What We Call the News

JibJab, the patron saints of dorky brothers who seek fame and/or fortune on the Internet, have created another video. Entitled "What We Call The News", it is a major comeback after their last few efforts, which were a bit disappointing. Their latest creation is both very funny and horribly, painfully, pathetically true.

What We Call the News | Send To Friends | Funny Animations at JibJab

If only it weren't so true. Not that we at the Daily Marmoset have too much room to judge. Where, back in the blessed era of Cronkite, Brinkley, and Murrow would we have heard about the wedding of Bao Xishun, the 7'9" Mongolian sheepherder who is the world's tallest man?

Bao Xishun - An inspiration to all us freakishly tall people.

That photo reminds me of a conversation I had a very long time ago:

Grandpa Marmoset - Did you know that I once met Robert Wadlow?

Young Skippy - Who's he?

Grandpa Marmoset - You don't know about Robert Wadlow? He was the Alton Giant, the tallest man that ever lived. He was almost nine feet tall!

Young Skippy - Wow! So how did you meet him?

Grandpa Marmoset - Well, one day I was in Alton, and I saw this car pull up. The door opened, and this man started getting out, and getting out, and getting out...


Sorry, I wandered off topic there for a minute. Where was I? Oh right, bitching about the Media.

On a semi-related note, Time Magazine last week had an interesting article about the future of comic strips, entitled "New Zip for the Old Strip". The basic point of the article was that newpaper-based comic strips are slowly dying (not unlike, arguably, the newspaper itself, but that's another story), but online comics are booming. One of the key people they interviewed was Mike Krahulik (aka "Gabe") of the online comic strip Penny Arcade. One of their better strips was shown alongside the article. I remember laughing and wondering how far back they had to dig into the archives to find one that (a) wasn't about video games, and (b) wasn't too filthy to be printed in Time Magazine. (the answer, by the way, is "almost two months".)

Then earlier this week, they put up another brilliant, relatively clean strip about an annual bane of our society: Girl Scouts. I wonder if this is a trend...

Sorry, I was writing about some matter of grave importance, and I sidetracked myself again. I think it was about the media shortening our attention spans or something, but I forget.

Anyway, it probably had something to do with Stephen Colbert's discovery that Librarians Are Hiding Something:

"You don't bite the hand that feeds you.
Especially when the 'You' is me."

Once again, God bless Stephen Colbert.

Or maybe it had something to do with the news that they're making a Mummy III, only this time without mummies. Now tell me we're not getting dumbed down.