So here it was, Independence Day 2008. Some comics ignored it (not uncommon for those with serialized story lines) and some celebrated it (Walt Wallet is wheeled out from his cryotank next to Walt Disney to have one huge, glorious panel of Uncle Sam costumes, flags, and the whole she-bang; Ted Forth is scared of a combination of fireworks and the “Imperial March” from ESB).
And then there are the Johnny-come-latelies. Or in this case, Dolly-come-lately.
“Oh, damn, it’s the Fourth of July, Dad…what are we gonna do?! Our fans are expecting something patriotic! Our Kidz are no Kommies!”
“Easy, son, we’ll have Dolly carrying a blue-and-red bucket, a flag flying in the background (woo hoo! fill that white space!)…and best of all, we’ll have her singing!”
“That’s great, Pop! Something like I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy, or My Country ‘Tis of Thee, or This Is My Country?”
“Even better! A song from a 1940’s B-musical that hardly anyone remembers! And we’ll have Dolly mess up the words in a cute, cute way!”
“WTF, Dad?”
“Shut up, Jeffy!”
Well, you can pretend all you want that the perpetual child Dolly would know a crappy 30’s vintage song in a crappy 40’s musical because her Granma might sing it in one of her delusional states. If I’m going to buy into the charade, I figure Dolly’s just as likely to sing one of the songs Granma heard when she was was young and sneaking into the Apollo and listening to all that weird, confusin’ music while jitterbugging and showing her underwear to all those people watching her and (not dead then) Granpa dance…
Of course, everything back to the usual on July 5. And all I can say to that is “Run, Jeffy! Run!”
