Wednesday, December 20, 2006

CHRISTMAS IN TOOBWORLD: DAY EIGHT

MERRY CHRISTMAS, BABY!
[CINDY LOU WHO AT 42]

Any one of the Iddiots at the Idiot's Delight Digest can tell you that I'm somewhat infamous for "going there" in my posts to the IDD. It's a delicate dance, "Going There And Back Again", and there have been a few times when I've gone too far in what I wrote.

This may be one of those times.......

Except for certain characters in the Tooniverse (that TV Universe for cartoon characters), like the Flintstones, Time has no meaning when it comes to the aging process. There was an episode of 'The Simpsons' in which we learned that Bart was born in 1984, and yet here we are in 2006 and he's still in the third grade.

In the main Toobworld, 'The Prisoner' took place back in the late 1960s, but the pen-and-ink Number Six of the Tooniverse (again, from an episode of 'The Simpsons') looks to be the same age as his flesh-and-blood counterpart from 1967. Batman eventually will retire to be replaced by 'Batman Beyond', but until that happens, the animated Batman we see nowadays is the same Caped Crusader that's been around since before the 'Super Friends'!

This year marks the fortieth anniversary of the animated version of 'How The Grinch Stole Christmas', and for me it has never gotten old. (I still thrill with the race down the side of the mountain, my favorite sequence!) Sadly, here in the Real World Time does march on and we've lost all five of the major players in the creation of this masterpiece - Thurl Ravenscroft, who sang the songs; Albert Hague, who wrote the music; Boris Karloff, who narrated and provided the voice of the Grinch; the legen- wait for it! - dary animator Chuck Jones who brought the production to life; and Theodore Geisel, "Dr. Seuss" himself, who first created this wonderful tale.

As far as I know, only June Foray is still alive. She provided the voice of little Cindy Lou Who, who was no more than two. And it is Cindy Lou who is the focus of this Christmas Cracker......

Like I said, Time has no meaning in the Tooniverse for the most part, not even in the microscopic speck of a world where Whoville is located. But if the years passed as they do in the Real World, so much would have changed in the time since we last visited the Whos down in Whoville, the tall and the small.

For instance, Max would have long been dead, perhaps buried in a now-forgotten grave at the base of Mt. Crumpet. The Grinch might still be alive, even though he was already over 70 years old at the time of the story. (He mentions that he's been bothered by the arrival of Christmas to Whoville for over 70 years.) The Grinch was certainly not of the same species as the Whos, and could have been some kind of mythic, immortal creature.

And then there's Cindy Lou Who, the only Who down in Whoville whom we got to know by name. At the time of the story, she would have been no more than two - making her forty-two today, if the story's timeline progressed at the same rate as that in the Real World.

Ah, 42! One of those prime magical numbers in the TV Universe, thanks to 'The Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy' and 'Lost'. And at 42, Cindy Lou Who would be resplendent in her maturity as a woman, I'm thinking; as beautiful as she may have been 20 years earlier at the age of 22.

I realize I'm projecting what she may look like as an adult, extrapolating from the fleeting images we have of her as a two-year old in the special. (And NO! I'm not into that, you sickos! I'm thinking of her strictly as an adult.) Based on what we saw of the other Whos down in Whoville (I just can't break myself away from typing that phrase!), the odds may have been against her from being considered sexy in human terms.

But it could be that Cindy Lou was some kind of genetic mutation, the progenitor of the next evolutionary step in the development of the Whos. She certainly doesn't look to be descended from the two Whos who appear to be her parents in the special........

So I keep wondering what she may have looked like grown up, and for an animated woman of a certain age, I think she'd still be gorgeous. And I have to confess to something else that would make her adult version sexy to me - a sense of "xenophilia" - that attraction to what is alien.

It's the same sensation I get from T'Pol of 'Enterprise' and Raffalo the plumber (perhaps a Bolian?) from the 'Doctor Who' episode "The End Of The World". Pointy ears and blue skin - who wouldn't find those chicks sexy? Then there's the sultry grey cast to Chiara on 'Farscape', and that prehensile tail of Trace Gemini's in 'Andromeda'. And let's not forget the green-skinned Orion slave girls of 'Star Trek'!

With Cindy Lou Who, it's the insectoid antennae which adds that sexy alien allure. In a way, she reminds me of the character Moonmaid created by Chester Gould for his comic strip 'Dick Tracy'. Back when I was a little kid, at an age when I still thought girls to be "bloopy" (as Will Robinson would say), I found Moonmaid attractive as well.

So, yeah. This is what it has devolved into - lusting after alien babes for Christmas. Once again, I'm "going there" and I'm sure it guarantees me a spot on this year's "Naughty" list.

That's okay. I've been there before; I know my way around.....

BCnU!
Tele-Toby

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