The Eleventh Hour: A Curious Mystery

(I will admit up front that I may be cheating a tiny bit on this one. The Eleventh Hour was technically published in 1989, but it was such an integral part of my 90s childhood that I'm going to let that formality slide)

The Eleventh Hour was so much more than just a pleasantly rhyming children's story. It was an intricate mystery that grew increasingly complicated with each turn of a page, and as children we were absolutely determined to solve the complex series of riddles. More importantly, we were determined to decode the puzzles without breaking the unspeakably cool sealed section in the back. The book actually had the solution to the puzzle right there, in a tightly sealed envelope-like contraption following the story. I mean, it was right there. Oh, the temptation! The shame associated with breaking the seal was more often than not too great to go ahead and sell out to the solutions section. Sure, we would finally have the answer to the mystery we had spent the last 347 days pondering, but it would be a hollow victory.

Whenever you went over to a friend's house and saw that they had broken the seal, you could feel that unmistakable rush of superiority. You may have been fruitlessly working on the mystery for months and had only a Five Star notebook full of mistaken leads to show for it, but you had Eleventh Hour integrity, dammit. They would always try to blame it on an older brother or younger sister less ambitious than they who had gotten into the secret section first, but we knew better than to believe their shoddy Eleventh Hour justifications. We were absolutely steadfast in our commitment to solve the mystery of Horace's missing birthday lunch if it was the last thing we did. At the rate we were going, this seemed a likely possibility.



We can only imagine that somewhere out there, there is a support group for people who caved prematurely and opened the hidden world of information in the sealed Super Secret Section. Burnt-out, dead-eyed video store clerks and fry cooks clutch their styrofoam coffee cups with a slight tremor as they share with the group the tragic story of how their lives took an unfortunate but inevitable Eleventh Hour-imposed turn for the worst.

"My name is Alan, and I opened the Super Secret Section."
"Hi, Alan."
"I opened the SSS when I was 9 years old. I couldn't take it anymore. I was pretty sure I had it down to the giraffe and the zebra, but who could be sure? That pool table scene always threw me off. And that swan! What was I supposed to do? I tore through that baby, and look at me today. If I just could have held out a little longer on that envelope..."

The puzzle was admittedly overcomplicated for a child, and feasibly added to any feelings of inadequacy accrued during our formative years. Parents and babysitters would pore over the book, convinced that with age came puzzle-deciphering wisdom. However, they too were thrown by the fraudulent clues leading them in all manner of imprudent directions. Even once the initial mystery was solved, the book offered additional challenges certain to thwart even the most adept cryptographer. What was an amateur decoder to do?


Perhaps I should backtrack a bit. For those of you without an immediate recall of this gloriously illustrated children's book, let me give you the short version sans full spectacular visual accompaniment. The book's breakout star, Horace the Elephant, is celebrating his eleventh birthday. As is customary with eleventh birthday parties, he wishes to carry this ever-so-creative "eleven" theme way too far and force all of his animal friends to suffer through a whopping eleven games before they finally get to eat at (you guessed it!) eleven o'clock. Seems simple enough. But wait! Before the group reaches the coveted lunching Eleventh Hour, we discover that one of the guests, supposedly friends of our dear friend Horace, is actually a thief. Somebody has made off with all the delicious goodies Horace had painstakingly prepared for his party. Luckily, our friend Horace is quick on his feet in a distinctly un-elephant-like way and salvages the day by coming through with sandwiches. Hooray! Sandwiches!


It seems like a fairly happy ending, but Base sort of left us hanging with this one. There was a gaping hole in the story--who had eaten Horace's prized birthday meal? And thus the fun began. Well, depending on your idea of fun, that is.

I personally received this book as a gift at an age when I could barely read, let alone solve a complex series of cryptographs, but Base's beauteous illustrations alone were enough to draw me in (yes, I said "draw", and I realize that's an embarrassingly cheap pun, but let's just move on. Thank you for your cooperation.) The visuals on these books were spectacular and appealed to me at a time in my life when my major ambition was to become an artist. I fancied myself as the next Graeme Base, which clearly illustrated (I swear, that's got to be the last one) that I had an overactive imagination. After several misguided pencil tracings of The Eleventh Hour on waxed paper swiped from my kitchen drawer, I realized I would never amount to anything as an illustrator and quickly vowed to learn to read so at least I could revel in solving the puzzle to avenge my brief failed career as an artiste.

For those of you who never got around to solving the mystery, there is hope for you yet. The book is still available at fine retailers everywhere (including online). The window of opportunity to redeem yourself is open.

Just don't wait until the Eleventh Hour to do so.


Check it out:
Want to own a Graeme Base Original? Be prepared to spend a pretty penny.

Zubaz

Some fashion trends are enigmatic. They are not particularly attractive or flattering, nor do they serve out their calculated functionality in any reasonable capacity. In fact, these trends conceivably exist with the sole goal of making the wearer a walking target of unmericful mockery and public shaming.

Zubaz were one of these trends. Was one of these trends? What's the grammatical status of Zubaz? I assume by sound alone that the word Zubaz is plural, but I could be wrong. The mere thought that anyone would want to refer to this god-awful alleged fashion statement in the plural is beyond me. Owning one pair was bad enough.

In short (or long, both versions were pretty bad), Zubaz were ridiculous. In their inception, they were potentially in some way tied to a plausibly justifiable function. A group of steroid-crazed (I have no evidence, but this must be the only explanation) Minnesota bodybuilders got together and pondered to one another about the stretchability and breathability of the current athletic shorts on the market. Nothing quite seemed to give them that certain something that they were looking for. "These seem rather quiet," They thought. "They need to make more of a statement. Something that says, I drink a pallet of Mountain Dew 2-liters a day and take my old lady to monster truck shows for our anniversary. Oh yeah, and that my excessive commitment to weight training has made me and my anterior thigh muscles too physically robust to keep from bursting from any available sports pant."

These were, of course, semi-legitimate concerns. The weight lifting one, at least. The original intention of Zubaz was to capture a niche market of bodybuilders whose propensity for squat thrusts led to innumerable pants-splitting incidents. I will cede this point to the Zubaz guys and give them at least a marginal window of light in the dark shadow of doubt that these pants were originally produced with good intentions.

Little did they know what was to come.

Have I gotten to the part yet about how these pants were designed in outlandish patterns and flamboyant colors? I should probably have mentioned that earlier on, but I was distracted from the acidic ocular reaction from viewing the above photo. Yes, Zubaz wearers weren't content with their clothes merely being comfortable; they had to be resplendent in neon green zebra print as well. The shape of the pants was sort of a toned-down Hammer Pant, but what they lost in volume they compensated for in pattern and color selection. In the likely case that your mental picture remains hazy from damage done to your brain's visual receptors in trying to recapture the image of these pants, here is a little refresher in the form of a Zubaz fashion show:



That's right, nothing says manly like strutting your stuff to a Suzanne Vega song while wearing a purple windbreaker. For some reason beyond probable explanation, these pants caught on in a big way. This ostentatious legwear still held its athletic appeal, however, and mainly catered to a sports crowd. The sadists at Zubaz manufactured licensed sports team merchandise complete with wild patterns and flashy logos:



The brand even had a brief stint in the professional athletic team uniform arena, though it was thankfully short-lived. Teams like the Tampa Bay Storm were forced to go out onto the field looking a little something like this:


Or worse, this:

(Okay, so maybe that last one isn't an actual professional sports team, but it was a 90s Zubaz ad)

Embarrassing, yes. But that's not all! The Zubaz brand story does not die with the crest and fall of a great (though questionably zebra-striped fashioned) decade. Just when we thought it was safe to leave the house without running into someone dressed suspiciously identical to a stick of Fruit Stripe gum, things took a turn. I'm not quite sure how to break it to you, so I guess I should just come out with it.

I regret to inform you that I bring you this blog in the wake of a terrible tragedy. An announcement has been made, and nothing we can do can stop these people. They're unrelenting in their quest for global zebra-striped pant domination. They are clearly out of their minds, and they are on an inexplicable mission to refill the world with loud, clamoring neon patterns and unflattering tapered elastic-banded legs. Yes, that's right. I said refill.

Zubaz are back.




For a company whose slogan was once "Dare to be Different", this new line seems suspiciously familiar. I think I speak for the majority when I say that we wish the people at Zubaz were a bit better at taking their own advice for this second go-round. Their new slogan may be one of the more frightening and untimely statements I've heard in a long time.

"We're Back."



Venture if you dare:
The new Zubaz website

Aaahh!!! Real Monsters

You can't help but love a television show whose title includes both a horrified reaction and accurate description of its cast. The more exclamatory, the better. What's that you say? It takes place in a landfill? I am so there.

It was the Golden Age of Nicktoons. Aaahh!!! Real Monsters was one of those shows for which you can both appreciate its creativity and wonder how they let a kooky idea spiral so quickly into something so absurdly intricate. Remarkably, the good people at Klasky-Csupo managed to make our monster friends both wildly idiosyncratic and relatable all at the same time. The key was that, like us children of the 90s, these monsters were kids. They went to school, they had homework, they sought to rebel, and they feared punishment from adult authority. Sure, they were always popping out of toilets and their major aim in life was to frighten the daylights and/or nightlights out of innocent children like ourselves, but they possessed a certain quirky underlying quality which made us root for them the whole way.


The matter-of-factness with which the Monster Academy and its zany cast of characters was presented to us as children made these ridiculous beings seem almost plausible. We had no reason not to believe that a red bunny rabbit, a black and white candy cane wearing wax lips, and an amorphous smelly blob of play-dough holding eyeballs roomed together at boarding school at the dump and get themselves into all sorts of wacky comedic situations. The main characters possessed a more-than-adequate amount of human-like charm in their personality traits and behaviors; one was a neurotic worrywart, one a laid-back slacker, and the last an uptight wealthy perfectionist. They were 90s TV standards incarnate, made over into so-ugly-they're-cute preteen monsters.

For a children's cartoon, it was fairly dark. In fact, some children found parts of it downright frightening. The show was completely unapologetic about its premise and refused to "tone down" any characters who may have been perceived as, well, terrifying. The Monster Academy's headmaster, the Gromble, had a tough-love approach that involved a great deal of yelling, threatening, and eating students in a way not usually conducive to positive adult role models. Similarly, if our young monster friends misbehaved, they faced being subject to the dreaded Snorch's torturous punishments and incoherent ramblings. These punishments included such terrifying fare as group square dancing, and for any child forced to do-si-do in elementary school gym class, we understood the graveness of their concern.

Behold, the wondrous intro:

Find more videos like this on www.truveo.com.

The monsters were so sweet and well-intentioned, we often forgot that their livelihood was frightening human children. Ickis, Krumm, and Oblina were a ragtag trio of preteen monsters trying to make it through their semester at Monster Academy unscathed.

Let's meet our heroes:

Ickis, neurotic crimson pipsqueak constantly mistaken for an adorable and distinctly unscary bunny rabbit. His scaring technique involved some form of self-inflation that ballooned him to several times his usual nonthreatening stature.


Krumm, resident slacker and all-around smelly cream-puff. His uncanny ability to frighten people with body odor alone iwas both remarkable and a bit disgusting. He also had the odd fortune of having to hold his eyeballs in hand as he was generally socketless.


Oblina, candy cane extraordinaire and token rich snob. Her supposedly cultured taste veered more toward the bacterial than the highbrow, consistent with her monster upbringing. She possessed enormous red lips and the ability to extract her internal organs from them en masse for the general gross-out scare factor.

Our squalid principals ran about wreaking havoc in a Monsters INC prequel-type fashion. Deep down, we knew them to be good, but they still had the power to scare the bejeezus out of us with their formidable antics. At the end of the day, however, we understood their motives and were willing to forget their propensity for apprehending unsuspecting children. After being taken in by a few good episodes, we too could picture ourselves rolling around in the trash after a long day of scaring, dodging Simon the Monster Hunter, and desperately trying to make ourselves look more repulsive to potential mates we were currently "squishing" on.

Aaah!!! Real Monsters took 90s sitcom conventions and turned them on their head; the cleverness of it was not lost on us, even as children. Not to mention that the innumerable tongue-in-cheek cultural references satiated any adult in the room, allowing them to chuckle and briefly forget the potentially dire psychological effects this gross-out humor was probably unleashing on their young, impressionable children.

Whether you viewed yourself more as an Ickis, an Oblina, or a Krumm, we all saw a little piece of ourselves in these allegedly real monsters. Maybe we weren't surfing the sewers or using toenails as currency, but we were experiencing the same pre-adolescent pitfalls as our monstrous counterparts. Being sentenced to detention may not have been quite as afflictive as a Snorching session, but we recognized the general idea.

If you have somehow lost your childhood sense of whimsy and imagination, fear not. Well, maybe fear a little bit, but there's still hope for you to enjoy this classic Nicktoon in all its first season glory on Itunes.

So cue up the old episodes and stay awhile. You too will be Hooked on Phobics in no time.


Check it out:
Aaahh!!! Real Monsters episode guide