Cat Name

I talk about sad clowns a lot here, but I can't take any credit for the sad clown angle of tonight's ADVENTURE TIME, storyboarded by the wonderful Graham Falk and just concluded in most of our large nation. It was entirely Pen's idea to make the character a sad clown; I was "pitching" (as we say in the business) for him to be a piano player for a torch singer in a seedy mob-run nightclub, like Cameron Mitchell in the Doris Day movie LOVE ME OR LEAVE ME. Strangely, it was also Pen's idea to name the episode "Sad Face" after one of our cats, Sad Face. I even tried to change that title a couple of times on drafts of the outline, but Pen kept changing it back. You may "click" here to see a drawing Pen did of Sad Face, with whom he was quite taken on his trip to Oxford. You will note that the drawing is labeled "Big Boy," which indeed became Sad Face's secondary name for a number of reasons. He was first called Sad Face as an aloof and slender feral cat who lurked mysteriously in the gray mist and shadows half-unseen and for whom we used to put out food. Those who say feral cats cannot be tamed have never seen Dr. Theresa in action. She made friends with Sad Face patiently over the course of several months. We caught him finally (ha ha! I know how boring this is and I just don't care) and took him in for his shots and had him fixed, intending to release him again, which we did, during a rainstorm! How terrible. What were we thinking? He didn't seem to care. But he came in one day and stayed in, this wraith who used to be able to jump over tall fences and run agilely if heart-stoppingly through the traffic in front of our house, back and forth across the busy and treacherous street like a maniac. He lost any desire to go outside ever again, just like me, and got comfortable and fat, just like me. So we took to calling him "Big Boy" instead of "Sad Face," though he still has a sad face, but a "happy head," as our young neighbor once observed. Anyway, I'll have you know Sad Face has lost a lot of weight since Pen drew that picture. For real! For further reading (ha ha! Don't do it!), remember when I was writing that dumb serialized fantasy novel for the Vice magazine and nobody cared? You will note that a daring brigand in it had a faithful horse called Sad Face.