Suggested Audio Jukebox:

 

[1] Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot “Comic Strip”
[2] Chuck Berry “My Ding-A-Ling”
[3] Thompson Twins “We Are Detective”
[4] Was (Not Was) “Spy in the House of Love”
[5] The Specials “Ghost Town”
[6] Eric Clapton “I Shot the Sheriff”

 

Praise the lord for animation. After some of the shit I’ve seen recently, a placement in Toon Town is just what the doctor ordered. After all, nothing untoward happens there right? I mean, take that Wile E. Coyote fellow for example. I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve watched him plummet to his death and still he persists in attempting to cudgel that cuckoo. This makes him either a glutton for punishment or decidedly good sport and, either way, I’m just glad he hasn’t thrown in the towel yet. Just remember Wile E., I’m rooting for you and, if I ever get my hands on that Road Runner, it’ll be a toss-up between pluck it or fuck it and I may just do both in unison. For the record, there appears to be some confusion as to whether he meeps or beeps and I plan to get to the bottom of it the very moment I’ve rolled up my sleeve. Then straight afterwards I plan to write a disgruntled letter to ACME complaining about their shoddy merchandise, before heading straight over to Tweety Pie’s place and sprinkling anthrax in the little bastard’s feeding bowl. There’s a fine line between confident and cocky and he has long since crossed it in my opinion. Tawt you taw a puddy tat did you? Good ‘cos I wedged your cage door open while you were sleeping and Sylvester will be over anytime now to shred you into yellow ribbons.

Perhaps I’m being a little hard on the toons but, for every Road Runner and Tweety Pie, there’s a Minnie Mouse and Daisy Duck so my lifetime ambition of boning a 2D sprite until its rib cage splinters is still a distinct possibility. That’s not why I’m here of course, more of a secondary objective should I banish whatever evil has been lined up for me this day. Details are decidedly vague at this point and it has not yet been decided whether I’ll be granted a set of mousekatools for the occasion. All I know is that the crime rates here are on the rise and this town needs a sheriff… and fast. I’m a little confused as I was under the impression that Yosemite Sam was doing a bang up job of maintaining law-and-order but apparently his meth problem has gotten worse and loose cannons have absolutely no place bearing firearms. I’m rather tickled to be honest as I’ve always fancied myself as a state marshal. Better yet, that would make Bonus Brain my deputy and everyone knows that’s a more fancy word for personal bitch. While I’m out there in the thick of it cleaning up these mean streets, he can man the phones and get cracking with the paperwork. Sounds like a fair cop to me.

Anyhoots I guess the first port of call should be the local gentleman’s club as I hear that Jessica Rabbit is on at 9.30 and word has it that she possesses moves that defy the laws of gravity. Now you tell me, am I wrong for finding her deeply irresistible? If I am then I should fit in well as there ain’t a toon in town that wouldn’t tap that if given half the chance. Which makes it all the more mind-boggling that she plumped for Roger as her fuck-buddy. Am I missing a trick here? Excuse me for pointing out the blatantly obvious but he’s hardly the most rampant of rabbits is he? Must be packing some carrot. If you ask me, I think Jessica’s getting her oats elsewhere, and I dipped my balls in rye just in case the opportunity presents itself. That’ll teach her for mincing up and down that pole suggestively, talk about fragrant. If you want further proof of her cock-teasing ways then ask Foghorn Leghorn why he’s three days behind with the wake-up calls. I’ll tell you why. It’s because he tried to top himself after Ms. Rabbit gave him a personal lap dance and left him tantalizingly mid-roost. If she thinks she can bump and grind the wrangler to the point of evacuation and scarper, then she’s probably right to be honest. I’ll just commit it to memory and wrap things up later.

Not that pleasure will eclipse business while I’m here; there’s a law-breaker to apprehend and I owe it to the good people of Toon Town to do precisely that. My money is on Sneaky Pete as I’ve had my suspicions about him ever since the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Massacre of ’96 and just know he is up to no good. I’ll also be keeping a close eye on Witch Hazel as my dear grandmother taught me never to trust anyone with legs too skinny to support their upper body weight. And if Marvin The Martian thinks he is off the hook then he’s woefully mistaken as E.T. was over thirty years ago now and a freakish one-off in my book. If there’s one thing not to be trusted under any circumstances it’s an extraterrestrial and an extraterrestrial dressed as a roman is a dead giveaway in my book. All three of the above figure high on my suspect list, but I’m not discounting that shady Elmer Fudd character either. Wabbit season finished over two months ago now so I find it highly suspicious that Bugs Bunny was forced to get a restraining order against Mr. Fudd only last week. Now if that’s not wascally behavior, I don’t know what is. Villains the lot of ’em, I tell ya.

That said, my time locked up in Agatha Christie’s pantry served me well, and I’m fully aware that everybody is a suspect. While I feel for Bugs, I’m also very aware of the stunts he pulls on a regular basis and wouldn’t put anything past him. He hasn’t been the same since watching Fatal Attraction and some believe that the emotional scarring has left him dangerously close to going loco at any moment. Personally I have precious little sympathy for him as he’s just a little too cocky for my liking. To be fair, he does scrub up rather well in a frock. Not that I’ll be falling for his antics for a solitary second, I know just what he’s capable of and happen to think it’s high time this haughty hare was taken down a peg or two. Indeed, I may frame him up just for the sheer hell of it as I’m the sheriff in this town now dagnabbit and there are no rules stating that I must play things strictly by the book. Anything goes in Toon Town and it just so happens that Bugs would look mighty fine up to his floppy ears in my casserole dish on a medium heat.

Not that I’ll be providing preferential treatment but there are a few toons deemed exempt from my ongoing investigation. I’ve already mentioned Wile E. Coyote and Sylvester The Cat, and you can excuse Daffy Duck from the list of accused also. There are a number of reasons why I’m cutting Daffy some slack and they have nothing whatsoever to do with his speech impediment as I happen to think him somewhat hard done by. I mean seriously, what does this fella have to do to catch a solitary break? Ill fortune seems to be waiting for him at every conceivable turn and I’d say he’s been through enough toil and trouble for three lifetimes wouldn’t you? I’m all for granting the little guy a break and, despite the fact that a nice bowl of duck soup would slide down delightfully before my bunny broth, there’s always Porky Pig and he’s just crackling waiting to happen in my opinion. Daffy may have a lisp to overcome but at least he gets to the point, whereas Porky just drags shit out a little too long for my liking. Far be it from me to penalize him on account of his stammer, but I do hold him in contempt just for offering so little to proceedings. Besides, I could get an entire spread out of him and it’s been an age since my last chipolata.

They say that behind every great man is a great woman and I guess this counts for toons too so Minnie and Daisy may believe they are excluded from the most wanted list. However, I heard on the grapevine that Mickey’s clubhouse is little more than a front for far more shady operations and, should his books not be in order, then I’m bringing them all in for questioning. While not suggesting that the girls are the brains of this outfit, they certainly aren’t squeaky clean either. I’ve done my homework on the pair and uncovered all manner of misdemeanors dating as far back as the early sixties. Daisy was previously known as Maude Adams and was implicated in The Profumo Affair before being set up in a witness protection scheme and reinventing herself. Meanwhile, Minnie was little more than a petty thief and served eighteen months at Louisiana State Penitentiary before being granted parole under suspicious circumstances. These wenches may have the whole butter wouldn’t melt act down to pat but there’s no smoke without fire and I wonder how Mickey would react to knowing that he’s harboring a known felon and a whistle-blower unbeknownst to him.

Even Goofy ain’t to be trusted. While an IQ of twelve would suggest that he simply wouldn’t have the tool set for anything other than the mildest of peril, he’s smart enough to smother his junk in dog food and coerce poor Pluto into acts he’s not altogether comfortable with so that makes him a prime candidate for wrongdoing in my book. You could argue that he’s canine himself and, therefore, well within his rights to engage in a spot of harmless breeding but he surrendered said rights the moment he slid on that turtle neck in my opinion. Last I heard, he was in cahoots with Chip ‘n’ Dale and I wouldn’t trust that pair of rancid rodents as far as I could fire them from a BB gun. Hoarding acorns may not be considered a crime but I’d like to see them explain their way out of the cool million stashed away in their tree trunk, behind the mangled remains of Speedy Gonzales. Not quite Ándele enough, eh Speedy. You see, they’re all as culpable as each other these toons. No wonder Scrooge McDuck is so constantly edgy. Benzodiazepines only go so far y’know.

As you can see, Toon Town is literally heaving with unsavory characters and it is my thankless task of sorting the wheat from the chaff. While my detective skills are none too shabby, I’d love to hear Bonus Brain’s take on this questionable bunch and see if he can shed further light on who is tugging the strings of organized crime in this once peaceful borough. Now if only I had the faintest idea where he was right now, we’d be off to a solid if unspectacular start. I’ve searched everywhere, not a stone has been left unturned, and the Betamax player is stone cold so it would appear that skulduggery may well be afoot. Perhaps he’s skipped bail and is currently on a Greyhound headed for Arkansas. The very last thing I need right now is to embark on a nationwide brain hunt, particularly when Jessica Rabbit is on in no more than five minutes and her pole is already being greased up ready. Talk about a conundrum. Do I attempt to solve the crime on my own and hopefully bag myself a hand job from this wascally wabbit or scour southeastern America for a cantankerous cortex with wanderlust issues who admittedly stands out like Rocky Dennis in an I.D. parade? Apologies Bonus Brain but you’ll have to fend for yourself for the time being as I’ve got a warren to infiltrate and chances like this don’t come around often. Hurry on back little man and you may still earn yourself sloppy seconds.

Well that’s bizarre. I could have sworn I read the flyer correctly. So what’s with the no-show anyhoots? Unless that’s Pepé Le Pew‘s unwashed armpits I discern, I smell a rat most rancid. Perhaps it’s time I engage in a spot of snooping around back stage and see what’s causing this unsolicited delay. The crowd is growing increasingly restless and the Tasmanian Devil is threatening to instigate a bar room brawl so I’d better get my wriggle on quick smart. The last thing we need is that whirling dervish blowing my cover when I’m so tantalizingly close to cracking this case once and for all. Time to earn that badge methinks before Yosemite Sam is released from rehab. And there was me thinking this would be a stroll in the everglades. There’s nothing like a cock-teasing carrot cruncher to toss a stray cat amongst the pigeons. When I catch up with her, I shall introduce her to a little friend I like to refer to as thumper, and the clue really is in the title with that one. I just hope she hasn’t come down with the dreaded myxomatosis as I hear that’s the equivalent to Ebola to bunnies and it just seems like a waste of good tail to me.

Well that’s just bloody marvellous, I’ve been well and truly had, and made to resemble a wilted wurzel in the process. While the case of the Toon Town Treachery is no closer to being solved, it would appear that the whole Bonus Brain mystery is no longer such a head scratcher. Even more disheartening is the fact that he’s currently in a position no less than compromising with none other than Jessica Rabbit and no more than three shakes of a lamb’s tail from his very best Elvis impersonation. What a roguish ribald he is, cocking a deaf ear when he knows full well I’ll worry, then copping hold of the headliner directly beneath my sorry snout. I have a good mind to contact his parole officer and have him thrown to the wolves but, for all his surreptitious snidery, I just couldn’t bring myself to shop the little fella in. Perhaps I’m a soft touch but I’m also not willing to act as informant, particularly given that this is the first time I’ve seen him raise a smile since I last snagged a slither of ball skin in my zipper. If you ask me, he can count himself damn lucky that I get rather a kick out of watching from an unseen vantage, albeit with bloodshot eyes and a frown that makes Bert from Sesame Street appear positively cordial. This proposes to be my angriest wank since I watched Catwoman.

I’ve had a skinful of Toon Town. As far as I’m concerned, the whole wretched place can go up in flames, and I therefore relinquish my badge of honor and will be on the first pair of rocket-propelled ACME roller skates out of here. They can solve their own crimes from now on as I’ve wasted quite enough of my precious time being hoodwinked by batted lashes and razor blade smiles for one day. There will be words when we return home and Bonus Brain will be required to get his very best grovel on if I’m not to cast him aside like the devious deserter that he quite clearly is. For now however, I still have one friend in Toon Town who I feel that I can rely upon in a tight squeeze. Good old Wile E. Coyote will never let me down in a fix and has kindly proposed to donate his services as my trailblazing guide out of this hell hole. Thanks Toon Town for fucking nothing, I’ve done my bit and there appears only one thing left to say before I follow this wayward leader straight off the edge of this cliff like the lemming that I am. You guessed it, That’s all folks!!!

 

Click here to read Wrangler & The Brain

 

 

 

 

 

Who Shamed Jessica Rabbit?

 

Since starting to wrangle I’ve met a few wrong ‘uns
but you missy could take the biscuit
you may pout your lips and gyrate those sweet hips
but I’m not sure I’m willing to risk it

 

See I know where you’ve been and I find it obscene
that your bedpost hosts so many notches
if they carved you wide open I swear blind they would find
half a license plate and three busted Swatches

 

You may think you please me and indeed I get queasy
every time I discern your aroma
but I like me a challenge and just find you too easy
so keep your hands off my gland’s haematoma

 

Okay maybe just one for the road wouldn’t hurt
seems a shame to misspend my erection
but I’ll tell you one thing and I’ll tell it for free
I shall first double up on protection

 

Should it turn out it’s catching and I find myself scratching
then I’m holding you fully accountable
as I normally pride myself on my resolve
but I’m doomed when a chick’s so damn mountable

 

As you may well have guessed through my biting protests
I detest you you wascally wabbit
so I’ll bid you adieu in a moment or two
but for now keep on sucking dagnabbit