Poor Mr. Tawky Tawny.
As I've mentioned before, you'd think that a talking tiger (no explanation given or needed) that managed to overcome the laws of plausibility and learn how to walk upright and wear plaid suits would be quite pleased with himself, but despite his impressive accomplishments Mr. Tawny has a deep seated sense of personal malaise. His discontent manifests itself as a gnawing hunger for wholeness, perhaps rooted in subconscious guilt over abandoning his "tooth and claw" predatorial roots in favor of a sedate suburban existence. (It also doesn't help that his more traditional relatives on the subcontinent refer to him as a "Creamsicle" -- orange on the outside, white in the middle -- at Tawny family get-togethers.)
Though Tawny does have a strong (and quick to reprimand) source of moral guidance and support in his friend Billy Batson and Batson's superheroic alter ego, Captain Marvel, it doesn't prevent the rather restless jungle cat from backsliding into problematic (or outright idiotic) behavior, as chronicled in numerous issues of Captain Marvel Adventures (the greatest comic book series ever).
"Mr. Tawny Seeks Happiness" (Captain Marvel Adventures #117, February 1951) finds the "civilized tiger" lamenting the tedious upkeep rituals that comes with homeownership, despite the hassles he experienced in finding his home...
Meanwhile, a dozen of Tawny's Chinese cousins have been slaughtered so that their genitals can be ground up to make aphrodisiac powder for desperate idiots.While Tawny wrestles with the patch of stinging nettles that keep coming back by the base of the fence, his neighbor stops by to announce his return from a grand tour in which he sampled all the earthly delights the Catskills had to offer. This leads Tawny, being an incurably impressionable feline, to put together an impulsive plan...
Branson, Missouri, here I come!The first stop in Tawny's vision quest is The Casbah, where he attempts to find true happiness by doffing a cute little beret and hanging out in waterfront dive bars. That's certainly a place to find
something, though whether that something is happiness depends on one's attitude toward stab wounds, STDs, and smuggling heroin via one's lower body cavity. (Camus's philosophy made a lot more sense to me after reading this sequence.)
Before Tawny can discover the happiness to be found in human trafficking and poverty caused by colonialism, he runs afoul of a enraged wharf rat who thinks Tawny is putting the moves on his woman...
Tawny catches a whiff of that crazy Casbah jive.Luckily for Tawny's hide, Captain Marvel crashes onto the scene and rescues his friend from his swarthy stripe-shirted assailant. The Big Red Cheese chides his best in hopes of bringing the Tawny to his senses, but like all cats, once he has an idea in his head, he refuses to let it go...even if he has to knock over all the little statues on top of the china cabinet in the process. Right,
Jem?
Tawny's next stop in his pursuit of inner bliss is the Himalayas, where he sets out to be the first man (tiger?) to reach the summit of the then-unconquered Mount Everest. Showing the well-considered attention to detail and foresight for which he is renowned, Tawny decides to attempt the feat while wearing a short-sleeve t-shirt and carrying a small backpack containing only Zagnut bars (which are tasty, but no substitute for proper climbing gear).
Needless to say, it doesn't go well for Mr. Tawny...
Dude, I told you to take the shortcut through Mordor......but once again Captain Marvel is there to haul Tawny's prehensile tail out of danger. Realizing that nothing he says will penetrate Tawny's thick skull, Marvel instead decides to play along with his friend's delusional behavior and flies Tawny to his next stop on the road to bliss, a tranquil island in the South Pacific.
A cheap holiday in other people's misery...Not all of the local residents are as eager to be exploited by a talking tiger, however. Sharing the island with the docile, attractive light-skinned natives are a tribe of (surprise!) grotesquely drawn, (surprise!) dark-skinned head hunters eager to add Tawny's fuzzy orange noggin to their collection.
Do the Offensive Racial Caricature! It's the dance craze that never seems to go out of style!Contrary to Tawny's statement of panic, Captain Marvel does happen to be around, using the risk of ritual decapitation to shake some sense into his delusional friend. Marvel's excessively tough love approach pays off, the headhunters are chased off, and a dispirited Tawny asks Marvel to return him to his cottage in the suburbs.
Upon returning, Tawny finally discovers the happiness he'd been looking for -- a heady mix of
schadenfreude and platitudes cribbed from the school of "positive thinking."
What's the name of this neighborhood again? Dipshit Heights?Tawny then pounced upon the hapless songbird, battering it with his paws for a half hour before finally tearing off its head with his jaws and depositing the bloody carcass on Marvel's front step.
On the subject of bliss and the pursuit thereof, we have a musical point-counterpoint prepared for your edification. Representing the optimistic view is this fine piece of Scottish new wave:
Altered Images - I Could Be Happy (from
Pinky Blue, 1982) - Fronted by the original
Kristine Kochanski (a.k.a. singer-actress Clare Grogan).
...and articulating the negative position is this exceptional nugget of L.A. power pop:
The Beat - You Won't Be Happy (from
The Beat, 1979) - The reason the Wakeling/Roger/etc second wave ska outfit had to add "English" to their name on American releases. The American incarnation of The Beat, along with the more Byrds-ean Plimsouls, emerged from the ashes of The Nerves. Power pop meiosis!
No need to fret about that spare tire (or matching set of four) or open up an account at The Fat Tiger's Shoppe, my rotund feline friend! Just place a call to the World's Mightiest Personal Trainer! Captain Marvel, the man who once bench-pressed South America, has created an intensive regimen guaranteed to transform oversized Toms into lean, mean, killing machines.
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