Planet Proctor # 4

(I'm obviously not working enough)

MORE DOG DAYS OF SUMMER

The L.A. Times reports that a woman in Sylmar was recently crushed to death by bags of dog food. The late Melany Paula Campos and her sister were trying to turn their two-acre farm into a hospice for sick and stray dogs, but this Tuesday four 40-pound bags of doggie chow apparently fell on the 60-year-old Paula, crushing her to death. Her sister, Lelys, who is a licensed physician, found her body hours later. A doggone strange way to go.

In the All-Ukraine Gazette, as reported by the L.A. Times Science Section, a man designated as "Victor R." is purported to have returned from a trip with what he thought was a bull terrier puppy, as a pet for his wife and son. After about a week, however, "the parents were awakened by the screams of their 3-year-old son, whose ear was being chewed off by the animal." A Ukranian veterinarian (say that three times fast) then revealed to the distraught couple that their "terrier" was actually "a rare species of Pakistani rat." Or -- the Giant Rat of. . .?" (Actually -- this is an urban myth and has never been acknowledged as such by the Times!)

NOT INSANE!

Kenneth Branaugh (pronounced as in "enough, already") has produced and directed a newer, better "Hamlet" to be released this Christmas (sic) featuring Jack Lemmon, Billy Crystal, Robin Williams, and Gerard Depardieu; and set in a fictional 19th century Prussian court. "I think 'Hamlet' celebrates life," says Ken, "and I wanted to convey the vitality, humor and sex appeal of these characters." What's next? The Disney version?

IN THE NEXT WORLD. . .

And speaking of the mouse master, Albert "Big Al" Bertino, one of Walt's pen slaves, died Sunday at the Orwellian age of 84. Besides working on such classics as Fantasia, Pinocchio, Bambi, and many Donald Duck and Chip and Dale cartoons, his spirit lives on at Disneyland, where he helped to create Pirates of the Caribbean, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, the Haunted Mansion and the Country Bear Jamboree -- where the animatronic grizzly (named Big Al} "bears" his face.

In the Times obit, he tells about working on an animated Christmas story about Jesus' birth and desiring to insure that the segment would be politically correct, Bertino presented it to the Mother Superior across the street at St. Josephs Hospital

"Oh, this is wonderful," she sighed, "Where do you people get your ideas?"

"Well, when we get stuck," Bertino responded respectfully looking heavenward ,"We get some help from the man upstairs."

"Oh, yes," the head nun said, "That Mr. Disney is so clever."

EVERYTHING YOU KNOW IS WRONG

Electric Bananas? Was Donavan right after all? "Fruits and vegetables such as bananas, oranges and eggplants are an excellent source of low-level electricity," according to Indian scientists at Venkateswara University (try saying that once) where they ran a clock for four weeks from a battery consisting of crushed banana peels with electrodes attached. (But never put a banana battery in the refrigerator, no, no, no.)

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"It is against state policy to pave over the body of a deer." William Bortee, Pennsylvania Department of Transportation Engineer. (But contract workers did anyway.)