Beowulf and Cheap Clothing

Inspired by the epic poem “Beowulf.” Written between 700-1000 AD, “Beowulf” is set in Scandinavia in the sixth century. Awesome tale.

Caption and voiceover: “Now Crapple Book of the Week presents “The Big Bad Beowulf,” from the Grim Mother Crimes and Scary tales Collection. Narrated by former person and current personality, Grumble live streamer, Mangy Gassy Bull.”

CoBaD believes that humans, for the most part, are social beings. From the time we are born we are shaped by our family, the society we live in and the jobs we hold. Some of this makes sense; after all, in your job, for example, you are on your employer’s property using their equipment, therefore you have to abide by their rules. If you don’t like those rules, you can simply leave. Podcasters and livestreamers, especially those who have millions of followers, appear to be quite a different lot. They attempt to shape the world they live in, not the other way around, but they do so for the sake of their own egos. Once upon a time when they had only a smattering of followers, they were probably more likely to speak what was really on their mind, like the rest of us plebeians. Somewhere along the line, in an effort to build their fan base and retain old members, they became power hungry and forgot their roots. They grew to say not only what their loyal base wants to hear, but also to say outrageous things (some of which they may not necessarily believe) to attract new viewers, more likes, more subscribers, and more sponsors. They start to circulate with other podcasters and livestreamers, losing further touch with their roots, try to out-outrageous their peers, and to make matters worse, actually start to believe the outrageous things they say. To attract even more viewers, they add visual elements; splashy opening titles, a flashy studio and a big production staff. All of this, of course, costs money, which even further feeds the need to say even more outrageous things in order to pay the bills and keep up a fancy lifestyle. These people gradually make the transition from being characters to caricatures, and from being persons to personalities. Once becoming personalities, they do anything and everything they can to protect and expand their empire and their influence, even if it comes at the expense of their dignity and their reputation by becoming internet trolls.

Hansel and Grendel scene:

Witch: “What adorable children have come to my house today?" – The Witch in this drawing was our reproduction of W.W. Denslow’s Wicked Witch of the West from L. Frank Baum’s “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.” Congratulations to those of you who had Grendel, the Wicked Beast of the Eats, on your fantasy team (sorry, we meant fancy eats. No wait, we take that back; there’s nothing haute about witch tartar).

Grendel-locks and the Three Bears Scene:

Mangy: “Little Grendel-locks then picked up his to-go order, as well as one of Mama Bear’s cute little red numbers he had his eye on, and discreetly made his escape from the cottage by running through the living room wall.” - Grendel didn’t always eat in; he took to-go orders as well. In section 23, Beowulf killed Grendel’s mother. Still hot with anger over her and her son’s merciless slaughters, Beowulf went over to the corpse of Grendel (whom Beowulf killed earlier in the poem) and cut the head off of his body; returning it to Denmark as proof of his deed. The poem reads “[Beowulf] was hunting another dead monster, and took his weapon with him for final revenge against Grendel’s vicious attacks, his nighttime raids, over and over, coming to Herot when Hrothgar’s men slept, killing them in their beds, eating some on the spot, fifteen or more, and running to his loathsome moor, with another such sickening meal in his pouch” (lines 1575-1583).

Incidentally, the sound of Little Grendel-locks slicing the Three Bears into ursine cutlets, as well as Beowulf’s beheading of Mama Grendel, were the sound of a knife plunging into a melon. It is a reference to Alfred Hitchcock’s movie “Psycho” (1960), which used the sound of a knife plunging into a casaba melon to simulate the knifing of Janet Leigh’s character in the shower scene. Alfred Hitchcock may have treated actors like cattle, but at least he had enough sense not to slaughter them like cattle.

Little Red Riding Grendel scene:

Our astute viewers will also notice another one of W.W. Denslow’s works in this scene. The Scarecrow appears as a highway sign in the bottom left hand corner of the third drawing.

Beowulf and Mama Grendel Fight Scene:

Mangy: “The Big Bad Beowulf said, ‘Goodness, you big old battle axe, what a big old battle axe you have.’” - Grendel’s mother actually attacked Beowulf with a dagger, not a battle axe, and tried to stab him in the chest (Section 22, lines 1547-1551).

Mangy: “’The better to split your skull open with, my dear,’ replied the sweet old troll.” - Passing reference to another fight in section 35: “Efor caught the Swedish king [Ongentho], cracked his helmet, split his skull, dropped him, pale and bleeding, to the ground, then put him to death with a swift stroke…” (lines 2485-2490).

Mangy: “Beowulf, after having disposed of the body and cleaned up the blood, browsed through the sweet old Mother’s wardrobe to find a suitable disguise. He settled on a lovely iron hammered link nightgown and matching Sutten Hoo designer nightcap done in a boar-head motif with matching Joan Crawford carbon reinforced steel shoulder pads. And to make himself more convincing, he dabbed some of Æschere’s blood behind his ears, the old mother’s favorite fragrance.”

The Sutton Hoo helmet was discovered in 1939. It is believed to date from the seventh century and may have belonged to the Anglo-Saxon leader, King Rædwald of East Anglia. In addition to being a battle helmet, it may have also served as a crown. 
Æschere was killed by Grendel’s mother as an act of vengeance against Beowulf killing her son. Æschere was the Danish king Hrothgar's most loyal fighter.

Beowulf and Grendel fight scene:

Mangy: “Beowulf responded with attacking Grendel’s syntax by attempting to insert a comment about his omission of commas, but retreated when he learned that Grendel in fact does enjoy cooking his family and his dog.” – A reference to the famous phrase that changes its meaning when commas are omitted from the sentence:

Incorrect: “She enjoys cooking her family and her dog.”
Correct: “She enjoys cooking, her family, and her dog.”

However, as Beowulf learned in his battle with Grendel, Grendel’s omission of commas was quite intentional.

Four Fox Sake Sunday – Reference to a member of our troupe who had a friend who would often be overheard uttering the phrase “For fox sake.”

Caption: “Mr. Grendel’s ‘Eat the Press’ wardrobe was courtesy The Correction Fluid Boutique. Who says no wearing whiteout after Labor Day?” - Originally in his “Eat the Press” appearance, our in-house artist drew Grendel naked, but we thought that was rather a letdown given the slutty dresses he had worn up to that point. Since Grendel’s hair was already drawn on, he “corrected” the matter by painting a dress on Grendel using lots of correction fluid, hence the humorous caption. It remains to be seen if Hollywood picks up on Grendel’s trendsetting fashion. To quote the Magic 8 Ball, “Signs point to yes.”

Mangy: “For it was Grendel who targeted the ‘Womanly Voices that Belong to Evil Witches who Live in the Woods Association’ Fakebook page claiming that a sinister race of mind-reading advertisers from the planet Trolling Stone were planning on giving a massive army of kidnapped five year old boys quad flat whites, a sack load of candy, a box full of toys and puppies, then unleashing them onto the Earth, with each child armed with a massive bill and a camera strapped to their heads so they can watch the parents peel their kids off of the ceiling, fix their teeth, throw away the broken toys and clean up the poop, and that building a house out of candy and a protective waterway full of coffee was the only way to prevent the waifs from carrying out their nefarious deeds.” – From the “Spirit of Sechsundsiebzig” sketch. The “cameras strapped to their heads” bit doesn’t appear to be too farfetched when you think about it. A member of our troupe recalled that in the month of July 2021, the security software on his computer found and removed 22,619 items stored on his computer that were believed to be temporary files, cookies and assorted files planted by advertisers to track his activity online. That was a heck of a lot of cameras he had strapped on his head. Advertisers must be from the planet Trolling Stone; they sure as hell ain’t human.

Incidentally the “Goose Brothers” in the middle portion of this picture are actually the Grimm Brothers (of Brothers Grimm fairy tale fame). Wilhelm is on the left and Jacob is on the right.
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Mangy: “For these aggravating factors, Grendel and the late Mama Grendel also received three years of supervised release, during which their computer activity will be monitored, a 20 volume set of the Encyclopedia Irrational, a case of Turtle Wax, a copy of our home game and a year supply of Rice-a-Roni, the San Francisco treat. The Big Bad Beowulf deferred imposing a fine for a period of 90 days until he received more information about who the hell Grendel’s entrée is gonna be. “

In July, 2021, Russian hacker Peter Levashov (aka, “the bot master”) was released from federal prison (“time served”). On condition of Levashov’s release, U.S. District Judge Robert Chatigny “…ordered Levashov to serve three years of supervised release, during which his computer activity will [be] monitored. He deferred imposing a fine or restitution for 90 days until he could receive more information about Levashov's financial situation.” Levashov was convicted in 2018 as the mastermind of a scheme whereby he created an army of botnets — including one that may have infected over 200,000 computers — to harvest email addresses, logins and passwords from infected computers and distribute malware and other malicious software. Prosecutors also said Levashov monitored online forums used to sell and trade stolen identities and credit card numbers. Levashov was released from federal prison after only serving 33 months (prosecutors wanted 12-14 ½ years). So as you can guess, one of the computers Levashov DIDN’T infect was Judge Chatigny’s (assuming of course that WAS Judge Chatigny that released him; nobody appeared to have checked the “judge’s” ID). No word on what happened to Levashov but we think he’s probably a VP in advertising somewhere.

The prizes were (almost) verbatim taken from Weird Al Yankovic’s parody “I Lost on Jeopardy.” The identity of the prizes has been confirmed by one of our troupe members, who wasted way too much of his childhood watching game shows. He said that he can almost hear Don Pardo say. “All departing defendants will receive…”

Mangy: “I’m not referring to me, of course. No, no, the common un-awakened folk (the ones whom I’ve blocked from my channel or don’t pay me 90 bucks a year to watch my frivolous content that is) have that common misconception upon first seeing my uncustomary and rather exotic attire.” – Inspired by certain podcasters and livestreamers alluded to in the introductory paragraph, whom, based on a cursory glance of their sites and their respective comments sections, are not above blocking dissenters, nor are they above setting up very expensive paywalls for “additional content,” while at the same time moaning on and on about how the common folk are struggling to pay their bills and are fed up with being nickeled and dimed to death with taxes, cell phone, internet service charges and streaming fees.

It is worth here remembering what Nikita Khrushchev said on February 25, 1956 in his “Secret Speech on the Cult of Personality and its Consequences:”
“You see to what Stalin's mania for greatness led. He had completely lost consciousness of reality; he demonstrated his suspicion and haughtiness not only in relation to individuals in the USSR, but in relation to whole parties and nations... Comrades, we must abolish the cult of the individual decisively, once and for all; WE [emphasis added] must draw the proper conclusions concerning both ideological-theoretical and practical work.” This reminds CoBaD of the hit song "Cult of Personality" by Living Colour, which claims how people throughout history, both "good" and "bad," have used their charisma and looks to get people to do what they want.

Mangy: “I am in fact a trusted and reliable internet news source. This is actually my ‘Little Scarlet Riding Robin Hood’ outfit, the official cap, hood and gown of recipients of honorary doctorates in working from home media management.” – ‘Little Scarlet Riding Robin Hood’ is a mash up of the Emma Orczy novel, “The Scarlet Pimpernel,” Robin Hood, and Little Red Riding Hood, hence the rather silly and contradictory motto.

Mangy: (holding up a diploma): “See, it even says so on my honorary dissertation on Remotely Resembling Journalism I won at the carnival. I even got a free Remotely Related to Piloting Certificate just for playing. Now I can be just like the other kids this Christmas and decorate all the trees in the neighborhood with UAVs!” – Inspired by a lecture one of our troupe members went to a few years ago. The guest lecturer was an owner of a drone flying business. After the lecture, the public got an opportunity to walk up to the models and take a look at them up close. Our troupe member was next to a young couple. The wife scoffed and simply said “Toy.” Her husband was not of the same opinion and dismissed her comments. Funnily enough, it was the only part of the evening this troupe member remembered, and was easily the most enlightening part of it as well. The aforementioned troupe member has a multiengine commercial airplane license and he is of the opinion that the Remote Piloting Certificate is just as much a toy achievement as the honorary doctorate is. A toy certificate to fly a toy. Only the FAA could make this stuff up.

Lauded by money-grubbing marketers and advertisers as relieving humans from the burdens of “the three ‘D’ tasks” (dull, dirty and dangerous), drones will more than likely be used to spy on neighbors, chase white Ford Broncos and get stuck in trees on Christmas Day by “pilots” who didn’t bother reading the instructions first before playing with their toys. For more on our opinion of toy degrees, see the “Degrees of Separation” and “The Price of Admission” skits.

Caption and voiceover: “Beowulf’s trolls appear courtesy of Iago’s Fazzoletto.” A reference to one of our favorite operas, Verdi’s “Otello,” based on William Shakespeare’s classic play, about a man brought down by Iago’s insinuations, with the assistance of Othello’s paranoia. We here at CoBaD often use the phrase “That’s probably one of Iago’s fazzolettos” when referring to the rantings of a podcaster, livestreamer or an internet troll (fazzoletto is the Italian word for handkerchief). So it’s rather fitting that Iago’s Fazzoletto would sponsor Beowulf’s trolls. Incidentally, we tried calling up “Scarpia’s Fan” to supply the trolls but it didn’t really work out for us (nor for Scarpia and Tosca for that matter). Anyway, as stated above by Khrushchev so many years ago, it is up to us (not the cult-like mindset of the podcasters and livestreamers of the world) to draw the proper conclusions, and not give in to paranoia, lest we let another Stalin (and a merry band of apocalypse-profiteering anti-war hawk Henny Pennys [aka Chicken Littles] posing as sponsors) consume our money as well as our lives.

Voiceover: “Once again the final score from today’s sketch: Beowulf 2, the Grendel Family household nothing. Switch on over to the CoBaD Epic Poem Sports Channel as Beowulf travels up to Earnaness to take on a Mangy Gassy Bull subscriber, the Gold Hoarding Dragon, in the final. That’s Beowulf-Dragon, live from Earnaness…in 50 years’ time…” - A reference to the final battle between Beowulf and the dragon. Fifty years had elapsed between the time of his second battle (in the book, Beowulf killed Grendel first, then Grendel’s mother) and his final battle. Just enough time we think to squeeze in a Super Bowl (sorry, “The Big Game”) pregame show or two. Spoiler alert: Beowulf won, and rode off into the sunset (well, more like carried off, but you get the idea).

The picture on the box of "Hansel Bits" cereal was taken from an illustration of Grendel by J. R. Skelton in the 1908 book "Stories of Beowulf."

References:
Akorbi. Common syntax errors that change the meaning of phrases. https://akorbi.com/blog/common-syntax-errors-that-change-the-meaning-of-phrases/

Associated Press. (20 July 2021). Russian Hacker Levashov Sentenced to Time Already Served. Associated Press report. Published in the U.S. News and World Report. https://www.usnews.com/news/technology/articles/2021-07-20/russian-hacker-known-as-bot-master-to-be-sentenced-in-us

Baum, L. Frank. (2023). The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Illustrated First Edition. Pictures by W.W. Denslow. SeaWolf Press. First published in 1900.

DLTK's Fairy Tale Activities. Goldilocks and the Three Bears. https://www.dltk-teach.com/rhymes/goldilocks.htm

DLTK's Fairy Tale Activities. Hansel and Gretel. https://www.dltk-teach.com/fairy-tales/hansel-and-gretel/story.htm

DLTK's Fairy Tale Activities. The Story of Little Red Riding Hood. https://www.dltk-teach.com/rhymes/littlered/story.htm

Khrushchev, Nikita (25 February 1956). Khrushchev's Secret Speech, 'On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences,' Delivered at the Twentieth Party Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/khrushchevs-secret-speech-cult-personality-and-its-consequences-delivered-twentieth-party

Unknown. Beowulf. (2008). Translated by Burton Raffel. Signet Classics. First published in 1815.

Wikipedia. Beowulf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beowulf

Wikipedia. Brothers Grimm. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brothers_Grimm

Wikipedia. Cult of Personality (song). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_of_Personality_(song)

Wikipedia. Grendel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grendel

Wikipedia. Magic 8 Ball. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_8_Ball

Wikipedia. On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Cult_of_Personality_and_Its_Consequences

Wikipedia. Psycho (1960 film). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psycho_(1960_film)

Wikipedia. Sutton Hoo helmet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutton_Hoo_helmet

YouTube. Living Colour. (1988). Cult of Personality. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xxgRUyzgs0

YouTube. Yankovic, “W.”A. (1984). I Lost on Jeopardy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvUZijEuNDQ

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Convulsions of Birth and Death (CoBaD) is a comedy sketch troupe founded in September, 2022 that posts skits on social media covering varied topics such as music, history, art, science, sports, literature and events encountered in everyday life. The title was inspired by Henry David Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience” (1849), an essay written as a protest against the U.S. government taking his “gift” (i.e., his taxes), and wasting it in ways in which he did not approve (e.g., war and slavery). CoBaD writes sketches in the spirit of Thoreau, but instead of strictly casting its nets outwards towards governments and figures of authority, it projects its protest inwards by taking a humorous, lightheaded look at humanity and specifically those who take the greatest gift of all, life, and senselessly and stupidly waste it on greed, narcissism, self-centeredness, petty-mindedness, arrogance, opportunism, power-grabbing, quid pro quo, the status quo, ulterior motives, and the most despicable waste of all, watching and listening to social media podcasters and livestreamers.