You Don't Know Jack
January 21, 2013 Once Upon A Time...
...there was a boy named Jack:
;)
...who used a lot of sunblock.
Jack lived with his mother in "The Hovel by the Phallic Fountain."
;)
The hovel needed a new roof, but Jack and his mother had no money.
So they decided to sell their only cow, Boxy.
;)
(Look, I don't know what it is, either, but this story is going to move along a lot better if we can all just agree it's a cow, OK? Moo.)
On the way to the market, though, Jack met:
;)
...the Way Stuffed Cellulite Man.
Mr. Way Stuffed convinced Jack to trade him the "cow" for a tray of tragic spleens.
;)
(Sure, they look happy now, but that's only because they don't recognize my masterful use of foreshadowing.)
Jack's mother was livid when he can home with the spleens, and made Jack give them a proper burial.
(See? Tragic.)
After a miserable night with no supper, Jack woke up to see a flowing vine where he'd buried the spleens:
;)
The Tragic Spleenstalk reached all the way to the clouds. As Jack stood gaping, suddenly the Faceless Fairy appeared!
;)
"Jack, climb the spleenstalk to find a magic chicken who lays golden eggs!" she projected telepathically.
(She doesn't have a mouth. Try to keep up.)
"But beware the ogre who guards the chicken!"
So Jack climbed the spleenstalk, and there was the chicken:
;)
In a festive knit straitjacket.
Jack had just grabbed the bird when he heard a roar!
;)
It was the ogre, Oh'Duh!
"Take the bird not you will!" Oh'Duh screeched.
Jack quickly fled down the spleenstalk, where his mother was waiting with a dump truck and a huge load:
;)
...of dirt.
Before the ogre could follow, they knocked over the spleenstalk and buried it, trapping Oh'Duh in his cloud city.
With the money they made from the golden eggs, Jack and his mother were able to build a brand new home by the Phallic Fountain, complete with matching turrets.
;)
(Those two really know how to use their heads.)
And they all lived happily ever after.
;)
Well, OK, maybe not ALL of them.
Thanks to Amy, Giopi, Sarah J., Graham K., Sara E., moxie, Jenni Q., Shannon C., Becky C., Flowe L., Dani S., and Daniel C. for the fairy fail ending.
Reader Comments (121)
Brilliant! Please let us know when you sell the movie rights, we can start fan casting the roles! :)
@mel <<GRRROAN!!!>>> I. Am. So. Not. Worthy. :-)
The Tragic Spleens -- awesome band name!
*insanely loud guitar riff*
(Wallpaper commences peeling off the walls.)
Oh'Duh was a greenish wily dude
Subtly stupid and supremely crude
Killed Blackjack to protect his chick
Then here came Whitejack – what a *bleeeep!*
Oh'Duh began to fear he'd never be a falker
Would he be killed by the Tragic Spleenstalker?
Whitejack stole poor Oh'Duh's fashion chick
And ran off to meet his mother and the truckload of… brick.
Oh'Duh was trapped in his cloudy tower
And the only way he could while away every hour
Was to peer down on Whitejack and his momma gal
In their mighty spiry palace of phal.
*insanely loud guitar riff*
*equally insane feedback*
RockLobster and the other groupies can pack up the speakers and go get us some Cheetos now.
I love the Spleenstalk pun, but those are clearly tragic *gallbladders* rather than spleens.
See, these: http://www.humpath.com/spip.php?article729 are spleendid spleens.
This is the gallbladder: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gallbladder_and_hepatic_artery_2.jpg
I rather liked the under-the-sea wedding cake with starfish bride and groom and towers looking like contracted anemones.
Um, actually, that guy is more like an over-grown Adipose from Doctor Who :D
best continuous story line i think you guys have done yet, hiLARious!
tragic spleens, lmao... Nice work Sharyn!
@HaikuJoy - Congrats! Do you prefer the original effects or the new & improved ones? We've been 'educating' The Daughter on Star Trek:TOS since she wondered why my iPhone case had the image of a HUGE sword going through straight down through the top of the earth (& out the bottom). ;-) (Major bonus points if you know which episode that's from, Ms. Haiku... :-)
@Craig - Yet again, an excellent list! Wrap that thermal blanket around & stay warm, friend.
Haiku Joy -- we'll have you making your own tribbles any day now...
mel -- I've missed you! You came back with a bang!
Jodee in WA -- Aw shucks. Heck, I've been non-stalking Jen and john (thoJ) -- although personally I think he's earned an upper case "j" by now -- as well as quite a few commenters here, for years. Welcome to the club!
SO much fun here! Love the pics on this site, whether beautiful or ugly, but the commentary is what makes this site! And today's is the best yet! Thank you, thank you!!!
I think "Jack" is supposed to be Stewie Griffin.
Wow! Am I really the first one to "point out" that 2 is Freddy Kruegers house? With a new addition of a water fountain resembling the process of procreation :/ That's a whole new kind of nightmare if you ask me!!!
Well, I had never, ever seen any TOS until a few months ago, so I guess original effects? I'm pretty sure that's what we're watching. I'm clueless about the sword through the Earth. I've heard of the Tribbles before but I don't know who they are. I still have four seasons and six movies to go through, so don't spoil it for me. I'll tell you what, though - Futurama is going to make a lot more sense.
.
When you wrote: On the way to the market, though, Jack met:
I said "The Michelin Man!" really loudly. :D
Did anyone else hear this read by the narrator of "Fractured Fairy Tales?" Or am I showing my age?
@ pikkewyntjie, I thought the same thing. Looked like a sloppy and less oval version of Stewie. lol
@TXRed, you're thinking of Edward Everett Horton. You're not showing your age any more than am I for knowing that.
TXRed! Have you been around and I didn't notice? You've been missed.
OMG I couldn't see anything after "tragic spleens" because I was laughing too hard. Honestly, WHY do you do this to me! HiLARious.
Pleeeeaaase tell me those are not REAL starfish/sand dollars/seashells on that cake....because, in my humble opinion, frosting should not taste like dead shellfish and have sand in it. That's just me, though.
Also, Stay-Puft actually looks pretty good. I wouldn't necessarily consider him a "wreck."
@Haiku Joy - FOUR SEASONS?! Methinks you might have combined TOS and NG Star Trek... The Sword Through Earth is from the episode "Mirror, Mirror", which is actually the 2nd season of TOS, so you would not have seen it yet... FYI - There are 3 seasons of TOS, 7 seasons NG and a plethora of movies for each, plus the DS9 series, the Voyager series, and the Enterprise series, and Star Trek: The Animated Series (which I guess would make it TAS). TAS ran in the 70s, btw. Plus the comic books, fiction books, fanfic books, documentary videos & books...showing my geek, ain't I? My hubby's worse! He can tell you in which episode Captain Kirk's tunic changed colors between scenes! :-)
@TXRed & Craig - very Fractured Fairy Tales - Hee-hee! (I always wondered why my dad found that kid's show so entertaining & funny... ;-)
Wonderful, wonderful, funny fun!! Love the sea shells on the sandy cake. Just the thing when you want a nice INEDIBLE decoration. So much hipper than ordinary plastic flowers and fruit. Thanx CW!!
@everyone - way to watch me totally hijack the comments, starting . . . now!
@KarateLady
Aren't there two animated seasons of TOS? (You called it TAS.) Three live action plus two animated = 5 year mission? That's what I meant by that. I'm sure your reckoning is probably the standard. Truthfully you're not going to find many mainstream people as ignorant as I am about most American pop culture, including classic Star Trek. When a friend of mine told me that Michael Jackson had died, I initially racked my brain, thinking she was talking about a mutual acquaintance I had forgotten about.
The good news is anytime I want to learn, I can just ask Mr. Haiku. We actually call him Encyclopedia Lastname in real life. He's a wonderful balance.
And I just finished "Mirror, Mirror" about ten minutes ago. Shame on you for evilly eviling your evil Sulu's scar phone with your evil Spock's beard logo of Uhuru's midriff evil. With gold lame'.
Okay, I have spent a week trying to hack up a lung, culminating with a weekend of bodily extractions of ...let's not go there ... culminating in my ribs feeling like a load of morbidly obese Dutch Mice (they are the ONLY mice who wear clogs ... keep up here!) have been training for the Amsterdam version of Riverdance (Canalclog ... it is a working title) on my rib cage. I really SHOULD know better than to read this blog during my recovery and yet ... nope ... rib eight finally gave up and cracked.
For all of this, and more, thank you Jen; for now I have another belovéd children's tale I can NEVER read to my son again! x x x
#2: Did anyone else notice the chocolate Gingerbread men swimming in the pond?
#3: If it walks like a cow, "moos" like a cow, looks like a cow (okay not really; two out of three?), it must be a monkey.
#4: False advertisement: that marshmallow did NOT stay puffed.
#5: Whose the Sheriff in this tale? Isn't anyone going to find out who attacked all those spleens and if they were even dead when Mama had Jack bury them?!
#10: I never realized before how difficult it is to make a diamond shape.
#11: IF they had opted to nix the turrets and IF they had made all the cute seashells and whatnots out of modeling chocolate, cookies, or even *gasp* fondant, it just might have been a really nice cake. I said IF, Theardare, don't choke on a hairball.
#12: If the cake has made itself sick, how are *we* supposed to find it appetizing?
@TXRed: I remember those! They are part of the Rocky and Bullwinkle show! That is good television.
Starfish groom lost hat
but starfish bride lost her dress.
She's shrimply not koi.
OMG! As soon as I read Flows like a river, I thought that there was no way you were referencing Whose Line. Scenes from a hat! You need to use those more in commentary. :D
Sharyn, that was...a touching...TOUCHING rendition. ;D
BRAVA! :) That was amazing!
Wow, lotsa peoples are very sinseer about needin' to make sure we know just what kinda animal that there boxy cow cake is supposta be. It's almost like it's a Littlest Pet Shop service announcement er somethin'. I do believe Sharyn said we should all just agree it's a cow. So a big red F- to all yous who can't foller directions. What did yous lern in kindygarten anyway?
Repeat after me..."It's a cow."
Love your post Sharyn. Ahhhhhh, you have such a way with words!
Sharyn, I adore your songs- you must know this by now- but THIS little gem of a tale goes down in history, lady!!
(I laughed until tears ran down my leg)
@mel, welcome back and, boy, didn't you make up for lost time. I read it out loud 2x to make sure I caught everything (still not sure, though).
@Haiku Joy, I'd thought of the King Cake kits this weekend when I saw a whole stack of the non-fried variety in the grocery story. No plastic baby but they were draped in plastic beads- inside the box...
@Franken Yoda & the Tragic Spleen I can totally see the band Disaster Area playing that as their black starship deliberately crashes into a nearby sun.
*except for Hotblack Desiato who's spending another year dead for tax purposes.
@Sharyn -- this is your post??? I swear I saw Jen's name when I looked this morning.... But, this is ironic, since I was going to make reference to that fun post you did about the children's book a while back. This a classic; I loved it!
That first cake looks a tad bit like Stewie from Family Guy lol. Boy is he a flat, pasty mess. Poor Yoda he really does look like Shrek. Eeek. Way to go wreckerators for scaring me away from Star Wars for a bit.
If we're fan-casting, can I play the part of the cowbell?
It's all good, @Andrea. Theardare is in 'Mostly Harmless' mode; a couple of theoretical not-a-wrecks isn't going to set him off. Plus the technicality of this not being Jen's post... BTW, good catch on the gingerbread men in #2!
I have to agree with @mel; I thought I saw Jen's name on it, but when I looked later, it was changed. Perhaps this is a living post.
After reading that #2 might be Freddie Kreuger's house (or a representation of it, to be more precise), I must have spent seconds searching Bing for photographic confirmation. Unfortunately, everything I could find looks almost, but not quite, entirely unlike this cake. Which is not a problem; when reality and cake disagree, it is always reality that's got it wrong; cake is definitive. Without in any way calling into question this cake's wreckful status, I would like to point out the creepy window treatment. A face in one of the panes would have been worth serious bonus points. Alas, it did not happen.
Not that Jen doesn't deserve the praise and accolades received here, but the writing on this one was the genius of our dear beloved Sharyn :)
Unfortunately our dear beloved Sharyn has taught me that it's painful to laugh with a mouthful of granola. That stuff is SHARP.
That first cake reminds me of a character from... *something*, but I can't remember what! I was thinking William Steig, but when I googled & google imaged, it didn't come up. James Thurber? No, same thing. Kinda reminds me of Making Fiends (I miss that show!), but nothing matching came up for that, either. It's not Stewie Griffin, or the cake is maybe supposed to be Stewie, but the character I'm thinking of is not... This is gonna drive me crazy!
I see him picking or smelling flowers... Auuugggghhhhh. Wish I could remember!
Guys, sorry for the sudden heavy I'm about to say. My friend's 6-week-old son was diagnosed with cancer almost two weeks ago (he was only 4 weeks old then), and it's been preying on my mind ever since. I've been wanting to share with you guys for a while. This is my only online community and I really wanted someone to cyberpat me on the shoulders, but how does one say "infant with cancer" in the comments section of the happiest blog on earth?
So if one of you reads this and doesn't mind offering a "there, there," it will find a welcome home with me.
(This is draft #82 or so of this comment written over the last two weeks, and it feels just as horrible and self-indulgent as the first one. My only consolation on this point is that it's the tail end of yesterday's post, and so folks have had a chance to enjoy the post before getting to my comment.)
I especially like the bird's p**is shaped legs LOL!!!
The LPS monkey's have tails. Pretty sure it's and LPS Guinea Pig.
Either way, best unrelated montage EVER!
The first one looks a little like Stewie from Family Guy.
Thanks for the Whose Line reference! I got it without the link.
I was reading the post and looking at the oduh cake. My 7 year old daughter walks in and asks what's that under the turtle?
@Haiku Joy: There, there. Your friend and her/his son are lucky yo have you in their lives. Sending good karma your/their way. We Cake Wrecks commenters ARE a family, and we're gald you're one of us. Take care.
Thank you, Sharyn. Sometimes a good "there, there" is all a person really needs.
@Haiku Joy -- I deliberately included those 2 typos in the previous comment, just to give you something else to think about. ;)
@Haiku Joy: I am so sorry to hear this, but am glad you said something. Burdens are meant to be shared among friends, and we are all friends here. I'm sure you have noticed some personal interplay here among the commenters every so often. While we laugh, we also care. My heart goes out to you and your friends. I will keep you all in my thoughts. And, if you ever want to cybervent to a cyberfriend, I'm here: mchef8@hotmail.com.
@Haiku Joy: Some things in life are horrible to contemplate. It is not self-indulgent to share burdens, it is healthy and necessary.
Thankfully, this forum is multi-dimensional and neither run or inhabited by content cops who jump all over the slightest deviation from The Topic. Indeed, Jen & John are good, kind people who have tremendous compassion and a desire to do good works. The same is evident in the comments of many others who 'play' here.
While I am aware and am respectful of the fact that not all have the same religious beliefs, I can nonetheless offer prayers for healing for your friend's son and comfort for his family and for you.
I know how easy it is to feel alone when tragedy strikes -- it is vitally important to know that others care and will do what they can to help. There isn't really an established channel for off-forum communications, but I have a dedicated email address that I can send to J&J and will authorize them to forward that information at their discretion.
Urrgghhhh how disturbing is it that there are real seashells and starfish on that cake?! Blech!