Pop-Culture Potpourri: "What the hell IS that, anyway?"

Merton Sussex, Wanderer of the Wastelands

Once again, our Fearless Leader had to split this pop-stand in order to attend to a bit of non-Diary business, so I'm stepping in to fill the warm, moist, faintly nacho-scented space he'd usually occupy. DO try to contain your enthusiasm.

Recently (and by "recently" I mean about 20 minutes ago, as I was en route to Diary HQ), it occurred to me that in every whimsical crew of mostly non-human, anthropomorphic characters, there seems to be one misfit whose origins you simply cannot identify. Mixed in with all of the mice, frogs, pigs, pandas and such, there's one whatsis that furrows the brow and itches the head for its confusing, "yeah, what the hell IS that?" status.

For our purposes, I'll be focusing primarily on three archetypical icons; familiar figures from the respective collections of McDonald Land, Disney, and the non-Sesame-Street-resident Muppets.

First up is Grimace, the gumdrop-shaped, bruise-colored nightmare of the McDonald's universe. Or, depending on the decade, "THE Grimace." But we'll get to THAT in a second.

To really begin to "understand" Grimace, we have to break down the whole McDonald's character hierarchy. It seems as though when establishing the roster of personalities charged with the mission of selling junk food to kids (and thus, creating a constant, loyal customer-base turnover), the marketing peeps at McDonald's decided WAY back to concoct a discrete character to represent each of the most prominent menu items.

Most are easy to figure out. Mayor McCheese is a cheeseburger. Big Mac the cop plays off of cheerful Irish stereotypes, and is the resident uniformed constable. His head is, predictably, a Big Mac. He is in constant pursuit of the Hamburglar (a stripe-suited, domino-mask-sporting ne'er-do-well who follows in the tradition of the Trix Rabbit and Barney Rubble in terms of opting to STEAL his favorite food rather than obtain it through legitimate means), whose correspondent menu item is, of course, the hamburger. It is unclear whether this means he is somehow RELATED to Mayor McCheese, being as little but a thin slice of non-dairy American cheese food product is really all that separates them. Either way, being as McCheese is a prominent elected official, I'm sure it's awkward for hizzoner. Especially on holidays.

Further, the fry guys are little pom-poms made of french fries, the McNuggets are...well...rendered, separated chicken chunks, formed, pressed into bite-size shapes and deep-fried (except with EYES, which I hope against hope are not actually present in the real thing), and Birdie the Early bird seems to champion the cause of the breakfast menu in general (and the McMuffin in particular).

Some of us older folk might even remember a character called "Captain Crook," a pirate-y fellow who carried the torch of the Filet-O-Fish, and wore a big blue hat with a "C" on it in Gothic Black script. Though, he went and got himself disappeared somehow in the early 80's, and nobody's really sure why. Maybe he got caught eating a BK Fish, or something. It's also not clear where he wound up. There are scattered reports of a gaunt, mustachioed man in epaulets blowing fat Hawai'ian-shirted tourists in an alley in Redondo for tartar sauce, but really, that could be anyone. It is L.A.

Then, of course, there is The Man himself. The Granddaddy of them all, the Burger Fürher, Ronald the Mack. He is more representative of the restaurant itself, and the corporate structure as a whole; uniting all of the characters under an umbrella that drips with grease, minimum wage, and shattered hopes.

But that leaves out Grimace. And we mustn't.

First, he conforms to no known shape or species type. Big Mac's head is a fucking double cheeseburger lousy with Thousand Island, so that's not much of a leap. Birdie is definitely some sort of descendant of the avian kingdom. But Grimace? He looks to all the world like the unfortunate, short-on-chromosomes result of an illicit tryst between Barney and a bag of Hershey's kisses (and yeah, I know Barney came AFTER Grimace, but he IS a dinosaur, so clearly he's been around awhile. He's just flown under the radar). So there's the "what the hell IS that?" dilemma to deal with.

But what Grimace STANDS for on the menu is just as much of a mystery. After doing fully thirty seconds of fact-packed internet research, the prevailing opinion seems to be that he represents the Milkshakes. What's more, history seems to bear this out. According to available sources (okay, fuckers, Wikipedia. So sue me), "Grimace" was originally "The Evil Grimace," and his entire raison d'etre was stealing milkshakes. Which was made easier by the fact that, at the time, he had four arms. And no, I'm not making this shit up.

Eventually, it was decided that "The Evil Grimace" wound undergo an radical double arm-ectomy, drop the "The Evil" like it's hot, and just become regular old Grimace. Today, he's the big purple doofus we all know and tolerate, who's named after that thing you do when someone farts in the next cubicle. How exactly lopping off 33% of your limbs results in total criminal rehabilitation is unclear, and no attempts have yet been made to explain it. But it makes a pretty strong case for getting Prince Goro from Mortal Kombat in to a qualified surgeon, doesn't it?

Really just needs a hug. And two fewer arms. But mostly the hug.

So, even though it seems to be pretty well-established that Grimace is meant to represent the "Milkshake" portion of the menu, it's still not clear why his outward appearance seems to be modeled after the pile of dog shit that resulted that time Big Duke got into the Crayolas. But, then again, the "Milkshake" itself contains no actual milk, and is never really shaken. So, while I'm tempted to think that this is a subtle comment on consumer culture cooked up by an irony-savvy ad exec, that's likely as not giving the McMarketers FAR too much credit. After all, these are the same people who pushed the Arch Deluxe, so clearly they have zero idea what the fuck they're doing, and just get lucky once in awhile. 'Nuff said.

The next curiosity I present for your consideration is specimen: Goofy.

For years, nobody's been at ALL sure what the hell Goofy is. This debate was played out most famously in the 1986 Rob Reiner film "Stand By Me," a charming, heartwarming family film based on a Stephen King story in which four adolescent boys embark on a trek to go and look at a corpse one of them heard is rumored to be floating in a marsh somewhere. Presumably, this is for the purpose of poking it with sticks, thereby nicely setting the stage for expensive adulthood therapy.

The exchange played out thusly:

Gordie: Alright, alright, Mickey's a mouse, Donald's a duck, Pluto's a dog. What's Goofy?

Teddy: Goofy's a dog. He's definitely a dog.

Chris: He can't be a dog. He drives a car and wears a hat.

Vern: Oh, God. That's weird. What the hell is Goofy?

Unfortunately, that's as far as they get. The question is raised, but it isn't resolved, thereby leaving an entire generation wondering about the answer. We wonder just as much as we wonder what the punchline is to the salami/poodle/naked chick joke Judd Nelson starts telling before falling through the ceiling in "The Breakfast Club." The eighties were a weird time for loose ends in cinema, I guess.

Anyway, the film makes an interesting point. Goofy sure LOOKS like a dog. He's got long ears and a snoopy snout. And the fact that his original name upon his introduction was "Dippy Dawg" seems to seal it. But then, we're still at a loss to explain the Pluto problem.

In order to reconcile the Goofy/Pluto paradox, we must extrapolate what we know of Mickey's universe, and apply it to what we know about ours, assuming that the same rules of physics, life sciences, sociology and anthropology are constant (as they seem to be in every other case). In THAT light, it's tempting to advance Darwinian reasoning, and make the argument that Goofy:Humans::Pluto:Chimpanzees. That is to say that one is a more slightly-evolved version of the other, having developed along parallel but separately-branched evolutionary lines, and sharing common ancestors as well as an overwhelming majority percentage of genetic material. But that theory proves flawed when we consider the gulf in baseline intelligence between the two.

To wit: Goofy, to put it lightly, is as dumb as a box of hair. His heavy-lidded expression, slouching posture, protruding teeth and slovenly, unkempt appearance suggest nothing so much as a southern bumpkin (itself a major handicap on the Bright-O-Meter) who was either dropped on his head a few dozen times during his cognitive development, or was born breach, and with the umbilical cord wrapped tightly around his neck. Maybe both. Plus, he's got that "gee, gawrsh, hyuck-hyuck" vocal characterization that's eerily reminiscent of...well...Grimace, actually. So the folks at Disney seem to have gone to great lengths to establish and reinforce that Goofy is not the sort of chap you want to trust around sharp objects. Especially shiny ones.

Speaking of sharp...For his part, Pluto is exceedingly clever. He's often prone to being the only character tasked with barely holding together a colossal clusterfuck of a snowballing situation, and stopping it just short from spinnning off of the rails into certain animated apocalypse. At this, he's proven surprisingly adept. However, while far smarter than his canine counterpart, Pluto's particular genetic sequence has not endowed his line with the comparable motor skills, opposable thumbs, nor upright ambulation necessary to make the most efficient use of this able intellect. A cruel trick, this...one on par with what happened to Stephen Hawking.

"LEAVE...ME...THE HELL...OUT.......OF....THIS."

So, much like the Grimace conundrum, attempting to unravel the Goofy mystery also proves a difficult, if not impossible undertaking. There are just too many contradictory factors at play here in order to come up with a satisfying solution. And that's even BEFORE we go into other confusing Disney issues. Like why when Donald Duck goes chasing Chip and Dale into their hidey-hole, and plunges his whole torso in, inevitably coming up stripped of his wee sailor suit when he resurfaces, does he blush and cover his CROTCH when he realizes he's been denuded? Dude, you weren't wearing any fucking pants to BEGIN with! That shit has ALWAYS ruffled my feathers.

However, it's the last of these characters that's perhaps the most infuriating. Because Gonzo truly resists all attempts at clarification. Except when he doesn't...which proves even worse to have to deal with.

For the record: I genuinely love the Muppets. I'm of the considered opinion that Jim Henson was a gentle, misunderstood genius. When some people say, "I love children," your flesh crawls (See: Jackson, Michael). But when Jim Henson said it, you know he meant it. And in a way that could never possibly involve his genitals.

The first few Muppet flicks were fun, imaginative, charming and well-done. So was the Muppet Show. Even Sesame Street was done in a way that wasn't tedious, or pandering. Granted, the Muppets have not fared QUITE so well since Jim shuffled offstage, but they're still one of the few forms of kids' entertainment that gets a free pass in my book. They never really sold out, they're honestly just as much fun for adults, and they're heartwarming without being treacly or maudlin. The Muppets are everything that's right about their genre.

That being said, Gonzo has always perplexed me. Much like his above-mentioned counterparts, he is both surrounded by easily-identifiable cohorts, and all the more conspicuous for that. Miss Piggy is a pig, Kermit's a frog, Rowlf is a dog...Even Beaker is...well, a beaker. But Gonzo? Is he a buzzard of some kind? Some other sort bird? That would certainly explain the feathers, beaky schnozz, and his odd attraction to chickens. However. He doesn't have wings. And he plays the trumpet. Badly, sure...But he still plays. And birds, famously, do not have lips, and so could never hope to possess the requisite embouchure necessary to play a brass instrument at even a substandard amateur level.

The FUCK I'm over-thinking this. You shut your whore mouth.

So, once again, I find myself turning to the cybar-webbz for some sort of a shove in the right direction. And that's when I find out that Gonzo is an alien.

Yeah. Really. An alien. Sadly, I'm not making THIS up, either.

When first introduced, Gonzo was officially classified as a "Whatever." Not long after that, he was promoted (?) to the class of "Weirdo." But in the 1999 bastardpiece "Muppets From Space," It is indeed revealed that Gonzo is, in fact, from another planet. Gonzo begins expressing frustration that even HE has no idea who or what the fuck he actually is, and has grown, in his own words, "tired of being a one-of-a-kind freak." So, In stark defiance of the Muppet canon up to that point, the film retcons the shit out of poor Gonzo's backstory, and makes him an honest-to-Christ extraterrestrial. Apparently, the producers had realized that the same basic storyline had worked so very well in "Highlander II," and figured they oughta run with it.

There really SHOULD'VE been only one.

Of course, this shit went down in 1999. Jim Henson died in 1990. I'm gonna blow right past asking "coincidence?" and blow straight into the territory of "FUCK, no."

Keeping with the Highlander analogy, the Muppet people realized their mistake not long after they made it, being as it went over like a pregnant pole-vaulter with the fan base. Thus, much like most comic book continuity that veers off-planet, that shit got swept under the rug faster than you can say "It's time to dress up right." These days, Gonzo has come full-circle, and is officially back to being a "Whatever." And that suits me just fine, thanks. At least they didn't establish that the only way to finally, definitively kill a "Whatever" is to decapitate it...and then go ahead and bring it back for another installment anyway.

Hey, I dig me the shit out of some Sean Connery, but it's not like the dude has the greatest judgment. If I were a family member, I'd declare him unfit to take care of himself and have him committed. Blowing off that fourth Indy movie, but saying "yes" to "Zardoz," "The Avengers," and "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen"? That's indicative of dementia, that is. But, as I am so often wont to do, I digress. Otherwise we're bound to get into the fact that sometimes, Russians and Spaniards have thick Scottish brogues, and then I have to curl up under my desk and cry for at least an hour.

"Grrreat Schcott! Paassh the BORSCHT! Alscho, the HAGGISCH."

Y'know, I guess the whole Gonzo thing really ought to learn me something: not to go asking questions where the answers are almost guaranteed to disappoint me. If the explanation is going to be something shat out by committee that fucks up that which came before, I'd almost rather not know. The Grimace/Goofy/Gonzo dilemma is indicative of -

Hey, wait a minute. All their names start with G. What the fuck is THAT all about? And while I'm on the subject, two out of the three of them are purple. What the fuck? What's the connection, here? What the hell is going on?!? WHO DO YOU WORK FOR?!?

Okay, y'know what? Maybe I do need to go and cry under my desk for awhile. The rabbit hole on this shit clearly goes deeper than even I'm able to comprehend right now. If I'm not back in two hours...Wait another two.