The Magical 'Of Cabbages and Kings' Humor Factory Tour

Here at Of Cabbages and Kings, our Quality Control Managers (okay, the Jane Austen Bobblehead on my desk and I) work tirelessly to ensure readers like you receive a consistent Online Humor Experience from visit-to-visit. But how do we do it?

Well, today, we'll take an exciting tour behind the scenes at Cabbages Central, the high-tech neurocenter where minutia, tedium, childhood trauma and scenes from the grocery store salad bar are fed through, washed, chopped, processed and packaged into regular bite-sized humor posts.

First we enter the Inspiration Room, the place where our Forensic Humor Investigators inspect and analyze all that is Truly-Funny, Might-Be-Funny or Pressed-For-Time-So-What-The-Heck.

Animatronic dancing gophers who groove to Kenny Loggins are always funny....


Bobblehead dolls based on the great names in literature are also funny...


Lots and lots of Johnny Depp action figures posed so it looks like they're talking to each other can be very funny, indeed!


Here you see the Cabbages Idea Documentation Lab. This is where we take the inspiration and add a crunchy outer coating. Only the very latest technology is good enough for this critical step in Cabbages post creation.


For example, just five years ago, Cabbages management made a significant technology investment to improve our connection to the burgeoning Web.

This technology is called "dial-up" and it changed the way Cabbages blog posts are created. Prior to this, all online composition was fueled through foot-power, generated by management on a stationary bike. The wonders of lightning-fast dial-up have allowed Cabbages to increase productivity by an incredible 2%!

Unfortunately, it has also caused your hostess to pack on a few pounds.

Once ideas for posts are generated, they sit in the Waiting Room. We give them year-old magazines and let them have a good think.

The moment they get bored enough to rise up and threaten to head to other blogs where they'll actually be appreciated, we choose an idea from the ranks and bring it into the Aesthetic Surgery Chamber.

Here we flesh out the idea and then give it the nips, tucks and really surprised look that makes it barely recognizable from what it once was. Then we shove it out into the world with the bandages still on.

This is how we ensure the bruised words, grammatical scars and discolored typos that make a Cabbages post truly unique.

Ideas that haven't been chosen at this point continue to wait in the Waiting Room, until they are either eventually selected and developed, or die of old age and irrelevance. In those latter cases, we sweep their decomposed skin and bones under the area rug and let the cleaning people deal with the rest.

We try not to ask too many questions about the disposal details, just in case there's a trial later.

Old King Cole Slaw, the blog's famous Front-cabbage and Chairman of these operations, is integral in day-to-day life here at Cabbages Central.


Like other powerful men and women of business, he sits in his office and "facilitates." This means he doesn't actually do any of the work, but knows how to tell your Blog Hostess to do things she's already currently working on in such a way that makes Cabbages look like it's crisis-solving.

In this way, Cabbages Central really isn't any different from your standard corporate structure.

Well, I hope you all enjoyed your time here at the factory today. Please take only one Everlasting Gobstopper on your way out, keep to the right of the First Draft Crematorium, and have yourself a truly Cabbagalicious Day.

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"Well, hello, Mr. Fancypants!" and Other Things Not To Say to B-Movie Celebrities

Ah, here at Cabbages, we have not been without our brushes with fame...

Like when my friend Squeaky swore she saw Richard Gere's entire elbow as he got into a limo during The Mothman Prophecies filming....

Or when my friend Weasel got trod on by Mario LeMieux during a Pens game because she wasn't walking in his stratosphere.

Oh yes, my friends and I have, indeed, known greatness.

And what's my story, you ask? Well, my story involves a life-changing quest, a magical book, a series of obstacles designed to test the bonds of man... Oh, and B-movie actor Bruce Campbell of the Evil Dead movies.

Ever since college, my friends and I have had fond associations with Bruce Campbell and his Army of Darkness film. Our first exposure to it was as a welcome respite during senior year finals, where we sat on the furry, sticky purple couches of the King's Court theater in Oakland and watched the heavy burdens of our workload drain away through zombies, chainsaws, questionable special effects, and a few needed laughs.

So it was little surprise a few years later when my friend Scoobie hinted to her inner circle that she'd like a copy of ol' Brucie's autobiography for Christmas. Yes, indeed, that girl went on a several-week campaign of nuances so subtle only her very closest friends could possibly discern her desires.

Phrases like, “If someone were to get me a copy of Bruce Campbell’s autobiography, I probably wouldn’t mind...”

We picked up on it. We’re clever that way.

But when we heard that Bruce Campbell would actually be in town to have a signing for that very book-- and coinciding when Scoobie was far, far away on vacation, no less!-- well, we suddenly knew what we must do to enable the Very Best Gift Ever.

My partner-in-crime, Austin, and I found our way to the DeStinta Theater. And the moment we stepped through those shiny glass doors it became clear we had entered the Fanzone.

What I'd thought would be just a tidy little group of dedicated viewers, was actually a sea of people of all ages, and from all walks of life-- though, admittedly, most of us were wearing black and enjoying haircolors not generally found in nature (mine, I believe, was sort of a misguided fuchsia-burgundy at the time).

"Oh boy," breathed Austin, taking in the ocean of humanity before us. It was a testament to his resolve and friendship that he didn't turn rapidly on his heel and simply disappear into the night...

Only, I think I was the one with the car keys.

Anyway, soon we discovered there were lines to get movie tickets. There were lines to buy books. There were even lines to get tickets to get in line. And all of it unmarked, banking on the overly-broad assumption that each of us had special psychic powers we'd like to test out.

So after some detectivework and with Tickets To Get In Line firmly in hand, we stepped behind a guy with a homemade "Shop Smart, Shop S-Mart" shirt and waited for our moment with The Man Himself...

And we waited... And edged up.... And shifted feet... And examined our shoes... And counted the repeat patterns on the theater carpeting... And waited some more.

I guess it was somewhere into the second hour of the Bruce Campbell Queue of Tested Patience that I realized that if we ever made it to the front of the line, I would probably have to actually talk to the fellow.

And heck, what would I say that someone else hadn't already said a million times before? I mean, I know these folks are just people, too. And I’m not the type to want to be anything less than sensible in the proximity to semi-fame.

So would I tell him that the night I saw Army of Darkness was one of my favorite college memories?

Would I share that after two days of stressing out over a tedious final paper on Russian history, my friends had kidnapped me for a late night viewing?

Would I describe how we sat on the questionable sofas of that gummy, goth theater and took in one of the funniest horror flicks I’d ever set bloodshot eyes upon?

Would I tell him how, years later, his film had become inextricably intertwined with a brief, shining moment of much needed escapism?

Would I say how I’d rented the rest of the series? That I enjoyed how he didn't take himself too seriously? That I was genuinely pleased to meet him?

No, because he headed us off. "So what do you do for a living?" he asked.

And I blanked. What did I do for a living? I'd been standing in line so long, I didn't even remember my life anymore beyond the theater walls.

For all I knew, we would come out of that theater and see the city of Pittsburgh had, in our absence, fallen to atomic war, or some other post-apocalyptic cliche.

We'd exit to discover everyone we knew was dead, my apartment was just rubble, my car burnt out, and our system of government being overrun by punk road warriors proclaiming themselves king.

"I'm a marketing writer," I said, finally remembering something about ads and scripts and their general relationship to me.

Bruce Campbell turned to Austin. "And you?"

"I'm unemployed!" Austin announced with a broad, confident smile.

"All riiiight!" Bruce Campbell cheered.

So that, my friends, was my moment of interaction with b-movie acting greatness. Four hours in line, sore feet, hair which ended up smelling like hot buttered popcorn even after a serious shampoo, one thoroughly signed autobiography, and Bruce Campbell rooting on my jobless friend.

On our way out, I turned to see the slack-jawed never-ending hoarde, groaning, shuffling and moaning in queue. We were free, but poor Bruce, he had a long dark night ahead of him.

We walked into the cool night air to see the world hadn't, in fact, changed while we were gone. And I drove off thinking it couldn't be such an easy life when it's not just the zombies who want a piece of you.

The signed book, by the way, was quite a hit.

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