Seeing this thread reminded me how much I love this Christmas special. It only aired once (to my knowledge), but I’ve seen it 20 times on tape. Here’s some of the best lines:
Opus-“I was about to become…an aeronautic vigilante.”
Cockroach (voiced by Dustin Hoffman!)- “Is this Crossdressing Cockroaches in Crisis?”
Kiwi (voiced by Robin Williams!)- “An ALBATROSS! SHE LEFT ME FOR AN ALBATROSS!”
Truffles- “I am not a pig. I am a water buffalo.”
Opus-“Pig. P-O-R-K. You know, the other white meat?”
Opus (describing Bill the Cat)- “They replaced his brains with Tater Tots.”
Anyone else have great memories of this, or am I just weird?
You are not alone! IIRC There were three birds that were kind of based on The Three Stooges that made fun of Opus, but in the end, hepled his wish come true.
The airplane scene (from “Shangri-La”?) was amazing. I was completely suckered in by that first time I saw it. I had no idea who did the voices, Hoffman and Williams?!
Wasn’t there an exchange “I am a Rhinocerous!” “You’re a pig.”
I only caught glimpses of it, unfortunately. One thing sticks to my mind, though – the part where Santa blasts out of the clouds, backed by heroic music that sounded to me like the theme from some grand old Western movie such as Giant or The Magnificent Seven.
I’ve been trying to find that music ever since. Credits shown in places like IMDb don’t help, and I don’t have the tape to watch for it again (I don’t own a TV – now, if they’d re-issue the thing on DVD so that I can play it on my computer, that’ll help).
Any ideas? Is it original music? Or is it what I’m thinking of?
My all time favorite xmas special. I have it on tape, somewhere. Unfortunately, I’ve never been particularly good about labelling tapes, and there are about 100 or so in the box with partial labels.
I think I might have to do some fast forwarding over the next couple of weeks to see if I can find that. Thanks for the reminder.
I distinctly remember this joke being used a couple of times in the strips, usually as a gag about getting old. I’d check to make sure, but I’m not sure where my Bloom County collections have gotten to.
I mean that Opus’ butt wasn’t detachable in the way that your vacuum cleaner tools are detachable. His butt probably did fall off a couple times, but it was just a one-line sort of joke most of the time. I don’t remember him ever running around with his butt off.
Hey, thanks! If your parents’ recollection is correct, then my initial impression was right! Now I’ll just have to track down a side-by-side comparison…
Correct (see my above post). Characters’ body parts sometimes fell off on their own accord but the character would usually be back to normal in the next strip.