An Abandoned Mule Tannery

That's the setting for the background of our first little shared fever dream exploration going on here, an abandoned mule tannery. That a tannery that only tanned the hides of mules would even exist is a good enough joke, since there may have been plenty of mule tanneries throughout time but now it seems a little dated...that's the point here, that's why it would be abandoned. Being dated. That's what we tell ourselves.

But here was an abandoned mule tannery, and a television clown personality was allowed to develop it (meagerly at best) into a dream destination to the hoards of children who lapped up everything this clown produced.

Kamp Krusty is the shoddily put together destination of which I speak, and it is both the name and highlight of the first episode of the fourth season of The Simpsons. Our exploration begins here.

The closest thing to an organized camp I ever went to (that I remember as such) was an afternoon science program at a local planetarium/nature center on Auburn Blvd somewhere.

Here, in the cartoon, is the place that typical kids want to typically go to. The show has on occasion used the end of school/beginning of summer premise for other season openers (or closer in the case of "Summer of 4'2""), but this one has the first Bart day-dreaming the school's destruction. The blank look in his eye in the opening minutes as he, wearing a Rambo-like bandanna, pulls a machine gun from his desk is as classic as it is alarming: mindlessly destructive or limited animation ability?

That blind look is seen again with Homer later on, when he's mowing the lawn. He mows over a toy, the hose, and a roller skate, all the while his eyes are at half-mast. This kills me every time. This is when Bart has brought his grades to his dad, his grades that he's forged in an effort to get to go to Kamp Krusty, as per the deal with the parents.

This scene is important because we have Homer, while being negligent and irresponsible, is not the incredibly stupid character we get in later episodes. Bart brings him the forged grades, all D-'s turned, poorly, into A+'s, and Homer doesn't buy it. He calls his son out for being greedy and not thinking too much of his old man, as it were, but he still decides to let Bart go to the camp, therefore imparting no lesson upon his boy, but getting him out of his own hair for the summer, a selfish act that many American parents can relate to.

Indeed, the parents erupt into champagne toasts and cheers as the leaving bus is finally out of view. The adult humor of the show is soon revealed, as Homer climbs into the shower with Marge after the kids are away. Can you imagine another prime-time television show having the two leading parents sharing a shower in 1992? Also, how many kids would have understood what the acronym means when the bully Kearney, a counselor, tells the kids, "If you don't like your cabin, T.S."

Even a cruel line like "Tell your mom her cookies sucked," again from Kearney, this time after he's eaten all the cookies Marge has sent Bart and Lisa, seems ahead of its time.

What you don't need is someone like me telling you The Simpsons was ahead of its time, but after watching episodes again I see things that explain so much, that show why the show was considered dangerous by conservative wonks and breathtakingly brilliant by intellectual asses like myself. Lisa is trying to ferret out her secret letter of pleas to be rescued, the urgency is filmed with a tense eye. She sneaks the letter to a mustachioed man on horseback. He doesn't leave until she, looking over her shoulder, passes him a flask. Again, this was on prime-time television.

One of my favorite scenes as a kid was when the ringleader is revealed to be Bart, and Homer's belly droops and he loses his newly grown extra two hairs. Don't be the boy, don't be the boy, don't be the boy indeed.

Krusty shows up to the camp and convinces all the kids to give up their occupation, and in exchange, Krusty takes them all to Tijuana. He fucking takes them all to TJ. Prime time television. In 1992.

A quick splash of photographs from their trip show off some of their adventures: Krusty passed out drunk in the street; attending a cockfight; getting tattooed...

I'm not sure this little experiment will work, the whole premise of these posts. Do people want the jokes explained? Is that all I'm really doing? Am I the only person entertained by this kind of tripe?

Who knows...

I'll try again sometime soon...