Jackie Mason

            On Saturday after midnight I lint rolled the top of my bed and a couple of bedbugs turned up. I added some more carpet tape to the southeast corner of my mattress. I don’t know why that part tends to get less sticky sooner. I went to bed a little after 1:30 and woke up at around 3:15 to pee. After that I felt some bedbugs but went back to sleep until 4:45 having to pee really bad but forced myself to stay in bed until 5:00. After yoga I checked and saw quite a few bedbugs stuck to the tape but a few more crawling freely on the wall. 

            I finished memorizing “Venez donc voir” (“Come Then See”) by Boris Vian and worked out the chords for the instrumental intro. The song is not sung but I started working out chords for the speech according to the tonality so it can be sung. 

            I worked out the chords for the first three verses of “Les filles c'est un flipper” (Girls Are a Pinball Game) by Serge Gainsbourg. All that’s left is the instrumental and then one and a half verses so I should have it done tomorrow. 

            I weighed 91.45 kilos before breakfast.

            I played my Kramer during song practice and it stayed in tune most of the time. 

            Around midday I rode to No Frills where all the grapes were too soft. I bought two Canadian watermelons, three packs of Canadian and Peruvian blueberries, some bananas, a loaf of cinnamon-raisin bread, a loaf of seven grain sandwich bread, mouthwash, dental floss, tomato pesto, spoon sized shredded wheat, a jug of lemonade, a small container of 4% skyr, and a bag of wedge fries. 

            I weighed 92.2 kilos at 15:00, which is the lightest I’ve been in the early afternoon since September 1. I had smoked turkey and maple mustard on saltines with a glass of lemonade. 

            I took a siesta at 15:30 and woke up at 16:55. After brushing my teeth it was too late for a bike ride. I went over to the liquor store and bought a six-pack of Creemore. 

            I weighed 92.25 kilos at 17:25. 

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:38. 

            I digitized a cassette recording of a Christian and the Lions rehearsal in a rented space with Tom Smarda on Stratocaster and backup vocals, Steve Lowe on acoustic guitar, me on vocals, and either Jim Bravo, Barzin, or Jeremy Finkelstein on drums. We did my songs "Megaphor", "Calendar Girl", "Hungry Hippunk Goes to Work", and "Me and Gravity". 

            I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with marinara, tomato pesto, potato wedge fries, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a glass of Creemore lager while watching season 3, episode 32 of The Garry Moore Show. But these Moore shows I’ve been watching are only 25 minutes long because the musical numbers have been edited out. 

            During the opening segment Durward Kirby comes out to tell Garry that his Aunt Mary has formed a Garry Moore Fan Club and asks if he’ll let them come out on stage to meet him. Mary comes out with three other elderly and eccentric individuals. Mary is president of the fan club and she introduces him to Vice President Patterson. Garry reaches out to shake his hand but he backs away. Mary introduces Miss Crane the secretary and Mr. Simmons the treasurer. Garry asks Mary how many members there are in the club and she says “Four”. Mr. Patterson scowls and asks Mary, “When do we go to Radio City?” Mary tells Garry that Mr. Simmons loves Garry’s singing voice but he’s nearly deaf and doesn’t know if Garry is singing right now or not. Mary tells Garry they passed a hat to get him a gift but nobody put anything in and so she thought he would at least like to have the hat. She hands him a bowler that’s too small. 

            Garry says his next guest reminds him of the social director for The Twilight Zone. Jackie Mason comes out to do his stand-up routine. Jackie says this is his third time on the show. He tells us there’s one thing in life more important than money, and that’s love. “I’m very fortunate because I love money. There’s only one thing you can get without money and that’s sick. My grandfather told me to never guard my money but guard his health. “So one day I was guarding my health and someone stole my money and it was my grandfather. He was a genius at the stock market. He bought 7-Up when it was only 6 and a Quarter. He told me to invest in copper and I lost. He told me to invest in zinc and I lost. But when he said “steal” I made a fortune. I read a book by a Columbia professor who said that one out of every three women is suffering from a lack of love. Now whenever I see three girls together I wonder which one it is. A psychiatrist told me I need to find the real me to be happy. But what if I look for the real me and find he’s even worse than me? Ten years ago if you told me to look for the real me I would have been happy to look because I couldn’t make a living. But now I’m doing good so let him look for me. The psychiatrist charged me $25 but if this isn’t the real me why should I pay him? Let him look for the real me to get the $25. For all I know the real me might be going to a different psychiatrist or maybe he’s a psychiatrist himself. Wouldn’t it be funny if my psychiatrist was the real me and he owes me $25? I told him I’ll charge him $10 and we’ll call it even. But I kept on studying and I found out that I’m Carol Burnett.” He tells the audience, “If I didn’t make you happy tonight it’s none of my business because it’s not me. Let Carol worry about it. Remember that money is not important because you can’t take it with you. Friends are more important and so that’s why when I go I’m taking my friends.” 

            Mel Tormé introduces a skit that is almost exactly the same as one that was later done on The Carol Burnett Show I assume it was written by the same writers. The main difference is that in this one Carol’s husband is played by Durward Kirby while in the later one he is played by Harvey Korman. The sketch involves an upper class couple on 5th Avenue who are about to have their apartment photographed for Home Beautiful Magazine. They say their home is exquisite because their tastes blend harmoniously but then Durward says the only thing disharmonious is the ashtray that Carol bought in Copenhagen and so he throws it out the window. What follows is them smashing each other’s things until the home is a wreck. Garry later says he doesn’t want to know about this week’s budget because they had to replace everything they smashed during rehearsal just so they could smash it all again for the show. 

            Garry says 1938’s biggest picture was Algiers. It told the story of Pepe La Mocco, a notorious jewel thief and his ill-fated love affair. It all took place in the Casbah, a walled city of mystery and intrigue. The movie introduced one of the most beautiful women in movie history, Hedy Lamarr. Carol plays Hedy playing Gaby the most beautiful woman in Europe. Someone tells her it’s not safe for her to be alone in the Casbah. She says she won’t leave until she meets Pepsi La Cola. Jackie Mason plays Pepsi and approaches her from behind. She turns, sees him, says, “Yeeuck!” and walks away. 

            Garry assembles the cast and the guests to sing the goodbye song while holding hands. Carol Haney was on this show but not in the video that I have. She must have done a dance routine.

            Jackie Mason came from a long line of rabbis. He earned a BA at City College in New York with a double major in English and Sociology. He was a cantor until the age of 25 when he was ordained as a rabbi like his three brothers. His sermons were so funny that gentiles used to come to hear them. He left after three years because somebody in the family had to make a living. He worked as a busboy in the Catskills until he broke all the dishes. They made him a lifeguard even though he couldn’t swim. They told him not to tell the guests. He made his national TV debut on The Steve Allen Show in 1962. The same year he released his first record, I’m the Greatest Comedian in the World Only Nobody Knows It Yet, which was a best seller. When he appeared on Ed Sullivan in 1964, Ed thought Jackie gave him the finger. He says he was gesturing with his index finger but he was banned from the Sullivan Show because of the misunderstanding. He sued Sullivan and later did appear on his show a few times but Mason gained a bad reputation and lost a lot of TV work. He made his Broadway debut in A Teaspoon Every Four Hours in 1969. He won a Tony, an Emmy, and Grammy for his first one man show, The World According to Me, which ran for two years. He became the first guest on The Simpsons to win an Emmy for his performance playing the father of Krusty the Clown, which he would return to do several times. He starred in The Stoolie, Caddyshack II, and One Angry Man. He performed for Queen Elizabeth in 1991. He endorsed Donald Trump in the 2016 election. He doesn’t think Israel should be required to follow the world’s understanding of democracy. One of his jokes about aging is, “It’s no longer a question of staying healthy but of finding a sickness you like.”

September 13, 1996: Brian and I performed on the Spit Fridays open stage

            Thirty years ago today

            On Friday I rehearsed with Brian Haddon and in the evening we went to perform on the Spit Fridays open stage in the back room of the Cameron.

Eileen Farrell

            On Friday after midnight I lint rolled the top of my bed and no bedbugs turned up. I put some more carpet tape around the southeast corner of my mattress. I went to bed at around 1:40 and didn’t sleep very well although I didn’t feel any bedbugs. After yoga I checked and saw there were quite a few bedbugs caught on the tape and none wandering free. 

            I memorized the first verse of “Venez donc voir” (“Come Then See”) by Boris Vian. There’s only one more shorter verse to learn. 

            I worked out the chords for all but the final line of the first verse of “Les filles c'est un flipper” (Girls Are a Pinball Game) by Serge Gainsbourg. The last line of every verse is shorter than the others so it shouldn’t take long to work out. I think all the verses have the same chords and there’s no chorus. 

            I weighed 91.6 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Gibson Les Paul Studio during song practice and it went out of tune most of the time. 

            I lint rolled the top of my bed and no bedbugs turned up. I put some two-sided carpet tape on the back and side of my desk. 

            I weighed 92.45 kilos before lunch, which is the lightest I’ve been in the early afternoon since September 1. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and back. 

            I weighed 92.45 kilos at 17:50. I was caught up in my journal at 20:14. 

            I had a potato with gravy while watching season 4, episode 28 of The Garry Moore Show. 

            It begins with Garry reading next week’s newspaper. 

            Caroline Kennedy had a birthday party and her father gave her an erector set: US Steel. 

            There’s a bill before congress to simplify the 1962 income tax form. You send the government all your money and it gives you bus fare to work. 

            Elizabeth Taylor’s new movie will be Bathsheba. Her leading man has not been chosen and the studio is asking for volunteers. 

            NASA’s first female astronaut is undergoing flight tests. Scientists are not sure how she is reacting because every time they call the space capsule the line is busy. When the first Moon shot takes place Zsa Zsa Gabor will be a passenger because if there’s a man on the Moon she’ll find him. 

            Bob Williams performs with his trained dog Louie. The joke is that Louie the sad eyed spaniel does not perform but rather just sits there. I think it’s possible that he really would have to be trained to be that unresponsive. Williams does a lot of fast talking as he gives Louis his commands. He tells him to jump up onto a table and says, “He’s thinking about it!” He lifts Louie halfway onto the table and his legs are dangling with no effort to try to climb up. Bob puts him all the way on the table and says, “He loves to play!” Gary brings out his own dog Sam for Bob to train and he’s equally effective except that Garry’s dog actually wags his tail. 

            Garry plays newscaster Walter Crankcase and he takes us back to the most poignant moment in the history of romance. The year is 1657. The place, a modest cottage in one of the smaller European kingdoms. The event, the day the Prince found his Cinderella. Last night with the help of her fairy godmother, Cinderella was able to attend the Grand Ball at the palace. The prince is going to arrive soon as he is checking all the homes for the mysterious young woman he danced with at the ball. Walter interviews the stepmother and asks if she’d be happy if the Prince married one of her daughters. She says she’d be hilarious if he married both of them. 

            Cinderella arrives (played by Carol Burnett), hungover from the ball. Walter asks Cinderella if she lost a shoe last night. She says, “I wouldn’t be surprised!” He asks if she’d marry the Prince. She says, “Mister, to get out of this dump I’d marry a moose!” 

            The Prince’s footmen arrive and blow their trumpets to announce the Prince’s arrival and that aggravates Cinderella’s hangover to an extreme degree as she holds her head and doubles over the table. The Prince arrives played by Derward Kirby wearing a bobbed wig and tights. From the start he is straining to keep from laughing. He announces that he thinks his tights just ripped and the stepmother, her daughters, and Cinderella are cracking up. The Prince lowers his jacket from his shoulders to hide his behind. 

            The Prince looks at the daughters’ and the mother’s feet and can tell they won’t fit the shoe. Then he turns to Cinderella who is still laughing. She sits down as he kneels and she puts her leg over his knee to reveal her foot. He asks, “What size is this dainty little foot?” She giggles and answers, “Twelve”. He struggles to put the shoe on and she struggles to get her foot in until finally it fits. He asks her to marry him and she says, “Coax me!” He asks again twice and she repeats “coax me” twice until he’s about to get up to leave and she shouts, “Yes!” They are about to leave together and she says she wants to say goodbye to her family, then she sticks out her tongue at them and blows a raspberry. 

            Next is the segment called That Wonderful Year. Garry steps out under a streetlamp and says, “That wonderful year when jazz became the national rage; Edna Ferber, Ring Lardner, Sherwood Anderson, and Sinclair Lewis were the new young writers; 16 year old violin prodigy Yasha Heifitz made his debut at Carnegie Hall; the world’s most famous vamp was Theodosia Goodman, better known as Theda Barra; women mechanics replaced the doughboys on the homefront; ostrich feathers, narrow skirts, and parasols were standard equipment for vamping; the last of the old fashioned Revivalists, Billy Sunday drew crowds from coast to coast; at the movies everyone’s favourite two-gun man of the west was William S. Hart; and for laughs there was nothing like cops and slapstick; We see film footage of a traffic cop gradually being stripped to his underwear as his uniform is snagged by passing vehicles. It was the wonderful year of 1917. 

            Garry approaches an old man (played by Derward) who is whittling a small piece of wood on a bench and addresses him as Casper Penny. Garry asks if he’s been whittling long. Casper says, “When I started, this was a piano.” Garry informs Casper that he and Garry’s father Thomas Garrison Moore went to the same school. Casper says he remembers Tom well. Casper says, “He flunked Arithmetic, spelling, geography and… You’re his son?” “That’s right!” “Tom never could do anything right.” 

            Garry announces that two weeks ago their orchestra leader Irv Kostal earned an Oscar for his scoring on West Side Story. 

            Garry brings out Eileen Farrell (who played the stepmother), Bob Williams, Carol Burnett, and Derward Kirby. They sing Garry’s goodbye song, which is lyrically similar in theme to Carol’s later theme song: “We just said hello and right away we have to say so long for a while. Before we go we’d like to say you had a little laugh or a smile. We hope to see you soon (at this point Carol pulls her ear). Thanks for comin by. But just for now we’ll say goodbye.” Garry says, “Until next week, be very kind to each other and goodbye out there!” Garry’s dog is with them and barking for a treat which Garry throws for him. 

            Eileen Farrell began her career in 1940 as a member of the CBS Chorus on CBS radio. From 1941 to 1946 she had her own program called Eileen Farrell Sings. In 1947 she launched her career as a concert soprano and in 1956 began performing in operas starting with Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana. In 1952 Toscanini hired her to sing on his recording of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. In the movie Interrupted Melody she dubbed the singing of Eleanor Parker who was playing Marjorie Lawrence. In 1960 she released the first successful crossover album: I’ve Got a Right to Sing the Blues, which reached #15 in the charts. She starred at the Metropolitan opera from 1960 to 1966 starting with Gluck’s Alceste. In 1979 she did a duet with Frank Sinatra of the song “For the Good Times”. She was a voice professor at Indiana University School of Music. Her 1999 autobiography was called Can’t Help Singing.

September 12, 1996: I did some writing

Thirty years ago today

            On Thursday I worked on my writing and might have received a few calls about work.

Amy Poehler

            On Thursday after midnight I lint rolled the top of my bed and no bedbugs got picked up. I laid down more carpet tape along the edges of my mattress. I went to bed at around 1:30 and don’t remember lying awake for very long but when I got up at 5:00 it felt like I hadn’t gotten enough sleep. I was groggy through yoga. When I checked for bedbugs there were quite a few stuck to the tape and only a couple wandering free. 

            I searched for the next Boris Vian song on my list for which I could find audio or even just text. The next on the list was “Une quarante chevaux De Dion-Bouton” (A 40 Horsepower De Dion-Bouton). De Dion-Bouton was the first automobile manufacturer to mass produce a successful V-8 engine in 1910. The song is another one from the musical that Vian wrote about Jules Bonnot the Anarchist Robin Hood. A De Dion-Bouton is one of the cars he stole and used for his criminal operations. But unfortunately there is no text or audio of this song available online. 

            The next song is “Venez donc voir” (Literally “Come Then See” but more like an equivalent to the English phrase, “Step Right Up”. There is audio and text for this song though the lyrics are shouted and not sung while music plays in the background. I think the song could be sung to the music though and so that’s how I’ll learn it.

            I worked out the chords for the instrumental intro and half of the first line of “Les filles c'est un flipper” (Girls Are a Pinball Game) by Serge Gainsbourg. 

            I weighed 91.55 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Martin for the last of four sessions and it went out of tune all the time. 

            I weighed 92.8 kilos before lunch. 

            In the afternoon I took a bike ride downtown and stopped at Freshco on the way back where I bought five bags of green grapes, some bananas, a pack of Full City Dark coffee, and some shaving gel. I did a price match on the grapes with the Food Basics price of $3.26 a kilo. 

            I weighed 91.5 kilos at 18:35, which is the lightest I’ve been in the evening in a week. 

            I had a potato with gravy and a chicken leg while watching a video tribute to Harvey Korman and a short video of zany outtakes from The Carol Burnett Show. 

            Amy Poehler says what she loved most about The Carol Burnett Show was the ensemble. Carol let everybody be just as funny as she was. 

            Bernadette Peters says comedy has to be open, trusting, giving, and encouraging, and that’s how Carol wanted her show to be. 

            Lyle Waggoner says Carol was there for the good of the show and not for Carol Burnett. 

            Betty White says Harvey had intelligence on top of talent. 

            I say Tim Conway was really master of the comedic pause. 

            Lyle says that Harvey was always dissatisfied so Lyle and Vickie started writing him anonymous fan letters to tell him how great he was and he enjoyed them. Carol says Harvey was very moody. One time when Petula Clark and Tim were guests on the show Harvey was rude to them both. Carol didn’t mind him being nasty with the regulars because they were used to it but she drew the line at making the guests uncomfortable. She asked him to stay after the show. He was great on that show while Carol was a nervous wreck. Carol confronted him in her Joan Crawford boss lady persona and gave him an ultimatum. He argued that he had a contract but Carol said she would find a way to break the contract if he didn’t shape up. She told him that whenever she saw him in the hall she wanted to hear him whistling happily. The next Monday she saw him come out of the elevator whistling and skipping down the hall.

            Vicki says Harvey taught her most everything she came to know about comedy. Once she developed her high voiced bimbo character she asked him why when she does it she becomes stupid for the whole week. He told her that any character she does well will become a part of her. She says Harvey was so good in drag. 

            Harvey was a wreck the day Laurence Olivier came to the taping. 

            Carl Reiner says he heard Harvey played Hamlet once and was brilliant and he’s sure he was.

            Jane Lynch says when Harvey died Carol was destroyed. 

            The zany outtakes video was just some slightly funny mistakes and recoveries from mistakes.

            Amy Poehler joined the sketch comedy group My Mother’s Fleabag when she was attending Boston College. After earning her Bachelor’s degree in Media and Communications she went to Chicago where she studied at Second City and Improv Olympics. She joined the Upright Citizen’s Brigade, which later moved to New York to become a Comedy Central show for three seasons but the group stayed together and turned The Upright Citizen’s Brigade Theatre into a prominent sketch comedy venue. A second theatre was founded in LA and they teach 8000 students a year. She joined Saturday Night Live as a featured player in 2001 and was promoted to a full cast member that same season. The only other SNL alumnus to rise that quickly in the ranks was Eddie Murphy. When Jimmy Fallon left the show in 2004 she joined Tina Fey on Weekend Update. She co-wrote a sketch with Seth Meyers featuring Tina Fey and herself as Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton that became the biggest viral video of the year. She co-starred in Mean Girls, Blades of Glory, Mr. Woodcock, Hamlet 2, Baby Mama, Horton Hears a Who, A.C.O.D., They Came Together, The House, Hoodwinked Too, and Free Birds. She starred in Spring Breakdown, Sisters, Inside Out, and Inside Out 2. She starred in the sitcom Parks and Recreation from 2009 to 2015. She co-wrote, made her directorial debut, and co-starred in Wine Country. She directed and co-produced Moxie, and Lucy and Desi. She co-hosted and co-produced the reality competition series Making It. She co-created, co-produced and starred in Duncanville. She co-created and co-starred in The Mighty B. She co-hosted the Golden Globe Awards with Tina Fey in 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2021. She co-produced Welcome to Sweden, Broad City, Difficult People, Three Busy Debras, and Russian Doll. She wrote the book Yes Please in 2014. She hosts the podcast Good Hang (which won the first Golden Globe Award for a podcast). She co-founded the girl empowerment group Smart Girls at the Party. She says, “When your children arrive your heart becomes a room with wide open windows”.

September 11, 1996: I lined up some more model bookings

Thirty years ago today

            On Wednesday I called around for work and got some model bookings. In the evening I went to the Art Bar reading series and performed on the open stage.

Joanna Lumley

            On Wednesday after midnight I lint rolled the top of my bed but didn’t pick up any bedbugs. I went to bed at 1:35 and slept fitfully until 4:15 when I got up to pee. I could feel bedbugs whenever I was awake. I slept again until 5:00. After yoga I checked and found a few bedbugs stuck to the carpet tape but there were a lot more crawling freely on the old exit door at the head of my bed. I must have killed about 40. 

            I posted on my Boris Vian Facebook page and my personal Facebook page the lyrics for “Jules Bonnot Was Not Just Anyone”, my translation of “Jules Bonnot c'était pas n'importe qui” by Boris Vian. Tomorrow I’ll start learning the next Vian song on my list. 

            I finished translating “Les filles c'est un flipper” (Girls Are a Pinball Game) by Serge Gainsbourg. I searched for the chords but no one has posted them so I worked out part of the intro. 

            I weighed 91.25 kilos before breakfast. 

            I played my Martin during song practice for the third of four sessions and it went out of tune all the time. 

            Around midday I vacuumed my Targus backpack, which had been in the freezer until yesterday evening. So far I haven’t found any live bedbugs on or in it but I have found some dead ones inside the foam back-cushion. I’m not going to keep it in the living room anymore but instead in the entryway. 

            I weighed 92.9 kilos before lunch. I had peanut butter and five-year-old cheddar on saltines with a glass of lemonade. 

            In the afternoon I headed out for a bike ride but it was raining so I just went around the block and stopped at Queen Fresh where I bought two packs of raspberries. A customer asked if I was Danish. When I left there the rain had let up and there was still time to take a bit of a bike ride. The rain picked up around Havelock and Bloor so I went south and headed home. 

            I weighed 92.45 kilos at 17:40, which is the heaviest I’ve been in the evening since August 26.

            I was caught up in my journal at 18:55. 

            I digitized a homemade tape recording of a rehearsal I did with Brian Haddon of my songs “Calendar Girl” and “Sleep in the Snow”. Now that I have the proper cables for recording in stereo the two tracks are visible in Audacity. There is a track for my vocals and guitar together and another track for Brian’s synthesizer. The keyboard was dominant in these sessions but now that I can see two tracks I was able to turn down the audio interface gain on Brian’s keyboard to bring up my voice. The other side of the cassette has a recording of a rehearsal of the original Christian and the Lions band in a rehearsal space we rented. I’ll digitize that on Thursday. 

            I made pizza on a slice of multigrain sandwich bread with cream cheese, marinara, tomato pesto, wedge fries, and five-year-old cheddar. I had it with a glass of Creemore lager while watching season 2, episode 4 of Wednesday on Discord with my daughter. 

            Marilyn Thornhill is brought to Willow Hill by Dr. Fairburn to use her bond with Tyler to help treat him. For some reason she lets her see Tyler. He becomes the Hyde monster and attacks Marilyn, throwing her against a wall but she doesn’t mind. 

            Wednesday breaks into the mausoleum where Patricia Redcar’s urn is kept. Grandmama shows up and Wednesday shows her evidence that every Outcast that died at Willow Hill is buried in this cemetery. Grandmama encourages Wednesday to sniff the urn and she discovers that the ashes are from animals and not human. The red eyed raven steals the evidence and Wednesday chases it to a cloaked figure who escapes on a motorcycle. Wednesday asks Grandmama to buy the cemetery so she can investigate who authorized the cremations. 

            Wednesday asks Uncle Fester to infiltrate Willow Hill by becoming a patient. He trashes a hotel room and after being arrested behaves like himself and so he is committed to Willow Hill. The last time he went there was to check on Morticia’s sister Ophelia but by that time she’d escaped. Ophelia has been missing for twenty years. Wednesday asks her mother why Ophelia was committed and she says it was because she pushed her psychic powers too far and it was Grandmama who had her put away. Grandmama gives Wednesday the deed to the cemetery and tells her it was Augustus Stonehurst who signed off on the cremations. Grandmama asks Morticia to give Wednesday Goody Addams’s book but she throws it in the fire. 

            Fester’s brain scan shows various sharp objects inside his head such as a pair of scissors, safety pins and nails. They give him electro convulsive therapy and he enjoys it. Fester’s task for Wednesday is to look for Lois. He thinks the lunch lady is Lois because of her name tag and seduces her but her name is Louise and the “U” and “I” are covered in food spills but they make out in a closet anyway.

            Agnes learns for Wednesday that Stonehurst used to be a psychiatrist at Willow Hill but became a patient. Wednesday is talking with Enid when several crows attack and Wednesday protects her friend. Fester meets Stonehurst who has a foul mouthed parrot on his shoulder. The bird repeats a four digit number. 

           Thornhill recognizes Fester and rats him out to Fairburn. He is captured and chained in a room with Pugsley’s pet zombie Slurp. Thing goes to Wednesday to tell her about Fester’s predicament. Louise helps Wednesday get inside and she frees Fester. Slurp pulls his chains from the wall and attacks some guards who are escorting Marilyn back to prison but now she escapes and heads for Tyler. 

           Fester uses the number he got from the parrot on a maintenance door keyboard. He and Wednesday get in and discover a secret door that reveals a facility called L.O.I.S. where she discovers that several Outcast patients reported dead and cremated are in fact alive and being used for experiments. 

           Wednesday discovers that the cloaked avian is in fact Fairburn’s assistant Judi, who is also Stonehurst’s daughter. Stonehurst started L.O.I.S. to extract Outcast powers and give them to Normies and that’s how Judi got her powers. Fester uses his electrical powers to cause a blackout. The Outcasts are freed and attack Judi. Thornhill frees Tyler but he turns into the Hyde and kills her. Fairburn and Stonehurst are hiding in her office but Slurp turns out to be there as well and he eats her brains. Then he speaks, calling Stonehurst “Old friend” and eats his brains as well. Wednesday fearlessly confronts the Hyde and he throws her through the window and to the ground below where her bloodied form loses consciousness. Tyler escapes. 

           Grandmama is played by Joanna Lumley who was a supermodel during the swinging 60s. Despite having had no theatrical training she transitioned seamlessly into acting from modelling. She made her film debut in Some Girls Do in 1969. She played the female lead Purdey on The New Avengers and her hairstyle “the Purdey bob” became very popular in the 1970s. Her character also became a popular pin-up model. She co-starred in the series Sapphire and Steel from 1979 to 1982. She co-starred as Patsy on Absolutely Fabulous from 1992 until 2012 and her role is considered to be one of the greatest comic performances of all time. She starred in the series Class Act from 1994 to 1995, Dr. Willoughby in 1999, The Foxbusters from 1999 to 2000, Up in Town from 2002 and Sensitive Skin from 2007 to 2009. She co-starred in Jam and Jerusalem, and Amandaland, She co-starred in The Breaking of Bumbo, Innocent Lies, The Satanic Rites of Dracula, Don’t Just Lie There Say Something, James and the Giant Peach, Prince Valiant, Parting Shots, Maybe Baby, Whispers: an Elephant’s Tale, The Cat’s Meow, The Magic Roundabout, Boogie Woogie, Late Bloomers, Absolutely Anything, and Finding Your Feet. She starred in Games That Lovers Play, Dolls, and Falling for Figaro.

         Her father was a major in the Gurkha Rifles in Nepal. Joanna has become a representative for the Gurkhas in the UK and is treated like a goddess in Nepal. She was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 1995 by Queen Elizabeth and she was made a Dame by the queen in 2022 (She says she cried like a baby). She is the voice of AOL in Great Britain. Her 2005 autobiography is called No Room for Secrets. She has starred in several exotic travel documentaries. She is an activist for the indigenous rights group Survival International. She is a patron of Born Free Foundation to keep animals in the wild.