Sorry there’s been no posts here on Junkyard Clubhouse. I can only speak for myself, but I’ve been pretty busy with lots of other things (learning some new 3d tools, posting to my geeky, other blog, working on the Tiki Crawl, twittering geeky stuff, and just so much more exciting things that the ol’ JYC hasn’t been gettin’ the TLC it deserves. I am not sure if this is a temporary trend, or if at some point I’ll start consolidating all my webby goodness over at my other blog (not that I’ve had things to post here at JYC that I didn’t). Anyway, until the next chapter in Junkyard Clubhouse unfolds, here’s another vintage cartoon from my youth.

Kansas City Kitty

This is the other Kansas City Kitty — NOT the Betty Boop one you’ll find all over the internet when you google it. It was difficult to track down. It’s proper name is “We, the Animals-Squeak!”, but when you watch it you’ll see why I could only remember it for a wordless song (well, “na na na na na”) a kidnapping plot involving unintelligible words spoken by mobster mice, and, well, the Kansas City Kitty. It’s a kidnapping cat-mouse story, thinly veiled as a Porky Pig cartoon.

There’s just so many great things in this cartoon I don’t know where to begin. It starts off with a nod to imbibing with a character named Tom Collins — with an actual cocktail in the cartoon, which leads to a birth, slyly implying that her baby was the product of a few too many cocktails. A out-of-wedlock birth follows. Then we’re hit up with a Hitler reference doodled on the blueprint during the kiddnapping scene, and many references to killing, including a hand-across-neck gesture, a mock strangulation scene, and a mouse screaming out “why, that’s MURDER!!” at the top of his lungs. The animation is crude and the lipsync is abysmal, but this actually adds to the charm. Of course the song is cute, but my favorite part is the hushed kidnapping plan made largely out of unintelligible words.

The mice in this cartoon are clearly precursors to the weasels in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (watch this scene from the movie to see the similarities) especially the voices, but of course these mice were probably based on cliche mobster types from the Hollywood pictures of the day.

Enjoy the cartoon!

Despite hating the actual Hummer H2 that this advertises, I really, truly love this commercial and think it’s a great piece of storytelling. It kind of has that Wes Anderson/Rushmore feel to it.

The fact that it uses The Who’s “Happy Jack” is gravy.

BTW, in the post-show for Test Track at EPCOT park at Walt Disney World, the car from this commerical is on display, and a video showing the making of this commercial is also playing.

So sad.

[via Reddit]

Some people have too much time on their hands. But others are busy busy busy collecting together the electrocuted skeleton sprites from Street Fighter II. You know, when Blanka shocks them.
See if you can guess which skeleton goes with which SFII character, and post your guesses in the comments! Winners will get nothing.

[Via Tiny Cartridge]

Today Megan got me these amazing graveyard LEGO kits. The attention to detail and theming is incredible. These are official LEGO parts, and official LEGO kits, and I’ve never seen anything quite like it! I love the LEGO ghost, skeleton, and creepy crawlies. Have a great HALLOWEEN everybody!

I want one of those wrinkle computers.

Apparently this is the handy work of Stan Freberg. Is he doing the voiceover? [via Martin]

To tell you the truth, I’m a huge fan of awkwardly sincere music and artwork, especially when it’s bad. I lit up when I came across Cartoon Brew’s discovery of Uncle Funny Bunny and Chumpy. Man, even the name is klunky.

Most of strips have a gag in them that almost always fails to deliver, like these:

While others just kinda play out incoherently:

But my favorite moments in these strips are when the author clearly just gives up. In this strip, you can see the author clearly thought he had something with “snow bank”, but makes Chumpy mirror the author’s own ineptitude by simply declaring “I don’t understand it but …”

And nothing screams “I don’t want to put any effort into my gag” than a word balloon full of “blah blah blah”s:

Still, there’s something about this strip that just makes me smile when I read them. It kinda reminds me of my own short-lived comic strip, Nuknuk and Piney.

Check out the rest of the scans on Cartoon Brew.

I recently discovered a few cool things.

1. There’s a Hard Rock theme park.

2. In said theme park is a section called Banana Splitsville.

Sadly there’s not much info or photos of it on the web yet, but apparently the Splits themselves perform there several times a day. Can anyone help me out?

3. The Ben & Jerry’s Banana Split ice cream changed their logo to something that does not infringe on the Splits. Hopefully photos will be coming soon. (thanks Humu for the tip!).

And perhaps a little less cool:

4. The Banana Splits have updated their website, and recorded new videos and songs, which are on sale on iTunes, if you’re so inclined!. Sadly, they sound nothing like their old selves.

Check out JYC’s other Banana Splits posts:

Ben & Jerry’s Steals Banana Split’s Logo
Rare Banana Splits Stuff

Before I traded in my National Geographics for Playboys Hustlers, I was a consistent reader of MAD. What I really loved was the occasional flexi-disc records they’d include in their Super Specials. And the holy grail of all flexi-discs was The MAD Mystery Record. The record played “Super Spectacular Day”, a story in song that described the most absolute best day you could ever be having — until — the record randomly branched into one of eight different disastrous random endings.

It’s still clever even as an adult, but as a kid I was simply fascinated by it. How could a record have different endings? How did the record choose which one to play? I played the record over and over to hear them all and to study how it worked. Finally my Dad explained it to me: while normal records have one spiral groove per side, the MAD disc had multiple grooves spiraled together in parallel. All of the grooves had music that started off with the same beginning, so the branching appeared to happen mid-way through. But in reality it was the initial drop of the needle that determined what ending played.

Super Spectacular Day is a classic example of MAD’s corny humor. And of course, someone has put all eight tracks on Youtube so you can enjoy it for free (Cheap!). The actual playback of the song starts about 30 seconds in.

Here’s the Lyrics, courtesy of barrygoldberg.net, rearranged to match the order of the Youtube video:

CHORUS:
It’s a great big, beautiful, wonderful, incredible, super-spectacular day
And your heart is humming with good times coming
And you got that happy feeling things are going your way
All the bells are ringing and a little bird’s singing while he sits on your windowsill
Singing yessiree, I can surely see, it will plainly be, most definitely
A super-spectacular day!

Untilllllllll…

#1
‘Round quarter to five your relations arrive
And you greet cousin Beth with terrible breath
And a fat British guy who destroys your hi-fi
And your great uncle Fred who gets drunk in your bed
And your third cousin Dick who is metally sick
And his creepy friend Joe and six more you don’t know
And you’re sure there and then as you’re shafted again…

#2:
‘Round seven at night you go out for a bite
The streets are aglow from a large UFO
A creature comes out with two heads and a snout
It talks like a frog and throws up on your dog
It thinks you are great and wants you for its mate
You’re sealed in a case and go flying in space
And you silently say as the Earth fades away…

#3:
You walk out the door of a dry cleaning store
And you’re grabbed by surprise by three mafia guys
Who mistakenly think that you’re Hymie the Fink
They break your right arm and do bodily harm
And you’re writhing in pain and you try to explain
That your name is Jerome and you’re on your way home
And you let out a sigh as you’re left there to die…

#4:
A quarter past eight you pick up your blind date
And you really go ape for her fabulous shape
Of the girls that you’ve met she’s the classiest yet
And she’s pretty and bright and it’s love at first sight
And it’s really a shame she’s not feeling the same
‘Cuz she thinks you’re a shmuck and she says “lots of luck”
And you sob in despair as she gives you the air…

#5:
You’re called down in class and you feel like an ass
‘Cuz you don’t have a clue and you know that it’s due
To those classes you skipped and you’re fly is unzipped
And your acne has spread to the back of your head
And some jerk spreads the word that you’re some kind of nerd
And you fight in the hall and punch through a wall
And there isn’t a doubt as they’re flunking you out…

#6:
You develop a twitch and a horrible itch
And you’re covered with spots and you’re getting the trots
And you’re feet start to swell and it’s easy to tell
From this hideous wheeze that some awful disease
So you call an M.D. and he says “don’t ask me”
If it gets any worse you can speak to my nurse
And you manage to say as you wither away…

#7:
Your sister pours glue in her hair and blames you
And your neighbor says that you’re abusing her cat
And you just left the john with the water turned on
And the house gets all wet and your mother’s upset
And you’d die if you knew what your dad’s gonna do
And your python gets loose and you know it’s no use
And you cry there in fear and it’s now very clear…

#8:
You go out for a spin and your sunroof caves in
And the steering wheel shakes so you slam on the brakes
And the gears get all stuck as you sideswipe a truck
And you run out of gas while you’re trying to pass
And you’re stalled on the tracks and you try to relax
But the train’s coming through and it’s heading for you
And you have a quick flash as you brace for the crash….

… that it’s not such a super-spectacular day!

There’s something appealingly deceptive about this commercial for Hong Kong Disneyland’s “It’s a Small World” ride. It completely misrepresents the ride as being a high-energy, madcap adventure through the “happiest world on Earth.” Still, I enjoy it.

[via The Disney Blog]