Marking Time

For those who don’t watch tv, or live under a rock (not that I blame you), the “more flags, more fun” slogan is part of the current ad campaign for the Six Flags amusement park franchise. There are 17 total parks, including Six Flags now in Montreal, Mexico City, and Dubai (United Arab Emirates). So it’s not strictly a U.S. phenomenon anymore. But it’s very much a product of what can be called “American” thinking — the kind of “more is better” thinking that leads to a slogan like the one above, as well as leading to a far-reaching corporate influence that offers a window into the most current marketing techniques. Six Flags wants to be the new Big Brother, in other words, or at least reduce the Disneys and all their own marketing muscle to a bunch of flashy plastic made-in-China rubble. (Speaking of China, and this dangerous “growth at any cost” mindset, who watched Ted Koppel’s Discovery Channel series on China this week?)

This year’s first lesson about the iron grip of commercialism happened for my sister before she even entered the park, when she was faced with the choice of parking in the back lot for $15, or in the closer-to-the-entrance front lot for $25. As we recall, all parking was one price last year: $10. Even Disneyworld in Orlando, where my sister went last year, only charges $10 to park.

I on the other hand, found a way to beat The Man: I parked for free in an out-of-the-way spot outside the park and rode my bike in. Considering that there was only one small bike rack, and mine was the only bike that was locked there all day, I think this was the biggest sign that the “car culture” and the U.S. amusement park experience are inextricably linked. I wonder if they’re running scared now? Are they trying to figure out ways to seem green, while distracting us from the fact that they’re plopped down in no-man’s-land — on an interstate fifty miles from each of the two major nearby cities (Milwaukee and Chicago)? Probably not scared, though. They’ve got sort of a monopoly, and are likely benefitting from the high price of airfare by getting more regional vacationers who have to stay closer to home this summer.

Speaking of the car culture, the GEICO gecko has apparently joined Bugs Bunny, Batman, Scooby Doo and other Time/Warner mascots at Six Flags to make my experience more… um… fulfilling. I first noticed the annoying product placement campaign when I saw that all of the 30+ bumper cars on Rue le Dodge had a bumper sticker which read: “My other car is insured by GEICO.” Then later, they had posted a picture of the gecko on a sign that advised it would be 15-minutes wait-time from that point to get to the front of the line. Next to that, of course, was the reminder that in those same 15 minutes, I could be saving 15% on my car insurance by switching to GEICO. Thanks, mate. Got any sunblock on you? That would be more useful at the moment.

This was just one example of the unrelenting corporate cross-marketing extravaganza we were exposed to, in concentrated form, all day long. It’s like being on The Truman Show, where the godlike planners have thought through every possible angle, dressed it all up nice and pretty, and yet all you want to do is escape as soon as possible. (If not for the rides, that is… which are fast becoming just a part of the background for all these other money-making schemes; they’re the reason we go, but not the reason The Man wants us there.)

I know I must sound like a crotchety old man. Fact is, that’s what I am now. Maybe I’m just pissed that the five pounds I had put on since last year made it impossible for me to fit into the seat and shoulder harness on my favorite coaster: Batman. Add to that the chafing on my thighs from walking around sweaty all day, and the problems with my feet and left knee, and suddenly I’m the All-American Whiny Stick In the Mud, the last guy I ever thought I’d turn into. Getting old just sucks. And I’m not even that old.

Okay, enough whining. A few highlights:

1) American Eagle, a huge old-style wooden roller coaster, has still got the goods, even after twenty years. A tad more rickety in one section, but a nice long ride compared to some newer coasters, yet still with good dips and decent speed.

2) I didn’t notice much ridiculously bad behavior from kids and teens this year. In the past I’ve seen line-jumpers and heard pretty foul language on occasion, or else general brattiness from the spoiled younger ones. But it wasn’t so bad Friday, and most kids were dang cute and pretty gleeful, so I guess the park still remains what I would call “family friendly”. People may finally be learning civility, in these tough times when we all feel a bit nervous about what’s next (Orange Alert, a Second Great Depression, or maybe a flood that takes out the entire city of New York). 

3) I had a grand time reminiscing and catching up with my two younger sisters, for whom this Six Flags trip is a tradition that they put right up there with any religious obligation or national holiday. Myself, I was just along for the ride, not looking to do everything in the park, …twice (like the 18 times my nephew Bill rode the Batman coaster). I see them alot, but not as often in a context where spouses and little ones aren’t around. So we got to pack three months worth of uninterrupted storytelling and complaining about life into one day, as we waited in line, moving five feet every five minutes. It’s nice to have people to do that with, people who know me that well, and aren’t wanting something from me.

It’s always an eye-opening experience for me to go to a big, sprawling amusement park like Six Flags Great America (where I went yesterday), or one of the Disneys.

All the blinking lights, the noise, the walkingwalkingwalking, the junkfood, the tall purple-faced people dressed as comic book villains I don’t recognize, and of course the rollercoasters! It all hurts one’s brain and beats up on one’s body, but it’s a mildly pleasurable and necessary pain… the “no pain, no gain” type. The intra-body wave you ride, trying on purpose to get dizzy and euphoric and sugar-buzzed without going so overboard that you lose your lunch, is part of the fun.

So is the “taking the pulse of the country” aspect of being there, at least for me. Once again, the park reminded me that the culture I was born into is often simultaneously fun and toxic, brilliant and stupid. For example, I am often in awe of the scientific prowess and heavy-duty marketing knowhow it takes to build these rides and to run such a place, even as I bemoan the unconscionably high prices, and whine that the new Dark Knight coaster really sucked.

Yup, sorry to be the one to break the news, people, but Dark Knight-The Ride was not worth the 1+ hour wait (yes, an hour, …no I’m not crazy, just stupid, …and keep in mind that’s the wait on a non-crowded weekday). It’s an enclosed coaster which runs mostly in the dark, with mediocre blacklight effects and more of a semi-predictable, neck-thrashing jerkiness than genuine thrills, speed, or haunted-house scares.

I didn’t mind the “you’re in Gotham City now” pre-boarding total-immersion room, complete with a mock “live” press conference featuring characters/actors from the new movie shown on a courtesy screen in the mock subway station, with a red dot matrix fake Gotham news crawl running below it. But the letdown of exiting that room, only to board a coaster that doesn’t even equal the creative engineering of the Magic Kingdom’s Space Mountain (now over 30 years old), soon takes all the wind out of any Dark Knight rider’s sails. (Did someone say Knight Rider? I hear KITT came back again this year, too, but still sucked as much as the original… ha! The Hoff is such a joke.)

It wasn’t just our multi-age, middle class white party (ages 8-42) that thought the Dark Knight ride stunk, either. I made a conscious effort to listen to people as they were getting off, and also later that night when I again rode Superman next door (an awesome ride, BTW, day or nite). Both rides dump exiting passengers into the same DC Comics-oriented giftshop, and as people exited, it seemed nobody was impressed with Dark Knight-The Ride. It’s barely half the fun of the original Batman coaster on the other side of the park, which is a much underrated marvel (comics pun intended) of design and execution.

Maybe they just tried to squeeze DK into too small a space in the park. Maybe in their enthusiasm about all the high-tech pre-ride stuff, and the up-to-the-minute tie-ins to a summer 2008 Hollywood blockbuster, they thought the coaster itself wouldn’t matter to us. But it does. And it sucked.

That disappointment was piled on top of my already low-boiling chagrin over the massive “Virtual Army Experience” recruiting building Six Flags has allowed in the front parking lot. Apparently, existing propaganda that blurs the line between real violence and simulated violence still hasn’t been enough to fill the Army’s recruitment needs — not even with all the new Army-developed and endorsed “shooter” videogames on the market.

So now they are “taking their message to the people”, to where people show up by the thousands. I can almost hear their fatigue-clad carnival barker now :

Hey all you gung-ho twelve-year-olds! Hey you paintball fans! Come on in! Shoot at real holographic enemies! Test your speed and toughness! Plan a mission to take out the freedom-hating terrorists! Then go get youself a free t-shirt and a Coke, take a pamphlet, and go on into the park for other equally intense amusements, all at the low price of  $54 per person. Just think of it as your personal boost to our sagging economy,son. Amusement is your duty, and your right, as a red-blooded American. Now go do your duty, soldier!

Tomorrow: more reflections on Six Flags Great America, including how my body let me down, how the Geico gecko ruined my day, and the blessing of being with siblings who know you “by heart”.

It’s hard to know exactly when it happened, but sometime between January and June of 2008, my five-year-old (now six) outgrew most of the post-toddler “kid” shows on Playhouse Disney and PBS, and became a crazed fanatic about Cartoon Network.

It would be easy to blame it on my wife, since she does not share my mistrust of the network itself, and started turning it on for him when I had previously been steering him away from it. But it’s my fault, too. For one thing, I’m doing what we said we would not do: using the tv as a babysitter, to keep him occupied and safe while we try to get other things done (like this damned blog! …which magically turns minutes into hours!). Or rather, his body is safe… his mind may be another matter.

I’m trying to nip it in the bud by setting some time limits, but I fear Pandora may already be out of the box, and my kid’s a budding cartoon junkie. He hasn’t asked  to read a book in months. He blurts out random non-sequitr quotes from unknown shows while we’re riding in the car. He doesn’t want to go outside when it means turning the tv off. I don’t want to sound alarmist, but I’m concerned Cartoon Network will make my child into a brilliant idiot.

There are two reasons I don’t like and don’t trust Cartoon Network’s daytime programming:

1. commercials for junkfood, bad toys, and more crap we don’t need but that he will bug us to buy. He’s being groomed as a consumer, and I don’t want the corporate monstrosity that is AOL/Time/Warner reprogramming my child and undoing the good work we’ve done for six years
2. too much ‘toonified violence… watered down, bloodless, but aggressive nonetheless, and pushing values I definitely don’t share. There’s a marked difference between the spirit of conflict between Wile E. Coyote vs. Roadrunner, and the power rays, magic and kung fu of today’s cartoon violence. I can’t always put my finger on it, but something about most of the current “drama” and adventure ‘toons just seems to rub me the wrong way as a parent and a pacificist-leaning Christian. Plus it’s mostly just bad… badly written, badly drawn, badly acted. For example, I won’t willingly let Graham watch Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs until he’s 17… but when he does see it, I want to be the one to show him how good movie and tv-makers can do up violence and double-crossing with great intelligence, humor and style, instead of the cartoonish hollowness and CGI flashiness of The Incredible Hulk.

Just as an experiment, though, let’s switch on Tuesday morning’s Cartoon Network offerings for awhile and see what we get:

7:56am   Ben 10  is just wrapping up. Or is it Ben Ten: Alien Force. I don’t know. There are two current series featuring the same characters, and I think Ben 10 is Graham’s new favorite show. He clearly idolizes Ben, who is ten. (How’d you guess? No wait –on Alien Force, Ben is 15. I’m confused now.) It’s not bad overall. Fairly innocent, with today’s villain being a midget hypnotist who wants all the people at the mall to rob the cash registers and bring him cash. Ben has some wristband thing with a button he can push to transform himself into other entities, like Fireball Guy, or Plant Guy. Silly, but not all that different from the animated adventure/superhero stories that formerly appeared only on Saturday mornings or after school. The downside: I put on Playhouse Disney as Little Einsteins was wrapping up today, and Graham howled, “No! I don’t like this show anymore!” It used to be his favorite. Poor innocent little glasses-wearing Leo, cast aside in favor of one of the “cool kids”, complete with a shape-shifting gizmo and a preteen’s smart-aleck attitude.

7:59am        Wedgies. I had neither seen nor heard about this show until just moments ago. Oh wait, I see – it’s only a little bumper, a time-filler, a 1-2 minute mini-toon called Flapjack. Maybe these pilot-y sorta things are called Wedgies ’cause they’re wedged between two other shows. And unless I miss my guess, that’s Brian Doyle-Murray I hear voicing one of the two featured Flapjack characters. Brian is Bill Murray’s older brother. He’s a fairly decent, funny actor in his own right. But apparently nowadays, in an era where scripted tv comedy is third in the pecking order, behind hourlong dramas and semi-scripted reality tv, A-list character actors like Brian have to take what they can get. That means voicing car commercials (Matt Dillon is the current voice of one of the major car companies), or little wedged-in bumpers, or cartoons, just to keep working steady. (Brian’s done some Sponge Bob, some Disney tv stuff, a wide range… his scratchy voice is good for cartoons.) It used to be that movie actors (I think) did this type of work on the side, for fun, or after their biggest career successes were well in the rear-view mirror. But with increased competition, for fewer on-camera jobs, I’ve noticed more and more recognizable actors slogging away on cartoons. Take the PBS show Cyberchase, for example. It has two: Christopher Lloyd (Back to the Future’s Dr. Emmett Brown) and Gilbert Gottfried (better known as a stand-up comedian, and for that aggressively annoying voice). Now maybe these two actors actually like working on a quality show that subtly builds math skills into the plotlines. And I know Mr. Lloyd has done stage work on and off for years as well. But part of me can’t help but wonder if the less expensive, less creative, tenement-style programming that is reality tv is the main reason that cartoons have become the bread-and-butter for a whole class of actors now. Meanwhile, have you looked at most of the crap that passes for live-action network sitcoms aimed at 18 to 32-year-olds these days? Big Bang Theory ? Puh-leeease!

8am      Johnny Test - (Not to be confused with Jonny Quest, for all you old-schoolers out there.) I’ve only popped my head in and watched partial episodes, but when I did watch, Johnny Test had a time machine. This is an old trick: it gives the writers permission to put their own goofy spin on thousands of years of human history. Now Graham will probably think Atilla the Hun was just a scowling ham of an actor with a beard and a clearly un-American look, unlike the dashing, blond and ironic hero, feisty little Johnny T.

8:30am    missed it - TVGuide.com says it was Skunk Fu! - probably typical of the snarky, hugely ironic and self-referential nature of entertainment in the Oughts. Everything’s a lefthanded rip-off of something else…

9am    Tom & Jerry Blast Off to Mars. A feature-length movie, produced by TBS cable network. Actually, Ted Turner and/or AOL/Time/Warner (owners of Cartoon Network) own alot of those old cartoon franchises now. When Cartoon Network first started it was mostly just an outlet for a wide range of those shows I grew up with, like the Hannah-Barbera stuff. (Now , CN shows alot of original and syndicated programming, some of which is imported, much of which is crap that definitely will not stand the test of time.) I blogged about this once, in the context of a discussion on Scooby Doo’s staying power. Meanwhile back here at the ranch, Graham just saw that Tom and Jerry were on, and got very excited. I was gratified that at least two of the more “classic” characters and situations strike his fancy as much as, if not more than, the Pokemons and Ben Tens of the cartoon universe.

Long live Bugs Bunny, Felix the Cat and Fred Flintstone!

Just experimenting a little bit here. Because for once I have nothing new to say, and in the interests of saving time, and perhaps to give newcomers to Marking Time a glimpse of some past highlights, I present the stats and links below.

Consider it a summer re-run. They still do that on TV, don’t they? It was one of the things we could always count on when I was a kid: that 1) you could probably see a repeat of an episode you missed earlier in the season, and 2) when it’s nice outside, maybe even still light out after 9pm, you can be out in the world instead of holed up inside watching TV, partly because you know there’s nothing new or good on TV anyway.

Hey, turns out I did have something to say after all. Enjoy the re-runs… or not.

******

Gotta rant, Got ta rant, Got…to… RANT (aka “Killing Rupert”), 1,471 views

Mash-up, Morphing and Censorship for Shorties, 465 views

Road Rant: Less Is More, 333 views

Readers of Marking Time will already be aware (from my New Year’s Rockin’ Eve report) that I have had a generally favorable opinion of Miley Cyrus up until now. For a diva-in-training, pimped out by Disney or Fox, she’s definitely a cut above Hillary Duff (who? your stock’s falling fast, Hil’ — better get a hot boyfriend, or show your privates, or  some other method of getting back in the news…), Taylor Swift (one-dimensional Disney country star), Vanessa Hudgens (this generation’s Shannon Doherty) and the all-time mystery of ‘tween pop stardom, former American Idol sixth place finisher Kellie Pickler (anyone remember her ridiculous TV interview during a June 2007 Cubs seventh-inning… dumb as a post, this one…) .

But now Hannah Montana’s gone and done the unthinkable: she showed us her shoulderblade, and it wasn’t because of a sexy strapless dress on the red carpet at the Emmys, either. And are those satin sheets, dear? You naughty little fifteen-year-old, godly , formerly squeaky clean belter of pop pablum! How could you?

And now you’re blaming Annie Liebowitz?! She who shot John Lennon (naked, hugging Yoko). She who has made superstars out of any number of performers much less talented than you, Miley, with just one well-crafted photo. Annie’s not some sorceress who clouded your mind while trying to convince you that the Vanity Fair bedroom-style photo would be “tasteful”. And even if she did take advantage of your youthful naivete, I’m sure your Dad Billy Ray, who was on the set the whole time and saw the digital versions of these tawdry photos, must have known this was a risky photo shoot to try sneaking past your adoring public.

You’re a first class turd, Billy Ray. You pimped out your daughter (or ignorantly let her do it to herself). So you deserve every criticism you’re getting now. I hope this scandal breaks your ”Achy Breaky” bank account wide open, you hack.

What, did you think we wouldn’t notice that the Liebowitz photo looks like an Abercrombie & Fitch ad? Did you think that the people giving the Gossip Girl  tv show a hard time –for using sex and “OMFG” posters to sell their show to teens– wouldn’t care that you’re slutting up our little angel Miley? We’re a split-personality society, Hannah: we like our good girls to be beautiful, dumb and virginal (like Jessica Simpson?) – at least until they’re eighteen and can make up their own minds about how best to show off their shoulder blades, cleavage and pouty lips. And we like them to act dumb, not to actually BE dumb. This was a dumb move for you, kiddo.

So long, Miley. Hello “Hannah Does Montana”, the new soft-porn classic! It’s due out in theaters around 2011 (when your stardom has faded, and you desperately need more money for ecstasy, blow, and to pay the mortgage on your Malibu mansion).

Maybe if you’re lucky, Dustin “Screech” Diamond will make an appearance in your debut porn film and strap on his famous fake prosthetic dong.

Gosh, I feel so dirty now…

A hodgepodge tonight:

1. Graham was reading over the Cubs’ season schedule in the kitchen tonight. He doesn’t get the concept of an abbreviation yet. So here’s his creative interpretation of the teams they’re playing. See how many you can guess (see key below):

still, kin, pit, Hugh, lad, cool, fleadh, mill, alt- , tab, cues…

2. Quote of the day: “Nouns are overrated.”

Stated by my lovely but highly stressed wife, in response to my request for a noun, after she fumbled around for the right word for about 30 seconds before recalling it:

“We still have to find the — the thing, so we can pay the thing. You know… the bill thing!”

BTW- the overrated noun was “property tax bill”.

3. Q.O.D. Runner up: “Sue, thanks for falling on your sword.” Stated by a coworker of Sue’s after a very contentious meeting, to discuss this year’s big-ass controversy. (Every year has its own controversy, one of the main reasons she’s leaving…)

4. Graham and I took advantage of the heavy rain tonight to do some much needed puddle-jumping. If you can’t get all soaking wet with a kindergartener (and your dog), well then you’re taking it all too seriously, people. We even played a round of Pooh Sticks with the rain running through the gutter toward the sewer grate.

5. Earlier in the week, in honor of Earth Day, Graham and I planted some basil and a pine cone seed in the garden. Today, he asked if we could go see if anything had grown yet. Ah, to be so young and naive…

6. Graham asked on the way home from the libary if we could ever run out of letters or numbers. I said no. Then he asked what the biggest number is. I said googol. Then he asked how you write it. I said g-o-o-g-o-l. “No, how do you write the numbers!” I explained that nobody had ever written the whole number, because it would take to long. Theoretical math, for a five-year-old. (He’s kind of into negative integers, too… seriously.)

Cubs’ opponents key:

St. Louis, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Houston, L.A. Dodgers, Colorado, Florida, Milwaukee, Atlanta, Tampa Bay, Chicago White Sox

As promised, some numbers that reveal the best and worst of American culture and politics this week:

In honor of Earth Day :

1.5 million tons of plastic bottles were disposed of in America in 2005. That number has only gone up, and still only a third of those bottles are recycled. Water bottles in particular are an unnecessary burden to the earth… in other words, get a cup and drink from the tap whenever you can. Many bottled brands now come from a tap somewhere else, anyway. (Source: The Chicago Reader)

$306 billion: the amount it will now cost to clean up the U.S. military’s nuclear waste. It will take until at least the year 2062 to complete. (Source: Harry Shearer’s Le Show)

Consumer food prices are expected to rise 3.0% to 4.0% this year [in the U.S.] after a 4% gain in 2007, said USDA Chief Economist Joseph Glauber.

40% : Rise in the price of grain over the past year. Average loaf of bread went up about 30 cents this week, therefore. And if you think it’s bad here, try shopping in an occupied territory. [" A box of milk for 65 Shekels... thats about $21.50 ." - this price quote comes from Palestine...]  The best plan of attack for grocery shopping in the U.S. is to 1) buy locally, through community sources like farmer’s markets, or 2) to only buy what’s on sale at the regular stores, and buy it in bulk. Then use it up over the month, and wait for it to come back on sale again.

Dinner out for two adults & one kid at Outback Steakhouse, with one appetizer and one side dish. No drinks. No tip. (Curbside pickup.) : $50.48 . (And the guilt over paying that much for one meal left a very bitter aftertaste.)

$3.51: Average regular gasoline price this week in the U.S., according to AAA Motor Club. Up 25 cents from last month. (I saw a $3.99 in Chicago yesterday.)

Other numbers (some thrilling, though most of them frustrating):

Iraq body counts:  (Source: Antiwar.org and JustForeignPolicy.org)

Iraqi deaths: 1,199,782

(This does not include 29,000+ non-fatal injuries on the U.S. military side, nor the lower but still ridiculous 494 deaths in Afghanistan, which along with Pakistan is getting worse instead of better as we focus on Iraq.)

Chicago streets, body count – April 19-20, 2008: 32 shootings, 6 of which resulted in homicides. In one case, an AK-47 was used. They’re even picking this AP story up way out in Oregon.

Regarding the primary in Pennsylvania: Figures released in March by the state show Pennsylvania Democrats have added more than 65,000 voters since last fall — almost 2 percent of the party’s total statewide registration of 3.8 million . (Most folks believe that this is due to independents and Obamicans registering as Democrats… though a few people have warned us about Rush Limbaugh’s suggestion that Republicans should change affiliations temporarily and put Hillary over the top, just to screw up the Dems’ numbers.) [Source: Real Clear Politics]

13-6, 11-7,  14-7 : The major league baseball records of the Cubs, White Sox, and Red Sox, respectively. All are in first place as of this writing. (Is this baseball heaven?)

In honor of TV Tune-Out Week this week:

March 24-30th tv ratings: American Idol: 24.7 million on Tuesday 3/24 (20.1 on Thursday) . WWE RAW : 4.9 million, making it #4 on cable, behind Sponge Bob, a Lifetime movie, and Rock of Love.

Meanwhile, Frontline’s excellent documentary “Bush’s War” (running March 24 and 25 in two parts) pulled around a 4 million Nielsen rating (big for PBS in general, but probably tiny compared to the lame but heavily-promoted expose`  style programs done by the networks, such as Primetime Live). Online, on the other hand, after the PBS broadcast, Bush’s War gathered another 1.5 million hits at the PBS/Frontline website, ten times what most of their other shows usually get. Apparently people have not entirely bought this whole “the surge is working” propaganda frenzy.

Marking Time Meta (also known as shameless self-promotion) :

On the WordPress side of this blog, I have now written 173 posts, fitting into 47 categories, using 156 different tags. The MySpace side (same content usually) is older, with more total hits still, but it gets fewer hits each day, probably because the search engines don’t like MySpace as much.

And as for my own Nielsen ratings, here are my WordPress blog stats as of this writing:

Total Views: 14,480

Best Day Ever: 176 — Thursday, March 13, 2008

Views today: 69

FYI - that top viewing day last month was when I ran a link to the MySpace Music page of former New York governor Elliot Spitzer’s famous hooker, Alexandra Whatchamablowjob. Proof positive that in the online universe, sex still sells better than anything else. After that, death sells pretty well, too — as in the death of Charlton Heston ( if the large number of hits I’m getting this week for my Planet of the Dopes column is any indication).

Sex, Death and God. The three things we’re not supposed to talk about in polite company…

…but for me, almost the only things worth talking about at all…

“You are receiving this message because you requested occasional updates, special offers and other information from the Walt Disney Company family of businesses.”

Did I? I don’t remember requesting such a thing? And why would I? I already have so many Disney products flying across my radar screen each week, without requesting additional pokes and prods to fill my house, my brain, and my life with still more of them. Products like this, my son’s toothbrush:

And while we’re at it, why do you get to call your 800-armed octopus of a corporation, your monstrosity of cross-marketing and soul-sucking cute-ification, your dumbed-down diabolical destroyer of imagination and tradition — why do you get to call all that a FAMILY OF BUSINESSES?!!! It’s an insult to the word family! Get thee behind me, Mickey!!!

Ah. It’s good to finally get that out. I’ve been sitting on this rant all week, trying to stay positive and complimentary, maybe just snarky enough to amuse, but not so much as to offend younger and more sensitive middle-class suburbanite consumers of all things Pooh and/or Disney. But it’s ON now, people! The gloves are OFF! The Disney-verse is going down! AW YEEEAAAAHH!!!

(Whoops. Sorry about all the shouting. I guess I was watching too much idiotic WWE wrestling last night on The CW Network with my nephew… speaking of too much cross-marketing. I’ll tone it down and smarten it up from now on.)

I clicked through on the above email to DisneyShopping.com, only to find that my man Pooh doesn’t even rate a logo or a special marketing program on the front page. WTF?On the other hand, I’m not sure if that’s good or bad, given the whole guilt-by-association thing.

Among the character-based lines of products at DisneyShopping.com’s front page, here’s the current list: Mickey & Friends, Disney Princess, Disney Fairies (What?! –who, other than sexy little Tinkerbell, would that include? the fat old Fairy Godmother from Cinderella? I doubt it!), Cars, Pirates of the Carribean, Toy Story (that old , worn-out franchise?), High School Musical and, of course, Hannah Montana –or as I like to call her, Mileyanna Montanadana. [Rest in peace, Gilda Radner. We still love you.]

What, no Shaggy D.A.? No Snow White, the hot chick who put you on the American map? And, sadly, no Pooh. Not on the front page, anyway. Let’s see how far I have to drill down to find my son’s toothbrush, or some other Pooh product. First Basement: Home & Collectibles. Nope. Sub-basement: Bathrooms. Ah, here we go: the Pooh Singing Toothbrush Holder! Or should I say the “My Friends Tigger & Pooh” Singing Toothbrush Holder:

If you haven’t heard about this show yet, then you don’t have a 3-6 year-old who watches Playhouse Disney every morning. I can barely contain my contempt for the creators of this latest addition to the wide-ranging Poohsney franchise. (The show runs at 7:30am CST, every day.) 

First of all: where do they get off giving Tigger top billing over Pooh?! He wasn’t even introduced until the second novel. Not to mention: how dare they kick Christopher Robin to the curb like this? The addition of a little American girl (with the androgynous name of Darby) is not a bad idea in itself. But why not make her a friend of Christopher, maybe give these insulated, uneducated American toddlers a glimplse of some culture other than their own? Because that’s not the Disney way, that’s why! Everything’s got to be Americanized, cutesied-up, and updated to include the latest trends. Today’s Tigger & Pooh episode, for example, puts Pooh on an electric scooter. Could anything be more contrary to the spirit of A.A. Milne’s original Hundred Acre Wood?

But the modern marvel/monster that is Disney has gotten their grubby little hands into every corner of American culture, and there appears no way to stop their imperialistic aggression. Their cross-marketing, which really started in 1955 with the Disneyland theme park in California, has now crossed over to various other travel options like Disney Cruises. Then there’s Radio Disney, home video like the Baby Einstein product line, several cable channels, dozens of internet sites, video games (through Buena Vista Interactive), the sports galaxy (via their ESPN and ABC sister companies),  book publishing (through Hyperion), music recording (they own Miley Cyrus, Hillary Duff, Rascal Flatts, the Indigo Girls [huh?], and –OMG! Queen? The Mouse owns my beloved Queen? Take me now, Lord!), Broadway and traveling shows (can you say Lion King? or Disney Princesses on Ice? [yes, with a twist of lemon, please]), and the inevitable network and syndicated television shows (e.g. Regis & Kelly, and Scrubs – which appears on NBC, not their own ABC network, oddly enough).

Then of course there’s the old Disney standby: “family” and non-family feature-length theatrically-released movies. Among their current moviemaking divisions: the formerly quirky independent but now lame and dependent Miramax, the aging Touchstone, and the recently-merged Pixar (circa 2006, in a $7.5 billion deal).

In fact, let’s look at a very instructive USA Today quote from Apple/Pixar visionary and all-around sellout Steve Jobs about that big 2006 deal:

They chose to merge instead of renewing their production and distribution deal that expires in June because “no matter what kind of partnership we had, we’re still two separate, publicly traded companies,” Pixar CEO Steve Jobs says. “Sometimes that stuff just gets in the way of making the best films we could,” as well as using Pixar’s characters in Disney’s theme parks.

The “best films you could”, eh, Steve? Don’t kid yourself. It’s all about the cash now. You know it. I know it. We ALL know it. Don’t lie to us about making capitalist decisions without having to compromise your “art”. It’s about commerce, bud. Or, put another way, “It’s the economy, stupid!”

Which brings us back to Pooh. He’s just not a bankable movie or television star anymore. He’s still a serviceable profit center, like Mickey Mouse (who also has his own newish show, which features his well-known posse), and unlike those classic characters from Jungle Book or Monsters Inc. But he’s not a star. Not like Hannah “Manna-From-Heaven” Montana. Yet he’s Disney’s biggest single moneymaker, every year. Here’s the data, from Don Markstein’s terrific Toonopedia site:

The Walt Disney Company, which for several decades has been the principal benefactor of the wealth he generates, considers him its #1 cash cow — bigger, even, than Mickey Mouse himself, the company finally admitted in 1996. The silly old bear enriches Disney’s coffers by an estimated one billion dollars per year.  

So how’s that being done with a now 82-year-old character? Licensing, my dear. For now the House of Mouse does with quantity what they used to do with quality, Pooh-wise. Which means they license the Pooh characters to hundreds of other companies, like for the Oral B toothbrush pictured above, or the Ambience brand Winnie the Pooh Children’s Lamp ($62-82), or this charming Graco stroller and baby carrier set (just $149.97 at Wal-Mart.com… but don’t you dare give Disney or Wal-Mart another nickel of your money. I will not stand for it! Not on MY watch!) .

There are plate and cup sets for the kitchen, the adult Eeyore Hoodie for Her (and scads of apparel and sleepwear for kids), Kellogg’s Pooh “Gone Fishing” fruit-flavored snacks (no vitamins allowed… the Pooh chewable vitamins are another company’s specialty), a large line of various infant gear called “Delightful Day” Pooh products, Hallmark cards, Hallmark party napkins and Hallmark collectible ornaments. Do they make a Hallmark Pooh samurai sword to cut my kid’s PB&J sandwich? Heck, I could be here all day, maybe all week, just listing all the companies with which Disney has licensing arrangements (and therefore most likely takes a percentage share of the profit, even though they don’t make the products themselves). 

But I’m not gonna do that list. Why do their marketing and promotions work for them? A Waste of Our Valuable Time, as A.A. Milne would put it. For our own Edward Bear and his friends deserve better. Ernest H. Shephard – the artist who drew the original, floppier, less cutesy Classic Pooh –also deserves better. He and his estate probably deserve some of that Disney money, too. Though I’ll bet they probably do pretty well already, by licensing Shepard’s own artwork (which The Mouse does not own) for baby gear and other products. I know we had a diaper bag with Shep’s older Pooh characters on it when Graham was a baby. It was a piece of crap that started falling apart after a year of moderate-to-heavy use, but that’s a rant for another day.

Suffice it to say that we can’t go wrong by going out to pick up a copy of the two original Pooh books — or better yet, the four-book gift set of Milne’s Pooh books and children’s poetry. Don’t bother with all the later products, whether they are decent quality (like the first few Disney movies) or Chinese-made plastic pieces of crap (i.e. everything else). A Piglet plate? No, thank you. A plain plate, or maybe one with colorful stripes, will do just fine. And put a biscuit and a smackerel of honey on it, if it’s not too much trouble.

Presenting, for the first time anywhere:

The Milne - Nielsen Type Indicator

(a conceptual framework to discuss personality type)

Those of us who have had some psychological therapy (yes, I have had some – no shame in admitting it), or have taken the test for the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), will likely have a head-start today on those who have not. Therefore, let me explain the Myers-Briggs briefly, as it will be instructive in understanding the use and usefulness of the Milne-Nielsen indicator (which, by my own admission, is much less scientific… but then, I’m an ENFP, so that explains everything, right?).

The MBTI lays out eight broad, oppositional personality traits that interact within a person along four spectrums. Those four pairings are Extrovert-Introvert, iNtuitive -Sensate, Feeling-Thinking, and Percepting-Judging. Your overall type (like my ENFP above) is determined by your score in each of these areas. It’s not all-inclusive, just a shorthand way of understanding oneself. For example, if you’re 72% leaning toward intuitive, that tells us that you don’t require much sensate, quantifiable or physical evidence as you try to understand the world. This score is not so much talking about an absolute weakness in the Sensate area, as it is talking about an inherent dominance of intuitive methods as your normal way of operating.

So if you ever get a chance, take the multiple choice MBTI test, have it scored, and get a little window into your personality that you may not have had up until now. But we’re not here to talk about MBTI today. We’re here to see if you’re a Pooh, or a Roo, or a Rabbit, Tigger, Kanga or Piglet. Or maybe you’re an Eeyore with moderate Kanga tendencies. Or, God forbid, an Owl with strong Rabbit tendencies.

If you’re familiar with the A.A. Milne characters, especially as presented in the two novels (for a book has more depth than a movie can usually muster), then you probably already sense what I’m driving at. Note also that I’m not including Christopher Robin in the MNTI, for reasons which I will explain later. The basic premise is this, that it is somewhat possible to lay out the Milne characters along several spectrums of personality types, and to loosely place oneself within a certain range upon those spectrums.

The challenge in developing this model was in determining the oppositional pairings, for even though it is easy to discuss the ways in which Pooh and Rabbit are different, it is more difficult to find the polar opposite of Piglet, from among the characters that Milne created. In other words, it takes a lot of bending and twisting, and some compromising, to fit some of these round pegs into my square holes. Nevertheless, and Without Further Ado, here is my best attempt:

Pooh-Rabbit: primarily about ease, wisdom and groundedness vs. control, organization, and activity — but also involves measuring characteristics like loyalty, courage, acceptance of the natural order, creativity, and graciousness (or “grace” vs. “works”, in the Christian sense of these terms)

Piglet-Kanga: primarily about personal sense of security and peace, but also involves a measurement of maturity, nurturing, and need for control

Roo-Owl: primarily about maturity and sense of wonder, but also involves physical energy, speaking style, and intelligence measurements

Eeyore-Tigger : primarily about ego-strength, but also an introvert/extrovert measurement

It works out nicely that there are eight characters, each with certain personality strengths (and weaknesses) that match up fairly well with one other character. And while the goal is to choose what one character is your most dominant tendency, make no mistake: there are probably two others that are strong seconds. So do not be so quick to stake your claim that you are one type and not another. For there are ways in which Pooh and Tigger are also oppositional types, not to mention the fact that the temptation to deny one’s bossy, Rabbit-like tendencies can be very strong. You see my point, yes?

As a strongly intuitive, Poohish sort of personality, I have not determined a specific set of questions or other method for measuring where one falls on the MNTI scale. (Tests? Who needs tests when we can just guess?!) So that’s one reason why I’m calling this a working draft. There’s still more Work To Do. And as a Pooh with Tigger and Owl tendencies – who would rather sing or eat or bounce around like a hyperactive child or talk about work than to actually work – I may never finish what I have started here.

Nevertheless, it’s workable like this, just as a model to spur one’s thinking about how you think, how you prefer things get done, what your favorite leisure activities might be (for example, a Pooh type likes to eat, with a friend, whereas a Rabbit type likes to plan and plant and harvest a food garden, in the most efficient method possible).

So I will ask again? What type are you, and what other types are strongly present? Are there two oppositional types that are “at war” for dominance within you? (I know, I sound like Obiwan Kenobi here. Sorry.)

I look forward to your thoughts and comments, or even your challenges, in the comment area below.

The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh was a feature-length, Technicolor (!), animated film released by Walt Disney Productions in March, 1977.

Except it wasn’t. Wasn’t a feature, that is. It was actually a re-packaging of three earlier “featurettes”, which had adapted portions of the two original Pooh books by A.A. Milne. Those three shorts were called WtP and the Honey Tree (1966), WtP and the Blustery Day (1968), and WtP and Tigger, Too! (1974). On the first two shorts, Walt was actually involved himself, thus making Many Adventures, in 1977, the last Disney film that actually had Walt’s own fingerprints on it before he died. And the middle featurette, Blustery Day, deservedly won an Academy Award for Best Animated Short (click to review some of the best-loved cartoons of yesteryear).

But the innovations that made Many Adventures into a quality feature film, more than just yesterday’s warmed-over lunch –aside from the great characters, stories and dialogue created by Milne, of course – were the newly-created connective scenes featuring the golden-throated Sebastian Cabot as the narrator. (Remember him? The butler on that old tv show Family Affair?) Plus, Disney’s 1977 producers also created a poignant new scene for the end, featuring just Pooh and Christopher Robin, based on the final chapter of House at Pooh Corner (1928).

Stephen Graydanus of decentfilms.com, a featured reviewer at Rotten Tomatoes, puts the Disney treatment of Pooh this way:

What a peculiar genius was A. A. Milne…Pooh and friends, though visually cutened from Ernest H. Shepard’s classic illustrations, somehow emerge from the Disneyfication process more unmistakably themselves than any other literary characters in any other Disney cartoon, while Milne’s distinctive voice retains its quality, with a clarity and integrity exceeding that of any other author Disney adapted.

My blog post yesterday discussed Milne’s “distinctive voice” in some fairly specific ways. So the main thing I will add today is a look at some of the voice talents from the film, the veteran actors who made Milne’s words and characters so amusing onscreen.

The voice of Pooh was provided by character actor Sterling Holloway from 1966-1979.  He probably looks familiar, as he appeared in dozens of movies and tv shows (and on radio) over a forty-five year career. Here’s his picture:

The other well-known actor who (like Holloway) also did other Disney films (and lots of tv) was John Fiedler, the voice of Piglet. He should look familiar, too. One of those sweet faces that, once you’ve seen it, it’s burned into your memory:

This guy could sneeze and it would be entertaining for me. Fiedler was another of those workhorse character actors (171 IMDB onscreen credits) who never carry a picture or a television episode, but always elevate it to a higher level. He was featured prominently in some Oscar-winners, too, like 12 Angry Men. Once in awhile, these top quality “nobodies” get to steal a scene, but only the most serious movie buffs know who these men and women are during their own era, let alone in prior eras.

Fiedler’s last “appearance” on the big screen as Piglet was in 2005’s Pooh’s Heffalump Movie, a saccharine, middle-of-the-road project that I was nevertheless proud to take my three-year-old son to see as his first official movie in the theater. Any movie with Pooh, no matter how commercial or hollow, beats Ninja Turtles and Spidermen, hands down. Pooh even beats out Sponge Bob and Homer for me, though not by much.

The third major talent featured in the Pooh films of the “classic” era was Paul Winchell, the voice of Tigger. Winchell was all about the voice, as he had apparently started out as a ventriloquist, and was not as odd or distinctive-looking as Holloway or Fiedler when appearing on-camera. So, for example, Winchell was the voice of Fleegle on the Banana Splits, and did various voices on a number of classic Hannah-Barbera cartoons, including Hong Kong Phooey and “Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines” (he was Dick Dastardly, a character who he originated on the cartoon “Wacky Races”). 

However, Winchell might have had a love-hate thing going on with the Tigger character,  as he walked out after the first season of the mediocre tv series The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1988-91). He also did not appear in 2000’s The Tigger Movie. (Jim Cummings, the current main voice of both Pooh and Tigger, did both voices in that movie.) Winchell did come back to do Tigger proud one last time: in 1997’s direct-to-video Pooh’s Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin. Our family owns it, and while the writing’s a bit thin, it’s not a bad movie overall.

Coincidentally, Paul Winchell, the voice of Tigger, died June 24, 2005, the day before John “Piglet” Fiedler’s death. And here’s another lesser-known piece of trivia: Roo was voiced in two of the three original featurettes by Clint Howard, brother of Ron Howard. Clint’s a fairly unique and hardworking character actor in his own right, from the Gentle Ben tv show in the Sixties when he was a funny-looking kid, all the way up through today (185 screen credits and counting).

The last thing I want to say about The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh is that it stands up pretty well as a film, doing some very creative things that the A.A. Milne books could not do, simply because they were books. For one thing, there’s those memorable songs by the Sherman Brothers. Though Milne had included some great poems and “hums” in the books, it’s just so much nicer to have inventive rhymes and full instrumentation in the movie.

And then there’s Tigger and Roo’s brilliant stuck in the tree scene, the most “meta” moment in animated film history. By meta, I mean that it’s a scene which calls attention to the fact that its in a movie (by having the characters talk to the unseen narrator), then points out the movie is based on a book, and that the book has a certain look and format. Then the filmmakers break all the usual rules about storytelling. They resolve their character’s crisis by turning the animated book sideways, and letting Tigger get down out of the tree by sliding on the letters printed on the page alongside his picture. It’s just a brilliant little visual twist, true to the spirit of Milne’s whimsical style, though not something he would have formally thought to do in 1928 when he wrote the original scene.

Oh, bother. By now, I’ve probably bored you quite enough with all this minutiae about a 30-40 year old kids’ movie. Oh well, I’m having fun, anyway.