Comedy Cringe Festival - Day 2

Tonight is the second night of the weeklong Comedy Cringe Festival live from the Curly Wurly Comedy Wainscotting brought to you in association with the 1968 classic, Baker's Coconut & Chocolate Party Cut-Up Cakes. (I forgot to note that if you click on the images, you'll get a larger view and find more complete cut-up construction instructions!)

Tonight's Jokers: See if you can 'SPOT the FOX TERRIER'! And, don't sue us if you can't stop laughing.. it's 'TORTIE the TURTLE'!

(Act #3: Spot the Fox Terrier)
I love being a dog. We lead a nice life. You never see a dog with a wristwatch.

But what is the deal with flea collars?!



(Act #4: Tortie the Turtle)
This truck full of tortoises collided with a van full of terrapins. It was a turtle disaster!

(Note: Some jokes loosely derived from George Carlin, Jerry Seinfeld)

Tomorrow's Jokers: Make sure to get your tickets for Ella and Teddy!

Comedy Cringe Fest - Day 1

Comedians are a thick-heeled bunch who must face nightly criticism flung at them in the form of rotten produce, the occasional projectile, or, more commonly, an insulting barb called a heckle (or sometimes a 'jeckle'). Due to the unforgiving nature of hard-to-please audiences, the stand-up circuit is nearly impossible to break into for most would-be comedians. And if you're a party cake, it's even harder to get any respect. Sure, the crowd loves your sweet frosting and whimsical shape, but once you start to tell jokes, those heckles begin.

But these Baker's Coconut & Chocolate Party Cut-Up Cakes are some real cut-ups -- no hecklers here!

Welcome to the first night of the weeklong Comedy Cringe Festival live from the Curly Wurly Comedy Wainscotting brought to you in association with the 1968 classic, Baker's Coconut & Chocolate Party Cut-Up Cakes. There will be two acts per night, and they are sure to delight! (Note: Two drink minimum.)

Tonight's Jokers: You'll go cocoon over 'BUTTERFLY CAKE'! And, you know who else is funny? 'HONEY of a BUNNY'!

(Act #1: Butterfly Cake)
I was flying in the jungle and there was this monkey with a can opener. I said to him, 'You don't need a can opener to peel a banana.' He said, 'No, this is for the tomato soup!'




(Act #2: Honey of a Bunny)
How do bunnies get from one vegetable garden to another?
They take a taxi cabbage!

Why did the bunnies go on strike?
They wanted a raise in celery!

Tomorrow's Jokers: What has eight legs, a hard shell, and barks? Comedy Cringe Fest's second set of comedians!

Deep-Sea Dave

Meet Deep-Sea Dave, enthusiastic spokesfish of famous Davis Bros' famous Coddies fishcakes and other famous canned seafoods! Personally, I think he's better than the Gorton's Fisherman, Captain Birdseye, and Mrs. Paul combined. Although, I am partial to the fish featured in this Mrs. Paul's advertisement.

Here's another look at Deep-Sea Dave, although I daresay, he didn't age well. It could be his all-fish diet.

Stuff Grumpy Old Men Like

Another humorous pictorial spread from the January 1948 issue of Woman's Home Companion is here for your enjoyment. We Can Dream, Can't We? is part manifesto of the modern husband, part nonsensical Andy Rooney-style rant. As with the last set of pictures from the same issue, the original captions are printed here (in italics) along with my own comments (non-italicized). The photographs were, once again, by Tony Verti, and the captions remain uncredited. Ladies, take notes!:

What do men expect a house to do for them in the way of masculine comfort? To find out we went right to the men themselves. We talked to them, looked at their houses, made a poll to see what they secretly yearn for at home, what their pet peeves are--and we found out! Here are the answers interpreted by artist Ben Stahl.

Well-stocked refrigerator for midnight snacks is most men's idea of pure bliss--a small bird, cheese, icy beer head the list.

This blissed-out husband can't even take the food out of the refrigerator, put it on a plate, and sit at a table like a civilized human being! Nope, in the ultimate show of laziness, he just pushed his stool up to the fridge and is wasting a lot of electricity by leaving the door open while he chows down! Second, what in the world is the need for such a gigantic knife? This picture is just distressing! I think Pops here should just keep dreaming.


Place to make a mess in. All men yearn for a spot where they can pursue a hobby, a corner in the house where they can scatter papers, drop ashes, saw wood or do what they please when they please. Artist Ben Stahl dreams of a studio like this.

Apparently, this is the room where your husband wants to paint portraits of mysterious French women and throw crumbled paper on the floor!


Solid comfort--big comfortable lounge chair with a place to put feet up, radio handy, jumbo ash tray, good light for reading--all too good to be true?

No, I think this is the most reasonable request. So, according to this poll, most husbands feel they are underfed and have no time and space to relax and/or pursue creative hobbies. Now, let's discover the darkest secret of all: what irritates husbands most!

BASIC GROUCHES

Men know what they don't like in households too.


Violated newspapers, mussed, scattered or simply first-read, rank as heinous household crime. Men take news seriously.

As well they should. This man doesn't look irritated by the the condition of the newspaper so much as by the article he's reading. This looks more like the face of a man who has just read an article about how the durned guv'ment are raising the taxes again. Or maybe he's reading about the rising crime and lamenting about 'kids today.'


Tearing open cereal box instead of cutting along the dotted line is considered minor outrage, brings forth wistful plea.

Ah, yes, it would appear junior did a poor job of opening the cereal box in his excitement at getting the toy prize before his siblings. Still, this can be easily rectified, so it's best to let old Pappy know that he shouldn't get his blood all in a boil over such small things!


Clothes-hanger-in-use perched on top of closet door makes closing door difficult--is anathema to average man.

Well, I guess he spends the entire weekend making the rounds and pointing out everything he finds irritating, doesn't he? Couldn't he just... hang the dress elsewhere instead of posing for a photo?


Fragile tables laden with bric-a-brac are felt to be a deliberate plot against men. So are bitsy ash trays, wobbly vases.

Too ridiculous to even comment on! Find some excuse to get him out of the house when he starts sizing up the table legs and ranting on about plots against his masculinity!


All men to the fore on this one--stockings drying on the shower rail. Only thing worse is to find them soaking in bowl.

Yet he seems to be giving this a begrudging thumbs up? Maybe it's best to let him have his art studio if it will prevent all the complaints!

Chowder Goes To A Ski Party

Chowder Goes To A Ski Party is a photo pictorial from the January 1948 issue of Woman's Home Companion. In a photographic sitcom style, it details what happens when a group of friends take a trip up to the ski cabin and settle in for an evening of chowder and pancakes after a day out on the slopes. Remember this episode from Happy Days? Remember this episode from The Facts Of Life? Remember this episode from Beverly Hills, 90210? And Sabrina, The Teenage Witch? And Boy Meets World? And That 70's Show? And...?

So, switch off TVLand and Nick At Nite (they don't show any good classic television on there anymore, anyway), and tune into Curly Wurly TV! Important information: The magazine's original captioning is uncredited (and italicized here). The photographs are by Tony Venti. The ski clothes were provided by Horse House, which is still a popular clothing designer. In fact, I believe more than one a-list celebrity was wearing Horse House couture on the red carpet last night (guess who!).

After a day in (or maybe under) the snow, ski enthusiasts clamor for a hot tasty supper that can be served up fast as a jump-turn. With this gang of young-marrieds chowder and dessert pancakes are top choice.

I see, I thought they were a bunch of unchaperoned teenagers gobbling down chowder, but they're marrieds! Whew! This episode went from being rated TV-MA to TV-PG (no V-Chip required)!

"Anybody hungry?" Jack shouts and then gets ready to duck as about-to-starve friends crowd in on him. After a few minutes' quick heating, fish chowder will be ready to serve.

I'm not clear on which one is Chowder. I thought he was the fangy Gene Kelly on the right (also known as 'Jack'). However, Jack seems to be the one hosting the shindig, and the title of the piece is 'Chowder Goes To A Ski Party,' so he must be one of the guests arriving in this picture. I'm banking on the middle guy with the tacky sweater being Chowder. Unfortunately, his identity is never revealed. If only Chowder had a jacket with his nickname embroidered on it or, maybe, a crown à la Jughead to identify him. Note that all the friends must give Jack the secret Chowder handshake before they're allowed into the lodge. Also, do you think that the two blondes are twins???


Jack proves he can too cook! He demonstrates how to make pancakes.

Well, now, I bet we all know a 'Jack': someone who invites you to their chalet under the pretense of a soup-based soiree only to spend the night demanding an audience to gawk at them as they show off making dessert pancakes! It's happened to all of us. What I think happened is that Jack and his sweatered friend (Chowder?) got into a bout of fisticuffs over whether Jack could cook, and Jack quickly threw together an excuse to one-up his chum. Now he's going to drag out this dessert pancake business over the entire evening just to punish his skeptical friend.


This is fast work--pancakes brown just about a minute on one side, then flip over for the other. Betty rolls them up quickly with a couple of forks, tops with spoonfuls of hot fruit sauce.

There's apparently a lot of alcohol in that hot fruit sauce. And Betty's been topping those pancakes off with a heavy hand. Interesting bit of wall art -- I think if you press on it, the panels give way to a secret room that neither the smoke monster from Lost nor vampires can enter.


Chowder is too good to allow anybody extras so last mouthfuls get shared fa'r and squar'.

"Fa'r and squar'"?! No wonder no writer wanted to take credit for this story! Well, the young-marrieds are all thoroughly drunk by this photo, and it's best not to know what's being passed around in the basket. Here: Chowder finally gets some chowder!


"She just married me for my cooking," Jack says modestly as tart-sweet pancakes are gobbled up by admiring gang. This dessert is amateur's delight because it gives the impression of great skill, really is simple, easy. Only joker: making enough to satisfy pleased eaters.

"Only joker," indeed! Ah, clearly this last male party guest is professional tweeter John Mayer, so now we know for sure that Chowder is the other guy. Here, John Mayer takes a break from Twitter to share a laugh over some dessert pancakes.

The Good, The Bad, And...?

Priced To Fit by Dorothy Kirk, the food editor of Woman's Home Companion (January 1948 issue), is another article detailing how to create enticing and wholesome menus on a restrictive budget. The 'Know Your' (Meats, Fish, Fruits, etc.) headings are probably just as useful today as they were sixty years ago. It should come as no surprise that I'm posting this article on the merit of its fashion plate pictures, of course! Here is truly a commendable job by the food stylist, a most underappreciated sort of artist.

Oh no! Part of the second page has been censored! It was well-known that the Woman's Home Companion had red sympathies, so it seems that the menus for Monday and ___day are lost forever. However, Curly Wurly has access to a top-secret dossier that has further information on this particular page of the magazine. The true contents of these menus might shed some light on many contemporary controversies, including (but not limited to) the Kennedy assassinations, Marilyn Monroe's mysterious death, and who really shot J.R. The world has a right to know!

So, I'm sure you're dying to know the real contents of Monday's menu? All we can tell from the censored magazine image is that something is broiled. Curly Wurly can exclusively reveal that this menu consists of broiled doorknobs wrapped in bacon accompanied by canned spaghetti and green beans and a special cold dessert/weapon with the code name of 'Orange Banana Curl,' which looks like a quartet of albino caterpillars converging atop a mountain of orange slices (possibly with the aim to plan a coup d'etat). For bread, serve with crackers.

It's the menu on the right, however, that is more worrisome. In fact, the menu is so radical, so upsetting to our moral society, that we have not even been allowed to know for which day this ultimate blasphemy was intended. It was Thursday, by the way. And what a Thursday it would have been had this been made public knowledge. As you can see from the picture, when the chef discovered the true nature of the menu he had been hired to prepare, he threw down his toque in disgust and protestation. That rumple of white linen is a symbol for an all-American integrity not present in this menu. The only thing we were allowed to know is that some variety of 'gelatine' was for dessert. The unnamed casserole is in a fairly innocuous (though exceptionally encrusted) dish. By all that is holy, the Truth of the Casserole is just too much for the soul. Many men have learned what is in that particular casserole... only to be found soon after... Well, it's just all too morbid for a blog that should be taken with a lighter heart! Let us ignore the casserole. The Casserole of the Damned is accompanied by tempting confectionery to appease the gut and distract the conscience from the casserole: glazed donuts and the aforementioned gelatine. Unfortunately, the Truth of the Gelatine is as awful as the Truth of the Casserole! Do not let your mind dwell on what bobs around in the red slime! Please, just eat the rolls and back away from the table! Or let your eye pass through the forbidden tear to the next article. Let your mind wander to the overworked mother who deprived herself of a permanent wave. There..

Friday and Saturday were much less controversial, and the FBI didn't see fit to ban this information from readers. I especially admire Saturday's fare: Franks-in-blankets, a marshland of creamed onions and peas, and a sweet potato pudding so pretty you could place it on your dresser next to the matching doily.

And, there you have it: Dorothy Kirk's plan for a week of nourishment!

Happy Birthday, Lushie Peach!

I'd like to present the Cat Cake to Lushie Peach in honor of her birthday! I hope your birthday is as special as this cake!


(picture from Betty Crocker's Cookbook, 1973 (18th printing))

Asylum Of Sardines

Sardines have long been considered the guilty pleasure of the pantry. Often found tucked behind more respectable shelf-stable fare like Treet, Manwich, and Vienna Sausages, sardines are becoming fashionable again. I read an article actually written this year touting the health benefits of sardines. Then I discovered this recent article from Woman's Day (December 1952) celebrating the thriftiness of the very same fish. I suppose there are few legitimate reasons to stay away from sardines now that they have been deemed good for the body and the pocketbook. So, honoring Curly Wurly's mission to provide timely and educational information, here's a bit of what you can do with your Maine Sardines (compliments of the aforementioned Woman's Day - December 1952 issue.)

Take your cue from the floating head: save loads of money on pizza by skipping the delivery and the freezer aisle! Maine Sardine Pizza is the healthy option you've been yearning. It may look like a slice of cake with a long worm on it, but it's wholesome and cost effective!


When I think of the concept of Found Money, I think of the joy of discovering a $20 bill in a pocket that hasn't been searched in years. Apparently, other people's hearts leap at saving a few cents on a stack of sardine cans. If the notion of sardines means delicious savings to you, here is a page of actual recipes from Woman's Day. I don't normally emphasize the recipes on Curly Wurly, but with dish names like Broiled Sardines with Puffy Sauce, how could I deny this information to my readers?


Get your Sardine-And-Mush Fry recipe here! Get your Sardines and Cabbage with Creamy Mustard Sauce recipe here! Get your indigestion right here!

And that, my dear readers, might be all the frights you need to get you right through Halloween!