By Clint McElroy
HQ 73 | SPRING 2011
To commemorate this special issue of HQ — you know, the whole “me-on-the-cover” thing — I thought it might be fun and enlightening to set up a round-table discussion with some people who have made my career possible. I sat down with some of those special guests who have livened up my mornings at WTCR and other locales. In attendance, we have Spud Rimshot, fast-talking dumpster-dweller; Ducky Crabtree, parodist and custodian without equal; Master Sergeant Surly Bottoms, from “down at the Hall”; Cowboy Carl, the last of the singing cowboys; Coach Redd Ruffinsore, beloved football coach and curmudgeon; and The Rampaging River Rat, the Tri-State’s only licensed superhero.
Spud: What, no Tudor’s?
Clint: It wasn’t in the budget.
Spud: Houvouras, you skinflint!
Clint: Ducky, would you please sit down?
Ducky: These trashcans ain’t gonna empty themselves, Mr. McElroy.
Clint: How about, just for now, you are a round-table panelist and not a janitor?
Ducky: “Sanitation relocation engineer,” if you don’t mind.
Redd: So how come we aren’t on the cover of the magazine, boy?
Clint: Well, Coach, they said they wanted to honor me — you know — for all the funny business over the years.
River Rat: What kind of “funny business,” old chum?
Clint: Like the hilarious parody songs…
Ducky: Which I do.
Clint: Good point. How about the humorous commentaries?
Sarge: You mean my humorous commentaries?
Clint: I suppose so. There’s the amusing takes on the news…
Spud: Yeah, that would be me.
Cowboy: You know, this reminds me of a western movie I did in 1948 called Danger Riders of the Purple Plains. There was a fella in that movie who took credit for everybody else’s hard work.
Clint: What happened?
Cowboy: We lynched him.
Spud: I have a question. Why do you tell people I live in a dumpster?
Clint: You do live in a dumpster.
Spud: It’s a loft.
Clint: It has “BFI” written on the side!
Spud: That stands for Beautifully … Furnished … Interior.
Sarge: I want to know why you never thanked us in your Huntington Wall of Fame speech.
Clint: Because you guys come from my imagination, Sarge.
Sarge: Really? How do you “imagine” it would feel for me to apply my boot to your backside?
Clint: Not good, sir.
Redd: That’s ’cause you’re soft, boy! Drop and give me 20.
River Rat: Fellows! Cease this bickering! We’re a team, like the Justice League or the X-Men. Can’t we act like adults?
Ducky: Says the guy dressed like a giant rodent.
River Rat: Touchê.
Clint: The masked man is right! We are a team. Characters like you, Jean and Rayjean Wrongco, Perrier “Poppa Killer” Watters, Flem Skoozeman, Odie Fungo, Gobs Grabzdawabdz, Myron Flaber — all of you! The hundreds of different characters through the years have all been facets of my personality. Do you get it?
Cowboy: We get it all right, amigo.
Spud: We sure do. You are one sick puppy.
Ducky: You need some serious psychiatric help, Mr. McElroy.
Clint: Tell me about it.
