Tag: performances

What’s Going On In Rex Morgan, M.D.? Did the bully just leave the comic? July – October 2024


Sorry to say but, yes. Randy, who’d harassed Corey Wise and Parker, and punched Parker hard enough that they had to go to the hospital, is out of the comic already. I’m sorry to see that. One might argue that “reconciling with a bully” is too close to what Sarah did with Edward a couple years ago. But Sarah and Edward are at the age where you can just walk up to someone and say “we’re friends now” and that’s that. Seeing the process of befriending a bully at the age when all emotions are opera could be interesting. Also there’s great story in their not wanting to be friends but Randy’s mother believing they are and forcing them to be. Not my strip to write, luckily.

If I’ve done this well, you should in a few hundred more words be caught up to mid-October 2024 in Terry Beatty’s Rex Morgan, M.D.. Look at this link for all my Rex Morgan plot recaps, and strip news, and, if you’re reading this sometime in 2025 or later, most likely a more up-to-date plot recap. Unless the shenanigans by Matt WordPress sink the whole thing.

Rex Morgan, M.D.

21 July – 13 October 2024.

Corey Wise, visiting his hospitalized friend Parker, found that Randy Huff — who’d put Parker in the hospital — had himself been hospitalized at the hands of his abusive father. Corey unloads a heap of sympathy on Randy, driving him so crazy that as soon as he can he flees the comic strip. Not before Randy’s mother can get the mistaken idea that Corey’s his one friend in school, briefly.

Corey, to Randy, who's in a hospital bed and bandaged: 'Sorry you got hurt, Randy. I'll go now.' Randy: 'GET LOST!' Outside, Corey runs into a Randy's mother. Corey: 'Oh! Excuse me.' Randy's Mother: 'Of course. I didn't know there was anyone visiting Randy. Are you one of his school friends?
Terry Beatty’s Rex Morgan, M.D. for the 29th of July, 2024. “So you’re my son’s friend? What would you think about maybe opening an orchard in his memory? I mean if he dies. Unexpectedly I mean. Um. Maybe I’ll just go.”

By August 19th they’ve moved out of town, and we get a brief interlude and epilogue. Corey’s been trying to be a stand-up comedian. And now, based on one of Randy’s tossed-off insults, he has an idea: doing a set with Parker as “Shorty and Beanpole”. It’s the sort of broad, music-and-comedy vaudeville-style show of the kind their great-grandparents enjoyed. The comic’s adult cast watch and acknowledge Corey and Parker’s bravery and resilience.

[ Onstage at the Comedy Club ] Parker and Corey, singing: 'I'm Shorty!' 'I'm Beanpole! We hope you like our song! If you know the lyrics, then you can sing along!' 'Hey! Wait a minute! STOP the MUSIC!'
Terry Beatty’s Rex Morgan, M.D. for the 20th of August, 2024. I hope that someday they can reach peace with the memory of this night. Seriously, though, braver than the troops.

August 26 starts the new and current story. It’s built on Truck Tyler, who’s trying to fiddle around with some new tunes. But he’s a guitar player, so you see where we’re in for trouble. The trouble: his fingers seize up on him. He goes to the diner to drown his sorrows in waffles and syrup, but his hand freezes up again on his coffee. What’s there to do besides leave, not telling his girlfriend (and diner owner) Wanda?

While he sulks Parker stops by, and mentions how glad they are for getting a doctor to look at their concussion. Truck admits it would probably be a good idea if he saw a doctor too. But what he does is go back to apologize to Wanda and tell her what’s wrong with his hand and that he opened up about something terrifying to a kid with a bike helmet instead of his girlfriend. When she recommends asking Mary Worth for advice, he can’t get in to the Morgan Clinic fast enough.

Wanda: 'So you talked to some *random* kid in the park about your problem but ran away from *me* without saying a thing?' Truck: 'Well, if you put it *that* way, that doesn't sound so good. ... I guess I just didn't want to worry you with my problems. I'm used to dealing with stuff on my own --- or *not* dealing with stuff, if I'm gonna be honest.'
Terry Beatty’s Rex Morgan, M.D. for the 20th of September, 2024. Wanda is too kind to note that when Truck entered the comic strip, taking care of things himself, he was unhoused, living in a broken-down car with no gas, and dying of a respiratory illness just weeks before the pandemic began, and maybe should let anyone else at all run his life.

This sets off a string of problems, but don’t worry, as Terry Beatty writes a gentle comic where really bad things don’t happen, so all the problems are straightforward to fix. Truck’s physical problem is stenosing tenosynovitis, or “trigger finger”, which is a cooler name for it. An inflamed tendon sheath, so, the easiest thing to do is put it in a splint and not move it. One problem down; next problem, how’s he going to play guitar for his shows? Well, Mud Murphy has had some free time and he’s trying hard to atone for a lifetime of being Mud Murphy. So that’s good, but Truck’s gig is at Lou’s Nite Spot. Lou is still, and with good reason, fed up with Murphy. But, on Truck’s promise that he’ll behave this time for sure, he’ll give it a try. And that’s where we’ve gotten.

Next Week!

For the last time I look at Henry Barajas and Rod Whigham’s Gil Thorp and for the first time look at Henry Barajas and Rachel Merrill’s Gil Thorp! Let’s see what a mess I make of that transition!

60s Popeye: Messin’ Up The Mississippi (it’s in fact quite tidy)


Soundtrack recommendation: a little piece by Sparks.

Wow, feels like forever since I did a cartoon here. Messin’ Up The Mississippi is a 1961 Paramount Cartoon Studios-produced short. Story by Carl Meyer and Jack Mercer and directing by Seymour Kneitel, almost the team you’d expect if you just knew it was a Paramount cartoon.

I don’t know why this is set on a showboat. Like, what about this cartoon couldn’t be done at any theater in any town? The only joke here that would need to be rewritten is Brutus’s comeuppance, where he’s forced to run along the paddle wheel.

This isn’t to say the cartoon is wrong to set things on a showboat, or to set it in some generic Mississippi River town. It’s that Meyer and Mercer decided they wanted this set on a showboat for some reason, and that reason isn’t obvious in what came out. Did they discover in writing there weren’t any good story bits to do that involved the boat? Or at least weren’t bits that they had time for, once the essentials of the plot were out of the way? Or did they want nothing more than to give Mae Questel the chance to try a Southern accent?

On stage Brutus wears a caveman's skinned-hide outfit; he's holding his hand up and speaking confidently to Olive Oyl at the piano to play on.
How long has Brutus had that costume, and what was it acquired for?

The plot’s all good enough. It’s almost archetypical for a particular kind of Popeye cartoon. Popeye’s a performer, Olive Oyl the manager, and Brutus is the stagehand and janitor and ticket-taker and all. He’s jealous so figures to sabotage the act and take Popeye’s place. The sabotage works long enough for Brutus to run on-stage in his caveman skin. But Popeye’s finally aware that he wasn’t tossed greased bowling pins by mistake. So, he grabs some spinach and lifts Brutus who’s himself lifting a whole lot of weights. Even juggles them with his legs, which is quite the feat. There isn’t a fight after this, not really; we just go to Brutus tied up and trapped on the paddle wheel. This supports the idea they just ran out of time for the premise.

It’s all done with the general, steady competence you’d expect from Paramount. It had much of the feel of one of the theatrical shorts. It’s certainly in the vein of Tops in the Big Top, where Popeye and Olive Oyl are circus acrobats. In that one Bluto’s the ringmaster, and has only jealousy of Popeye’s relationship with Olive Oyl to motivate him. Here he’s motivated by a desire for celebrity. So it’s the unusual cartoon where Brutus isn’t interested in Olive Oyl. Just in being on stage.

Me Week: Posts About Doing Stuff


I need another low-impact, low-effort week so I’m going to do another round of posting to some of my older stuff and hoping new readers exist and will give them a try. Also, there’s comic strip stuff on my mathematics blog that maybe you’ll like too.

So. Here’s a piece that was called What You Missed At Karaoke Night until I realized there was a Sparks song that made a better reference. By Sparks I mean the long-running Ron and Russell Mael band. If you haven’t heard Sparks, you should give them a try. This thing started as a Statistics Saturday post and kept growing because it was easier to keep going until it was 700+ words rather than to edit it down.

What You Missed At Open Mike Night follows a similar path, and it’s one I like. A lot of little modest jokes that add up to a satisfying piece.

That feels a little thin overall so let me also put in one of my slightly deeper social-critique pieces. Personality: Can Something Be Done About This? is one of those observational bits that I think is good, but is maybe two rewrites away from being great. Maybe I’ll do that sometime when I need another low-impact week.

Another Blog, Meanwhile Index

The index rose seven points today on rumors that there was some kind of debenture in need of examination or maybe coming due or something and that’s left everyone in a good mood of feeling all financial and whatnot.

269

The Big Novelty Act


I ran across this bit in Anthony Slide’s The Encyclopedia of Vaudeville:

Of the genuine freak acts, one of the most revolting, but popular, was Willard, the Man Who Grows, billed as “the star attraction of the Wintergarten, Berlin”. Clarence E Willard was featured in vaudeville during 1913 and 1914, and could add 7 1/2 inches to his height of 5 feet, 9-3/4 inches. He could extend his arms to anywhere from 8 to 15 inches, and could make one leg 4 inches longer than the other. As “Wynn” noted in Variety (October 17, 1914), “Willard is one of that strange species of novelty that one must see to appreciate.”

I really kind of have to agree: I’m not entirely clear how “becoming seven and a half inches taller” could be an act, exactly, yet I’d be interested in seeing it, so apparently that is an act. And that fact means I can’t fairly make a joke about how, like, yeah, in 1913 the only other public entertainment options were watching baseball from before they bothered mowing the lawns inside the ballparks and catching the latest Balkan War. But I also don’t see what extending an arm eight to fifteen inches could do to be revolting. The best I can get is creepily unsettling. Maybe I’m not thinking about it hard enough.

Design a site like this with WordPress.com
Get started