RMcL captured the videos made of your Arthurian parodies. This week AB copied them to my external hard drive so that we can watch them in class one day soon. I watched them again this morning so that I could give you each a grade. Everyone got 15/15...how could I give anything less? (Hmmm. Maybe we'll have to show parts at your graduation ceremony or at the senior banquet?)And since I've got parodies and irony on my brain today...
If you're familiar with the old cartoon Dudley Do-Right of the Canadian Mounties, you know that in every episode, antagonist Snidley Whiplash ties helpless heroine Nel Fenwick to the railroad tracks. Each time, the bumbling protagonist, Dudley Do-Right, arrives in time to save Nel from being run over by the train. The cartoon parodies melodramas and silent films of the turn of the century. It was featured as part of the Rocky and Bullwinkle show which I used to watch as a child.
The ironic--and therefore funniest--part of each episode is that Dudley is in love with Nel, but she doesn't notice because she is so fond of his horse.When my niece and I saw the railroad tracks at Denver's Bellview Park this summer, it was just too tempting not to reenact "Nel on the tracks." You've already seen this picture on my Facebook account. Now I'm adding the cartoon pics as well.
As a child I remember thinking, "That doesn't make sense: why does Snidley always put Nel on the tracks--and why doesn't she run away when she sees Snidley slithering up?" I still don't know the answers. Perhaps these are some of the great mysteries of life.
--Mrs. S.
P.S. When I posted the picture on Facebook, someone informed me that it is against the law in the US to lie down on railroad tracks. Gulp! If the tracks are for a pint-sized, model railroad that only runs occasionally (i.e., when the railroad enthusiasts* take it out of the barn), is it still breaking the law?
*Or is that the ferroequinologists?
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text and photo (c) pjfs 2009.
cartoons: images.bcdb.com
