We have discovered that PBS Kids is for kids of all sorts.
Like, for example, Belle the Dog who, as we say around here, "is very, very 1."
We think Elmo and the rest of the Muppets are her favorites, but she's also a big fan of Daniel Tiger. As you can see.
And if you get the headline . . . welcome to geekdom.
Monday, October 14, 2019
What hath Farnsworth wrought?
Wednesday, July 24, 2019
Saturday, April 14, 2018
She had us at that patch
There never will be another Molly.
She was a star from the get-go, as evidenced by her photo shoot (above) for an Omaha World-Herald features article when she was just two months old, shortly after we adopted her from the Nebraska Humane Society.
Tom Cruise might have had Renée Zellweger at "hello," but Molly had Mrs. Favog and me when we saw that patch.
Almost a decade later, Molly had the opportunity to flex her doggie method-acting muscles for a spoof of that infamous Tiger Woods post-scandal Nike ad. (No actual canine pee was deployed for the video -- just tap water. But Mollster really sold it, didn't she?)
TRULY, our little Molly was one of a kind. Our hearts now are broken.
Wednesday, January 01, 2014
The face-off
The New Year's Eve face-off.
Molly the Dog isn't quite sure what to make of Britney the Cat. Britney the Cat wants no part of Molly the Dog.
So there you go.
Monday, December 09, 2013
December dog sense
It's 10 degrees in Omaha right now, the ground is covered with snow, it's rather hazy and the wind chill is 1 below zero.
LONG STORY short, I think Molly the Dog has the right idea here.
Alas, I disturbed Her Royal Hunkered-In Highness, who no doubt wants Pop to go away -- and to take the annoying, clicking Rectangle of Death with him.
Her wish, etc., etc.
As you were, Mollster.
Thursday, December 06, 2012
Bo! Bo! Bo! Merry Christmas!
I know we live in interesting times, which dictate that we hate those whose politics differ from our own -- especially if they're president -- but I say you just can't hate a man who puts this out as the White House Christmas card.
This is because there's at least a spark of good in anyone who loves a dog. Particularly when he puts that dog -- in this case, Bo the First Dog -- on a Christmas card as charming as the one above.
Molly the Dog, who is Important |
Merry Christmas, Mr. President. If you're in the neighborhood, drop by for some egg nog -- or some adult beverages. We can talk sports and music, and we can solve a few of the world's problems while we're at it.
And give Bo an extra dog treat. He's a good boy.
Oh . . . Molly the Dog says hey.
Friday, September 07, 2012
3 Chords & the Truth: The ol' one-two punch
Hello, Teacher? I'm just calling about my assignment.
Well, I wrote a most excellent report about this week's episode of 3 Chords & the Truth, but something happened.
No, ma'am. No, the dog didn't eat my homework. Not exactly.
Well, you see, it's like this. We're dog sitting for Sadie and her little brother, Boo. And Sadie's pretty old and doddering, you see.
Ma'am? Yes, ma'am, I'll get to the point.
ANYWAY, I did a really great writeup about the Big Show this week, and. . . .
Yes, ma'am. I'm getting to that, but it's kind of. . . .
Yes, ma'am. I know you don't have all day. Well . . . the dog pooped on my report. I only had the one copy, and I accidentally left it on the couch . . . and canine Grandma there had an accident.
On my most excellent report on this week's 3 Chords & the Truth. And I can't rewrite it in time for class Monday.
Why?
Well, the laptop's drying out, ma'am. Yes ma'am, it's what you think. She's very old, ma'am. Kind of senile.
The 30-second version? OK . . . the show this week is quite eclectic, as usual. A little old-school punk, a nice set of 1960s and '70s pop and lots of scrumptulicious jazz and rock form the core of the program, and. . . . Yes, ma'am. I know scrumptulicious ain't a word. OK, isn't a word.
Anyhow . . . anyway, I think this week's edition of the Big Show is quite upbeat and pleasing, and it definitely will hold your interest. It's really tight, as usual.
Ma'am?
THE PROGRAM had better be a lot better than the 30-second version of my report? Yes, ma'am, I think it is. I think you'll agree -- check it out.
Yes, ma'am. I will be getting Sadie some doggy diapers, you can Depends on it. No ma'am, that was a joke, not a subject-verb agreement problem. You know . . . Depends?
No, ma'am, it wasn't that funny after all, come to think of it.
Sum it all up? Well, OK, it's like this. . . .
It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
The dog days of hurricane season
I believe in God and country. I also believe in baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Toyota automobiles.
And I damn well believe in a television anchorwoman who brings her dog to work during a hurricane.
In this picture from WWL television in New Orleans, Eyewitness News legend Angela Hill is shown behind the scenes of the station's ongoing coverage of Hurricane Isaac with her personal assistant, Diesel the Dog. Channel 4's news director may have other thoughts, but I think it's pretty much mandatory that Diesel be given some on-air role in keeping folks up to date on the storm.
TV news never lets a pretty face go to waste and, with one like Diesel's, it would be a doggone crime if it started now.
Monday, May 21, 2012
Monsters.com
I have pretty much drifted through my adult life, doing a little of this and some of that, but still not knowing my true vocation.
No more. Praise the Lord, I saw the light.
I now know what I was meant to do in life, and I owe this big change in my aimless existence to a couple of big, big dogs by the names of Sadie Sue and Boo Radley.
We have been foster pet-parenting the old girl and her big little brother for the past couple of months while their real parents' house has been torn asunder and put back together in a radically different order. I think the technical term for this is "remodeling," and the aim of this major surgery -- involving sledgehammers, flooring, cabinetry, lots and lots of drywall, lots and lots of tile, lots and lots of construction workers, stainless-steel appliances and a stained-steel I-beam that now holds up the second story -- has been to create the "Kitchen of the Future."
Which, after all this time, labor and -- yes -- money is starting to look a lot like the woo-doo Kitchen of Today.
ANYWAY, I have been reliably informed that big, big dogs and construction workers coming and going is not an optimal combination. So we got the dogs instead of the cool new kitchen.
I know, Molly the (little, little) Dog. It sucks to be you. You will be rewarded with limitless dog treats as you await Mama and me at the Rainbow Bridge when your time on earth is done.
Soooooooo . . . back to my true vocation. These slobbery and hairy weeks at La Casa Favog, as it turns out, have been a time of self-discovery for yours truly. At age 51, to my great surprise, I seem to have an innate talent heretofore unknown to me.
I am a great hair sweeper-upper. An artiste with a broom, as it turns out.
And I just wanted to share this with you. See the top picture? Some of my handiwork from this afternoon. I do this every day, three times a day -- take hairy floors in the living room and kitchen and sweep them clean, creating neat little mountains of fur and then dispatching them out the back door.
I'LL BET the rabbits and squirrels are scared spitless at the overwhelming scent of danger that now wafts over their previously unremarkable universe. Tee hee. Just a little devilish lagniappe that comes with my new career, which I discovered on Monsters.com.
After 5½ years of college and decades of drifting between this dead end and that, I now know I can step right into a fulfilling life as a minimum-wage barber-shop floor sweeper.
It's not everybody who, thanks to a couple of monster dogs and a yappy one, stumbles into a perfect career for the new economy. I am a lucky man.
Wednesday, February 08, 2012
I can haz apostrophe?
Molly the Dog can't believe it. She thought the humans were supposed to be the smart ones.
Silly dog.
I suppose it would be too much to assume that the canine on the Milk-Bone box is named Mini. I suppose it's too much to assume that both dogs on the boxes of Milk-Bone "Mini's" answer to Mini.
And I suppose it would be a really gigantic stretch, at this point, to assume the United States hasn't become a nation of blithering illiterates.
OR THAT in another 20 years, as Americans devolve into communicating by a series of grunts and clicks, creatures such as my little friend Molly will come to be known as "the articulate ones."
For all I know, she already may have better mastery of the difference between possessives and plurals than your average U.S. high-school graduate.
Come to think of it, that may explain why, after giving the box of treats a good going over, Molly looked at me, cocked her little head and asked "What the hell, Dad?"
Monday, November 21, 2011
Tuesday, October 04, 2011
Apparently, the Germans are decades overdue
G*ddamn Krauts.
A few centuries of religious wars, Karl Marx, the Franco-Prussian War, World War I, Adolf Hitler, World War II and the Berlin Wall apparently weren't enough for Everybody's Favorite Troublemakers.
No, that wasn't enough, because they largely left out the dogs. Until now. Until Gunther and Georg decided that multinational conglomerates need to start targeting ads at our pets, not just our kids.
If there's anything I don't need, it's Molly and Scout watching their favorite shows on television, and then pestering me after every Beneful commercial just like I did my parents for Great Shakes, G.I. Joe and a Gilbert American Flyer train set.
But no. It's not enough that me and the missus drag our sorry asses to Hy-Vee every week to get dog food by the sackful for the two simple-minded loafers getting dog hair all over our couch while we're out of the house.
Now we have to have the little bastards reminding us that it's either a sack of Beneful atop the fridge or a puddle of piss on the dining-room floor.
AND WOULDN'T you know that, according to Reuters, the people destined to throw the world into chaos every generation or three, those g*ddamn Krauts, are behind the whole doggone thing:
NO, IT'S NOT enough that Molly yaps and yaps and yaps at me when it gets within two hours of meal time, and that the elderly Scout attaches his creaky little body to my leg like a furry tumor. Now it's going to start in the middle of Rin Tin Tin reruns whenever the Beneful commercial comes on.Nestle, one of the world's biggest makers of pet food, said on Friday it had launched the first television commercial designed especially for dogs, using a high-frequency tone to grab their attention.
"Dogs' hearing is twice as sharp as humans. They can pick up frequencies which are beyond our range and they are better at differentiating sounds," said Georg Sanders, a nutrition expert at Nestle Purina PetCare in Germany.
Nestle asked experts in pet behavior in the United States to research what would appeal to dogs and used the results to create the 23-second commercial for its Beneful dog food brand.
The advert, to be screened on Austrian television this week, features a tone similar to a dog whistle, which humans can barely hear, as well as an audible "squeak" like the sound dogs' toys make and a high-pitched "ping."
"So delicious, so healthy, so happy," ends the commercial in German, which features a dog pricking up his ears.
"The television commercial aims to reach both the pet and the owner, supporting the special one-to-one relationship between them," said Xavier Perez, Brand Manager of Beneful for Europe.
"DAD! DAD! DAD! Beneful! Now! Get Beneful! Food! Food! Get Beneful! Now! We'll pee!"
Just. F***ing. Great.
G*ddamn Krauts.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Take the picture. Move along.
This is our friend Scout the Dog taking it easy after a hard day of . . . well, pretty much doing just this.
He's not quite sure what the fuss is with this little shiny box Pop keeps pointing at him, but he has learned that the aggravation usually is short-lived if he humors the bipeds.
Finally, it's back to the favorite pastime of 15-year-old dogs. I'm pretty sure Scout considers himself semiretired.
He wishes that Molly the Dog would get the hell, if not off his lawn, away from his food bowl. Kids today. Feh.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Alone with her thought
Such is life for Molly the Dog, ensconced -- as usual -- in the Big Blue Chair in the living room.
As you can see, things haven't changed much since July.
Thursday, July 01, 2010
The not-so-secret life of dogs
Here's the Molly edition of What Dogs Do.
Mrs. Favog thinks the Big Blue Chair is hers. The woman always was a little clueless -- how do you think I got her to marry me?
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Sunday, April 25, 2010
What dogs do
Friday, March 19, 2010
Everybody has a talent
Wednesday, March 03, 2010
The economy has gone to s***
Imagine, for a mere $7 a week, EntreMANURE K-9 Waste Removal will pick up the "leavings" of Molly the Dog and Scout.
They even have a slogan: "Your dog poops, our shovel scoops!"
Seems to me a reasonable price, and one I'm sure many yard-conscious Omahans would be willing to pay. I, however, am not one of those yard-conscious Omahans.
THE FIRM also will mow, weed and fertilize your yard. But here's the deal, at least from my perspective as the neighborhood lawn reprobate: Leave the poop, and you don't have to fertilize.
Because, you see, I have a slogan, too. But I can't say it here.
Oh, what the hell. Parents, take your kids away from the computer screen.
Here's my slogan, which has worked surprisingly well for me the past 21 years. Ready? Kids safely dispatched?
OK.
"My dog s***s, and there it sits."
Go ahead, call the neighborhood association. I wouldn't blame you.
Tell them to watch their step, though, when they come to take me away.