CRAIG CONLEY (Prof. Oddfellow) is recognized by Encarta as “America’s most creative and diligent scholar of letters, words and punctuation.” He has been called a “language fanatic” by Page Six gossip columnist Cindy Adams, a “cult hero” by Publisher’s Weekly, a “monk for the modern age” by George Parker, and “a true Renaissance man of the modern era, diving headfirst into comprehensive, open-minded study of realms obscured or merely obscure” by Clint Marsh. An eccentric scholar, Conley’s ideas are often decades ahead of their time. He invented the concept of the “virtual pet” in 1980, fifteen years before the debut of the popular “Tamagotchi” in Japan. His virtual pet, actually a rare flower, still thrives and has reached an incomprehensible size. Conley’s website is OneLetterWords.com.
"A hen-house, a barn, and a pig-pen are all [places animals live / places children live / places scarecrows live]." From We Can Read The Toy-box by Gerrard & McInnes and illustrated by Connie Jefferess, undated (c. 1960).
Parody analog horror meets 1970s tropes (like pet rocks, lava lamps, disco music, bell-bottom pants, mirror balls, and of course mood rings) in the web series Grave Mood Rings. It pokes fast fun at classic slow-moving Gothic soap operas like Dark Shadows and the Canadian series Strange Paradise. In addition to a vampiric Viscount, a castle is home to a groovy Doctor (a phlebotomist, naturally), a jolly housekeeper with her own laugh track, a werewolf Vicar, and an arch-nemesis riddler wearing a Sphinx mask. Corny wordplay, the occasional bizarre sing-a-long, and haunted doughnuts punctuate the proceedings, in the tradition of the sketch comedy of MadTV, Kids in the Hall, and SCTV.
Adjusted for inflation, the silver spoon is $1,800,000, the faint heart is $1,880, the two-ended candles are $20, the pins to drop are $70, the broth for too many cooks is $380, and the three locksmiths are $220. From Life, 1930.