Pennywise, Joker, and Birthday Child

Birthday Child with the Imaginary Uncles He Didn’t Know He Wanted at the Time

One of our kids just had a significant birthday, marking his transition into official teenhood.

The birthday elicited reminiscing about his receding youth. We spent some time looking at a disk of photos from kindergarten. (Though it was challenging- at this point, we only have one ancient computer in the house that has a disk drive)

For the birthday napkin- and to thwart facial recognition software-I thought I would draw him as a five year old. He is posed with two of his favorite characters from the present day...because violent and horror themed characters hanging around a small child is quite amusing to snarky teens. 

I’m pretty sure he was familiar with the Batman Animated version of the Joker as a five year old, but fortunately Pennywise was not present in any format. 

Sadly, the Nightwing t-shirt doesn’t fit anymore. 

Baby Yoda and Geralt of Rivia

The Child as the Child Surprise in the Bathtub:

Last week I thought it was time to be done with Baby Yoda napkins, but then I watched some of Netflix’s The Witcher, featuring the plot point of “The Law of Surprise” which becomes “The Child Surprise,” and suddenly “The Child” from the Mandalorian popped back into my mind. 

The Witcher show, the Witcher game and Witcher memes have all been in circulation at our house lately. I initially had some difficulty watching Henry Cavill grumbling in a dirty white hairpiece, but eventually succumbed to the sublime ridiculousness of it all. 

And there ‘s not one, but two! bathtub scenes in the course of one season! Strangely, bathing seems to be a thing in fantasy video games. I often find our older son’s avatars in some sort of undressed state in a bath while recuperating between bouts of dueling and pillaging.  Apparently Geralt the Witcher also sits in a bathtub in his game. But he does not have Superman’s body. 

While looking for source material for this image, I particularly enjoyed watching a video clip of a slightly less chiseled Mr. Cavill on a talk show couch, explaining how he severely dehydrated himself for days to make his muscles look better before these scenes.

So if I were going to draw Geralt, I felt I had to put him in a bath. The fact that he is shirtless, of course “makes it one hundred times worse!” according to our younger son. 

Mission accomplished, I think.

Our son did add that it was not as bad as the previous “Boob Yoda” napkin. (Wonder Woman armor with Baby Yoda breast plates) 

I have to point out that “Boob Yoda” has been marginally more liked than many of our other recent napkins.

And I think it definitely should be a hashtag:

#boobyoda 

But then there’s the “booby” oda problem.

Now I’ve really made my kids uncomfortable.

Baby Yoda Breastplate

Cringeworthy Pop Culture Combination:

(which seemed obvious to me... but my son promises we will lose even more followers than usual)

Now that I am more or less liberated from trying to make a small child happy at a school lunch by drawing on a napkin, I can focus on producing napkins that make adolescents cringe. 

Cringing is a term that is definitely compelling to the contemporary adolescent mind, compelling in a way that I can’t quite grasp. 

One of our sons eagerly follows “make me suffer” on reddit, which is definitely a cringe fest.

But nothing makes one suffer more than the embarrassing behavior of one’s parents during one’s adolescence. 

But, beyond tormenting my sons: let me be honest, when I saw the promotional materials for the upcoming Wonder Woman movie, featuring this fetishized, neon, 80’s style, close-up of the breastplate of her “Eagle Armor,” the universe whispered “Baby Yoda” in my ear. 

My apologies. Unfollow at will.

Faux Furries in December

Some Faux Fur is More Faux Than Others:

It’s Faux Fur Friday

(The first Friday in December, according to the National Day Calendar)

I was thinking that we should have a napkin about upcoming December movies...the latest and much anticipate Star Wars saga finale is looming.... And then there is “Cats.” On the way to school in the morning, we squint in the glow of giant screens in the Union Square subway station,  playing clips from the Cats trailer.

When I suggested a furry team up of a Star Wars character and a Cats character, our younger son warned me that we would surely lose a lot of followers on Instagram.

That sounded like a challenge to me.

I picked Ian McKellen’s character, Gus, “the theater cat,” because Mr. McKellen has appeared in other movies the kids have seen. And his cat personage was perhaps not quite as disturbing as some of the others.

I always though Chewbacca’s lips were troubling.

But in this context, maybe not so much. 

(And, National “Kiss a Wookiee Day” is June 15th)

Aliens Naruto Run Out of Area 51 on Monday

(They were just waiting for all the Area 51 raiders to go home)

This one is a little late, (or is it?) as the main event to ”Storm Area 51” was of course scheduled for Friday September 20th. 

“What event?” My ever-tolerant mom is asking as she reads this....(though there was a good bit of coverage in the New York Times.... So, perhaps I can’t use Grandma as a foil here.) 

At any rate, there was a fair amount of attention paid by our kids to the supposed raid on Area 51 last Friday. The huge online phenomenon manifested a good bit smaller in the real world. And sadly, we were not among the 400 or so people who actually went to the site...or the environs. 

But we were among the millions who were impressed by the guy who managed to get his Naruto run in the background behind a reporter from “Action 13 News”...and became a worldwide meme.

Naruto running: perhaps no more implausible or uncomfortable in the real world than the extraterrestrials in Nevada.

My son tells me that he can recognize all of the aliens on this napkin, so at least there’s that.

Aftermath of Area 51 Raid

What One Does to Relax After the Area 51 Raid:

I rely on my sons to keep me up to date on upcoming important cultural events like the “plan” to storm Area 51.... to liberate the aliens the government is hiding therein. 

I don’t think we will be attending, back to school and all, and so hear all the flights and hotels are already booked solid....but it was entertaining to think about what aliens we might be interested in bringing home:

Stitch from Lilo and Stitch, an Ewok, and the later day Ewok- a Porg, Gizmo from Gremlins, and one of the childlike but deadly aliens from Galaxy Quest....and a red panda, just because my son would really like to have one as a pet.

And what would you do once you brought all those cool aliens (and panda) home? 

Watch youtube on your iPad on the couch while wearing your skeleton onesie, of course. 

Our son was quite concerned that the Daily Napkins followers would not be familiar with Galaxy Quest or Gremlins, released in 1999, and 1984 respectively (ouch)

But he had seen both long ago, so I am going to assume some of the rest of our audience might have also.

Kaiju Baby Shark Challenge

God-zil-la, doo doo doo, doo doo doo doo

Ok, so I did have to ask my kids to explain the “Baby Shark Challenge” phenomena to me. I had somehow missed out on the international, egregious ear-worm that is the Baby Shark song.

You are now either shocked by my amazing ignorance, or don’t know what the hell I am talking about (hi Grandma!).

I suspect most who are still reading (besides my aforementioned, endlessly indulgent mother) can’t stand to slog through my explanation of the Baby Shark juggernaut. 

But the bare facts according to Wikipedia:

(Everyone else just skip past the bullet points if you haven’t already stopped reading)

* The point of origin was maybe a campfire song with no particular author, but the song usually had colorful verses including dismemberment by shark, attempted CPR, death and the meeting of Jesus.

* Pink Fong released a child friendly version on @YouTube kids on November 25, 2015 and, “as of May 2019 this version has garnered over 2.8 billion views on YouTube, while all videos related to Pinkfong's song approach 5 billion views, making it the most-viewed educational video phenomenon of all time” (“educational”?)

* "Baby Shark" broke into the Billboard Top 100 at #32 during the week of January 7, 2019

* “Due to its popularity, this version of the song has spurred an online dance craze (sometimes referred to as Baby Shark Challenge) cited as ‘the next big thing after the domination of Gangnam Style’”

When debating which characters to draw making the Baby Shark Challenge dance moves, it seemed inevitable to me that it had to be giant monsters.  The most popular giant monsters of the moment are of course those in the recent Godzilla: King of the Monsters movie.

My son, Kaiju fan that he is, told me this drawing was ok... but that if I revealed the Baby Shark theme, we would immediately lose a lot of followers.

But I am afraid, that almost 10,000 departed Instagram followers later, (yes, we were once at 29,000 plus on that platform) it’s too late for me to start strategizing about social media popularity now.

Rancor and Godzilla for May The Fourth

Lovable Monsters:

The Rancor has his fans, though perhaps not as many as Godzilla. 

There are certainly other creatures in the Star Wars universe who are closer in size to the ever enlarging Kaiju....and I considered drawing them... 

But maybe I just wanted to draw a Rancor holding claws with Godzilla.

Goose and Toothless

But would Dad be allergic to the Flerkin?

Yes, we saw “How To Train Your Dragon:The Hidden World” and “Captain Marvel”

How could we not?

The HTTYD franchise presents a marvelously compelling fantasy of the ultimate pet: Very intelligent, powerful, rideable, flying and breathing fire. So much better than your average dog, cat or even horse.

The only other things we could look for in the ultimate pet might be hidden tentacles and a pocket dimension. 

Goose the Cat/ Flerkin in “Captain Marvel” certainly did not disappoint. 

If you live with a cat and you haven’t seen the movie yet, I can only advise you to be sure to hang around for the post credit scene. 

Sadly, our house does not have accommodations for dragons or felines, but we could sure use a pocket dimension.

All Star

Some 

Body Once Told Me

The World Was Going Roll Me

(I ain’t the sharpest tool in the shed.)

I had a reasonably good opinion of my own intelligence once. There was some outside corroboration- I did quite well in school. My academic success was very much a triumph of drudgery rather than of innate intelligence. But if one drudges long and hard enough, one can mostly outrun the fear of being outed as a secret dummy.

Maybe until you have kids. Or at least until you have my kids.

The fact that I had a 4.0 GPA in college is now at best a surprising and amusing anecdote.  The ability to perform well in school has been a pretty useless skill in my adult life.

You might think that I could at least help my kids excel at school: help them proofread their papers, share tips on how to study for tests, suggest how to budget their time, etc.?

No. No. No. 

Absolutely not. 

I might even have an inverse effect when it comes to fostering academic prowess in my own offspring. 

You no doubt are wondering what this has to do with the napkin. Maybe not much. But to continue:

Like all things meme related, I was slightly confused when I noticed a year or two ago that my that my older son was repeatedly singing the opening lines to Smash Mouth’s 1999 song “All Star.” I was perplexed at the time, as I was pretty sure the song dated from before his birth. I don’t think I even recalled its use in the opening credits of the first Shrek movie- also released before his birth. 

As usual, I though this repeated singing of the song snippet was a sort of special torture he had cooked up for the adults in the house.

...but no, I discovered later, it was everywhere online.

This “All Star” / Shrek meme is a decade long, deep dark rabbit hole...which is actually a rabbit warren of significant proportions. I can’t even begin to explain it here.

(Go to https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/all-star?full=1 if you desire an overview)

But one particular iteration is the “Somebody Once Told Me” photo meme. In the first movie, Shrek throws open the door and bursts out of his outhouse, just as this line plays. 

The related memes feature two images with the text split between “Some/body once told me”  The second image is often something  surprising, upsetting and/or funny that is suddenly revealed from behind a door. Many of them are just variations on how funny it is when things go wrong for other people: falling down, blowing up, spilling something, generally getting clobbered in a demeaning way. 

(For more on this: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/somebody-once-told-m

In summary, the people rolling me have definitely burst out of my own personal outhouse. But I can only say, “get your game on, go play”

Cringe.

Attack of the Shaggy Meme

Stoner vs Kaiju and Saiyan

As I may have mentioned more than once in past posts, the Cerberus at the gates to my personal hell probably has three Scooby Doo heads. While I disliked the entire show during my own childhood, I was particularly unfond of the talking dog and his scraggly chinned, BFF-in-binge eating, Shaggy.

And during the last 15 or so years of parenting, I have felt like there is always a new Scooby Doo movie or TV show sneaking up on me while my back is turned. I wouldn’t say that our kids are major Scooby and Shaggy fans, but their appreciation for the pair has tested my patience on many occasions.

But until recently, I had no idea how Shaggy had been proliferating out of control in the world of online memes. In these memes, the joke is that he is amazingly powerful.

The genesis of online memes can often be random or mysterious, but All Powerful Shaggy has a couple precursors that are easy to spot.

I’ll assume we all know that Shaggy is usually a wimpy, fearful whiner, frequently manipulated into acting as ghoul-bait by promises of food...often dog food. 

But in “Scooby Doo!: Legend of the Phantosaur,” the 16th direct to video movie in the franchise (you read that right: 16th and it was only 2011) Shaggy is hypnotized to become a motorcycle-riding, bar-brawl-winning badass whenever he hears the word “bad.” 

In the earlier 2004 live action “Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed,” there was a memorable scene where Shaggy and Scooby consumed a fridge full of transformative potions, culminating in a ridiculously “buff” super muscly version of Shaggy. (This came immediately after the Shaggy with breasts and a crop top. But the less said about that, the better.)

Perhaps the availability of these source materials made it possible for Shaggy to become the new version of the “Chuck Norris facts” meme.  Chuck Norris facts, as helpfully explained on knowyourmeme.com are, “a series of satirical factoids and hyperbolic claims that characterize the American celebrity martial artist and actor as an extremely tough, virile and alpha-male archetype.” The meme originated in 2005, and lasted a long while. 

For instance: “When Chuck Norris goes to donate blood, he declines the syringe, and instead requests a hand gun and a bucket.”

The Shaggy memes are usually more extreme than even the Chuck Norris facts.

In early 2019, it was popular to declare that Shaggy was actually an all powerful god who could end entire universes using only a small percentage of his powers- i.e. “Shaggy was responsible for the Big Bang while using only 14% of his power.”

Shaggy’s memed all-powerfulness also has anime/ manga inflection to it. He has recently appeared as a modded- in character in the game “Jump Force.” 

Previously some 270,000 people had signed an online petition to have Shaggy added in to the latest version of Mortal Kombat, so clearly the desire to see Shaggy fight is shared by more than just a handful of gamers. 

On this napkin, Shaggy is knocking down Goku, one of the superhuman fighters from Dragon Ball, having already trounced Godzilla. 

I would have liked to include a few more antagonists: Thanos? Darkseid? King Ghidora?

But let’s face it, just Goku and Godzilla were challenge enough.

Sentimental Monster Selfie

Valentine’s Day is arriving far behind schedule here at Daily Napkins. 

Sadly, my staying up late to finish a drawing privileges have been revoked, probably permanently. Once I miss the deadline of the actual holiday, I look at the thing and say something like, “why can’t I even manage to indicate clearly which monster is in front of the other monster?” Then the motivation to display my awkward drawing declines further. Clearly, I was fooling myself about how fun it was going to be to draw all those heads with horns jutting out of them.

But my kids are looking forward to the next Godzilla movie. (Featuring King Ghidora, the three headed gold dragon creature, just in case that needs to be said)

And I am always happy to attempt a peaceful-resolution-between-kaiju sort of image as we could use more of that sort of friendliness between our resident monsters.

(You can see some of our long napkin history of Godzilla posing with other large monsters at the Godzilla section.)

Robot and Son

We’ve been enjoying reading “The Wild Robot” by Peter Brown on the subway to summer camp. A robot named Roz who is shipwrecked on an island populated by animals becomes the mother of a gosling. 

In my son’s action movie universe, the second act of the story would probably involve the revelation that Roz the maternal robot was actually a high tech killing machine from a future timeline, and she would have to use her previously hidden weaponry to save the island’s residents from an interdimensional menace. Many explosions would ensue. 

We haven’t finished the book yet, but I am pretty sure that is not what is going to happen. 

After looking at this napkin, my son told me that he envisioned Roz as looking more like Futurama’s Bender than the Terminator.

Bender would have been easier to draw.

Ghost’s Mask From Ant-Man and the Wasp

The Joy of Headgear That Totally Obscures Vision:

Don’t get me started about the quantum realm where Michelle Pfieffer apparently had decades of access to shampoo, mascara, and fingerless gloves... 

And besides the character’s problematic relationship to physics, Ghost is definitely not a satisfying villain, or anti-hero, or whatever. 

But, as far as our kids are concerned: she has a cool mask, so it’s all pretty good. 

This particular napkin was a slapdash effort, produced in a rush in the morning before our departure for camp...when I was supposed to be making breakfast, folding laundry, unloading the dishwasher, packing the lunch....

I did not have time to capture the weird retro textural variations on the hood and suit...but did at least draw the weird, can’t-possibly-see-out-of-them, glowing, pseudo eye protuberances.

Optimal Pet Rat

We still remain petless despite our younger son’s sincere and persistent requests for a dog.

As I am sure I have already mentioned, I suggested to the kids that a rat would be a smaller, easier, pet...and maybe something that would not aggravate their father’s allergies.

Unsurprisingly, no one wants a pet rat.

Maybe we see too many of the non pet variety on the subway....and in our yard and garbage cans.

During one of our pet rat conversations, our younger son said, “we can get a pet rat, as long as it is larger than my brother and can teach me Kung Fu!”

Then there was some bickering about whether the hypothetical rat should be named Splinter or Ratatouille. 

If only there were a giant rat that could cook and provide educational exercise for the kids...

More likely the large rodent would be sitting on the couch eating cookies and watching YouTube just like the kids.

Fourth of July Snack

We were going to see the latest Jurassic World movie today to celebrate our independence from weekday routine. But one kid was not feeling well enough to consider consuming a large soft drink and a tub of popcorn, so we are festering at home instead.

Alas, no bomb pops were consumed either.

DeadPooh and Cable Too

Consider yourself pounced.

Having sat through the “Christopher Robin” movie preview a couple of times now, listening to Ewan McGregor say, “POOH!” repeatedly....well, it seemed like we had to have a DeadPooh.

I was thinking about pairing him with Spider-Tigger-Man, or maybe Wolverine/Tigger, (too much claw similarity) but our younger son thought Cable was a better bet. 

Perhaps I was just trying to avoid the additional labor of figuring out what Cable was wearing in Deadpool 2 and exactly what his arm looked like.

As it was, I neglected to draw the stuffed bear on his belt...but perhaps that would have been redundant...or meta?

Incredibles’ Jack Jack and Jurassic World’s Carnotaurus

Which One Will Prevail?

We haven’t seen either The Incredibles 2 or Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom yet, and we are going to have to choose one movie to see first this weekend.

I think we are leaning towards The Incredibles. 

And clearly Jack Jack is going to kick that Carnotaurus’ butt anyway. It can’t even stand up to the tyrannosaurus long enough to eat Chris Pratt in the preview.

Not that we will miss an opportunity to see dinosaurs eat non super humans. 

Definitely not.

Deadpool Goes Full Winnie The Pooh

Deadpool Goes Full Winnie the Pooh

Amid the avalanche of pop culture references in Deadpool 2, there is a memorable one to the honey loving denizen of the hundred acre wood.

The reference comes up after Deadpool has been torn in half and is home regrowing his lower body as a pair of toddler legs with adjacent little kid anatomy.  Like the name checked bear, Wade is only wearing a shirt.  And there is also a “Basic Instinct” reference. I’ll leave it there.

Yes, so very inappropriate for family viewing.  That was the point of course.

But I find the display of male body parts in a mainstream movie in a non sexual (and non violent) context to be not entirely a bad thing. 

I realize this may not be a popular sentiment. There is a thicket of gender issues here that I will resist wading into today. But suffice it to say, while the Deadpool film franchise certainly prides itself on boundary pushing, it troubles me less than most R rated action movies as it is not so steeped in misogynistic imagery.

For the napkin, of course the pants had to be on, so the Pooh reference had to be shifted a bit....but the DeadPooh possibilities are there... My kids were not big Winnie the Pooh fans back in the day. (They preferred Curious George)

But, like most small children, they did enjoy reclining on the couch without pants. 

Turbo and Deadpool

The super speed healing man and the super speed mollusc:

We still haven’t seen Deadpool 2 yet. 

My sons are suffering mightily. 

And loudly.

But we did see the more age appropriate snail with Deadpool’s voice way back in 2013.

(Did you remember that Ryan Reynolds was Turbo? 

Are you now as irritated as my sons were when I reminded them?)