L o b a B l a n c a {dot} c o m

I feel as though this flashback should actually be on Salt-N-Pepa rather than just one of their albums, since they played such a pivotal role in defining my early musical tastes. Plus, if I were to select one album from their catalog as their strongest or best, it wouldn’t be Very Necessary. It would probably be their third album, Black’s Magic, which, track for track, is their most solid offering from their unfortunately short-lived career.

Still, for nostalgic reasons, I’ve decided to go with their fourth album, which released the year I was a high school senior. I’m going with this one for a couple of reasons. First, this was one of the last rap/R&B albums I ever bought. I spent a good portion of my middle school and high school days memorizing the lyrics to all variety of rap songs from all variety of artists I’ve mentioned here before. However, with the shift in mainstream rap leading to less provocative, more violent artists offering less creative, more misogynistic music, I began to shift away from the genre. Plus, I was beginning to finally feel the flannel pull. By my freshman year of college, I was well into alternative music…not to mention that strange interlude I had with country music (that I admittedly still slightly cling to through my continued love of Terri Clark and the Dixie Chicks in all their iterations).

Second reason I chose Very Necessary is because it was pretty much the soundtrack of my final year of high school…at least the commuting part. My little nerdly Chevette had a tape deck that fed into the tiniest, tinniest speakers you could possibly imagine. Seriously, I’m willing to bet that some of you have better speakers on your smartphones than my little Chevette had. Still, it was sound. Sound of any kind was good. And so I dubbed several of my favorite CDs onto tapes (Memorex, natch) and would listen to them during my 15-minute drive from home to school, always being sure to eject the tape and turn off the radio before I pulled into the parking lot. Remember, I went to a religious school and I highly doubt they would have been grooved by such lyrical scripture as:

You couldn’t hump me if my first name was Cooty Cat
Your little jimmy can’t even hold your zipper back

Call me crazy, but I think that would have landed me in the pastor’s office faster than that short dress I wore for my junior year picture day…but that’s another story for another time.

And, yes, Salt-N-Pepa’s lyrics were profane, sexual, sensual, and sometimes just downright naughty. One of the things that I love about their lyrics, though, is that, while they were sexual, they always conveyed a sense of female strength and resiliency and self-respect (although, admittedly, I’m not going to be picking any of those songs here…they’re more from earlier albums…sorry). However, they also weren’t always what we would now call “PC.” For example, in “Shoop,” their second biggest hit from this album, guest rapper Big ‘Twan says “Twelve inches to a yard and have you sounding like a retard” during his interlude. Even back in the day, this bit caused problems and most radio stations would bleep out the word “retard.” (Never mind the physical impossibility of the lyric anyway…a yard? Really? 36 inches? Right.) It’s a shame that they included Big ‘Twan at all in this song, which is one of my favorites (and also one that I can still rap in its entirety, either with or without rum accompaniment…although I have been told that “with rum” is a more entertaining delivery).

One of the other standouts from this album isn’t actually a song. It’s a public service announcement that the group included, inspired by Sandra “Pepa” Denton’s and Deidra “Spinderella” Roper’s work with HIV/AIDS awareness groups. The PSA, “I’ve Got AIDS” is the last track on the album. Listening to it now shows how far we have come in our understanding of the disease as well as how far medicine has come in controlling the virus and how much closer we are to finding a cure. Back then, though, it was something groundbreaking and, in some ways, controversial, to have these mainstream rappers giving time and space on their album to a PSA about what had for years been called “gay cancer.” Instead, Salt-N-Pepa were telling their fans, this is happening to all of us and it’s not going to stop until we’re all aware and looking for ways to prevent it and ways to cure it.

Oh, and for the record, the biggest hit not only of this album but probably also of their career was their duet with En Vogue, “Whatta Man.” Ironically, it’s one of my least favorite songs…but one that I still will stop to listen to if I hear it on the radio. Why don’t we just take a little break right now and listen to it, eh?

And, of course, I’m going to leave “Shoop” right here…

And, as a bonus, I’m just going to leave this here, too. If you know me at all, denizens, you’ll understand…

We’re going to pretend that today’s Flashback Friday is about Shrinky Dinks, those magical sheets of plastic that you colored, cut out, and then stuck in the oven to shrink them down into brittle, scalding “fun” sizes. But, seriously, this photo just looks like it fell out of the 1980s, doesn’t it?

That was my little 13-inch television on which I played Hunt the Wumpus and all my other awesome generic ripoffs of cool Atari games that came with my TI-99/4A computer. Sadly, if I tried to play a video game on a television this small now, I’d probably have to tape magnifying lenses overtop my glasses. Old age: Run away!

This is also the television that I discovered Sisters on…but this Betamax VCR was not exclusively mine; this was the family VCR for years. We watched all kinds of Disney cartoons and live-action movies and whatever else the local mom-and-pop store offered on Beta tape. I remember a lot of things like K9 (we never could get Turner and Hooch, so we had to settle for James Belushi and a German shepherd…had a happier ending from what I remember) and Savannah Smiles, which I know we must have rented at least once a month, but I couldn’t tell you what it was about if my life depended on it. I also used to tape all kinds of movies from my childhood on this little machine…horribly cheesy films like Troop Beverly Hills and the remake of The Blob that always made my dad shake his head when he would pass by and see me designing special labels for these movies with my packet of Crayola markers.

So, sure, we can pretend that this entry is all about Shrinky Dinks…but what could I possibly say about Shrinky Dinks that I didn’t say in the very first sentence? These are Smurfs. I also did Shrinky Dinks for He-Man and Battle Cat, but I couldn’t find those on the day that I was taking these photos. I used to color my Smurf Shrinky Dinks while listening to my Smurfs All Star Show album. Dude, I was totally meta, even as a little Loba.

I’m in a bit of a musical mood this evening, denizens. I’ve said before that I don’t really know all that much about music. If you want to read things written by someone who actually does know music, I’d recommend you go here.

No, I just want to write about the sentiments I feel when I think of certain songs or CDs or musicians. I just want to remember. I just wanna…dance with somebody…

I know, I know…that was a truly horrible segue. Whatever. Just watch the video. Watch happy, healthy Whitney. Watch that amazing eye makeup. Watch that hair. That hair! That hair screams 1980s louder than the highest note Whitney ever could hit.

It was the constant airtime rotation of this song and video that made Whitney the first CD I ever bought. I paid $30 for it at The Wall. Yeah, kiddies, you read that correctly. $30. For one CD. You know, it’s not really that difficult to understand why so many people turned to things like Napster so rapidly when they became available. Not that I’m condoning such behavior. But $30? For something that you can now download instantly from Amazon.com for $9.99? Ballsy, RIAA. Ballsy.

But I digress, per usual. I must have damned near worn out my little boom box playing this CD, not just because it was the only one I owned at the time, but because I enjoyed listening to every single song. They had catchy hooks, lots of 80s-era synth (which I apparently really enjoy), bubbly, bouncy lyrics, and Houston’s amazing voice.

When I was in college, I sold my copy of this CD at the local used store for pocket money. I was well into my alternative rock phase by then; also, by that point in Houston’s career, she had already started turning into the sad punchline to her very unfunny personal joke. I didn’t want to watch this artist I had looked up to and adored so much as a child imploding in on herself in such a painfully public way. When she died, all I could think in the moment I heard the news was that hers was the first CD I ever bought. And I wished I could have it back.

More than that, I wished I could have that time back, if only for a moment…before Bobby Brown, before the drugs, before she was called difficult or a diva and the worst thing people were saying about her was that she might be gay. Really not that bad a rumor in comparison with what ultimately transpired, wouldn’t you say?

In 1987, though, she was perky, vivacious Whitney, belting out inescapably happy tunes, flouncing about in music videos with handsome male dancers and poorly CGIed bodyless dance shoes. And that hair.

That hair.

Only thing that could outclass that hair are the lapels from this live performance of one of my favorite songs from Whitney, “Love Will Save the Day.” She made performing seem so effortless in this video. Sadly, the white people caught on tape do not make dancing seem effortless. You’ll know them when you see them. Love wasn’t going to save that day…

You won’t believe this, denizens. I don’t believe it.

Mead still makes Trapper Keepers!

Actually, that site doesn’t really provide a nice view of the modern Trapper Keeper. Here, have this Amazon.com view.

Looks like they’re now made with solid-color fabric covers, with a sturdy metal snap to hold them shut and sturdy metal rings that I’m sure clack shut with percussive reassurance.

How dull.

Nope. I want my Trapper Keeper made completely of plastic and cardboard. I want a Velcro closure and a little plastic tab that, when you pull on it, makes the plastic rings slide open and shut in absolute silence. I want the flap to be held on with thin, destined-to-become-more-brittle-with-age plastic piping that tatters and rips throughout the year, until by the time summer vacation arrives, those tattered edges have several times snagged your clothing and sliced through the skin on your palms like paper cuts on steroids. I want special folders in bright primary colors, branded with the Trapper Keeper logo. And I want the outside decorated with something inspiring. Like a tiger. I want a Tiger Trapper Keeper.

Image attributed to like the 80s

I actually did have this exact Trapper Keeper one year. One year is a pretty good record for a Trapper Keeper. Then again, that was the joy (for kids, but a money-sucking pain for parents, I’m sure) of the Trapper Keeper: You got to get a new one each year. One that would properly express your ever-evolving personality through pictures, designs, and colors. Either that or show everyone that you were late to the Back-to-School sale and all they had left was the one with the prancing horse in a meadow.

Which is fine if you like horses. Otherwise, you end up suffering from an extreme case of Trapper Keeper envy for an entire year. Not that I know anything about such things.

[Loba Tangent: What the hell did I know about horses? I'd never even ridden a horse at that point!! Well, except for that glue-factory candidate they dragged out at the local elementary school's summer carnival for kids to climb onto and clatter about in a parking lot for 10 minutes. That poor little beast sure wasn't going to take you prancing through a verdant meadow.]

Actually, likethe80s has quite a few photos of Trapper Keepers, including this infamous horse one. They even apparently did research for their post.

Pfft. Research. Really, it’s all about the photos they have. Nice walk down memory lane…although I’m not going to lie, denizens…I’m a little concerned by the hoarding nature of the person holding onto all these Trapper Keepers. Let them go! Let that horse finally run free!!

Oh, and if you scroll to the bottom of their page, you’ll find a link to their post on Mac Tonight, who I recently blathered on about here a couple weeks ago. Their post is nice and all, but they don’t have what I have: This photo, taken for me by an awesome ImagiFriend^TM who was kind enough to indulge my recent mooning over Mac.

Heh. I see what I did there.

I’ve written before about how certain shows from my youth have stuck with me while certain others leave me feeling not the least bit disturbed that there was a point in which I could stand more than 5 minutes of them without wanting to defenestrate the television. One of the shows that I think still falls in the former category is Laverne & Shirley. Looking back on the show now, I think that it was the characters’ blue collar appeal that initially drew me in, even as a child. I watched the regular antics of these two working-class women and recognized in their struggles with work and money the same struggles that my own family sometimes faced.

With less Booboo Kitty, of course.

In fact, I think it’s safe to say that I consider Laverne DeFazio and Shirley Feeney just as much part of the pantheon of female role models from my youth as Beverly Crusher, Jaime Sommers, Diana Prince, Bonnie Barstow, Jo Polniaczek, and Terry Dolittle, just to name a few.

I’ll get back to that last one in a minute.

I liked them both, but Laverne was my favorite. She always seemed less concerned about etiquette or appearances, a little less genteel, a little more crass, a little quirkier, a little more likely to tell the dirtier jokes and share the better stories over a pizza and a pitcher of beer. Plus, she embroidered all her tops with a giant cursive “L” and drank Pepsi Milk.

Yes, Pepsi Milk. It was a mixture of milk and Pepsi-Cola. I remember drinking these with my grandmother one summer. I don’t know why this sticks in my mind, but it always makes me smile whenever I think of it.

So, what does all this have to do with my latest BookBin entry? My Mother Was Nuts is the autobiography of none other than She Who Was Laverne.

What can I say? If you liked Penny Marshall as Laverne or if you have liked her continued Hollywood career as a director, I would recommend this book to you. It’s funny, straightforward, and incredibly interesting. Suffice it to say, she has led quite a life. Also, Marshall has a wonderful way of being honest without being catty or vindictive. She tells things plainly, saying only what’s important in a refreshingly objective way, and then moves on. She doesn’t try to tear anyone down and she doesn’t try to build herself up…even though, she could if she wanted to.

After all, Marshall was the first woman director to break $100 million at the box office…on only her second directorial outing (not counting those episodes of Laverne & Shirley she directed). She broke the boundary with Big and she repeated this feat with A League of Their Own, one of my absolute favorite movies ever made.

As for my earlier mention of Terry Dolittle, this was Whoopie Goldberg’s character from Marshall’s directorial debut, Jumpin’ Jack Flash, which was one of my earliest Flashback Friday posts. Yes, it was horribly inappropriate for 10-year-old me, but it also showed me that someone quirky and strange and just a little left of center could be awesome. In fact, this is what I wrote of Dolittle:

More than just making me laugh, though, I think at some point in my impressionable young mind, I made the choice that, when I grew up and got a “big girl” job, I was going to emulate Terry Dolittle. I have horrid fashion sense, but I still dream of aspiring to the color-coordinated-down-to-her-Reeboks style that Whoopi’s character sported throughout this movie. Plus, if you’ve ever seen my work desk, you’d think that I had pilfered every toy and sticker from the set before they were able to strike it. Same goes with my home decor choices in many regards.

In many ways, I kind of did grow up to be Terry Dolittle. I love tinkering with computers, I chat online frequently with awesome friends with wonderfully continental accents, and sometimes I get the urge to lip-sync to Diana Ross while wearing a sequined dress.

Okay, I’m lying on one of those things. I’ll let you guess which one.

All that being said, I loved every word of My Mother Was Nuts. Marshall doesn’t sugar-coat things. She made mistakes through her life; she knows it, she lets you know it, she moves on. I very much enjoy this and interpret it as Marshall believing there is more to life than living with the regrets of past mistakes. Just stand back up, dust off, and keep on going. Schlemeil! Schlimazel!

Final Verdict: I’ve been doing a relatively good job this year of sticking with books from my own collection, but sadly this was a library read. I couldn’t help myself though. I also can’t stop myself from adding this one to my wish list.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Gilda Radner lately. Probably because, even though I don’t keep track of the actual date anymore, I know that this is around the time of year when she passed away after struggling against ovarian cancer.

[Loba Tangent: For the record, she died May 20, 1989, less than one month after her comedic inspiration, Lucille Ball, died. I don't know why these weird little things stick in my brain.]

It was around 1988 that Nick at Nite began airing early episodes of Saturday Night Live, and I knew I had to watch for Gilda. I’d already fallen in love with her thanks to the movie of merit in today’s flashback, and I couldn’t wait to see more. Her kooky cavalcade of regular characters, like mushroom-haired Roseanne Roseannadanna, hard-of-hearing Emily Litella, punk rocker Candy Slice, Baba Wawa (I’m sure you can take a wild guess which television journalist this character skewered), nerd icon Lisa Loopner, and Judy Miller, the hyperactive Brownie with the overactive imagination, were always among my absolute favorites from the show. Her random vignettes, like “What’s in Gilda’s purse,” were odd and oddly revealing of the fragility of character that so many entertainers hide behind their creativity. Her Lucille Ball impersonation was impeccable. Her improvisational skills were beautiful. In fact, one of my all-time favorite moments from these early SNL shows comes from a line flub from show host Candice Bergen that Gilda ran with, to hilarious effect (not to mention leaving Bergen in tears from laughing so hard in the background, while Gilda simply pressed onward, never once missing a beat).

Don’t believe me? Watch.

Wait, what was that? The Right to Extreme Stupidity League? I think I saw them downtown. They’re called Congress now.

I digress. Hugely.

Needless to say, these reruns made me an even bigger Gilda fan. What started my admiration, however, was this silly little movie that she made in 1986, with her husband Gene Wilder. Haunted Honeymoon, written and directed by Wilder (with writing assistance from Terence Marsh), was this bizarre amalgamation of comedy, horror, musical, and murder mystery filtered through a noir lens by way of the radio serial format that was so popular during the 1940s-era setting of this film’s events.

Sounds crazy, right? Throw in werewolves and Dom DeLuise in drag, plus that strangely esoteric humor that Wilder infused into all his movies and…well, I’m not really sure what you’ve got. Neither were most people. Critics panned Haunted Honeymoon and audiences didn’t really bother showing up while the film was in theaters. For a week.

Yes, you read that correctly.

It’s a shame, really. I think this is quite an underrated and absurd little film, full of all manner of bizarreness that appeals to my peculiar sense of humor. Admittedly, you cannot watch this movie without disconnecting whatever need for logic and plausibility that you might possess, but sometimes it’s nice to turn these parts of your brain off and allow a bit of nonsensical silliness to wash over you.

Don’t believe me? Watch.

I’m telling you, denizens, this one is utterly crazy in that supremely Wilderian style…and Gilda was up to the task of keeping up every step of the way. Plus, the over-the-top setting, both of the house and the dinner party motif, as well as the strange cast of questionable characters with their questionable motives has always reminded me of another one of my favorite childhood movies, Clue.

I used to catch this movie on television all the time, either in its terribly edited format or late at night on one of the cable movie channels, but I haven’t seen it in years. I suppose since it isn’t as popular as some of Wilder’s other films like Young Frankenstein or his go as Willy Wonka, most channels don’t think to play it. Besides, how many people really want to see Dom DeLuise in a dress?

You know, besides me.

I’m not going to tell any of you that this is a “must see” film. As much as I love it for my own personal reasons, I could recommend other, better movies from Wilder’s career. I’d also recommend early SNL seasons or her one-woman Broadway show Gilda Live! for a better idea of Radner’s comedic genius. However, I have to admit that on the rare occasions that I have found this little, oft-ignored gem playing on cable, I always stop. I kind of have to. Netflix doesn’t offer it, either on DVD or streaming instantly, and I failed to buy the DVD before MGM stopped making it. Now, I have to wait patiently to find a used copy either on Amazon Marketplace or eBay that isn’t ridiculously priced. That’s okay, though. I can be very patient.

Until next time, this is your host wishing you…pleasant dreams…

I’m quite surprised that I haven’t posted this one before. I also have very little to say about this particular toy, beyond the fact that I always thought it was one of the most interesting toys I can remember from my childhood. I never owned my own Mr. Machine. One of my aunts had one, and I remember she would sometimes take it out and let it run up and down the apartment hallway, much to my wee delight.

Here is one of the original commercials for Mr. Machine:

After watching this, I’m almost 100 percent positive that my aunt had one of the reissued 1970s versions, because her version didn’t ring or come apart. It did, however, whistle a jaunty little tune (a most appropriate description for any tune from a toy in a top hat) while wheeling about.

Fun times.

And now that I know that the original version of Mr. Machine came apart, I feel this irresistible need to find my own. I must know what it looks like inside!

My final read from our recent journey was Ben Ehrenreich’s Ether, another City Lights acquisition. Here, first, is the description from the back cover:

A bearded man in a badly soiled suit known only as The Stranger wanders an apocalyptic landscape on the fringes of a dying metropolis, looking for a way to “get back on top.” Thwarted and rejected at every turn by old friends and strangers alike—even by the author of this novel, whom he visits repeatedly in unsuccessful attempts to determine his own narrative—his impotence and rage are expressed in acts of seemingly senseless violence. The various characters he encounters on his journey—a pack of sadistic boys, skinheads who beat him senseless, a deaf-mute woman who tries to heal him, a sidewalk preacher, and a deranged man who identifies him as The One—avoid or abuse him, or attempt to follow him.

Combine this description with a review that likened this book to “a David Lynch movie transcribed by Pierre Reverdy” and I simply could not resist adding this to the pile I was collecting on this particular visit to City Lights. I am ever so delighted that I did.

What I found in Ehrenreich’s tale was beautiful, brutal prose flitting along the edges of evanescent terrain oftentimes explored by two of my favorite modern writers, Alan Lightman and Paul Auster. In fact, several aspects of Ether reminded me of Auster’s Man in the Dark while others were evocative of Lightman’s Einstein’s Dreams.

Ehrenreich doesn’t quite have the same linguistic polish as Lightman or Auster, but his writing style is strong, fluid, and clean. His characters are real and yet removed from reality, possessing intricacies of personality and intent housed within the simplicity of Ehrenreich’s carefully constructed prose. Even the most peripheral characters bring some element of import and intrigue to this puzzling pseudo-apocalyptic tale.

As an open-ended mystery with nothing more at times than the framework of a plot upon which we are left to build using our own personal extrapolations, Ehrenreich has given readers a curious world of darkness suffused with random moments of humanity that vacillate from grotesque to whimsical to achingly fragile.

Final Verdict: Another keeper, denizens. Oh yes, another keeper. This is only Ehrenreich’s second novel, but I am definitely interested in reading his first offering as well as in seeing where else he will be taking us in future endeavors.

Continuing with the books I finished during those long flights to and from Hawaii, I decided that I also wanted to whittle away a bit at the collection of books I have picked up from City Lights Bookstore the last two times I’ve been to San Francisco (ironically, we had a long enough layover in San Francisco during our journey to the islands that I could have gone back to City Lights for some more perusing…but then we wouldn’t have gotten to do anything else. Because bookstores require HOURS.).

I admit that I chose Hal Niedzviecki’s short story collection Look Down, This Is Where It Must Have Happened because it’s a nice slim paperback that fit nicely into my backpack, in between my DSLR bag and my Kindle. I also admit that sadly one of the first things I noticed about this book was the fact that the Table of Contents listed the wrong pages for every single story (at least in my copy). For someone who spends a soul-crushing amount of time QCing minutia just like this, I was not happy to find such a glaring error during my leisure time. To me, this speaks to a lack of quality in the preparation that could have indicated a lack of quality in the product.

Luckily, this was not the case. Niedzviecki’s stories are captivating oddities, populated by strange and slightly indecipherable (and sometimes utterly unnerving) characters. His language is sparse and understated. His concepts are quirky and often complex…or at the very least complicated. One could imagine his characters populating a world conceived by Charlie Kaufman or perhaps even Robert Altman…actually, I detected a bit of Raymond Carver in these stories (Carver’s collection What We Talk About When We Talk About Love was the inspiration for Altman’s 1993 film Short Cuts). Niedzviecki isn’t quite as intensely restrained in his prose as Carver was, but he wields a similar precision in the selection of words to convey his tales. He also embraces the ambiguity of open endings that I sometimes really enjoy.

Final Verdict: I enjoy having short story collections on call into which I can dive quickly for a tale or two, so I do believe I shall be keeping this one.

Time to revisit Loba’s obsession with bizarre company mascots from her youth, thanks to a lovely reminder from one of my favorite ImagiFriends^TM (although we’re friends IRL, so I guess I can’t really refer to him in this way…but I love the classification so very much).

In addition to Spuds MacKenzie trying to convince me that I should like his diluted horse pee beer and Chester Cheetah coercing me to have perpetually stained fingers, or all those kooky kids’ cereal mascots luring me toward their sugary dentally damaging delights, there was this, er, lunatic:

Get it? Lun…never mind. Denizens, may I introduce you to Mac Tonight, from that ever-trippy corps of crazy McDonald’s ad campaigns. As I remember it (and that wonderful oracle of truth Wikipedia kind of confirms), our silver sliver-headed songster came about as a means to let us all know that McDonald’s was a really swingin’ dinner-time kinda of lounge, hep cats. Apparently, Ronald was a little too garish for that evening rush that McDonald’s was hoping to drum up. The Golden Arches wanted less red, more blue. Less clown, more…moon?

I get it…night time is the right time (to clog your arteries and succumb to grease-induced zit attacks), so when the Man in the Moon starts to serenade you about when it’s time to head for golden lights, you listen, you dig? Especially when he’s twirling around on a cloud that’s strangely solid enough to hold the weight of a baby grand piano and him, but still light enough to float through the city streets to spread his snappy tune.

[Loba Tangent: Apparently, I wasn't the only one to notice how silly it was to have a cloud holding up a piano...TPTB quickly replaced the cloud with...a twirling Big Mac. You know, for the realism.]

I snark now about Mac Tonight, but the truth is that I loved this guy when he debuted. That’s the whole point of these wacky mascots, right? Be so ___________ that impressionable people can’t get enough of you or the product you’re shilling? Sadly, though, he wasn’t cool enough to convince me that I should eat Big Macs, which are actually my least favorite McDonald’s offering of all. I’d even choose one of those mystery fish cinder-block burgers before I would order a Big Mac with that disgusting “special sauce” (there is nothing “special” about ruining mayonnaise with ketchup and relish, dammit).

However, he was cool enough to earn his own amazing cavalcade of merchandise, including T-shirts, cups, jackets, belt buckles, toys, hats…I even remember getting my pudgy little paws on a pair of Mac Tonight sunglasses, exactly like this pair:

I loved these sunglasses and wore them for years…long after the little Mac Tonight logo wore off and there was no evidence that they were anything more than a pair of Ray Charles-esque RayBan ripoffs. But that’s okay, considering that Mac Tonight was nothing more than a corporate ripoff of a Bobby Darrin song called “Mac the Knife.” Get it? Yeah, Mac Tonight’s themes were even nothing more than (marginally) reworked lyrics set to the same Darrin tune. It was so blatant (and so very unapproved) that Darrin’s family finally sued McDonald’s, thus bringing an end to Mac Tonight’s night-time TV ad reign…at least here in the States. Apparently, Mac was revived (and CGIed) in 2007 for new commercials for overseas markets in several Asian countries and South Africa. Here’s what the computer-rendered Mac Tonight looks like:

Gone is the Darrin ripoff song and the baby grand. Now, he plays a saxophone and sings a nondescript tune, like this:

Meh. Not nearly as groovy as the live action Mac…who was consequently played by Doug Jones. Name not ringing a bell? Don’t worry, denizens, his real face wouldn’t probably ring a bell either. He’s made quite a name for himself in Hollywood, however, for playing amazingly intricate prosthetically disguised characters, including this freakishly disturbing character from Pan’s Labyrinth:

He was also the faun in this movie as well as Abe Sapien in the Hellboy movies. He was also one of the Gentlemen in one of my favorite episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer:

Ah, “Hush.” The episode that introduced Tara Maclay into the Buffyverse. Also, one of the most unnerving hours of television ever filmed.

How the hell did I get from a singing moon to Tara Maclay? It’s a good time for the great taste of the healthy helping of WTFery always ready to be served here at the lair, denizens.

I leave you now with this compilation of Mac Tonight commercials that prompted this whole Flashback. Check the Simpsons cameo. You know you’ve hit the big times when the Simpsons dredge you up! Or, conversely, you know you’ve been on air too long when you have to dredge so deep to the bottom of the pop culture barrel that you reference Mac Tonight (types the wolf who just wrote an entire Flashback Friday on said character…).