I revised my translation of the fourth verse of “La complainte de Bonnot” by Boris Vian. There’s only the second chorus left and then I’ll be done.
I weighed 91.05 kilos before breakfast.
I played my Martin during song practice and as usual it was always out of tune.
I did some more touch-ups of blue bliss around the edges of the four floral reliefs on my future bathroom mirror frame. Next I’ll clean the glass and put it back in the frame. Once the mirror is mounted I might do some slight touch-ups.
I weighed 91.9 kilos before lunch.
In the afternoon it was raining when I started on my bike ride so I just rode one block and then turned around. I decided to take the opportunity of being home early to apply Proofide to my Brooks leather bike saddle.
I weighed 92.1 kilos at 16:50.
I was still a day behind in my journal for the 13th day in a row and even though I had an extra hour to work on getting caught up I continued to be a day behind at suppertime.
I grilled ten chicken drumsticks and had two with a potato and gravy while watching season 11, episode 8 of The Carol Burnett Show.
During the audience warmup someone asks Carol the diameter of her mouth. She repeats the question but doesn’t answer it.
Someone asks her to do the Tarzan call and dislocate her hip at the same time and she does.
A 16 year old named Kevin says his friend Tim wants a kiss. Tim says Kevin wants a kiss. Carol invites them both up but only Kevin comes. She finds out his age is 16, calls him jailbait and gives him a kiss on each cheek.
The first sketch is at a dog obedience school where all the dogs and the instructor are invisible but the owners can be seen. Tim mimes leading a dog that is very hard to control and pees on things in the room. Vicki carries her dog in her purse and it fits in the palm of her hand. Dick’s dog is enormous and perhaps twice as tall as Dick. Dick’s dog eats Vickie’s dog so he has to hold its jaws open while she pulls it out. Class is dismissed but the instructor tells Dick he doesn’t want to see him or his stupid dog again so Dick has his dog attack the instructor.
Dick goes to a dressing mirror and his reflection is played by Carol. They sing the 1926 song “It All Depends On You” by Ray Henderson, Lew Brown, and B.G. De Sylva while getting dressed in clown costumes and makeup. Then they step out from both sides of the mirror and dance together.
Carol plays Rhonda Hughie an insurance inspector investigating a hospital and she is brought to see the head resident Dr. Fisher (played by Tim) who is conducting an operation with an assistant behind the reception desk. Carol says she knew this hospital was crowded but didn’t know it was this bad. Then she sees he’s just making a submarine sandwich. She tells him that a lot of malpractice lawsuits have been filed against his hospital. He shakes her hand while holding a hypodermic needle. He takes her hand to treat it and puts something on it that hurts, She asks what it is and he says it’s mustard. She asks why he would put mustard ion an open wound and he says because he doesn’t have any mayonnaise. A nurse announces that a man on the 8th floor just collapsed. Fisher says to give him 8 CCs of paramyosin. Rhonda asks how he can prescribe that when he doesn’t know the symptoms. Fisher explains that they have a surplus of paramyosin. A patient is being wheeled by on a gurney and Fisher stops the orderly to check him out. Fisher declares him dead but the patient argues that he feels fine. Tim says, “He’s not only dead but delirious”. Rhonda tells him she’s cancelling their insurance policy but then she gets knocked down by a nurse pushing a patient in a wheelchair. She’s hurt her leg and can’t get up so he helps her and gives her two crutches with one upside down. Both crutches break and she falls again, hurting her hip. He says he’s taking her to surgery but she protests that she hasn’t been x-rayed. He puts her in an electric wheelchair and when she tries to operate it she crashes through a wall. She asks for something for the pain and he says he’ll giver her 8 CCs of paramyosin. She says she’s getting out and stands to walk but gets knocked down when a nurse opens the door. The nurse tells Fisher it’s time for his golf game so he leaves Rhonda there.
They do a spoof on the 1945 film The Enchanted Cottage. Carol plays Edda Weaver an ugly person with one eyebrow and crooked teeth. When she knocks on the door of the remote cottage she gets smashed in the face by the upper half of door by Tim’s character John Dinhill, a man who’s not blind but hard of seeing because he’s lost his glasses. John is a famous piano player. Edda says she answering a want ad for an ugly maid. Edda knocks again and Vicki’s character Agatha Bennet answers. She lets her in but makes her look away when she talks to her because she’s so repulsive. Agatha says a sullen and gloomy man who wishes to escape life and live in loneliness has just leased the cottage. His name is Oliver Lawrence who was once a handsome millionaire playboy but he was wounded in the war while shaving. The blade he used had been borrowed earlier that day by a worthless peasant girl who shaved her legs with it. Oliver arrives (played by Dick), covering his face. He says to never touch him. When he sees how ugly Edda is he is willing to uncover his face. There are just five blood spotted tissues covering shaving cuts but Edda almost throws up from looking at him. John returns and makes his way to the piano, which he plays without lifting the keyboard cover. The music makes Edda and Oliver fall in love and they embrace. He asks her to marry him and they want to do it right away. It turns out that Agatha is a justice of the peace. Edda runs to put on her mother’s wedding gown that she brought with her. Several hours later Edda descends the stairs in wedding gown that includes a veiled paper bag over her head that has been in her family for generations. Agatha pronounces them “hag and hager”. After they kiss the enchantment of the cottage is activated and they are transformed into an attractive couple. Agatha explains that in the cottage those who are truly in love become beautiful. Agatha tells John that the spell only works inside the cottage but if they leave it will be pig city again. Edda and Oliver poke their heads out the window to wave at a woman riding by and she screams. Oliver goes out to get driftwood and finds John’s glasses. They go into the cottage and call for him. He and Agatha emerge from the kitchen with their clothing disarray. Agatha says he was sampling her cookies. John goes out for sa walk and almost falls of the cliff. Edda and Oliver run to help him but then they get a look at each other and let him drop. He asks if she’s always had only one eyebrow. She says she had two but plucked the top one. Oliver runs to the cottage and locks her out. John returns after climbing back up and he’s lost his glasses again. Since he only saw her as beautiful, that’s the way he will see her from now on in his mind and so he and Edda become a couple.
Carol says the biggest hit on Broadway is Annie, based on the comic strip Little Orphan Annie. Right now they are shooting Superman, the most expensive movie ever made. Also Wonder Woman is back on TV. Carol says that when she was a kid the funnies were the most real thing in her life. The final segment shows Carol at 13. She sings a song about being too old for toys and too young for boys and so the funnies were her reality. It was her Prince Valiant came home to. It was her Orphan Annie would turn to. It was her Captain Marvel would rescue after Billy Batson said “Shazam!” When Sheena Queen of the Jungle swung in on her vine “It was me and the world was mine”. Then we see inside 13 year old Carol’s fantasies as she is attacked by barbarians and Prince Valiant (played by Dick) comes to the rescue. But he gets speared and Carol calls for help. Annie arrives (played by Vicki) and has her dog Sandy attack the barbarian. A villain passing by puts a bomb in Carol’s hands and Annie says she needs a Mysto Magic Decoder Ring so they pour a big bowl of Super Flakes but there’s no ring inside. Then Captain Marvel (played by Tim) arrives. Then they are surrounded by gangsters with machine guns and so they throw the bomb at them. Sheen Queen of the Jungle arrives (played by Carol). She beats all the bad guys and then does her Tarzan yell.
Sheena Queen of the Jungle was created by Will Eisner and Jerry Iger in 1938. Eisner said her name was inspired by the novel She by H. Rider Haggard but Iger said Eisner had nothing to do with it and he was thinking of the derogatory name “Sheenies” that people sometimes called Jews. The first explanation makes more sense. She first appeared in the British magazine Wags #46 in January 1938. She appeared in the states in Jumbo Comics #1 in September 1938. With the comic Sheena Queen of the Jungle #1 in 1941 she became the first female comic book character with her own title, beating Wonder Woman #1 by three months. She acquired the leopard skin bikini that became her regular costume in Jumbo Comics #10. Her origin is similar to Tarzan’s in that she was a white child orphaned in Africa, but while Tarzan was raised by apes, Sheena was raised by an African witch doctor. In 1955 a TV series was produced starring Irish McCalla. It ran for one season. In 1984 a film adaptation called Sheena was released starring Tanya Roberts. It bombed at the box office but is now considered to be a cult classic.
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