogwash, considering the premise of the movie gave me some pause -- I mean, as Monty Python puts it in the 'Crunchy Frog' skit: Where's the pleasure in that? The total destruction of humanity isn't precisely a feel-good ending; people are liable to throw their Big Gulps at the screen, because there's just enough plausibility and dark attraction in the idea to make us wonder how possible it really is. We're already aware that asteroids and comets and earthquakes and volcanoes and plagues and Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage exist, and are potential destroyers of life on Earth as we know it.

I don't even know how the hard drive in my computer works (some say it's electronic; some say it's magic), so I don't have any answers to how likely any end-of-the-world scenarios are -- except that I might have a glimmer of an idea on how to face the possibility of Armageddon.

Reflecting on the wisdom of any of the world's great religions (or, the one operative on your street) may help at a Final Hour. Prayer may be one response. Getting blindingly, staggeringly high may be another. Or, making love, followed by the most excellent meal you can imagine.

But here, Brian Griffin shows us what I believe to be one True Way to face the End: Ride The Cosmic Giggle, Ladies and Gentlemen -- Do The Peanut Butter Jelly Dance.



Family Guy, Season Four, Episode 16; "The Courtship Of Stewie's Father": Peter, roundly taken to task by Lois for acting like himself, is depressed. "Aw, don't feel bad, Peter," Brian says. "I know what'll cheer you up." "Naah; I'm just not in the mood," Peter replies. "Are you sure?" Brian says, and exits stage right -- to return as:





PEANUT BUTTER JELLY TIME !!

Peter, sadly, is just not brought out of the doldrums ("Sorry, Brian; it's just not doin' it today"), and he shambles off stage left.



But, does Brian fold? No !! He continues !! He ramps it up !! And in that is the wisdom we might profit from.

I believe, as Saint Roger did in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, that "Laughter is a very powerful thing -- why, sometimes, it's the only thing we have". We already take so much too seriously. If we were presented with a situation which spelled certain death, total annihilation -- how would we choose to go out? Making a joke in the face of one's own end takes a certain amount of courage, and style.

Here endeth the lesson.

So, as right-to-lifers go after their targets; as the possibility of being fired or laid off continues to hang in the air like the stench of Little Bernie Madoff's aftershave; as we prepare to send more men and women to Afghanistan; as the Oh-for-crying-out-loud wackiness of these days plays out, perhaps the old stories of an End Of All Things are coming to pass. Maybe not. If they are, I will make the best peace with that I can; but, in my heart, I will take my stand, dressed in a large Banana suit and holding a pair of Maracas, singing:



...Peanut-Butter-Jelly !! Peanut-Butter-Jelly !! Peanut-Butter-Jelly wit' a Baseball Bat!!

Aliens & Coo Hwhip: A Brian Griffin Kind Of Weekend

Family Guy - Episode 85, "Barely Legal": (12/17/2006) The Outrage Thus Far: Brian has been given a pie and a container of Cool Whip by Meg -- whose infatuation with him following a brief, drunken moment necking after a High School dance quickly turns to obsession, much to Brian's discomfort ("You know, Brian; I had no idea how flat and wide your tongue was").

Meg has baked some of her own hair into the pie ("That means some of me is in that pie, Brian -- that means some of me is inside you. Can you feel me? Can you feel me inside you, Brian?").



... but for now, The Set-Up For the Humorous Bit: Meg leaves; Stewie enters the living room, spots the tray with the pie, and the Cool Whip, and sits on the couch next to Brian.

Stewie: Ooh, some pie! Can I have a piece?
Brian: Uh -- okay.
Stewie: Ummm. Let me have some of that Coo Hwhip.
Brian: What'd you say?
Stewie: You can't have a pie without Coo Hwhip.
Brian: 'Coo Hwhip'?
Stewie: Coo Hwhip, yeah.
Brian: You mean, 'Cool Whip'.
Stewie: Yeah, Coo Hwhip.
Brian: Cool Whip.
Stewie: Coo Hwhip.
Brian: Cool Whip.
Stewie: Coo Hwhip.



Brian: You're saying it weird.
Why are you putting so much emphasis on the’H’ ?
Stewie: What are you talking about? I'm just saying it. Coo Hwhip. You put Coo Hwhip on pie. Pie tastes better with Coo Hwhip.
Brian: Say ‘Whip’.
Stewie: Whip.
Brian: Now say, ‘Cool Whip’.
Stewie: ‘Coo Hwhip’.
Brian: Cool Whip.
Stewie: Coo Hwhip.
Brian: Cool Whip.
Stewie: Coo Hwhip.
Brian: Cool -- You're eating hair !!

Much as I like the antics of Family Guy, I suddenly remembered this broadcast episode (and so many others; this bit was nothing) is now part of the rich electronic heritage of our species -- a cloud of signals, expanding into the Cosmos at hundreds of thousands of miles an hour.

If alien civilizations are able to pick these broadcasts up, in deciphering our culture they will not know whether to give more weight to Brian's conversation with Stewie, or FDR's First Inauguration ("Nothing To Fear But Fear Itself") speech.

Any episode where Stewie tries to take over the Earth could mean the difference between aliens who decide to annihilate us just to end The threat of this tiny pink creature with the huge braincase, and aliens who think he's someone they could cut a deal with.

Problems could occur if they arrive and demand to speak with him. Alternatively, we could have problems if they appear and demand to speak with FDR:

"We wish to speak with the Franklin Roosevelt. Failure to allow us to do so will mean the elimination of your species. Oh, and several egg creams while we wait. And xeno-interspecies sex with Sandra Bullock. You know what they say -- 'Once you've had Zxgnarrgnnnn, you never go back' ."

So I was a little concerned -- but, how worried should we be? No aliens have contacted us (Yet. That we know about.); and, it's also true that when compared with the spewing of Michael Savage; Jim Lehrer's vegetative droning; anything having to do with Gossip Girl; or old episodes of Hee Haw, Brian and Stewie come off like a couple of Nobel laureates.

Plus, I like to laugh. I don't know about the aliens.