Sleep Your Way to Wackiness

When you're a kid, there's nothing quite as satisfying as getting to pick out your own set of bedsheets. I have vague memories of soldiers and horses decorating my sheets when I was a tiny, tiny child--apparently at four, my parents were hoping I'd evolve into some sort of Civil War buff. Imagine their disappointment when I was finally old enough to pick my own bedding... and I opted for sheets featuring Lifesavers Candies. Sure, my cooler friends were busy sleeping on Star Wars or Spiderman sheets... but I was proud of my stark white sheets featuring giant versions of the orange, red, yellow and green candies.

The very idea that a parent would allow their child to sleep on cavity-inducing sweets seems pretty unbelievable by today's standards; but it was the 80's so all was fair.

What's unfair is the idea that someone, somewhere might have actually purchased these bed sheets for their children:


Wacky Races was a cartoon that premiered in 1968 and ran for two years. Of course, the 30 or so episodes were rerun pretty much up until Saturday Morning Cartoons vanished from the television landscape altogether. (Which, by the way, is the reason television networks are in trouble, as far as I'm concerned.)

As I watched the reruns as a small child, I realized one thing about Wacky Races: It was a terrible, terrible show, even by my standards--and I would watch pretty much anything on television. See for yourself:



The story was simple: Hanna Barbera characters that no one really cared about would race each other in their hilarious vehicles, as illustrated here on the pillowcases:


The characters would, of course, need to overcome obstacles (usually provided by the show's resident villains, Dastardly and his emphysema-ridden dog, Muttley) amid state-of-the-art sound effects such as...

and...


...both of which are, obviously, replicated quite faithfully here on these sheets. The show was pretty much a poor man's animated and painfully narrated version of "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World." Only with no real end-goal other than to get to an ever-shifting finish line.

The fact that these sheets were pretty much sealed in their packaging up until I tore them apart for the photo session should tell you something: No one wants bedsheets celebrating a forty year old shitty television program. Why not make bedsheets out of another terrible show from 1969, such as prime-time flop "Turn-On." Kids want Tim Conway on their bed at least as much as they crave Professor Pat Pending or Penelope Pitstop. Or Lifesavers.

Oh well... at least my five-flavored sleep-insanity was self-inflicted. Whoever bought their kids "Wacky Races" sheets was clearly engaging in some sort of dastardly abuse... also probably indicated by various bangs and whooshes.


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Get A Life

There's been a lot of activity on the NeighborGoodies Table over the past week, and I apologize for not reporting such insanity to you sooner.

This flurry of Goodies is really no surprise; As people move in or out at the beginning/end of each month, the unwanted items that don't fit in with their new homes often get Left Behind.

I took this photo last weekend, while I was doing laundry:

By the time my laundry was done... the sheer amount of crap on this table had more than doubled:
In fact, for the first time in NeighborGoodies History, there were so many Goodies on the Big Blue Table, items began to spill out into the hallway adjacent to the Laundry Room, creating a sort of NeighborGoodies Annex:

In another rare occurrence, I actually caught sight of the person leaving these items. He's lived down the hall from me for almost as long as I've lived in this building. The fact that we've never spoken probably comes as no surprise to you; As you may have guessed, I'm not exactly a people-person. Especially when the "people" in question are sweaty, murdery/killy types who look kind of like Chris Elliot.

As the afternoon progressed, he would pop down with electronics...

...or clothes....

...or cleaning supplies...
...or other insane miscellany...
...all clearly in an effort to not have to transport any of these items to wherever the hell he's moving to. Because some of these items are pretty useful--excluding the duck literature, of course--I'm going to go ahead and assume that he has joined a cult and has been encouraged to move into their compound, where he has no need for DVD players, clothing or duck trivia. I mean, we do have several famously terrifying cults nearby in these luxurious Hollywood Hills who would just love to consume another soul. Why else would one leave behind a book like this:

Judging this book purely by its cover, one can only assume that "Pursuing Windows of Opportunity and Change" is some sort of cult manual designed to brainwash you into leaving behind all your worldly possessions...



...and joining their team of mind abusers. Need more proof? Read on, dear...uhh, reader.

These cults prey on the lonely, the confused, the abandoned. They isolate you from your family, friends, and money. Obviously, anything of any religious significance has no room in these cults...
...and because they lure their victims away from their social circle, you don't hear a lot about cult members making or decorating cakes....

...or about serving coffee with that cake...
...or playing board games while eating that delicious cake and drinking coffee...
...so clearly, my theory must be 100% correct.

My former neighbor, the Killy Chris Elliot has finally gotten a life... probably on some compound. But I'm sure he'll be back soon enough to harvest some more souls. Luckily, he was stupid enough to leave behind a weapon for me to protect myself:
After all: toy that could potentially blind you, yet is marketed to children by naming it after their grandfather, is an invaluable tool in fighting the cults and killers that roam the around the increasingly Dangerous (but still no less luxurious) Hollywood Hills.