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When Kate turned six, she got a Mr. Potato Head as a present from her brothers and sisters. It was just a scrubbed russet and some buttons, but Kate's family was very poor and they loved her and so they all chipped in, all eight brothers and sisters, and bought her the potato. Even though she was born poor, Kate was no dummy, she knew she just got a plain old potato for her birthday not a real Mr. Potato Head. Kate also knew that an everyday object could be piles of fun with a little imagination! She scrunched up her face real tight into a grubby little mess of concentration and thought, "What can I do with this potato to make it fun?" She thought and she thought, and you know what happened? I'll tell you! She pretended! Suddenly, it was a real Mr. Potato Head and she had a great time jabbing stuff into it! She even found a bit of old battery casing to use as a Mr. Potato-hat and a fancy looking chop/walking stick for her favorite, and only toy. Kate died violently and alone a short while later in an unrelated incident but man, did she ever have fun jabbing stuff into that potato!

Date Written: September 08, 2004
Author: TheBuyer
Average Vote: 3.3333

Comments:
09/10/2004 Ferucio P. Chhretan (4): I like to pretend that the narrator of this short is a mechanical snowman.
09/10/2004 Joe Frankenstone (3): I was going to give it two stars for the telegraphed "wacky" ending, but it gets one star more for being an ironic lamentation for the horror of our plasticene age, which makes use of the author's knowledge that readers of Acme Shorts are lonely pop-culture afficianados who know that the the original Mr. Potato Head was, of course, just a set of exactly these sorts of add-on additions for a real potato. This falls in the category of "pretend" insider knowledge, which everyone really knows -- like Val Kilmer in Batman Forever joking that the circus must be halfway to Metropolis by now.
09/10/2004 qualcomm: i feel like i heard this entire bit in some stand-up routine. like, "we was so poor, i didn't get a mr. potato head..." anyone?
09/10/2004 Mr. Pony: Little bit, yeah. And Joe, what do you mean by "telegraphed"? And by "lonely"? and by "joking"? Welcome back, by the way.
09/10/2004 Joe Frankenstone: Whoa, what the hell DID I mean by "joking?" Talk about a mind-fart. There is NOTHING funny about that scene. In fact, it is DEATHLY serious:

Bruce's shoulder as Gordon's cruiser disappears out of sight.

DICK
Okay. I'm outta here.
BRUCE
Excuse me.
DICK
I figure telling that cop I'd stay here saved me a truckload of social service interviews and good will. So no offense but thanks. See ya.
Dick heads toward the door. Alfred slips away.

BRUCE
Where will you go? The circus is halfway to Metropolis by now.
DICK
I got no place at the circus without my family. I'm going to get a fix on Two-Face. Then I'm going to kill him.
BRUCE
Listen, Dick. Killing Two-Face won't take the pain away. It'll make it worse.

09/10/2004 Mr. Pony: Maybe Bruce was jokingly mocking Dick, suggesting that Dick really didn't have what it takes to be Superman's sidekick.
09/10/2004 qualcomm: the weird thing is that both metropolis and gotham are supposed to be stand-ins for nyc, so what the shit?
09/10/2004 Mr. Pony: Where did you hear that? That's not true, I think.
09/10/2004 qualcomm: i didn't hear it anywhere. i guess i just assumed that. didn't you? well, gotham is obviously new york, as the real city had that nickname before batman came out. metropolis on the other hand... i don't know, wasn't superman: the movie filmed in new york?
09/10/2004 Joe Frankenstone: That's nothing. In the 1970's Superman vs. Spiderman mega-crossover, Peter Parker is shown getting off the train to Metropolis from New York City. Unless Clark Kent is shown getting off the train. You get the idea. As OSS says, WTS?
09/10/2004 TheBuyer: I thought Metropolis was in the midwest somewhere becvause of it's location relative to the rural community of Smallville. He's a Canadian anyway, eh. Maybe "Metropolis" is "Regina".
09/10/2004 qualcomm: i didn't think metropolis was anywhere near smallville. (and supporting evidence from "smallville" the tv show are of course irrelevant.)
09/10/2004 qualcomm: *is*
09/10/2004 TheBuyer: Ya, same for 'Lois and Clark'. I'm trying to avoid just looking this up, but Metropolis seemed more 'Chicago' somehow. Fuck it, I'll just look it up.
09/10/2004 TheBuyer: "Metropolis, as originally developed by Siegel and Shuster, was probably Cleveland, the "big city" with which they were most familiar. There are also possible early references to Toronto. Later, Superman's home was moved to somewhere in the BosWash corridor on the U.S. East Coast. "Who's Who in the Legion of Superheroes" showed a 30th century Metropolis, which stretched slightly beyond New York and Boston in either direction, and used those names explicitly in the description of Metropolis. John Byrne seemed to think it was back in the midwest."
09/10/2004 anonymous: this reminds me of the "Stardate" discussion.
09/10/2004 Mr. Pony: I don't think the cities are supposed to actually be in any real location. Furthermore, although both are certainly New Yorkly, I believe they are meant (at least in the comics of the last 15 years or so) to represent certain aspects of city life in the abstract: Metropolis is the Shining City on the Hill, bustling with activity and productivity and smiling beat cops and paperboys and happy citizens filled with idealism and wonder. The kind of place I would be from, really. Gotham is the seedy and dark picture of a city overgrown with itself, breeding corrupt politicians and rat-like borderline insane inhabitants holed up in their squalid one-room apartments. The sort of town that would spawn a guy like Summer. I place Metropolis, therefore, in Honolulu, and Gotham in West Hartford.
09/10/2004 anonymous: Incedentally, this Irish-joke potato short is set in a Gotham City suburb called Giegerburg.
09/10/2004 anonymous: Upon reflection, the Potato Head joke isn't that funny, but something about "jabbing" made me think it would work because of the violent nature of the word "jabbing." The stand-up thing, I don't know maybe, I didn't steal it on purpose. Other things I have stolen by accident include, but are not limited to:
-inventing potato chips when I was frying up bits of sliced eggplant
-inventing taxis when an old lady gave me two dollars for driving her to the mall and I thought, "wow, what a great idea! I could drive people around and get money!"


09/10/2004 Litcube (3): I, for one, think jabbing is pretty halarious. Jab jab jab jab jkab jab bja jabj abja bja bja bja bja jabajabajab Ahaha haahaha haa!!!
09/12/2004 Ferucio P. Chhretan: I did some freelance work in Geigerburg this weekend. Nice place, very green and rural. Lots of chickens. O.k., so where the hell is Blüdhaven?
09/12/2004 Mr. Pony: East Hartford?