Cartoons Are 46% of the Violence on TV

According to Uncle John's Bathroom Reader:  Experts say that 46% of all violence on TV are in cartoons.

That is just nonsense!

Throwback Thursday: Bros Ed & Jack Hunter c1918

Throwback Thursday:  Brothers Ed & Jack Hunter, Marietta, Georgia.   c1918.  Ed was born 1911 and died 1988.  Jack was born 1914 and died 1990.

Yesterday, Ruby Langley Hunter, the wife of Jack, was buried with him at Mountain View Cemetery.

Job Up In Smoke

Yesterday's  Looking Back article in THE MARIETTA DAILEY JOURNAL is about the Larry Bell Park Bowling Alley in the basement of the Auditorium.

Click here for the article.

I remember it well, along with down the hall was the Larry Bell Pool Room ran by Pop Smith who lived on East Dixie Avenue.  He enjoyed my visits, he talked about watching he Hunter Boys grow up (my uncles and Daddy).  But he never let me play pool, I was too young.  Pop Smith was the grandfather of Jimmy Smith, who, with his brother,  moved in with Pop during his teenage years.

Back to the Bowling Alley down on the other end of the hall:  Around 1955 or 56 after I quit my job as a paper boy I was always on the lookout for a part time job.  I went to see the manager of the Bowling Alley.  I do not remember his name.  He told me, sure, he would hire me, but first would he help me clean off some land he just bought.   He said he would paid me $10 or $15 each.  I agreed.

My friends, also hired, brothers Jack and Billy Joe Royal, and Jimmy McEntire, and I met him some place off Macland Road to clean the land.  We cut up brush, and trees, and put them in a big pile to burn.

The bowling alley manager doused the pile with gasoline  from a can and stood back and threw a match on it.  The pile went up in flames.  So did the Bowling Alley Manager.  I'm surprised, but we had enough sense to roll him and covered him with a blanket or something.

Back then there were no cell phones or 911 calls, so we loaded him in one of our junky cars and rushed him to the hospital.

I don't know remember what happened to the man, if he lived or die.  Since hiring us was all verbal, I never pursued it.  And I thought, and still do, that pursuing the $10 or $15 cash he owed me would be in bad taste.

The British Royalty Acting Human

On NPR TV we got to watch the England's Royal Family watch their home movies and make candid comments.

A lot of the home movies were made in the 1940s, before sound was in home movies and of course they were black and white.

The movies showed the family members are human and enjoyed clowning in front of the camera.  They were constantly pretending to drop dead or one would break into a dance while the others were looking serious.   Or suddenly one would haul off and hit his or her sibling in the face, which appeared to be a knockout and then the other would jump up fighting.  And there were a lot of what we call today "Photo Bombs".

As kids they and their Royal cousins were their only playmates.  According to the old home movies they were very good at accentuating body language that they probably observed watching news reels and movies.  If the economy ever gets too rough for them I think the could make a living as street mimes. 

In one black and white segment it looked like they all attended a tea on the lawn wearing big fake beards, including the women.  I could not find a still of that event on Googled.

The good part, they, as a private family, away from the public do not take themselves too seriously.

I went Googling to find some pictures of Royalty being human.  I have to say I feel sorry for Queen Elizabeth.  She cannot be herself without a hundred cameras recording it, whether it be a yawn or an outburst giggle.  Although, that did not hold me back.

Ruby Langley Hunter (1927-2017), R.I.P.

Ruby, will miss you!

Jack Hunter & Ruby

first row: Ruby, Zelma, Sarah, and Lola Jeanne

Second row: Jack, Bus, Stanley, and Doug

First row: Ruby, Jack, and Sarah.

Second row:  Jeannette and Janie

Third Row:  Ed, Doug, Lola Jeanne, and Stanley

Alice and Ruby

Ruby, Frances, and Jack

Ruby and Jackie

THE SPIRIT: The Movie and 2 Comic stories

click to enlarge and make sense  - continued after article

THE SPIRIT movie, based on Will Eisner's detective newspaper comic strip in the late 1940s and early 1950s, was written and directed by Frank Miller and released 2008.

We watched it the other night.  Being a fan of THE SPIRIT by Eisner, I was happy the way the movie went along with the style of the comic strip (with some exceptions).

I Googled it to get some facts down before writing some comments about it and read that in box office measurements it was considered a flop.

THE SPIRIT was a fighter of crime in a big city.  He was a cop and was killed, or at least people thought he was killed.  Actually, he lived underground in a graveyard and devoted his life to fighting crime.  He wore a simple eye mask just like the Long Ranger.

I like the comic strip because it showed just how rotten inner-city living can be.  And the movie followed the same rule. 

Near the end of  the movie, while The Spirit was fighting a bad man I noticed in the background, on the side of an old building or sign that said FIEFFER MEATS in big letters.  I think that was an Easter Egg.  Jules Feiffer wrote a book about super comicbook heroes and had drawn the best seller SICK, SICK, SICK.  He also had a weekly cartoon on the front page of THE VILLAGE VOICE.  He also may have worked on the assembly-line of artists putting together THE SPIRIT daily at Eisner Studios.

I think it may have been a box office box because it was ahead of its time, which is strange itself, because the details was behind the times, back in the 40s.  Confusing.

The main thing I saw that Frank Miller did not stick with the SPIRIT story plot was THE SPIRIT had an assistant, a street kid Uncle Tom-like teenager.  It could stir racial feelings more than it did back 70 years ago.

I thought it was better than your regular today's super hero movie with a free Stan Lee cameo.

Below are two SPIRIT stories to give you the jest of the plot:

And also:

September Morning

Now that we are enough into September enough to get our feet wet* let us have a little art appreciation:  

September Morn, 1911, by Paul Emile Chabas.

*No pun intended Texas.

Benjamin, Downtown Marietta Labor Day Weekend

Above by Sabrina Sexton

Happy Labor Day and Dragon Con Weekend

Make-Believe Old pals, Eddie Hunter and Al Felstein

Happy Labor Day and Dragoncon Weekend.

About 18 or 19 years ago my son Adam and I went to the annual Dragoncon Convention in Atlanta.  To name drop, we were on the free list of being helpers of the late cartoonist Skip Williamson.

There, we met Al Feldstein, retired editor of MAD Magazine for over 30 years.  In fact, when Al took over he changed its style and increased sales.  With Harvey Kurtzman at the helm it attracted people with a sophisticated humor and Feldstein changed it to attract the average pre-teen with not so sophisticated  humor.

I resented him for that.

But after meeting Al, and we talked and talked I told him how I felt and he looked apologetic, and it turned out he was a good old guy after all.  I told him I forgave him.

Now, he could sleep at nights.

Denis Kitchens (publisher and collaborator with Harvey Kurtzman)

Skip Williamson