PIZZA BOY (PART III)

EXT. SPOOKY OLD HOUSE, NIGHT:

VAMPIRE LADY (V.O.): "This way."

VAMPIRE LADY: "Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like you to meet a new member of the team: Pizza Boy."

PIZZA BOY (AWKWARD): "Er...Hiya."

VAMPIRE LADY CLONE #1:  "Mmmmm, a handsome, strapping youth. I like your disguise, Pizza Boy!"

ALIEN PRINCESS: "I like it too. Tell me, what special ingredients do you use in your pizza?  Belladonna? Arsenic?  They tell me you get more kills with Botulism."

PIZZA BOY: "Um...just pepperoni, m'am."

ALIEN GIRL: "Relax, have a seat! Take off your head. The Earth people can't see you here."

She screws off her head.

ALIEN GIRL (HEAD): "Ah, That's better! Dragging along a body makes my neck hurt."

VAMPIRE LADY: "I just take the neck off. It's easier."

PIZZA BOY: "Oops! Oh, gosh darn! It's getting late! I gotta go!"


 

ALIEN GUY: "Don't go! The party's just getting started! Take your head off & kick back."

ALIEN GUY #2: "Yeah, and The Great Leader's gonna talk tonight. You don't want to miss that!"

ALIEN GUY #3: "This is the last chance to party! Tomorrow we wipe out all living things on Earth.

PIZZA BOY: "Heh, heh, all living things!? Haw! Imagine that! Well, I gotta..."

ALIEN GUY #4: "Wait a minute! You're the only one here who hasn't taken off his disguise. What gives?"

VAMPIRE LADY CLONE #1: "Yeah, I wondered about that too."

EVERY ONE: "And so did we!"

MENACING ALIENS: "KILL THE PIZZA BOY! KILL THE PIZZA BOY!"

 

EVERYONE IN THE ROOM (TOGETHER): "KILL THE PIZZA BOY! KILL THE PIZZA BOY!"






GOOD GRIEF! IT LOOKS LIKE CURTAINS FOR OUR HERO! HOW'S PIZZA BOY GOING TO GET OUT OF THIS!? 


TUNE IN NEXT TIME TO THE ADVENTURES OF 
*******PIZZA BOY!********

WHY CARTOONISTS SHOULD BE INTERESTED IN AUTISM

Sorry for the delay in getting the next episode of Pizza Boy up.  I had a lot of trouble with Beta Blogger last time I posted, maybe because my desktop was cluttered with hundreds of unsorted pictures. It's taken me almost two days to straighten it out, so all my blog work got pushed back. Don't worry, Pizza Boy is alive and well.

While I'm here, I thought I'd put up an hour-long lecture (above) by Temple Grandin, the best known writer on the subject of autism and Aspergers. She has both conditions herself and is amazingly articulate on the subject.

I don't think I have either myself, but Grandin interests me. I like her speaking style with its clarity and digressions to detail. She has the autistic propensity to concentrate on things rather than people, an approach that makes some autustic people seem cold and mechanistic, but which in her case is unexpectedly appealing. She's a good role model for people with that problem.

She's also thought provoking. She makes me wonder about the problems of people with low level Aspergers who aren't diagnosed early and are therefore are never given special consideration in school. They may never realize what they have until they're old enough to self-diagnose, but by then they're stuck with bad habits and an unnecessarily botched education.

She also makes me interested to hear how Aspergers people compensate. They're puzzled by the fact that ordinary people often don't mean what they say, and have hidden motives for things, and they're appalled by our insistence that they act that way too. That must lead to some interesting encounters. And autistic people...they have to put up with being touched, with strobing fluorescent lights, loud eating sounds, et al...imagine what their lives must be like. 'Lots of cartoon opportunities here.

BTW: To avoid the long-winded formal introductions, I recommend starting the video several minutes in, when Grandin takes the stage.




This one minute video (above) is a simple list of famous high achievers who are reputed to have been autistic. I don't know if it's accurate, but it sure is interesting.

PIZZA BOY (PART I)

EXT. OLD MANSION: NIGHT: 

(SFX: KNOCK! KNOCK!) The pizza delivery boy knocks on the front door.

PIZZA BOY: "Hello in there!!! Your pizza's here!" 

PIZZA BOY: "Oh, man! Smell that pie: mighty mozzarella, massive mushrooms, sizzling sausage, primo pepperoni....a bit of heaven here on Earth..."

PIZZA BOY: "...and all for the ridiculously low price of eleven dollars...er, plus (ahem!) an optional gratuity, of course!"

IGOR: "Go away! We don't want any!"

PIZZA BOY: "Huh!?"

Beta Blogger just erased the rest of this post, maybe because my desktop is cluttered with pictures. I'll reconstruct it and post it seperately in a PART II, BELOW:

PIZZA BOY (PARTII)

IGOR: "I said, 'GO AWAY!'"

ON THE DOORMAT: The message morphs.

PIZZA BOY: "Heh, heh.  You obviously haven't heard me correctly, Sir!

PIZZA BOY: "This isn't any ordinary food...this is PIZZA: The Food of the Gods,  The Taste Sublime!"

PIZZA BOY: "But I warn you: some customers love this pizza so much that they begin to believe the pizza loves them back. They have a relationship with the pizza, almost an affair. They burst into tears when the time comes to eat it."

PIZZA BOY: "If that's your intention Sir, then I must withhold the pizza. I cannot submit this poor innocent pie to such unnatural affection."

PIZZA BOY: "But if your intentions are good, your purpose honorable, then you'll know that the purpose of a pizza is to give soft and gooey pleasure.  I beg you to feel no guilt when you take the first delicious bite!"

PIZZA BOY: "But enough of this...the time for talk is over! That's the gate opening up ahead! Sir, I have to ask you: are you ready to enter... The Land of Deliciousness!!??"

PIZZA BOY: "Eleven bucks! Whaddaya say!?"

LADY VAMPIRE: (Gasp!) What's that on your finger!?"

PIZZA BOY: "On my finger? Er, it's just a ring."

ON IGOR'S EYE: He reacts to the ring

PIZZA BOY (V.O.): "My girlfriend gave it to me!"

IGOR (V.O.) :  "Gasp! You're one of us! Why didn't you say so!?"


He grabs Pizza Boy, pulls him inside.

WHAT'S GOING ON HERE?  WHAT HAS PIZZA BOY GOTTEN HIMSELF INTO?  WHAT TERRIBLE SECRET LIES  WITHIN THE HOUSE?  WATCH FOR THE NEXT THRILLING EPISODE OF....

PIZZA BOY!

SEVEN WEEKS TO HALLOWEEN!

Aaaaah, it's Halloween time again!  Okay, it's almost 7 weeks away, but L.A. is Halloween chilly and overcast right now,  and besides, starting early'll give us plenty of time to get in the spirit.  One of the best ways to do that is to pay a daily visit to weird blogs like "Frankensteinia", "Monster Crazy", and "Shadowplay." I'll put up links in my sidebar.

Boy, there's no lack of scary pictures on the net. How do you like these evil parade pigs from Disneyland?

In the photo above we seem to have caught the sailor pig at the exact moment when his hungry eyes locked in on the plump little kid in the foreground. No doubt in the next instant he whisked the kid away to a cooking pot....or to a dreary subterranean cave where the ragged child will endlessly plod along in a circle, chained to a mill wheel. As I said, these are evil pigs.

Who did this painting (above)? Tim Burton?

Above,  a detail from one of the all-time greatest animation backgrounds. It's a long pan BG from The Fleischer's "Snow White." I'm considering a framed copy for my wall. Of course, it would have to be a pretty long frame.

I love stuff like this (above), which I swiped from "Monster Crazy." Unfortunately, I can't identify it.

Above, a beautiful depiction of murder at sea by animation artist Dan Krall.

I'm flirting with the idea of making plaster or paper mache pumpkins this year.  They're probably  more trouble to make than conventional ones, but they should last for years.  I'll try to find instructions on the net.

Look at that (above)! The painting part looks easy, and how hard could it be to sculpt cheeks and eye sockets like this?

Above, a rude pumpkin.

SOME MORE FACES TO DRAW

Holy Mackerel! What a smile (above)!  The cheeks are amazing.  When someone smiles like this, do the cheek muscles inflate or simply bunch up? If they bunch up, then why doesn't that steal mass from some other part of the face? Almost the whole muzzle gets larger. 

Also interesting is the triangle in which her nose and mouth are embedded. They do lose a little mass, but not enough to explain where the cheek bulge comes from.  When the triangle stretches out to the sides like this, you can see the features wrap around the vertical mouth cylinder. 

I love clothes that wear the human.  Here (above) John Carradine is enveloped by a predatory Gaham Wilson jacket . The jacket is the sentient creature, Carradine is merely the conveyance.

What a silhouette! Look at the way the man's features (above) wrap around the front of his head. And that furrowed brow...!

Nanga! Nanga! Nanga! ! I love "S" curves in figure photography (above). 

A typical nerd face (above)...or is it? If you imagine a normal hair cut, no glasses and a closed mouth, the guy doesn't look like a nerd anymore.  It makes you wonder how many nerds you know that are really normal looking people who dress funny.

 Above, a "Z" curve! Also, a fascinating head shape and chest on this girl. The straight hair emphasizes them.

Some girls (above) are self-conscious about having braces,  and they try to cover them up by smiling in a strange way.  I sympathize. After a lifetime of smiling in a way that covers up my buck teeth, I've learned to let my teeth show naturally.  I'd hide them if I thought it would do any good, but there's no use trying to conceal what can't be concealed. Actually, I kinda like them now. 

People's whole lower muzzle (above) withdraws into their face and neck when they smile, or at least it seems to. The effect is heightened by the whole head being pulled back and the cheeks being thrust out. Fascinating, eh?

  

AN HOMAGE TO STAGE MOTHERS

Stage mothers really have a bad rep, but is it deserved? I'm not so sure.  The fact is that an awful lot of talented people in the past started doing what they were famous for when they were five, if not sooner.  Think of Buster Keaton who lived his whole life on the stage and in front of the camera. Look at what he achieved. Could he have done that if he'd started at age 23 like college grads do today? 

Of course, starting early requires focus and that requires a pushy adults. Ditto for getting good work habits. That's why we need stage mothers.  You don't want a mother who nags, and bullies, but you do want one that pushes you.  I'm not talking about school work, I'm limiting this discussion to  professions like music and dancing, auto mechanics, art, etc which can be learned by watching skilled people and practicing, which is the natural way that kids learn. 

A few stage mothers in the entertainment industry are famous, and so far as I know were loved by their children: Minnie Marx, mother-manager of The Marx Brothers;  Jaid Barrymore, mother of Drew; Gertrude Temple, who managed Shirley and spent hours every day curling her kid's hair; and Judy Garland's mom Ethel Gumm, just to name a few.  Where did this myth come from that all stage mothers are evil (Gary Goldman's dad, notwithstanding)?

Stage mothers of the world, this toast is for you.  You gave your kids the gift of a trade, of a chance to  practice their profession while they were still young enough to innovate and develop a passion for it.  Good for you!

Er...is that woman above really female? She looks a little odd. 

I couldn't resist throwing this in (above): Judy Garland singing "Texas Tornado" in a completely professional manner when she was only 14.  She could do that because her mother arranged for her to learn how to sing while she was still in the egg shell.



Haw! Stephen Rodgers' ably answered my argument with this song (above) by Noel Coward.  I have to admit that it makes a powerful argument, but I'm not ready to admit defeat. I was hoping to score on a larger point, namely that people nowadays begin careers too late in life.

To make a big impact you have to start early, so you can turn professional when you're young enough to pour lots of energy and idealism into what you do.  Stage mothers add a bit of balance to a school system that wastes youth.

I wish we still had Vaudeville, or an updated version of it. Talentless performers would get weeded out pretty fast if they had to play  before live audiences that paid for their tickets.