2008-12-04

The Greatest Class Ever

...And from then on, that maneuver would forever be known as 'a Chronkee*'.

(The following story is the truth as I would testify to it in a court of law 20 some years later. *Names and in some cases genders have been slight altered to almost protect the guilty. Anyone choosing to quibble on details,
STFU & GTFO! This is true to me, so help me God.)

It was January of 1987. I'd just turned 21 that December (a subtle hint that my birthday is rapidly approaching). And my college offers a 1 month intensive study term called "J-Term". And I took the greatest class ever offered on a college or university, ever.

The Miami Gator football team would be jealous.

1 month.
Pass/fail (except for "Timmy Durgan" who took it as an "Art History" class)
To pass, you had to attend 75% of the classes (I want to say they ran from 11 to 2 or noon to 3 or something) and "do a project".
That was your ONLY class that day. That month.

The class? (Cue that heavenly "LAAAA" effect and golden ray of sunshine) History of Animation!

That's right. After a brief lecture on style and influence, we watched cartoons. Yes,
Dr. Zibbs, (NSFW!) Fritz the Kat was shown. It so didn't age well that I left half way thru that.

How hard were the projects? One "Alexis-Gale Vez" got up and talked about Mighty Mouse for 5 minutes off the top of her head. But some people did put some effort in. Whether true on not, Laugh is getting credit for doing one of those "flip book" things.

But, the legendary event was the History of Animation Party. Before the class where they were showing "
The Sword in the Stone" a good number of us got together got together for some serious drinking. Others were doing strawberry schnapps and 7up. And I think there was a bottle of Mad Dog something floating around.

We all got very drunk, and staggered off to class. Someone who was crashing the class that day (the class was so cool, people in other classes crashed on Fridays, because there was no lecture, just cartoons) said that when we staggered in, the placed reeked of alcohol. I sat near the front of the maybe 30ish some class, but about 1/e way thru, I caught a strong whiff of strawberry, and a girl in a pink and terrycloth rain jacket (they were popular at the time) whizzed past me and out of the room. Never to return. Not like she died or something, she just didn't come back. I heard later that she didn't make it to the bathroom, and puked in her coat pocket instead.

...And from then on, that maneuver would forever be known as 'a Chronkee'.

"But Scope," you ask, "what was your project?"

To be continue...

5 comments:

Dr Zibbs said...

I thought a play on the word honkey was going to be used.

MJenks said...

That's awesome. I'm so jealous. I wish I had a class like that to attend in college.

LYDIA said...

Zibbs birthday is in January too.... maybe you two are long lost brothers?

Scope said...

Brothers from other mothers, maybe. My birthday is DecM 22. So I was 21 and the guy running to Dunlap's or Party House for everyone else.

I spent that month drunk or playing Uno or working on my project. Sometime all 3 at the same time.

Not much has changed in 22 years. ;-)

Anonymous said...

I can vouch for Scope - a totally true story. And it was THE. GREATEST. CLASS. EVER. I could say I learned a lot about animation, but I think the biggest lesson I took from that January was the joy of a morning buzz.

P.S. I got an A. I think. I don't know. I was too drunk to remember.