Sunday, January 28, 2007

The Prophet P4

Future archaeologists upon digging up the internet will hose it off and transport it by helicopter to headquarters where it will be dissected with fine-tipped instruments. Photographs will be taken, index cards will be utilized and the Scientists will chortle to themselves over the vast wealth of ancient crap they have unearthed...

“The Ancients used the internet device to spread the teachings of their god Viagra”, cried one. “No the internet device was used by magicians to perfect the Attachment Curse which brought the teachings of Viagra as well as offers for time-share condos, insider stock tips and pleas from citizens of Nigeria to provide banking details…much as they do today.” The other Scientists nodded and pretended to smoke pipes for they liked to feel clever, except one who held up a chunk of internet and said “What’s this? Something called a Skookum P4”. The other Scientists eyed each other nervously and pretended to put out their pipes. Could the stories be true? The prophet known as the P4, described in the writings of the Skookum, and long thought to be the wild exaggerations of a twenty-first century man who also claimed to have a baboon army and two tame dogs!

The Prophet P4 on the origins of the cartoon:

In 1904 young Eddie Cartoon is sent to his room for annoying his mother, who had a headache. During his internment Eddie decides to draw the exact same stick-mouse 4015 times but unfortunately Eddie cannot reproduce the image exactly and gives up. Several years later Eddie’s father gets a job and they can afford a window for his room, the resulting breeze flutters the stack of slightly different stick-mouse drawings, amazingly still where he left them, and as Eddie watches the images flick by in quick succession he gets an idea. The rest is well known…Eddie of course takes out a patent on paper-weights, which nobody thought to do before, and makes a good living selling glass domes with little winter scenes. Orson Wells used one in his film Citizen Kane and Eddie made a fortune in royalties which he invested in rival studio Disney for the making of it’s epic Citizen Steamboat Willy, made entirely of slightly different stick-mouse drawings filmed under a fluttering breeze – a technique the grateful Disney named after Eddie. The film, although hailed by critics as revolutionary, was not a commercial success. But the name stuck and now all films, stick-mouse or not, which deal with the rise and fall of newspaper barons, are called cartoons.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Oh Skooky!!! I am still chortling!!!