The Complete Petey, Part One

So, like Athena, Petey sprang fully formed, but from the brow of Mr. Pelphrey's nephew (I guess) instead of Zeus'. More than fully formed, really, because Petey was never again formed as well as he was in the beginning.

I gotta say it again: Compare this ad with the posting of July 1. It was a different world before Petey was among us.

Lookit the rendering of those rabbit ears in the November cartoon! If I'd seen that one first I never would have wondered why Petey was a Martian.

Petey, Patty 'n' "Pooch".
Pooch is really the Product.
Eat what you will, and call it what you want.

Which one talks like Bullwinkle? It might be a result of the rabbit hormones! And what are the rabbit hormones doing to their sex-lives? It's no wonder! I'd checked out the Good Housekeeping website after "Petey Week," and I could't find hide nor hare of Petey. But I noticed that GH has been in business since the 1890's or so. It made me sad and wistful like, because I could see thousands of women in the mid-West and out on the lonely prairie reading Good Housekeeping trying to get ideas to keep their houses, find recipes, make clothes,
and trying to make their families happy.

Oh that wily Petey, clever like Odysseus himself! Maybe he'll battle a cyclopean rabbit in a future installment?

Patty disturbs me, though. On PBS there's a cartoon called "Arthur", in which anthropomorphized creatures learn valuable life lessons and sometimes forget to wear pants. And Patty looks to be a dead-ringer for one of the characters on "Arthur". I'm not really up on "Arthur" -- I know the one with the triangle is gay but that's it -- but I'm wondering at the connections here. Has Pel-Freez gone into the dark business of childrens' programming? Do kids' shows contain subliminal messages about rabbit meat? What exactly was snuffleuffagus on the run from?

I blame the Masons.

about how much Rocky & Bullwinkle did Anna watch as a kid? this is surely not her first reference to it I've noticed.

FYI: Pel-Freeze was still in business as recently as September, an apparently in addition to their fine eatin' rabbits, they also supply live specimens for clinical trials. And it seems not just rabbits, but also mice and rats. They're rodent-centered, but they seem to want to corner all aspects of the dimunitive livestock game ... They figure prominently in the on-line documents of several universities and also governmental lists of suppliers.
Petey was disturbing for some reason I can't quite put my finger on; but now I think it's because he's a twisted, sadistic little freak created by an advertising department of a corporation which is hypocritical enough to (attempt to) give us a lovable character. I don't think he likes the taste of rabbit; I think it's the suffering of innumerble rodents upon which he smacks his lips, glistening with golden flecks of chicken-battered goodness.
Reminds me of a commercial a friend and I wanted to make, along the lines of "Beef: it's what's for dinner." Fade in, while vaguely southwestern, Bonanza-type, celebratory music. Opens with a steaming slice of meat having a rich brown sauce poured onto it; flashcut to a itty-bitty pen with a pathetic calf, grotesqely overstuffed with food, lowing and bleating pathetically; cut back to the meat being cleanly sliced with a carving knife; the fork lifts to reveal the face of Charleton Heston, who says in his best "By the hands of God, let my people go" voice:
"Veal. Because," He pauses dramatically, while he chews the sliver of yummy meat, then he continues, enormously satisfied, "It suffers."

Pel-Freez continues to expand into this market with exciting new developments in the production of Rabbit recombinant Tissue Factor.

Are they selling rabbit meat AFTER they experiment on them? I want to get some albino dwarves to pull out of my hat, too! Before they built all around here, there were woods in back of my house; sometimes at night, an owl would catch a rabbit, and the rabbit would shreik. In the Spring there were baby bunnies all over the place. I liked "Watership Down" pretty much. I knew a red-haired lesbian tuba player who was fond of hunting and taxidermy; she skinned a rabbit for me, and showed me that the rabbits get some kind of seasonal disease in the hot summer months; there are like water blisters between their skin and flesh, she said ir was called "warbles," but I think that it might be brucellosis. Recent archaeological digs have shown that early Man ate lots of rabbits, snaring them. Stalking the Great Wooly Mammoth was not commonplace, rabbits were a staple. People wore more rabbit pelts than any other kind of Big Game. I hope that Sean wears his rabbit hat while reading "Petey."

my favorite cousin when I was a kid had been a radar jamming operator on an electromagnetic-warfare equipped F-4 Phantom. she told me of her survival class, where they were stranded in the woods away from the comforts of base, and had to capture, kill, clean, and eat game to survive. one guy in her squad[ron] made a big deal of eating rabbit eye. I've never had the beast in question, myself, but seeing as I find venison tastier than beef, it stands to reason that the appeal of gamy meats would carry over into the smaller herbivores. Darkness's dad used to hunt squirrels and roast them; unfortunately I did not know him when he was still in the practice, as that has an appeal as well. I wouldn't want to eat a Jersey squirrel, though, not with the stuff they eat, and the mysteries that infest their pelts. my favorite dish that I've prepared is goat vindaloo, but the supermarket hardly ever has goat. maybe if I go to the Indian deli, I'd have better luck. they've got a Halal sticker on the window.

Stew, my housemate, stew. Only the lower class would roast squirrel. Squirrel must be simmered with handfuls of wild herbs. We have standards, after all.

Lou, check out the comments on this article. You're not alone in your Arthur theory.

I wish Pel-Freez still had Petey ads, updated to their current business practice. It could have Petey dissecting rabbit tissue and running all sorts of crazy experiments on it, just as enthusiastic as ever.

What zany catch-phrases would Petey say if he were using the rabbit for science instead of consumption?

Maybe we should start a letter-writing campaign to Pel-Freez, to see if they could bring Petey back?

On second thought, bad idea: it'd be like the updated Campbell's Kids. Petey would suddenly sprout fingers, Patty would be turned into a kickboxer and theoretical mathematician, and everyone would wear their hats backwards to court the inner-city consumer.

In response to staniel's question (see above), Anna didn't watch very much Rocky & Bullwinkle at all as a little kid. Just a testament to the artistry of R&B that a little goes a long way, I guess.

We only got three TV stations when she was little, so Anna was raised on a heady mix of PBS and thousands of books. When cable TV was added to the mix, Anna dived into it like an anthropologist--it's a pretty remarkable sight to see an eight-year-old taking written notes while watching a sitcom.

That's cool your cousin was a "Teddy Bear!" At Andrews AFB I watch them fly, they say that the F-4 is proof that with enough engine, even a brick will fly. I was going to work at Cherry Point, NC painting camo on F-4's but didn't really want to live in NC then. There's a local Indo-Pak restaurant where on Sunday they got a $5 buffet with all the curried goat you want. There are a couple of good Halal stores here, one is like a neighborhood mkt. and one is very big with a restaurant and bakery. I like to look at the big trays of baklava and try to count all the pieces to figure out how much they make on one batch. Hey!~Have you ever heard of barfi? Also, there was a great Indian Mkt. in Raritan, NJ not far from Edison. Japati, japati, japati. I found a recipe for Cardamom Barfi--

Now I know: I was wondering how old those Petey ads were (Annna sent me two when I won the Nelda contest). I've only had rabbit once, at the William Tell in the Hotel Vancouver: it's really good, like super-chicken. Only better.

Yesterday I got back from the Indian reservation in Savona, near Kamloops, the second annual Escape party. But don't worry, I'm not a raver, but I do like camping, and I harbour a tendency to write jungle and such; so I was able to meet some DJs for whom my friend Ricky Da Fuck is trying to get my music in spinnable vinyl form, which is pretty neat. But after being there I think I might like to DJ myself. And I got no tan, desite the vast desert brush reflecting the 30°+ blazing sun. And the afternoon winds, goodness. A couple friends and I power-climbed one of the bluffs and looked out over the valley: to our right hills glowed with the westering sun, while on the left spruce-draped bluffs rolled green and shadow under the cloud-filtered sky. "If this don't make your booty move, your booty must be dead!" We let off a couple primal screams, I cursed my camera for not loading properly (the aperture mustn't be set to "automatic" if no flash is attached, I know now), and walked the road back down. That was living: to bed at 5am, awake at 7:30am, and if you're not out of your tent by 9am you're cooked; and then it only got hotter. If feels like a whole day has gone by, but then you look at your watch and realize it's only 1pm. Last year (I wasn't there), the chief and some of the other Natives blessed the party and danced and drummed: it didn't happen this year, but things went off without a hitch regardless, despite incredibly-sketchy-sound-guy. I'd like to go back -- right now! Next year, for sure. My tent will still be dusty.

I went to visit a Rosicrucian guy near there; I remember that we drank beer and he yelled at everyone not to flush, they had to truck-in water. I think some of the best pears I've ever had were there, certainly the biggest damned pears were in BeeCee. If it's hot, why dontcha go to Galiano Is. or sumpin. Oh, yeah! There was an Indigenous
Indian restaurant in Van, like a long-house, they had salmon, but the best thing was Fried Fiddletop Ferns!

You know, this whole "kids and parents getting along" thing really confuses me. What good are family holidays if people aren't storming out of the house in tears?

Amusing anecdote: when my mom died a couple years ago, her family, notorious for endless feudin' and bickerin', actually agreed to behave themselves for the funeral. And they kept their word; it was a glorious sight to behold! The only rub was an old old friend of my mom's, who fancied herself a great vocalist, and who insisted on singing during the church service. Naturally, she got into arguing with the church's organist about scoring and other minutiae -- I mean, who wouldn't? Even when we were driving off to the cemetery, she couldn't contain her ire: "I can't believe that organist was such a bitch!!!" Maybe you had to be there, but such total self-absorption is bafflingly funny.

Errr ... I don't mean that all to sound as morbid as I suppose it might. Call me really REALLY messed up, but as an avid believer in reincarnation, I was able to interpret my mom's expiring along very optimistic lines. As in, she did what she needed to do, and checked out when she was done ... so she gets to start fresh in a new body, when the circumstances are right. Fresh starts please me.

I think that I've seen some evidence of transmigration. But I also think that some of the paranormal that we experience is the same before death, I guess re-incarnation would be leaving your body at death. I read an experiment that had placed the bed of a dying man on a scale, and they determined that his soul (or life-force) weighed 15oz. I think that it was the "Weighing the Soul Experiment."

I can't say I've personally seen any evidence of reincarnation, from a strictly scientific standpoint (replicatable experiments, test conditions, etc.). But that doesn't prove anything either way anyway, since once can always claim that material instruments are all but useless in measuring the immaterial.

At the same time, I fear there is this tendency in science these days to "explain away" rather than "explain". The presumption these days is that life is essentially a stable biochemical process, but there is no evidence of that either. Granted, chemical processes are seen in conjunction with life, but to take it on faith that chemicals are the root of it all? Unverified hypotheses that are nonetheless regarded as "all but proven" are pretty darn superstitious.

Anyway, I will claim to like the notion of reincarnation, if for no other reason: it allows for a permanency of consciousness along with justice in the end. Again, it proves nothing, but I like it all the same.

If Petey wore his hat backwards, would we notice?

If Petey were making a joke, would anyone know the difference?

Any reason why "farm raised" is in quotes? Either the rabbits are farm raised or they're not, and given that testimony points to "not" why bother with "farm raised" in the first place?

At the 2001 World's Best Commercials there was a really good ad for a product that has escaped my memory; anyway, the concept was a cat drive -- like a cattle drive, only with cats. It was one of the funniest adverts. Along with a 1999 toilet paper ad ("Recommended by assholes."), and an anti-drug ad from the same year featuring thirty seconds of just a baby playing with a steak knife, cutting to black just as the babe puts the knife in its mouth. Okay, so that last one wasn't funny, but it was one of the best ads. British Army recruitment ads are good, too: they let you know it's all about having the brains (and bollocks) to do a hard job right, not like pansy Canadian and American army ads. American army radio ads feature music that could colloquially be called "gay", go figure. I don't need macho music, but something a little more appropriate would be good. Like the Red Army Chorus. My dad has a Red Army Chorus record, if I start DJing...

I don't know, that "Army of One" slogan keeps me up at night. That, drunken friends, and a love of Canasta. Or "CaNASTY" as it eventually turns from light spirited competition to a Jerry Springer beat down.

I've only had Rabbit once and it was prepared at this wonderful little french bistro in Oxford that one of Brasenose's porters had clued me into. It was fantastic, but it may have just been the careful preparation, rosemary, and sauce. Took me an hour to find the place due to the windy little roads, but it was worth it: A three course meal plus dessert for 5 pounds.

I wouldn't trust Petey near children. He seems to like tender, succulent flesh a bit to much.

I had fantastic goat kabab in a little place in NYC; the trick seems to be going late at night and asking the cab driver to drop you off at a good place. never had barfi. I like vindaloo, kabab, eggplant bhartha, and saag paneer, and you can never go wrong with masala sauce.
I battled with my parents continuously through high school. I don't think it makes that much difference, 'cause Darkness has always gotten along with his parents, and he's as damaged as I. more, perhaps.

Mmmmm, baby.

"hey, they're building a new baby store on 73."
"we'd better go - I'm almost out of baby!"

I mean like, I'm not sure I grok the meaning of all this about rabbit's meat and Petey.
Pete A.

Interesting article!
Thanks

Keep up the good work.

That Petey sure is clever hiding the bats ;). My buddy I met at this ventrilo hosting site draws comics; love a good comic.

It is a bad workman that has a bad saw,

It is a bad workman that has a bad saw,