Sorry for the late post, but here are your Freak-Out Friday Winners! Each of you should email me your addy or look me up on Facebook (under the moniker “Chris Ward”) to receive your WORST PRIZES EVER Gift Box! You won’t be disappointed. The first winner is none other than Friginator. How could I not give this guy a box of free crap? His entry was ridiculously long, for starters, but very entertaining. I once wrote a 600 word panegyric to Willie Aames from Charles in Charge, so I’m not one to point fingers at verbose web comment entries. Here’s the cartoon that scared him most as a child. He is apparently a giant pussy.

Also, I want to send a box of free crap to Rock Ripsnort. A.) for having the coolest Ninja Turtle villain name that never was and, B.) for making me want to find some episodes of Chuck Jones’ Curiosity Shop, which isn’t on DVD. I couldn’t track  down the cartoon that scared him, but this is pretty much all I need to see.

First things first: Why don’t you celebrate Cinco De Mayo the way Jesus intended.

SOOO…Jeff Sparkman, the kind fellow who sent me this little gold mine we call The Pac-Man Saturday Morning Preview, pretty much sums up the following clip in one of his posts:

“While watching the Mork and Mindy cartoon, my 5-year-old got up, and told me, ‘This isn’t very good,’ and walked away.”

Once again, Dick Clark offers up a couple of clues but before he can lambaste the children for guessing incorrectly, Orson—the booming voice from Mork & Mindy, a television program these children are all very well versed in—lays the smackdown on Dick. That’s Ralph James, bitch—the recognizable voiceover artist also behind the eighties Spider-Man’s Dr. Doom, and several other things I don’t feel like IMDB-ing.

It’s such a hilarious and interesting bit, that Orson is allowed to just prattle on while poor Dick and the children have nothing to do. One child decides to hand Dick Clark his popcorn, and then immediately takes it back. This unscripted move by this rogue, outside-the-box-method-acting-Johnny seems to tick Dick Clark off, because he doesn’t so much as mouth a “thank you” before gripping the popcorn coldly and looking away as if something that f—ing weird didn’t just happen.

After 1:15 seconds, when the cartoon starts, you’re on your own. These are waters even a doe-eyed 5-year-old won’t dip her toes into. The minute Mork begins yelling at a bowl of fruit and dishing out onion puns, my eyeballs dripped out of my head like runny egg whites.

Also, IMDB claims Robin Williams actually did the voice for this cartoon. I’m not convinced. But I’m not strong enough to give it a good, critical listen. Perhaps you should let me know in the comments section.

[PS: The Winners of the Freak-Out Friday Contest have been decided! Your prizes are being boxed up, and winners will be announced t'morrow!]

If you were to have a swine flu fever-dream in 1983, it might look something like the following clip.

First of all, Dick Clark somehow can’t NOT be a douche no matter how hard he tries. It’s bad enough that these kids have to go along with this awful charade of pretending they know who Laverne and Shirley are, and are expected to muster the energy (spoiler: they don’t) to shout out the name of a cartoon show based on these two past-their-prime sitcom characters. Get to the Snorks, Dick.

And then Dick has the balls to put down an audience member who has the gall to mention Santa Claus as a potential Laverne and Shirley guest star. He almost seems insulted, or like he’s dealing with a heckler at the Funny Bone. “No..that’s just…you’re wrong. REAL wrong. effin’kids i oughta effin’ beat you with those cue cards…” I mean, what in the hell were they supposed to say? Is it outside the realm of possibility that on a desperate and sad cartoon like Laverne and Shirley that Santa Claus wouldn’t show up?

The next deer-in-the-headlines victim of Dick’s constant prodding gets it close by saying “Squealy,” probably meaning Squiggy—which is a great guess for a girl who has never heard of Laverne and Shirley—and Dick Clark mercillously sweeps the leg and goes in for the kill. In Dick Clark’s defense, there is a slight difference between Squiggy and Squealy.

Luckily, someone had the forethought to tape over the next couple seconds of the Pac-Man Saturday Morning Preview with something called SUPER TV, which—sadly—runs its course and is out of my life before i have time to pick up the phone and order what appeared to be the greatest thing I have ever f—king seen in my life. “I can get ‘On Golden Pond’ AND perm porn? Surely, this Super TV can’t be for real!!!”

Then it’s back to the Fonz, wishing he were sticking his head in an active volcano right.

Check out this bored-to-tears moppet, the female Froggy from Our Gang, staring into the void and dutifully answering Dick’s asinine question lest she get put right in her goddamned place by theageless man with the microphone. Oh, how I love her. She speaks for all of us…she seems to be saying, “Kill me…kill me…kill me…kill me…”