Animal Crackers

How did I ever eat these with such gusto? Not only are they a fructosey mess, the Barnum's folks also try to economize on the animal's living quarters in a way that just breaks your heart. I don't know if you can see the way the baby giraffe is trying to comfort her stooped mother, but if you could, well, you wouldn't be so Shirley Temple cavalier about eating them, I can tell you that. And on the top of the box (not shown here) they are making a valiant effort to escape. Run little zebra, run! You too, big polar bear!

Speaking of Shirley, I used to watch her on the Shirley Temple movie hour of a Sunday afternoon. Does that make me an old-timer? She pretty much kicked ass as Heidi. (Interruption: I just discovered that Arthur Treacher was in this film! Who knew? And I've been thinking of him as a fish and chips man rather than the goat's milk sort.) I myself was also of the milk persuasion, and I spent hours nursing sick Clara back to health with the leftover milk and honey from my Rice Krispies, which is kind of like Swiss goat's milk.

And I also spent hours tap dancing to the Animal Crackers song, except I could only remember the first line and had to improvise the rest. I'm sure my versions were better than this:

Animal crackers in my soup
monkies and rabbits loop the loop,
Gosh, oh gee, but I have fun,
swallowin' animals one by one.
In every bowl of soup I see,
lions and tigers watching me,
I made 'em jump right thru a hoop,
those animal crackers in my soup

When I get hold
of the 'Big bad wolf'
I just push him under to drown.
Than I bite him
in a million bits
and I gobble him right down.
When they're inside me
where its dark,
I walk around like Noah's ark
I stuff my tummy like a goop
with animal crackers in my soup


I was going to title the post "inside Shirley, where it's dark" but I knew only bad things could come of that. And why is it only "like a goop"? Isn't it just goop?