Pluck-a-Doodle-Doo!

Or how the Cartoon Network did what General Howe couldn’t, and defeated Boston

© Bryan Zepp Jamieson
2/3/07
http://www.mytown.ca/zepp

 

There are chicken feathers floating down all over the Northeastern corridor this week from New York to Boston. Newspaper editors are urged not to attempt to have sexual congress with the chicken feathers.

Who would have guessed it would be so easy to bring a major American city to her knees? Or a major American newspaper?

In Boston, a marketing ploy resulted in a bomb scare that shut the entire downtown area down for several hours. The “bomb” consisted of a breadboard circuit sheet like the type you can buy in Radio Shack to make your own radio, with about 60 LEDs arranged to create the outline of a simple cartoon figure which is making a rude gesture with its middle finger. It’s about as threatening as a kitten, even with the small battery and the two wires leading from the battery to the board to make the lights glow.

Because of the rude gesture (the bird), our brave and noble media refused, in large measure, to show the “device,” leaving people to imagine a sophisticated electronic device with wires and times and big, ominous, greasy packages into which the bare wires feed. But really – it was a small circuit board, LEDS, two small wires and a battery.

Boston plotzed when one of them was found (hidden in plain sight on a brick wall) by someone who promptly panicked and imagined himself in hour 24 of the Jack Bauer series.

Boston arrested two people, who will probably be threatened with terrorism charges, and Boston is threatening to sue Time Warner. Time Warner owns the Cartoon Network, and it sounds a hell of a lot more dignified to say you are suing a big multinational corporation than threatening to start a scrap with Ed, Edd and Eddy, or Billy & Mandy.

In the meantime, the movie, “Aqua Teen Hunger Force,” which seemed to be destined to be a relatively obscure cult movie, is now likely to be a top grosser when it comes out in a few weeks. The series, according to Wikipedia, ‘features a bad-tempered milkshake, a scientifically inclined pack of French fries, and the aptly-named “Meatwad.”’ The character that reduced Boston to blind, gibbering terror was called Err, and he’s a something-or-other from the Moon and into trash-talk and obscene gestures.

So really, not much different from what you might find on the Boston City Council.

Robert de Niro missed a bet when he was promoting “The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle.” He should have sent out Danny DeVito and Angelica Huston out as Boris and Natasha to plant painted bowling balls – with the word “bomb” painted in White-Out on the side – in front of various city halls. Not only would this have called considerable attention to his movie, but it might have brought down the United States. If they really wanted to terrify, they could have stuck a piece of skipping rope in one of the holes for verisimilitude. Ha! That would show moose and squirrel!

It’s all part of an evil plot by the Cartoon Network to take over the world, of course.

While Boston was busily holding up American equanimity in the face of vaguely vulgar cartoon figures, the New York Times was showing why it leads the way for American journalism.

Molly Ivins used to work for them, back in the 1970s. In one of her columns, she wrote about some event in east Texas in which a whole bunch of innocent chickens were slaughtered. She referred to this as a “gang pluck.” This was too much for the staid old Times, and they and Molly had a parting of the ways.

The incident was included in her obit last week, including the phrase “gang pluck.” It was STILL too much for the Times, who altered their version of her obit to read, “a sexually suggestive remark.”

Now, maybe it’s just me, but when I think of sex, chicken feathers aren’t the first thing that cross my mind. And if I want to remain married, I suppose it should stay that way. Conversely, I doubt that chicken feathers cause arousal or prurient interest in anyone, even Texans. I know that back around 1900 it was a problem in San Francisco, or at least we may so surmise from the fact that the state government, in its wisdom, decreed that sex involving feather dusters was going to get someone fined $50, which in those days was a hefty sum. I’m willing to risk getting fined if it means finding out just what those people were DOING with those feather dusters. Of course, I’ve already got Homeland Security driving toward my house at breakneck speed in Black Marias because I just suggested that dated cartoon icon Boris Badenov leave bowling balls in major American cities. If I end up in prison for conspiring to frighten people with cartoons and bowling balls, maybe I’ll find out what the deal is with feather dusters.

In the meantime, the New York Times knows something about feather dusters. Oh my, yes, they do. Why else would they let America’s premiere columnist go and, 31 years later, find the whole issue of plucking chickens to be too hot to handle?

Remember, this is the paper America is depending on to keep us from repeating the mistakes of Iraq with Iran. If they reinstate the draft, tell your kids to go in to register with feather dusters. That’s all that really needs to be said about that.

Now, some of you might be saying, this is all fine and good, Zepp, but what do feather dusters, flying squirrels, cowardly government officials, squeamish editors masquerading as journalists, and misogynistic milkshakes all have in common?

Well, not much, now that you mention it.

But Rocky the flying squirrel is, almost without exception, referred to as “the PLUCKY hero of ‘Rocky and Bullwinkle.’”

Folks, that can’t just be coincidence.