Fishy Behavior

Sexual harassment is nothing to joke about. Unless it involves fish, then I think it's okay. It's okay, isn't it? Please don't file a complaint against me. I need this job.



I'm not happy with Brad's fishy face -- his raised eyebrows make him look surprised. I guess it's okay if most people don't get it at first -- as long as they figure it out eventually. Here is a handy illustration to help you enjoy this episode.

I can understand animators anthropomorphizing fish for our entertainment -- Finding Nemo was a lot of fun. But when serious fish researchers do it, is that right? Sexual harassment? Female bonding? In fish? Really?

The article I read didn't say how the female fish bonded. They can't go shoe shopping. To my knowledge, there have been no Sex and the City screenings underwater. I guess they can go out for sushi. Anyone have any ideas?

An Esquire Man

I'm a long-time subscriber to Esquire Magazine. I got swayed by the substantial savings of a multi-year prepaid subscription, so they keep coming to the house whether I want them or not.



If you find this episode hard to believe, you can save yourself $4.50 and read the article online here.

In the interest of full disclosure, I submitted a story to Esquire a while ago and got a typical form rejection letter that said it wasn't right for them. Mine was a satirical story about an idiot adventurer, and the very month I got the rejection they printed a story about a real idiot adventurer who was just like the guy in my story. The difference was that the story they published was full a fawning admiration, without a hint of irony. It's no wonder they hated my story. You see, Esquire wants to be "the most interesting man in the world" from those Dos Equis beer commercials, when they are actually that grey-haired guy on Project Runway. (No offense intended toward Tim Gunn. Mr. Gunn seems like a very nice guy who is perfectly happy being Tim Gunn.)

If you're not familiar with Esquire, sorry for wasting you time today. I hope you found the clip amusing, if a bit puzzling.

Hey, who knew Lily was in an 80's music video? The direction of this video was so goofy -- the lyrics are actually quite moving. Maybe I'm too sentimental -- but why did they shy away from the true emotions behind the words. They blew it. Still a great song though.

Part-time Job

I have Facebook fan Dan McCulley to thank for pointing me to this article -- though this kind of story is the least satisfying to write about. When a story is already absurd, there's not much I can do to improve it. It's easy to write, but I enjoy the challenge of finding the absurdity in stories where it isn't so obvious. But this story is too damn funny to ignore.



Of all the remarkable aspects of this story, the way the wives went along with it is noteworthy. I can understand a woman being desperate to get pregnant, but the fact that the donor dude's wife went along with it too is surprising. I guess they needed the money. I wonder if my wife would agree to stud me out to a neighbor? The situation has never arisen. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. I'm open to considering proposals.

Haute Cuisine

I was alerted to this gastronomical phenomenon by my friend Erik Marcus at Vegan.com. I'm an omnivore, but I think I'd draw the line on this dish. There's no wonder how Paula keeps her lovely figure.



You can probably still see the clip at The Food Network site. I could give you the link, but I figure if you really want to see it, you can find it. You're a resourceful person. Somehow you found your way here.

She's doing it wrong by rolling it in flour, eggs and crumbs. Batter-dipped is the way to go. Just whip up some pancake batter and dunk -- so much easier and it gives a thicker, crunchier, more calorie-dense coating. That's how we did it when I worked at Arthur Treacher's Fish and Chips. The tricky part of that job was trying to gently lower a block of batter-dipped frozen fish into the hot oil. About every sixth block would slip out of my fingers and fall in, causing the hot oil to splash up and burn my forearm. That summer I walked around with little scabs all over my arms. I call the fish "blocks" because they were formed into perfect 60° right triangles. You couldn't really call them "fillets." I usually went next door to the Taco Bell for lunch. My boss told me to at least take off the uniform shirt when I do that.

They did have the best dessert there though -- a deep-fried lemon turnover that put the Micky D's apple turnover to shame. I miss those lemon turnovers. And they had these giant "chips" that were the size of monkey-wrench handles. How could that fail?

Funeral Beer

I think the perfect beer for a funeral would be Guinness, because it's dark -- almost black. A light golden ale would just look too festive.



Hey, two mentions of Guinness in a week. You'd think the Guinness folks would be cutting me a check about now. Or at least sending me a free case. Let's get on that, Guinness.

Txt Msg Divorce

I know some Muslim men can divorce their wives by saying the magic words three times, but does it work the other way? Can women do that to divorce their husbands? I doubt it.



I wonder if the existence of this divorce method has Mel Gibson questioning his Catholicism these days.

Hey, anyone have way too much time on their hands? Who's up for creating the Deadpan Inc. Wikipedia article? Have at it. (I'd do it, but the Wiki-masters frown on self-promotion.)

World Records

Seriously, I'm thinking of getting a job with the Guinness Book of World Records people. They must be one of the few companies hiring in this economy, what with every nutcase in the world trying to set some kind of record. Plus, free Guinness!



I think I hold the world record for the creation of semi-funny, semi-animated semi-films. For whatever that's worth.

Gay Elephants

Bam! Short and sweet. All the fun in half the running time.



If homosexuality exists in nature in the form of gay penguins and gay elephants, isn't it logical to conclude that homosexuality in a certain percentage of humans is "natural." Dare I say "created by God"? Of course, anti-gay-rights people would argue that cannibalism exists in nature, but we don't legalize that. Yeah, they would compare another person's love life to cannibalism. That's how they roll.

The National Organization for Marriage (NAMBLA)* just did a commercial featuring actors saying scary things about gay rights in front of a stormy background. Stephen Colbert did a perfect parody of it on The Colbert Report. If you haven't seen it, you should. Too funny.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The Colbert Coalition's Anti-Gay Marriage Ad
colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor NASA Name Contest

It's probably not a good idea to post someone else's video that is funnier than my own, but I couldn't resist sharing this. I love how the teacher instantly turns flamboyantly gay after the lightning strike.

*I stole that NAMBLA gag from The Daily Show. (It's an homage, not stealing, if you give attribution.) They used to do it all the time, whenever they covered an association with an acronym for a name. I think they retired it.

Lung Trees

This is the second episode I've done on what could be a whole new genre of news stories -- "good news/bad news" from a doctor that someone has a freakishly disturbing medical condition, but it's actually good news because it wasn't cancer. The first story was Brain Worms.



Here's the original news story. Not that I think any of you doubt my assertion that this is a real news story. I never make up news items. Brad and Lily are fictional, so everything that happens to them is made up, but the news they talk about is always real.



So is the botanist calling the surgeon a liar? Them's fightin' words.

Lily's attitude toward camping exactly mirrors my wife's. I bought a mosquito net for the dining set on our patio so we can eat outside without her worrying about contracting West Nile Disease. In her defense, she does draw mosquitoes like no other person on Earth.

Hey Facebookers! A new fan page exclusive was posted over the weekend. Be warned -- watching fan page video without being a fan makes you susceptible to brain worms.

Chocolate Inhaler

This is a real product. If companies can afford to develop and launch products like this, the credit crunch can't be that bad. Maybe the recovery has begun.



Here's a picture of the inhaler. It's called the LeWhif and it costs $53 for 24 whiffs of chocolate smell. I'm not kidding.


When creating this clip I actually put a little effort into finding a good name for the strip club. I did a quick Google search and found PoleKatz, and that sounded perfect. Apparently the food is very good there. I'd go, but those stripper shoes scare me.

Meat for Sex

Humans are more like our ape cousins that we like to admit.



I like the ending of this one. I think it's funny without being "jokey." I hope you enjoyed it too.

Lickable Ads

Another real news item just made for this blog.



I wonder if this technology could save the newspaper industry. If a semi jack-knifes and spills its load of marshmallow Peeps all over the highway, you could lick the story to taste them. If a world leader upchucks on another world leader*, you could taste whatever it was that made him hurl. If they announce a recall of peanut butter products and you don't know what peanut butter tastes like, you could taste it. The possibilities are endless.

*In case you're too young to remember, this actually happened. George Bush Sr. threw up on the Prime Minister of Japan. It happened at a fancy Japanese state dinner and it was awesome.

Twitter Cat

Sometimes I see something online that simultaneously encourages and discourages me.



I'm new to Twitter, so my follower count isn't much higher than Brad's. I've decided to say "I'm new to Twitter" until I have over 100 followers. Five years from now I'll probably still be saying "I'm new to Twitter."

I held off on getting of Twitter for a while because I was worried that I'd spend what little wit I have on tweets rather than this blog. I've come to realize that Twitter can (and should) be more about sharing links, RTs and @replies than posting mundane details of your own life. I intend to get better at that. Rainn Wilson of The Office has an entertaining feed because he continually shares interesting things he finds online, with only the occasional "I'm standing in line at Starbucks" update.

By the way, I thought about giving you the link to the cat with 200,000 Twitter followers, but then I thought you might find it charming and amusing and then forward the link to all of your friends when what you should really be doing is forwarding my link to all of your friends, so I didn't. You're a resourceful person. If you really want to see it, you can find it on your own.

The lines about STFU Koalas were just for a very small number of hardcore fans who saw my April Fools Day joke. If you missed it, sorry, I deleted it after a few days. (It wasn't that funny anyway.)

Pirate Wives

The Somali pirates have been in the news again, so of course, Brad and Lily have to talk about them. Their work can wait.



There's been a lot of debate about whether ransoms should be paid to these Somali pirates. I suppose your opinion on this issue is dependent on your individual perspective. If you are a pirate, I'd assume you would be pro-ransom. (If any actual pirates are reading this, please leave a comment below. We'd love to hear from you.) If you are a hostage, my guess is that you'd be pro-ransom too. I sure would be. On the other hand, insurance company executives would probably be unanimously anti-ransom. That would be my guess, but I could be wrong.

Computer Rage

This subject is near and dear to me. Just last week my "trusty" old PC died and I was forced to go replace it. Finally, I had an excuse to go Mac.



However, if anyone at Microsoft would like to talk to me about a sponsorship deal, I'll gladly take it all back. I try to stay flexible in my opinions.

Odeur de l'espace

Don't worry, this episode isn't in French. I just thought it would be fun to name it like a futuristic perfume inspired by the fragrance.



I realized after I finished this that he should have referred to it as a "mysterious" odor. If you didn't know the astronauts were confounded by it, the joke could be lost. Oh well, what can I do? Re-do it? I don't think so. Moving on.

Irony

This episode is dripping of it.



Yeah, the last two lines were totally self-indulgent. I judge whether a clip is working if it makes me laugh or not when I play the preview. This one seemed lacking until I added the last two lines. I'm not sure that helped anyone else find it funny, but it gave me a chuckle -- and as an artist, isn't that all that matters?

Speaking of The Three Stooges, the Farrelly brothers want to cast Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro and Jim Carrey in their film version. I think that's a great idea, but I think to make it really interesting, they should play it straight -- not as a comedy.

One more thing, a quick thanks to Scott Beale for featuring DI on Laughing Squid. Very nice.

Mortuary Science

When I read this story, I honestly had the exact same thought that Brad did. Why is this illegal? A funeral home employee snitched and they exhumed the body to check it out. Really? Why? Who cares?



If you're not familiar with the name mentioned at the end, David Frum was a speechwriter for Bush who helped spin us into the Iraq war with the phrase "the axis of evil." He's a "true American hero." He's also the son of a multi-millionaire real estate developer. A lot of conservatives (and liberals too, I admit) join the cause due to a pet issue, such as abortion or terrorism. I'm guessing his is the estate tax.

The estate tax is a good example of how they try to use jargon to spin ideas. Nobody minded the estate tax because, as its name implied, it only applied to rich people. So the Republicans renamed it the "death tax." That didn't work on me. My feeling was, "Hey, why not tax the dead? They don't care. And even if they did, what are they going to do about it? Screw you dead guys."

I have to give props to Frum for one thing, though. Even he came out against Sarah Palin as being obviously unfit for the job. So I'll give him that.

Hay Fever Relief

I have to thank Kevin Parsons for sending me this news story. With that to work with, the episode practically wrote itself.



A while ago I did an episode called Brain Worms and I still occasionally get visitors who stumbled on this site as a result of a Google search for "brain worms." I picture someone getting a disturbing diagnosis, doing a search to see what they are up against and then finding a silly little video that makes light of their plight. So if you came here looking for serious relief for your hay fever -- sorry.

For those of you so kind as to be fans on the Facebook fan page, there's a new exclusive clip up there for you to see. Enjoy. But if you go there to see it and don't click "Become a Fan", shame on you.

New Mexico

This is the kind of episode where I fear some stand-up comedian will contact me and say I ripped off his New Mexico joke. I don't think I've heard any of these jokes before, but I wouldn't be surprised if I wasn't the first to make them. Co-invention happens all the time.



A few years ago I had the thought that it must be really hard to throw away an old garbage can -- the garbage man would just be confused by the empty can at the curb and leave it behind. Then last year NBC ran the first SNL (an episode I know I saw back in the day) and George Carlin told that joke. Somehow it lodged in my subconcious for decades, waiting to pop out as what I thought was an original idea. But then again, maybe I had forgotten it entirely and my idea was, in essence, "original." Who knows? But as unintentional as it would have been, if I had used the garbage can joke in a DI, someone would have remembered the Carlin bit and assumed I was stealing from the master. Yikes. I hope nothing like that ever happens, but it probably will. Maybe it already has.

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get them to pronounce Albuquerque correctly. No matter, the mispronounciation is funnier.

Italian Ingenuity

I'm rushing through this posting because I have to go computer shopping. Then I'll be spending the next two days installing software, transferring files, all kinds of fun activities. No matter how bad your old computer was, getting a new computer isn't fun. It's pretty much the opposite of fun. I know a lot of computer geeks can think of nothing better than loading up a brand new CPU, but that's not me.



How much fatter will American office workers be when they get this machine installed in company lunchrooms. As if the smell of microwave popcorn isn't tempting enough, imagine the smell of fresh pizza baking at 3:00 in the afternoon.

The call out to Portugal didn't work as well as I had hoped, but it probably doesn't matter. It's not likely anyone in Portugal is going to see this. I don't really have a beef with Portugal; I just needed an ending. Sorry, Portugal.

UPDATE: The Obamas have obtained a Portuguese Water Dog. What the hell is the matter with our American Water Dogs?

The Tao of Brad

Here's a third happiness related episode to close out the theme. Ironically, my main computer just died so I'm far from happy right now. I just love forced shopping trips. Maybe I should use this as an excuse to finally go Mac.



While it might sound like I'm being dismissive of Zen teachings, I actually think they make a lot of sense. Though I'm not actively seeking enlightenment, I do try to keep material concerns from interferring with my ability to enjoy life. I may not be as ambitious as I might be if I were more greedy, but I do save a lot of money not buying crap I don't need. I'm sort of Zen-lite. I'm perfectly happy driving a Saturn Ion as long as it has the upgraded engine, chrome wheels and leather interior. Don't judge me.

A cool animation blog, Cartoon Brew, featured Deadpan Inc. today. While I greatly appreciate the attention, there were some strange statements in the posting. He said I do these "instead of writing." How does he think I do them? I'm not recording the conversations of actual robots. Didn't think I would have to clarify that, but I guess I did. He also calls me out as "obviously not a professional animator." Boy, he got me there. Actually, I got the impression he liked the work, despite the snark, and as they say, "There's no such thing as bad publicity." Thanks Jerry.