Star Wars Poker Game

‪"The fear of loss (in poker) leads to the dark side." 

...or don't try to cheat Yoda...unless, perhaps, you are a poker playing dog.

I thought about updating the "Dogs Playing Poker" background to something more spaceship appropriate...or maybe Tatooine-appropriate... But decided to go with the classic red and green pseudo club-decor.

The "Dogs Playing Poker" painting was actually a whole series of paintings produced by one artist over a period of years around 1894-1907 for an advertising campaign for a cigar company. Or so says Wikipedia. This image is a bit of a combination of three of them. 

My younger son was the one who suggested the poker game. He now tells me that the drawing did not live up to his expectations. He thought that R2D2 and "Chopper" the contrary droid from "Star Wars Rebels," should have been the ones passing cards in the foreground, as they both have extendible arms. 

Oh well. Another missed opportunity.


a couple of the paintings:

Yoda, C3PO, R2D2 and Wicket

Group selfie of the short of stature held up by the metallic:

This particular group of characters was requested by a non relative looking for a picture for a three year old Star Wars fan.

My younger son and I discussed what would Yoda, C3PO, and an Ewok be doing if they were together? His suggestion was that they should all be playing poker like the dogs in the well known "Dogs Playing Poker" painting.  He was familiar with it because we had a napkin a couple of years ago that brought up the idea of that painting.

While I agreed that was definitely a potentially funny scenario- (is the Ewok cheating with extra cards? Or is R2 using his extension arm to hold the cards?) Poker seemed maybe not the right fit for the those under 5.

Recently, the group selfie has become my lazy fall-back explanation for any grouping of characters.

My son tells me I still need to draw his poker game idea with Yoda, Wicket and the two droids.

R2-D2 Rides the Ankylosaurus

Astromech Astride an Ankylosaurus:
Star Wars Rides Dinosaurs #6

I had a rationale as to why I drew Artoo on this particular dinosaur...but I can't imagine that anyone really wants to read about it.

Suffice it to say that Ankylosaurs appear in "Jurassic World" in a somewhat memorable fashion and seemed to deserve inclusion in the napkins series.

Limecat and R2-D2

Internet Cats and Robots, Day 4:

Limecat and Artoo are not pleased that many people cannot tell the difference between a pomelo and a lime.

Limecat (later know also as Melon cat or helmet cat) was another one of the early lol cats passed around the Internet starting in 2003. The photo was often reproduced with the tagline, "Limecat is not pleased."

It seems wearing a pomelo rind on one's head is part of a Chinese mid autumn moon festival, and the original picture might be Chinese in origin. There have, of course, been many other memes of cats with fruit rinds on their heads since. Google "cats with fruit helmets" if you somehow missed this trend. My personal favorite is the "Scurvy Awareness Day" website, limestrong.com, and their gallery of  "scurvy free cats" wearing citrus on their heads. They have even given Limecat the name of Mr. Boots and, remarkably, also misidentified the headgear in question as a lime.

As to the question of why Limecat and R2-D2?
I can only say that I remain more than a bit of a formalist. For my 12 year old son who sometimes reads this blog: that means that I put the two together purely because of their similar shapes.

(Now I just need to find a robot who goes well with the cats wearing toast on their heads- otherwise known as "Inbread" or "Breaded cats")