Tuesday, July 11, 2006

CROSSOVER OF THE WEEK! (7/11)

I had to come up to Connecticut to find the Crossover of the Week, and in the few days I've been here so far, I've seen several variations of it already.

"SILK SOY MILK"
&
"COWS"

There are several commercials running for Silk Soy Milk which feature humanoid bovines in domestic settings. In the first I saw, the cow-wife (Barbara) tries to get her bull-headed husband (Paul) to try the taste of Silk Soy Milk in his breakfast cereal instead of whatever she might have produced.

Of course he resists but finally acquiesces, and makes it sound as if it had been his idea all along to use the stuff.

In another, the two cows (I'm not sure if it's Barbara again and her teenage daughter or just two roommates) are arguing over the fact that the Silk Soy Milk has been all used up. One of them might has well have had blonde hair she was so ditzy.

Like the TV show 'Dinosaurs' before it, these cows belong in the main Toobworld. And what gives them that privilege and provides the Crossover of the Week to boot?

A 1997 failed sitcom attempt by Eddie Izzard called 'Cows'. (Even Izzard admits it was cow-flop. As he describes it on his official website, 'Cows' was "critically received like a long-lost relative who turns up at the wrong house with an overdue Christmas card."

All that exists is the one-hour pilot which was screened on C4. The main characters were the Johnsons, "a typically wacky sitcom family who just happen to be cows".

As with 'Dinosaurs', the cast wore elaborate, full-body cow suits and were still able to give the bovines personality and individuality. Just as in the Silk Soy Milk blipverts, the cows walked on their hind legs and tried to be more like their human neighbors, but their basic instincts still reflected their cattle origins.
The plotline for the introductory episode had the son Rex bringing home his girlfriend Pinky to meet the family. The trouble was, Pinky was human.

It's a relationship like that which probably gave birth to the Minotaur.

I'm not sure how the cows gained their humanoid status, but apparently it was all revealed in the opening sequence. They revealed themselves to be sentient and able to walk about on their hind, and insisting on equality with humans. But apparently Rex's attempt at "mooscegenation" was rebuffed on both sides.

If it had been due to radiation exposure, then these 'Cows' could have shared a common origin with 'The Cowboys Of Moo Mesa' over in the Tooniverse.

At any rate, even though the pilot failed to secure a berth on the regular TV schedule, the life of these 'Cows' continued in Toobworld even though we couldn't see them. And since the cow family of the Silk Soy Milk ads speak with American accents, apparently the evolution of cattle to sentient beings continued and flourished, spreading across the world.

However, they are probably being kept quarantined on "reservations" away from human society at large, who probably don't even know of their existence. This protects the Cowfolk from human prejudices, and keeps the human way of life safe from the threat of being replaced by cud-chewers.

Gary Larson ought to give the concept a shot for TV. He'd be the one to make it fly.

No, wait. That would be pigs who fly....

BCnU!
Tele-Toby

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