Frog Applause by Teresa Burritt for January 18, 2018

The Underwear Fish will test your screen and your patience.

What about patterns 1 – 34? Are they themed with mothers publicly displaying their sons’ underwear for all of Froglandia to take a gander?

I’m not sure, but those undies look rather large for those lads. Maybe those are dad’s tighty-whiteys. She’s saying, “Eat your spinach and someday you can fill out your underwear in front like Daddy does.” (Wait. That sounds super creepy for a Mom to say — or even think!)

Telefishon

The celery sticks are staging a revolution

This is from the early 50’s; back in the days before fish had evolved to have fingers and underwear was white, black or grey.

“There is nothing wrong with your television set. It’s your viewing habits that stink like a dead fish.”

Stand it please… No Remoreject attacks.

I will wait it out, although can I sit down by the TV?

One of the first: https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/nintchdbpict000000243337.jpg?w=960

Knowledge is like underwear. The fish will eat you, regardless.

Here is that old underwear ad, with related ones, from 1960:

http://www.ghostofthedoll.co.uk/retromusings/hanes-underwear-adverts-1960s/

A message from our next sponsor, Fruit Of The Loom®, will be brought to you shortly; Please Stand By..

No, Mom, those are too big. We’d rather run around the house without anything on.

" Look what I found in Daddy’s car, boys ! I wonder how these got there ? … Daddy wears boxers ! "

This is the last time I’m telling you boys! If you don’t stop telling your little sister she has to put on this “magic diving helmet,” and then leave her sitting all alone under the coffee table, when she asks to play Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea with you, there’ll be no more TV for you for a week!

Froglandia’s favorite TV program, Please Stand By…

I hear Test Pattern 36 is really special.

Billy, go change the channel and hold the antenna right there…

I was just going to say, that TV needs some rabbit ears.

This is a job for… Super Happy Happy Happy!

Everyone, Mom and her boys, look so happy. Is this how Happy spends his days, too… staring at underwear? Is this the secret to Happy’s happiness?

Thank you, Teresa, for this therapeutic FA that shatters our hindrance to happiness. Underwear! Who woulda thunk it? Is the surveillance pickle monitoring all of us for posterity?

We had a TV set very like the one that sister exploits here until as recently as about 10 years ago (in a secondary role). But neither on that oldie nor on any more recent have I seen such a fishy Test Pattern. Stoically, then, I shall Stand By, awaiting the Indian. (I think Samuel Beckett wrote a short play with that theme. Or should have.) And since Randy B uncovered (if I may so put it) the underwear ad from 1960 above, we are in a position to know how this episode was fabricated! Yes, Froglandians, manu-fabricated! A deft collage!

Put that in your TV and view it! We control the horizontal. We control the vertical….

… I know it is accurate. I fabricated it myself.

No thanks.

I prefer boxers.

I have a bone to pick with you, Randy_B. When you go research-trekking for text and images in FA, you sort of mess with Teresa’s “suspension of disbelief”. (I remember Teresa mentioning this term somewhere, and I, of course, had to look it up.)

Tao Te Ching: Verse 35

Hold on to the great image,

And the whole world follows,

Follows unharmed,

Content and completely at peace.

Music and food make the traveler halt.

But words spoken about the Way have no taste.

When looked at, there’s not enough to see.

When listened to, there’s not enough to hear.

When used, it is never exhausted.

A boy’s best friend is his mother. Beware of those who would lure you with false Bates.

And as you join the Good Ship Earth,

And you mingle with the dust,

You’d better leave your underpants

With someone you can trust.

Dorothy Could Have Stayed…as sung by Judy Collins.

“That’s The Way”

I don’t know how I’m gonna tell you,

I can’t play with you no more,

I don’t know how I’m gonna do what mama told me,

My friend, the boy next door.

I can’t believe what people saying,

You’re gonna let your hair hang down,

I’m satisfied to sit here working all day long,

You’re in the darker side of town.

And when I’m out I see you walking,

Why don’t your eyes see me,

Could it be you’ve found another game to play,

What did mama say to me.

That’s the way, oh,

That’s the way it ought to be,

Yeah, yeah, mama say

That’s the way it ought to stay.

And yesterday I saw you standing by the river,

And weren’t those tears that filled your eyes,

And all the fish that lay in dirty water dying,

Had they got you hypnotized?

And yesterday I saw you kissing tiny flowers,

But all that lives is born to die.

And so I say to you that nothing really matters,

And all you do is stand and cry.

I don’t know what to say about it,

When all your ears have turned away,

But now’s the time to look and look again at what you see,

Is that the way it ought to stay?

That’s the way…

That’s the way it oughtta be

Oh don’t you know now, mama said..

That’s the way it’s gonna stay, yeah.

We’re going to need a lot more paper towels than that, if that fish ever spills its guts.