My Car

My Car (2002)

Blog with a View, at heart, is a digital art photoblog. Each Wednesday, I present an image without the usual annotation or explanation or tirade.

As always, feel free to talk back to the art or to thread openly.

Ripley Enters the Nursery Again

Ripley Enters the Nursery Again (2002)

And, well, while we're on the subject, I thought it might be interesting to compare this follow-up to the previous post.

The last post was a fairly untouched fractal made with Tiera-Zon. This later image was generated in Fractal Zplot, imported into XenoDream, and then graphically thrashed within an inch of its pixels in Photoshop.

A self-similar study in contrasts?

Ripley Enters the Nursery

Ripley Enters the Nursery (1998)

This blog's very first entry was about Ellen Ripley -- the flamethrower tough heroine of the Alien films as portrayed by Sigourney Weaver. But, apparently, I still have Ripley in my acid blood.

From the DVD Journal's review of The Alien Quadrilogy:

As the last woman standing at the end of Ridley Scott's bloodbath, Sigourney Weaver's Ellen Ripley earned the audience's respect for outlasting her more formidable-looking costars, while also winning the… er, hearts of men everywhere for doing it in an outrageously skimpy pair of panties that amazingly retain the power to titillate in this era of the imagination-less thong. But while Weaver went on to become a sought-after leading lady in films like The Year of Living Dangerously and Ghostbusters , her career path met a fortuitous juncture when it dovetailed with that of director James Cameron. An infamous purveyor of the tough-mama persona, Cameron was still at a make-or-break moment when he was handed the reins for his first studio film. But, as he has ably proven since, scale doesn't bother him. And while Linda Hamilton eventually transformed from a shrinking violet into a no-nonsense heroine at the end of his previous picture, The Terminator (1984), in Aliens (1986) Ripley would be his first fully-realized depiction of "I am woman, watch me kill and kill again" empowerment.

The fearlessness with which Weaver threw herself into this hardened incarnation of Ripley was so convincing that it would win her a well-deserved Academy Award Best Actress nomination, which was all the more impressive considering that science-fiction films rarely registered with the Academy outside of the technical categories. Had the film been released at the length Cameron had intended, which would have included an unwisely excised sequence in which the audience learns that Ripley had a daughter who passed while the character languished in hypersleep, she might've actually won. That pivotal moment near the beginning of the film better informs the ferocity of Ripley's maternal instincts once she encounters Newt (Carrie Henn), the lone survivor of a colony set up on the planetoid that is home to the derelict ship carrying the alien eggs. These creatures have, in essence, already robbed her of the chance to be a mother once, and it'll be over Ripley's dead body if they succeed at doing it again.

Cameron's Aliens made more sense to me once I saw the director's cut version. The death of Ripley's daughter is a critical plot point. The loss clarifies why Ripley's job as a loader lacks meaning and shows her motivation for wanting to return to the hellish planet to help find the missing colonists. Ripley's near obsessive devotion to young Newt also becomes clearer. When I first saw the film (at a drive-in), I understood Ripley's compassion for Newt as a kind of duty. The other female marines, like Vasquez, were hardly maternal. They radiated testosterone -- joking about the "bug hunt" and quickly out-quipping the male marines. But why would Ripley run back into the collapsing station to rescue Newt, already cocooned like so many others, as seconds tick down to planet nuking?

It's all about nursery images. Having lost one child, she's not about to let the aliens take another. Newt must be removed from the blanket of goo before she becomes an incubator -- a corporeal nursery. Ripley's decision to set the pods ablaze in the Alien Queen's nursery now gels. There's a moment, once she recovers from the shock of stumbling into the nursery, when Ripley realizes the alien guards fear she will torch the unborn facehuggers. Ripley first cocks her head with an eye-for-an-eye epiphany -- then unleashes hell -- firing without mercy as the digital display of rounds counts down.

Where yet was ever found a mother
Who'd give her booby for another
--John Gay, Fables, Part I

It's no surprise that some viewers have kicked the whole mother/alien thematic blender up a notch. Stella Williams, reviewing AlienWoman: The Making of Lt. Ellen Ripley by Ximena C. Gallardo and C. Jason Smith, notes that

Gallardo and Smith argue that the male-female dichotomy is broken down in the Alien films, and women as well as men are "raped" to serve as wombs for the symbolic mother-destroyer Alien. The authors claim the Alien saga was the first science fiction film to approach what it means to be human on the basis of biological sex and gender roles. As males are penetrated, impregnated, and give birth, everyone is feminized. The authors describe space as a sexual enterprise where monstrous generative mothers threaten to devour men. Gallardo and Smith credit the first film with setting up the conflict between the female protagonist and the monstrous feminine that operates throughout the Alien series.

which, given the scope, almost makes this parent

It's what's for dinner...
[Saturn Devouring His Children (1819-1823) by Goya]

seem sweetly 50s sit-com retro once Ripley enters the nursery.

Viking Funeral

Viking Funeral (2005)

Here's a new one to send your Thanksgiving weekend sailing off in flames. Were the turkey a bit overcooked and the dressing dry? Here's why.

You probably have an image of Viking funerals -- burning ships drifting away on fog-drenched fjords? But maybe you aren't being festive enough...or dutifully walking like an Egyptian? From House Shadow Drake, here's an abridged account from a "Viking Chieftain's Funeral on the Volga" (921-922 AD) as recorded by Arabian envoy Ibn Fadhlan:

When a chieftain dies, slaves and servants are asked who will die with him. The one who volunteers cannot alter the decision. In this particular case it was a woman who was treated with great courtesy while the burial was being prepared. On the day of the funeral the chieftain's ship was drawn up onto land and people walked around it and said words. A beir was placed on it and loths and cushions laid on it by an old woman called the Angel of Death. She was responsible for the preparations. The dead body which up to now had been laid in a grave was taken up and dressed in special garments made for the occasion. He was seated among the cushions in the tent on the ship, with alcoholic drink, food, aromatic herbs and all his weapons. Then a dog, two horses, two cows, a cock and a hen were killed and placed in the ship.

The woman who was to die went round to each tent in the camp and had sexual intercourse with its owner. After this she performed various other rituals. She was raised three times above something which looked like a door frame and said: "I see my master sitting in paradise, and it is beautiful and green and with him are men and slaves and he calls me. Lead me to him." Then she killed a hen, and was taken to the ship, took off her jewelry, drank two beakers and sang, and was finally taken into the tent to her dead master by the Angel of Death. Six men followed her into the tent and had sexual intercourse with her, and then she was killed. The closest relatives of the deceased now lit the firewood under the ship. Others threw more burning brands on the fire and within one hour everything was burnt. Then they built a mound on the spot and raised a pole at its center with the name of the chieftain and his king on it, and went away.

Maybe it's just my jaded 21st Century mindset, but I'm not sure that volunteering to accompany the chieftain to the afterlife is the best gig. Is this your idea of going sailing?

"He that will not sail till all dangers are over must never put to sea" (Thomas Fuller).
[Funeral of a Viking (1893) by Sir Frank Dicksee]

But, apparently, the Vikings did prefer scorched boating into the next life. Even the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Norway bears out the burial detail described above:

At the time of burial, the ship was drawn up on land and placed in a pit. A burial chamber was constructed behind the mast, where the deceased was placed to rest in a bed, dressed in finery. Copious provisions were placed in the ship, dogs and horses were sacrificed, and a large burial mound was piled on top of the vessel.

An Arab travelling in Russia at the end of the 9th Century happened upon a group of Vikings who were in the process of burying a chieftain in this manner. Ibn Fadlan made note of his observations, and his journal has survived. The deceased chieftain's ship was pulled ashore, and valuables were placed aboard. The corpse was dressed in fine clothing and placed on board in a bed. A slave woman, who had chosen to follow her master in death was sacrificed along with a horse and a hunting dog. The ship with its contents was burned, and a burial mound was constructed over the ashes. We have finds of cremated ships graves in the Nordic countries and in Western European Viking sites, but the large graves along the Oslofjord were not put to the torch. In the Gokstad ship a man was found, and the Tune ship probably carried a man a well. However, two women were buried with the Oseberg ship. The skeletons are of a 50-60 year-old and a 20-30 year-old. We can only speculate as to which was the companion and which was the noblewoman.

Unfortunately, these arcane customs do not always translate well when applied to contemporary living. From the Northwest Indiana News:

Barbara Garcia told jurors Friday she rolled her husband's body down a hill toward a pond in Illinois because she wanted to give him the "Viking funeral" he always wanted.

But she denied killing him.

And this from Abbot & Hast Publications:

Viking Funeral Stopped By Fire Department (Hampshire, England):
A family who held a Viking-style funeral for their missing son had their tribute disrupted when the fire department turned up to put out the blazing memorial.

After all, if city ordinances forbid leaf burning, then this

[Artwork by Zakas]

voyage to Valhalla activity will probably further prod your neighbors to call and report you.

Crayon Payback

Crayon Payback (2002)

Blog with a View, at heart, is a digital art photoblog. Each Wednesday, I present an image without the usual annotation/explanation.

The blog's in sleep mode until sometime this weekend. Meanwhile, thanks for coming by, please feel free to browse, look or maybe talk back at archived images, or try teleporting to one of the many fine sites and blogs just to your right.

Nude Beach

Nude Beach (1999)

European Nude or American Naked? It's in that tricky beholder's eye. I mean, are you Fun or Fundie?

From Susan Frei's BAJA Nude Beach:

You see, in Europe when they say "nude" they think of artworks in the Louvre, Degas, Michelangelo. They think of Greek sculpture; of the David. The word "nude" in the USA means a centerfold in Playboy or Penthouse.

Even in Asia they have a much clearer understanding of the distinction between the artistic nude and pornography. Sacred spaces throughout Asia are illustrated with Gods copulating and creating life; the life force is what they are depicting. In the USA, the whole concept of morality was founded by Puritans. They got off the Mayflower and never walked very far from Plymouth Rock. Our psyche is still tied to this mode of puritanical thinking. I would love to see this change, but it won't happen in our life time.

The USA seems to be plagued by a disproportionate number of demonizers that find no other engagement between TGIF and Monday Nite Footsieball, so they venture to masturbate in frontof their iMacs to the theme of superputas and pseudo lesbos, but when they hit upon a "family nude beach" they shudder in awe, because naked people in nature are "evil" and unless a woman has a huge cucumber shoved up her anus while sucking the silicon enhanced genitals of queer weekend bikers, -- well "naked people in nature" MUST BE BANNED IN THE USA.

Breaking the link between nudity and sexuality often opens an entirely new dimension of body and self-acceptance. For most people it's an exhilarating realization of physical and spiritual freedom.

So ciao for now, Amigos! - George "Mad Magazine" Bush ordered the Baja Nude Beach bombed! We're regrouping ;-)

Creative uses for cucumbers aside, and not that I'd put anything morality-pandering past the current White House culture-of-lifeguards, I still wondered what BushCo did to "bomb the beach." So I did a Google search on BAJA NUDE BEACH BUSH. No skullduggery info was unburied, but I'll leave it to your imagination as to what other hits popped out of their tops.

"We are not naked for the pictures, we are naked for the summer, and because we are alive."
--An unnamed model quoted in a collection of photographs by Jock Sturges
[Drawing by Kurt Vonnegut]

I'm still having a beach blanket bingo moment and kicking sand in the face of that naked vs. nude bully. So, let's turn to a source rarely given a voice on this blog -- the art critic. From artnet, here's a snippet of Donald Kuspit's "The Troubling Nude":

In modern art, the distinction between naked and nude has lost the weight it had back when representing the body was a moral act: the transcendentalized nude, with its perfect body, was a symbol of goodness and beauty -- ideals to be striven for -- while the realistically naked body, with all its blemishes, imperfections and grossness, was inherently immoral -- the ugly body of the fallen, sinful Adam or Eve, the antithesis of the saved soul rising to heaven.

The problem embodied in the traditional tension between nakedness and nudity was the mystery of the transformation of the one into the other, which was a religious mystery, for the metamorphosis of the profane into the sacred was a miraculous conversion. One could change one's wretched, hideous body -- like that of the crucified Christ in Grünewald's Isenheim Altar -- to a luminous, immaterial, sublime body -- like that of the resurrected Christ Grünewald also depicts -- by a revelatory leap of faith. It is this basic spiritual change that is embodied in the difference between nakedness and nudity: the naked body conveys the state of the soul before the change, the nude body conveys its condition afterward.

Got your reptile brain wrapped around that naked/nude dichotomy now? Let's review:

Before: Naked
[Isenheim Altar: Crucifixion (1510-1515) by Matthias Grünewald]

After: Nude
[Isenheim Altar: Resurrection (1510-1515) by Matthias Grünewald]

Naked body bad. Nude soul good. Stuff them doctrines up your turkey's cavity this Thanksgiving.

From cucumbers to crucifixions, Blog with a View has got it going on...

...or, then again, this could be just another post that tracks sand all over your condo's carpet.

Generalissimo

Generalissimo (2001)

If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier...just as long as I am the dictator.
--George W. Bush, 12-18-2000

The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.
--Winston Churchill

I'm the commander -- see, I don't need to explain -- I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being President.
--George W. Bush, as quoted in Bush at War by Bob Woodward

It's Greek Theater -- complete with padded flight suit phallus. Our self-described "war president" forgets that in satyr theatre a horse's tail was often tied to the back end. From City Dionysia:

In the satyr play the chorus members (who belonged to a Dionysian society) dressed up as the god's companions to celebrate his vital power. Its subject was related to that of the tragedies, but brought the hero down a peg by its earthy humor.

[...]

There were two or three actors, a reed-flute player, and a chorus of twelve, who were dressed as tipsy silenoi (horse-men), satyrs (goat-men) or various blends of the two. Thus they wore short pants to which a large phallus and a horse's tail were attached; they also wore soft dancing shoes that resembled hooves.

[...]

More common in the satyr play than in tragedy was the dance figure known as "peering" or the "owl dance," in which the chorus looked around as though searching for something -- part of the message of the satyr play.

On the Washington stage, the drama of a horse's ass is playing out. And the public has switched to comedy mode. No one's buying tragedian Cheney's somber rebuttal that claims of doctored intelligence to amplify war drums is "senseless" and "reprehensible." No, the sensible assumption, borne out clearly by the Downing Street Documents, is that the lying liars were cooking intell overtime. Common sense would call into question the coincidence of "failed" intelligence aligning perfectly with NeoCon nation-building hoop dreams of slam-dunk first-strike wars. No, that war president was hibernating inside Bush's compassionate conservative cocoon from the get go. The codpiece could not be contained.

"It is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began..."
[Poster by Ted Rall]

And Americans aren't bamboozled by Dear Leader's comic procession stage exit to the Far East. A call-in poll during Lou Dobb's CNN program tonight suggests how limp the POTUS phallus has become. The question centered on the president's Asian trip. 67% found the trip to be a failure. 31% said it was insubstantial. A mere 2% described the jaunt a success. These phone polls are not "scientific," true, but the meager support for Bush's headline-diverting trek to the Far East underscores that nearly all the blindfolds are off. And once the emperor is revealed to have no clothes, no stuffed crotches or presidential patches on para-military jackets will hide the smoke and mirrors anymore. There is no unseeing what has been so clearly seen:

The truth once seen, man is aware everywhere of the ghastly absurdity of existence...nausea invades him.
--Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy
[Cartoon by Ted Rall]

Better late than never. We no longer have to dance and peer like a Greek chorus that is looking around for something. Our war is a fiction that was staged for us -- increasingly tragic. Only the players are comic. They cannot move away from the footlights. They are still searching for something:

I'll take Paul Lynde to block...

They are searching for an exit strategy...

Death of Chumley

Death of Chumley (2005)

Art brought Chumley to animated life, so why can't my art do him in?

From Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales:

Tennessee Tuxedo was introduced on CBS-TV in response to the 1961 speech by FCC Chairman Newton R. Minow which addressed television as a "vast wasteland". Tennessee, voiced by comedian Don Adams (who portrayed Maxwell Smart on Get Smart , and later voiced Inspector Gadget ), educated as well as entertained youngsters. The series initially included repeat episodes of The Hunter and Tooter Turtle from King Leonardo. These segments were later replaced by newer components, including The World of Commander McBragg and Klondike Kat.

Tennessee, a wise-cracking penguin, and his dim-witted pal, Chumley (voiced by Bradley Bolke), resided in the Megalopolis Zoo. They were constantly scheming against zookeeper Stanley Livingston (voiced by Mort Marshall) and his assistant Flunky (voiced by Kenny Delmar), in an attempt to raise the quality of zoo-life. Their projects required the assistance of their educated friend, Phineas J. Whoopee (voiced by Larry Storch), and his 3-D BB (a three dimensional blackboard). The 3-D BB helped demonstrate basic scientific principles through the use of instructional film clips (a technique also used that year by Ken Snyder's syndicated Funny Company cartoons).

I remember watching this show as a kid, although I never thought of it as instructional in any way. In fact, thinking back now, it certainly did its part to reinforce stereotypes like a bumbling, theft-inclined French mouse (Savoir Faire) and a pair of buck-toothed, nonsense-spouting Indian gophers (Go-Go Gophers). Tennessee and his pals have been in the limelight again fairly recently because of religious wingnut fears over the sexual preferences of cartoon characters, although, apparently, both Tennessee and Chumley were investigated and exonerated. From Corey Anderson's sarcastic American Idle -- "FBI Files on Suspected Gay Cartoon Characters Uncovered":

While Tennessee and Chumley raised alarms initially due to the possibly-gay naked-except-for-neckwear dynamic they both shared, the FBI showed little concern as long as they were safely behind bars at the Megopolis Zoo, under the watchful eye of Stanley Livingston and Phineas J. Whoopee, who used an animated chalkboard as a re-education tool.

"Chumley, did you use KY Jelly as the frosting on this cake?"
"Duh, gee, I dunno, Tennessee."

I remember there were many inconsistencies on the show. Tennessee and Chumley were constantly scheming of ways to escape from the zoo, but they easily strolled out to hang out with Mr. Whoopee. Would that our worse-than-a-dimwitted-president could walk out of Iraq so easily. As driftglass observed after a Saturday morning of channel surfing:

Over on Channel 23 they're showing reruns of Tennessee Tuxedo. It's the most honest five contiguous minutes I've heard all morning.

He and Chumley are apparently plotting to escape from Stanley Livingston's Zoo.

Damn!

When even cartoon penguins have better exit strategies than the White House, you know you're fucked.

Better make a note of that, Chumley...

~/~

Blogging will be flickering on and off for a few weeks because of an illness in my family. I'll post when I can.

The Probe

The Probe (2001)

Given the ongoing follies of BushCo, and Dear Leader's continued support by his 35% base who'd probably cheer him whatever he says or does, intelligent life on this planet is looking less likely. So, let's branch out and seek elsewhere. But how? Is scanning the skies in the hope of tuning in an alien talk radio host the most sensible search method? BBC News wonders if we can take the search directly to The Others:

There could be an alien spacecraft with a message for us lurking somewhere in our Solar System, say scientists writing in the journal Nature.

Until now, it was generally believed that the best way to find ET is to look for a radio signal from them as such signals can travel vast distances.

But an analysis by US researchers suggests that sending a probe into space would be more efficient.

A recent radio search of 800 stars showed no sign of a signal from ET.

[...]

Christopher Rose of Rutgers University and Gregory Wright of Antiope Associates, both in the US, present a new analysis of an old topic that may explain why the ET radio searches have been unsuccessful.

They argue that, in many circumstances, it makes more sense to send a space probe carrying a message to another star system, rather than a radio beam.

Unless the radio messages are short, they say, their "package strategy", is more efficient, requiring less energy per bit of information transmitted.

NASA's gone down a similar slippery trajectory before. It attached this picture message to the Pioneer interstellar probe:

Translation: We are here. Invade us. We lack defenses -- including clothing. Aim your superior weaponry directly at our exposed genitals.

Or perhaps you're pondering more invasive probes -- as in this (NY Times rather esoteric) plot description for South Park's premiere episode -- "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe":

After a thrilling game of "Kick the Baby," Kyle's adopted brother Ike is abducted by the same aliens who had visited Cartman the night before in order to insert a big metal hooba-jube into his rectum. The anal probe causes Cartman to expel flaming gas and eventually sprout an 80-foot satellite dish, which attracts the aliens. Kyle's barrage of obscenities prompts Ike's release, and the aliens present a gift to the beings of earth they have judged to be the most intelligent and wise (not humans, of course) before they leave.

Is that not the most erudite description imaginable for this:

I dreamed I was standing out in a field, and there was this huge satellite dish stickin' out of my butt. And there were hundreds of cows and aliens, and then I went up on the ship, and Scott Baio gave me pinkeye.

And why don't the aliens get bored with the same shtick-- which is what Kareem Harper of UGO.com wonders as he reviews Destroy All Humans:

After a while, you can only anal probe and destroy so many buildings before all the fun of laying waste to a planet diminishes.

As much as I enjoy the scene in Mars Attacks! when Congress gets ray gunned, I actually prefer our elected officials to work a little before being lasered. How about a probe on this guy

for torture, and this guy

for lying? And if the Rethug-Controlled Everything won't authorize a congressional probe of the Bush Administration's heavy torturing and deep lying, then can the two crooks above at least receive a thorough Cartman-style anal probe?

And, for the sake of irony, how about using a chemical light stick as the suspect device? Maybe that will give them both a less, um, cheeky and more reality-based perspective on "enhanced interrogation techniques."

~/~

UPDATE:

I won't be blogging for a while due to RL situations, but I hope to be back slinging art and text soon.

In the meantime, please visit some the many fine blogs and sites to your right. There are many treasures waiting to be dug up in those links.

Cerberus

Cerberus (2005)

Today's new image wants to know who let the dog out. From the Hercules page at Tufts University:

The most dangerous labor [of Hercules] of all was the twelfth and final one. Eurystheus ordered Hercules to go to the Underworld and kidnap the beast called Cerberus (or Kerberos). Eurystheus must have been sure Hercules would never succeed at this impossible task!

The ancient Greeks believed that after a person died, his or her spirit went to the world below and dwelled for eternity in the depths of the earth. The Underworld was the kingdom of Hades, also called Pluto, and his wife, Persephone. Depending on how a person lived his or her life, they might or might not experience never-ending punishment in Hades. All souls, whether good or bad, were destined for the kingdom of Hades.

Cerberus was a vicious beast that guarded the entrance to Hades and kept the living from entering the world of the dead. According to Apollodorus, Cerberus was a strange mixture of creatures: he had three heads of wild dogs, a dragon or serpent for a tail, and heads of snakes all over his back. Hesiod, though, says that Cerberus had fifty heads and devoured raw flesh.

[...]

A weaponless Hercules set off to find Cerberus. Near the gates of Acheron, one of the five rivers of the Underworld, Hercules encountered Cerberus. Undaunted, the hero threw his strong arms around the beast, perhaps grasping all three heads at once, and wrestled Cerberus into submission. The dragon in the tail of the fierce flesh-eating guard dog bit Hercules, but that did not stop him. Cerberus had to submit to the force of the hero, and Hercules brought Cerberus to Eurystheus. Unlike other monsters that crossed the path of the legendary hero, Cerberus was returned safely to Hades, where he resumed guarding the gateway to the Underworld. Presumably, Hercules inflicted no lasting damage on Cerberus, except, of course, the wound to his pride!

Stop that snarling. Lots of hellhounds are neutered.
[Photograph by Maria Daniels and courtesy of the Musée du Louvre]

Ceberus made a vivid impression on me when I read Edith Hamilton's Mythology as a high school freshman. The monster mutt, with the anti-Holy Trinity heads, seemed fearsome -- ferocious far beyond the CGI undead hounds of Resident Evil.

Later, when I was in graduate school, I had a friend who had a menacing black Doberman named Cerberus. My friend once housesat for me while I went on vacation, but Cerberus, who had a blood lust for my cat, threatened to Hun-trash my apartment. My friend's solution to keep the peace? He confined Cerberus in a car for a week -- my car! Surveying the canine wasteland upon my return, I immediately made two decisions:

1) I would have one less friend, and
2) I would most definitely need a new car.

I owned a baby blue 1963 Ford Galaxie at the time. A milk truck had sideswiped it a year before while it was innocently parked on the street. One side was badly mangled, and only two of four doors worked, but it was still drivable. But its week-long doghouse date with Cerberus did it in. Unlike Hercules, my car wasn't a child of the gods and could not wrestle the beast into compliance.

I'm tellin' ya, Herc, hell is Club Med compared to that blogger dude's car...
[Illustration seen on Triplemind.com]

Wouldn't Scooby Doo Where Are You have been more dramatic with Cerberus playing the lead? Cerby-Doo. Shaggy makes his first dumbass remark, and, wham, Cerby bites his head off. Each visceral episode ends with:

I would have gotten into hell, too, if it hadn't for that meddling devil dog...