Harlan Ellison's Watching...

Harlan Ellison

Here we are, a direct lineal ancestor of mine... you'll notice the similarity in the teeth.

You know, it's not my, it's not my habit to be trouble making, and question things. But I've just been that way ever since I was a kid. When I was very, very little, in Paynesville, Ohio, they sent in a, I guess it was a Rabbinical student to teach, you know, studies. And here he was teaching us about the Bible, and he starts out with Adam and Eve, and he did that whole number. And I raise my hand, I'm maybe 10 years old, and I raise my hand and I say, "Let me see if I have this right. There's Adam and Eve, right? There was only them and they were created by God. God made Adam and Eve, and there's only Adam and Eve?"

He says, "that's right."

"And from them, from them they got Cain and Abel ?"

"That's right".

"And there was only four of them?"

"That's right".

"And so, then Cain slew Abel and was driven out of Eden, East of Eden, in the land of Nod, where he got married and had children. Where did all these people come from?"

So, they threw me out of school. Now, this was when I first started to question, ah, the ethicasy and imperturbability of deities. When I learned that Santa Claus actually worked for the CIA, I was heartbroken. I don't want any of your children to be watching this, but you know, the Easter Bunny is a cross dresser, and as for the Tooth Fairy - rotten to the core.

Now, I will attack at this point one of the great icons of American society. From the time you were born you believe that Walt Disney and the Walt Disney Organization are the purveyors of absolute magic - the Pinocchio happiest kingdom of all. Well, I have to draw you up short. It has finally gotten to me. It annoyed me when it was Walt Disney's Pinocchio. No. It's not Walt Disney's Pinocchio. Pinocchio was written by an Italian gentleman named Carlo Collodi. Wonderful man. Bambi was not written by Walt Disney, it was written by someone named Felix Salten. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was not written by Walt Disney, although that's all plastered all over it. It was written by a man named Jules Verne. And, in fact, the Three Musketeers which was a recent Disney film, was not done by Walt Disney. No! Athos, Porthos, Aramis and D'Artagnan was invented by Alexander Dumas. When Dumas died he had one of the largest funerals in the history of the world. But if we open this Marvel Comic we see that the Three Musketeers was written by somebody named Bobby J.G. Weiss. Which must come as a great shock to Alexander who is probably spinning like a gyroscope. Disney has been sticking its name on things for 50, 60 years and they get away with it. They get away with it, because nobody ever calls them on it. If they ever say that something was written by somebody else it's a little, teeny, bitty line somewhere at the bottom of the film where you've never noticed it before. The Disney Organization can have the Earth. They can own it. They can pave it over and put up all the Small Worlds they want; although if you ask me, just that theme from It's A Small World is enough to make you want to take out an uzi and shoot them all dead. But they can have all the money in the world. All I ask is that from time to time they acknowledge that the people who wrote the things are the people who wrote the things. Not Disney.

I'm a crank. What do you want from me?

From Sci-Fi Buzz, episode 172

Publishing Rights to 'Harlan Ellison's Watching' copyright 1997 the Killimanjaro Corporation.