New Super Characters

This past weekend was, for the most part, a quiet one. Aside from the weather, not much happened, which is good. After last week’s whirlwind of terrible news for friends, family, and acquaintances, it was good that nothing else bad happened. The only thing of note was the weather.

Last night (Swe had our second tornado warning of the year already. Now, I’ve never been a doomsayer, but it seems awfully early for us to already be seeing our second set of tornadoes blow through the area. And that’s just for us here in Harvey County, there have been more tornadoes across Kansas already. I’d like to suggest that this is nothing more than evidence of the meteorological cycle coming back around again to a somewhat more dangerous year, but it seems pretty obvious to me that the writing is on the wall. We are being judged. By whom, I have no idea, but it’s pretty obvious that Kansas has made someone’s List, and I fully expect that, by the end of this summer, there will be nothing left of this state but rubble and sorrow.

Sure that might be a severe prediction, but what if I happen to be right? I mean, yeah, it will be terrible, especially for us since we live here, but I’ll be like the next Nostradamus or something. While I’m at it, I better make a few more predictions, just in case the first one comes true and I’m not able to make more. Here goes . . . .

Wow. This is tougher than I thought it would be. I sat here and stared at the monitor for almost thirty seconds, which is as long as I’m willing to think on anything unsuccessfully for one go. So, nevermind. But I know it’s important that I get some more predictions down, just in case, so I’ll give it some thought while I’m tossing and turning in bed, which is where most of my “best” ideas come to me.

New Super- Characters

The need for new characters came about rather unexpectedly today. Yesterday, we got almost three inches of rain, so going outside was pretty much not an option, especially since it’s still cloudy, drizzly, and dreary out. So finding things to do inside has been a bit of drama since calmly explaining to him that “We can’t go outside because it’s cold and muddy and I don’t feel like having to give you a bath after ten minutes outside and then have to dose you with baby Tylenol for the next two weeks while you fight through another miserable cold” just doesn’t work. So we’ve spent as much of the day as we could upstairs, and, since I’m a helper, I decided to sort through the hamper full of clothes that he’s outgrown.

Sorting clothes with Gabe is an adventure. He likes to help, which is good, but his brand of “helping” usually involves him grabbing armfuls of whatever we’re working on and doing the last thing I did with it. So, when we’re outside and I’m putting leaves in the trashbin, he will grab leaves and throw them in there. That is helpful. When I’m trying to sort clothes (ranging from 6 mos. To 2T because we haven’t sorted and stored them in quite some time), he grabs an armful from the unsorted pile and tries to dump them on whichever pile I put the last piece of clothing on—though he’s not really coordinated enough to do that either, so he ended up falling into those piles a few times, unfolding everything and mixing the clothes right back up again. It felt a bit like pushing the same boulder up the same hill over and over again. Or having my eyes pecked out by crows over and over again. Or something else miserable and repetitive from ancient mythology, so we changed focus to a new story.

And I decided superheroes this time. My plan was to spend a good half hour or so dressing them up, but I couldn’t find any of the old blankets we had for him to pin on like capes. Libby says they’re in the attic in the garage. Oh well, guess we’ll just have to imagine capes too.

Johnny Bee

You'll notice that Gabe is in all of these character pictures today. He pretty much wasn't interested in allowing me to photograph his toys sitting all alone on the chair. Actually, he just didn't want me messing with his stuff. He kept pulling the toys off and throwing them on the floor, just to keep them somewhere other than where I put them. But he was just fine with helping, though he doesn't look all that pleased about it in this picture.

This character, I decided, should be named after a character in the second greatest superhero TV show of all time (the best being “The Greatest American Hero,” of course, and all you “Heroes” fans can suck it), “Misfits of Science.” That’s right, it was awesome. Or, at least it is in my memory, and since it doesn’t look like it’s available on DVD anywhere but in Germany, nobody can prove to me otherwise.

Johnny Bee is, not surprisingly, a bee. I’m afraid that I can’t for the life of me remember who gave this toy to Gabe. He was one of the earlier toys that he received, but, despite the fact that he’s very soft and I’ve often tried to get Gabe to latch onto it, he’s just never cared for it. This is probably just as well. Bees can’t be trusted. Not only will they kill themselves to inflict pain on someone else, which is a sure sign of mental instability, they are also prone to mysteriously “disappearing” or “hybridizing” with African Killer Bees, and neither of those things are cool, as far as I’m concerned.

Johnny B., from the TV show (who, I swear, was called B. Man, which was what I was going to name this character, but I couldn’t find anything to substantiate this memory in my very thorough wikipedia and IMDB research), gained his abilities when he was struck by lightning while playing the guitar at a rock concert. He wore sunglasses to cover up the glowing in his eyes from all the electricity in his body.

Johnny Bee, however, was not a rock star, and he won’t be wearing sunglasses because we don’t have any small enough to stay on his head (I’m sure you wouldn’t dare doubt that I actually tried several pairs on him before giving up, I’m just that dedicated to this type of thing). Instead, Johnny Bee gained his powers when he was electrocuted playing Guitar Hero, as I believe everyone who plays that game should be. I don’t think this because I have anything in particular against the game, I just suck at it, so I wish ill on anyone who doesn’t.

Ralph Hinkley, Captain U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.! (U.S.A. must be chanted jingoistically)

I’m afraid that I just couldn’t pass this up. Ralph Hinkley was, of course, The Greatest American Hero. And, while I do feel a little guilty directly “borrowing” two of my new characters straight from shows I liked when I was growing up, I also don’t mind being a bit of a hack from time to time. Please note that I ALSO lifted his superhero name indirectly from Captain America, so I’m not stealing from just one source for this one. But, since Ralph never had a superhero name, as far as I can remember (and I bought the first season on DVD and watched it last year, so it might not have ever been established), I had to give him an actual superhero name of some sort.

And, since the toy is a little Beanie Baby colored like the American flag, what else could I name him? It was like the toy gods just GAVE me these two toys to relive memories of my favorite TV shows, they fit into these molds that perfectly. I’m just really, really sad that I didn’t think to call the screaming monkey (who I named Screaming Mimi) Howling Mad Murdock (he’s even wearing an aviator’s helmet). It makes SO much sense! I’m a fool. A handsome, witty, foolish fool! But it’s too late now. The monkey has already been named, and there’s no changing the playroom cannon like that. Oh well. I guess I’ll just have to keep my eyes out for another toy with an aviator helmet.

Anyway, this toy came from my grandmother. If I’m not mistaken, Gabe picked the bear up from her shelf of Beanie’s one of the times we went to visit her, and she gave it to him. I tried to convince her that he didn’t need it, but she insisted. Then, to prove that, in fact, he didn’t need it, Gabe has never touched the toy since.

In my mind, Captain USA! USA! USA! (don’t forget to chant that as you read it—go back and do it properly if you didn’t the first time through) has an amalgamation of Ralph’s powers and Captain America’s skills. Sadly, since Captain America is pretty much a poser of a superhero, and Ralph’s superhero suit let him do pretty much ANYTHING (it really was a bit ridiculous, really, he could do just about anything the show’s writers got it into their minds to let him—sort of like Sylar on “Heroes” but without all of the wishy-washy melodrama and serial killing), my Captain has all of Ralph’s powers and he carries a shield made of a mysterious metal that is harder than anything on earth (though how, exactly, one goes about forging something like that was always beyond me).

Needless to say, he never takes the shield with him because, let’s face it, there isn’t really any NEED to take it anywhere. He’s bulletproof, super strong, super fast, can fly (sort of), can turn invisible, and can do a few other things that I can’t really remember off the top of my head. (Holy crap, I’m reading about the show on wikipedia. Here’s the quote with the list of the powers Ralph received from the suit: “The basic powers (outside of flying) included super strength, resistance to injury (including direct bullet hits), invisibility, precognition, telekinesis, x-ray vision, super speed, pyrokinesis, holographic vision, shrinking, and psychometry. He also showed signs of being able to control minds when he was exposed to high doses of plutonium radiation.” I remembered the x-ray vision and precognition because I think he discovered those in the first season, but I had no recollection of the other ones—I guess his writers started to get desperate towards the end. Oh, and sorry about all the links, I just copy/pasted straight from Wikipedia, so they aren't anything but links back to various pages there.) But he does use the shield as a toboggan when there’s a big snow.

Oh, and like the Ralph from the show, my Ralph got his powers from aliens, though it’s not from a super suit, he got it during a very complicated probing procedure.

Calypso the Hedgehog (Villain)

OK, so this backstory is probably going to be needlessly long and complicated, but it includes butt humor, so I think it’s worth it.

Let me start by getting three of the more minor details out of the way.

Calypso’s name has no significance. I was inspired to name him such because he is a villain and because Noggin made me. In between shows, Noggin doesn’t air commercials. Instead, it airs—and re-airs throughout the day—little clips starring their mascots Zee and Moose with the occasional clip from a show, musical number, or pro-Noggin propaganda in the time between shows. Since all of the shows were made for Nickelodeon, there is about eight minutes to fill after every show. And, I’m convinced, they only have about thirty minutes worth of material that the reuse over and over again. This last month, there has been this amazingly annoying steel pan calypso song sung by this kid about how he wants to be like his dad on there, and I hear it at least twice a day. Because it annoys me so, I decided that was a good name for a villain.

Second, I’m not sure where this toy came from. Libby might have picked it up at the zoo—but I presume that about every toy that is a miscellaneous animal.

Third, Calypso is a finger puppet in real life, and he’s also a finger puppet in my storyline. He’s a BIG finger puppet, though, probably more of an arm puppet. And their arms would have to go up his butt, so you can only imagine where this is going.

Calypso came to life one Friday evening last spring. He belonged to the child of one of the FBI’s “men in black,” (most certainly NOT associated with the sub-par movies—these are the old school men in black), and magically came to life one night—and grew only slightly in size—after a mighty sorcerer cast a spell on him. Why? Shut up. He did. And at this point he was alive and wasn’t a finger puppet anymore, not because it’s actually important to the story, but just because it makes things a little more needlessly confusing. The non-Tommy Lee Jones MIB immediately put him to work and gave him the code name “Deepbutt.” He got this name because of his special ability, he could shrink down even smaller and go, you know, under cover, so to speak. Let’s just say he usually went through the backdoor uninvited and tended to overstay his welcome, if you catch my double meaning.

And he did this for a number of months, working the backsides of anyone and everyone the FBI had an interest in. Usually he favored a “toilet bowl infiltration” followed by a “little, pokey, goddamned painful surprise” right up the person’s butt, where he stayed until his mission was over. He loved his job, even though no amount of showering ever got rid of the smell. Then, round about last fall, he “accidentally” unshrunk himself while still, er, embedded in a cell member of a radical wing of Greenpeace. Obviously, the Greenpeacer died of butt failure, but Deepbutt also suffered a career ending injury. He became completely paralyzed from the butt up.

So, for all intents and purposes, he became a finger puppet again. However, he kept his sentience, and his ability to shrink down really small. But he lost his job because there wasn’t much call for a shrinking hedgehog agent who had to be inserted into a person’s butt to hide there indefinitely. That would be ridiculous, and how would you cover something like THAT up? “Excuse me, sir or madam, I just need to stick this small, prickly animal into your rectum. It won’t take a jot. Much thanks!”

He did, however, get on with a supervillain group, but only to meet the group’s Negative Action quota for handicapped employees set forth by the League of Sour-Minded Villainy. He became “that guy,” the one who always tagged along but never really participated. Kind of like how Aquaman “was a member of” the Justice League or Super Friends.

But there is always the fear, should a superhero have rear access, that Calypso will find his way into their special no-no place! And because of that, he still strikes fear into the hearts of many.

Video Extra

Because I don't like posting things on youtube for some reason, I decided to include this video here because it's fairly short. Every once in awhile over the last few weeks Gabe has decided to either spin or run around in circles until he falls down. Most of the time, he stops as soon as I get the camera because he can't figure out how to say "Cheeeeez" and run in circles at the same time, but this time I managed to get a little footage of him doing it. With luck, he won't eventually brain himself on the end tables while doing this.