JB's Warehouse & Curio Emporium

Back in the early 1990s, I regularly taped the Friday "Viewer Mail" segment of Late Night With David Letterman and any skits that followed. One segment Amy and I continue to quote from is a showcase of odd-but-real video tapes. Archaeological expeditions through the valley of YouTube have unearthed several of the videos that Dave took potshots at, but evidence of others remains lost to time, unless the tape this segment was preserved on is found. Among the highlights: A tape for pipe smokers, where the host extols the virtues of the "brotherhood of the briar". A smoker passes by, prompting the host to greet him with "Hi Bob, nice pipe!" T-Bone's World of Clowning , an introduction to the art. A man tells T-Bone that he'd like to know more about clowning. The clown's response, uttered in a stilted, wow-can't-you-tell-I'm-not-reading-cue-cards-manner: "Really? Acrobatics is a skill I really enjoy! Let's make a dea...

Ever have an image or commercial burned in your brain for years and never found a way to prove that your mind isn't playing tricks on you? Until some random browsing on YouTube this weekend, I was almost convinced that Duke the Penguin was a figment of my imagination. Blame Toledo, Ohio for this brainworm. My suspicion is that I was waiting for other family members to finish trying on clothes at the Woodville Mall branch of Sears and watched a loop tape of a Duke ad several times to kill time. Five minutes is all I needed for this cool-lookin' dude to forever etch himself on my brain cells. These memories surface whenever I see the "Poochie" episode of The Simpsons , as Poochie and Duke share similar delusions of being "cool". Stevie Wonder utilizes a tune from the soundtrack of The Woman in Red for the public good. Lingering impression from childhood viewings: all the "no"s. Perhaps the drunk driver was driven to overindulgence that ...