Happy Tuesday to you!
Or not, depending.
You know what, I don't care how your Tuesday is.
AWESOME: The Swedish Chef
I am actively resisting the urge to write at length about a wide topic like the Muppets (these notes are not meant to be very long). So instead I bring you just a piece of the puzzle. But first...
To those of you who know me well, this should come to no surprise. The Muppets are one of the only forms of PG entertainment that is honestly entertaining for both children and adults, while somehow resisting the temptation to dive into pop culture or innuendo jokes for adults. It really is that pure-of-heart good.
But I want to talk about one of the more unique Muppets today, and one of my personal favorites- the Swedish Chef.
Most of you should recognize the Swedish chef- and if you don't shame on you ya Goddamn idiot. He's the only Goddamn Muppet dressed as a Goddamn chef!
Idiots...
Anyway, he has a very distinctive voice ("Bork, Bork!") and likes to throw kitchen items. His episode titles (from the Muppet Show) leave nothing to the imagination (e.g. "Meatballs") as he goes about his adventures in cooking, very rarely succeeding and often making a mess or causing an explosion (much like my own cooking).
He is also one of the only Muppet to have human hands. That brings up a lot of questions, but I'll let it slide.
Curiously, he's known as the Norwegian Chef in Sweden. I suppose it's just as fun in Sweden to speak mock-Norwegian (Hurden, Gurden! (?)) as it is to speak mock-Swedish in America. I don't know.
But I recommend you give it a try. Maybe if you're lucky enough it will go something like this:
PERSON: End of the line, Sonny Jim.
You: Hoo-dee-doo-dur-dee-doo-do
You'll sound awesome! I promise.
NOT AWESOME: Optical Illusion Books
What can I say about these books. I hate the authors, artists, "read"ers, I even hate the trees used to make the paper of the books.
I'll be the one to say it: They're stupid.
Growing up, this things were the shit (to everyone else) at my grade school. When the Goddamn Book Fair came around, you could bet Scholastic would be raking in the dough like Bernie Madoff. I remember seeing my peers looking at things saying stupid little kid stuff like,
"Whoa! This is cool!"
"Can you see it?"
And worst of all,
"That's awesome!"
Never mind that we really were little kids at the time, that's not awesome. Now none of us really had any encounters with the internet to keep us occupied at the time, but I had my Super Nintendo and Nintendo 64, and that's all I needed as far as material possessions are concerned. Sure, I had books, and I'm sure my classmates did too, but these optical illusion books bridged the gap between the have's (video games and friends) and the have not's.
Not that I'm against that, but I at least never felt closer to anyone else looking at these books. They were hardly helpful in making and keeping friends- as least not as helpful as playing video games, sports, or making fun of people are. What sort of conversation could you have looking at these books? I'll tell you- none.
Suppose you got to see the picture first, and you tell your friend there, "Hey, I can see the picture!" Well now he's mad at you cause he feels like an idiot. And vice versa.
Oh, by the way, I never got to see any of these pictures. I don't know, I'm just shitty at them.
Don't judge.
And like anybody who's not good at something, the correct reaction is: Fuck this shit!
And so I did fuck that shit from the ripe old age of ... I don't know, 7, onwards. And I haven't looked back.
So far as I know they still make these books. I don't want to know who the artists/authors are- and I hope they're still not at that same job anyway. I can imagine it gets pretty boring embedding pictures into... other...pictures for 15 years or so.
Although you can probably really mess with people by embedding weird pictures into the pages. Like in Fight Club with splicing the movie reels. You saw it, you just didn't know you did.
That's right- subliminal message picture books- now those would be awesome.
But optical illusion picture books- totally not awesome.
And you better remember that, all you 3rd graders and older out there! Get some grown up book at your Book Fair.
You know, like Captain Underpants.
Awesome.
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