Friday, May 30, 2014

Collobor* (for Collabor*)

The best collaboration in television history could well be the amazing voice cast of The Simpsons, consisting of Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Hank Azaria, Harry Shearer, and Yeardley Smith. And for corroboration of this bold assertion, see the program's still-stellar ratings after being on the air since 1989—or else just plop down on the couch with everybody else and watch the opening credits. Speaking of funny, I overheard someone say "colloborate" the other day and was reminded of similar collaborative slips of the tongue, often made timeless by the likes of Sarah Palin (with her absolutely hilarious and all too understandable "refudiate") and, indubitably, of course, George Dubya Bush. (My all-time favorite Bushism is "a peance freeance secure Iraq.") Some folks might regard those two as "misunderestimated" cartoon characters themselves, but for the real deal, let's turn to Bart and Lisa Simpson, who, in an episode titled "Treehouse of Horror X," play superheroes "Stretch Dude" and "Clobber Girl." It may be a bit of a stretch, but just as a heads-up (watch out for defenestrated Acme safes!), we were pretty well clobbered by our typo of the day, which turned up 17 times in OhioLINK and 564 times in WorldCat.

(Yeardley Smith speaking at the 2012 San Diego Comic-Con International in San Diego, California, 14 July 2012, by Gage Skidmore, from Wikimedia Commons.)

Carol Reid

No comments: