PRISONER OF POTTSYLVANIA

For the last two weeks I was a Pottsylvanian slave to Fearless Leader in the eighty-million-dollar "Rocky and Bullwinkle Movie" at Universal. I played the Floor Manager to F.L. (Robert De Niro) at RBTV -- Really Bad Television -- designed to zombify America into voting for his rotten self for President, aided by Jason Alexander and Rene Russo as Boris and Natasha. It will be released in the summer of 2000 after Moose and Squirrel, who are animated and voiced by Keith Scott and the eternal June Foray, are added in 3-D to the picture!

I was told that at the dailies, my closeups were greeted by peals of laughter and then a voice from the back of the Hitchcock Theater exclaimed, "Who is that guy? He's really funny," to which director Des McAnuff replied, "That's Phil Proctor; he's a comedy legend."

The next day, I received a call from one of the producers of the "Dilbert" series on UPN who graciously informed me that they had to replace me in the voice-over role of Catbert (I had already replaced someone else, by the way) because the suits at the "Under Paid Network" want a star in the role.

Legend yes! Star? No. That's Hollyscrewed for ya!

"According to the current Onion: The mourners at the Kubrick Funeral were unable to comprehend the last 20 minutes of his life"
(from Gary Belkin)

TOURING ON A DIME

For those of you who need to know, here are the present dates for the Firesign Theatre's "Immortality" West Coast Spring jaunt:

April 1-3 (Thurs - Sun) Santa Barbara @ The Lobero Theater

April 9-10 (Fri - Sat) San Francisco @ The Warfield

April 24-27 (Sat - Tues) Portland, Oregon @ The Alladin

April 29-May 2 (Thurs - Sun) Seattle, Washington @ Bagley Wright

The show will go from "Before the Beginning" to "After the End," and is comprised of many never before performed pieces from Firesign's past and present works, with a cast that includes George Tirebiter as David Ossman, Frank Funnk as Phil Proctor, and ex-police-Lieutenant Alvin Bradshaw as Peter Bergman. As of press time we are still in negotiation with Nick Danger's people for the role of Mr. Austin. Please contact the theaters for ticket information, and be assured that East Coast and L.A. dates will follow, as certainly as Y2K.

In May, the legends of comedy will be returning to Sunburst studio to record their next opus, "Entering Billville - Leaving Billville" (working title, please) in both CD and DVD formats under the technical tutelage of the also legendary Jac Holzman, for a July 1 delivery to Rhino Records.

"Life in Lubbock, Texas taught me two things:
One is that God loves you and you're going to burn in Hell.
The other is that sex is the most awful, dirty thing on the face of the earth and you should save it for someone you love"
(Butch Hancock)

MORE e-MERGE-NCIES

*Xerox and Wurlitzer: to make "Reproductive organs"

*Polygram Records, Warner Brothers and Keebler: "Poly-Warner-Cracker"

*3M and Goodyear: "mmmGood"

*John Deere and Abitibi-Price: "Deere Abi"

*Denison Mines, Alliance and Metal Mining: "Mine, All Mine"

*3M, J.C. Penney & Metropolitan Opera Co: "3 Penney Opera"

*Grey Poupon and Dockers Pants: "Poupon Pants"

*Zippo Manufacturing, Audi, Dofasco, Dakota Mining: "Zip Audi Do-Da"

"I worry that the person who thought up Muzak
may be thinking up something else"
(Lily Tomlin)

HOT IDEA

The Baltimore Sun recently wrote of a new device from South Africa where to counteract the more than 13,000 carjackings there last year -- a flame-thrower! Selling for $650, "The Blaster "unleashes a "man-sized ball of fire" at the touch of a footswitch capable of blinding and inflicting third-degree burns --"but is not lethal." Who'd've thunk that "Robocop II"-- one of my least favorite movies -- would be an accurate prognosticator!? The article also notes, "A lawyer who bought one doesn't recommend using it on ticket-writing traffic cops."

In Klamath Falls "It's illegal to walk down a sidewalk
and knock a snake's head off with your cane"

COME TOGETHER, WRITE NOW!

Continuing the current trend of large scale mergers and acquisitions back towards turn-of-the-century monopolies, it was just announced that Christmas and Chanukah will merge.

An industry source said that the deal had been in the works for about 1300 years, ever since the rise of the Muslim Empire as the overhead cost of having twelve days of Christmas and eight days of Chanukah was becoming prohibitive for both sides. By combining forces, the world will be able to enjoy consistently high quality service during the Fifteen Days of Christmukah, as the new holiday is being called, but on the downside, massive layoffs are expected, with lords a-leaping and maids a-milking being the hardest hit.

In fact, one of the sticking points holding up the agreement for at least three hundred years was the question of whether Jewish children could leave milk and cookies for Santa even after having eaten meat for dinner. A breakthrough came last year, when Oreos were finally declared to be Kosher. (All sides appeared happy about this development except for Santa's dentist.)

[Go to next column to continue reading]

A spokesman for Christmas, Inc., declined to say whether a takeover of Kwanzaa might not be in the works as well. He merely pointed out that were it not for the independent existence of Kwanzaa, the merger between Christmas and Chanukah might indeed be seen as an unfair cornering of the holiday market.

He then closed the press conference by leading all present in a rousing rendition of "Oy, Come All Ye Faithful. (Thanks to Manager legend, Steve Kaplan)

"I am ready to go there and knock some sense
into American heads with an AK-47 in my hands"
(Boris Kurkin, Russian "beer-drinking" protester)

CZECH THIS OUT

Three guys, a Russian, a Swede and a Czech, decided that they wanted to go bear hunting. They read all the books, asked the pros for advice, and got all the state of the art equipment. When they got to the reserve they told the guard on duty, "If we don't come back in three days, come looking for us." And with that taken care of they drove on into the wilderness.

Three days passed and still the guys hadn't shown up, so the guard called the police and started searching for the men. Soon enough they saw two bears, one male and one female, who looked quite fat.

Figuring that the bears had eaten the hunters, the guard shot the female, cut her open and found the Russian and the Swede, unfortunately they were dead.

He then said to his comrades, "Well I guess the Czech's in the male."

"Dueling is legal in Paraguay as long as
both parties are registered blood donors"
(Fill's Funny Facts)

DON'T MIS-QUOTE ME ON THIS

According to many reports, Al Gore-d himself recently by saying "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet." But according to the Gore man in remarks before the Democratic National Committee, "I was pretty tired when I made that comment because I had been up very late the night before inventing the camcorder."

"People that are really very weird can
get into sensitive positions and have
a tremendous impact on history"
(The Once and Future Vice President Dan Quayle)

ONLY IN AMERICA . . .

. . .Can a pizza get to your house faster than an ambulance.

. . .Are there handicap parking places in front of a skating rink.

. . .Do drugstores make the sick walk all the way to the back of the store to get their prescriptions.

. . .Do people order double cheese burgers, a large fry, and a diet coke.

. . .Do banks leave both doors open and then chain the pens to the counters.

. . .Do we leave cars worth thousands of dollars int he driveway and useless junk in the garage.

. . .Do we use answering machines to screen calls and then have call waiting so we won't miss a call from someone we don't want to talk to in the first place.

. . .Do we buy hot dogs in packages of ten and buns in packages of eight.

. . .Do we have to read stuff in Planet Proctor that we deleted 50 times before months ago...

"The shortest war in history was between Zanzibar
and England in 1896. Zanzibar surrendered
after 38 minutes"
(We should all be so lucky...PP)

FIRESIGN FRIEND FAREWELL

Bob Cato, a Grammy-winning (and legendary) artist acknowledged for having made album covers into "art," passed on last week. We worked with him at CBS-Columbia Records for many years and recall him fondly as immensely talented, genial and inspiring.

He was responsible for using R. Crumb's illustrations on Janis Joplin's "Cheap Thrills" cover although he disliked "Big Brother's" music and also turned down a cover for the Rolling Stones for the same reason.

He liked the Firesign Theatre, however, and we liked him too...

"The average human eats 8 spiders in their lifetime -- at night"
(Phil's Phunny Phacts)

CLOSE-ING REMARKS

The day after his Going Away Party/Wake/Memorial Service, Del Close, legend of Improv, spent most of the day trying to die. His doctor gave him two morphine injections, but Del was too strong (and of course several people have since suggested that he had built up a tolerance...).

Finally, Del and Charna browbeat his doctor into hooking him up to a morphine drip. Just before he did so, he asked Del if this was what he really wanted, and Del nodded yes. He told him, " I'm tired of being the funniest one in the room."

Fifteen minutes later, he was gone -- but never forgotten...

"Always remember that I have taken more
out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me"
(Winston Churchill)

(3/28/99)