Madame Bullwinkle thanks you for revisiting the troubling oeuvre of Paul Anka, whose lyrical choices have long been considered by Madame to be a form of emotional secondhand smoke. Madame suggests that Canada issue a formal apology, accompanied by a commemorative stamp depicting a maple leaf weeping softly. Should Canada decline, send them a curated playlist of American political ads. Reciprocity is a cornerstone of diplomacy. 🍷
Sorry MB, but the smoke is Canada's revenge on the waaaay past-his-prime dunderhead destroying DC and his smoky-A$$ cult. Understand your sarcasm, it's funny, but I've been thinking about the smoke (when I can even breathe without Mucinex/Zyrtec) all summer. And USA deserves all the smoke blowing up our A$$es for the shameful way the shamprez treats all our allies, especially our pleasant kind neighbors.
Beloved Babs, Madame hears you and sends sympathy. She’ll concede that 2026 has given everyone plenty to be smoky about, politically and pulmonologically.
Her Paul Anka grievance was intended purely as a musical indictment, not a referendum on foreign policy. Canada remains entirely innocent in Madame’s court, except for the maple leaf, the syrup monopoly, and certain crimes committed against the listening public in 1974.
Madame hopes the Mucinex and Zyrtec kick in soon. 🍷
Wait ... I just remembered: that other guy doesn't believe in wind power. So more likely his proposal would be for a two-mile-high, nuclear-powered can of Fabreze.
Trump may be planning to build a giant self-positioning reflective umbrella interposed between Earth and the Sun. The Earth-facing side of the sunscreen will feature a gigantic picture of The Donald spanning approximately 200,000 square miles.
Is Mars where he comes from? I thought it was farther away…some lizard planet. Doesn’t he look like a lizard (no disrespect meant to actual earthly lizards).
Any chance AI could construct a humongous jumbo fan and use it to blow the whatever-in-chief off of the earth? I'm sure Musk would immediately jump into one of his space ships to rescue him (chortle chortle guffaw).
Here in Arizona, it’s a little warm for part of the year. What’s interesting to me (a known scientist) is that we don’t have exploding ungulates. True, we don’t have moose. But we do have large quantities of elk and to the best of my knowledge, they don’t explode, unless shot with a .50 caliber round, which, this being Arizona, where gun control means hittin’ what you’re shootin’ at, we have plenty of. (What we don’t have plenty of, as seen from that last sentence, are high school English teachers, yet I digress).
A friend of mine is the state wildlife veterinarian. I’m gonna ask her about this.
Watching the video as long as I could before my retinas burned out, I noticed that the video lines had Liberace happily singing, "I got a drive that's sing your naked. Then he sings, Liberace's turnin' on, do da le do do, feeling groovy." I am guessing the words didn't appear on the screen when the show was on Lawrence Welk. And...oh God, those outfits.
They actually might have, which makes it even more surreal. When I first came across this video, I did a little digging on the internet and from what I could find suggested Welk was not oblivious to its meaning. It's possible there is more to this story and who knew what, but I'm not a reporter (nor have I ever played one on tv), so I will leave that up to the professionals.
Yeah, the subtitles were not very accurate. I don't think that was from the Lawrence Welk Show. It looked more like the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite.
I don't remember much, but i remember 2 jokes from Red Skelton from when I was in first grade. One was the ooh-ah bird that laid square eggs. I still like to annoy my kids with that one.
Agreed. Those were the days when clothes really cheered us up. Unlike today. When everything is brown or black. Though this is a particularly dark time in America…
Louie Louie is whatever you want it to be---this song is the Rorschah test of all Rorschah tests (sorry to get all scientific on you). Me gotta go now.
I believe the bathroom instruction (Don’t go out tonight…(other words) …there’s a bathroom on the right…) was Credence Clearwater Revival actually singing something about a ‘bad moon on the rise’ although the pants (and general costuming) from “Feelin’ Groovy” has melted parts of my brain so I may not be correct. I hope my punctuation of this run-on sentence is not indicative of what global climate change/warming or Canadian Smoke effects will do to the other parts of my brain.
You and I both know that we were not pretend-singing and stomping around to Liberace and the "Young Folk" in 1968. We were surely getting our ashes hauled, or whatever the euphemism is, just like The Economist says we were. My generation contains multitudes.
I realize my comment is grammatically, ah, clunky. I attribute that to having lost the power of speech after seeing Liberace in that most flattering yellow vinyl vest.
Where do you come up with your nifty ideas and grand solutions? I survived a childhood with the same kind of cocktail parties, and never once did I see a fan deployed which i am sure that they had at the time. The smoke would hang in the air like a dense fog and wrap its arms around my pajamas and lull me to sleep. That and the clinking sounds of rocks in the short glasses of the adults in the room. This was all before we had global climate change to worry about of course. Thanks for the memories of that and Paul Anka.
I car-pooled to a summer job in Chicago with 4 men who all smoked cigarettes during the hour long drive. Two times a day. That was the time before a non-smoker could have a vote.
My parents were both chimneys, and I still might die of second hand lung cancer. My dad did, though he had quit years before. My mother never did quit, even after emphysema and esophageal cancer. When I brought her bedroom furniture to my own house (bad idea) I had to scrub smoking schmutz off it.
Madame supports the warning label, but believes it should be more explicit:
WARNING: Prolonged exposure to Canada may cause excessive politeness, uncontrolled use of “eh,” and the sudden belief that “washroom” is a perfectly reasonable thing to call a room in which absolutely no one goes to wash.
In severe cases, patients may begin apologizing to furniture. 🍷
Beloved, what Madame does in her bathroom is between Madame, her plumbing, and several people who have signed confidentiality agreements. She can confirm there has been no lava to date. There was, however, one incident involving a bath bomb that came perilously close. 🍷
Madame, how many times do you use the bathroom to bathe? The Europeans call it a toilet. Brits call it a loo or a cloak room but I’ve no idea why. Probably has something to do with a king 400 or 500 years ago.
Madame bathes in the bathroom with some regularity, although she concedes that “bathroom” is an absurdly optimistic name for a room whose principal purpose is not bathing. Still, “cloakroom” seems even more suspicious. If Madame leaves her cloak anywhere near what the British are doing in there, she expects it back dry-cleaned. 🍷
At my grammar school in Connecticut -- New England, not Ye Olde England -- the room where we hung our coats/jackets was called the cloak room. (This was in the 1950s.)
Helena, thank you. This is enormously reassuring. Madame had begun to envision generations of British schoolchildren hanging their winter coats beside the urinals. The 1950s were confusing enough without that. 🍷
“Cloak room’? When I was in elementary school (Catholic, if that matters) the cloak room was attached to the classroom and where we hung our winter coats, boots, lunch boxes (no cafeteria), etc.
I am shocked poutine wasn't invented by Americans. All good "Italian" food was invented in America, and even the Germans don't get to claim Hamburgers. French Fries are allegedly Belgian, but potatoes are a New World crop.
All this to say, it just figures that poutine--French fries with gravy and cheese curds, the sort of dish one might invent to make fun of American culture--is Canadian in origin. How did we let this one slip by? Were we too busy fixing everyone else's cuisine?
As always, you have me bursting out in laughter! Where (and why?) did you find that Liberace video. My teeth were decaying as I watched it from the sugar content. Dave, you are a treasure. Keep up the great work.
Bill, if you acquire those pants, you will no longer be merely The Merry Catholic. You will be The Ecstatic Catholic. The Vatican no doubt has vestments for this, but they are probably not available on Amazon. 🍷
BTW, not too many people know this, but that SSPX group that just got excommunicated always wear those flower pants from 1968 under their vestments. Probably the main reason why Pope Leo said, "Yer otta here!"
But Bill, you have already surpassed mere fabulosity, pants or no pants.
Ummm.... Madame withdraws that last phrase and extends her sincerest apologies to Mrs. Merry Catholic. It sounded considerably more ecclesiastical in Madame’s head. 🍷
Don’t know about Amazon, but I had a pair of bell-bottomed hip-huggers eerily similar to those back in 8th grade, so about 50 or 75 years ago (what difference does it make now, anyway?). Perhaps you might check to see if your local Goodwill store has a vintage JCPenney section.
Here in Michigan, we’ve been the hardest hit by the Canadian smoke AND the “explosive diarrhea” crises. We breathe nasty stuff in, then blast even nastier stuff out. On a brighter note, our Detroit Lions are poised to pursue their 738th consecutive Super Bowl-free season…
Madame Bullwinkle thanks you for revisiting the troubling oeuvre of Paul Anka, whose lyrical choices have long been considered by Madame to be a form of emotional secondhand smoke. Madame suggests that Canada issue a formal apology, accompanied by a commemorative stamp depicting a maple leaf weeping softly. Should Canada decline, send them a curated playlist of American political ads. Reciprocity is a cornerstone of diplomacy. 🍷
Sorry MB, but the smoke is Canada's revenge on the waaaay past-his-prime dunderhead destroying DC and his smoky-A$$ cult. Understand your sarcasm, it's funny, but I've been thinking about the smoke (when I can even breathe without Mucinex/Zyrtec) all summer. And USA deserves all the smoke blowing up our A$$es for the shameful way the shamprez treats all our allies, especially our pleasant kind neighbors.
Beloved Babs, Madame hears you and sends sympathy. She’ll concede that 2026 has given everyone plenty to be smoky about, politically and pulmonologically.
Her Paul Anka grievance was intended purely as a musical indictment, not a referendum on foreign policy. Canada remains entirely innocent in Madame’s court, except for the maple leaf, the syrup monopoly, and certain crimes committed against the listening public in 1974.
Madame hopes the Mucinex and Zyrtec kick in soon. 🍷
A line of giant electric fans across the Midwest is almost as preposterous as drinking bleach to cure COVID. I'm shocked you thought of it first :)
Why not use the fans to blow the earth farther away from the sun?
Problem permanently solved!
I prefer we blow the sun further from us, just to remind the solar system who's in charge.
That is INSPIRED!
Wait ... I just remembered: that other guy doesn't believe in wind power. So more likely his proposal would be for a two-mile-high, nuclear-powered can of Fabreze.
Trump may be planning to build a giant self-positioning reflective umbrella interposed between Earth and the Sun. The Earth-facing side of the sunscreen will feature a gigantic picture of The Donald spanning approximately 200,000 square miles.
I've never wished to be blind before.
You KNOW this is in the works.
Ah, HELL NO! I’ll have to move to Elon’s Mars colony.
I hope you like potatoes.
P.S. you might like my blog: www.lateralthinkingdepartment.com.It’s also on Substackk
Is Mars where he comes from? I thought it was farther away…some lizard planet. Doesn’t he look like a lizard (no disrespect meant to actual earthly lizards).
Any chance AI could construct a humongous jumbo fan and use it to blow the whatever-in-chief off of the earth? I'm sure Musk would immediately jump into one of his space ships to rescue him (chortle chortle guffaw).
😅
That huge fan in space is solar powered. Problem solved!
You are clearly a real thinker.
And really a clear thinker too.
Paul Anka and the Solar Powered Space Fans would be a good name for a second favorite aunt.
Well, of course. But the sun has no visible outlet.
No need to install Dave's proposed fans. Just point all the wind turbines north and reverse the electrical flow. Now there's a solution! :)
Okay, now y’all are getting way too technical and science-y for me.
Here in Arizona, it’s a little warm for part of the year. What’s interesting to me (a known scientist) is that we don’t have exploding ungulates. True, we don’t have moose. But we do have large quantities of elk and to the best of my knowledge, they don’t explode, unless shot with a .50 caliber round, which, this being Arizona, where gun control means hittin’ what you’re shootin’ at, we have plenty of. (What we don’t have plenty of, as seen from that last sentence, are high school English teachers, yet I digress).
A friend of mine is the state wildlife veterinarian. I’m gonna ask her about this.
I like moose; I don't know why, exactly.
Bullwinkle.
Exploding gila monsters!
Have they tried switching off Canada and switching it back on again?
This is really the best line I'm reading today. I'll be quoting you, Natasha.
Watching the video as long as I could before my retinas burned out, I noticed that the video lines had Liberace happily singing, "I got a drive that's sing your naked. Then he sings, Liberace's turnin' on, do da le do do, feeling groovy." I am guessing the words didn't appear on the screen when the show was on Lawrence Welk. And...oh God, those outfits.
The Lawrence Welk Show did a performance of "One Toke Over the Line", so you never know.
https://youtu.be/t8tdmaEhMHE?si=Q9quFZIBD9tNFCCG
That was pretty great also.
Lawrence called it “ a modern spiritual”. Boy, if da folks back in Fargo woulda heard that!
I enjoyed this performance (and my memories of watching the Lennon Sisters). Thanks!
Now I've seen everything!!!
In a pinafore!
Maybe, that's where the 'smoke' originated?
OMG! They don’t look like they know what it means, though…
They actually might have, which makes it even more surreal. When I first came across this video, I did a little digging on the internet and from what I could find suggested Welk was not oblivious to its meaning. It's possible there is more to this story and who knew what, but I'm not a reporter (nor have I ever played one on tv), so I will leave that up to the professionals.
Yeah, the subtitles were not very accurate. I don't think that was from the Lawrence Welk Show. It looked more like the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite.
Unfortunately, that's the way it was.
Not the Lawrence Welk show but The Red Skelton Hour (1968). Red Skelton of the greatly annoying character "Clem Kadiddlehopper." Ugh.
but ya gotta like Gertrude and Heathcliff
do not.
awww.
Heathcliff
thanks for the correction!
I don't remember much, but i remember 2 jokes from Red Skelton from when I was in first grade. One was the ooh-ah bird that laid square eggs. I still like to annoy my kids with that one.
What about Willy Lump Lump??
Agreed. Those were the days when clothes really cheered us up. Unlike today. When everything is brown or black. Though this is a particularly dark time in America…
"I got a drive that's sing your naked" ---my favorite part!
I’m on a cruise ship on the way to Alaska. I could not enjoy that particular video, so I will not comment. Wait. I just did.
Wow. Got lost in the weeds with the bad lyrics. Reminded me of this Rascals gem:
“How can I be sure?
I really really really wanna know
I really really really wanna know, oh
How's the weather?
Whether or not, we're together
Together we'll see it much better
I love you, I love you forever
You know where I can be found”
There’s this Steve Miller gem:
“Abra-abracadabra
I wanna reach out and grab ya
Abra-abracadabra
Abracadabra
I feel the magic in your caress
I feel magic when I touch your dress”
Face it, DB, You could do an entire, lengthy shtick on bad lyrics.
He wrote a book about it!
I did!
Thanks, Substackers! Just nabbed the Kindle version for free with my digital credits.
I believe that I have a copy of that book: 'Dave Barry's Book of Bad Songs'!
Please tell me more.
Dave has an entire book on bad songs.
It’s no Louie Louie by the Kingsmen:
Louie Louie, oh no, you take me to where ya gotta go, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, baby
Louie Louie, oh baby, take me to where ya gotta go
Genius.
Louie Louie is whatever you want it to be---this song is the Rorschah test of all Rorschah tests (sorry to get all scientific on you). Me gotta go now.
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Is that enough “yeahs”?
yeah
I’m sorry. Louis Louis is a classic. Besides, no one knew what the lyrics actually were for decades.
Was that about directions to the restroom? Boy I had those lyrics wrong....
I believe the bathroom instruction (Don’t go out tonight…(other words) …there’s a bathroom on the right…) was Credence Clearwater Revival actually singing something about a ‘bad moon on the rise’ although the pants (and general costuming) from “Feelin’ Groovy” has melted parts of my brain so I may not be correct. I hope my punctuation of this run-on sentence is not indicative of what global climate change/warming or Canadian Smoke effects will do to the other parts of my brain.
I’m not sure the Kingsmen know, either.
"Dave Barry's Book of Bad Songs." I didn't want Dave to know about this, but someone actually leaked a list of the songs on the dark web.
As a side note, I actually liked "Achy Breaky Heart," especially these lines:
You can tell your ma I moved to Arkansas
You can tell your dog to bite my leg
Of all the things who all the people are talking about my generation has to regret, that Liberace video is at the top of list.
You and I both know that we were not pretend-singing and stomping around to Liberace and the "Young Folk" in 1968. We were surely getting our ashes hauled, or whatever the euphemism is, just like The Economist says we were. My generation contains multitudes.
I realize my comment is grammatically, ah, clunky. I attribute that to having lost the power of speech after seeing Liberace in that most flattering yellow vinyl vest.
Where do you come up with your nifty ideas and grand solutions? I survived a childhood with the same kind of cocktail parties, and never once did I see a fan deployed which i am sure that they had at the time. The smoke would hang in the air like a dense fog and wrap its arms around my pajamas and lull me to sleep. That and the clinking sounds of rocks in the short glasses of the adults in the room. This was all before we had global climate change to worry about of course. Thanks for the memories of that and Paul Anka.
My first memories of life in a small Manhattan apartment include smoke hanging in every room. Even at age 3-4 I recognized this as messed up.
I car-pooled to a summer job in Chicago with 4 men who all smoked cigarettes during the hour long drive. Two times a day. That was the time before a non-smoker could have a vote.
My parents were both chimneys, and I still might die of second hand lung cancer. My dad did, though he had quit years before. My mother never did quit, even after emphysema and esophageal cancer. When I brought her bedroom furniture to my own house (bad idea) I had to scrub smoking schmutz off it.
Wait, you admitted the exploding moose video was made by AI? Huh, I coulda sworn it was real.
Madame shares your disappointment, Bill. She had already rearranged her vacation plans around the Canadian Exploding Moose Migration.
Another dream shattered by technology. 🍷
Dave, thanks so much for not mentioning "MacArthur Park" for a change. Oh wait, I just mentioned it. Damn.
Now I'm bloody melting in the rain!!! Curses!!!
I think the USA needs to put a giant warning label on Canada on maps like they have on European cigarette boxes.
"Visiting Canada may be hazardous to your health or cause you to mispronounce words or worse, call a bathroom a washroom".
Madame supports the warning label, but believes it should be more explicit:
WARNING: Prolonged exposure to Canada may cause excessive politeness, uncontrolled use of “eh,” and the sudden belief that “washroom” is a perfectly reasonable thing to call a room in which absolutely no one goes to wash.
In severe cases, patients may begin apologizing to furniture. 🍷
Does Madame, if it is not to impertinent a question, eh, bathe in her bathroom? I have never seen lava in a lavatory, come to that?
Beloved, what Madame does in her bathroom is between Madame, her plumbing, and several people who have signed confidentiality agreements. She can confirm there has been no lava to date. There was, however, one incident involving a bath bomb that came perilously close. 🍷
Have you missed the explosive diarrhea phenomenon?
No, not at all, I ... excuse me, back later ...
Madame, how many times do you use the bathroom to bathe? The Europeans call it a toilet. Brits call it a loo or a cloak room but I’ve no idea why. Probably has something to do with a king 400 or 500 years ago.
Madame bathes in the bathroom with some regularity, although she concedes that “bathroom” is an absurdly optimistic name for a room whose principal purpose is not bathing. Still, “cloakroom” seems even more suspicious. If Madame leaves her cloak anywhere near what the British are doing in there, she expects it back dry-cleaned. 🍷
At my grammar school in Connecticut -- New England, not Ye Olde England -- the room where we hung our coats/jackets was called the cloak room. (This was in the 1950s.)
Helena, thank you. This is enormously reassuring. Madame had begun to envision generations of British schoolchildren hanging their winter coats beside the urinals. The 1950s were confusing enough without that. 🍷
If they're doing that in their cloak rooms, I'm loathe to think of where they must be putting their cloaks.
“Cloak room’? When I was in elementary school (Catholic, if that matters) the cloak room was attached to the classroom and where we hung our winter coats, boots, lunch boxes (no cafeteria), etc.
As opposed to bathe or rest? At least wash is closer to the actual function of those public facilities without being rude about it.
I always announce my impending trips to the necessary room by saying I'm going to the room for resting. Then comes the rest.
Or a need to put gravy on French fries!
I am shocked poutine wasn't invented by Americans. All good "Italian" food was invented in America, and even the Germans don't get to claim Hamburgers. French Fries are allegedly Belgian, but potatoes are a New World crop.
All this to say, it just figures that poutine--French fries with gravy and cheese curds, the sort of dish one might invent to make fun of American culture--is Canadian in origin. How did we let this one slip by? Were we too busy fixing everyone else's cuisine?
Disgusting (gravy on Fries) I went on a food tour in Montreal. That stop nearly killed me
As opposed to ‘bathroom’ where etc.
We've traveled many times to Canada, where a big selling point in hotels is, I quote, Three plumbing fixtures in each room!
As always, you have me bursting out in laughter! Where (and why?) did you find that Liberace video. My teeth were decaying as I watched it from the sugar content. Dave, you are a treasure. Keep up the great work.
It was adding the pants fabric to matching piping and collars on the shirts that made it art. Visionary!
Those pants! OMG, Liberace and those pants in the same video! I, I ... I need to get a pair. Do you think Amazon sells them?
Bill, if you acquire those pants, you will no longer be merely The Merry Catholic. You will be The Ecstatic Catholic. The Vatican no doubt has vestments for this, but they are probably not available on Amazon. 🍷
I was thinking more like "The Fabulous Catholic."
BTW, not too many people know this, but that SSPX group that just got excommunicated always wear those flower pants from 1968 under their vestments. Probably the main reason why Pope Leo said, "Yer otta here!"
But Bill, you have already surpassed mere fabulosity, pants or no pants.
Ummm.... Madame withdraws that last phrase and extends her sincerest apologies to Mrs. Merry Catholic. It sounded considerably more ecclesiastical in Madame’s head. 🍷
Ha! That line caused me to spew coffee on my keyboard!
So Pope Leo finally dropped the sword. ‘Bout time someone did. Gotta give it to a guy from Chicago.
Those guys are lucky Pope Leo didn't give 'em the Al Capone treatment!
A pope hat would pair nicely with those pants.
Don’t know about Amazon, but I had a pair of bell-bottomed hip-huggers eerily similar to those back in 8th grade, so about 50 or 75 years ago (what difference does it make now, anyway?). Perhaps you might check to see if your local Goodwill store has a vintage JCPenney section.
Yes, but only as a set with the plastic yellow vest.
yes, of course!
Here in Michigan, we’ve been the hardest hit by the Canadian smoke AND the “explosive diarrhea” crises. We breathe nasty stuff in, then blast even nastier stuff out. On a brighter note, our Detroit Lions are poised to pursue their 738th consecutive Super Bowl-free season…
Add to worst lyrics:
I am I said to no one there
And no one heard at all, not even the chair.
Huh? Where?
Dave already mentioned that one - in the survey and the book.
Where?