Peaches and Herb Find Homes

As I was cleaning up Gabe’s room the day before yesterday, I found two more stuffed animals that I haven’t yet created characters for. The onslaught of plush toys just never seems to end! Both of them I remember getting, though, so that’s a plus, but I’m only going to introduce one of them today. The other will have to wait for a better opportunity. This one, however, just lent itself too perfectly to the new trick of Gabe’s that I wanted to share.

Now, this trick—rather, TWO tricks, though both of them are about the same—is one that I haven’t yet tried to record him doing. I’m writing this now while he naps and hope to pin him down in front of the camera later to get him to do it. We’ll see how successful I am.

Anyway, the new character that I want to introduce is actually two characters. The toy is an Ugly Doll that Gabe’s aunt and uncle John and Sara got him. The doll might already have a name. I seem to recall something being written on the tag. Sadly, the doll is in Gabe’s room where he’s sleeping, and there are very few things I would be willing to wake him up from the middle of a nap for. These are, after all, the only moments of the day when I can walk from the living room to the kitchen without having to nearly tear my scrotum on a baby gate, so I obviously treasure these moments and the trouble free trips through the house that they offer.

The original name of the doll is immaterial, though. Even if it HAD a name, I would have renamed it anyway because, frankly, I love the idea behind this character just about more than any other I’ve created. See, this Ugly Doll has two sides to it and each side is a different monster. In other words, this doll is two characters. And I have named them Peaches and Herb. You will remember Peaches and Herb, though you might not KNOW you remember them, from their hit songs “Shake Your Groove Thing” and “Reunited,” both of which were chart toppers. I chose the name for two reasons. One, because I think that is one of the funniest duet band names from the period, and two, because neither of these names particularly suits the characters I’m creating, which I find appealing.

Obviously, Peaches and Herb are a bit schizo. They possess the same body, but never at the same time (I could make a Ladyhawke reference here, but it’s not quite the same thing, and, anyhow, I would hate to use Rutger Hauer’s name in vain—so I’ll save it for whenever it’s NOT vain), thus creating amusing possibilities for working into my storylines. And here’s how that goes.

Peaches (excuse the red mark on Gabe's forehead. I think he's trying to become a unicorn)

Peaches is a zombie. But she’s a GOOD zombie—meaning, she still loves the taste of brains, but she tries to feed on the lesser beings, usually by frequenting local butchers for livestock gray matter that would otherwise just be thrown out. She is good only because she still has a bit of her original intelligence in her head. Thanks in large part to her symbiotic relationship with Herb, she was able to keep a small portion of her original personality locked away in the Herb parts of her brain when she was bitten by a wayward zombie. She was bitten, unfortunately, because she mistook the zombie for a C.H.U.D., and who’s afraid of a C.H.U.D.? Peaches found a home with the Justice Acquaintances (or whatever I called the superhero group) because she offered them some muscle. Plus, there’s the added bonus that maybe, just maybe, she’d end up eating one of the bad guys and they could chalk it up to a “misunderstanding” instead of having to feel guilty about killing an enemy as a way to avoid having to fight them over and over and over again.

And Herb

Herb is a sort of loveable but extremely insensitive simpleton with a superhuman ability to withstand ANY abuse no matter how fatal it should actually be. Herb is not actually a BAD character, but his complete egocentricism gave the Super Pals entirely the wrong idea about him when he showed up for the interview (which wasn’t actually planned, it was just his “turn” to be in control of the body, but they decided to go ahead and interview him anyway since he would be part of the package deal). So he moved on to the Team of Ne’er Do Wells instead and became their team’s “muscle.” For the most part, they use him like a human shield, letting him take all the blows from their super-rivals while they sit back and drink lattes. EVIL lattes. Really, Herb didn’t have a choice being a bad guy. What can you expect from someone named Herb? Either he’s going to be a sleazy car dealer type character (as per Herb Tarlek from WKRP) or something worse as per, well, I’m sure there are other evil Herbs out there, but since I’ve never really known a Herb and can only really think of the one from a TV show I grew up watching, I’m hurting for examples. How about Herbert Hoover? He might not have been evil, as such, but he certainly seems to have been classically incompetent.

As you’ll note from the video (which I’ve just finished, and I think it was a success), Herb’s catch phrase is awfully similar to another big dumb oaf of easily recognizable origin.

I'm really quite pleased with how well this worked. At my prompting, Gabe actually did something that I asked him to! A milestone! Now, I admit that his rendition of "Brains!" needs a little work. Before when he did it, you could actually hear the "r" sound, which is important. On the flip side, though, he actually added the head slap I've been trying to get him to do for months when he said, "D'oh!" So, one win and one draw (I won't consider it a loss since he did actually TRY to say "Brains!") equals a win in my book!