Bizarro is brought to you today by Strange Bedfellows.This cartoon is significant for two reasons:
1. The crux of the idea came from a cartoon sent to me by
my e-friend, Derek, who went off on one of his rare diatribes in the comments section of this blog yesterday.
2. During the Super Bowl yesterday, there was a commercial featuring Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head.
Coincidence? Tom Cruise would say not.
Mr. Potato Head is a rich source of humor for cartoonists. Personally, my favorite aspect of the tuber folk is their detachable parts. I wonder if anyone has ever manufactured genitalia for the Potato Head line. I was careful when drawing this cartoon, for instance, to be sure the "lips" looked like a mouth. Although a plastic vagina would have been so much funnier.
When I was a kid back in the mid-1900s, we used real potatoes with these parts. It gives you far more creative options for placement when you don't have to rely on the pre-drilled holes. We also used to bring other vegetables into the storyline, dramatizing attacks from gangs of sideshow freaks or aliens from outer space.
As I write this, it occurs to me that the Potato Head line is missing a whole slew of opportunities for potato prosthetics. How about a mythology line with horns, cyclops eye, wings, animal appendages? Or a horror line with fangs, claws, melting facial features, a bloody gash. And why stop with potatoes? The cast of Broadway's "Cats" could be done with fruits. A Mr. Pumpkin Head line that looks like Rush Limbaugh seems like a natural for Right Wing kids in the Bible Belt.
Which brings to mind Bible-themed Potato Head toys. What fruit or veggy would Jesus be?
