See, that sort of crap can work for Skunk Cabbage, because Skunk is a crap show. I know it, you know it. The producers know it. The kids don't give a possum's posterior because it's full of violence and very noisy and it smells offensive, and mostly because Mom and Dad hate the sonuvabitch.
That won't work for Sparky and His Gang because Sparky aspires to be more, and that is why it is worse than a skunk.
Go ahead, ask your kids. Why aren't you watching Sparky, little Ambrose and Abigail?
PRESS HERE for HyperText SoundByte©
"Aw, mom. I dunno. It just suuucks."
Kids won't be fooled. They'll watch quality, or they'll watch crap. But you better be one or the other, and you better know which that is.
from Hebephrenia, "The Youthpad"
column of 4/10/58
"Spark Plug"
by D. Mentua Precox
So I was hanging out over at the Sen/Sen Studios like hoping to get an interview with the Man Himself, G. Peppy, y'know? When who should like come blitzing by but Velveeta Creemcheese in like a true hurry to ease herself from like point A to point B, y'know? Well, comma, Vel and your totally humble narrator go back to like the last ice age, can you load it? So I was like all "Vel! Exclamation Point! Heard you got 87ed from the inner realms of Peppydom," comma, because the skin was she'd like been fired from her completely powerful job as Czarina of Production at Pep-Pep-Pep-piprod, load it? Then she was all "Aw contrary, Manny, comma comma," and the bitch like knows that D. M. Precox your Humble etc. gets the squints when she hears that name so I was all What's this twist in her shorts? but refrained from verbing it into the etheric, comma, discretion being the better part of something or other period! Exclamation point! So then she goes "Mere haberdashery," and I go "Hats? Hats? Question Mark?" and she goes "Change of. The new hat belongs to hyperster-in-chief of 'The New Improved Sparky and His Gang," and I go "Whoozat?" and she goes "It's G.P.'s new kidvid extravaganzoid," comma, and I'm all "?kraM noitseuQ Why wasn't I informed? Question Mark?" and all snitty she's going "Your office was wired all pronto," comma quothation mark parenthesis (but my Faithful Readers will know that their humble narrator is totally up on all comma ALL things worth knowing in the land of hebephilia, comma, and D.M. and H.N. had never heard of it dot. dot. dot. well, okay, I've heard of it okay?, comma QM, but not because it was shaking on any celeb Richter scale, can you load? sisehtneraP) Period! Be that as it were neither here nor there, soon yrs truly was mustered in to the very like innermost cabals of the Great Giddy Pepperoni himself! E!X!C!L!A!M!A!T!I!O!N! P!O!I!N!T! When what to my wondering orbs do I vid but the Pepman curled in a huddle of scriptsters, comma, nine in number or even a dozen at the powerful end of a table of such like enormous proportions that the King of Kong coulda used it for a surfboard. Yea, verily, comma, oh my breathrin and sisterin. Words were like heated and floated and launched and puncturated. Hair was being torn and shorn. Spittle like flew! Peppy goes "Can't anybody in this overpaid gaggle of hacks goose me up an original concept?" The quacksters hawked excitedly and treatments were waved with terrifying gay abandon, heedless! EP! So I viddy no easy access to the Peppy ear—emdash not in the near recent, anyway—dash, and my questing gaze shambled to the other end of the table, where wire-haired moppets presided, two in census. This must be like the Sparks, of whom things were heedlessly spoken in many a flacky promo in the previous months elapsed. And already, is he nothing but all two-weeks-ago? That was the shake I had downloaded, and yrs. t. feels everything that's shakin'. Apostropheperiod. Vel goes "This is Sparky, the star of our show," and I go "Howja Dew?" and Vel goes "And this is little Polly, sidekickstress," and I go, comma, "Watcha doin' apostrophe?" and little Polly goes "Drawing," which Yours can see with her own lamps that a drawing is indeed being committed, only it's much too much like of a quality for such a youthful inkster so I go "Drawing what?" Well faithful reader D. M. Precox has her good days and her days when eaten by weasels and this wasn't my shining moment, because comma my lenses could clearly see she was drawing a... thing dot dot dot period. And who should quickly validate this you know insight but pretty Polly herself by yodelling "A thing," she goes comma, and elaborating "It's a sort of a guy me and Sparky made up," and Sparky goes "I made it up. She drew it." I go does the thing have a name cue you ee ess tee eye oh en mark? and she goes "Inky Tagger." Well much more transpired that day but your short attention span has spun, it's time for DMP to trill a fond aloha with this on her lips colon: "?kraM noitseuQ Who is Inky Tagger Question Mark?" More later. Remember, you heard it here first.
May 1 (King City Temple)
The April "Flack" numbers as compiled by the Trends Research Department of the Latitudinarian Church are as follows:
| TITLE | AAS | Last Month | Last Year | |
| 1. | The Gideon Peppy Show | 84.7 | 1 | 1 |
| 2. | Skunk Cabbage | 82.2 | 2 | 28 |
| 3. | Admiral Platypus | 81.8 | 3 | 5 |
| 4. | Barney's Boulevard | 75.0 | 4 | 8 |
| 5. | Scoop the Poop | 67.6 | 10 | - |
Skunk Cabbage retains its precarious grip on the number-two slot for the second month, edging the Admiral by only a few hundred thousand viewings. The big story is still the meteoric rise of Poop, CEW's replacement for the unlamented What the Fuck? which early this year fell into the becalmed straits of the likes of Sparky and His Gang, and now survives only on the marginal sales of back numbers. And so what if the carpers claim "Poop" is really nothing but recycled "Fuck?" As Chairman Bigbird pointed out to the critics, "Food is nothing but recycled poop, isn't it? What's the big deal?"
Not so dramatic but still cause for some concern among the mandarins of Sentry/Sensational is the continuing slippage of the Peppy Show, a five-month phenom that's been slow and steady and shows no signs of having reached bottom. Asked if this might harbing an eventual end to the six-year stranglehold TGPS has held on first place, Peppy replied: "We always lose some numbers when we head into summer. It ain't got me crapping in my drawers."
More likely to put skid marks in his skivvies is the dismal rise of Sparky from thirty-five to thirty-one after a full year in production. Staff changes don't seem to have done the trick, though some observers point out that most of the small gain the show has posted came in the last two months, with the introduction of two new and somewhat more interesting regular characters: Inky Tagger and Arson E. Blazeworthy. Press releases trumpet that a series of new faces will soon transform the Gang. The word from here: Don't bet the farm.