Variations On An Unbelieva-Theme

It's amazing how many of our adventures were ripped off by the magazine "Man's Life" and others of its ilk. Not only did they rip us off, but they ripped each other off, too. Many stories were just recycled versions of stories that had appeared previously, with the names, places and other details changed, in other magazines. Variations on a theme, if you will. Here are a few examples that are particularly common.

The "WAIST DEEP IN WATER" Theme

It was in reality only next door's cat, but the girl's shirt did fall open.

This was when Michael got plastered one day at St. Tropez and did a faceplant into the sand while in the company of a bikini-clad giantess.

Once, we were given a tour of the Aussie Outback (not the restaurant, although that Toowoomba Pasta is delicious) by none other than Steve Irwin (bless him). Give me back my arm, indeed. Crikey!

Topless, exotic, and waist deep. Clark knows how to get a girl out of trouble.

One time we tested each other's knife skills by stabbing piranhas in mid-air. OK, it was only a backyard pool, and the piranhas were rubber, but other than that, the story is pretty much verbatim.

The "NAZI SEX SLAVES" Theme

As far as I recall none of our adventures have ever brought us into contact with Nazis, but the writers have taken extreme liberties with the truth just to sell these rags. We did once bust up an S&M club in the search for illicit Twinkies, but Nazis? No.

More water, and a medieval-looking torture device. Apparently Nazis were heavily into the idea that torturing sexy skimpily-clad maidens was the way to win WW2.

Either that or throwing them off of flagpoles, after torturing them. We did once have an escapade with a pretty girl and a flagpole, but that's another story and again, nothing whatsoever to do with Nazis.

Not Nazis, but Fidel Castro lookalikes, and some sort of voodoo torturing of pretty young women. We once judged a Fidel Castro lookalike contest but that is about as far as it goes.

1. She was running towards us. 2. We were waiting for her.
3. There were no Nazis.

The "Wild Animal/Damsel In Distress" Theme

Never met a Stone Age man who wanted to take my blonde girlfriend away, but if I had, it's a fair bet it'd look something like this.

Pumas don't generally attack people, but there was this one occasion when Marissa needed me to shoo the neighbour's cat off the porch.

The "Dominant Females" Theme

We've made our fair share of women mad before, but they never tried to cut our heads off. This must be based on an Unbelievababes adventure where they were in deep cover in the jungles of French Guiana. 

We should be so lucky.

Then there are the oddball items that, while not specifically based on any of our adventures, at least ring a bell. One loud enough to make us think that someone has been following us. Here are some examples...

One time, Clark asked for a set of muscles for Xmas.

Um... this was in my inbox. Don't ask me why.

Michael once changed his name to "Tim Valour".

We knew young Ellis Parsley before he was Elvis Presley.

Let's see what Michael has to say on Friday... Till then...

Ciao!

It's an Unbelievable life

They say imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. In that case, we have been flattered beyond measure over the years. We've had more than our share of Un-wanna-believables. That's understandable. Who can blame those of you who aren't us for envying our super-glamorous, exciting and dangerous lifestyles? What irks us is those who try to pass off our adventures as theirs. We've had more than our share of those over the years, too. One specific perpetrator is the popular magazine "Man's Life". Yeah, right. More like "Clark, Jeff, and/or Michael's Lives, Reprinted Here For Your Entertainment But We're Not Paying Them A Dime" magazine. Even more despicable than them stealing our adventures is the fact that they recycled a relatively small sampling of those adventures over and over again. Check it out...

Okay, this happened. Vampire bats did indeed rip our flesh. And yes, the fighting technique depicted here is how we managed to survive. You can learn how to do that in one of our Unbelievinars, "Using Animals As Weapons Against Other Animals". But this only happened one time.

Look! They re-cycled the whole story, down to the cover illustration and even the headline. This never happened! Weasels are generally not known as aquatic animals. Now, there was a time when some otters got a little aggressive. But that's now what's happening here though. Shoddy.

Oh come on. As if we wouldn't be able to escape from turtles. They're slow!!

Do you see a disturbing trend and a negative stereotype being promoted? If the publishers of "Man's Life" had their way, they'd have you believe that every single time we take our shirts off and wade in waist-deep water (which is admittedly a frequent past-time), that we're swarmed by hostile creatures and have to fight our way out. That only happens about a third of the time, and always when we're rescuing slutty damsels!

Oh well. At least one positive thing in terms of inspiration came out of this...

You're welcome, Frank.

Let's see what Jeff and Michael have to say about this scurrilous rag.