Something's not right (part 2)

Michael's right, it isn't pretty. In fact, it's downright disturbing. We can't quite connect all the dots just yet, but it would definitely appear that an enemy we had previously defeated (and frankly, forgotten), Dr. Rob Ott, has resurfaced and significantly elevated his threat level.

Some background: when Walt Disney opened his first theme park back in the 50's, Ott had been chosen to oversee The Hall of Presidents exhibit. However, he was fired and subsequently banned from all Disney properties forever before the park even opened. You see, Ott's creations, unlike the animatronic devices eventually used in that attraction, had the ability to roam about freely, initiate conversations (as opposed to reciting a scripted speech), make decisions and generally exercise free will. During a preview performance prior to the opening of Disneyland, some of Ott's presidents demonstrated tendencies to improvise inappropriately. In particular, "Abraham Lincoln" spewing a stream of racial slurs, "Franklin Roosevelt" dancing The Lindy Hop and "Calvin Coolidge" teaming up with "Andrew Jackson" to do unspeakable things to "William Howard Taft". Naturally, this horrified Walt Disney and he immediately ordered Ott's dismissal and banishment. Embarrassed, Ott immediately swore revenge and dedicated his life to fulfilling that promise.

Some years later, Ott surfaced with the intention of making good on his threat. He did so by kidnapping the beloved comedic actor Steve Martin and tried to destroy Mr. Martin's reputation by replacing him in Hollywood with the "Stevebot-9000". We were able to thwart this plan just prior to principal photography began on "Bringing Down The House 2", destroying the Stevebot-9000 and Ott's laboratory and rescuing Mr. Martin. We thought that was the end of it.
 


The demise of the Stevebot-9000 allowed Queen Latifah to
appear in "The Cookout". So yeah, not a totally happy ending.

However, after watching the surveillance video unearthed by Michael (and the severely out-of-character behavior of Miss Jodie Foster, trust me {wink}), it's pretty clear that not only has Ott returned, still hellbent on exacting revenge on Disney, but that he's joined forces with the nefarious Holly Graham (the twisted mastermind behind "Tupac's" posthumous "performance" at Coachella) and together, they have kidnapped all of Hollywood!

This sounds like an impossible case to solve... or in other words, another day at the office for The Unbelievables. I'll let Jeff tell you all about how we're going to shut this one down.

Something's Not Right

Just because it's a new year, don't think the bad guys have decided to take a much-deserved break.

And ... don't for one minute think The Unbelievables are doing same.

The world is a very strange place, filled with very strange things. To the untrained eye, some of those things might appear as a quirk or kink of someone's mind ... 

...or a momentary bout of confusion ...

... mayhap a slip of the tongue or the unexpectedly caught sight of a squirrel ...

... Grease on the small screen zipping by as you're channel surfing, forcing you to snap back to that station and waste an hour of your life watching it for the umpteenth time instead of doing something important.

No. The Unbelievables know better than that ... much better.

We know there was a reason Quentin Tarantino waited for the camera to turn on him, the very instant he swigged champagne and spit it out for millions to see during Sunday's Golden Globe awards ceremony.

We know there was a reason Will Ferrell was forced to make the opening speech he did at same.

We know there's a real reason behind George Clooney subbed for an "ailing" Meryl Streep who was "under the weather."

And we know, most diabolically of all, there's a clandestine account why Jodie Foster was coerced (possibly blackmailed) into making the following highly circuitous and disjointed speech during the awards:



And there's more, too. Much more. 

But fear not: The Unbelievables are on it. And we're going to open the door on the reasons for all these weird happenings. And quickly. 

You, the trusting public, deserve to know. 

Hold onto your hats: It might not be pretty ...

Getting the drop on a name



"Iamnottouchingyou. Iamnottouchingyou. Iamnottouchingyou."

Ooooh, Von Grunwald! We've had lots of adversaries over the years but few who can even come close to touching this guy in terms of sheer annoyance.
Michael's done a terrific job of telling you about some of our allies in the entertainment biz, which is good because I'm not sure I'm the "inveterate name-dropper" that Jeff says I am. I asked Catherine Deneuve, Julie Christie, Pam Grier, Susan Sarandon and Tonianne DeMaria Barry if they thought I was and they all said no.
Anyway, yes, Von Grunwald.
So, so many annoying traits and habits. The number one being that in spite of his elaborate schemes, so little of what he does can actually be classified as crime. This inhibits our ability to go after him as aggressively as we might otherwise. Delivering malted milk balls to movie theatres in chocolate covered raisin boxes (and vice-versa). Not picking up after his dog poops in someone else's yard. That song. All incredibly annoying... but not actually criminal acts. Which in itself is extremely annoying.
No, I suspect bringing Von Grunwald down once and for all may require broadening our scope and finding some legal loophole, similar to how The Untouchables eventually nailed Al Capone with tax evasion. Further, I suspect Von Grunwald's ultimate weakness may just be The Unbelievables greatest strengths:  sense of style and wardrobe. Stay tuned...

Gee, I guess you didn't read the paragraph at the
bottom of page 9 of this document, did you, chump?

The Unbelievables: Name Droppers

Is this man the bane of the USA's smallest state?
You better believe it ...

Huh.

Leo Von Grunwald ... aka Lee Greenwood.

He was (and still is) one of the most underhanded individuals The Unbelievables have ever come across.

Can you imagine someone low enough to play on the sensibilities of a country's pride, taking advantage of a nation's deep-seeded self-regard in order to simply fulfill one's dastardly intentions? That's exactly what Grunwald has been doing lo these decades past. He's a wily one, let me tell you.

Jeff has opened the door in telling you one of Grunwald's plots. Strange as it may seem, we owe a debt of gratitude to quite a few cronies in the entertainment industry with regard to our investigations of his subversive ways. And our efforts continue where Grunwald is concerned because the man is cunning ... and in many ways. He's rather like Batman's nemesis The Riddler, interweaving deception with the truth in order to confuse and confound an unaware public, all the while working his ulterior motives into the mix. 

Because of our ongoing dealings with him, there aren't many details we can reveal currently about Grunwald. But we can declassify some of the "informants and moles" Jeff hinted at who have selflessly aided us in spurning many of this criminal's actions:
 

Kenny Rogers: Kenny has been instrumental in passing along little tidbits of information in our study of Grunwald and his methodologies. (Side Note: It was Grunwald who convinced Rogers to have plastic surgery many years ago ... and we all know how that turned out ...)

Willie Nelson: Did you have any doubt? Willie talks to just about everyone and he knows everyone. It doesn't take much "convincing" to "friend" him, if you know what I mean.

 

Bobcat Goldthwait: One of the more unlikely moles in our arsenal, Bobcat has the uncanny ability to get on the nerves of just about anyone. He's the perfect ally.

 

O.J. Simpson: Yep. "The Juice" himself. "Pre-shenanigans" of course ...
 

Andre The Giant: We all miss Andre a great deal. He was one of the few celebrities who made an Unbelievables party a raucous, unforgettable affair back in the day.

 

Bozo The Clown: *shudder* My heightened fear and skepticism of clowns forced me to plead with Jeff to deal with Mr. Harmon while investigating Grunwald. I get cold sweats just thinking about it even now. *reshudder*
 
Of course, these individuals are the only ones we can talk about where the Grunwald affair is concerned. There are a few more in our cadre we can't mention ... not yet, at any rate.

So, you have the introduction and driving force of Grunwald ... you have some of the background of his ways. Additionally, I was able to whet your appetite as to who we've used to aid in slowing his efforts. I'll leave it to Clark to wrap up what few details can be revealed on one of the most slipperiest cogs in the criminal mean machine.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

P.S. While The Unbelievables have affected many a proud moment for the American public, it's with a heavy heart I state matter of factly there is no possible way we will ever rid radio, television, air show, et al of "God Bless The USA." The best we can do is warn the unaware of Grunwald's machinations. 

Sometimes? We simply have to admit to ourselves: "There's only so much we can do."

(Side Note regarding T.R.O.U.S.E.R.I.N.G. It fell to me to decipher the meaning of what Grunwald's moniker was, by the way. My keen hatred of acronyms clued me in to the true definition of the name of his underground movement, unlike Clark and Jeff who originally thought it was a forgotten fashion trend from the '70s.) 

The Hollywood Informers

As has been mentioned before, we have some extra special Hollywood chums that are in fact undercover operatives and informants. Spending as they do a great deal of time in the company of studio executives, anchorwomen, press agents and other lowlife scum, they are, we find, in a perfect position to get the lowdown on stuff your average schmoe wouldn't even have a clue about, which they then feed to us in order that we deal with evil plots promptly and with the minimum of fuss.

In this case, we were helped by information given to us by the late Don Knotts,(or "D.K." as we referred to him), in defeating another would-be despot, Lee Greenwood. D.K. was a major influence on our style in his role as Mr. Furley, the landlord in Three's Company.

"But," I hear you cry, "Lee Greenwood wrote God Bless The USA! He's a patriot! He loves this land! He'll gladly stand up next to you etc.,right? Right?"

More of Lee Greenwood than anyone ever needed to see.

Well, that's what he'd want you to think. But the fact is that Lee Greenwood, real name Leo Von Grunwald, was the head of an underground organisation known as Total Removal of United States, Even Rhode Island, Nantucket and Guam, or T.R.O.U.S.E.R.I.N.G. for short. His goal? The total removal of... well, you get the idea. He did NOT like the United States one tiny bit. He didn't much like the rest of the world either.

D.K. fed us tidbits of Von Grunwald's activities as and when he happened upon them. If you have ever been to Pigeon Forge, TN, you'll know that once upon a time Lee Greenwood had a theatre and restaurant built there. It's not there now, because of information D.K. picked up while doing a summer season down there with Tim Conway (another of our fabulous Tinseltown chums). I had personal experience of the full horrors that took place there. In the large, sparse 'restaurant', we were served 'food' (some kind of soup and cornbread affair) served on tin plates and pewter bowls reminiscent of Victorian workhouse crockery- think 'Oliver Twist' with a Southern drawl and you'll know what I am talking about. The show in the theatre seemed to revolve around that damn song and finally I realised that the lyrics were some kind of hypnotic jingoistic chant designed to render people dumb and compliant, leaving Von Grunwald free to plant any kind of revolutionary idea in their minds and let it grow. D. K. was right. This guy had to be stopped.

Almost like a rally at Nuremberg.

I'll let the other guys fill you in on the details of how we finally stopped Von Grunwald aka Lee Greenwood, of how we made sure he never had another Top 40 record and our ongoing struggle to rid the airwaves of that darn song ( I don't even like to say its name). They'll probably drop in a few anecdotes about our other informants and moles too, especially Clark, as he's an inveterate name-dropper.

Back In The Back Of The Laundromat

So ... you'd think: 
 

"Jeff? Clark? Michael? We've read the last two entries in the mythos of The Unbelievables and, while interesting in and of themselves, you're tossing out quite a few whys and wherefores of your super secret and clandestine digs in Stiletto Flats, Nevada for all to know. Aren't you leaving yourself open to infiltration? Aren't you, in essence, inviting bad guys who wish to do you nothing but bad to you do you bad? Aren't you thumbing your noses at them to exact their revenge? Aren't you rolling out a red carpet for them to practice their monkey business? Sabotage your headquarters? All the while with their availability of getting their whites whiter than white and their color coordinates brighter than bright?"

One would think so, wouldn't one? But we're The Unbelievables, folks. Rest assured their are plenty of safeguards set in place to deter villains. (And some have come from trial and error. We like to think we learn from our mistakes ... such as that time we accidentally set Jeff's hair afire from ... that ... thing. But that's a tale for another time.)

The fact of the matter is this: It's not the safeguards so much as our fondness for jocularity that protects our headquarters. The unwitting evildoer is pretty simple-minded much of the time. (Trust us when we say there are a ton of them out there who are dumber than a bag of hammers.) Oh ... there are the geniuses and the brainiacs, the math wizards and those whose sheer brute strength is able to move mountains. But they all have a weakness, each and every one of them. Many times, that weakness is their single-minded focus on world domination (most villains) ... or eradicating toys from the face of the earth (Sam Snow aka "Frosty The Snowman") ... or pilfering each and every can of Spam in the continental United States (the no good Chipped McBeef). You see ... when the bad guys zero in on their wants, it's pretty easy to fool them. And if they think they can infiltrate the Unbelieva-Base with said blinders on, they're sadly mistaken. 

One of the armaments we employ is so basic it's downright comical. And that's precisely why we use it. It's the old "Six Quarter" defense.

We have a sign at the entrance of the laundromat just for the bad guys, directing them to the rear of the establishment. There, they find yet another herald that simply states "Entry to the Unbelieva-base. 6 Quarters, please." While they're digging in their pockets (reprobates rarely have quarters on their person, let alone 6 quarters), they're nabbed right then and there with little effort. It amazes us how gullible some of these heels are when it comes to simple bait.

Many such buffers are built into the Unbelieva-base. I'm not going to give away all our trade secrets. That wouldn't be prudent.

So ... again you'd think: 

"Jeff? Clark? Michael? What about things such as nuclear attack or somesuch? Isn't that a concern?" 

And the answer to that would be "No." Quite simply because: 1) It's too costly to fortify against nuclear annihilation; 2) While we're non-governmentally affiliated, good 'ole Uncle Sam would protect us against any incoming nuclear threat just the same as if some henchman launched same at a Wisconsin dairy farm, and; 3) Who says The Unbelievables don't have multiple Unbelieva-bases set throughout the country and abroad?

Silly criminal harbingers of doom. They're of little consequence when it comes to our headquarters, our handy, dandy "lavanderia" and our neighborly social attractants stocked with refreshments.

I have to go pull the car 'round now. I think Clark and Jeff are calling out our first case of the new year. 

So ... 2013? Worry not: You're safe in the hands of ...

... The Unbelievables ...

Your Whites Whiter, Your Brights Brighter

One of the major advantages of having a headquarters that doubles as a laundromat is that when our super threads get, um, shall we say soiled in the pursuit of justice, it is always easy to just leave our stained attire in the care of Ms. Juanita Lopez, former showgirl and now manager of our washeteria. She can wash, dry and fold like you wouldn't believe, being not only a skilled Unbelieva-Fu exponent (5th Dan) and a master (mistress?) of Unbelieva-Zen, but her years as a Vegas performer, where the need to keep your showgirl costume in pristine condition is paramount, has proved incredibly (Unbelievably?) helpful. Plus, her abuela ran the Lavanderia de Los Muertos in Texarkana for over 45 years.

In between washes she poses for photoshoots while studying philosophy.

Why were we, The Unbelievables, drawn to Ms. Lopez as a potential employee/operative? Well, anyone that has ever used a Hispanic lavanderia can tell you - the Latino community knows how to treat fabric right. If you've ever picked up a fresh load of neatly folded and bagged laundry from your local Spanish launderette, you will know that the amazing clean smell that emanates from their towels has to be sniffed to be believed.

Not only that, but as with all such establishments we have installed a couple of pool tables (which we occasionally use while waiting for Michael to pull the car around), TVs which have to be on 24/7 (one on Galavision, one on Univision, and another on Telemundo. The trick is to have only one with the sound on (top volume of course) and the customers thus have to try to guess which one the sound is coming from - not that it matters, because they're all ogling Ms. Lopez anyway) and as Clark mentioned, the video game Elevator Action which is a classic. Add to that the selection of fine beverages and comestibles which are found behind the counter, and you have an establishment that is not so much just a place to do a wash but a veritable community hub, a social club the like of which is seldom seen outside of Barbershop 2.

Ms. Lopez is responsible for hiring and training of all staff, and here is another of her new recruits, ready to be let loose on the public.

Vixie Van Truffle, another reformed showgirl with almost unlimited potential.

Juanita also thinks that the right signage is essential.

Now, we are not the only laundry service in Stiletto Flats. No sirree. There is another laundromat right across the street, but for some reason they never seem to do much business. Can't think why.

And yes, it's true about me being the one to choose the colour scheme, although Clark wasn't quite correct about the names of the colours. He calls it Pumpkin Orange and Lima Bean Green, when in fact it is Mimosa and Jade. He only said that because he was mad that we didn't go with his colour scheme (below).

Oh, and that blog background picture? it's a trimmed-down version of another staff photo.

This lady is the lovely Helena Handbasket, well on her way to achieving the ultimate level of Unbelieva-Zen, a higher state of consciousness known as 'GPS-Brain'. Those rollers in her hair? Tiny radio receivers.