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Up The Waterspout

pictured: Christopher Edmund Mars, host

I like playing with words. Sometimes when I’m bored I’ll take familiar children’s stories and rewrite them, often with some kind of writing restriction, like not using a particular letter of the alphabet (otherwise known as a lipogram). Thus, “The Three Bears” become “A Trio of Bruins”.

Eventually, I decided to film myself reading these as a character named Christopher Edmund Mars, who always finishes with a martini and peppers his stories with pithy comments. Every episode includes at least one flowery word, but Mr. Mars doesn’t have time to explain each one; instead he curtly urges the viewer to “Look it up!” After all, shouldn’t we all strive to have a richer, more precise vocabulary?

Stories are sometimes geared towards a more mature audience, as they contain double-entendres and don’t always have the expected happy endings, not to mention the gruesome opening credits.

Note: after I had made several of these, I showed them to a friend who remarked upon the similarity between Mr. Mars and Percy Dovetonsils, a creation of Ernie Kovacs who read poetry, who was effeminate, wore a black and white smoking jacket, and drank martinis. I was dismayed by how similar the two are, but I assure you I had never seen Mr. Dovetonsils before I began Up The Waterspout.

Mr. Mars defends himself only by saying “Great minds think alike”.