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Ten years ago I began a series of Throwback Thursday posts in this blog about an animation series I attempted back in the 1990s called The Unicorn With An Attitude. I did the posts after I uploaded each episode on to YouTube. I kept at it for a year until I reached the last episode I did for that series. I’m only mentioning it again because the first episode in that series was a parody of the O.J. Simpson murder trial and Simpson has died today from cancer at the age of 76.
Way back in the 1990s I had this idea of trying to make it as a computer animator. The World Wide Web was in its infancy, there were a bunch of BBS boards that were run by hobbyists plus there were three major subscription services–CompuServe, America On Line (which was later shortened to AOL), and Prodigy. Social media as we know it today just didn’t exist. It was a time when people experimented with being creative online and trying to create all kinds of interesting content. Granted not everything worked out or was even very good but it still counted for something that people were being experimental and that was what made that period so exciting.
I decided to try an animated series of my own. It was called The Unicorn With An Attitude and it was a satiric series. The animation was crude by today’s standards and it was made on a shoestring budget using whatever hardware and software I could afford. The first episode of my series was a parody of the intense media scrutiny surrounding the murder trial of O.J. Simpson. To honor the occasion of Simpson’s death today, here is that animation where I parodied his trial all those years ago.
By the way you can read about the entries about the making of each episode in the series by searching on The Unicorn With An Attitude tag. You can also view my entire series at the YouTube playlist below. And, as for O.J. Simpson, R.I.P. (Rot Into Pieces)
For the past few Thursdays (see my posts on June 18, 2020, June 25, 2020, and July 2, 2020) I’ve been highlighting old sketchbook drawings that I found while I was decluttering my home. I found these cartoony drawings, some I did in pencil and some I did in ink. The first two are a bunch of faces.
The third is my commentary on the O.J. Simpson murder trial where a living room has a TV that tuned to the coverage of that trial along with a poster advertising The Naked Gun movies (which Simpson appeared in). The TV has what looks like VHS boxes (they have to be VHS tapes because DVDs weren’t around back when O.J. was on trial) that are all about O.J. Simpson. The coffee table had various books about O.J. Simpson, which had the one title that O.J. Simpson actually wrote (I Want to Tell You) and others whose titles I simply made up to be funny (I Had O.J.’s Alien Baby, O.J. Must Die, and O.J. is a Victim). The floor is littered with two tabloids with headlines about O.J. Simpson and his murder trial.
The third shows a donkey and an elephant dancing close together. It’s likely some kind of a political commentary on how close these parties actually are since those two are the symbols of the Democrat and Republican parties.
Last, but not least, here’s a drawing showing a little girl arriving home with her mother freaking out because the girl is accompanied by a fairy, a fire-breathing dragon, an elf riding a unicorn, and a satyr. The caption reads: “Gee, Mom, can’t I keep them? They followed me home.”
Unfortunately I didn’t put a date on any of these drawings. Judging by the O.J. Simpson murder trial references in one of my drawings, I probably did all of them sometime in the mid to late 1990s. As to why I did them, I’m trying to pick my memory and the only thing I can remember is this. At one point in the 1990’s I took a cartooning class that was offered through Glen Echo’s art program. The class was open to all ages and the participants ranged from teens all the way to this one woman I remember being old enough to be my mother. It’s very likely that I did these drawings during that class since it would explain why I did a series of faces in the first two drawings. (It was likely an in-class assignment.) I just only wished I had written down the date that I did them.
That’s it for the old drawings I found while I was decluttering. If I find any more, I’ll definitely share them in this blog.
Last year I wrote this rant on Why Kim Kardashian and Her Family Need to Just Go Away because I was exasperated over how much media attention this family has gotten even though none of them have actually made any kind of major accomplishments, with the exception of Kim’s late father, Robert Kardashian, who was one of the lawyers in O.J. Simpson’s 1990’s murder trial and Kim’s one-time stepparent, Caitlyn Jenner, who won the gold decathlon medal at the 1976 Olympics.
Since I posted it online that rant has become among the most-read Sagittarius Dolly blog posts ever. In fact I can tell whenever yet another major scandalous story regarding that family has broken because that rant will suddenly become among the top ten most read posts of the week. I’m not surprised that it’s gotten back up to the top ten this week considering the mainstream media suddenly went crazy over reports that Kim Kardashian was robbed in her Paris hotel just hours after she posted a photo of herself wearing this expensive looking diamond ring on Instagram. If you look on some of the gossip sites, you’d hear rumors that this “robbery” was either staged by either Kim herself or one of her associates or was an inside job that was perpetrated by someone who’s associated either with Kim or the hotel. Whatever the case may be, this will set off yet another round of Kim Kardashian’s face being plastered on most of the magazines and tabloids that are sold in the supermarket checkout line.
I would’t be surprised if this “robbery” is yet another attempt at keeping the Kardashian name in the headlines. Part of me hopes that if it is something that was faked that it would provoke such a huge backlash that it’ll signal the end of the public life of Kim and her family. But I’m not going to hold my breath on that one. After all, last year I wrote that rant because Kim’s younger half-sisters seemed to glamorize lesbian incest and that wasn’t enough to torpedo that whole family out of the media spotlight.
In some ways I think it’s not right that a bunch of no-talents like the Kardashians are now considered celebrities. The very definition of the word “celebrity” has changed since I was a kid. A few years ago The Washington Post ran this story about the demise of a museum in Virginia that was dedicated to Jeane Dixon, the famed psychic and self-styled “astrologer to the stars.” In the newspaper edition of that story The Washington Post published a photo of one of the artifacts from that now-defunct museum: a cover of a late-1970’s issue of The National Enquirer that prominently featured Jeane Dixon’s predictions of the futures of such stars as Burt Reynolds, Cary Grant, and Dolly Parton. All three of them were considered to be major celebrities of that era. But there was a major difference between them and the Kardashians—they were people who became prominent through displaying actual talent at either acting or music. They didn’t go to paparazzi-heavy restaurants and nightclubs being attention whores in the hopes that their photos will appear in some publication the next day. They developed a craft, worked hard at that craft, and gained a following from people who were impressed with their craft.
This is why all this media attention on the Kardashians is so frustrating as well as their frequent efforts to shove this family in our faces. Even PBS has gotten in on this by posting links to Kim Kardashian stories like this one on its Facebook page and covering her like she’s news is something that used to be beneath the major public broadcaster. Ironically I have yet to meet anyone in my life who has ever expressed admiration for anyone in that family. I can remember the time when I saw a rack of the Kardashian clothing line at Sears and I thought those outfits were so ugly that someone would have to pay me to wear them. I wasn’t surprised to hear that those clothes were a total flop. I see their perfumes and other beauty products just sit there on the store shelves. It’s almost like the mainstream media is doing some kind of propaganda to force people to accept them as celebrities and honor them as such while average people are doing their best to resist this.
I don’t mind seeing stories about people with actual talent but the mainstream media needs to have a moratorium on all things Kardashian unless someone from that family has actually done something worthwhile (like discovering a cure for cancer). I think people should boycott anything that is associated with any members of that family regardless of whether it’s their beauty products or clothes or any publications that have them on the cover or even episodes of their reality show Keeping Up With the Kardashians. If enough people boycott the Kardashians then that family will be less profitable to the mainstream media to the point where it’s not even worth putting them on the cover anymore.
We the people can do this.
I usually don’t blog about celebrities but there’s something about Kim Kardashian and her family that seems totally off. They have this great ability to keep themselves in the media eye even though none of them—except for Olympic decathlon gold medalist Bruce Jenner—have any kind of discernible talent in the arts, sports, or business. Kim only got her initial name recognition because her late father, Robert, was one of the lawyers in O.J. Simpson’s murder trial back in the 1990’s. She later became infamous when she made this porn video with a rapper named Ray J where she literally gets pissed on. (I have never seen that video and, based on what I’ve read on the Internet, I have no desire to do so.)
That porn video somehow led to the E! cable channel giving her and her family their own reality show called Keeping Up With the Kardashians. I’ve only seen one episode once and it was enough for me. Ever since that show’s debut, I can’t seem to go into a single pharmacy or grocery store without seeing some tabloid featuring either Kim or one of her relatives on the front cover paired with some shocking-sounding headline. I was in a local Sears a few months ago when I saw a rack devoted to the Kardashian clothing line that contained some totally butt-ugly clothes. (You can see them for yourself right here, here, here, and here.) Those clothes were so ugly that someone would have to pay me a lot of money before I would even accept them.
I’ll admit that the Kardashians are masters at being in the public eye even though I felt grossed out when I read that Kim’s mother, Kris Jenner, was rumored to have brokered that sex video that started it all for the family. What kind of mother would do such a thing? I can see why some people on the Internet refer to her as Pimp Mama Kris or PMK for short.
Lately I’ve seen something that I personally find disturbing. Granted it’s just another form of attention whoring that the family is notorious for but it’s still disturbing nonetheless. It deals with Kim’s younger half-sisters, 17-year-old Kendall Jenner and 19-year-old Kylie Jenner. There was a video released on Snapchat yesterday and has been reposted elsewhere showing one sister dong a full reach around and putting her hand down the other’s sister’s pants while that sister does this fake moaning, “Kylie, oh!”
Today I saw this photo posted online showing the two sisters kissing each other on the lips in a sensual manner that would be erotic if it weren’t for the fact that these two share the same mother and father.
Sure they may be attention whores but they are carrying this way too far this time because they are starting to glamorize incest. Yes, I said it. Their actions are borderline incestuous because they are sisters. On top of it, one of the sisters is still underage, which makes her a minor. In some states the 19-year-old could be prosecuted for acting incestuous towards a minor and her parents would also get into trouble for doing little to put a stop to this. What’s worse is that they are posting this crap online in the pathetic hopes that people will pay attention to them.
Incest between siblings has literally had a long-term negative impact on people as the Wikipedia states:
Sibling-sibling incest becomes child-on-child sexual abuse when it occurs without consent, without equality, or as a result of coercion. In this form, it is believed to be the most common form of intrafamilial abuse.[82] The most commonly reported form of abusive sibling incest is abuse of a younger sibling by an older sibling.[59] A 2006 study showed a large portion of adults who experienced sibling incest abuse have distorted or disturbed beliefs (such as that the act was “normal”) both about their own experience and the subject of sexual abuse in general.[83]
Sibling abusive incest is most prevalent in families where one or both parents are often absent or emotionally unavailable, with the abusive siblings using incest as a way to assert their power over a weaker sibling.[84] Absence of the father in particular has been found to be a significant element of most cases of sexual abuse of female children by a brother.[85] The damaging effects on both childhood development and adult symptoms resulting from brother–sister sexual abuse are similar to the effects of father–daughter, including substance abuse, depression, suicidality, and eating disorders.[85][86]
I don’t have any children but if those two were my daughters I would really come down hard on both of them. I would take away the 17-year-old’s smartphone, tablet, laptop, TV, Internet access, and any video games she may own and ground her for a month. I would allow her to leave the house only to go to school and to church and she wouldn’t be allowed to receive any visitors other than immediate family members. During that time she would be allowed to only do the following: homework, read books (meaning the old-fashioned paper kind), and work on arts and crafts projects. As for the 19-year-old, she is a legal adult, but if she still lived with me I would give her one of the following options: accept the same punishment as her younger sister or move out of the house immediately. If she didn’t live with me, I would tell her to not come by the house for at least a month. I would also never again allow the sisters to be alone in the same room together if they were both in my house at the same time.
But, then again, I have different morals from Kris and Bruce Jenner.
For this family to glamorize something that has literally traumatized people is disgusting and despicable. I would love for this to backlash on this family so much that they crawl into obscurity. Unfortunately, given the climate of today’s corporate-owned media (that is more into hyping trivial fluff over really important news that the general public should really be informed about), it’ll probably increase their popularity. God help us all!
UPDATE (May 6, 2015): Someone has come up with a new app called KardBlock whose function is very simple. It’ll censor any mention of Kim Kardashian and/or members of her family that pops up on any newsfeed or any website you visit. That sounds like a great solution for those who are simply sick of hearing about the Kardashian clan. The new app is currently in beta but this website is offering people the opportunity to have exclusive beta access to what that site describes as “the best thing to happen to the internet since the Kardashians.”
Here is the seventh video in a series of computer animations called The Unicorn With An Attitude that I did back in the 1990’s in an ill-fated attempt to show off my abilities as an artist and a computer whiz in the hopes of either 1) get famous or 2) get a higher paying job than the office administrative work that I was frequently offered.
I created this animation way back in 1995 and I actually uploaded it on various BBS as well as CompuServe. I originally created it as an animated gif using cheap software for a 386 PC. I later imported it into QuickTime and uploaded it on my own site. I have totally remastered it in high definition video using Apple iMovie. As for the music, I used one of YouTube’s royalty-free songs.
This clip was a Christmas episode. I know that it seems strange to upload the Christmas episode on YouTube in late September but I only did it because it was the seventh animation I did in the series and I’m basically uploading the series according to the original release date instead of the content.
But, then again, I’m starting to see a few Christmas items starting to creep into the stores (especially in the arts and crafts stores) so maybe it’s not so crazy uploading this animation now.
Here is the original write-up that accompanied the video.
In “Santa’s Surprisel” Santa Claus visits the Unicorn with a special Christmas surprise as a reward for not following the televised murder trial of football hero T.J. Simmons. It’s a sequel of sorts to “Channel Surfing,” “The Art Class,” and “Withdrawal.”
So, without further ado, here is “Santa’s Surprise.”
Here is the sixth video in a series of computer animations called The Unicorn With An Attitude that I did back in the 1990’s in an ill-fated attempt to show off my abilities as an artist and a computer whiz in the hopes of either 1) get famous or 2) get a higher paying job than the office administrative work that I was frequently offered.
I created this animation way back in 1995 and I actually uploaded it on various BBS as well as CompuServe. I originally created it as an animated gif using cheap software for a 386 PC. I later imported it into QuickTime and uploaded it on my own site. I have totally remastered it in high definition video using Apple iMovie. As for the music, I used one of YouTube’s royalty-free songs.
This clip was a parody of what happened when the jury reached a decision in the O.J. Simpson Murder Trial and how people admitted to the media that they have gotten so hooked on watching live broadcasts of his trial on television that they were sad to see it end. These people treated that trial as soap opera-style entertainment instead of a serious murder trial with lots of implications for the people involved. Here is the original write-up that accompanied the video.
In “Withdrawal” the Unicorn With an Attitude’s mother suffers from severe withdrawal as the televised trial of T.J. Simmons (the football star who was accused of murdering his entire family) ends. It’s a sequel of sorts to both Channel Surfing and The Art Class.
So, without further ado, here is “Withdrawal”
Here is the fifth video in a series of computer animations called The Unicorn With An Attitude that I did back in the 1990’s in an ill-fated attempt to show off my abilities as an artist and a computer whiz in the hopes of either 1) get famous or 2) get a higher paying job than the office administrative work that I was frequently offered.
This particular animation starts off with the Unicorn waking up to a DJ talking about a famous murder case involving a famous football player named T.J. Simmons. It was based on the time when I used to program the clock radio to play the selected radio station the next morning instead of a regular alarm (mainly because the alarm sounded very obnoxious). There were numerous mornings when my then-husband and I woke up to some DJ’s jabbering on about the latest developments in the ongoing O.J. Simpson Murder Trial.
The rest of the video deals with the Unicorn being in art class with an incredibly pretentious art instructor. This was based on my own experiences when I attempted to attend art classes part-time at a now-defunct art school while I worked full-time. That attempt lasted only two semesters and both times I had this asshole teacher named David who had this really big chip on his shoulder. He spent lots of classroom time complaining about how, at his age (he was in his thirties at the time), he should start getting fame and recognition in the art world à la Keith Haring or Andy Warhol. Or he would complain about how he gave artwork to friends and family members as gifts only to never see them display his stuff in their homes. Or he would complain about not being able to sell any of his art. I saw his stuff on display a few times at the school’s art gallery (it was usually during one of their special faculty shows when they highlighted art made by the school’s instructors) and I saw that his work was very abstract in nature. Plus his work was so huge that one of his canvases would fill an entire wall (in terms of both width and length) of an average-sized home.
I wanted to drop out and consider a different art program at a different school because I had a hard time juggling a Monday-Friday 9-5 office job then spending each Saturday from 9:30-3:30 in this class. But my then-husband not only pressured me to remain in the class for the entire semester but he also pressured me into taking another all-day Saturday class the following semester. (As I looked back on this, I felt like I was Trilby and he was Svengali because was more eager for me to take as many art classes as possible than I was.) It took so many arguments before he finally backed away and I quit taking more art classes through that school after the second semester.
Despite the bad memories of taking those classes, the chronic stress I went through juggling work and school, and my then-husband acting totally domineering on this issue, I created some art pieces that have made me so proud of what I did that I even posted the following in this blog:
For more details about this piece, see the October 31, 2013 blog entry.
For more details about this piece, see the November 28, 2013 blog entry.
For more details about this piece, see the December 25, 2013 blog entry.
For more photos and details about this piece, see the February 15, 2012 blog entry.
For more photos and details about this piece, see the May 25, 2010 blog entry.
My experience with that art teacher also inspired the fifth animation in The Unicorn With An Attitude series. I created this piece in 1995 (long after I both dropped out of the art program and got laid off from my office job) and I actually uploaded it on various BBS as well as CompuServe. I originally created it as an animated gif using cheap software for a 386 PC. I later imported it into QuickTime and uploaded it on my own site. I have totally remastered it in high definition video using Apple iMovie. As for the music, I used one of YouTube’s royalty-free songs. Here is the original write-up that accompanied the video.
The Unicorn’s is having a bad day. First, the Unicorn wakes up to yet another joke being told on a morning radio show about the murder trial of T.J. Simmons, the football star who is accused of murdering his entire family. (Which was previously mentioned in “Channel Surfing.”) Later on in school, the Unicorn’s artwork is savagely criticized by the art teacher on the grounds that it is too “unoriginal” and the teacher tries to get the Unicorn to paint in the abstract art style that the teacher favors.
So, without further ado, here is “The Art Class.”
You can view the other animations that I’ve uploaded right here.
I’ve finally gotten around to uploading the first video in a series of old animations I did in the late 1990’s-early 2000’s.
Here’s some background. I spent six years working as a data entry clerk for a now-defunct computer reseller that specialized in selling Apple computers. I was exposed to what was then the top-of-the-line Apple Macintosh computers and I was really impressed with the interface and the multimedia capabilities. I really wanted to try doing something creative and I was thrilled to discover that I could get an Apple Macintosh with an employee discount.
Except my then-husband resisted. Even though he and his co-workers had started using Apple Macs at his NASA job and he wanted to get a home computer, he was opposed to me using my employee discount to get an Apple computer because he felt it was too expensive even with the employee discount (even though we had the money to buy one—his tightwad tendencies really reared its head here). He bought a 386 PC that had a GUI interface (no, it wasn’t MS Windows) and I had to make do with it. I ended up using cheap software to try creating animated gifs.
In the meantime I was doing some doodling until I came up with a wacky unicorn who showed attitude and who didn’t take shit off of anyone. I drew a unicorn because I’ve always had a soft spot for fantasy animals like unicorns, mermaids, etc. At the same time a Football Hall of Fame athlete-turned Hertz Rental Car spokesman-turned actor and celebrity named O.J. Simpson was accused of murdering his ex-wife, Nichole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman. O.J. Simpson had cultivated an image of being a fun-loving, laid-back, easy-going guy with no hint of glorifying violence or anything like that. (This David Letterman Show clip from 1989 is an example of the likable persona that O.J. Simpson cultivated.) He was totally a mainstream middle-of-the-road celebrity so the idea of him being accused of a very violent crime totally shocked America.
To make matters worse, the mainstream media made a feeding frenzy out of the O.J. Simpson murder trial. CNN showed the proceedings of the trial live. There were quickie books that reached the newsstand about the case. There were friends of the people involved who sold their stories to the tabloids and/or gave TV interviews. Thanks to this case, I can say that Kim Kardashian wasn’t the first Kardashian I’ve ever heard of. (Kim Kardashian’s late father, Robert, was one of O.J.’s lawyers.)
So it was fitting that the first animated gif I did starring my unicorn was a satire on the O.J. Simpson murder trial. This year is the 20th anniversary of the murders that started the entire media frenzy and I’ve seen stories on the various cable news channels about this. So, in a way, it’s fitting that I’m rereleasing my original animation on YouTube that’s a parody of the media coverage of the O.J. Simpson murder trial.
This animation reflects the technology of the times (which pre-dates YouTube). Both the graphics and animation is relatively crude because I had to deal with the software of the time and I also had to keep in mind that I was uploading this on CompuServe and a few local BBS using a 9600 bps dial-up modem (now I’m really dating myself, LOL!). I initially created it as an animated gif. When my then-husband finally warmed up to the idea of replacing the PC with a Mac, I imported it into QuickTime and uploaded to a website that I used to have. Now I have remastered it in HD video using iMovie and I even added music that I created myself using GarageBand. It is now on YouTube for the entire world to see. Enjoy!
Sagittarius Dolly 
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