The third month of Art and Chip Sansom's short-lived comic strip Dusty Chaps was published yesterday. The antics at the dude ranch, Dusty Chaps, continue with J.J. Jennings, Ernest McDuff, and about five other regular characters who are yet to be named, somehow. Except for Sally and...Chuck Wagon(?).
Anyway, if you like what you see and would like to support me or this website, you can click the Support link at the top of the page.
August 23, 1987
Thankfully those were the receipts that proved the Acme account was just a money laundering scheme for prostitutes and he's just sleepily talking about making copies. Wait! That's why Veeblefester keeps him around! Brutus is so inept he can "accidentally" get rid of harmful evidence that could bring down the company.
And you know that will be the play of the day on SportsCenter and tonight's news. You can't escape it, Brutus. Might as well just turn off the TV.
Although the score is tied. Is there enough time for the other team to score or will we be going into overtime (that Brutus' team will likely lose in)? Did the quarterback even lose the ball? Why do I even care? It's a fictional football game and I don't even care about real football games. Brutus should just expect his team to always lose.
So Acme makes tea cozies as well? Or does Veeblefester just sell the cozies? Is Veeblefester just a tea cozy middleman--a Dunder Mifflin Tea Cozy Company, if you will?
This sounds like something that could be handled over the phone, Brutus. Or fax.
I saw today's strip and immediately thought it was a rerun. Then I saw the copyright of 2024 and was like, no, I've seen this before. And I have.
I don't understand why a company would spend hundreds of dollars for a plane trip that lasts two hours maximum when you could just use the company car and drive the damn two hours. I feel driving would be cheaper. And doesn't Veeblefester want to be cheaper?
Ooh, that's certainly a song. I'm listening to the Slim Whitman version. And it really is true that everything old is new again as "Indian Love Call" has seen a brief resurgence lately as it's in the current Wes Anderson movie Asteroid City.
Brutus has apparently moved on from bagpipes to the violin, which is a more reasonable instrument.
You would think Brutus would know how to do his job by now. You would also think that he would know how to handle the Acme account since he's been working on it, off and on, for the last 15 or so years.
Wilberforce just got distracted and sat his ice cream cone down on the chair? Actually, that sounds like something Wilberforce would do...
Seeing the art evolve from the 1960s to 1970s to the 1980s, I prefer this style. It reminds me of the characters in the TV Frosty the Snowman program.
If I had a Star Wars I wanted to watch all the time, it'd be A New Hope. I will not be taking questions on this.
I watch a lot of the same stuff. I just can't mentally gird myself to watch much new stuff--especially movies or dramas. I can get through TV shows as long as they aren't heavy dramas but my brain is working overtime on life and life is dramatic and terrible enough without TV and movies beating that fact over my head.
It's not that you can't afford them, you just need to be a little more clever in order to purchase them. Do you mean to tell me Gladys didn't shove clothes she couldn't afford into Wilberforce's coat? Then what's the point of bringing him? They'd never search a child.
It's gotta be a pain in the ass to constantly switch tea cozy suppliers. Acme switches accounts every six months or so it seems.
I'll be honest, I don't really know how this works. Does Veeblefester make the tea cozies and Acme is a store that sells them? Does Acme design the tea cozy and Veeblefester makes them?
Brutus has been dealing with Acme since at least 2011. He's both lost the account and got it back. That they keep coming back means Brutus is doing something right. I wouldn't get too upset. I could see Brutus both not calling them enough (don't want to rock the boat, you see) and calling them too much (Brutus is very needy and needs constant affirmation).
Tiny Toon Adventures was an animated series that aired in syndication and on Fox Kids from 1990 to 1992. The premise was simple, these were the stories from the new stars of Warner Bros. cartoons and they were learning from the old guard at good ol' Acme Looniversity. This episode deals with Babs learning about early cartoon star Honey.
It's mentor day at Acme Looniversity. Everybody is excited to be working with their Golden Age Warner Bros. counterparts--Buster with Bugs, Plucky with Daffy, Elmyra with Elmer Fudd, Calamity Coyote with Wile E. Coyote but Babs is placed in study hall because there are no female Warner Bros. stars.
In order to settle an argument over who is better--Bugs Bunny or Daffy Duck--Buster, Plucky, and Babs go down to the film vault to watch their old cartoons. I don't know how that would solve anything. I would just become more entrenched in my opinion because both are good.
Buster and Plucky arguing. Babs is not amused.
In the film vault, the mysterious vaultkeeper gives Buster and Plucky some Bugs and Daffy cartoons and asks what's wrong with Babs. She says it's because there are no girl cartoon stars. The vaultkeeper apologizes and then goes on his lunch break, asking Babs to watch things for him. A mysterious voice whispers out to Babs: "If you watch them, you will find her." Why the voice can't say who Babs should be looking for isn't clear but Babs spends the next several months watching old Warner Bros. cartoons. She finally finds the cartoon "Bosko In Person" from 1933. She plays it and discovers Honey, a female cartoon who does voices and impersonations just like Babs. Babs then wants to find her but the vaultkeeper reveals that no one has seen Honey in over 50 years. Babs is still determined to find her.
Honey and Bosko
Babs goes to the library to do some research on Honey. Honey was Warner Bros' first female cartoon star. Her and Bosko were on top until the creation of Porky Pig. Bosko and Honey continued to perform on stage but their old fashioned style and lack of color made them unpopular. Bosko continued to perform solo but a planned reunion with Honey on The Ed Sullivan Show was canceled when Honey was nowhere to be found. Bosko tried to find Honey until he also faded away into obscurity.
Babs tries to find Honey but has no idea where to start. The mysterious voice says that "If you build it, they will watch" meaning to build a theater to show Honey cartoons. Turns out laughter keeps a toon young, when the laughter stops, a toon grows old and forgotten. Babs tries to get some money by extorting Montana Max. Her ploy to sell Bunny Scout Carrots and help orphans doesn't work but a plan to send everybody without money to the moon does.
Sending poor people to the moon? Now that's a good idea.
The opening of the theater doesn't do well so the mysterious voice says Babs should advertise. Babs then advertises on television parodying Pee-Wee's Playhouse ("The secret word is 'honey'"), soap operas, and the Super Bowl. After hypnotizing the populace, the theater is full of people to watch Honey on the big screen once again.
Who would've thought a theater dedicated to one obscure cartoon
character from the 1930s would do so poorly?
I think this old lady is going to become important later.
The cartoons are big hit, people are literally falling out of their seats and balcony over these cartoons. Meanwhile, the little old lady from the previous picture starts to change and it's revealed that she's really Honey. After the show, Babs thanks Honey and wonders where the mysterious voice came from. Turns out the voice was really the mysterious vaultkeeper who was really Bosko all along. Nice of Acme Looniversity to give their first star a job. It's the least they could do, I guess.
Babs and Honey, together at last!
Honey and Bosko reunited!
With Honey and Bosco reunited, they dance off into the horizon.
***
Bosko and Honey were real cartoon characters from Warner Bros. Bosko was created by Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising in 1927 when they were still working at Disney. They copyrighted the character and planned on starting a sound series with Bosko. After leaving Disney, they worked at Universal for a year before starting work on Bosko's first film, Bosko, the Talk-Ink Kid. It was unique in that it focused on dialogue and not music like other short animated subjects of the time. Harman and Ising shopped the film around to numerous studios and Leon Schlesinger offered them a contract with Warner Bros.
Bosko and Honey's first cartoon was "Sinkin' In the Bathtub" in 1930. Bosco and Honey were originally considered to be two black children though that seemed to be later dropped or forgotten. Their adventures were not considered racist as they were treated in the same plot style as Mickey and Minnie Mouse. Racist stereotypes were avoided and Bosko's race was never pointed out or even considered a part of the story. However, a scene in the 1930 "Congo Jazz" shows Bosko, a chimpanzee, and a gorilla with the same facial features. Despite the lack of overt racism, Bosko and Honey were still black children in almost-exaggerated black face and somewhat monkey features.
Bosko and Honey, 1930
Bosko and Honey's last cartoon was "Bosko's Picture Show" in 1933. Harman and Ising left Warner Bros. and, since they owned the rights, took Bosko with them to MGM for several ill-received shorts. Bosko's last film appearance was 1938's "Little Ol' Bosko in Bagdad." At Warner Bros., Buddy became their biggest star until 1935 when Porky Pig debuted. For Tiny Toons, Bosko and Honey were made more ambiguous, looking very similar to how Yakko, Wakko, and Dot would look in Animaniacs. Honey was voiced by B.J. Ward and Bosko was voiced by Don Messick.
The plot of this episode was based on the 1989 Kevin Costner film Field of Dreams which Babs references in the cartoon.
The animation in this episode is done by Kennedy Animation, an outfit from Canada that also did animation for Darkwing Duck, Goof Troop, Bonkers, and Aladdin, among others. Warner Bros. was reportedly unhappy with the work Kennedy was producing and was dropped after the first season. The animation style seems very off-model and the characters move around too much. The founder, Glen Kennedy, worked for Hanna-Barbara in the 1980s. His style can be seen prominently in the series A Pup Named Scooby-Doo.
For your information, Brutus has been trying to save the Acme account since 2011. Yes, I looked it up. It was even part of a two-part storyline of Brutus being told to save the account and then him talking about getting on a plane. It was riveting.
Is it me or does Chip not put as much care and attention into his strips anymore?
I'm not a businessman but I do understand how business works and for the life of me, I cannot come up with a good explanation for why Acme would need tea cozies. Is Acme a department store or something? So baffling.
I don't even know how to comment on this strip because the last two panels confuse me and make my head hurt. But do you even want the Acme account? They seem like a terrible company what with their products backfiring and blowing up their customers.
I am assuming Brutus has just been hanging up or even just not answering the phone from Acme Loan Company and the one time he actually paid attention to what the recording is saying it reveals that he could've avoided hiding from these telemarketers to begin with.
I've had my cell phone number for about four years. About a year ago, I started getting phone calls for Lonnie. First, it was a couple people asking for Lonnie, like friends or relatives or something. Then it became calls from hardware and lumber companies. About half the time I don't answer the phone, the other half I answer and half to explain that I am not Lonnie, I've had the phone number four times as long as the calls have been happening and that, no, I don't require lumber for my construction business.
About a week ago, I got a bill collector call for Lonnie and that was annoying because you could just tell that the woman on the other end didn't believe that I was Lonnie even after answering her questions of "How long have you had this number?" and "Do you know where Lonnie is?"
The only thing that would've made this strip better is if the second panel started with *ship steam horn* "Hello, this is your captain speaking..."
I joined a book club created by a local bookstore and our first book was The Bible Salesman by Clyde Edgerton. It was a really good book although I enjoyed the chapters focusing on the past than the main story dealing with the FBI. The cat and snake scene near the beginning of the book make the book worth reading through although it doesn't hold up to that scene as well.
I was so excited that this week would showcase Brutus on a plane heading to God knows where to save the Acme account but apparently a two-part lead up is all we get as today, Brutus is back at work--or at least his definition of work.
Even to a powerful businessman like Rancid W. Veeblefester, the American dollar is worthless. Veeblefester will be voting for either Santorum or Romney (whoever gets the nomination) because Obama has not fulfilled his promise of fixing this economy. Also because of his skin color...
Here are a list of reasons Brutus can't use the dollar in the vending machine: Machine is out of change, bill reader is broken, dollar is too crumpled and faded to be read, the machine is one of those ultra-rare machines that only takes coins, Brutus doesn't know the machine can give change. If I've missed any let me know.
