Sunday News and Record Comic Strips: Fruit Cakes and Cubicles

Here we go with our ten favorite comic strips from yesterday (Sunday) in the print edition of "The News & Record" in Greensboro, NC; we will indicate which comics are also in "The Roanoke Times" with a (^) and in "The Washington Post" with an (*). :

1. Pearls Before Swine ^*

2. WUMO *

3. Brewster Rockit: Space Guy (pictured top, the last panel featured a fruitcake gag) *

4. Foxtrot (pictured middle, the strip had a toga reference which, of course, reminded us of John Belushi in "Animal House"). *

5. Judge Parker *

6. Doonesbury ^*

7. Ziggy

8. Family Circus (Surprise! The Oscar theme worked stunningly well) ^*

9.  Dilbert ^* (The reason for image three, the cubicles)

10. Garfield

http://www.news-record.com/

http://www.stephanpastis.wordpress.com

For more Sunday comics surveys, go to our sister blog: http://www.politicscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com

Birthplaces of Star Trek People: The Original Cast, et al

At the last moment, we came up with this crazy idea, well, ok this plan was suggested by Javier the Intern*_ and, it is to name the birth places of various people who are in some small way connected to "Star Trek." Yes, of course, Javier thought of this because there is yet another Star Trek film, what is this 45 so far?

Here we go:

1) William Shatner. Captain Kirk (pictured above): Montreal, Canada

2) Joan Collins (pictured above): London, England; she was a guest star in the episode "City on the Edge of Forever," considered to be the best episode on the original show.

3) Mari Dusay: Hays, Kansas, USA; she was a guest star on "Spock's Brain," which is widely considered to be the worst episode on the original show.

4) Sadri Alisik#: Istanbul, Turkey, he played Tourist Omer in "The Turkish Star Trek" (1973)

5) George Takei: Los Angeles, Calif., USA; he is the original Mr. Sulu.

6) Leonard Nimoy: Boston, Mass., USA: Mr. Spock, we presume.

7) Patrick Stewart: Mirfield (Yorkshire), England

8) Malcolm McDowell- Horsforth (Yorkshire), England

9) Ricardo Montalban#: Mexico City, Mexico

10) John Belushi#: Chicago, Ill., USA

11) Jim Carrey: Newmarket (Ontario), Canada

12) Nichelle Nichols: Robbins, Ill., USA

Belushi and Carrey played parodies of Captain Kirk on tv.

*-Javier the Intern is a fictional character

#-Actors who are now deceased

http://www.startrek.com

http://www.trekweb.com

Quote of the Week- John Belushi

Today, in honor of Second City's 50th anniversary, we are posting comments from two of their respective alumni on our respective blogs. We will quip the late John Belushi's "Blues Brothers" co-star Dan Aykroyd on our sister blog "Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Time."

As mentioned in a recent NPR piece, Second City has historically had venues in Chicago and Toronto, though they now have a third 'Second City' in Los Angeles.

Second City has produced an amazing amount of stars ranging from the late John Candy to Steve Carrell to Bill Murray. Mnay alumnus went on to perform for "Saturday Night Live" including Aykroyd, Belushi, Murray and the late Gilda Radner.

Along with Candy, many members of Second City's Toronto troupe went on to produce the tv series "SCTV," which became a comedy sensation which boasted the talents of Martin Short, Andrea Martin, Eugene Levy, Rick Moranis, Dave Thomas and Catherine O'Hara among others (oh, I almost forgot Joe Flaherty).

Second City also tours around North America. Currently, they will be performing in Pittsburgh, Pa., and in Arlington Heights, Ill., on Dec. 17 (Thurs.).

In our region (we split our time between Virginia and North Carolina), the troupe will be performing at The Warehouse Theatre in Lynchburg, Va., on March 12, 2010, and at Wolftrap in Vienna, Va. (Washington DC suburb) on March 13, 2010.

Here is a quote from Belushi, an alumnus of the Chicago Second City, who tragically died at age 33 in 1982 after starring in "National Lampoon's Animal House," "The Blues Brothers" and "Neighbors" (well everyone makes at least one bomb!):

"I give so much pleasre to so many people. Why can't I not get some pleasure for myself?"