While Working on the Next Currycombs Chapter... · 8:49pm Jan 21st, 2019
I decided:
Since I'd just crossed the 4,000 word mark, maybe I should take a break and run a quick "spell check".
Chapter 7 will be "The Case of the Duplicate Duplicate" and will likely be the penultimate chapter. So here's hoping I can get this and the final chapter finished before the final season of the show wraps up. But the very first thing the spelling check showed me made me giggle and giggle and giggle.
It carried me back thousands of years to my youth when there was so little TV in the world that the L.A.Times would actually include a little printed booklet with the Sunday newspaper that listed all the shows on all the local stations for the upcoming week. At some point in the mid-1970s when I was just at the proper age to appreciate such things, some station hereabouts would air awful, low-budget monster movies on Saturday afternoons, so I would always check the TV schedule when it arrived on Sunday to see what the next Saturday's "creature feature" was gonna be.
And one week, the film was listed as "The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant Transplant". To this day I can't help but wonder if it was a misprint, or if somebody just thought the opportunity was too ripe to pass up.
So thank you, Microsoft Word, for noticing my duplicitous sense of humor. 
Mike
Ah yes, I remember UHF, and the low-budget kids' shows with desperate-seeming hosts, and movies so dull they would've been direct-to-video if Blockbuster had been invented yet.
Good times.
(The little person holding the camera there is Billy Barty, who actually had a very popular and respected children's show, became one of the first advocates for little people, and played the High Aldwyn in the mid-80's fantasy movie Willow.)
5000531 I'll always remember Billy Barty for his roles in Spike Jones' band, mostly. Although I was one of about a dozen people (20m budget, 18m gross) who really loved Under The Rainbow.
5000554
Oh Jesus Christ my dad TOLD me about this!
When I was a little kid watching Billy Barty's show, he told me all these stories about what a great actor and showman Barty was, and my dad said "He could imitate Liberace--and it was perfect!"
And I never saw it until now.
I love you, Internet. Let's never fight again.
5000562 You know how old that makes me feel...
And ifn you need an extra set of eyes on it, I'll volunteer (more of a proofreader than an editor, plus idea bat).
5000531
I had no idea Billy Barty had a kids' show. :O The things you learn on this website!
This redundant repetition reminds me of an MST3K movie title card. vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/mst3k/images/4/4e/0418.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20070119194706
5000531
Also the original VA for Figment the Dragon.
5000554
Ah a fellow Spike Jones fan! You might like this little thing I put together last fall.
(With props to jowybean over on DeviantArt for the title card!)
5000562
5000564
I don't know why:
But my brother used to go around talking about the top-secret "Billy Barty Party" that actually ruled the world...
5000611
5000638
I, for instance, learned about Figment the Dragon, a character that a poor West Coaster like myself had never come across before.
5000632
It all makes perfect sense in the story. Honest!
5000669
One of the first fan videos I ever saw was a Spike Jones bit, actually.
Unfortunately, when I click on the one you posted here, it says "Video Unavailable"...
5000598
Thank you kindly! It's still two or three thousand words from being finished, but I'll keep you in mind for that magical time known as "the future."
Mike
5001160
Well that's weird. I don't get "unavailable" tho it is acting a bit odd as embedded here in the comment. Works ok directly on YouTube tho.
5001160
It's not as though Figment was a minor childhood obsession of mine or anything. Or that I own a shirt with his picture on it. Or both of his tie-in graphic novels.
It's also not as though I keep vintage ride-through videos of the old pre-renovation "Journey Into Imagination" around on my computer and watch them.
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