A Frat of
Flaming Feghoots
by Art Bupkis
Although Isaac
Asimov's very short "A Niche in Time Saves
Stein" (150 words) is probably the most
famous, Grendel Briarton first introduced these
stories ending in PUNchlines in his series,
"Through Time and Space with Ferdinand
Feghoot". But, for my taste, the
masters of the longer "literary Feghoot"
(I know, an oxymoron) were Jay Ward &
gang when they were doing "Rocky and Friends"
and "The Bullwinkle Show".
To the relief
of most adults--but the great dismay of countless
ageless sophomores in hiding throughout the world--the
long Feghoot is an endangered beast today. A
rabid conservationist, I have pledged that such
environmental diminishment shall not endure. I
now present--in the grand style of Ward's "Aesop
and Son", "Peabody's Improbable History"
and "Fractured Fairy Tales"—my
very own, "Flaming Feghoots”.
(Hold on to your cookies,
culture fans.)
************************************************************
The Demise Of the Randy
Red Rooster
An aging Rhode
Island Red rooster lived on a farm where hens
were raised for the table. That is until one year
when the market for fryers dropped, and the
farmer decided to switch to eggs. He sold
all his Red hens and replaced them with Leghorns--lesbian
Leghorns.
The farmer
might have gotten rid of his little Red rooster,
too, but he had a soft spot for the old guy, and
with "California-Certified Lesbian Leghorns",
he didn't think he had much risk of fertilized
eggs. The rooster didn't know this, however.
He had long considered his role as a prolific
daddy critical to his survival, and now worried
horridly that he'd soon end up in the farm cat's
dinner dish if he didn't mate with these new hens.
The poor old
rooster tried just about everything….
bouquets of ripe sunflowers, chocolate-covered
worms. Nothing worked. The hens stayed to
themselves, and pecked at him if he came too
close. He feared his goose would soon be cooked.
One day,
however, he overheard two teenage farm hands
talking behind the barn. One of them told
the other he'd finally managed to nail the high
school virgin. Got her drinking whisky, and
"She was cold out. Never made a peep."
Well, well,
well. The rooster sneaked into the farmhands'
cabin and lifted a bottle of "Ol' Dirty Bird"*. When
the hens were next out in the yard, he sneaked
into their coop and poured the whole fifth into
their feed.
The hens came
back in and started eating. Soon they were all
dancing and giving each other little pecks on the
cheek. The flock's Mother Hen Superior soon
had an idea.
"Girls,
we just have to have the chicks form the coop
next door over for a party. We could gossip
all night long about that dorky little Red
rooster pervert."
Mother
Superior hurried out the front door to invite the
neighbors. She was so excited she even
forgot to take a wrap. A winter front was coming
through, and a chill wind blew.
"Cold out!", she
clucked.
At that the
rooster jumped down from the roof and tackled the
hen. She fought him, squawking bloody murder. All
the other Leghorns piled out of their coops. They
pecked the poor old randy Red rooster to death.
And the moral
of this story?
"Don't
mount queer chickens before they klatch."
*For
you Brits: OLD CROW, a cheap
bourbon whisky.
************************************************************
A Bull(winkle) Story
Like many a
down on his luck actor-has-been, Bullwinkle J.
Moose was finally abandoned by his long-time
partner. Rocket J. Squirrel flew off to the
Caribbean with a flamingo he'd met while he and
Moose were wintering in Key West, Florida. That
was five years ago.
Trying to
drown his sorrow, Bullwinkle took to drink. As
his money neared exhaustion he had even dipped
into Sterno and anti-freeze. (This was Frost-Bite
Falls, Minnesota, after all.)
Now, however,
Moose was flat broke, and looking starvation in
the face.
"And he's
sure got one mean, hungry look, believe you me!"
Lucky for
Bullwinkle, there was still tremendous admiration
for "Mr. Know-It-All" amongst the
Minnesotans. Further, Minnesota is a state full
of softhearted liberals. The legislature quickly
passed a bill putting the state's "Favorite
Moose" on a pension: "Retired Honorary
Professor of Philosophy, Poetry, and Minnesota
Moose-Nugget Mining (3-M)" at the University
of Minnesota.
No longer poor,
but still with a big head, and thus somewhat of
an ingrate, Bullwinkle complained publicly that a
mere teacher's pension was not enough for a star
of his accomplishments. He petitioned for
additional money as a reward for having saved
Frost-Bite Falls from the Metal-Munching Moon-Mice
nearly half a century ago.
Former
Minnesota Governor, Jesse Ventura, had a simple
response, "Faget about it, fur-nose.",
and led a successful campaign against any more
money for Moose.
Nevertheless,
given all the publicity, Governor Sarah Palin of
Alaska--who had image problems with moose-lovers--invited
Bullwinkle to become a paid spokes-critter for
her up-coming 2012 Presidential campaign, and
asked him to start right away. Bullwinkle
was happy to sign on, too. Big bucks….
but it was disgraceful, given that Palin had shot
and eaten his nephew.
Yes, folks, as
any animal sociologist will tell you:
"A
moose with only one dole soon gets bought."
************************************************************
All Because Stella Milner
Refused To Kiss Old Ludwig The Pig
A miller and
his daughter, Stella Milner, decided to get the
best of the king. The miller went to the
palace and announced that his daughter could spin
straw into gold.
The king made
it clear he didn't like to be the butt of jokes,
so this better be good. Nevertheless, if Stella
could make gold, the king would give her a nice
reward.
Stella was
locked in a room with a bundle of straw. When
the door was opened the next morning, there was a
small pile of gold filament lying on the
floor…. the same gold Stella had
hidden under her skirt.
The king was
delighted---and greedy. He gave Stella a small
plastic statue of himself as her reward, then
stuffed the same room to the ceiling with bales
of straw, and said that if the girl would spin
all that into gold she could marry his son, the
Crown Prince.
"But if
you don't, young lady, woe is you".
When Stella
was left alone she began to cry…. but soon
she heard a strange little voice.
"Stop it
already!" It came from a weird little
man, sitting on a rafter.
"Make you
a deal, sweetie. I'll spin all this straw into
gold for you, but before I do, you have to
promise you’ll kiss my cousin, poor old
Ludwig the Pig."
The weird
little man then showed Stella Ludwig's picture.
"I'd
rather die," she said.
So the weird
little man said he'd just sit there on the rafter
until morning when the king would come in
expecting gold. Quite obnoxious, he wanted to see
the girl get punished.
"Stella,
he's gonna give you such a smack!"
"Listen,
whatever your name is, I'll never put pork to my
lips. Orthodox, ya know."
Quite frankly,
the weird little man didn't give a damn. "Smack-O!”,
he snickered, and settled in for the night.
At 7 am the
door opened. In walked the King and the Prince.
There was no gold…. but that really wasn't
so bad for Stella. The king had actually come to
tell her that the deal was off. His son
refused to marry, gold or no.
While the king
was making his speech—which went on and on--the
prince ran off with the weird little man, who, as
it turned out, was a fairy.
So Stella went
home single and poor, but soon thereafter she
made quite a lot of money. She discovered
that treating cucumber peels with common kitchen
chemicals could make a very fine cloth, one that
is lightweight, inexpensive and eco-friendly. It
quickly replaced the schmatta everyone back then
had been wearing. True, this new cloth
wrinkled easily, but that was actually fortunate
for her pop, Stanley. The new cloth tycoon's
father was soon making his own fortune off a
steam-ironing machine he invented. Yes,
famous in the garment industry in his own right,
besides inventing the "Stanley Steamer",
pop also came up with the brand name by which
Stella's remarkable cloth is still known today--Rumpled
Dill Skin.
>;-) >
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