Lucy Goes To Washington

Here's a cartoon that originally appeared in the Record Searchlight, a newspaper in Northern California.



New posts should be coming fast and furious over the weekend. In the meantime, here's an entry from the archives...

The passing of a legend, silent-film star goes teats up

Known to millions of miscreants who frequented the popular Saturday Morning Flickers as Yux Fritter, The Musical Cowpoker, who along with his trusty sidekick Scabby Crackers and his beloved steed "Piddles," sang his way across the silent screen and into the heart of America, much like a debilitating parasite.

Fritter, also known as "Boopsie" by desk clerks at fleabags throughout the valley, was well known for his participation in the annual Tournament Of Noses Parade. Yux had appeared in a record 104 consecutive processions and was considered an institution at the event. "Loretta," as the throngs at the Nose Parade knew him, would dress as Admiral Sinus T. Noseblower, a character of his own invention. The crowd would cheer wildly as he rode by astride Piddles, whom he dressed in the costume of mythical steed ?Proboscis? from the ancient saga "The War of the Noses."

Fritter was forced to abandon the persona of "The Admirable Admiral" when the real Sinus T. Noseblower, president of the Nasal Academy in Nostril Falls, Maryland, successfully fought for an injunction barring Fritter from assuming the character.

"Yux never got over being kept from playing Admiral Noseblower in the parade," said longtime friend Spanky Bottoms, "he loved riding in the parade and exposing himself to his fans. He died a bitter and very cold, old man."

Born April 24, 1791 in Willikers, Ohio to Irish ignorant parents, Paddy and Patty Fitzfritter, the young "Betty" knew from an early age he was destined for greatness on the silver screen a full century before the invention of cinema photography. It is unclear how he knew such a thing and this assertion may just be a literary device employed by the obituary copy writer.

Fritter attended school in Willikers where he met Piddles at a Sorority Mixer and the partnership that would one day delight audiences around the globe was forged. Success was not immediate and the duo struggled for much of the 19th century due to the absence of movies or a movie industry in which to star.

"Being a movie star was rough going in the 1800's," Fritter recounted in a recent interview done for this obituary. "We mostly hung around cheap dives waiting for Edison to invent motion pictures. Things got so bad that we were forced to hack off Piddle's hindquarters for a stew. I remember we didn't have any carrots, barely any celery and the stock was a little too salty. Rough times I tell you. Folks today have no idea how tough it is to eat your horse. They're all spoiled, what with supermarkets located right next to racetracks nowadays."

Yux, who was then known as Elizabeth Guppy, moved to Hollywood in 1920 and was immediately signed to star in the celluloid version of the popular Penny Dreadfuls that were being planned by Tantamount Studios. Liz and Piddles, The Three-Legged Wonder Horse, were teamed with director Fritz Haywire and the character of Yux Fritter; The Musical Cowpoker was developed. Their first film together, a fifteen-minute short entitled "Yux Takes A Bath" was an immediate hit with audiences and the team continued to churn out films until 1929.
Films like "Big Yux, Small Saddle," "Lone Star Over Yuxas," "Yux Along The Tribulation Trail," and "Toothmark In The Sand orYux Bites The Dust" were groundbreaking films stylistically and huge money makers for the studio.

But fame and wealth took their toll on the Yux Fritter team. Yux took to collecting bottle caps and would often spend days at a time scouring roadsides for what he called his "little treasures."

Piddles became enamored of the night life Hollywood had to offer and sank into drug and alcohol dependence and was forced to resort to giving sticky fat kids rides at a nickel a pop at supermarket grand openings.

Scabby Crackers, the hilarious sidekick who was famous for saying, "Yux, where's my guldurn salve?" at the end of every episode was arrested for bringing unauthorized plant clippings across the California/Arizona border and spent several days in prison. Fritz Haywire, considered a genius in Hollywood, was deported after it was learned he was really not all that bright. Although he was an American citizen born in Twin Griddles, Utah, he was deported on the grounds that America really didn?t want any more marginally intelligent people named Fritz, "taking up space and breathing good air."

Yux, Piddles, and Scabby rejuvenated their careers with the advent of television. Their homespun tales of bravery and fervant insistance that little green men with affected Balkan accents lived inside their brains were made to order for the new medium and 1950?s America.

On their number one program "Dermolux Presents Tales of the Odd West" Scabby's trademark "Hey Yux, where's my guldurn salve?" became one of the first TV catchphrases to spawn it's own line of lunch boxes, fur caps, and dermatological products making the trio rich beyond their wildest dreams. Unfortunately a class action suit filed by thousands of Dermolux customers whose skin was turned a brilliant hue of vermilion wiped out the group's fortune and all were left to prattle on endlessly about "The Good Ol' Days Before Folks Turned Orange."

Yux is survived by Piddles, with whom he loped in 1979, and by his best friend Scabby, whom he adopted in 1986 after a long courtship and several skin grafts.

In lieu of flowers, Piddles asks that fans send cash contributions directly to the Piddles Foundation For Incontinent Horsies, c/o This Obituary, This City, USA.





The aforementioned piece originally appeared on Philbert's blog housed on Redding.com