A birthday present I bought for myself last June was the All in the Family box set. It's got all nine glorious and hilarious seasons. At this point I'm just about finished season 7. I'll be moving on to season 8 and 9 very soon.
However, of course, I have much more to do that just watch some old TV show. I have a full time job AND a baby son to look after. He alone requires so much attention. He's got to be fed and entertained on a very regular basis. Anyone who has kids or has raised kids in the past knows all of this and more I'm sure.
Anyway, like I said, I'm often called upon to keep my son Avery entertained whilst mom is busy with work and other things. While entertaining him, he has come to glance at the antics of the Bunker household now and again. He of course understands absolutely nothing of what he sees, but it does turn his head at times. He definitely notices when Archie starts yelling. He certainly can't understand what Archie says when he yells and he most certainly can't understand to context of what Archie is yelling and who he's yelling at. All he sees is a crazed and angry old man.
You'd think that my son would be saddened or even somewhat traumatized by seeing such vitriol being spouted like that. But no, that's not how he reacts at all. He has instead taken one of the small mallets used on his toy xylophone, walk over to the TV and hit Archie right on the head with it. It wasn't a hard hit that could wreck the TV thankfully. It was just a tap big enough to express how he felt about Mr Bunker's bellowing. I have made a quick drawing commemorating that very action:
He's only done that once, but for me it was quite memorable.
Anyway, I do plan to keep working my way through the seasons any time I can. I'll end this post with a song that I've been hearing so many times in the past few months as you can imagine. It's stuck in my head so now I'm getting it stuck in yours. Enjoy!
The animation for my video is coming along nicely, I'd say. Remember the kitten animation from my previous blog post? Well, this is a further cleaned up version of it. What do you think?
I'd also like to point out that having a kid is quite a time consuming thing. When my son was still a tiny baby, he could just in his crib or wherever he was comfortable and either just sleep or play. This gave me some time to dedicate to this video of mine. However, now he can walk around and get into things. So, he needs so much more attention now, especially since my wife's maternity leave has ended. This, as you can imagine, has pretty much reduced the production process to a small trickle. I'm not sure when this will be done, possibly when my son starts kindergarten.
But, at any rate, I look forward to the finished product and the reaction it will get.
Up top is some animation of a kitten I just roughed out. I'll clean it up nice and as polished as the time on my hands can allow me. As you can imagine, having a full time job AND an infant son can eat up sooooo much of that time.
Hey, speaking of my infant son:
sx z
My son was on my lap for a brief time while I was making this blog post. That " sx z " text is the first thing he ever typed. I enlarged it and changed the colour for emphasis like the proud father I am. Could this be the start of him typing many profound and thought-provoking things? Only time will tell.
At any rate, please give enjoy and/or give critiques of the above animation. Thank you.
This is the first Tex Avery's birthday post I've done since my son was born. Like I mentioned before, my son's name is Avery taken after the great master Tex Avery so I feel it's fitting to involve he little guy in this post. Throughout this post we will all answer the question put forth in the title: "What is my son's assessment of Tex Avery's work?"
What's that? Why, yes, my boy Avery has indeed been watching many many selections from my DVD/Bluray collection pretty much since the day his eyes were fully open. Why do you ask? It's a good way to keep him quiet and happy.............. some of the time. If he's genuinely enjoying what he sees, then it works quite well. If not, well then you've got a loud cranky baby on your hands and you'd better do what you can to alleviate that situation fast.
One big selection from Tex's filmography that my son has seen is the "magnumest opus that ever magnumed an opus", that seminal masterpiece: Red Hot Riding Hood.
The verdict: I am sad to report that this cartoon made my son Avery cry. He wasn't crying at first, which is good. However, when it got to the part where the Wolf was going crazy at the table looking at Red dancing on the stage, that's when he showed his displeasure. Ah well. He's only 5 months old as of right now. Cultural works have ways of growing on people once they mature and become more worldly, which I'm sure my son is destined to do.
Here are some other shows that have given him displeasure in the first few months of his life:
Sesame Street - he's scared of The Count
Fraggle Rock - he's scared of the Gorgs, especially in the openning theme song when Jr grabs Gobo
Dumbo - Avery does NOT care for those lady elephants that pick on and exclude Dumbo. Well' y'know, he's not wrong. If you watch the movie you can easily see that those elephants are pieces of shit in general throughout the entire movie. That's the point of their characters of course, but it's understandable that he would not enjoy watching them.
I'll give a special mention to Sylvester & Tweety right here, because he has a kind of love/hate opinion of them. Li'l Avery loves anything with music in it, you see.
As many of you reading this now are aware, most S&T cartoons start off with Tweety singing a song. My son is thoroughly entertained by this. But he is quickly taken aback the moment Sylvester makes any kind of grab for him. Avery lets out a shriek that seems to be saying "NOOOOOOOOO! DON'T KILL THE SINGING BIRD!!!!" That grief is short lived the moment Sylvester fails with either a long fall, dog punch, or explosion. That is then followed by a feeling of relief. But, the grief begins anew when that "puddy tat" recovers and makes another attempt. It is of course then followed by another sense of relief. Grief --> Relief Grief --> Relief Grief --> Relief over and over again. So, to him, the Sylvester & Tweety series is more of a heavy drama than a slapstick comedy. Well, again, he's 5 months. He will eventually notice a pattern within this cartoon series and hopefully experience joy or what have you.
There is one thing in this world that he does fully enjoy. It lights his face up every time he watches it. Anybody with small children already know who it is. But, for everyone else, I will embed his very favourite show right below:
Yep! This video has been playing much more than once a day every day for several months. And now that I'm showing you this video, now YOU have every one of her songs stuck in your head with no chance of escape. HA!!!
Although, I have heard that the above figure Ms Rachel is being hailed as the new Mister Rogers and for good reason. She does a tremendous job of reaching, teaching, and educating children I'm sure all over the world. She helps keep my son happy and that's great. More power to her.
He's not ONLY entertained by Ms Rachel though. His horizons are a bit more broad than that. Here are some things I've seen him enjoy:
Robin Hood Daffy - I saw him smile al through the scene where Daffy and Porky are laughing with each other. He found their laughter to be infectious and it got to him.
Louvre Come Back To Me - Well, for pretty much the entire cartoon he had no idea what was going on. He saw Pepe Le Pew pursuing the black & white cat throughout the art museum while her naturally jealous boyfriend was trying to step between them (only to be overpowered by Pepe's stench). However, I saw him smile at the very very end of the cartoon. There's a "montage" of sorts showing many of the paintings reacting to Pepe Le Pew's odour all through the establishment. The very last painting to react is the Mona Lisa who simply says "I can tell you chaps one thing. It's not always easy to hold this smile." Whether you think that joke is strong, weak or whatever is immaterial. Avery found it amusing that a painting suddenly started talking and that's great.
Oh hey! There is a Tex Avery cartoon that my son Avery did enjoy. He likes that cartoon about little Owl Jolson wanting to sing jazz much to the dismay of his conventional symphony-loving father: I Love To Singa. I've seen him enjoy seeing that little owl singing the signature song for the whole cartoon. So, in a small tribute to my baby son, I've drawn him as Owl Jolson.
I can't wait for him to start his education just so I can see if he would "get through Yale with buela buela"!
On September 17 at 4:46 am Mountain Time, my son Avery was born to very beleaguered and exhausted parents. That is an ordeal that none of the parties involved will ever forget.
The adventure got underway at about 6:30 Saturday morning when my wife woke me up to tell me that her water had broke. I knew that was a sure sign that the baby's birth was imminent so it was time to head out for the hospital. There was literally no time for anything else. We checked in and the doctors did their usual evaluation, looking at dilation of various parts and things. We were initially sent home because we were told there were still hours to wait yet. So we were back for for a small bit. I took that time to have a shower. Then, when her contractions were getting more intense and closer together, we were right back at that hospital again.
My wife assumed that this delivery would be quick because of previous experience. When our daughter was born 14 years ago, there was only an hour between water breaking and full delivery. She naturally thought that would happen again. But nope. This labour went on for hours and hours. Of course, the maternity staff were busy with other babies being born at that time, so a lot of that time was just the both of us waiting on a bed in a room not knowing how any of this would go down.
When it was finally our turn, the staff was right there instructing my wife to "PUSH PUSH PUSH PUSH PUSH". I acted as a "human stirrup" in that endeavour by holding her leg up. What else are husbands for? Sadly, all of that pushing was to no avail. All that came out was a small amount of poop, but no baby. At that point, they used the dreaded phrase "C section". We were both taken to another room full of big lights and beeping machines (none of which went PING to my disappointment). I sat near my wife while they put a tarp over her lower part so that we couldn't see what they were doing.
In just a few short minutes it was done. Little baby Avery was finally out of his mother's womb and amongst the rest of us. It was a joyous and happy moment for me of course. However, I really really felt so bad for Avery. Upon being birthed, he was placed on a small bed surrounded by people wearing yellow gowns and face masks (me being one of them). One nurse felt there was still too much amniotic fluid in his system. So, to alleviate that problem, she inserted a hose very far into his nose in order to suck it all out. Then proceeded to insert another hose into his mouth to catch what she missed. To me, that looked like a nightmare scenario, especially for someone who has just entered to world having no idea what anything is. Yes, I know that all of that needed to be done in order to ensure survival, but Avery didn't know that and there's no way he could've known. He was having a miserable time at that point.
It didn't stop there either. They let my wife hold him for a bit. Then, while he wasn't looking, a nurse gave him a quick Vitamin K shot in his leg and slipped away before he knew what was happening. I'll never forget Avery's reaction to that. He didn't just cry. He had gotten a lot of his crying out during the previous ordeal I mentioned. No, this was more of an angry cry. I was reminded of every Al Pacino performance I had ever seen. Avery's cry seemed to be saying "HEY! WHO DID THAT?! WHO STUCK ME?! I WANT ANSWERS!! WAS IT FREDO?! THIS WHOLE SYSTEM'S OUT OF ORDER!!! ATTICA!!! ATTICA!!!" That's my interpretation anyway.
Thankfully for Avery, things calmed down very quickly and he could finally relax. That's when I was given a chance to hold him for the first (and definitely not the last) time. The look he gave me was the greatest look. For about half a second, his look seemed to say "who's this guy?". But, it immediately changed to a "oh ok, I recognize him now. He's good people." I was at first puzzled by how he could've known me so fast. But then I remembered something my wife kept telling me during the final few months of the pregnancy. Apparently, while in the womb, Avery would always react whenever he heard my voice. So, that's how he recognized me then. He knew my voice.
I think Avery still has a memory of his tumultuous first few minutes of his life. We were discharged from the hospital two days later after had deemed both baby and mom to be healthy enough to survive out in the world. So, we went straight home and put little Avery into his new sleeping quarters: his bassinet. Just a few days after that though, a nurse came right to our house to check up on us to make sure Avery was still healthy and that our home environment was ideal for a baby. After the nurse was done giving Avery a check up, I put him back in his bassinet while she gave my wife instructions about caring for newborns. The look on Avery's face was not a friendly one. He had a "get her out of here" kind of face. He was NOT in the mood to be dealing with medical professionals at that point and I can't blame him. No, I'm not going to help him with a vigilante quest to "punish" all medicos. I'll simply say that Avery has already learned a valuable lesson about the world: there are people you cannot trust. That's a lesson everyone should learn.
I'm ending this post with my first glance at Avery the moment he was born. This is what he looked like to me:
Most parents get freaked out by this site and nearly faint. They consider the baby to be "hideous" at this stage. However, to me, he just looked cool. If he stayed looking like this, I'd be fine.
If anyone out there reading this has a baby in their lives, keep being good to that baby. To anyone out there who doesn't, I recommend it. Happy parenting!
The wife and I had the big anatomy scan ultrasound just recently. It is now confirmed that the baby developing inside her body as we live and breathe is indeed a boy. As I mentioned in this blog's title, we've settled on his first name being "Avery". He's named after the great animation genius Tex Avery of course. Will my son live up to the amazing legacy of Tex? Um......... geez! Way to put pressure on a kid before he's even out of the womb. Back off a bit, you weirdo!
Based on what my wife has experienced so far in being Avery's portable incubator, we're sure he's going to a spry and energetic little man who will give us plenty of excitement and exercise. I'm sure he can't wait to come out and meet us all as well.
"Thumbs up, doc! Thumbs up!"
See! He's already giving the world a big thumbs up. He's ready for us, but are we ready for him?
Also, according to my wife, Avery likes to kick and punch a lot inside there. All fetuses (feti?) do that to some degree. But, that seems to be Avery's favourite activity so far. So, in that spirit, I've created an artist's rendering of what Avery could look like when he finally out of the womb.
Is this accurate? Well, he's due in September so we'll know for sure by then. I'll certainly keep everyone posted when that happens.
A preliminary welcome to the world, little Avery. We can't wait to meet you.
I've recently purchased the complete Sanford & Son dvd set. I've only watched the first two discs so far and I'm about half way through Disc 3. But, from what I've seen so far, I've got to say that this is indeed one of the funniest shows ever made. I had only seen it sporadically a few times before. I never fully appreciated it until now. But, boy do I appreciate it. Redd Foxx create quite a colourful character (and by 'colourful' I didn't mean "COLOUR"-ful so everybody calm down).
Anyway, I like the show so much, I thought I'd create the following little doodle to show my appreciation:
For those poor souls out there who have never had the pleasure of seeing even one episode of this great program, I've provided a full episode below. Enjoy! (Sorry about the cursor at the beginning).
Oh yeah, and watch or better yet listen for the actress who plays Aunt Hazel in this episode. She's none other than Lillian Randolph, the actress who did the original voice of Mammy Two-Shoes in those Tom & Jerry cartoons.
