“Hey, Jim—go out for a short one!”

Washington crossing the street

“Well, I just feel like I’m living under a microscope.”

Innovative concepts in exposing city kids to nature

Early clock-watchers

“Oo! Icky icky! … Something just went down that surrrrrrre wasn’t plankton!”

Long before his show business career, he was known as Mr. Liberace, the wood-shop teacher.

“Excuse me, but must you smoke that foul thing around here?”

“Man, this is ugly—sheep and cattle never do mix well.”

“Well, yes, that is the downside, Fluffy. … Once we kill her, the pampering will end.”

Professor Glickman, the lab practical joker, deftly places a single drop of hydrochloric acid on the back of Professor Bingham’s neck.

Mike Wallace interviews the devil.

Executioner understudies

“Look. If you’re so self-conscious about it, get yourself a gorilla mask.”

Another photograph from the Hubble Space Telescope

“Well, here he comes … Mr. Never-Makes-a-Dud.”

“Hello, Emily. This is Gladys Murphy up the street. Fine, thanks. … Say, Emily, could you go to your window and describe what’s in my front yard?”

“New guy, huh? Well, up here, you walk the edge! And the edge is a fickle hellcat. … Love her, but never trust her, for her heart is full of lye!”

“This is it, Jenkins—indisputable proof that the Ice Age caught these people completely off guard.”

“Okay, okay, little Ahab. … Which one is it going to be?”

The Viking longcar was once the scourge of European roadways.

Anatidaephobia: the fear that somewhere, somehow, a duck is watching you.

Darren’s heart quickened: Once inside the home, and once the demonstration was in full swing, a sale was inevitable.

“Can I look now?”

And for the rest of his life, Ernie told his friends that he had talked with God.

“CANNONBAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLL!”

“Holy cow! What’s gotten into our La-Z-Boy?”

For several hours, confusion reigned.

You never see it coming.

“Anytime, Slim.”

“Bootsy! … Booooooootsy! … We are calling you from the world of the living! … Meowwww! … Are you there, Bootsy? … Give us a sign!”

“Boy, everyone’s really out wandering the streets tonight. … I tell you, Charles, we’re getting to be real home zombies.”

And then, just as he predicted, Thag became the spiritual channeler for a two-million-year-old gibbon named Gus.

“So … you must be the one they call Mr. Long.”

“Hey! I think I’m getting Orange Crush over here.”

While his parents beamed, little Tommy Lundquist, future developer, surveyed the view from his newly constructed treehouse.

“Okay, before you go, let me read this one more time: ‘Burn the houses, eliminate the townsfolk, destroy the crops, plunder their gold!’… You knuckleheads think you can handle all that?”

“Again? Oh, all right. … One warm, summer evening many years ago, I was basking on a stretch of Interstate 95 not far from here …”

Protozoan gossip

Only Bernard, in the front row, had the nerve to laugh at Death.

Primitive fraternities

“So! Planning on roaming the neighborhood with some of your buddies today?”

“Oh my God, Rogers! … Is that? … Is that? … It is! It’s the MUMMY’S PURSE!”

“Uh-oh—looks like the zipper has stuck on that thing again.”

“Oh, wonderful! Look at this, Etta—another mouth to feed.”

Where parakeets come from

Seymour Frishberg: Accountant of the Wild Frontier

Testing whether or not rhinos land on their feet.

“And I tell ya ... the next trail drive I sign onto, I’m readin’ the fine print!”