Eponymously Yours, W. Skeffington Higgins

My sister received a lovely gift from my Aunt Mary for Christmas: a feisty Notre Dame leprechaun.



Seems to me it might also have made a good gift for Boxing Day.

My sister was able to join my Peoria relatives for Christmas Eve and Christmas morning, which made it a joyous occasion. We shared memories of prior Yules when there were more Higginses to participate.

(The men's football team at Notre Dame also had a good year. Undefeated, for the first time in many a season, they are ranked number 1 at the moment. I understand they are to play Alabama in a kind of bowl game. Puzzlingly, this game is not called the Somethingcolorful Bowl, not even the Giantcommercialentity Somethingcolorful Bowl. It's not Rose, it's not Cotton, it's not Orange, it's not Sugar, it's not Super, it's not even the derided Fiesta or Liberty. I know things have changed since I last attended a football game, back in the Ford Administration, and I have the serenity to accept things I cannot change. Yet it does seem odd that the supertitanic highly-awesome January showdown game that determines the absolute and majestic ruler of college footballdom is not called the Anything Bowl. I wonder what the Leprechaun thinks of this.)

Happy St. Stephen's Day to one and all!

So I noticed that the twenty-first century Davey and Goliath Christmas special, Davey and Goliath’'s Snowboard Christmas, will air this weekend in my area. Out of curiosity, I asked Mister Tivo to record it for me.

D&G are a property of the Lutherans, a sect more likely to fantasize about snowboarding with a talking dog than about, say, machine-gunning Catholics in the streets after the Rapture. Good for them. Besides, I love animation, and I love puppets, and so I have always had a soft spot for Davey & Goliath.

D&C were created by Art Clokey, who also was the father of The Gumby Show, a fact which will surprise no one who has seen both series.

I was pleased a couple of years ago to see Davey and Goliath still showing on one of the Christian channels on my dial. I'm not a big fan, and I don't feel a need to see every episode, but there's a dollhouse charm in the characters, their clothing, and their props. And in the earnest way the stories contrive to teach Christian lessons.

The first time I tuned in, I was a bit startled to see a bumper after the story that showed Davey sitting under a tree with his laptop, surfing to his denomination's Web site, while his dog looked on. 1962 Goliath didn't wear a collar, but 2004 Goliath was wearing a medallion shaped just like the logo of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. I didn't think of these guys as Web-era characters... but then maybe they could say the same about me, since I was about Davey's age when we first encountered one another.

In one episode I saw, "The Silver Mine," Davey ignores warnings and explores an abandoned mine. Of course he becomes trapped and injured, sister Sally sends Goliath to get help, and Dad rescues Davey. There ensues the following dialogue:

Davey: Dad, why did God let this happen to me?
Dad: Don't blame God, Davey. It wasn't His fault.
Davey: God let me do it!
Dad: What God lets you do is decide for yourself what you will do. You're not a puppet with strings tied to you!
Davey: No.
Dad: So God doesn't make you do anything. He lets you decide for yourself.
Davey: So you mean I decided by myself to come into the mine.
Dad: Didn't you?
Sally: He sure did!
Davey: God let me decide to come into the silver mine. It's my fault I got smashed!
Dad: Right.

Are the writers having fun with us? On the one hand, Dad is teaching Davey about free will. On the other hand, Davey really is a puppet. Okay, not, strictly speaking, a puppet with strings tied to him. But an unseen hand causes Davey to move in the interstices between moments of time. This is no better than having strings. He only appears, once the film is developed, to have free will.

At no time do the characters break the Fourth Wall. It just seems weird to have one puppet telling another puppet that he's not a puppet.

In 2002 D&G appeared in a commercial for Mountain Dew animated by Wreckless Abandon Studios. Proceeds from this helped finance the 2004 revival Christmas film. There once was an amusing on-set interview where D&G talked about working together again after all these years, but it seems no longer to be available.

So I'm a little bit curious to see what the latter-day modern version of Davey & Goliath is like. I probably won't watch the program all the way through. But I'd like to sample just a little of it, for old times' sake. We were kids together.

Retelling a story from this posting, and wishing you all joy of the holidays:

My brother, the famous journalist, and I were once driving along U.S. 1
to do some Christmas shopping. Somewhere in the Melbourne area, we passed
an unusual business.


"Look," I said, "Brevard Prosthetics, Inc.!"


"Ah," said John. "The perfect stocking stuffer!"