Unbelievables Photo Archive: Christmas Parties

Well folks, it's the holiday season, and here at Unbelievables HQ (a.k.a. Unbelieva-base) we're planning the annual office party. So with that in mind, it's time to look back at some parties of Christmas past and reminisce. So pull up your favourite high-backed leather armchair, don your cravat and smoking jacket, pour yourself a merry little cocktail and cue the warm fuzzy memories.

Here we are at a party with our friends from The Indescribables (pictured wearing the plaid slacks), a team from our local friendly canasta league. We're wearing the amazing canary yellow trews, and we've brought along our friend Charles Nelson Reilly (second from right) who was a good friend and Hollywood informant.

Here's Clark with another friend and mole from the entertainment world, Des O'Connor (who knew?), getting the drinks sorted for our 1972 piss-up work bash.

Quality comestibles always get the ladies to come running. 7Up is an obvious choice, as is a bunch of Lil' Smokies on sticks. Here I am seen going for my thirteenth 7Up, while Clark feeds a saucy damsel his wiener.

Sometimes the parties had such a huge guest list we had to hire a different venue as well as immaculately dressed wait-staff to help serve the champagne cocktails, leaving us free to chat up the ladies. In this picture we see Michael asking the wait-staff to kindly refrain from hitting on the girls, while Clark tries out his favourite line on Lady Felicity Farnes-Barnes: "Let's commit the perfect crime - I'll steal your heart, and you steal mine."

Meanwhile, I'm out in the back garden with Laura, Marissa and the stylishly dressed Aunt Mabel (left). Laura did not care much for my pickup line: "If a fat man puts you in a sack tonight, don't worry - I told Santa I wanted you for Christmas!"

Sometimes our parties were themed. Here we are at the "Brass Band Apres Ski Mixer." For some reason, Michael went the extra mile (as usual) and came dressed as the love child of Freddie Mercury and Mark Spitz. Where the congas came from, I'm not sure. Clark was making dreadful jokes about "getting the horn" and "blowing" things, not to mention "putting your lips together" etc. And I'm operating a life sized trumpet-playing ventriloquist dummy over there on the right. Good times, good times.

This was a fairly low-key gathering. Here you see The Unbelievables with Marissa and Laura at our 'punchbowl party'. I think this was the party where we all secretly spiked the punch with various exotic liqueurs, unbeknownst to each other. We didn't wake up till New Year's Day.

Here we are at our "It'll Be All White On The Night" Christmas do. Don't worry, the reindeer is actually a trained operative (whose identity cannot yet be revealed) in extreme deep-cover pun disguise as "The Goat Of Christmas Past" (groan!). Unfortunately, after a few hours in an all-white room wearing all-white clothes pounding down Smirnoff-based cocktails, we were all suffering from snow blindness. Rest assured we didn't make that mistake again. 

The trouble with holiday get-togethers is that there's always a ton of leftovers. Fortunately, Clark's Aunt Madge is a Tupperware lady, and the above picture shows the time she brought her entire stock. Not only did she save the day, but she did an impromptu Tupperware party for all the assembled guests, as well as some exotic magic tricks that I'd only seen once before, in a bar in Singapore. Good times, good times.

Happy Holidays everybody!

The Unbelievables Are Micro-Fiber Reinforced

Let it be said right here and right now:
Bill "Superfoot" Wallace doesn't have anything on The Unbelievables

Clark's right. The clothes we wear are all-encompassing. Careful thought has been put into everything, whether it's that chapeau atop our heads, the color of our cardigans or the (sometimes) steel-fortified tips of our shoes. When we're on the job, it's not just about looking good. The anticipation of danger and the safety of our persons are paramount as well.

I have to say: The kevlar micro-fiber reinforced DiamondCrotch® technology woven into our Kickin' Jeans has come in handy on more than a occasions. And not just because of dealings with dastardly villains we've come across in our travails. ("Hello, ladies!") Possible "trouble" could lurk around any corner ... and not necessarily from an intended threat. Enthusiastic aficionados of The Unbelievables have given us a run for our money as well, a burden we bear gladly.

But ... about the jeans. We need them for a myriad of situations, haute couture being one of the most important, you understand. Blue jeans are one of the most versatile pieces of clothing in the crime fighting arena. Pockets capable of alteration to house a bevy of weapons and more ... leg protection from sliding down a roof or shimmying over the hood of a hot car ... and seriously: Where would he keep our utility belts (if, in fact and indeed, we use utility belts) if not for the waist of our jeans? They do all of this and more.

But it was the innovation of kevlar micro-fiber reinforced DiamondCrotch® technology that really had us sold on Kickin' Jeans. 

One day, while Jeff was frequenting a local ice cream truck that made its daily rounds in the neighborhood, he ticked off a little boy. Apparently, Jeff beat him to the punch and purchased the very last Bomb Pop from the vendor. << WHOOMP! >> Jeff got kneed in the 'nads by the little tyke. (Side Note: That kid was serious about his Bomb Pops. He would later grow up to become a minor nemesis in the annals of The Unbelievables, hell bent on revenge because of Jeff. Known as "Pistachio Nut," we'll tell you about him later in "The Case Of The Ice Cream Sunday Snub" ...) It was then Jeff realized we really needed to come up with something to protect the family jewels ... from angry kids and ne'er-do-wells alike. Discussing his unfortunate ice cream incident, I informed the guys I just so happened to know a spiffy haberdasher by the name of Jax Loominary who did wonders with all sorts of clothing - he might just be the right person for the job. Voila! DiamondCrotch® ... !!! 

Jax tested the technology for weeks on end until he was ready for us to give it a whirl. Much to his chagrin, it was Jeff who drew the short straw and got the unenviable task of being on the receiving end of the experiment. But really ... who better to evaluate the product than Jeff himself? Clark couldn't stomach the test. Besides, as noted previously, he had a women's self defense class to teach. So ... with a pair of altered Kickin' Jeans firmly cinched, I surprised Jeff by walking away from him, twirling and giving him a round-house kick to Mr. Happy. The result? As mentioned and as evidence from the picture at right, Jeff's jewels were safe and sound. Jax had done another outstanding service for us in our ever-vigilant efforts to fight injustice world-wide.

As for our distinctive martial arts methods known as Unbelieva-Fu (or more commonly referred to as "U-Fu"), we'll touch on that more as our adventures unfold.  I'm sure Jeff will elaborate on those further. 

P.S. Clark? Brilliant innovator that he is, I'll let you in on a little secret: Unbelieva-BackOffMister (or "U-Bom(b)") was never officially a part of the official "U-Fu" discipline. At the start, it was Clark's attempt at devising a clever way to capitalize on endearing himself to the fair sex. ("Hello, ladies!") Thus "U-Bom(b)" was born. (He's such a rascal, that Clark!) And it's still going strong today thanks to your local Y. Pow!

But, because of that little aside, we're proud of the 18,000+ variations of U-Fu, including Unbelieva-Two ("U-2"), Unbelieva-Time ("U-Can'tTouchThis"), the head-turning Unbelieva-180 ("U-Turn") and several of our special holiday methods and practices, Unbelieva-Yules (encompassing "U-BetterWatchOut," "U-GotOneMoreComin'," "U-WantSomeEggnog?" and the ever-popular "Hey, You! Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town!").

All things we'll note at a later date ...

The Sweet Smell of Kickin' Butt

Yes, what Clark said was all completely accurate, especially all that business with our intern Chuck, or as we called him "Charlie No-Mates". I mean gee whiz, the guy was such a wimp! And then as soon as he leaves our employ, he's all like, "Yeah, I'm a stuntman, I'm a martial arts expert, I'm an action hero, I'm starring in an infomercial for an exercise machine with a half-naked Christie Brinkley", like that's anything to brag about. She's damaged goods, Norris! Been spoiled by Billy Joel, and that traumatic helicopter crash did her mental state no favours either. You ripped off our Kickin' Jeans idea and went ahead and made some lousy movies, whatever. Oh, and you think you're some kind of singer too. The eyes of Texas are upon you, huh? Well, watch your back, buddy, because the eyes of The Unbelievables see everything.

He kinda smelled funny too. Not enough Hai Karate and too much Lily of The Valley, if you ask me.

Which leads me on to another aspect of our style cocktail, fragrance. It's all very well having the paisley shirt and the ascot and the belted cardigan, but if you choose the wrong aftershave you might as well hang up your slacks and stay home watching reruns of Green Acres and let that other guy with the funky kaftan and the handlebar moustache kick some bad guy butt and get all the chicks. 

When it comes to fragrances, all you need to know are these:

Hai Karate, of course. Girls dig it.

Brut 33, 

Old Spice, and

for the slightly more mature butt-kickin' super-agent, Skin Bracer by Mennen works a treat.

Once you have the fashions and the scents down pat and the Unbelieva-Fu sorted, the rest will take care of itself. But never, repeat never, try to learn U-Fu without first taking care of the other stuff. Heck, your manly scent may even improve your UF skills.

Well, that's all I have to say, really. I'm sure Michael can go into more detail about this topic. In the meantime, stay alert, folks. You never know when some evil-smelling super-criminal will cross your path. But rest assured that when they do, The Unbelievables will soon be on the trail.

A glimpse into the substance of our style

 A lot is made of the clothing we wear, and with good reason; we consider ourselves stylish gents. What most people don't realize is that our clothing serves very specific purposes. Often, that purpose is disguise, in an effort to blend in with the surrounding elements. Sometimes, we choose to stand out in a crowd instead (hello, ladies). But no matter what, our outfits have to be able to handle intense physical action, be it in hand-to-hand combat with villians or otherwise (again, hello ladies). For example, our jeans...

These jeans have been designed to handle martial arts combat, specifically Unbelieva-Fu, a discipline we ourselves developed. The three key components of Unbelieva-Fu are 1) Fiendishly clever deception 2) Intense power kicking and 3) Aiming for the groin. There are well over 18,000 individual manuevers within the discipline of Unbelieva-Fu, but almost all of them are rooted in the basic "Hey, your shoe is untied" attack. The picture above shows Michael and Jeff demonstrating the technique. As you can see, from the photo of Jeff pensively relaxing in the foreground, he was perfectly fine afterward. That's because the special cut of these jeans not only allows us maximum range of movement, but also utilizes kevlar micro-fiber reinforced DiamondCrotch® technology for maximum protection as well. Coincidentally, I am not seen here because it was my turn that day to teach our women's self defense class, Unbelieva-BackOffMister, to the employees at a nearby Hooter's, as seen here ...


Unbelieva-BackOffMister brings the principles of
Unbelieva-Fu to eye level by adding a degree of fabulousness.
Ask about classes at your local Y!

  You might be wondering why we'd resort to selling these incredible jeans, being something that tacky is generally beneath us and we certainly don't need the money. The truth is it wasn't by choice; our hand was forced when a former intern (who had previously been let go for being, shall we say, testicularly-challenged when it came to the more rugged and dangerous aspects of what we do) stole the idea and tried to make a profit from it.

Any time we've entered the marketplace, it was reluctantly and solely for the purpose
 of protectintg the integrity of our brand from shoddy knock-offs from little girls like this.

This Ain't No Snow Job

As Clark and Michael have outlined earlier this week, we were in pursuit of the twisted Sam Snow, aka "Frosty the Snowman". His one aim - to rid the world of toys. He had done his darndest, I'll give him that. Even to the extent of kidnapping the great Roy Wood, lead singer of the glam rock outfit Wizzard, and forcing him to record the song "I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday". 

Surely not, you say. That's a happy jolly Christmassy song. Yes, it is. But pay attention to the lyrics. 


When the snowman brings the snow
Well he just might like to know
He's put a great big smile upon somebody's face
If you jump into your bed
Quickly cover up your head
Don't you lock the doors
You know that sweet Santa Claus is on the way


The Snowman reference is clear. He sincerely thought that by taking away all the toys, he'd put a 'great big smile' on everyone's faces. As to Santa Claus? Well he may be on his way, but there is nothing in the lyrics that references toys, is there? Look it up. And who was there to rescue the great Mr. Wood? The Unbelievables, of course. we discovered him strapped to a chair with a pair of headphones taped over his mouth so he couldn't cry for help. Once we'd removed the tape (and most of his beard), he told us of the location of Sam Snow's hideout.

So anyway, there we were, the three of us, dressed in our Ken doll outfits. We had our code names - Clark was Ken, I was Sean and Michael was Carson. Of course, Michael being the witty jokester he always is, was busy saying stuff like "I did not know that", and "Weird, wild stuff" a la Johnny, but Clark and I were trying to ignore the dead-on impersonations* as best we could and concentrate on what we were up to. And what were we up to?

"Acid wash? Seriously?"

We had had to somehow fit ourselves in packages and pass ourselves off as genuine Christmas gifts and deposit ourselves under a Christmas tree. Whose Christmas tree? Why, Sam Snow's, of course. He may not have been a fan of toys, but he sure loved getting presents. He was a Grinchy fellow for sure, he wanted to turn the world into his own personal "Snow Globe", he hated his kids and their want-want-bloody-want all the freakin' time, couldn't bear to see anyone else happy. In fact, he reminded us a lot of the sour old Burgermeister Meisterburger from "Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town". His heart was softened by the gift of a toy, so we thought we'd try the same tack. Plant ourselves under the man's tree, and when he opens the packages and is momentarily beguiled by our charms, nab the foul fiend. 

"A TOY?!"

The only problem was how to get in there. This required some strategy. Sam Snow barely ever left his compound, so getting in without being noticed was gonna be tough. This was when we hit upon the idea of using an ex-SAS person. The SAS are trained to get in and out without being detected, and are therefore ideal in this type of situation. Clark had connections. A friend of a friend's cousin's sister's uncle's brother's neighbour's grandpa's best friend's daughter was dating Bear Grylls at the time, so he made a call. Several calls, actually.

Bear was at a loose end and so was easily convinced. We promised him as much roadkill as he could eat and told him that the future of Christmas depended on him. How he got us in, I'll never know. It was very dark and quite a bumpy ride, and I swear I could smell roasting hyena, but he did it, bless him.

"Om nom nom nom!!"

Come Christmas morn we were woken abruptly by Snow shaking the packages and wondering aloud who the hell had sent him a present. As he tore off the wrapping, we jumped out in our Ken disguises, which stunned him momentarily, allowing us the valuable seconds we needed to subdue him. Michael pinned him to the floor with a knee to the throat, Clark cuffed him and I poked my weapon in the small of his back and helped frogmarch him out to the *ahem* new car we had bought to replace the Corvette. Sadly, it was a Chevy Citation, but we'd made a few modifications. 

And the free world breathed a collective sigh of relief. You're welcome, world. Just another day at the office for The Unbelievables.





*Michael has always tried out his impressions from the early days. Even when we were together at Camp Action! he would do the voices of all the camp counselors and some of the other campers. Oh, his take on Larry Scheeble, the camp nerd, was priceless! We did laugh.

Let it Snow? No, no, no!

I appreciate Michael giving me credit for being the "fashion maven" of The Unbelievables. Considering how much we've always relied on style over substance, that is high praise indeed. Although this artist's rendition of Jeff and I certainly benefits from a considerable amount of creative license; I've never been that much older than Jeff. Taller, yes. But not older.


"Yes, that's it; go ahead and stand up as straight
 as you can. I'm still a foot taller than you, Jeff."

 Regarding this particular case, Sam "Frosty the Snowman" Snow's attempt to make children miserable by ridding the world of toys was merely a prelude to his grand plan for total world domination. Inspired by the godawful puns cracked by Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze in "Batman and Robin" (and also in every other role in every movie he's been in), he wanted to turn the Earth into his own personal Snow Globe. You could say that the toy ploy was merely the tip of a much larger iceberg. Well, you might not but you can bet Sam would. And that isn't even a pun; it's just a reference to something that is cold. See why we had to stop him?

Anyway, it was my idea to catch Snow by becoming that which he sought to destroy. "If he wants to eliminate all the toys in the world, then gentlemen...we shall become toys. And by that, I mean dress like dolls", I said. My partners were silent for a moment. "For some reason I can't put my finger on, I believe that is an absolutely terrible idea", Michael said. "What do you think, Jeff?" Jeff said, "you're probably fixating on the fact that it doesn't make any sense. And I mean, no sense whatsoever. Not even a little bit, at all. But on the other hand, I can't think of anything better right now, so let's do it."
This resulted in us dressed like this:



Michael still wears that hoodie when he's playing hacky sack
 and listening to Widespread Panic out on the quad. 

 And then some other stuff happened ... maybe Jeff remembers and can fill you in ... and we came out on top again, as always.

Just One Of The Reasons The Unbelievables Are (Fashion) Experts Of Disguise (A Skewed Holiday Tale)

The above? It pretty much says it all. It's an old graphic artist's rendition of Clark and Jeff from years gone by, the former educating a very young latter in the art of necktie etiquette. 

Those were the days.

You see, Clark was (and always has been) The Unbelievables' fashion maven. He has been instrumental in leading our clandestine group via disguise case after case after case. Throughout, those disguises have been dapper and deranged, depeche modified and downplayed, "dressed to the nines" and (as was sometimes necessary) dappled in dullery. It's all about what our work calls for. And sometimes? It's not all glamor and glitz.

Take the case of Sam Snow - one of the stranger files from The Unbelievables' history - who would later come to be known as "Frosty The Snowman." This was a caper that was not only one of our most successful, but one of our most far-reaching as well. You see, Sam Snow wanted to knock the holidays for a loop. He wasn't a jolly old soul when it came to the shorter days of the season, the colder climate, the holiday cheer and camaraderie. He was concerned only with his welfare and his comfort which were stingy and self-centered. The overiding fact of the matter was Snow had children, little monsters who didn't help his selfishness and, in fact, were the catalyst of his machinations.

Yes, Sam Snow suffered from a sort of Grinch syndrome. He wanted simply to be left alone. He wanted quiet. He wanted peace and goodwill, but only in the form of solitude all by his lonesome. And he believed the focal point of his delusion began with his children. What to do? Destroy all children's toys from the face of the earth, one toy store at a time.

Well ... this crime chapter and photo to the right are testament to The Unbelievables' resolve (and resistance to cold) as well as Clark's penchant for costume design. Yes: It was he who came up with the brilliant idea to pose as Ken dolls, the boyfriend to the Mattel company's ultra popular Barbie. What could be more appropriate? Who else had a fashionable myriad of clothes and accessories?  Not only popular back in the 1960's when our adversary began his shenanigans, we felt Ken the perfect model for the role in quashing Snow's plans. Clark had done it again, this time with an icon of world-wide reknown.

Of course, no case was complete unless we had monikers. It was my idea to assume the code denominations for "The Kens" after the "real" name of the Ken doll: Ken Sean Carson. Clark (it being his plan from the get go) got the  titular name, Jeff became "Sean" and I morphed into "Carson."

Now ... about those red shorts ...

(... to be continued ...)