A Moose of a Different Color

Bates the Mouse

Bates is a Northwestern sort of mouse, born into a prominent family of mice in the hotel and lodging industry. His father wanted Bates to become a lawyer, but Bates couldn't think of anything worse than making people's lives miserable for money.

Bates wanted to explore the emerging home computer technology and find a way to make zillions of dollars off of computer nerds. He and a few friends designed a programming language for the new machines and did very well. They also designed an operating system (Dyslexic Operating System) which did in fact make people's lives miserable, but that's another story. Remember, in the computer industry, you don't always have to be good, you just have to be first.

Bates continues to explore the best new technologies, like using a hunk of cheese as an input device, storing massive amounts on information on jelly doughnuts, and creating bread crumb packing algorithms. He now also owns a large part of the software industry, and derives great pleasure in finding creative ways to make people sue him. Most of his sales revenues still come from sales of the I've Been Mislead computer operating system, his shiniest star.

Bates has had some success working with Macs, but tends to stay away from them after he was accidentally grabbed by a user and violently shoved around a desk.

Bates joined the carnival in a fit of depression, immediately after being denied a spot on People magazine's most-eligible bachelors list.

Herb the Corporate Jester

Herb was an accountant for a major software and hardware distributor. He entertains the executives of this deep and wide channel by making software publishers do daring acrobatic feats before he will pay them: jumping through hoops, bending over backwards, foraging for "lost" invoices, etc. Herb's carnival act lasts longer than any of the others, since it takes Herb at least ninety days and eight memos to do anything. Herb is a highly intelligent performer, even though he's never quite mastered the skills of returning phone calls or counting to thirty. He is, however, a world-class fax operator and a virtuoso of voice mail. He is also very proficient at forcing deductions, rotating stocks, "misplacing" invoices, an d juggling payment schedules.

If you've never seen Herb in action, boy are you in for a treat! His act is unbelievable, although it does get a bit monotonous after a while.

Herb became the carnival's accountant when the corporate giant he works for briefly acquired it as a place to send employees for disciplinary action. While Herb has stayed on part-time as a result of his own performing talents, use of the word "Siberia" may send him into brief fits of insanity or praise of Democratic party policies.

Mac the Bomb

Mac was a high ranking engineer at a top-secret research lab (codename: Sangria) somewhere in the American west. He made a very comfortable salary and even supplemented it by selling hammers to the government for outrageous sums of money. His primary duties, however, were to design ways of disrupting enemy computer missile tracking systems.

Mac was working on a revolutionary brain-wave input interface that would allow remote access and disruption of computers thousands of miles away, yet be untraceable to the enemy. Once the project made it to the beta stage, Mac decided to test the interface himself. He connected the electrodes to his temples, synchronized his breathing, and started the application. Having successfully performed several tests, Mac was about to disconnect himself when a lightning bolt struck the building and caused a massive power surge that radically changed Mac's molecular structure and sucked him inside the computer. Once there, he quickly became trapped within a system error alert dialog. Unfortunately, Mac has no idea that any of this happened. He continues to do his job, hitching a ride on a passing virus now and then to find more and more computers to sabotage.

Mac was never actually a member of the carnival, but he snuck into the code of this product somewhere during a beta test, and we couldn't get rid of him. We don't believe that there is any way to get Mac out, short of letting lightning strike your computer.

Marvello the Magician

Marvello is one of the most mysterious members of the Cartoon Carnival. He simply appeared one afternoon in a tremendous puff of blue (and probably carcinogenic) smoke, and he refuses to this day to say where he came from. In spite of that, there is a growing belief that his resemblance to the face on one of those flyers at the Post Office is more than mere coincidence. The poster is of a man sought in connection with a number of damsels who were lashed to railroad tracks in the paths of oncoming trains. Fortunately, all of them were rescued at the last minute by an unidentified Canadian mounted policeman (particularly puzzling since most of the incidents occurred in Ft. Lauderdale). Marvello categorically denies any knowledge of such events.

Among the feats that Marvello holds to his credit are: his death defying escape from Chinese finger-cuffs while standing neck deep in a tank of Jell-0, passing mysteriously through the Berlin Wall in mid1990 (after four failed attempts since the late 60's), and miraculously vanishing the statue of Lenin from Red Square. Marvello insists that many of today's top magicians have stolen portions of his act in order to secure their own fame and fortune, but that doesn't stop him from having a following of his own. One fan, after a recent performance, was heard to say in a zombie-like drone, "I loved it. It was much better than Cats. I'm going to see it again and again."

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it pays the bills dept

here is something I hope is doing no evil.

could be worse dept

there could be more of them