Listen carefully, there is some great subtext here....

This was the last MGM cartoon to run in theaters. And yes, you can see it as anti-coportate, but can also see it as a message about gender identity, or race identity, or a number of other things.

It is from 1967. Created by the brilliant Chuck Jones and Frank Tashlin. Gawd, 1967.... Was soooo young, and harboured a secret wish to be a cartoonist. But was told I wasn't good enough by my art teacher, who hated 'me and my kind' on sight, only I didn't GET it
(the reason for it, I mean.) My second-last assistant mgr. in our theater even offered to get me an in to the Boston school of Fine Arts, or something like that... after seeing me work on my free time to make displays for upcoming movies we were going to show. And my boss one day very proudly showed me a letter of praise for the 'wonderful' fake volcano I set up in our vast lobby. A volcano, for Island At The Top Of the World, a terrific bomb... but the kids loved it.

So I took one of the low long wooden boxes we had lying about, can't remember what they were for. Took chicken wire, and papier machér, and covered it with it. (Try to imagine Richard Dreyfuss in 'Encounters of the Third Kind', ok? Then painted it. And cut out all the letters in rubber foam to put the title of the movie on it, but it wasn't enough. It had to flicker and smoke, as it was a volcano, you see.... So I didn't know shit about electrical stuff and so on, and spoke to our oldest projectionist, and asked him how I could do it.

And he smiled. (He was the old guy who caddied for Katherine Hepburn on a hot summer's day in the 1920's, where she suddenly reached under her dress, and threw her underpants in his face with the remark 'It's too damned hawt.' Excuse the deviaton from the theme here.... I wouldn't want to know what he could have sold those for on E-Bay, if they had been existant, boggles the mind, hey....)

And he said, go over to Moreau's (a dept. hardware store across the street), get a lamp base cheap with two sockets in it, and an orange light bulb, and a yellow one. And a blinker to put in the socket I put a yellow bulb in, so it flickers. And, of course line the insides with crumpled tin foil, run the electrical cord into the nearest socked hiding it under the rug, and voilà, you have a volcano flickering.

It worked. But I still wasn't satisfied. So I went to a head shop on the corner, got a metal incense holder, and before every show, when people were gathering, I would light the incense, and the volcano smoked as well.

And that was my vision, as stupid and simple as it turned out to be. I doubted my talent, I doubted everything about myself, but I did have the urge to create.

I will never know who turned over pictures to Disney at the time, or why... but will never forget the look of pride on my boss' face when he received that unbelieveble letter of praise. He kept it as a trophy, I guess. But was always like a second father to me. Saw my inner conflict and would be 'tacit', telling me about 'third sexers', as he called them, and saying they were 'ok', nothing to worry about. And would clench. Boy, would I clench inwardly.

Such denial. And Bill wanted to be supportive, but didn't know how without freaking me totally out. He was a wonderful, caring man.

So when I saw this on Fire Dog Lake today, I GOT the context, and the criticism of corporations, grew up in one which controlled the entire city. But watching it... a bear who needs a shave and wears a fur coat? There is another context there too.

And the studio got totally scared of the Lefties.

Yeah, have gone ON. Probably a result of having seen Milk. Don't know.

And now you know how to build a display volcano.... (bangs head on keyboard)