I AM Crabby Appleton

This morning I woke with the villain Crabby Appleton in my head. Why?

Crabby was the main nemesis of gee-whiz boy hero Tom Terrific. His eponymous show was played on Captain Kangaroo. Tom Terrific wasn’t a great cartoon. I remember, even as a kid, being wholly unimpressed with the animation and story lines. I mean, I had some fucking standards! Tom was some lame blonde kid with a dopey canine sidekick, Manfred the Wonder Dog. I did not see the “wonder” aspect. More like "I wonder WHAT."

Other than Crabby Appleton, my only other memory from the Captain Kangaroo show – which ran from 1955 to 1984 – is ping ping balls surreally flooding down from the ceiling. Punch line to a joke, I guess.

I was used to watching ‘50s era Bugs Bunny and Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons. Tom Terrific was some seriously weak sauce. 

Crabby Appleton, by the by, was also short-lived Los Angeles rock/pop band in the early ‘70s. Sadly, I've no memory of them.

Another little factoid, I don’t know if you recall the rumor, the urban legend that Mr. Green Jeans, of Cap Kangaroo fame, was a heroin addict. I remember hearing this during my everything-adults-told-us-were-fairy-tales-and-lies period (which I've, maybe, never come out of) and just shrugged my shoulders, thinking “of course.” After much googling, I haven’t found any back up for this salacious bit of gossip.

Anyway, the actor, Hugh Brannum, who played Mr. Green Jeans had been a jazz musician, playing bass with Fred Waring and his Pennsylvanians before joining up with the Captain.

Related, I always envied my little sister. Children’s television got WAY better, far less stupid between the late ‘50s and late ‘60s. I mean, she got Sesame Street, Electric Company, and Zoom instead of fucking Romper Room, Howdy Doody, and Captain Kangaroo.

Just so’s ya know, Crabby Appleton probably, though it can’t be absolutely, unshakably proven, had nothing to do with the meteor that exploded off the coast of my fine state of Massachusetts yesterday at precisely 2:11 p.m. FYI, Jen, Ten, Oni, and I live right on the damn coast. 

Naturally, I didn’t hear it (deaf, don’cha know) and, though I’ve seen reports that folks felt their houses shake, Ten and I didn’t feel a thing here in Valhalla. Neither did we see a flash or a bolide screaming across the sky. It was a rainy day though. Also, we were both busy doomscrolling. Cake was deep into his afternoon nap. He had no time for drive-by fireballs. 

I wonder if the meteor had anything to do with the dream I woke from this morning. I was sitting in a hospital hallway with my sister. For some reason a nurse had to draw blood. Standard testing stuff, I guess. The nurse couldn’t get a vein in my arm though. He tells me he’s going to draw from my BRAIN instead. Last image before snapping awake was of a big ass needle aimed straight at my head.

How was I feeling? What was my DreamLand response. Was I freaking? Ahhh, not so much.

 “Oh, okay. Let’s just get this over with.” I’m entirely too used to this shit. I’m tellin’ you!

I don’t believe there are any meteors in the forecast for today. We’d probably have been given a heads up but Pedo and his billionaire henchmen have cut all the agencies that would have kept an eye on this. So, if I haven’t been crushed under a flaming space boulder, I’ll see you tomorrow.

Cheers!