Look around, notice anything? ‘90s nostalgia is in full effect, and nothing says “‘90s” like classic Budweiser commercials. We wanted to find out how these icons of the past are getting along nearly 30 years later so we sat down with drinking legends Bud, Weis, and Er to talk all things party, but their haggard appearance, slurred speech, and putrid body odor became so unbearable we felt ethically obligated to redirect the conversation to focus on the ravaging impact of alcohol on amphibians.
The Hard Times: I can’t believe you guys are still around. I remember watching you in the 1995 Super Bowl commercial.
Bud: We should be nearing the end of our days, but the copious amount of alcohol we consumed caused a genetic mutation that’s more than tripled our life expectancy. It sounds great to some, but it’s more of a “Tuck Everlasting” situation. All my old drinking buddies are either dead or sober, so I’m stuck with Weis and Er until I inevitably freeze to death at the bottom of a pond.
HT: Wow, that’s certainly less glamorous than the commercials made it seem. How has life post-limelight been for you?
Weis: Great at first. Free drinks and any girl I wanted in the marsh, but nothing gold can stay.
HT: What happened?
Weis: One of the main ways we attract female mates is through pheromones. Before I started hitting the bottle, I had an irresistible musk. A perfect mix of flora and fauna emanated off my clammy skin, but years of partying have made me smell like an old bar rag. I haven’t had sex since the Clinton administration. And masturbation is incredibly painful for me, I’m so fucked up right now man I pray a bird eats me.
HT: Have you ever thought about stepping away from boozing and rebranding with a less self-destructive image?
Bud: Of course, but nobody wants a refurbished frog. The damage is done. Quitting at this point would be like putting a bandaid over a bullet wound.
HT: Do you have any hopes for the future?
Er: A few months ago my wife asked me to carry some eggs on my back so she could go out and do some shopping, but I got blasted and must’ve dropped them somewhere in the reeds. It would be a dream to find them someday and meet my 5,000 children.
HT: Is it safe to say you’ve stepped away from the silver screen?
Bud: Yes, but not so much by choice. We were approached to do a remake of a commercial from 2011, but we were so hammered we kept spelling out “Weis-Bud-Er.” We cost the studio so much time and money in retakes that they eventually sent us home and had it dubbed over with a professional voice actor.
HT: Any advice for future drinkers?
Er: The good times don’t last, but the alcohol-induced ectoparasites do.
No concrete evidence that Tom Cat, the constant enemy/muse of Jerry Mouse, was involved in the death by gunshot of JFK has ever emerged. That’s because this sorry excuse of a housecat has never been able to successfully get rid of a single rodent, let alone assist in the assassination of a world leader. Tom Cat is nothing but a liability.
The Pink Panther has a certain, shall we say, lightness of paw that might make one suspect that he is an associate of Clay Bertrand, the nom de frivolité of Claw Shaw, the only individual brought to trial over the killing of Kennedy. But it is a matter of record that the Pink Panther was exclusively involved in the Galveston and Arlington kink scenes and was not connected to the New Orleans playground, which may have some mysterious tie to the conspiracy.
Luna, the boon companion of Usagi Tsukino, AKA Sailor Moon, has many secrets and is the de facto coordinator of the Sailor Guardians, a dangerously unregulated paramilitary group if there ever was one. However, Luna was in a deep slumber in 1963 after the fall of the Moon Kingdom during the Silver Millenium, so, obviously, there is no way she could have arranged the assassination of a U.S. President at that point.
While Azrael, the cat companion of the wizard Gargamel, is certainly smart and wicked enough to be involved in the JFK shooting, both he and his master will never be distracted from their quest to catch those wretched Smurfs. They hate those Smurfs!
This guy’s a fucking weirdo, but he’s apolitical. Besides, he’s British.
If anyone from Pinocchio would be involved in the death of Jack Kennedy, it would be Geppetto, not his cat Figaro. Think about it: the American Mafia has long been rumored to killed him as a reaction to the crackdown on organized crime by Robert Kennedy, the President’s Attorney General and younger brother. Think about it: Mafia. Geppetto. Italian. The cat is an accessory, at most.
Multiple witnesses reported the presence of a bloated, red-and-white, anthropomorphic Manx cat in the chaos after shots rang out in Dealey Plaza, which has been tentatively identified as Stimpson “Stimpy” J. Cat. According to the executors of his estate, however, he was merely in Dallas on a business trip. We may never know.
November 25, 1963. John Fitzgerald Kennedy is laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery. The day of the week: Monday. Garfield hates Mondays. Coincidence?
Notorious anarchist and cultural malcontent Cat in the Hat (born Gerald Romney Radziwill) consistently denied allegations that he had met with Lee Harvey Oswald in Mexico in October 1963, despite photographs of him regularly entering the Soviet embassy in Mexico City during that time. The Cat was executed by electric chair in 1977, never having admitted to any culpability.
Danny, an ambitiously naive cat from Indiana who just wanted to be a dancer in the bright lights of Hollywood, despite the well-known fact that cats don’t dance, is a strange player in the tangle of JFK theories. Was he just in the wrong place at the wrong time when Jean Hill saw him leaving the grassy knoll? Was his subsequent career as a producer at Warner Bros. Pictures connected to the presence of future superstar Bill Paxton in the Dallas crowd? We’re getting potentially libelous here, so we’ll move on.
Felix’s career as an early Hollywood star had hit the skids by 1963. The advent of talkies ruined the cat and forced him into bankruptcy, leading to his eventual homelessness and rumors that he had become a railroad hobo. Felix was arrested alongside Gus Abrams, Harold Doyle, and John Gedney, the so-called “three tramps,” and released four days later. He was never seen again.
Sylvester the Cat is best known for his association with Tweety Bird, which has frequently overshadowed his longtime friendship with Texas socialite Lady Bird Johnson. Johnson became First Lady upon the ascension of Vice President Lyndon Johnson. Johnson was a powerful figure in Texas and reportedly, Kennedy planned to replace him as a running mate in the next election. JFK was killed in Texas. Keep pulling that thread. Eventually, the whole thing will unravel.
Heathcliff’s ties to the Cuban aristocracy have been thoroughly discussed elsewhere, so we will merely ask this question: why was Kennedy buried with a fully-intact fish skeleton, such as a tubby orange cat might extract from its mouth in a single audible gulp? Is America a lie?
Snagglepuss may be one of the brightest stars in the Hanna-Barbera stable, but we should not forget that he was also a highly decorated veteran of the Korean War as part of the Marine Corps. This pink, extremely fey cat was awarded the now-retired Army Expert Rifle Marksmanship Badge in 1954. In 1956, he personally scored a young Marine a 212, qualifying him as a sharpshooter. That Marine’s name: Heavens to Murgatroyd, Lee Harvey Oswald?!
This tabby kitten was part of a criminal gang of animals in New York City, whose exploits were scored by Billy Joel. What, do we have to draw you a fucking map to JFK?
Kennedy assassination scholars hypothesize that Tiger was radicalized by Fievel Mousekewitz, a Russian emigre and a pro-union zealot. Like many feeble-minded, Dom DeLuise-like cats, he was easily bent to the will of vast, shadowy forces that wanted to see the light of American democracy dimmed. Long story short, he was a commie and thus guilty of something.
Salem Saberhagen has seen the rise and fall of American dynasties from the Mayflower to the Biden Administration. While most theories of JFK’s assassination hinge on political plots, who are we to discount the idea that it was necromancy afoot that day in Dallas?
Jake “Razor” Clawson and Chance “T-Bone” Furlong disobeyed commands by Megakat City’s Enforcer Headquarters to cease their pursuit of Dark Kat, an influential donor to the Kennedy campaign and a personal friend of Joseph P. Kennedy, resulting in them being dishonorably charged. At this point, ballistics evidence of the JFK shooting is hopelessly contaminated, but we cannot discount that the behavior of the so-called “magic bullet” is consistent with the abilities of their totally awesome Turbokat jet fighter.
Look, Fritz may fuck around with sex workers and cocaine, but when it comes to defending against a pinko like Kennedy, he’s your man.
Tony the Tiger and WK Kellogg Co.’s team of attornies have informed us that any insinuation that he may have had anything to do with the JFK assassination will result in swift legal action. We regret his inclusion on this list.
Okay, we don’t have anything to tie Lucifer, the pet cat of Cinderella’s stepmother to the JFK assassination. But just look at him! He looks so evil! He must have had something to do with it!
Berlioz, Marie, and Toulouse, the scions of the Parisian Bonfamille family, are documented as losing a bid against Joseph Kennedy for the ownership of Merchandise Mart, the vast Chicago commercial building that was once the largest building in the world and a key financial element of JFK’s campaign funds. If you go against a Bonfamille, expect to pay a heavy price.
Kitty White, alias Hello Kitty, alias Mariska Laufty, alias Francesa Storbman, alias Good Kitty, alias Marina White, has never been formally charged with any crime connected to the JFK assassination. Nevertheless, it bears noting that a tuft of fur found in the Texas School Book Depository was seized by the Japanese government in after DNA tracing became available in 1993.
Fat Cat, the pet feline of crime lord Aldrin Klordane, was recorded by an undercover FBI agent in a Baltimore nightclub one night in 1978, drunkenly boasting, “We did that Catholic bog-eater in good, didn’t we [REDACTED]? Fucking Oliver Stone!” A RICO plea deal rendered the recording inadmissible in court, and Fat Cat has been in the Witness Protection Program since 1981.
Nothing in this country happens without the permission of Top Cat, whether it’s putting a cigar in Officer Dribble’s sandwich or the death of the president. That’s why he’s Top Cat.
This would be a completely lateral move. Both in this David Lynch film and in real life there’s nothing more terrifying than being forced to have a baby, and in both places that’s exactly what a lot of us are looking at.
This was once considered David Lynch’s most surreal story, in which a man accused of murder inexplicably transforms into another person while in prison. Unfortunately, life has caught up with Lynch’s trademark strangeness, as the Democratic presidential candidate has transformed from a doddering old white man to a black female cop no one cares about overnight. Much like the film, no one knows what this means, where this is going, or how it will all end, they just know to be confused and scared.
In the world of this movie, the seedy bizarre underbelly of idyllic Americana doesn’t come out and attack you. It’s not front and center supporting fascism and trying to throw librarians in prison. You gotta go poking your nose around in places you know you shouldn’t. Kyle MacLachlan could have just put that ear down and gone about his day and everything would have been hunky-dorey. In real life, we don’t have that choice. No matter what we do, no matter how hard we try to ignore the unpleasantness, we are all trapped in a closet watching Dennis Hopper (Trump,) huff gas, (Qanon,) turn into “baby” and commit assault against Dorothy Vallens (the constitution/basic human decency.)
Often called Lynch’s most accessible film, the story of John Merrick, aka “The Elephant Man” is tragic, gut-wrenching, and still far more palatable than any major news outlet will be for the next four months.
This prequel to the series “Twin Peaks” recounts Laura Palmer’s tragic final days and fleshes out some of the cryptic mythology Lynch first established in the show, though ultimately asks more questions than it answers. Originally over five hours in length, Lynch was forced to cut significant chunks from the final version, and it shows. The film is extremely disjointed, nightmarish, and often devoid of context, even by David Lynch standards. Still, let’s look at some of the things this cinematic hellscape has going for it over our world:
Lynch’s obsessions with ’50s Americana and “The Wizard of Oz” are on full display in this two lovers against the world road trip movie. Despite the film’s deliberate artifice and fantastical imagery, it’s one of Lynch’s most violent, graphic, and upsetting entries, though it ends on an endearing and hopeful note and that’s more than we’ll be able to say on November 5th.
Imagine being glued to the TV on November 5th desperately tracking the exit polls as Trump goes head to head with whoever the fuck only for someone off camera to yell “cut” and your world pans out and it turns out everything is normal for a second. Sure there will just be more weirdness ahead and sure you’re shot on digital and look like shit, but that one little moment of reprieve? We would kill for that.
Full-blown amnesia, while normally not ideal, would be great right now. Sure we would spend the ensuing time uncovering horror after horror—the dirty man/creature behind the diner, the mysterious and sinister cowboy, Project 2025, etc, but that brief period of time where we have absolutely no idea what’s going on and Naomi Watts is being super nice to us would be a great little vacation from all the chaos of this election cycle.
Lynch calls this his most experimental film, but since everything Lynch follows Bizzaro world topsy-turvey opposite day rules, it’s actually his most normal movie. It’s the story of an extremely stubborn old man, but instead of insisting on staying in a presidential election he can’t possibly win way too long, he takes a 240-mile trip on a riding mower to visit his sick brother and has cutesy misadventures along the way. Harmless elderly doddering, what could be more refreshing right now?
Is it the best David Lynch movie? No. Is it the best “Dune” movie? Not even close. Is it a good movie by any metric? Probably not. Yeah it’s weird as hell, dogged by studio notes and a lot of it just doesn’t work but it has its moments, it has its charms, and at the end of the day an oppressive empire is overthrown by the people. What could be better escapism from our current political landscape than that?
