Syncopating Sea Monkeys

I previously wrote about the Sea Monkey Swim Team. Now it turns out there is a band called the Syncopating Sea Monkeys. They play traditional jazz and they're right across the bridge from me in West Sacramento. Our Sacramento Traditional Jazz Festival, one of the biggest in the world, has passed. But next year I will do my darnedest to get out and see these kids swing it.

Check out their website here: http://seamonkeyjazz.org/index.asp

Sea Monkey Day Cocktails

NOTE: Old Sea-Monkey aquarium as glass = cool
Drinking Sea-Monkeys = not cool

D'oh! I got so caught in my life as a dad, husband, comedian and comic book reader that I lost track of my responsibilities as Sea-Monkey blogger number one. Yes, I missed National Sea-Monkey Day on May 16th this year.

The fine folks at AHistoryOfDrinking.com celebrated the important national holiday by posting the following Sea Monkey cocktails. Your Sea Monkeys do not want to drink these. They want YOU to drink them, preferably after you've fed them and put them somewhere safe, secure and out of the way.

Sea Monkey Martini
recipe adapted from RA Sushi Bar & Grill, Miami, FL
* 1 1/2 oz Pineapple Juice
* 1 1/2 oz Skyy Infusions Raspberry Vodka
* 1/2 oz Black Raspberry Liqueur
* 1 oz Cranberry Juice

Glass: Cocktail
Garnish: Orange Wheel
Pour pineapple juice into a chilled cocktail glass. Add the remaining ingredients to a shaker and shake with ice. Strain slowly over the pineapple juice and try to keep the two layers separated. Float an orange wheel for garnish.

Sea Monkey Shot
recipe adapted from drinknation.com
* 1 1/2 oz Goldschlager
* 1/2 oz Blue Curacao
Glass: Shot
Garnish: None
Layer ingredients in order. Be sure that the Goldschlager has been completely chilled.

Sea Monkey Swim Team

I don't know how I didn't catch this one sooner.

There is, in the Ohio communities of South Euclid and Lyndhurst a swim team operating under the name of Sea Monkeys! And they beat a team called The Sharks!

A Sea Monkey beating a shark, who'd a thunk it?

Check out their great Sea Monkey shirts, head gear and that snazzy cake.

I know it gets cold up in Ohio. I wonder how easy it is to raise Sea Monkeys up there.

Liz Phair

Liz Phair is a favorite of mine and her 1993 debut album "Exile in Guyville" is on many "Greatest Albums of All Time" lists.

I was listening to the album in my car as I made the long and scenic drive from Santa Cruz to San Jose recently and I noticed Liz seemed to be singing about Sea Monkeys. I don't know how I'd failed to notice it before. From the song Gunshy:

Sea monkeys, do monkey's
Story of my life
Send three bucks to a comic book
Get a house, car and wife
Send three bucks to a comic book
Get a house, car and wife

The Bumpkins

The Bumpkins are an Italian punk rock band and they have a great tune called SeaMonkey. Click here to hear the song on their myspace page.

Sea Monkey (lyrics)
I'm a Sea monkey
I Jump into the water
and I grow up quickly for you

I'm a Sea Monkey
I just need something to eat
the chaos can't kill me

I don't know why children play with me
I don't know why children love me

I'm a Sea Monkey
Children will forget me
and my life will change

If I'm a toy
I don't need to eat
even if I'm hungry and tired

I don't know why children play with me
I don't know why children love me
I don't know why children forget me
I don't know why I was born here

The bumpkins contacted the Sea Monkey Geek via my myspace page and I had a chance to ask them some questions:

Sea Monkey Geek: Can you tell me a little about what inspired you to write the song?
Also, I'd love to know, how popular and well known are Sea Monkeys in Italy?

The Bumpkins: "Well, sea monkeys were popular in the 70's and 80's thanks to advertisement on magazines. Now no one knows what sea monkeys are and finding a place which sells them is very difficult. However a friend of mine (that is older than me) talked to me about sea monkeys as a cult toy. He said that when he was a child (in the 80s) all the children wanted to have sea monkeys, in spite of the fact that they were considered trash.

The few that bought them usually forgot to feed them and let them die. So I wanted to write a song about something that was funny and serious at the same time. We are animal rights activist and this is our way to say it (you should know that in Italy every year a lot of pets are abandoned). Our friends find it funny and probably this song will be published on a punk compilation."

They also sent me this very cool Italian Sea Monkey ad. I laughed reading that "they were considered trash." When I was young my grandmother insisted that Sea Monkey were just little bits of paper that floated around in the water. Funny stuff.

Cool Sea Monkey Poster

When illustrator Sean Causley was commissioned to do a poster for the band 311 he brought in some Sea Monkeys to help.

The result is one darn cool poster. Visit Sean's website here to dig more cool illustration.

Disney's "Fun"

Terry Zwigoff to have Fun
Disney is in pre-production on a film tentatively titled FUN which may feature some great Sea Monkey action. The premise is that two friends buy all manner of Comic book advertised goodies, X-Ray Specs, Sea-Monkeys etc. and thirty years later the products magically start living up to the advertising claims. The two friends then must deal with the ensuing chaos.
I'm thinking we may see some CGI Sea Monkey families.
The most exciting thing for me is that Terry Zwigoff (Crumb, Ghost World, Bad Santa) has already been attached as the director. Zwigoff has a deep love of comics and I think he'll bring an understanding to the film that just might make it work if Disney stays out of his way.

If this film happens, it could be the best thing to happen to Sea Monkeys in decades. Disney can at times live up to their evil-empire image but they also have the power to quite effectively plug in to the mass consciousness. You can't go to an aquarium now without hearing kids name off the characters from Finding Nemo as they pass the blue tangs and the clown fish, etc.
My hope is that we get anthropomorphic Sea Monkeys that are mischievous and prolific.

I'm crossing my fingers and making a wish that we see this project move from pre-production to production.

Sea Monkey Costume

This almost disturbing Sea Monkey costume was shared with me via my myspace page. I'm trying to get some more details on it, so check back soon.

Red Meat

Click image to enlarge

Red Meat has long been one of my favorite comics. Of course I have no way of knowing if this fine Sea Monkey strip is a Max Cannon original or if one of his fans made it. You see, there is a beautiful thing known as the "Build Your Own Meat" construction set with which you can almost instantly create your own Red Meat comic. Check it out by clicking here.

Land of Loops "How To Feed a Sea Monkey"

Land of The Loops 2000 album Puttering About a Small Land includes a great song called "How To Feed A Sea Monkey."

Click here to listen to it.

And click here to visit CD Universe where you can hear more Land of The Loops and maybe even buy their CD.

Leading Cause of Death Among Sea-Monkeys

The Onion guys MUST have some Sea-Monkeys in their office somewhere. But just in case, I think I'll be sending them some. Here is another great appearance of our briney friends.

I wrote a while back about their hillarious piece on a man claiming his Sea Monkeys as dependents. Click here for that.

Sea Monkeys and Futurama Comics

Click Images to enlarge

I was a big fan of Futurama and was sad to see it taken off the air. I'm now very excited to hear that it's coming back on Comedy Central.

The animated TV show spawned a monthly (now quarterly) comic book and the very 1st issue in November of 2000 featured our beloved Sea Monkeys.

In this premier issue "Monkey Sea, Monkey Doom!" an old lunch box from the 2oth century is discovered and in it are some old comics.

Coming across an ad for Sea Monkeys Fry is reminded of how much he wanted to order them when he was younger.

At "Shitfy's True Wonders of The 20th Century Emporium he finds some but sadly, they do not exactly spring to life, at least not until after he disposes of them by tossing them into a vat of Gamma Radiation.


Dr. Zoidberg finds the newly irradiated and now very much alive critters and all is happy as the monkeys grow...

and grow...


and grow...




Until...

...





And of course there is a funny surprise ending but I won't ruin it for you here. The issue is very hard to find, in fact my favorite comics supplier has been trying to get if for me for a couple of months now and so far, nada. There is a trade paperback that has issues 1 through 4. I haven't tried to find that yet, but may go after it next.

Sea Monkeys on American Dad

I hope I don't lose any readers with this, but I am NOT a fan of American Dad. It isn't as awful as Family Guy, but that's not really a compliment. Nevertheless, as a tireless catologuer of all things Sea Monkey, I bring you this youtube clip of Roger The Alien from Americna Dad hatching Sea Monkeys.

Sea Monkeys on Veronica Mars?

Anyone see the finale of Veronica Mars? I missed it, not a big fan, but now I hear there was an in depth discussion of Sea Monkeys and their mythical amphibious nature. I'll try to find more.

Great Sea Monkey Puppet

click to enlarge photo
Sea Monkey from Everybody Loves Pirates, photographed by Richard Sassaman for The Frogtown Mountain Puppeteers. Richard Sassaman wrote me and told me a bit about how the photo came to be.

"i really admired the Frogtown Mountain Puppeteers, two brothers and a sister who were doing shows in our area of Maine, and volunteered to do some videotaping for them, then I also took their official postcard photo at the Bar Harbor town pier.

Their most popular show, probably, is the one about pirates. They wanted a bunch of photos for it, so we went and I shot them at the Pirate's Cove miniature golf course just outside town. My next-door neighbor, a rugged old New Englander named Paul, became the 'greenskeeper' there after he retired from his auto mechanics job, and he let us use the place one morning before it opened to the public."

Now I'm dying to see the show. Any show that features a Sea Monkey is aces with me, but throw in puppets and pirates and I don't see how it could be anything less than spectacular.

Mozilla's Project Sea Monkey

Sea Monkey's swimming around in our computers? My God! What evil hath those mad geniuses at Mozilla wrought upon us all?
Or perhaps I'm misunderstanding the concept. I didn't actually read all that text, o' lord no. Too many words, not enough pictures. But When Mozilla releases the official Project Sea-Monkey Comic Book I'm there.
For now you can check out their project for yourself by clicking here.

And if you're not already using Mozilla's FireFox web-browser, I highly recommend it (if for no other reason than to counter balance my earlier feigned anti-intellectualism.)

Sea-Monkeys Vegas Style

Click pictures to enlarge
Yes, Sea-Monkeys were spotted in sin city.

Oh no! Sea-Monkey's in pasties and feathered head dresses? Gangster Sea-Monkeys collecting their protection money? Sea-Monkey's with gambling problems swimming in watered down, complimentary casino-drinks?

No, thankfully, it's none of the above. The Sea-Monkey's are on the winning side of the gambling scene. They're guests of the house, staying in the nice suites, all the room service they can handle and every cable channel unscrambled.

Sea Monkey Slot machines have apparently been around since 2005. These are the only pictures I've found so far. I don't know who the dude is but apparently the aquatic simians were good to him, not too good though; I don't know how far $13.80 goes in Vegas. Guess it all depends on what kind of a poker face you've got.

Man Claims Sea Monkeys as Dependents

Click Here to listen to a hilarious story involving Sea Monkeys on The Onion's "Onion Radio News."

TMCM meets The Sea Monkeys

Click images to enlarge
It was in the pages of comic books that the earliest fans of Sea Monkeys were introduced to the hobby that for some became an obsession which often causes other adults to look at you funny (and with maybe a touch of sympathy.) So it seems appropriate that todays comics would want to feature Sea Monkeys.

For me its win, win. I love comic books, the indy ones like Too Much Coffee Man especially. I was thrilled when my friend Carl informed me that TMCM had himself a Sea Monkey adventure.

Our caffeinated hero decides to fill his bathtub up with Sea Monkeys. When he accidentally falls in, he discovers he has created a whole under water world. And he soon finds himself in hot water under water.

You can read the whole adventure and plenty more for free at www.TMCM.com. To start at the beginning of the Sea Monkey issue just click here.

And as long as we're on the subject, other comic book artists I enjoy are Daniel Clowes, Jeffrey Brown, Robert Crumb, Chester Brown, Los Bros Hernandez and many more. Of course not all their work is appropriate for all ages.

The Live Action Sea Monkey TV Show

In the early nineties a live action Sea Monkeys TV show appeared on CBS. Howie Mandel starred as a scientist who accidentally enlarges three Sea Monkey brothers, and in the process somehow renders them into air breathing, land dwelling creatures.

The show was a Three Stooges homage staring Sea Monkeys as they appear in the original sixties comic book ads. Here's a short clip from one episode. Enjoy.




Click Here to visit the website of one of the shows designers.