FIRESIGN PHIL FINDS FAME AS DRUNK MONKEY

Proctor finally steps out from behind the screen to be revealed as the voice of the drunken French circus monkey in Eddie Murphy's blockbuster summer release, "Dr. Dolittle." What were my qualifications? "I can do a French accent and I drink, too."

Audiences have responded in a huge way to this modern version of the classic film, which has already grossed twenty-nine million dollars in its first weekend; and since I voiced this silly simian, my career has taken off like a Chinese rocket!

Thanks to writer Susan Wlosczezna, both I and the Firesign have been featured in the last two Friday editions of USA Today, where she pointed out that I'm "the most modest mammal in the cast... the only one who wears clothes."

"It's stressful to be a clown," I said, "Go see 'Pagliacci.'" Thanks, Susan.

"As other people have observed about 'Mulan,' just like in real life,
Eddie Murphy comes to the aid of a crossdresser in need."
(BrianWestley)

HAVE "PATIENCE"

And Melinda and I are back on the boards, getting the Antaeus condensed production of "Patience" ready for a Monday, July 6 backers' audition at the Ventura Court Theatre. To see pictures and sign up, visit http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/apicella/Patience1.html

A producer recently returned from France said that "going to Cannes makes you yearn for the depth and sincerity of Los Angeles." (L.A. Times)

HURRAY FOR HOLLYWOOD!

Annie Lockhart told us that that one of the kids we recently worked with on a film had been out dancing at a Hollyweird club "where the bathroom attendants offered pull-down glass-topped counter and straws." The same place features a glass-enclosed dance-floor toilet. When nature's call just cannot be denied, you bop inside. Upon locking the door, the glass panels become opaque. Or you can keep it open. Oh, those cwazy kids!

"Beneath all the fake tinsel of Hollywood, is the real tinsel."
(Oscar Levant)

THE NAME GAME

If Sondra Locke married Elliott Ness, then divorced him to marry Herman Munster, she'd become Sondra Locke Ness Munster. If Bea Arthur married Sting, she'd be Bea Sting. If Tuesday Weld married Hal March III, she'd be Tuesday March 3. If Liv Ullman married Judge Lance Ito, then divorced him and married Jerry Mathers, she'd be Liv Ito Beaver.

If Snoop Doggy Dogg married Winnie the Pooh, he'd be Snoop Doggy Dogg Pooh. How about a baseball marriage? If Boog Powell married Felipe Alou, he'd be Boog Alou. If G. Gordon Liddy married Boutros-Boutros Ghali, then divorced him to marry Kenny G., he'd be G. Ghali G.

Nog (related to Quark on "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine") has no other name, so he uses it twice when getting a marriage license. If he married Howard Hughes, and then Pamela Dare, he'd be Nog Nog Hughes Dare.

If Jack Handy (SNL writer) married Andy Capp, then married Jack Paar, then moved on to Stephen King, he'd be Jack Handy Capp Paar King.

If Woody Allen married Natalie Wood, divorced her and married Gregory Peck, divorced him and married Ben Hur, he'd be Woody Wood Peck Hur. If Ivana Trump married, in succession, Orson Bean (actor), King Oscar (of Norway), Louis B. Mayer (of MGM), and Norbert Wiener (mathematician), she would then be Ivana Bean Oscar Mayer Wiener. (Garry Margolis)

"I want all my employees to be able to say whatever they want at any time,
even if it means they lose their jobs"
(Sam Goldwyn, from the memory of John Mayer)

UNCONSCIOUS VILLAGE

We all know that 666 is the Number of the Beast, but did you know that:

$665.95 - Retail price of the Beast

$699.25 - Price of the Beast plus 5% sales tax

$769.95 - Price of the Beast with extra soul

$656.66 - Walmart price of the Beast

00666 - Zip code of the Beast

Route 666 - Highway of the Beast

666 F - Oven temperature for roast Beast

666k - Retirement plan of the Beast

6.66 % - 5 year CD interest rate at First Beast National Bank

666i - BMW of the Beast

668 - Next-door neighbor of the Beast

900-666-0666 - Live Beasts! One-on-one pacts! $6.66/minute

(Lipsey to Lovejoy, enjoy!)

"If Bill Gates had a dime for every time a Windows box crashed... wait a minute. He does."

PAT, WE HARDLY KNEW YE

A few weeks ago, I did some spots for AAA of Alaska (AAAA?) as a Moose named Arne with John Stevenson, and Gary Owens as our announcer. He told me that dear Pat McCormick is resting comfortably at the Old Actors Home after his stroke, but said that when he visits, he's never sure if his conversations are getting through. I commented that even when Pat was well, we had that same problem! God bless him.

I also did a spot with Gary later that day for "Disneyquest," a huge interactive ride "at Downtown Disney West Side!" in Disney City, we presume... it's a Walt World after all...

"I would rather cry in a Rolls-Royce than laugh on a bicycle."
(Patrizia Gucci, on trial for her husband's murder)

IT'S ALLEN THE TELLING

At a recent event at the Beverly Hills Museum of TV and Radio, honoring Steve Allen, he revealed that his mom was a deadpan vaudeville performer and Milton Berle, his babysitter. "But I digress... for a living," said Steve. In reminiscing about the Tonight Show, he referred to "Hong Kong suit nights." If he was asked to wear one of these, he knew he was going to get a cream pie in the face.

"How would you like to be remembered," someone asked.

"Til Tuesday," he said. "I've had a long and rich career... longer than richer." Thanks, Steverino.

ARE WE IN GOSHEN, YET?

Letterman's Top Ten Signs Your Amish Kid is in Trouble

DESCENT-CY?

Performance artist Karen Finley opened "The Return of the Chocolate-Smeared Woman" in NYC in response to congressional restrictions on NEA grants. "It isn't just the far right, " she cautioned, "Every time Clinton has oral sex, (his legal bills) could pay for one year of the NEA.

"Who's going to be deciding...what's decent? Is a banana going into the mouth decent? Is chocolate on the body decent?" Later, she invited the audience to lick chocolate off her nude body... for $20.00. "Cab fare," she said.

MEN AND WOMEN IS THE SAME SEX

According to Reuters News service, the English National Ballet is suggesting that their dancers get down before they get up to perform in Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet ballet. Spokesperson Raymond Gubbay says, "Can you get very amorous off-stage so that you can come and feel your role during the performance?" To which artistic director Derek Deane adds, "This is a very sexually orientated production and without being vulgar, I want it to have more sexual overtones. They hardly wear anything in the studios and get to touch every part of each other's bodies anyway."

On the other, er, hand, a Japanese magazine reports that its state soccer team has prohibited the team from screwing around before the World Cup games, but don't pull that on the Belgian members. Player Eric Deflandre explained what he was taking with him to France: "My soccer boots to play soccer and an inflatable doll, because a month without a woman would be difficult."

So, it's no surprise that NASA in projecting a three-year-long Mars mission, is contemplating a crew of astronauts and astronettes. Russki space veteran Musa Manarov, who's been above it all for a total of a year and a half, believes that it's easier to eschew women in space.

"On earth you see advertisements, television, someone going by. A young guy could hold out three years without women; then when he got back to earth all women would love him." But with babes in space in close quarters for a long time, such self-control is "stretching it."

"It's like a weapon that could misfire. But if you didn't have the weapon at all it just won't go off." Wait a minute, Musa. What exactly are we talking about, here?

Music over sixty beats a minute can trigger road rage, even if it's Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" (featured in "Apocalypse Now").

OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF BABES

From grade school papers, by way of Garry Margolis:

• The future of "I give" is "I take."
  
• The parts of speech are lungs and air.
  
• The inhabitants of Moscow are called Mosquitoes.
  
• Water is composed of two gins. Oxygin and hydrogin. Oxygin is pure gin. Hydrogin is gin and water.
  
• A virgin forest is a forest where the hand of man has never set foot.
  
• The general direction of the Alps is straight up.
  
• A city purifies its water supply by filtering the water then forcing it through an aviator.
  
• Most of the houses in France are made of plaster of Paris.
  
• The people who followed the Lord were called the 12 opossums.
  
• The spinal column is a long bunch of bones. The head sits on the top and you sit on the bottom.
  
• We do not raise silk worms in the United States, because we get our silk from rayon. He is a larger worm and gives more silk.
  
• One of the main causes of dust is janitors.
  
• A scout obeys all to whom obedience is due and respects all duly constipated authorities.
  
• One by-product of raising cattle is calves.
  
• The four seasons are salt, pepper, mustard and vinegar.
  
• The climate is hottest next to the Creator.
  
• Oliver Cromwell had a large red nose, but under it were deeply religious feelings.
  
• The word trousers is an uncommon noun because it is singular at the top and plural at the bottom.
  
• The blood circulates through the body by flowing down one leg and up the other.
  
• In spring, the salmon swim upstream to spoon.
  
• Iron was discovered because someone smelt it.
  
• In the middle of the 18th century, all the morons moved to Utah.
  
• A person should take a bath once in the summer, not so often in the winter.
  
• A census taker is man who goes from house to house increasing the population.

DON'T COUNT ON IT

Because his trip to North America took so long, Leif Ericsson returned home only to learn that his name had been crossed from the list of village inhabitants. He complained to the village chief, who relayed the adventurer's displeasure to the village statistician. "

I'm so sorry," said the census keeper. "I must have taken Leif off my census."

"China is a country caught between a rock and the Hard Rock Cafe."

Published 6/30/98

PLANET PROCTOR
© 1996/2002 by Phil Proctor