Pages from the 1991 Rainbow annual

Hello people, as readers of my other blog will know, one of my obsessions is Rainbow. As well as watching the episodes far too much, I have all the annuals, of which I think there are about 20. Today I picked one at random to see if there were any overlooked literary gems inside. And would you believe it*, there were!

And just to prove that this book is not stolen and does in fact belong to me -

What delightful flowing script I had at age 7.

This section is called "Large Laughs". I presume the 'large' reference is because of the elephant jokes, because the laughs it produced were not particularly large. Nor were they laughs, actually.

In my coffee and meds addled state this morning, I first read this as "What time is it when an elephant sits on your face". Then I read it as "What time is it when an elephant shits on your fence". Both may have been preferable, wit wise. 

Half past nine? Are you fucking kidding George? At least attempt to look like you're making the tiniest bit of effort. In what universe is the punchline to this "joke" half past nine? And anyway, you already know the punchline, it's right in front of you, in that speech bubble there.

Ready for another large laugh?

"What has spots and weighs four tonnes?" I didn't know you'd met me, Zippy.

Oh I see. it's not actually me, but an "elephant with measles". Now, far be it from me to attempt to analyse the philosophical concept of humour, but I'm pretty sure this isn't a bona fide joke. This appears to be more of an observation. Any attempt to derive humour from a sick zoo animal seems unnecessarily cruel to me.

Now it's time for a fun activity. Do you ever have trouble drawing a realistic self portrait? So does Bungle, although that's probably just because Bungle is an idiot. Despite being an idiot, he has come up with a foolproof way of rendering your own exact likeness. And here it is -

The answer is beautifully simple - draw over your actual face. And it really does work. Let's compare a self portrait I did back at art college, and my new improved version using Bungle's facetraceomatic (I shall copyright that name, just because) -

The first one is pretty rubbish. if I'd known about this technique at college, I probably would have sailed through. Actually, I got this annual when i was 7 so I must have known about it. I guess the genius was just too much for my poor little brain to handle.

So, I guess art isn't for me. Let's try some gardening instead. But oh shit! It's raining! So what do we do now? The Rainbow answer? Well, apparently it's to let food go mouldy -

There isn't much else to say about this, except do they really think this is going to achieve anything apart from having a house full of mouldy food leftovers, possibly resulting in an appearance on Hoarders? The 7 year old me has shown the consequences of leaving food out, by adding a worm to the onion jar. At least I think it's a worm, it could be a broken key. The 7 year old me also saw fit to punish Zippy and George by giving Zippy cataracts and giving George frostbite of the ear. Geoffrey escaped punishment, despite this whole thing being his idea -

Finally, we have a quiz - "What do they need?"

I hesitate to suggest that what these guys need is a good slap. It's more likely that you're supposed to figure out which thing each guy uses to do his job. The 7 year old me ascertained that the doctor stuffed a stethoscope up his nose, the diver used a snorkel attached to a fishes bum, the fireman stuck a hose up his nose, and the chef completely bypassed the pots and pans, and instead uses the introductory paragraph to cook with.

Well, that's enough being a useful member of society for today.

*There weren't really.