Sucky Funnies for July 27, 2025

Nope, I haven’t given up on this feature quite yet! This may be the first and only Sucky Funnies Sunday of 2025, but by god I’m going to give it my all.

I’m already tired. Let’s just get on with it.

Ziggy

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Today’s Ziggy is quite cerebral. I didn’t even understand it at first. I was like “What the hell is Hollaiwood” but then I understood the subtleties of the joke. “Uh-oh” is right, Ziggy, my hapless bald friend. Ziggy, on his way to a shoot at the Warner Brothers lot for his hilarious sitcom “That’s My Ziggy!”, drives by the new Hollywood sign where he gets the news that he has been replaced by a robot actor. A robot actor that’s much better than him at acting.

Or, more likely, Ziggy busses tables at Starbucks while trying to get anybody to read his screenplay. That’s Los Angeles for you. Where dreams go to die.

Crankshaft

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While Ziggy tackles the heady subject of Artificial Intelligence, Crankshaft waxes nostalgic about the days of yore. I see a lot of myself in Ralph as someone who refuses to give up his iTunes and iPods, but this guy probably putters along Route 45 at 20 mph in a car that spews gallons of exhaust and makes an awful racket that sounds like someone threw a handful of ball bearings down a garbage disposal.

That is to say, the community hates Ralph and his stupid car where he plays 8-tracks of ABBA at decibels that rival rocket launches. Fuck that guy.

Mary Worth

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And it would be a Sucky Funnies Sunday without peaking into the current ongoings of Mary Worth. I feel like I’ve stumbled upon the conclusion of an arc here, so I can only speculate as to what Olive’s “gifts” are. It’s either Satanic black magicks, or her extremely wet pussy. Or both! What goes on in her bedroom of whips and chains and summoning circles is none of my business.

But let’s not forget the elephant in the room here. New York City is lousy with plummeting air conditioner units threatening to kill pedestrians. It’s the leading cause of death in the city next to runaway taxis and the homeless. Thank god that Mary Worth survived, now we have decades of wisdom still to come. Because, like our favorite octogenarian Mary Worth herself, the strip will never, ever die.

And that’s comforting.

Like a toothache.

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Season 9, Episode 18 – “This Little Wiggy”

“This Little Wiggy”

Original Air Date:
March 22, 1998
Directed by:
Neil Affleck
Written by:
Dan Greaney

QUICK SYNOPSIS

Bart is reluctant to hang out with Ralph Wiggum, until he gains access to Chief Wiggum’s master key to the city.

POINTLESS GUEST STAR(S)

Not a one.

WHY THIS EPISODE SUCKS

“This Little Wiggy” is on the good edge of mediocrity. Is it likely that this is one of the most iconic episodes in the post-Classic era? Maybe. Not since “I Love Lisa” have we seen Ralph shine. Well… not shine. He mostly glistens. Wetly.

The problem I have with this episode is the exaggeration of Ralph’s character. It’s becoming clear that Mike Scully wants to bring minor characters to the forefront, what with Moe in “Dumbbell Indemnity”, Principal Skinner in “The Principal and the Pauper”, Apu in “The Two Mrs. Nahasapeemapetilons”, and Krusty in “The Last Tempatation of Krust”. Ralph is supposed to be this dimwitted little spaz, but now he borders on mentally challenged. The eight-year-old boy running around playing Wiggle Puppy in public isn’t the same well-meaning lovesick boy from “I Love Lisa”. Would Season 9 Ralph be able to play George Washington in the school play? Or would he merely just wallow in a pool of melted fudgsicles? We go even further by introducing the leprechaun who tells Ralph to burn things. Are we to believe now that Ralph teeters on the brink of complete psychosis? I thought he was just a kid who brought Star Wars figurines to a diorama competition, not an arsonist. Weird, right?

The third act is dumb, too. Taking Chief Wiggum’s skeleton key to the old, abandoned (but still guarded?) penitentiary just so we can lead into a shitty sequence where Quimby sits in the electric chair? Lazy writing.

I like the joke where Chief Wiggum gives the kids riot gear on the house. So I guess it isn’t all bad.

IMDb TRIVIA FUNHOUSE!

Episode director Neil Affleck was praised by the staff for his directing in this episode. Affleck was also praised for his ability to create three new elaborate settings in the episode: the science museum, the Springfield penitentiary, and the large toy store.
Kudos to Neil! Round of applause for the man, ladies and gentlemen. The dude really knows how to create three new elaborate settings. Wow. Conan O’Brien invented a whole monorail in Season 4, but ok.

When Bart looks through the police records, he finds Homer’s and comments, “Wow, Homer’s been in jail six times.” Originally, the line after that was, “Aw, he killed a swan at the zoo,” but the line was changed to “Aw, Mom’s only been in jail twice.” The resulting line change raises questions of how Marge’s arrest information can be on Homer’s police record.
I’ll field this one: It was a poorly written joke! There, that was easy.

The episode originally did not involve Lisa helping Ralph and Bart to brainstorm an idea to alert the penitentiary. The original scene, which Dan Greaney cites as one of his favorite scenes in the show, despite never actually being in the show, involved Bart, Ralph, and Homer trying to make a plan to save Mayor Quimby.
Too bad it’ll never see the light of day, because I trust some dipshit named “Dan Greaney” to tell me how good a scene in the show would be. Oh look, I found a piece of the original script!

Bart: “We need to get to the penitentiary, quick!”
Ralph: “My daddy penitentaries bad guys all the time!” *falls on face*
Bart: *groan* “Ralph, you’re dead weight!”
Homer: “Let’s go, boys! I’ve got my keys!” *holds up giant novelty foam baseball glove* “D’oh!” *falls on face*

FINAL GRADE
C+

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The X-Files – Season 1, Episode 15 – “Lazarus”

“The consciousness of a dangerous criminal possesses an FBI agent who is Scully’s ex-boyfriend.“

Scandalous! You know how women go for the bad boys. Scully’s gonna be all over this guy like white on rice.

MARYLAND MARINE BANK. 5:55pm, five minutes until closing time, Scully and her EX-BOYFRIEND OOOoooOoOOOooo stake the place out waiting for two criminals ready to come in and rob the place blind of its various monies. The criminals are Bonnie and Clyde-like, kissing on each other in the car disgustingly until one of them decides to put on a mask and finally take over the bank.

Long story short, because why dwell on anything, the robbery is unsuccessful in many ways. 1) because the robbery was unsuccessful, and 2) because the criminal shoots Scully’s ex, Jack, right in the chest or stomach or brain or something. It’s hard to tell when they show a slow motion of the guy stumbling backward with smoke around him, as if that’s how bullets work.

The X-Files, Season 1, Episode 15 - Lazarus

It wouldn’t be an episode of The X-Files without Scully’s itchy trigger finger.

With the robbery thwarted, both Jack and the robber are in the emergency room. Every time they use the defibrillator on Jack, the corpse of the robber bounces up as well (behind all 400 people in the room so nobody notices each and every time). Something about the robber’s tattoo is important too, because they keep doing close-ups on with that spidery sound-effect they usually reserve for creepy crawly bugs!

Two days later, Jack removes his breathing tube and sneaks around the hospital. Memories keep flashing in his brain or chest or stomach or something of his bullet-to-the-body incident. It’s traumatic, to say the least. And the most.

Jack sneaks down to the morgue to get a glimpse of the criminal’s dead body. He smirks, then steals the wedding band off of the corpse’s finger by cutting it off with surgical shears. Gross.

Sexy Mulder makes it to the scene! No one knows where Jack went, and this other dude is missing fingers. His name is Warren Dupre, which is yet another dumb name in a string of dumb names featured on the X-Files. Between he and his partner, Lula Phillips, they’ve killed seven people and stolen $100,000. They seemed cool and good at what they do! I hope she keeps it up without him.

This corpse seems to popping a rather large stiffy, Scully.

Mulder has an inkling that this wasn’t just any “necrophiliac mutilation”. He would know, he does one every night before he goes to bed. No, this was Lula breaking into the morgue to steal Warren’s wedding band. Case closed, bitches.

Oh, no, there’s more. We the audience know that’s not the case! Next, Jack breaks into the Dupre/Phillips home looking for Lula. As he ambles around, he checks his arm and discovers Warren’s tattoo suddenly appearing right before his eyes! Very spooky stuff.

Speaking of spooky stuff, Mulder has another inkling. Two men suffered cardiac arrest in the bank. One man was revived. “The question is… which one?” Mulder says, kicking Scully’s skepticism mode into full gear at minute 11 of the episode.

They visit a real fatass of a quack at the University of Maryland who starts talking about near-death experiences and the transfer of energy, sometimes involving increased psychic abilities! Sometimes while dying, the body is vulnerable and susceptible being infiltrated by its own consciousness… or that of someone else’s. Mulder is listening to this with rapt attention while Scully looks like she wants to strangle herself with a nearby extension cord just to get out of the conversation.

The professor has been right before about flat Earth, QAnon, and the COVID hoax, and I’ll be damned if he’s not right about this!

Later, Scully says “YOU CAN EXPLAIN NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCES WITH NORMAL FLUCTUATIONS IN THE TEMPORAL LOBE”, and Mulder says “uh huh”. She gets nostalgic about her relationship with Jack, going out her way to mention that she and him shared a birthday, then finds it very hard to believe that he could possibly be possessed with the consciousness of Warren Dupre. That sounds like something you’d see out of that TV show from the ’90s about the FBI agents and the supernatural cases. You know… uh… I’m blanking on it at the moment.

Warren Dupre Jack, hereby known as “WDJ”, busts into a hovel containing a shirtless man named Tommy, Lula’s brother. WDJ demands to know where his girlfriend is. Tommy is like “who the holy fuck are you?”, then points to the TV he’s watching showing Lula wanted by the FBI. When WDJ starts ranting to Tommy about how he knows they were set up, how he knows that Tommy sold them out to the FBI, Tommy lets his guard down and realizes he’s talking to Dupre.

WDJ kills Tommy, and the FBI investigates the crime scene the next morning. WDJ is outside of the apartment trying to get through and is held back by another agent since WDJ ain’t got no badge. Scully vouches for the twitchy WDJ and starts admonishing him for sneaking out of the hospital. WDJ wants to be involved in the case, and Scully lets him as long as he submits himself for a full psychological evalutation in a day or a month or seven years from now, whenever it’s convenient.

Mulder finds WDJ at the shooting range and pulls out a birthday card for Scully. WDJ agrees to sign it, which he does with his left hand (WARREN DUPRE WAS LEFT-HANDED, THIS WAS AN IMPORTANT THING I SHOULD’VE MENTIONED EIGHT PARAGRAPHS AGO), and doesn’t mention anything about his own birthday.

I see you’re packing heat, sir. What else are you packing?

When Mulder throws the card in front of Scully, she says he’s two months early. Nah, it’s from Jack. He didn’t even know that. Odd, huh? Mulder starts getting touchy and asks his LOVELY PARTNER to consider the idea that her ex-boyfriend has been possessed by Warren Dupre. Scully reciprocates the touchiness and asks her LOVELY PARTNER to shut the fuck up about turning anything and everything into an X-File. He silently objects, because he then shows comparisons of an older Jack signature and the signature from the card. Not the same. Odd, huh? X-File time.

WDJ sits down at Jack’s desk and thumbs through a file, finding Lula’s photo. He gets a call at the desk and gets tipped off on Lula’s location. Scully goes with WDJ to visit the tipper even though he’s being a total hostile weirdo about everything. They find her in the tipper’s apartment building and start chasing her down into the basement. When Scully finds Lula and holds her down after a scuffle, WDJ points Scully’s gun at her and tells her to handcuff her own damn self instead. Scully’s all like “now Jack, dear…” and WDJ is like “SHUT THE FUCK UP OR I BLOW YOUR CUNT RIGHT OFF YOUR BODY”.

WDJ acts like Dupre around Lula and she gets skeeved out. Scully witnesses this and finally starts entertaining the possibility that the University of Maryland fatass was right about everything! While she is chained to radiator Black Snake Moan-style, she overhears WDJ trying to convince Lula that she’s really truly Dupre. He starts talking about things that only Dupre could possibly know about, such as some real psychopathic shit like slicing his own hand open on purpose during a marriage proposal. She can’t believe what she’s hearing. She’s convinced, but he starts kissing her neck and grossing her out.

Why yes, I am interested in minimizing my credit card APR and my refrigerator is running.

WDJ calls Mulder to let Scully talk to him for about a second, indicating to him that Scully is being held captive and that a negotiation is nigh. Scully starts pissing WDJ off by talking to him like he’s Jack, which causes little memories to start flashing in his puny brain. Doesn’t matter. WDJ is really salty that Scully killed him in the bank. That wasn’t nice at all!

WDJ finishes a can of Coke and asks Lula for more. Here’s the lol: Scully warns him that Jack is diabetic, so he’s going to start having some REAL fun soon. Abdominal pain followed by a coma, sir! Get some insulin before it’s too late. So, road trip! Lula and an achy, painy WDJ rob a pharmacy of insulin and needles and returns back. Before Scully can administer the insulin, Lula knocks that shit right off the table and points her gun. Lula then reveals that it wasn’t Tommy who set them up, it was her! HER! “How do you think I got away so clean, huh? The minute you stepped into that bank, I was outta there. I got the money and got rid of you.”

A twist! A backstab! A sad story! He’s heartbroken! Wah!

Lula calls Mulder using Scully’s cellphone. Cough up $1,000,000 or Scully’s gonna get a face full of one bullet. Things are getting dire. Mulder visits a guy who can analyze tape recordings and uses his phone conversation to try to find clues on their whereabouts. This kind of thing seems impossible, but the guy figures out within 25 seconds that he can hear an airplane taking off. Give him a few more minutes and he can figure out the plane’s altitude! Give him a dollar and he’ll suck your dick while he’s at it.

Mulder briefs some men on the possible whereabouts based on the proximity to the airport. 3 square miles to cover, approximately 1000 houses. Start knocking on the doors like you’re the Girl Scouts, team. We’ve got a Scully to find!

TIME TO CATCH THE FBI BANDIT.

While Scully is still cuffed to a radiator, a diabetically-addled WDJ starts talking to Scully as if Jack was coming to the forefront. He’s starting to remember some stuff! They get a little bit of that warm and fuzzy… but then WDJ remembers getting shot by Scully again and reverts back to mean Warren Dupre. Oh well. He lolls back into a diabetic stupor. Lula answers a knock at the door, which is a cop pretending to be a proselytizer. He spots Scully and radios in the team.

WDJ pretends to be dead until Lula drops her wedding ring on top of him. He gets up and grabs his gun. As the FBI circles the house, WDJ kills Lula. Then he dies due to lack-of-insulin syndrome. The FBI rescues Scully and then take turns peeing on the corpses of the two criminals! LOL! As WDJ dies, his tattoo disappears off of his arm…

Later in the office, Scully grapples with the fact that Jack is really gone. Mulder retrieves his possessions that were on his person when he died, including a watch that stopped at the moment he was shot. It’s left ambiguous whether he died fully then or if pieces of him were still floating around in the ether. The end.

Get yourself off that radiator, Scully. Stop fucking fooling around.

Next Time on the X-Files

Season 1, Episode 16 — “Young at Heart”
Mulder goes back in time to visit his 12-year-old self right before he tries jacking off for the first time.

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Green Lantern Corps: Recharge, Issue #5 – “Stardeath”

* Part 5 of 5 of the Green Lantern Corps: Recharge limited Series *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Green Lantern Corps: Recharge, Issue #5 – “Stardeath”! In the previous installment, everyone ends up at the Spider Guild ship and spends most of the issue stuck in the Spider Guild ship before they all blast out of the Spider Guild ship.

But that’s not exciting, is it? Here’s something better: the spiders are destroying stars and turning them into black holes in order to capture the energy to feed their hive. And Oa’s sun is next, so we have to stop them before it’s too – hey, a penny *falls out of chair*

Green Lantern Corps: Recharge, Issue #5 [March, 2006]
Written by: Geoff Johns
“Stardeath”

The Spiders of the Guild are rubbing their little spider hands together over the planetfall on Oa. The spiders are eager for their prey, and all the struggling from the Guardians and the Lanterns will only stimulate the Fathers’ appetites! Countdown to Explodey Star is a go!

The Lanterns – rookies or otherwise – scramble to try to defeat these incoming spider ships, but it’s too overwhelming! At least I think it is. The panels make it look like there are just people flailing at odd angles while things blow up.

But when things look too dire, like it’s too hopeless to continue, in flies the A-team! John Stewart and Hal Jordan responding to their Code Zero alert – trouble on Oa. This ain’t no training exercise, kids. This ain’t no drill. This is the real effing fucking deal.

“Who’s in charge?” Jordan asks. “Where’s Kilowog?”

He’s jacking off on the other side of the galaxy, sir. I’m Salaak and I’m the rootin’est tootin’est most senior Lantern here, by gum. John Stewart asks if Kilowog and his band of motherfuckers poked the spider nest with a stick while they were having a gay old time on Vega. Salaak agrees that they will have much to explain if they don’t show up Oa dead. “For now, the defense of the central battery is our prime concern.”

The Guardians are relying on the courage of the Corps to keep them safe, because (from what I can gather so far) the little blue guys are supremely useless at everything imaginable.

Suddenly, a non-Corps-sanctioned transluminal exit maneuver translight flare blinds the whole Corps, but it’s merely Gardner, Rayner, Natu, Kilowog, Vath, Isamot, and Linus from Peanuts flying in not at all dead (except for Linus, who was impaled by a stingray upon arrival). Salaak is not happy.

“You add disrespect for your superior to you misdemeanors, Lantern Gardner?” he gripes.

“Kilowog has my respect, Sal – and the rest of the Corps’! And only his ring has the capability to summon them all,” Gardner says. But Kilowog’s power is low, so he can only do so much.

This is exciting, isn’t it folks?

Most panels look like this, so if you can explain to me what’s going on that would be fan-fucking-tastic.

Kilowog directs all “poozers” — a Kilowogian racial slur, by the way – to the central battery. He doesn’t get much time over the intercom before his ring dies, so hopefully everyone was able to hear. But they did, and they’re worried.

“Have the Earthmen driven you mad, Kilowog? It’s insane to concentrate all our forces here,” complains Salaak, who is promptly told to like it or lump it. Kilowog tells him to trust the plan.

Guy Gardner things he’s King Tuff Shit and starts rallying the troops with words like “We’re the best in the business” and “We’re unstoppable if we just hug each other more”. So he directs everyone to put their rings forward toward the battery and recharge at the count of three: 1… 2… 3… 4… close enough.

While their rings charge, they say aloud that Green Lantern poem: “In brightest day, in blackest night, no evil shall escape our sight. Let those who worship evil’s might beware our power. GREEN LANTERNS’ LIGHT!”

After Kilowog slaps those bongos, everyone revels in their newly-recharged rings. “Now here’s the deal,” says Gardner. “These creeps are controlled from their nest in the Vega system, where we just came from. They got a subspace web, joined to Oa’s sun. They want to make the sun go nova and suck Oa into the black hole that’s left. So, forget the spiders, forget their ships. They’re just drones. We haveta destroy their nest.”

The plan is to stabilize the sun, feed a ton of energy back through to Vega to blow up the nest real good. Salaak calls this takeover from Gardner mutiny, but all the Green Lanterns are with him, including Hal “Air” Jordan and John “Jon Stewart” Stewart. Hoo-ah! Hoo-ah! Hoo-ah!

Then this happens, which I think might be good?

Spider Guild HQ instructs their little spidery brethren to destroy the Corps, because the Guardians will fall if the Corps falls. They blast yellow sun power onto Oa, which is now too yellow for the rings to work. Isamot tells everyone to fucking try harder as they all beat up spiders. And they push, push, push with green. Push with green. Beat the yellow by pushing with green.

And soon, the sun gets enveloped in green light, somehow. It gets so overwhelming the Spider Guild orders the spiders to sever the connection between the sun and Oa. Overload! Overload! Too much green! Ahhhhh!!

Then the sun disappears, but where? Gardner smiles, knowing that it just disappeared down the subspace web to the Vegan nest. That’s not good for the spiders, I reckon.

“Central accumulator meltdown,” reports the Guild. “Unable to offload excess. Containment fields breached.” They all start dying, and for every spider that dies the other alive spiders feel it! Ahhhhh! Booo! Dying sucks! Urrk!

The nest dies completely.

“Take care, Lanterns. Even in death, the Spider Guild is dangerous,” says Salaak, based on nothing.

The Guardians note that the immediate threat to their citadel has passed. Huzzah to the Corps, especially Gardner who really stepped up this time. Someone get him a celebratory Stouffer’s Mac and Cheese.

But there’s no time to get too complacent. “The time-space rift in the Polaris system now requires urgent investigation. Lantern Rayner’s destiny lies there. He and Kilowog must resume their involvement with all speed.” Whatever that means. Another Guardian asks Ganthet why the safety of Oa isn’t the utmost priority right now. Why do those blowjobs Rayner and Kilowog get special consideration? Ganthet is like “oh yeah, right”.

Yeah, I don’t really know. I give up.

The Corps celebrates their victory with hearty fist pumps and toothy smiles. Hal Jordan compliments Guy Gardner on his fabulous abs, then congratulates him on a job well done. Even Grumpy Salaak gives Gardner a grumpy thanks for his services, and struggles to additionally tell him that he’s promoted to Corps Honor Guard. This is something that Kilowog has to finish saying for Salaak. Salaak doesn’t like Gardner, I’m gathering. He hates him, you might even say. Loathes him. In fact, fuck the Corps. They should’ve all died just to spite Gardner!

“Your actions bordered on the mutinous,” Salaak says, busting up the mood again. “Incursion of the Vega system, reckless flying, unauthorized usurping of command, and disrespect for your superiors… accordingly, your home leave has been cancelled for the next year.”

Rayner tells Salaak to cancel his too, since he was with Gardner the whole time. This little scene doesn’t get resolved, but I expect that Salaak thumps Gardner over the head with his cane.

So now what? Oa is a wreck. There’s no sun. What do they do? Well, shit son, the Corps is only wounded. The Corps is going to come back stronger than ever in a day, or a few days, or a few years. Decades, maybe.

But, yeah? The sun? I dunno! lol

Final Thoughts

Yeah right, buddy.

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The Addams Family (1991)

Tagline:
Weird is relative.

Wide Release Date:
November 22, 1991

Directed by:
Barry Sonnenfeld
Written by:
Caroline Thompson
Larry Wilson
Produced by:
Scott Rudin

Starring:
Anjelica Huston
Raul Julia
Christopher Lloyd
Christina Ricci
Jimmy Workman
Dan Hedaya
Elizabeth Wilson
Dana Ivey

PREGAME THOUGHTS

Astute reads of Tom Writes About Stuff may know that an 11-year-old Christina Ricci as Wednesday Addams was my very first crush. She broke my three-year-old brain. It happens.

Speaking of breaking my three-year-old brain, I found The Addams Family morbidly fascinating at the time. I know it’s all silly and stupid, but as a kid it was like I was watching some horror show that I wasn’t supposed to be watching. I don’t think I ever had nightmares over it or anything, but it certainly was influential on my dark and unnatural tastes in everything, I suppose. Not that I was ever some goth kid who listened to the Birthday Massacre or Clan of Xymox in high school. I’m not an idiot.

So let me watch this as an adult. I wanted to get an Addams Family fix without seeing any of the insufferable ’60s sitcom.

THE 600(ish)-WORD SYNOPSIS

The Addams Family! Gomez (Raul Julia)! Morticia (Anjelica Huston)! Wednesday (Christina Ricci)! Pugsley (Jimmy Workman)! Uncle Fester has been missing for 25 years now after a falling out with his brother, and it makes everyone sad and I’m also crying. Gomez’s lawyer, Tully Alford (Dan Hedeya), owes a lot of money to loan shark Abigail Craven (Elizabeth Wilson). When Alford visits Craven with his tail between his legs, he meets her son Gordon (Christopher Lloyd) who looks exactly like Uncle Fester with a red wig. Floored by this revelation, Alford suggests to Abigail that Gordon poses as Uncle Fester in order to infiltrate the Addams household and find where they keep their fortune.

Tully Alford and his wife visit the house to perform a séance to contact Fester. Cue Gordon “Uncle Fester” Christopher Lloyd Craven, who arrives at the front door! Abigail Craven poses as a German psychiatrist named Dr. Greta Pinder-Schloss and tells the family that “Fester” was lost in the Bermuda Triangle for 25 years.

Let me teach you how to gut a fish with your teeth, kiddo.

Gomez is thrilled to have his brother back! They both engage in hijinks and cockamamies, with “Fester” pulling a fast one over Gomez because Gomez is really dumb. “Fester” is especially interested in finding that damn fortune, but Gomez gets him involved watching old home movies and participating in gallivanting as Gomez likes to do. After some time, when “Fester” can’t remember important and easy details about their past, Gomez starts to get very suspicious that he’s an imposter. Wednesday has been saying this all along. Morticia takes “Fester” to the back graveyard to stress the importance of family. “Dr. Greta Pinder-Schloss” convinces Gomez during a therapy session that “Fester” isn’t an imposter, Gomez is just experiencing displacement. This perks Gomez right back up again! Business as usual.

Meanwhile, “Fester” starts becoming attached to the family; especially Wednesday and Pugsley, whom “Fester” enjoys spending time with and teaching how to swordfight for their school play. “Fester” attends the play, against his mother’s wishes, and witnesses Wednesday and Pugsley’s swordfight complete with gallons of fake blood. Growing increasingly irked by her son’s inability to find the fortune, she declares as Pinder-Schloss that “Fester” will be leaving again soon. The Addams family throws a huge party with all their family and friends for “Fester”‘s farewell. Alford learns that Uncle Fester, being the older brother, technically owns the property. Using the Addams family’s curmudgeonly judge neighbor, a restraining order is put into place that bans the family from the estate. Gomez attempts to fight the order with no success.

Oh, Thing, you’re going to have to perform some of your famous handjobs to make us some money again!

The family moves into a motel and figures out ways to make money. Morticia becomes a morbid preschool teacher. Wednesday and Pugsley try to sell poisoned lemonade outside the motel. Thing becomes a courier. Gomez slouches. Alford, Abigail, and Gordon all attempt to break into the family vault, but they fail humorously. Eventually, Morticia returns to the house to talk to “Fester” and she is captured and tortured (which she gets off on) in order to get information out of her about the vault. Thing witnesses this and returns to Gomez to “tell” him. Gomez rushes to the house, where he is also threatened. “Fester” gets fed up and confronts his mother. A magic book is used to create a hurricane and blow Alford and Abigail out the window. It is assumed that they are buried alive by Wednesday and Pugsley! Those scamps!

Seven months later, “Fester” is a welcome member of the family (especially since a giant plot hole tells us that “Fester” was really Fester the whole time and he had amnesia or something, just roll with it). Morticia, now an expectant mother, knits baby clothes.

And Gomez goes back to his toy trains.

TOM’S DISCUSSION CORNER

TOPIC 1 — General Movie Thoughts

This was better than I expected. I was giggling like an idiot throughout most of the movie, especially at Christopher Lloyd’s Uncle Fester performance. The faces that guy can make, man. There wasn’t one moment where he looked at all normal. I loved the idea that this woman’s adopted son looks exactly like Uncle Fester wearing a curly red wig, and that he was able to eventually “fit in” with this impossibly bizarre and off-putting family dynamic that the Addams find so comfortable and homey. Seeing him play with the kids with nothing but earnest enjoyment, to the ire of his mother, filled me with such unbridled glee. He almost forgets that his whole purpose is to find the Addams Family vault, of which he fails spectacularly, of course.

Fester: “Look, children! A new chapter!”
All: “Scaaaabs!”

It’s the book that keeps on giving!

Christopher Lloyd was the best, but the rest of the casting was impeccable. I won’t even get into Christina Ricci’s Wednesday again lest I creep everyone out, but for me these people are the definitive versions of these characters. Pudgy Jimmy Workman’s Pugsley, the angular and stoic Anjelica Huston’s Morticia, and the effervescent and flamboyant Raul Julia’s Gomez. Perfect choices all around.

My favorite aspect of the Addams family themselves is the lack of dysfunction. The group as a unit play off each other well, and there is never any fighting or yelling amongst themselves. Pugsley is happy to get tortured by her psychopathic sister playing “Is There a God?” while their mother looks fondly as if she misses her own youth. Gomez holds everything together as the enthusiastic patriarch. He and Morticia get inappropriately lovey-dovey in their own sickening way. They have the perfect marriage! It’s quite nice to see, in this day an age!

Also, there’s not enough electrocution happening as a nuclear family pastime anymore, I always say. How far we’ve fallen as a society.

TOPIC 2 — Anjelica Huston Was Disgruntled

Here’s a paraphrased excerpt from Huston’s 2014 memoir:

It was decided that the character of Morticia should have eyes which slanted upwards at the sides, an effect which was achieved by attaching an elastic strap to the back of Huston’s head via fabric tabs glued at her temples, which pulled the corners of her eyes upwards A second strap was added to balance the appearance of the lower part of her face with the upper. The bands caused extended discomfort to Huston, and, unless she removed them at lunchtime, she would suffer severe headaches and rashes later in the day. Removing the bands for a break entailed hours of extra work in both removing and then re-applying her makeup and wig. On top of this, the bands would snap at the slightest turn of Huston’s head, causing yet more grueling repair time. Eventually, she learned to pivot and turn on her feet without moving her upper body or head.

Not pictured: the retinal detachment Huston suffered just by glancing at this wall.

Also according to Huston, Judith Malina’s way of dealing with being embedded in latex for over twelve hours a day was to “smoke an endless series of joints in her trailer throughout filming”. That sounds like some badass shit to me. Embed me in latex all day too and pop some earbuds into my ears. Crank Akercocke up to eleven, son.

IMDb TRIVIA FUNHOUSE!

In order to gain Morticia’s figure Anjelica Huston wore a metal corset. She also had to get gauze eye lifts, neck tucks, and fake nails daily
She also needed $700,000 of plastic surgery and bone marrow transplants. The role of Morticia was supposed to reprised by Carolyn Jones, but the original actress declined on account of being dead for the previous eight years.

To make Anjelica Huston’s eyes look slanted like the original Morticia, the make-up artists had to attach strings with spirit gum to the outside corners of her eyes and anchor the strings on her head.
They also had to modulate her voice by packing her throat with fifteen pounds of “stage putty” (plastic explosive with some food dye).

Wednesday Addams is one of Christina Ricci’s favorite roles.
Yeah, no shit. Has Ricci done anything even remotely as memorable? Charlize Theron’s easily manipulated fuck buddy, maybe.

Bruno Kirby offered his fat suit from “The Godfather Part II (1974)” to Christopher Lloyd, in order to play Uncle Fester.
Gross! Who knows what kind of lingering venereal diseases were adhered to the rubber! I only kid. The only disease Bruno Kirby had was cancer!

Cher wanted to play the role of Morticia.
I can’t dunk on this trivia too hard. Cher would have been a good casting decision.

The main theme written and performed by M.C. Hammer won a Razzie Award in the category of Worst Original Song.
l-o-fucking-l, man. It was one failure after another with that guy.

All right! Great movie everyone! Bravo!

IS IT WORTH A WATCH?

Yes. I didn’t actually remember any of this movie going in, and I’m glad I watched it. One-liners aplenty, good jokes, fantastic casting. Story’s a little meh, but who cares about the story when you’ve got Raul Julia frantically playing with toy trains?

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Ziggy

Crankshaft

Mary Worth

“This Little Wiggy”

QUICK SYNOPSIS

POINTLESS GUEST STAR(S)

WHY THIS EPISODE SUCKS

IMDb TRIVIA FUNHOUSE!

FINAL GRADE C+

Next Time on the X-Files

Green Lantern Corps: Recharge, Issue #5 [March, 2006] Written by: Geoff Johns “Stardeath”

Final Thoughts

PREGAME THOUGHTS

THE 600(ish)-WORD SYNOPSIS

TOM’S DISCUSSION CORNER

TOPIC 1 — General Movie Thoughts

TOPIC 2 — Anjelica Huston Was Disgruntled

IMDb TRIVIA FUNHOUSE!

IS IT WORTH A WATCH?

FINAL GRADE
C+

Green Lantern Corps: Recharge, Issue #5 [March, 2006]
Written by: Geoff Johns
“Stardeath”