(S01E03) Writers are the most shameless, self-centered bastards in the world. We lie, we seduce, we'll steal your soul. Anything to look good on the page. -Sam Landry

I thought I had read every story from Nightmares and Dreamscapes, and I might have, but nothing about "Umney's Last Case" was familiar when I read it just recently. Nevertheless, it's not a bad story, and it's also very "meta" as the college kids like to say.

In the story, as in the TV adaptation, we begin in the 1930s where a grizzled private eye named Clyde Umney is leading a storybook life that he'll soon learn is more "storybook" than he realizes. He wields snappy dialogue with the precision of a trapeze artist, and always knows just what to say to get what he wants, at one point managing to turn two women to jelly in his office one after the other.

Early on in life I discovered I had a natural artistic ability, but one of the things I've always kind of regretted is that I never learned the fundamentals that can make a decent artist a really great artist. I can doodle a decent enough cartoon character, but nothing that could stand up to the scrutiny of anyone who actually knows how to draw. Nevertheless, whenever a family member wanted to have their kid's room painted with cartoon characters, I was the one they called upon. My "murals," if you will, usually turned out decent enough, but they were nothing compared to this 1930s-inspired mural created by animator Joe Busam for his not-yet-born grandson's room. All of the characters in the barnyard scene are generic, though apparently the kids are based on characters from the Merrie Melody "Pagan Moon." If anyone has a burlap sack and some heavy chains feel free to contact me and we'll work together to kidnap Busam so he can paint something like this for my unborn children, too.

[via Cartoon Brew]

Hey, it's Saturday, are you bored? Yeah, me too. If you're a fan of "old timey" cartoons like I am, the Internet Archive has a collection of over twenty Betty Boop short films to help you kill the daytime (or nighttime) boredom. They're all public domain, and free to view online. I've been an admirer of the Fleischer brother's distorted, kinetic animation style for some time, and these shorts are both engaging and fascinatingly surreal. Also included in the archive are some of the Fleischer's Popeye shorts.