I, billobv

Good evening
The page of billobv

Fully updated. And a bit more on April 25th.

billobv surveys a quantity

What's this thing, then, billobv?
It is an edifying library of Warner Cafe (and, latterly, Toonplay) events as involved billobv or were observed by him with the eyes of his head. Necessarily parochial, billobv hopes to extend its scope imperceptibly over time, or perceptibly, as that would preferably be noticeable.

Warner Cafe? I do not know this thing
Then this will make less sense than almost anything else ever from the house of billobv, which is saying quite something. But to elucidate.

The Warner Cafe is a mighty establishment of THNTRNTeiee and the haunt of characters who have no right to be so funny via an apparatus invented by people with clever beards. billobv, a negligibly, pifflingly footling patron of the Cafe stumbled across it somewhere around the beginning of 1998 and doesn't pretend to presume to speak for it, or even to grasp it fully. "It is like the bit with Charles Gray in You Only Live Twice," he says, "where he remarks of Japan that he has lived there for 25 years and is just beginning to understand the people. Although," he adds, "as the scene ends with C Gray knifed through the walls of his house before returning in the next film as an international criminal mastermind, I shall step away smartly from the comparison."

The Cafe is populated by a variety of (mostly) cartoon characters (cut largely from the cloth of the Warner Bros canon: the Cafe itself is the one from Animanics where Dot's Poetry Corner is filmed) and are an immensely friendly and likeable bunch, with always a cheery word or an accurately-delivered anvil for the casual wayfarer. billobv likes to stop by once a week as a relaxing break from trying to write radio programmes in the face of people saying "I don't get it."

It sounds marvellous. I must attend.
Do, please. It's #warnercafe on Watertower Net. (Try irc.wtower.com as a generic connection thing.) Some general information may be helpful. ("I've only just read this, in fact," says billobv, "by accidentally making the index appear when looking for the characters page. Blimey, eh?")

And Toonplay?
Toonplay is a similar establishment, except all techy talk is banned on pain of a biff up the waistcoat, which is fine and sensible if you're bewildered by techy talk, so hurrah for that. The other main difference is that Toonplay takes place in a different location each time, although they almost all manage to have bits billobv can fall off. It's #toonplay, again on Watertower Net. (Try irc.wtower.com as a generic connection once more.) Read more about Toonplay at The Read About Toonplay Page, then communicate your knowledge in draperies.

AAARGHH!
See OH NO! AAARGHH!

ACOUSTIC COOKERY
During a discussion of answering machines, Lola posited the theory that ingenious burglars keep ringing until they get no answer, then sneak in and rob you. billobv advised you answer, "I'm not here. Go away," and then clonk them with a saucepan when they come round, but Lola hadn't a saucepan. billobv suggested the alternative of a shouty karate chop, which Vakko wondered if it should be prepared like a lamb or pork one, coining the excellent phrase, "Acoustic cookery." billobv goes on to knock out a dinner guest while serving.

ACTION LENIN
billobv gave Okkay an exciting Action Lenin figure, with Lenin in the famous pose of hailing a taxi. Okkay pulled the string on his back, expecting to hear one of the phrases, "Taxi!"; "Tchoh, they never stop for me"; and "Comrades! We must act together to throw off the chains of the capitalist oppressors, and someone get me a cab," but instead Action Lenin said, "Hi! I'm Barbie! I love you very much!" as it was a cheap Taiwanese knock-off of the original cheap Russian design.

ACTOR EQUIVALENT OF ALAN SMITHEE, THE
George Spelvin. "Watch those credits closely," advocates billobv.

AD CAMPAIGN
billobv and KT's agency landed the highly-sought-after campaign for soap, and presented their television advertisement. "Filthy? Try soap! It's the hurrah bar!" championed billobv. KT stepped into shot looking filthy and saying "Bah." billobv gave him some soap, and KT washed off the dirt and said "Hurrah!" billobv held up more soap. "And so nutritious!" KT looked at his contract, but they were still on the air, so he gamely chomped it up, started hiccupping bubbles and went anti-green, but kept it together long enough to smile and wave at the camera for the jingle and fadeout. "Aaaaaaand - we're clear!" said the director (not The Director). "You look awful, KT - here, drink this glass of water," says billobv. KT re-reads a bit from an old episode where billobv falls down some stairs.

This was billobv's final addition to bring the page entirely up-to-date after almost a year, which is going to confuse anybody reading from the start again.

ADMIRAL PLUCKY
Plucky's naval manoeuvres were cut short when his entire model fleet, sailing in the Cafe hot tub, was eaten by Taperlass impersonating Godzilla, but he swiftly brought in reinforcements (see REINFORCEMENTS BIT) or bought them from a mail-order catalogue or something, in order to rescue billobv, who was sheltering in Moscow from Sylvester Fox's rendition of the 1812 Overture using genuine cannon. Pursued by Napoleon's Piano (navy), Admiral Plucky employed the clever trick of being 382 miles away watching the battle from a subterranean bunker, leaving billobv to escape only by the merest good fortune of all the enemy ships firing at once and the shells hitting each other and harmlessly falling down in a big ring around him. At that point they exploded, projecting billobv into a low orbit, from which he improbably guided himself to safety (see also FLY LIKE A FLY), landing flumpily on a comfortable eiderdown quilt on a bed in the upper-left room of 34 Quills Street, Tiverton, negligibly smashing through the wall to reach it, then smashing out the other side and colliding with a steelworks. Plucky dances a little hornpipe.

AKIVA GOLDSMAN
The worst screenwriter ever in the history of all things. Fifty guineas to anyone who blows him up with a big black bangy bomb.

AMAZING JEFFO, THE
Jeff H Bear's music hall act, consisting of Jeff striding on stage, arranging three Macs in a row with a duck on top, then staring at the audience for four hours. KT suggested Jeff imagine the audience naked to overcome his stage fright, but as it happened the audience was naked anyway. The show was a stupendous success, which promoter billobv knew all along and had merely been hiding in a cupboard wearing a disguise as a funny joke. Clapping his triumphant artiste on the back and proclaiming the world was his oyster and giving him an oyster, billobv magnanimously paid Jeff 18.3% of the door receipts. Michael Mink was about to question billobv's expenses when billobv's elbow nudged a rope and a sandbag fell on Michael's head, knocking him out. The Amazing Jeffo immediately retired at the top of his profession, though billobv is confident he can persuade Jeff to tour again in 50 years or so.

AMAZING TURTLE-O, THE
KT's magic act, consisting of KT standing motionless inside an empty magician's cabinet for about four hours, then bursting out holding ice-cream and cake, or something, because no one's quite stayed long enough to see.

AMERICANISED SPELLING
During a conversation about Americanised spelling, billobv suddenly realised that the two commonly omitted letters, U (as in colour) and I (as in aluminium), made the phrase "U and I." Before he could draw an important conclusion, he saw something shiny and forgot.

ANTHROPOMORPHOLOGICAL PATRONS
This aspect of the Cafe confuses billobv terribly. It seems to be that toon patrons who are animals can also become real animals, but beyond that, he hasn't an idea. (Or up to that, come to think of it, what with an uncanny ability to throw Fox-O faux fox treats to foxes who aren't foxes at the time, thus unwittingly bouncing the ediblish chunks off their heads.) "I can do the Curly Howard bark, if that's any help," he adds. "Ow, my head," exclaims Tony Fox.

ANTI-BEASTLINESS SUNGLASSES
A pair of Okkay's sunglasses that have pictures of Yakko on the inside of the lenses and a nodule that you twiddle to make the pics gyrate sinuously. You know, for when things just get beastly. Yakko also has a pair, except with Okkay on the lenses. Obv.

ANTI-FIRE
Following a bit where Hobbes' tail caught fire, billobv gave Hobbes a tin of anti-fire, which cancels out fire, or causes the universe to explode, billobv forgets which.

APPEARANCE OF MATT FOX BIT
"Welcome, Matt!" says billobv. He follows this up with the "Bath, Matt", "Matt Black" and "Ascending the Matterhorn" bits, which didn't work in 1912 for Arthur Ascii either.

AS DEAD AS A DODOCAHEDRON
A phrase billobv had to remember, and did.

AVENGERS, THE
A movie, like Hudson Hawk, that's been disowned by almost everyone involved, but is in fact hugely entertaining.

BAD POSTMAN
Seeking to draw David Mouse from his hiding place under the sofa, for the fiend rodent had just thrown a pie at him, billobv erected a small door before the comfortable furnishing and rapped at it sharply, adding, "Postman - parcel for David Mouse." Opening the door to sign the receipt, David received his just desserts. "Works every time," notes billobv. "One moment, someone's at the door," he excuses himself.

BAD POSTMAN (2)
A postman arrived (genuinely) with a parcel for Plucky, after tracking him down across most of the known universe. Plucky pointed out he was D Warner, not T Duck. The postman left with a bit of a sigh.

BALM BIT
Applying a soothing ointment following splintery glass injury, billobv was interrupted by KT eeking that he had a balm. On closer examination, KT realises the balm is harmless. billobv gives him the balm and phews. An explosion occurs. billobv applies the soothing ointment to KT also. The turtle's life is salved. billobv recommends KT convalesce with a hearty breakfast of examination, but hold the ation. Elsewhere, something different happens.

BANNED!
Attempting to enter the Cafe, billobv found he had been banned! (with exclamation mark for extra drama). Alerting Emmy by pigeon post, he learned that David, in trying to throw out a troublemaker with a similar address to billobv's, had mistakenly blackballed everyone in Britain. Deftly, Emmy fixes things. billobv arrives triumphantly and twangs David across the nose with a rubber ban.

BATMAN CAFE SPECULATION
billobv and KT began wondering what a Cafe-set Batman episode would sound like. "ZOW! YIFF! MOOP! YE-E-E-R-R-FFF! RE! YIIIIG-PED!" probably.

BEAKS BIT
Handing Plucky some spare beaks from Beaky Beako's Bargain Beak Bazaar, billobv gave a pitch. "Be bot big beaks, be bot bmall beaks, be bot bll bnner bf beaks. Bome bn bown bo Beaky Beako's Bargain Beak Bazaar." DM shakes billobv's hand, adding, "Bstounding."

BENSON'S TROUSERS
Dakko expressed a feeling of comfort. Elbowing him out of shot, billobv explained, "That'll be thanks to Benson's Trousers. Yes, Benson's Trousers, for comfort and durability," and held up a pair of Benson's Trousers into camera as an insert of Dakko appeared with a crude speech balloon added that said, "Thanks, Benson's." Later, set alight by Lich Lord, billobv was able to beat out the flames with the trousers. Hurrah for Benson's Trousers! Take advantage of our fire sale and order two pairs today.

BIG IRON PIG IRONING BIG PIG WIG
A sculpture billobv presented to KT. It's 960lb of pig iron in the shape of a pig, ironing. A big... wig.

BILL0BV
A pr0t0type billobv (see BILLOBV). Very much not quite the idea at all.

BILLOBV
billobv is the name of the literary construct known as billobv. Originally Bill Obviouslymadeupname, billobv is now just billobv. "billobv suits," says billobv, "billobv better," he continues, running back into shot as we pan away. "I'm bored with the third-person now," he shouts concludingly, but we've already cut to an exciting chase scene.

Appearance
As a literary construct, billobv has no physical presence. He exists solely as the stream of words describing his thoughts and deeds: although he does not exist in the Cafe, he exists in the medium of the Cafe, and thus to all perceptible intent, exists per se. billobv cannot be destroyed as long as someone reads him. As further vaguely philosophical nonsense, billobv exists in all relevant Cafe logs, and thus while you are re-reading a particular day's adventure, billobv is reliving it. If this bothers you, just read a bit a few times repeatedly where he gets clonked on the head.

Strengths
Complete indestructibility. Being a bunch of written words, billobv is completely indestructible. You may therefore without fear attempt to kill him up badly as he can just write himself out of a corner, although he'd rather you didn't. (See DANGEROUS DEATH WITH DANGER MOUSE.)

Seemly dignity. Except curiously (That's quite enough of that. - billobv). (See STR(Look, I've told you already. - billobv).)

Guarded reserve. The Cafe has a reputation for cheerful tactility, patrons buoying the spirits of the glum with a round of hugging, but, being British, billobv is naturally embarrassed of the open. He will however warmly grip the hand of the heroic, or the sensible orator, and has been known in dire emergency to offer support by passing across a photograph of a clinch. "Also, I like the 'eep' sound when you poke someone. That's tremendously amusing," he adds, destroying the engimatic distance of the entire paragraph at a stroke.

Preternatural cheerfulness.

Flexibility of physics. While patrons conjure useful items, such as anvils, from out of shot in the fine Warners tradition, billobv merely occasionally forgets to be bound by accepted laws. This was demonstrated perhaps most visibly when assisting Mr Fu (see MR FU) to move house, carrying the house with some string while suspended by the coat from the prongs of Fu's tiny forklift. Addressing the question of size, billobv explained, "It was a convincing crouch, or poor continuity, I forget which."

Weaknesses
Constantly "on." Can't switch it off. Has to be "on" all the time. Must...

Hang on, you don't mean that sort...

Well, anyway.

Has tremendous trouble with stairs and falls down them frequently. Possibly linked to being completely indestructible as some kind of balance or something: while billobv can be dragged through the air-conditioning by a remote-controlled tornado without lasting effect (see WICKED CRAZY: THE BROADWAY MUSICAL), he seems incapable of opening a book or pulling to a door without somehow punching himself in the head or similar. "It's probably... oh no! Aaarghh!" he suggests.

Intolerant of the eerie. (See WHY DOES BILLOBV "DEOP"?)

Insists on spelling his name only in lower-case. "Call it a weakness," he yawns. "Oh, you have."

Wordplay. "I love it," beams billobv. "For example - " We make our excuses and leave.

Exciting secret origin
It was a dark and stormy night. (That's enough exciting secret origin. - Everyone.)

Speak with your mouth-hands
Should you desperately wish to reach billobv - perhaps you are a creditor, say - his e-mail address is billobv@bigfoot.com.

BILLOBV THE BOSS
KT began a new job as a mastic asphalt spreader (or something), which involved drawing things. billobv disguised himself as KT's boss and instructed him to draw everything upside-down. KT agreed! but then turned billobv upside-down instead. "Excellent job, KT," said billobv, shaking his hand and giving him a large bonus and a bag of crisps. billobv then turned to walk away, but didn't seem to be getting very far. KT, trying not to draw attention to billobv's legs waving in the air, pointed to them and said, "Look!" by mistake. Realising he'd been duplicitously outwitted, billobv began to chase KT, although ineffectively. Using a clever ruse, billobv lowered the ceiling so he could reach it as a floor, then dashed after KT, shaking a big prop fist and holding a speech bubble that said, "You crazy turtle! Why I oughta..." But he'd lowered the ceiling slightly too far, so they were both running on the spot. Vakko started playing some Hanna-Barbera television music on a gramaphone, while billobv held up another speech bubble that said, "You pesky turtle! I will show you what for," and got stuck with the dooble-ooble-dooble-ooble sound effect. KT gave him a better effect ("Zzzzzizzzzz!") and everyone shook hands, so it was a happy ending all round, except for KT's boss, whom billobv had stuffed in a cupboard in Omsk as part of the prank, then forgotten about. "Er, come to think of it," adds billobv, picking up a telephone to place a call.

KT also encapsulated every Hanna-Barbera TV show ever by running on the spot and saying, "Heyyyyyyyyy, this darn old crazy thing picnic ghost chase sandwich!" (except he couldn't remember his line).

BILLOBV THE CARRIER
A hideous flu-type bug swept Britain, leaving everyone billobv knows confined to bed. As usual, billobv himself was completely untouched (although will probably become sick after it's stopped being fashionable). "This always happens," says billobv. "Logically, therefore, I am the carrier. Oh no!"

Now the bug has ceased to be fashionable, billobv has indeed gone all wobbly with it, about five times in a row. "Bah," he says. "Also, blah."

He's better now though.

BILLOBV CLOSELY EXAMINES FOUR THINGS
billobv's referential amusement for an idle moment. (See also BILLOBV SURVEYS A QUANTITY.)

Is almost always sabotaged, usually by KT, who most recently secretly added a fifth thing ("One... two... three... four... another four... Hang on," complained billobv) then scampered off with one of the original four ("One... two... another four... three... These things have been tampered with," deduced billobv). Little is known of the things, or what KT does with the ones he keeps scampering off with.

BILLOBV DEFERS TO X
An elegant withdrawal if someone makes a joke, billobv misses it and makes exactly the same joke shortly afterwards.

BILLOBV DOES A LITTLE DANCE
billobv's standard means of expression. Extended on occasion to BILLOBV DOES A LITTLE DANCE - A LITTLE DANCE OF X, where X is anything, though usually a crib of someone's last act. (For example, "billobv does a little dance - a little dance of KT entering the kitchen.") See also OKKAY WARNER DOES A LITTLE BILLOBV DANCE.

BILLOBV MUST LEAVE
How billobv announces his intention to leave. Because, y'know, he must. (See also CHEERIO.)

BILLOBV PLAYS A VIOLIN
"Hello! I am a violin."

BILLOBV PLAYS DRAUGHTS
"One, two, king of hearts, snap, sunk your battleship, goal and king me."

BILLOBV PLAYS SOLITAIRE
But thanks to her psychic powers, she beats him easily.

BILLOBV LOOKS INTO CAMERA
A Hardyish appeal to the viewer during explosions of exceptional silliness. Or, if raining, Count Duckula-y.

BILLOBV SURVEYS A QUANTITY
billobv's referential amusement for an idle moment.

Following several suggestions to that end, billobv would like to point out the reference is not to M Python at all. (See MONTY PYTHON, CONTINUING PERCEPTION OF BRITAIN'S COMEDY AS COMPRISING SOLELY and QUANTITY OF TRAINING.)

BILLOBV'S PIANO
(Toonplay.) Runt accidentally knocked the lid of billobv's piano, making it shut with a clang. This made two noises billobv could produce from the instrument, immediately doubling his repertoire. billobv plays the piano accordingly. Or accordionly. No, accordingly. "Plink... plinkeeee... plink... plink... CLANG." Another winner. Observers throw bouquets of flowers at the artiste, except they're buckets of custard instead.

BILLOBV'S SURVEY
"Are you eligible to take part in this survey? Tick Yes or No." The entire planet implodes to the size of a pea.

BILLOBV WIBBLES FU'S LOWER LIP WITH A LOLLY STICK
billobv's placatory response to Fu railing furiously against the pelt experiments (see MR FU'S MIGHTY PELT) which for some reason made billobv laugh for hours.

BILLOBV2
Following a slight accident with Runt-Abu's mysterious cardboard box (see RUNT-ABU'S MYSTERIOUS CARDBOARD BOX), which was inadvertently placed upside-down on a convenient surface, billobv was duplicated. billobv2 is signficantly "looser" than the original and runs around inexhaustibly, falling down frequently. Says, "Wheee! Hurrah!" a lot and tends to bop billobv gleefully as a sign of affection, or something.

Appearance
Possibly the most spectacular consequence of the duplication process is that billobv2 has an appearance. There is an evocative picture, but tragically no means to scan it in at present. Essentially, he's wee, but he's wiry.

Strengths
Totally unstoppable. Utterly unbowably slightly frenziedly pleased. Delighted by everything. Fearless, enjoys being terrified (has usually to be forcibly belted to Rad Raven during space trips to prevent his leaping off - see RAD RAVEN, EDUCATIONAL RECORDING OF SCIENTIFICALLY-IMPORTANT SPACE TRIPS AND), responds to bopping by bopping back then forgetting about it instantly. Friendly and helpful, providing your notion of a valuable contribution is to have someone hug you until your head inflates, say "Wheee! Hurrah!" and run round and round until they fall down. Little appreciable seemly dignity.

Weaknesses
Displays affection for billobv by bopping him. No others have yet come to light, unless you tire easily of someone hugging you until your head inflates, saying "Wheee! Hurrah!" and running round and round until they fall down. (Yes. - Everyone.)

Speak with your mouth-hands
billobv2 may be reached care of billobv at billobv@bigfoot.com. Do not expect a reply to feature significantly more than "Wheee! Hurrah!" several times and the sound of falling.

BILLOBV2B
(Cameo.) Observing billobv's attempt to explain to Kathy the difference between billobv and billobv2 ("billobv: original; billobv2: duplicate"), KT took the latter as a command and duplicated billobv2, creating billobv2b. As billobv frantically telephoned his insurance company, Rad Raven noticed that billobv2b was unusually slothful, and that, in fact, the duplication process had drained all the interest from billobv2b and left him entirely boring. Tiring quickly of the monotony, Rad anvilled billobv2b and booted him over the horizon. billobv2 gazed a little sadly after the zoomingly departed figure. "I suppose it wasn't meant 2b."

BILLOBVS 3 TO 6
As Runt-Abu left without his mysterious cardboard box, billobv2 appropriated the device and used it to duplicate himself a further four times as a good joke on billobv. Scientific estimates put billobvs 3 to 6 at between five and 14.2 times more hyperactive than billobv2, though they confine their dashings-about to billobv's house, saying "Wheee! Hurrah!" even more than billobv2 and raising the insurance premiums considerably. Rumours abound of a seventh duplicate, the Sinister Black-Clad Anti-billobv (see EEK).

BITER BIT, THE
Following Fu's vertical slip (see RODENT OF UNUSUAL SIZE), he more or less gave up the petty larceny. So billobv had a go instead, stealing Fu's valuables, knife, thunder and composure, and trying hopelessly to talk himself out of the corner a growling Fu inevitably trapped him in. Gaining a second's advantage by a ploy, billobv stole the increasingly furious and now heavily armed Fu's ethics... no... morals... no... conscience... NO... balance... that was it, only for Fu not to fall over, but to look squintily terrifying and begin to froth at the mouth. With Fu's crushing karate grip on his throat, billobv tried to steal the rat's confidence, but that only made Fu determined to carry on in order to prove his worth. Moments from disaster, billobv saved the day by stealing - himself! "I am a masterly thief," says billobv from a secret location. Fu hits him with a car. (See also REWRITE!)

BLACK HOLE DA-DA-DAA
Soon it was time for another adventure, and billobv hadn't left quickly enough, so had been stuffed in a suitcase by billobv2. Rad referred to her checklist of previous adventure locations, and found they hadn't yet been inside a black hole, so opened her bedroom cupboard (an in-joke, presumably, although it was wasted on billobv as billobv2 was hitting him on the head with a tourist brochure and miner's helmet) and led the way, with a passing Mr Fu bringing up the rear. Immediately, everyone became all spaghetti-y because of the phenomenal gravitational pull and a box of spaghetti that billobv2 had knocked off a shelf, and billobv commented on Fu's size, except it turned out Fu was in large mode anyway. (See RODENT OF UNUSUAL SIZE.) As the company floated through the usual beyond-the-horizon black hole effects (provided by KT running around and holding up cardboard shapes with a black sheet on his head, until he tripped and fell through some scenery), Rad mysteriously lost her powers and reverted to human form, and Fu became testy because he couldn't find anyone evil to beat up. At that point, an Evil Mage appeared, which was a bit surprising as people were generally expecting it to be Stardust, but Fu beat him up anyway, which pleased billobv, who stood to one side and watched for a change, except for being hit on the head by billobv2 enthusiastically swinging a cricket bat. Some demons came through a small door marked "Staff only" and began hitting everyone with staffs, and Rad, besieged, threw her purse to Fu so he could whip out the potion she'd packed for just such an emergency and save the day. Pausing only to rip off everything of value, Fu gulped down the potion, which increased his natural strengths, like egotism and the ability to run away. billobv bravely leapt in to save billobv2, or slipped on a cake, whichever was more plausible, and drank some of the potion himself, which enveloped him in an Asterix-style blinding flash and blinded him. Fu. having decided that staying to beat up the demons would be a greater boost to his ego than running away, displayed his famous skills of kicky-head-o, and the black hole began to iris shut in the approved manner. Fu, Rad and billobv2 jumped out with dexterity, and billobv fell down a well, which meant the others had to haul on a safety rope from a previous episode to drag him out microseconds before the black hole finally closed for all time, which they did, so hurrah for that. "This makes no sense at all," says David Mouse. "Not to worry, I'll fix it in the editing," says billobv, but doesn't. (See also POTION COMMOTION.)

BLAST THIS PERFECT DICTION
Itz Furrball pronounced billobv's name in an amusing manner. Retaliatorily, billobv mispronounced Itz Furrball as, "Itz Furrball! Ha! No, hang on. Blast this perfect diction," justifying the title neatly. (See also SALE OF THE CENTAURY.)

BLESS, TWISS AND HECKADOODLE
What billobv said after seeing someone for the first time in ages.

BLOOD
Of a sudden, billobv began to gout blood and withdrew gracefully for a few minutes. "Not dangerous, though jolly spectacular," he explains reassuringly. "I badly snagged a fading injury, and due to the peculiar way I was leaning on the desk, it went bloop across the way." A spot of attention and he returned, once more the picture of elegance, within four seconds cutting his finger on a piece of paper. (See BILLOBV - STRENGTHS - COMPLETE INDESTRUCTIBILITY.)

BOF
The word billobv uses that means bof, hence the same letters in an identical arrangement.

BOFUS
Hobbes' misyawping of "bogus" which billobv liked lots, and has now adopted as an expression.

BOOBY TRAP
Leaping out of a bath, Okkay began to dig an enormously deep hole for some reason. Pooh-poohing billobv's suggestion that she dig another hole to keep the earth in from the first one, she revealed the excess was being vacummed up a pipe and deposited on the moon, which, previously waning, began to wax appropriately. The hole complete with only the minor hitch of shovelling through a gravity pipe, cutting off the world's supply of gravity, Okkay spread a large piece of cloth over the mouth to create a booby trap, then sat back to wait. billobv wandered across the Cafe while intently reading a book, possibly unmindfully approaching the suspicious cloth. What would happen next? (See WHAT HAPPENED NEXT.)

BOOKSHOP BARNEY
Receiving a bottle on the noggin, Rad Raven learned that Rex had been kidnapped by Stardust, who was holding him in at 2637 Winter Drive. Rad, Penny and billobv2 wearing aviator's goggles flew there immediately, and tooled up for a big fight. Meanwhile, excused from the action (ie, being accidentally hit over the head a lot by billobv2) for once, billobv relaxed by browsing a volume of Stephen Leacock at the little bookshop at 2637 Winter Drive. There was an odd sound from upstairs, strangely reminiscent of billobv2 in aviator's goggles trying dramatically to kick in a door, but putting his foot through the cat-flap, but obviously that was impossible. Shortly the bell over the door tinkled, and billobv, seeing that the owner Mr Oldbloke was dead again, helpfully went upstairs to assist, taking a clipboard to look official. Upstairs, Stardust appeared from a portal, holding Rex prisoner, and demanded Rad surrender her powers. Thinking swiftly, billobv2 leapt forwards and clubbed down the sinister clipboard figure with a cricket bat - obviously Stardust was a decoy and this was the real Stardust in disguise. Quite a clever disguise, in fact. Amazing how much she resembled billobv with a clipboard smacked into his mouth. At this point, Stardust fired several energy bolts to destroy billobv and Rex, but Rad deflected them with her sword. This developed into a big swordfight, while billobv2 produced a large pocket and stuffed Rex into it, along with a supply of nourishing spam, and billobv speculatively stuck out his foot as Stardust ran past, but just had it squashed flat as she was wearing giant boots or something. Emmy scored the fight with exciting music, which distracted Stardust long enough for Rad to knock the sword from her hand. Rad tried to reason with Stardust, but Stardust spat in her face (weurch) and escaped through another portal, leaving behind a 30-second bomb. billobv2 wiped Rad's face with a handkerchief, removing the spittle but leaving bits of conker, chewing gum and a confused-looking small frog, and billobv whipped out his box of tools and flipped open the bomb casing as the seconds ticked away. If he could... just... make... the... words come... out faster... At the last moment, Rad gathered up everyone and took to the skies, and the explosion flung them pell-mell along the street, knocking the plucky Raven unconscious. billobv2 put on a doctor's mask and examined her, recommending first that someone loosen his mask, as he was choking. billobv revealed that he'd defused the bomb after all, and the shockwave was caused by a giant bursting a paper bag for dramatic effect, and put the bomb in a box marked Sinister Foreshadowing Device where they wouldn't have to worry about it any more. Emmy put on a Broadway show and the curtain fell on billobv's head, and Rad woke up with a scream, but because of a nightmare rather than Emmy's performance. Everyone clustered around to hear what she could remember, but it was a cliffhanger, so there you go. "Wheee! Hurrah!" says billobv2, carefully placing commemorative photos on a fresh page of Rad's scrapbook with the utmost delicacy, then firing 608 gallons of glue at it with a glue-gun in case of strong breezes and spending the next four hours stuck upside-down to the top of Rad's head.

BOWLING WITH BEDROCK BARNEY (SYLVESTER FOX)
Unwisely revealing to Sylvester Danger Mouse's persnickety habit of enshrouding billobv in aluminium foil, billobv found himself enshrouded in aluminium foil. Totally failing to learn his lesson, billobv pointed out it was a good job there weren't nine other such figures and a giant bowling ball. As Sylvester rolled the ball with fine form, billobv tried to escape using the infinitesimal hops afforded him by the clinging tin-wrap, but would clearly never make it. Thinking swiftly, he chewed away a small piece of foil from around his mouth and rolled it into a ball. With an accurate spit he shot it against the fireman's pole leading to Toony Mouse's armour, causing the pole to lever out sharply and knock the armour through the air, at which point he was squashed by the bowling ball and rendered unable to complete his excellent plan. Sylvester caught the armour and dropped it thoughtfully in the recycling bin, seeing as how it was made of aluminium as well. (This did not please Toony.) billobv leapt up, unharmed except for injuries, and Keeper watched with interest as he was scooped up by the bowling pin-grabber. Thinking swiftly, billobv snapped off the aerial of a mobile phone and twisted it between his lovely teeth complicatedly into a shape that may just possibly fit the locking mechanism of a gigantic bowling pin-grabber, at which point he was sucked into the mechanism and mangled by the cogwheels and rendered unable to complete his excellent plan. Squeezed out of the other end like billobv toothpaste, he was untouched except for hurt thanks to the armour-like properties of aluminium foil. "You've broken the pin-setter," observes Sylvester.

BRAIN FREEZE
A phrase used by US patrons to denote feeling a bit funny after eating lots of ice-cream. Unheard of in Britan (see BRITAIN), probably due to hardier constitutions, or the rain, or everyone being too embarrassed to complain.

BRITAIN
Where billobv lives. On learning this, Danger Mouse gave billobv a bowler hat and a monocle. "Good heavens, man, do you think we live in the nineteenth century?" blustered billobv testily, turning and falling over his umbrella and a cup of tea.

BROOMSTICK BUNNY
Celebrating Hallowe'en, Lola flew across the face of the moon on a besom. Everyone applauded except Plucky, who had been stuffed into a basic cat outfit and crammed among the twigs to provide an authentic touch (of nervous stick-clutching costumed duck, presumably).

BUCKET GAG
billobv did the bucket gag from House of Teeth with KT, but was foiled because KT didn't have any.

BUH BUH BUHHHHH
An entry in David Mouse's notes that no one knows what the hell it means.

BUGZY'S GOAD
"billobv gets Bugzy's goad" wrote billobv, a barely coherent pun that was to rebound horribly like a squash ball that you suddenly realise is a big safe with a bomb in it. The goad, a small creature something akin to an explosion of saws, fiercely rejected billobv's advances, while at the same time preferring to rampage across his head ravagingly instead of, say, wandering off. Thinking swiftly, billobv managed to bundle the goad into Mr Fu's house, only for Dot to point out it was her Barbie Dream Home that the goad was ransacking, and that she considered this a shocking breach of etiquette, before shaking the goad out of a window and dumping it down billobv's trousers. There followed a series of incidents. The goad is currently trapped in the Cafe's sub-basement (see KINKY TURTLE'S BISTRO) with a piano on the trapdoor. "I never want to hear the word goad again," says billobv with seemly dignity. (See also MELODY MEPHIT'S SLOUCH.)

BYE BYE WEIRDGUY, BYE BYE
Weirdguy has left the Cafe to live in the forest with his family in a happy ending. "I wouldn't mind, but he's caught my braces in the door of his car," says billobv. "Er, back soon," he adds twangily and at speed.

CAFE CONTROL TOWER
Presumably used to direct Minerva Fan on final approaches (see MINERVA FAN'S AEROPLANE). Emmy sat in it with a pair of big binoculars to talk down billobv's mountain after a 747 was placed in his trousers by Tex Marten and he crashed into one, snapping it off.

CANA
Chilly's drawing style, which billobv completely foxed her by knowing what it meant. "A meteor crashed in my garden, splitting open to reveal a capsule, and inside the capsule was a glossary of Chilly terms," explains billobv. "You looked at my page, didn't you?" interrupts Chilly. "Yes, that was it," deflates billobv.

CANADIAN TREASURY
Accidentally obtaining the whole Canadian treasury, billobv posted the cash back to Canada in an envelope, but didn't have any change for the stamp. "Well, COD should do it," he reflects.

CAN-O, THE WONDER SELF-REFLEXIVE
See CAN-O, THE WONDER SELF-REFLEXIVE until bored.

CANS/MODEL
David idly crushed cans. billobv wondered if they were any particular cans. David indicated the two cans in question. billobv inspected the cans: they were indeed crushed. After the advertising break, David wondered if he should draw something, given the inevitable disappointment when it turned out nothing like he'd intended. billobv suggested he drew a squiggle. David did, but declared it hopelessly off-model, then threw himself over some battlements and bounced up and down in the background for the rest of the evening like that woman in the famous opera story.

CAPTAIN STAR
An excellent space cartoon, and the great British hope for animation after Stressed Eric (see STRESSED ERIC) turned out to be awful. Captain Star is fabulously dry and, for anyone who's seen Steven Appleby's cartoon strips, it's all like a big moving Steven Appleby cartoon strip, as he's the co-creator and everything. billobv recommends Captain Star thoroughly and offers the flavour of the show by reproducing the opening voiceover from (erk) memory.

"This is the story of Captain Star, the greatest hero this or any other world has seen. Captain Star travelled the universe in his ship, the Boiling Hell, his orders to find new planets, name them after himself, then sell them things. One day, the Boiling Hell arrived at the ragged end of the universe, and Captain Star and his crew, Navigator Black, ship's atomic engine stoker Limbs Jones and science officer Scarlet, waited for orders. And waited. And waited, and waited..."

Actually, thinking about it, it's possibly more a European show - a co-production involving at least Germany. It's hard to be sure, because ITV, which carries the show, is so twitteringly paranoid that you'll turn over the picosecond a programme ends, they have their presenters jump on the screen in front of the credits and blabber and gesture all the way through so you haven't the faintest idea who was responsible. Anyway, the principle's sound - Captain Star is a funny, well-done cartoon amazingly not made in the US.

The series has just finished, climaxing tremendously with Captain Star being kidnapped as part of a devilish plot to win a Captain Star lookalike competition.

CAPTAIN TIGHTS
Righter of wrongs, wearer of tights. Sheila in some tights. "Tights is a funny word," says billobv.

CARBON ON UP THE KHYBER
Springing lithely into a conversation about drinks, Danger Mouse expressed a preference for carbonation. billobv promptly bottled him at source, later carbonising him and placing the bits between the leaves of a heavy book for a few zillion years to make Diamond DM. Revelling in his shininess and versatility (as a diamond, DM could be the centre of a heist story, the vital component in a criminal mastermind's death ray, the big expensive bit on the cane of the King of Ruritania, or the world's greatest secret agent disguised as a valuable jewel), Diamond Danger randomly blinded people glitteringly, until billobv had a stroke of mind-thought and put sunglasses on the multi-faceted master of mice, then threw him into some wasteground so he was a diamond in the rough. DM attempted to escape by playing himself onto the green with a nine-iron, but billobv rearranged the letters so he was playing flog. This did not deter DM, who, unknown to everyone, was a professional flog player. A round of letter-changings occurred, leaving a passing KT playing ogfl, and billobv becoming bobvill ("A Really Nice Place To Live," apparently) via vollibb. Vengefully, billobv twiddled KT and DM so they became, respectively, Tricky Knicky and Stewart Granger. Fortunately, at this point a lightbulb blows.

CAROL SINGING
(Toonplay.) Joining in the Toonplay carol singing, billobv composed several brilliant verses that were so clever they left the other contestants in speechless admiration and buses leaving for the nearest border. These are they.

LINES COMPOSED ON THE ENTRANCE OF OKKAY Okkay bells, Okkay bells Okkay all the way O, what fun it is to Okk -ay Okkay Okkay Okk. Ay.

and

VERSE CELEBRATING THREE TOONPLAY RESIDENTS Ye three kings of Toonplayville are Rhia and Okkay and Runt in a car(billobv sticks Runt in a car to bolster the realism)Here on the branches Doing some dances Following TV stars... liiiiiike... Stars of sitcom, star of Morse, star of tedious regional sport, all these actors, Krypton Factors, and one hundred and sixty more.

and

Oh. In fact, that's all for the carols.

CATS
Cats are sinister fiends.

Lola Bunny defended cats passionately as lovely lovable lovelies just out to expend some energy, so billobv compromisingly took Toony's armour (see TOONY'S ARMOUR) back from David Mouse and gave him a machine-gun instead.

CAUTION
The drink you're afraid to touch. Amazing value, as one family-sized bottle will last forever.

CHALKING A POOL CUE WITH A MOUSE IS RUBBISH
billobv has proved this with David's aid.

CHEERIO
billobv's unwavering goodbye. Occasionally topped by KT with "Froot Loop, billobv," a joke that everyone in the world appears to get except billobv.

David Mouse has laid claim to "Cheerio," using the excuse that he's been saying it since he was born. billobv produces a Warner Cafe contract giving him exclusive rights to "Cheerio," "Blimey," and "falls down stairs." David produces exactly the same contract, except just about "Cheerio" and with his name at the top. They march purposefully to the executive boardroom, because it always has really good sandwiches. What will happen next?

CHICKENITIS
(Toonplay.) billobv arrived to be greeted by Okkay with a cheery "bukk!". Correctly diagnosing an outbreak of Chickenitis, billobv isolated Okkay, then called in top Chickenitis and smock expert Okkay. Handing over a tray of surgical instruments, including a surgical trumpet, a surgical cello and one of those squeaky plastic hammers that goes Beep! when you hit something with it, billobv observed Okkay form a surgical band and cure Okkay with the power of surgical music. Another successful medical case for Doctor Okkay - Ace Doctoring-Type Okkay Person. Hurrah!

CHILLY AND A MOP
Having been foiled in balancing a glass of orange juice on KT's back as the turtle scrubbed industriously at some dropped ice-cream by KT finishing and straightening, billobv mopped at the carpet in turn. Turning to thank Chilly Mouse for her assistance with a smaller mop, he was slightly surprised to see she'd left unannounced; also, that the mop he was squooshing in the plastic drain bit of the bucket was making strange "Agh! Help! Blub. Agh! Help! Glug" noises. "An inexplicable mystery," billobv Vincent Prices.

CHILLY MOUSE'S MOTHER
Might possibly secretly be in charge of war, which is slightly alarming, as she uses the word "nuking" to describe heating things in a microwave. Chilly has been charged with the responsibility of keeping the world's nations safe, or at least the food piping hot.

The state of world emergency following the microwave's repeated sparking was called off after Sheila Warner (Chief Scientist - see MONTY PYTHON, CONTINUING PERCEPTION OF BRITAIN'S COMEDY AS COMPRISING SOLELY: HARRY HILL) prevented the bang-fizz by suggesting wrapping things in paper towels to insulate the foil boxes. A grateful panel of global leaders awards Sheila a medal shaped like an electron. Chilly offers her a bite of an unsparkly-baked toastie.

CHINESE JUGGLING
Receiving a dinner plate from Okkay, billobv set it spinning atop a length of cane. Unable to reach his dinner, KT raised a table with four other lengths of cane. billobv continued spinning, showering the Cafe with bits of meatloaf, until KT knocked away the plate and become trapped on the wobbling cane due to a shift in the world's weather patterns, or something. Observing KT's high-speed spin, billobv applauded. "This is an excellent act," says billobv. "Except it wasn't terribly clever of me to stop wobbling the cane, come to think of - Aghk!"

CHOPPO
The mysterious cloaked swordfighting hero in a mask, who's really Don Knottso del Okkay, the chopstick queen.

billobv hastily erases your mind of Choppo's secret identity.

CIRCUS ACT RIGHT HERE IN THE BARN (CAFE), WEIRDGUY, OKKAY AND BILLOBV PUT ON THEIR
Carrying the still swollen Okkay (see OKKAYFROTH) on his shoulders to do some little dancing, billobv was himself picked up by Weirdguy, who started juggling balls and passing them up in a sort of reverse waterfall. The act seemed set for a long engagement at the music halls until Okkay ate the balls and died.

COLOSSAL DISASTER
The page of billobv has been updated piecemeal lately due to billobv's being frightfully busy. Utterly tragically, after six months of swooningly hard work on an "Operation," the company billobv was dealing with has pulled out due to stupidity. "If anyone knows a host with the capacity to deal with 11,500 files totalling 2.5gb and an anticipated daily readership of tens of thousands, write to me care of this station," entreats billobv. "That pesky stupidity," he adds.

This is not "Operation Wicker," however. (See OP WICKER.)

COME ALONG NOW, GET UP, SHAKE IT OFF, REMEMBER YOU'RE BRITISH. THIS IS UNSEEMLY
The advice given by chapter eight of billobv's first aid book. It's also the advice in chapters nine to fifty-six and covers just about everything up to total systolic collapse. (Chapter fifty-eight, dealing with total systolic collapse, suggests looking at the patient sternly and saying, "Tch.")

COMPLETELY RUBBISH SWORDFIGHT
billobv's swordfight with Danger Mouse was completely rubbish. DM was crushed by the weight of his sword, and billobv jumped for the Cafe chandelier but fell into the cellar because there wasn't one. As the Cardinal's guards attacked, billobv snatched up DM and began shooting by pointing the mouse who said "Bang." The guards drew their own mice and said "Bang" back, and soon a completely rubbish gunfight was in progress. Vanquishing the villains, billobv pinned a sheriff's badge to DM's chest and rode off into the sunset, striking his head on the backdrop.

COMPLETELY RUBBISH SWORDFIGHT, ANOTHER
Tony Skunk awarded billobv a trophy for a joke, but billobv had to return it because he'd lifted the joke from A Night at the Opera. "It's a splendid trophy though," he said. "Er, sorry for dropping a bag of pencil shavings in it." Tony bopped billobv with the trophy, causing billobv to draw his own trophy and parry! thrust! and all that sort of thing with aplomb, also a trophy, until Tony drew a cutlass instead and parted the trophy straight down the middle. Dot pointed out billobv's trophies were parted on the left, and everybody jumped out of the way. billobv whipped aside a cloak he kept for such a contingency and drew a cutpurse, who immediately ran away, then a windlass... cutloose, pantaloons, crab-paste sandwich... who packed this thing?... ah, there it is... drew a cutlass of his own. Tony stood waiting for billobv, who now began to read the owner's manual, discovering "1. Keep pointy end away from body" and "2. Say "Ar-harr!" a lot, then find a cannon or something really quickly." At that point, the entire population of the world went off to watch one of Dot's anime tapes instead.

COP OUT
KT and billobv's action movie about a maverick rebel misfit unconventional policeman who shouts a lot, and has gone too far so is thrown out of the force, yet does nothing exciting for the entire movie, and is revealed to be gay, and is called Out. Cleverly they have negotiated a percentage of the merchandising.

COOL, REFRESHING GLASS OF SPRING WATER
billobv offered such a thing around several times, but no one accepted. "It's almost as if they suspected something," he puzzles innocently. "Like, for example, the etching on the glasses saying A Present From the Spring in Ranma ¹/₂," says everyone.

CREDIT CARDS
During a discussion about people who ring you up and try to sell you credit cards, billobv revealed the vital question he'd want answered: "If you're ambushed by a gang of sinister black-clad assassins, can you throw the card like a frisbee, and hit a vital nerve point on the leader's wrist, so he drops his gun and says, "Curses!" and everyone else runs away?"

CRUET FU
Mr Fu fiercely objected to being called Cute Fu by Sheila. billobv handed him a deed poll, announcing that the relevant authorities had agreed to recognise Mr Fu's new name of "Mr Cute Fu." (The document misspelled it "Mr Cruet Fu" but the principle was sound.) There was also a small badge and a voucher. Fu moved to eat the document and throw the badge in a bin, but at that point Egg struck with a mutation. (See WAITER, I'D LIKE THE FUDAVEBILL.)

CROUTONS
billobv tipped a box of croutons down the back of KT's neck, then shook him vigorously over a bowl to see if the croutons would come out of the hole for his leg. You know, to see if KT could be used as a pepper-shaker or something, except for croutons.

CURSE OF THE CLAM
"By Valve!"

DAKKOCELOT GNAWS ON THE EAVES
The gruesome outcome of a house hunt, which had been precipitated by a slightly misunderstood haunted house bit. "Bleurgh! Eurgh!" grimaces billobv as Dakkocelot worries a juicy scrap of mortgage.

DAKKO'S BEARD, THINGS THAT HAVE BEEN PULLED FROM
A small East Anglian village complete with thriving corner shop (set free outside, pursued by Dakko calling, "Wait! I want to buy some cheese!"); the cast of Dad's Army, the always popular show about some oldblokes (they too now have beards, each containing Dakko. This is probably something to do with maths); billobv saying, "Cheerio, all" (and you can't argue with the beard-billobv).

DAKKO'S RATTLING PARCEL
Dakko gave billobv a rattling parcel. billobv rattled it for a bit (it made a rattling noise) then, when Dakko observed it hadn't exploded, made a bit of an eek noise and plunged it into a pucket of pwater. Dakko retrieved and opened it to reveal billobv's dancing shoes, just back from the cobbler. "Oh no! The old real parcel routine!" swooned billobv, giving Dakko a wrapped elephant, but Dakko cleverly slipped an opened jar of peanut butter under the paper to see what would happen. An absent Okkay takes no action. (See OKKAY PB WARNER.)

DAKKO'S SPLOGLET
Dakko fished around in his pocket, producing the mystery item. billobv, with the aid of the microscope set-up from Our Man Flint, examined it closely, declaring it a saxophone, dehydrated for portability. Vakko then doused him with water and stuffed him in a drier, causing the sax to expand and re-contract, and also billobv to become wet, then banged about unhumidly inside the device. Vakko, to save time, had also thrown in some damp towels, causing a towel attack. Finally emerging, billobv placed one of Vakko's fingers in the bell of the sax and blew a hearty note, inflating Vakko's head and causing him to float around the Cafe. Vakko then exhaled, landing on billobv and becoming stuck to him by static cling. Only pop music could save them now, but Vakko used a Van der Graaf generator instead. This caused Van der Graaf to appear. billobv finally escaped by putting 10p in a Robotron coin-op, which caused a static bang and threw them apart. "Works every time," says billobv. "Hang on, my 10p didn't register a credit," he adds.

DAKKO'S YAWN
Dakko yawned titanically, causing everyone to wobble across the Cafe floor. "Good job I was able to grab this table," says billobv. "I'm going to sneeze now," announces Dakko.

DANGER EGG
His stand-up act less than a success (see also THE AMAZING JEFFO, MR MEMORY and WICKED CRAZY: THE BROADWAY MUSICAL), Danger Mouse moved straight to the climax, swallowing an egg, becoming egg-shaped and falling off the stage and cracking yolkily. With the aid of Kathy, a frying pan, a small portable stove and Taperlass's flipping/spice skills, Danger Egg became Danger Cajun Omelette, tasty and nutritious, with minimal bits of floor and shell. And mud and dust, as Fu wasn't around with his backpack/gunslinger-style vacuum cleaner. And bits of foil. "Deee-licious!" declares Danger Mouse, tucking in. "Although curiously familiar."

DANGER MOUSE'S COMPASS
Insisting he could draw circles perfectly well with a compass (billobv maintained he would need a pair of compasses), DM drew a circle on billobv demonstratively. billobv then drew a circle on the ceiling directly above DM, and one directly beneath him, so the mouse agent fell down in a continuous stream. After 27.5 hours, billobv dropped a trampoline down the hole, which DM bounced between in another continuous stream for a further 27.5 hours. billobv threw in a few chickens as well, to keep DM company, then turned one of the holes upside-down so it exerted an opposite force, bringing DM to a wobbling halt exactly halfway. He then passed a hoop around the mousebloke to show there were no hidden wires and performed a card trick. DM slowly rotated in mid-air for a bit, before billobv grew bored and drew two or three concentric circles inside the one on the floor, making a target, upon which DM landed daintily.

DANGER MOUSE SMACK-A-QUOTE GAME
Danger Mouse is so wary of being drawn into a quoting contest that he jarringly smacks himself across the face should he begin. billobv noticed that by starting a quote himself, DM would be compelled to finish it and thus smack himself penalisingly. billobv scored a respectable 36 points in the DM Smack-a-Quote Game before Danger Mouse realised that hitting billobv would be of more help.

DANGEROUS DEATH WITH DANGER MOUSE
Dropped to the bottom of a lake of spring water while impersonating a news anchor, Danger Mouse floundered with secret agent calmness. billobv, thinking swiftly, dropped a coil of rope in the lake and asked DM to tie one end to something then throw it up through a Cafe window. DM did so, and billobv swarmed upwards down the rope into the lake, hoisted DM over his shoulder in a fireman's lift and climbed back down up the rope to safety. Laying DM on a table with scant regard for the cruet set, billobv applied his powers of medicine to take the glooby mouse's pulse, but hadn't an idea how to, so counted his ears instead and confidently ticked the box "Alive" in a report. Tragically, he'd neglected to look in DM's lungs, which were full of water, and DM drowned on dry land, although was coolly refreshed while doing so. billobv was just thinking of something to do, like say Danger Mouse had gone on holiday to Chile or something, when Dead DM tapped him on the shoulder to complain, and billobv died of shock. The two deadfolk then wandered around the Cafe for a bit trying to think of some way of getting back in their bodies (billobv had brought his with him, but DM's was still waterlogged and needed running through a giant mangle or something) before billobv realised they were Americanised dead (see AMERICANISED SPELLING), and by correctly returning the U and the I, they became deaiud, a made-up word that means nothing. Springing up unharmed, they shook hands in a lively manner. (See also RETURN OF DANGEROUS DEATH WITH DANGER MOUSE.)

DANGER TOAST
Disguised as a piece of toast, Da... Look, who writes this stuff?

DAVID MOUSE'S EMULATION OF BUSTER KEATON (DESPITE BEING UNCONSCIOUS), A DRAMATIC RESCUE SHOWCASING
After Okkay Mouse fell on her head but was curiously slow in shaking off her state of orbiting-stars babblement, billobv determined via scientific instruments and winding a handle that all was not well in the land of the unconscious, and Okkay's consciousness must have been caught in a door by the sleeve or something. Assisting the terribly worried David by clonking him on the nut with an appropriately-reduced mallet then directing him through the unseas of unconsciousness using a splendid ungalleon to Okkay, whose sleeve was caught in a door attached to a log drifting towards a waterfall, billobv halted the ungalleon on the cusp of the falls by switching off the engine and lowered the spunky mouse on a rope. After a slightly rubbish beginning when billobv's poorly-judged swingings merely smacked David against the side of the ship, they succeeded in getting a rhythm going, and David, tensed upside-down, suspensefully managed to catch Okkay as the log plunged past into space. As the pair scrambled on board the ungalleon, the appearance of a nightmarish unsea-monster provoked a round of aghing, until Taperlass projected her face into the unsky like a big Little Nemo planet and urged David to use his powers of belief. Fortunately, David believed himself to be supremely the mightiest being in the universe, and the party was able to escape with little trouble. Back in the Cafe, as David and Okkay clasped in a fade-out embrace, billobv went to write down the adventure, but had immediately forgotten everything on waking up.

DECOY BIT
billobv gave Danger Mouse a decoy, which DM hid behind, spectacularly missing the point altogether.

DEXTER'S LABORATORY
A cartoon billobv likes vastly. (This entry will expand considerably at some point.)

DIRECTION
The Director swept out to attend an opening night party. billobv, floundering, began TO emphasise all THE WRONG things. KT stepped in, giving direction in clipped German tones (which are a bit like clipped German hair, except not much). Improvising, billobv earned the director's tantrumy wrath, involving KT's tartly reading only every second word of billobv's, and never worked in this town again, although did so in the one next door quite a bit.

DOING THE IONING
Runt announced he'd messed things up bigly. billobv leapt through an escape hatch and was projected into space, just in time for Vakkotaur to switch on his home-made ionospheric modulator, bending the ionosphere to his will. "This won't end well," remarked billobv prophetically, then, "W-o-o-o-a-a-a-h-h-h-h-h!" as Vakko's will was to turn the ionosphere into a global subwoofer. Instructing MC Jackie Potato (who'd appeared due to licensing, or a continuity error, or something) to search the stricken escape capsule for an escape capsule, billobv listened to the thunderous roar of MC Jackie Potato escaping in an escape capsule, and spotted the flaw. "It's all right, I've fixed things now," says Runt above the distant mountain-striking boof of billobv crash-landing in Ireland at 2,007 mph.

DON'T DIE, MR FU
The song billobv wrote for Fu after observing the plenitude of songs Fu had written for other patrons. Tragically the effect was greatly diminished by Fu having completely forgotten what was on his own page, so responding to the traditional introduction of the song he had himself established ("Hey, rat - guess what I've made for you") by looking blank like a lank hank. "Well, I still like it," says billobv. "It mostly rhymes and everything."

billobv has recently rediscovered the song, having put it in the wrong place and forgotten what he'd called it. Here it is. If you don't know the tune, you can download the original Daffy number as a 358K mp3. (Incidentally, the bit at the beginning is from The Tick: the Daffy song's part of a genre-busting mix tape billobv keeps meaning one day to do side two of.)

(See also WARNER CAFE TITLE SONG.)
"DON'T DIE, MR FU!" v1 by billobv (TO BE SUNG SLIGHTLY CROSSLY BY MR FU TO THE TUNE OF THE DAFFY DUCK NUMBER TAKING OFF LISZT'S HUNGARIAN RHAPSODY NUMBER TWO.) As I lock up the Cafe door And set to work and mop the floor While practising my sidekick moves And brushing up my sidekick grooves I'm glum at what the dawn will bring As cheery patrons wander in I fix 'em with a baleful stare Though I'm a dan, they always dare I'm Mr Fu, the punchbag rat I'm blown up often, anvilled flat If you've a grievance, work it off And cheer at my expiring cough Warners to the right of me Toons surround the rat with glee They pause to buy their cups of tea Then smile and smirk alarmingly Violent death's my lot in life And this lot wreak lots day and night I wouldn't mind but always do The Many Deaths of Mr Fu Ow! Aaarghh! Eek! They've gone and spanged me with a spade Ow! Aaarghh! Eek! A deep dark well they use Ugh! Agh! Woah! I'm cooking in a pie they've made Hey! Oh no! The heat's set off the fuse Bof, those Warner Cafe guys I see the science in their eyes "Hey - if we fry him, will he flare? Say, would these pieces stretch to there?" Poked and hammered in the head And killed to death until I'm dead Then stepped on daily by mistake And served up as a stringy steak I always make a feeble show Of dealing with a "glancing blow" The bang of cannon rings and lingers My spine snaps like jazzmen's fingers Fatal! Each time it's fatal Although it's true I'm back immediately I'm pained by hurt considerably The variety! Gets notoriety With stranglin' janglin' wranglin' danglin' brand-spank-newest-fanglin' poor rat manglin' Sorry! You'll all be sorry When I am dead and gone although I come back good as new and ripe for wrong Love me! Is that so funny I just can't help my klepto nature that leads me to take your junk and money I'm Mis- ter Fu! Bye now! See you tomorrow! Aghkkk! (IS TRODDEN ON.)
DOT LAUGHS IN THE FACE OF DANGER
This bit was excellent, although DM was a tad surprised.

DOT'S POLICE
A force for law and order set up by Dot and consisting of Yakko, Neu and Plucky kitted out splendidly with badges, whistles, big sticks, bigger hats and repeated knees-bent calls of, "'Ello, 'ello, 'ello, what's all this then?" The patrons sleep safely at night, knowing the streets are patrolled by these mighty guardians of justice. Dot's Police are assisted unofficially by preening detective, Hercule Ploirot, which makes things hard for Plucky at times, although he does get paid twice.

DRAINED DAVID
(Toonplay.) David Mouse was too drained even to complain about his pesky housemates. Obligingly, billobv put a tube in his ear and squirted him full of electro-energy with an atomic bicycle pump, but, clearing David's small headache aside, it didn't really help. Elsewhere Runt stands at the side of a rainy road with an unfixable atomic bicycle puncture.

DRINKING STRAWS
Taking advantage of KT's appearance in a minimally-animated cartoon sequence restricted to him banging a table and shouting, billobv2 acted with impunity. First, he put some drinking straws up KT's nose, causing KT to bang a table and shout. Then he twanged KT's cartoon fangs and put a big Pancho Villa moustache on the hapless turtle. Then he was clipped round the ear and stuffed in a Slinky as KT secured a larger animation budget. It is hard to work out the moral, as billobv2 said "Wheee! Hurrah!" a lot instead of displaying contrition.

DRUID HIPPIES
"Would these be called Drippies?" wonders billobv.

DUCK A L'ORANGE
Feeling a taste for it, Tony threw some oranges at Plucky. They hit him stunningly, then rolled away. billobv stepped in to throw some topical magazines at Plucky, but saw him cleverly duck the issues. An unconsciousness leads to billobv consulting his first aid book. (See COME ALONG NOW, GET UP, SHAKE IT OFF, REMEMBER YOU'RE BRITISH. THIS IS UNSEEMLY.)

DUCK CALL
Slightly breaking Danger Mouse's duck call by shouting at it to send more ducks, billobv blew in rapid succession a mouse call (a failure as he doesn't make mouse calls), a house call (causing a house to fall on DM), Neu's noble calling (causing DM to be twanged by a small noble with a ruler) and up a balloon, which he attached to the end of the house call and tied to the bottom of DM's foot. Danger Mouse then sat there utterly helpless for about 98 years, until he asked Chilly for assistance. Chilly untied everything and gave him a pillow, which he used to hit billobv with. "There's gratitude for you," tsked billobv. "Or being hit with a pillow or something, I forget. Owp! Now I remember," he finishes.

DUCK COOKS TUCK
How a spinning newspaper reported Plucky's leaving to have dinner.

DUCKMAN PLUMBER BIT
As the last Duckman episode billobv saw was Colour of Naught, he was pleased to find a sample of the introducing-the-plumbing-company bit from the next series. "In fact, I'll just listen to it one more time," he says. Again.

DUCKS GET CUSSED UP BAD
Examining an advertisement in which a duck is knocked down in the air by a 747, Plucky crossly pointed out that ducks always get it. "Not at all - they succeed unfailingly in The Far Side," countered billobv. "Not in the one with the chicken nude beach," came Plucky's rejoinder. billobv twanged Plucky with a ruler, leaving Plucky triumphantly with his point proven and a ruler-twanged head.

EAU D'EAU
The great smell of water - in a bottle.

EEK
It's all right, it's just a rumour.

EILEEN MAY, DOCTOR
Inventor of the month of May, who married Theo Mouse, inventor of the mouse. (The real one.)

EL EMENOPEE
What billobv thinks they should have called El Nino, because it's educational.

ELTRUT YKNIK
The inverted universe Kinky Turtle. (See VAKKO'S PHONOGRAPH PLANS.) "This sounds a bit like Eivol Ekdal from Batman," says billobv, "so is excellent." EY goes around gnikop people.

EK
Ekko's instrument. He plays it stylishly well.

EKKO
A known associate of billobv (see BILLOBV), Ekko is a silent, though expressively elastic, black-and-white toon, in appearance an unfinished animation model with a big patched coat and a crumpled stovepipe hat. Uniquely among black-and-white toons, Ekko has never sung, even in the silent manner of emitting wiggly notes, considering it, well, you know, sort of (shrugs). Yet to appear, largely because there's already an Ekko. Drat.

EMMY'S BOWLER
Demonstrating her splendid new bowler, Emmy inadvertently sparked a lengthy Laurel and Hardy routine between Tex Marten and billobv; or at least would have done had Tex any idea who Laurel and Hardy are, instead confusing Stan with the character from South Park. billobv looks into camera.

EMMY'S MATHEMATICAL PROOFS
Using a blackboard and scientific chalk, Emmy proved billobv didn't exist. Fortunately, billobv was able to rub out three bits in the middle and replace them with a game of hangman, thus preventing disaster. "H-rr-h!" he beamed existingly. At that point, Danger Mouse interceded as Emmy's henchmouse with a club, but was knocked down by the club who wanted his autograph. Emmy displayed the mathematical proofs on a napkin she'd prepared earlier, as DM turned the electricity off to stop the fans and jumped on billobv again. In the nick of time, billobv radioed the pocket universe DM had previously eaten in mistake for a piece of popcorn, and had everyone there run to one side, so DM overbalanced and fell down, then rearranged the letters of Emmy's napkin so it became Mandy Patinkin. DM was taken away by Dot's Police, leaving billobv to say, "You play with the letters, you, er, something pithy... Words... Funny words go here" and get his nose caught in the iris-out.

EMMY'S MAKEOVER EMPORIUM
Emmy, deciding it was billobv makeover night, solicited Lola's opinion on what would look peachy swell on a bunch of words, and decided a red dress would fit the bill. Swatting down billobv's amateurish comments ("A handbag? With this hat?"), Emmy completed the ensemble with a delightful shawl, approtie-coloured lipstick and some lovely shoes. billobv couldn't help but wonder if that bit was meant to ride up there and appealed to camera, "Gracious, how do you girls stand this?" "Years of practice," replied Kathy. Later billobv outfitted Emmy in evening clothes, a cummerbund and muttonchop whiskers and asked her to ask him for a little dance, but snapped both his legs due to his ridiculously high heels. Applying Leg-O, the wonder liniment, he swapped the shoes for some purple Docs and tried to drape himself across a piano but missed. billbv recommends Emmy's emporium to all his friends, sidestepping Emmy's question of why he changed back by giving her a half-second flash of an old library ticket and claiming it's note from his doctor. The ruse works, except for failure. (See also RAD'S RAZOR.)

EVERYTHING-FREE COCKTAIL, THE
Pour lots of things into a glass, then throw it away. "It's the latest thing," champions billobv.

EVERYTHING (LICH LORD) FALLS APART AND MORE
Lich Lord, the undead Cafe patron, is pricklish about his unstable physical condition. KT brought in a prototype LL doll, which, when you pulled the string, yelled in a mechanical doll voice, "I don't fall apart, dammit!" and then fell apart, but LL refused to endorse the toy and the line never made it to the shops. Christmas will be the poorer for it.

EVETS WARNER CAMEO
Evets arrives. "I was working at an orange juice factory here in town, but they fired me because I couldn't concentrate." Evets leaves. billobv looks into camera.

EVIL DEAD FU
Fu has become convinced he has only three months to live. What will happen next? "I've no idea," says billobv, "but I'm a tad irked he didn't mention it, thus leading me to think his fearful strop was caused by something I'd done. I don't know - sometimes, some patrons just don't stop to think, eh, Plucky?" (See PLUCKY, BILLOBV'S UNCANNY ABILITY TO OFFEND WITHOUT HAVING THE SLIGHTEST IDEA HE'S DOING IT.) "Oh no, not again."

Later, Fu revealed he was merely feeling a bit blah-y, and wasn't going to die in exactly three months after all. billobv reminded him that Fu feeling a bit blah-y in fact consisted of him, Fu, sitting at the bar, while he, billobv, was repeatedly pulverised by Sylvia over the destruction of her absurdly overpowered car (see VIVA FU!). Balancingly, billobv asked Fu to hold a bomb, but Fu's hands were full and billobv was slightly blown up in a small explosion. Fu had, in fact, been mistaken, and both his hands were entirely empty, and that showed him.

Later, Fu and billobv take bows to thunderous applause. "Hurrah!" says billobv, clapping Fu across the shoulder and breaking his spine in 834 places.

EVIL OKKAY
Okkay exposed Disney as evil, and WB as bad-evil (they used to be good-evil, apparently). billobv points out he isn't evil, if that helps, which it probably doesn't. Okkay bafflingly runs away.

EXAMS
billobv has exams. KT stuffs pieces of bread into his mouth. billobv is crammed! He passes brilliantly. Everyone poses for photographs.

EXCELLENT CALVIN GAG
Apropos of nothing, Masem gives Hobbes a stuffed human boy. billobv laughs for 127.2 seconds.

EXPRESSIONS OF DISMAY, A BILLOBV COMPENDIUM OF
"Aghk!" "Waghk!" "Oeurk!" "Oob." "Owblgch!" "Pleuch!" "Bleurgh." "Fleurngh." "Gleurgch!"

EXTRY! EXTRY!
Plucky wandered in with a nice mug of cocoa. billobv put a little umbrella in Plucky's mug to make it a fun, exciting, now, happening drink for the 90s, and Emmy set up cocoa bars all over the immediate vicinity. A spinning newspaper announced, "Cocoa Bars Spring Up Everywhere! Cocoa Stocks Rocket!" but Emmy held it still to reveal the headline was really "Cows In Middle East Die Of Chicken Pox." billobv turned the newspaper the right way up to show the headline was actually, "Victorian Values Subject To Inflation," and Emmy rolled up the newspaper and bopped him with it. Sheila pointed out the headline was really in Russian and read, "Gorbachev Sings!", and billobv turned it again and soaked it with water so the backwards writing correctly displayed, "Moon Visible Through Glass Ceiling." Emmy insisted that, in fact, it still mentioned cows and the Middle East, so billobv removed her sunglasses that had one lens painted "COWS" and the other "THE MIDDLE EAST." Emmy couldn't recall wearing sunglasses, so billobv removed her hat that had a long pole with a note depending from it in front of her face saying, "Youuuuu will forgettt youuuu are wearinggg sunglassesss." Emmy wasn't aware she was wearing a hat, and billobv demolished the huge building in her line-of-sight that is carved in the shape of the words "You will not remember wearing a hat either." Emmy didn't know she was looking at a building either. "Of course not, Emmy, you couldn't see it through the sunglasses," says billobv. Everyone looks into camera.

EYEBROWING TIGER
News reaches the Cafe of an escaped tiger. Hobbes lopes in. "Is it female? And if she's female, is she a Siberian tigress? And does anyone have her address? Rowl!" His eyebrows shutter preposterously and he waggles a stick of celery in the manner of a cigar. Everyone looks into camera.

EYE ETIQUETTE
Removing Plucky's eyes to add to the ping-pong ball he already had so he could juggle, billobv was admonished by the famous duck for this social faux pas. Swiftly billobv batted away the ball and juggled the eyes back into place, but had messed up, leaving Plucky with a ping-pong peeper. billobv drew on an iris with a big black felt-tip pen, only to find he was right in the first place and it was Plucky's eye, just turned round a bit too much. billobv spins it to face forwards. "Now Plucky can see behind him as well!" he exclaims. "Into his own head. Ermph."

F1
Inexplicably popular with several patrons, the dissolvingly boring sport can be time-savingly summed up thus: some cars drive round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round in a circle and someone's judged to be the winner.

FAINTIN' DAVID
Observing that reviving David Mouse with a bucket of water led to amusement, billobv speculatively threw another load over Tony Fox, but this just got him blown up with a big bangy bomb.

FERRULE
The knobby button thing on the end of an umbrella. billobv could remember only that it was "something-oule," but Michael Mink named it in one. This led to several ferrule-related bits, including billobv, armed with the knowledge of ferrules, playing fer; Vakko handing out ules (the non-ferrous kind); and Michael simplifying the situation with a ferrule of thumb, then recognising KT as billobv's ferrule godmother. billobv checks the size of this entry with a ferruler.

FIELD IN BERMONDSEY, A
Specifically where billobv lives. Being hassled by a cow.

All right, not any longer.

FIZZ
A markedly peppier police force.

FLAPPY CHEEKS
Despite hours of rehearsal, KT blew his lines. "bollobiv!" he greeted billobv. "Er, vibbolov! blvioob!" billobv manipulated KT's flappy cheeks to produce the correct sounds, then drank a glass of water while kneading KT's maw into declaiming a soliloquy. For an encore, billobv asked for a volunteer to saw KT in half, and when KT stepped forwards, shut him in a box, placed a saw in the turtle's third hand and egged him on. But the holes were poorly placed and KT couldn't reach, so billobv chopped up the box with an axe and used carpentry tools to add an extra central section. At this point Jeff wandered in with the tin of mauve billobv had meant to use to paint identifying numbers on the box sections before a-chopping, and everyone looked into camera. Thinking swiftly, billobv picked up a handful of KT pieces, fanned them and asked Jeff to pick a piece, any piece, and to show it around, but not to let him, billobv, see it. billobv then shuffled the pack, made a magic gesture, and showed Jeff his chosen KT piece - the three of clubs. For the finale, billobv restored KT once more, carefully laying the sections back in the box, sneezing a negligible number of times and dropping in only a few cupsful of pencil shavings. Jeff helpfully kicked the extra bit of KT he'd spotted under a chair, and as billobv rapped on the box with his wand, KT leapt out to thunderous applause, except not much, as he was a sort of big green Rubik's Cube. billobv, sensing he was losing the audience, swapped his top hat for a straw boater, and barked, "Roll up! Roll up! Rearrange the Amazing KT Puzzle Cube! A prize for the winner." This prompted KT to solve himself, and he received a bag of authentic sand and a packet of seed seeds, so he could at last grow his own seeds. Loudly talking over KT's protestations that he had no green thumb (Jeff pointed out he now, in fact, did, thanks to a pickle that had been knocked into the box during the restoration), billobv gathered up the door receipts and departed for climes.

FLU
Runt had the flu for eight to nine weeks. Lawks.

FLY LIKE A FLY
Soliciting Vakko's help in ungluing himself from a chair by throwing the taur the other end of a rope and asking him to pull powerfully, billobv found himself hurtling through the air. Exercising complete muscular control, he angled himself to pass harmlessly through a Cafe window so precisely that he didn't even touch the curtains, except Lich Lord closed the window at that exact moment because of the draught. Returning studded with glass, billobv brushed himself down, cutting his hands badly. Chilly passed over a first aid kit, but someone had used it first, leaving billobv to find an alternative ointment. (See BALM BIT.)

FLY TO FREEDOM, LEETLE FEESH
Handed a salmon, billobv set it free. Everyone watched the lightly broiled fish dish sink to the bottom with a disconsolate bloop. billobv attaches some floats and a small outboard motor and sends it puttering away downstream. "Close enough."

FNAR
Acronym for For No Apparent Reason, but better known to readers of Viz (see VIZ) as the gurgled catchphrase of Finbarr Saunders (And His Double Entendres). "The confusion is funny!" says billobv. "For a bit."

FNAR, ME HEARTIES
From a lengthy pirate bit prompted by Michael Mink's harmless observation of Masem's Pyrex decor (leading to pyrex being spotted off the port bow... you can fill in the rest). (See also MOUNTIE PIRATES VERSUS DRACULA: THE KINEMATOGRAPH.)

FOILED BY A CHEAP CINEMATIC TRICK
billobv picked up and wore Fionacat, as she was the latest style. Fionacat danced clawfully on his head. "Ow! Agh! I'm a fashion victim!" yelps billobv, descending from the perpendicular.

FOURTH WALL, FIFTH WALL, WHO CARES? WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT THESE SEMI-CIRCULAR HOLES IN MY SKIRTING BOARD?
Slappy Squirrel looked into camera. billobv looked into camera. Sylvia Fox observed the cameraman run away shrieking about everyone looking at him all the time. billobv tonfs, but stops when someone asks him what it means, and he hasn't the slightest idea.

FOX... TONY FOX
A period of confusion left Plucky with small birds circling his head in the approved manner. Tony Fox stalked one of the birds with stealth, but it pulled an assault rifle, causing him to withdraw gracefully. The bird then flittered across to an inconspicuous hillock, which flowered open to reveal an underground base with lots of little birds dashing about in grey jumpsuits, and one sinister black-clad bird stroking a very small cat. Tony, sensing a boding of ill for the world, produced a flight of A-10 Warthogs and set them upon the base. There followed a pitched battle between the air squadron and the jumpsuited birds, which ended in the rout of the underground base, and a huge missile flying off haphazardly to crash harmlessly in a birdbath. A tiny gyrocopter whisked the sinister black-clad bird away, squawking, "Curses! Outfoxed again!" A medal was bestowed.

FRENCH CONFECTION
KT gave Vakko a French Confection. Vakko ate it. "Egad! He's been confected!" cried billobv, isolating the taur. billobv waits to see if symptoms develop, also his holiday photos.

FU GOES HAWAIIAN
Fu was recently on holiday in Hawaii, having a tremendously splendid time and restfully not being killed daily. "I just put this in because I think the title is excellent," says billobv. "Like a completely terrible film, or something." The Cafe patrons decided to make Fu feel welcomingly wanted when he returned by throwing flour bags around and smashing plates so there was plenty to clean up. "A fine idea," approves billobv. "Hang on, I haven't finished eating," he continues. The plate is broken over his head and he loses interest, also consciousness.

FU'S GENERAL UPDATE HAIKU (ON WHAT HE'S BEEN DOING)
"Not a lot of stuff. I've been taking classes here - I'm in summer school." billobv shakes him by the hand and introduces a clip from the summer school. Everyone looks expectantly at the video screen, but nothing happens due to technical problems and billobv standing on a wire, causing congestion.

FUNKY BUNNY
What David was saying all the time at one point.

FURRY
See ANTHROPOMORPHOLOGICAL PATRONS.

FUSKY JABBERMITE
An epithet quite similar to pettifogging jobbernowl, except not much. Used by billobv to describe billobv2 as he was used by the duplicate as a club to defeat Stardust, except Stardust had already been defeated and he was hitting a wall. (See THERE'S ONLY ONE OF US, BUT A HALF OF YOU.)

FWAH!
A new exclamation coined by KT. (See also EXPRESSIONS OF DISMAY, A BILLOBV COMPENDIUM OF.)

This is also a convenient place to put the bit where billobv reported the free faux faun fan on the Freephone faux faun fan phone fanphone, in Foonplay.

GET THE PICTURE
A caption-writing game popular in some parts of the world, which billobv had never heard of but which some patrons touchingly thought he might be quite tolerable at, although they didn't lend him their sets in case he accidentally dropped them down a well or something.

GHOST IN THE SHELL
billobv was disappointed by the low-key performance of the ghost in KT's shell, so pushed a vacuum cleaner nozzle down his neck and blew it about a bit.

GIVE UNTIL IT HURTS
Making a lightning appearance (as he was busy being struck by lightning), billobv was handed a tornado by KT. Okkay then shook his hand, so he transferred the tornado to the other one to avoid Okkay being sucked up embarrassingly, then reciprocally gave KT a squall. KT furtherly gave billobv a tomato, which he observed zoom round and round the cone of the tornado at 9,004 mph, possibly to zip off suddenly and smack someone messily, while Weirdguy gave him some alligators, which due to full hands he had to grip lightly between some teeth, returning WG's favour with the gift of a flock of elephants (they were confused), chalking up his ability to do so to an extra hand written in as a continuity error. Spotting billobv's struggles for balance, KT gave him a canvas bag for storage, but billobv had nowhere to hold the canvas bag in order to put everything in it. He needed, in fact, to put it in some sort of bag, so KT gave him a bag bag for that purpose. billobv put the bag in the bag, then the gifts in the bag in the bag, just in time for KT to give him a jar, and a jar to keep it in. billobv thanks everyone, then turns and trips over a door-jamb, dropping everything down a well.

GOODBYE, MR BOND
Mr Bond shimmered into the Cafe. Slowly a large chair turned towards him, revealing KT looking all evil and everything, and stroking a white mouse (DM in lieu of a cat). The effect was spoiled as the chair kept turning and KT ended up looking back at the wall where he started, while Mr Bond found himself looking at billobv in a grey jumpsuit, who was pushing the chair from behind in lieu of a handle. After a strange interlude involving the letter Q, Mr Bond shimmered out, leaving KT to drop billobv into a concealed tank full of a white mouse (DM in lieu of some piranha).

GOOD EVENING
billobv's unwavering greeting, as it is always a good evening for billobv. The sequence marking subsequent returns (say, if someone is repeatedly biffed about by THNTRNTeiee) is "Good revening"; "Good threevening"; "Good evening once more"; and "Good etc."

GOOD VERSUS EVIL
KT was undecided over whether to scan a picture he'd drawn or not. billobv dressed Chilly and David Mouse in angelic and devilish wear respectively and plonked them on KT's shoulders. "Scan the picture! Scan the picture!" advised Chilly. "Kill everyone! Kill everyone! And don't scan the picture either!" cackled David. KT decided to scan the picture. To give the appearance of Chilly and David vanishing in puffs of smoke, billobv threw very small bags of flour at them. "A little voice told me to," he explains.

GOONS SONGS
billobv has electrically recorded the eight funny songs from The Goons' album, Unchained Melodies. So far, due to various tediously techy reasons, it has taken a month to send Vakko six of them. "Hurry up," says the universe. "I want to implode in a few billion years." billobv gives it a bicycle pump just in case, as number seven, A Russian Love Song, is a bit larger than usual.

The transfer has now finished, rendering this bit redundant. Er.

GOSH, IT'S QUIET
"Gosh, it's quiet," observed Dot. billobv tied bicycle horns to her feet. Dot decks him with a single blow.

GO WILD, GO CRAZY
(Toonplay.) No one was around, so billobv ran amok, in a stately and dignified manner.

Later, no one was around again, so billobv carefully turned all the ornaments slightly to the left. Har hargle har har! That'll teach somebody something somewhere at some point.

GRAVESTONE BUG
Students of the tediously over-analysed "Millennium Bug" will have noticed that for years gravestones have been pre-cut, "Died 19--". No one else seems to have, though.

GRAVY AND TEXAS THREATENED BY PLOTS
Mr Fu's onerous training to become Taperlass's sidekick concluded just in time, as the world's supply of gravy was threatened with vapourisation by Dr Vakko, simultaneous with Dakko as Professor TT Fiendish (that sly master of underhand doings) planning to annihilate Texas using the power of the sun and a giant magnifying glass. KT, as a henchturtle, with official small bowler hat and jumper with "HENCHTURTLE" written on the chest, assisted both sinister villains, while femme fatale Fenella Fatale, ably portrayed by Weirdguy, sought to distract Mr Fu with wiles and a loaded stick. Fortunately for gravy lovers everywhere, Taperlass and Fu succeeded in defeating the evil genius in their fab car, the Wax Stallion, and Dr Vakko's big machine blew up for no particular reason, as it should be. Dakko was forgotten in the excitement, so Texas was saved only by night happening to fall, but still, eh? Remarkably, billobv played no part in this, though did listen to the story in suspenseful excitement over the radio wireless. "It was excellent, and I want to buy all the official toys," he says, casting shadows by burning Blue Coal, Pennsylvania's finest anthracite.

GREETERDOT
To lend the Cafe a spot of class, Dot took up position beside the door, mechanically greeting every patron by name. billobv twiddled with the tapes improvingly. "Welcome.... *click, whirrrrr* to the jungle, Tony... Fox. For your safety, we ask... to take your knickers off. O Captain... my captain," continued Greeterdot. "Much better," beams billobv. Dot decks him with a single blow.

HAHAHAHAHAAH!
How billobv tried to laugh fiendishly, but transposed two letters, so hurting his throat.

HALF-LIFE OF PICKLE RELISH
Jeff would really like to know this, as he is eyeing a discovered jar speculatively.

HAND MODEL
KT speculated on a career for Fu as a hand model, gesturing towards an expensive gold watch sitting on a small velvet cushion, but billobv pointed out the photograph would actually be of a small velvet cushion with the distant sound of running and the dragging of metal. Or no cushion at all, come to think of it. Fu knocks him out and leaves him in a ditch.

HATS
billobv distributed hats: an evil hat for KT, a lovely hat for David (who was having a passing sinister urge and whose head would probably have come off if any extra evilness had been involved) and a mime hat for Chilly. The mime hat was clearly broken, as Chilly said "Hello" to someone, and KT become annoyed when he swapped hats with David and David's head failed to come off. In his annoyance, conveyed by facial expression, the turtle put a mime hat on billobv, who began honking a bicycle horn, dropping knives from his sleeve when shaking hands with people, and chasing girls around the Cafe. This unprecedented behaviour was later traced to a strange influence. (See STRANGE INFLUENCE.)

HEROIC CHAMPIONS ACTION FIGURES
Featuring space pilot Fire Hazard, tank commander Tac Nuke, technical wizard Len Brackets and some other people, except billobv got bored at that point.

Further figures have lately been added: Mars Crasher, rugged hero test pilot (the first man to break the sound barrier, then fix it again with duct tape) and Bomber Jacket.

HIDE-AND-SEEK
Playing hide-and-seek with KT, billobv jumped in a cupboard and disguised himself as a teapot. KT, having counted to one octillion, gave up looking almost immediately and decided to have a cup of tea. Picking up a convenient teapot, he filled it with boiling hot water, at which point billobv sprang into action. Wriggling out of KT's grasp as the turtle had a bit of a think, he ethcaped down the drain of the think, emerging from a pipe 173 miles away. Attempting to run all the way back before KT could tap him out, billobv ran out of breath due to continuous narration, and the the winner of the game turned out to be Varro. "I'd certainly have won," defends billobv, "if I'd been any good."

HIDEOUS KINKY
A new Brit-o-film billobv has just heard about. It probably isn't a Jekyll and Hyde remake with KT. That would be silly.

It wasn't.

HIDEOUS SUN DEMON INCIDENT
Weirdguy obtained a piece of paper, and was chased by a hideous sun demon. He posted the paper to billobv, who fooled the demon with a clever disguise, until Taperlass pulled it off, gasping, "Gasp of surprise! It was billobv all along!" Things looked grim for billobv, but at the last moment he bested the hideous sun demon in a game of scissors-paper-stone and it slunk away, swearing revenge. Hurrah!

HOBBES' BOOK
Hobbes published a book consisting of quickly written drivel. KT bought a copy, leading to a nationwide publicity campaign with, "This are drivel - K TURTLE," on the posters. KT went on to judge Hobbes' book by its cover, which was a nice shade of blue. Film rights still available.

HOBBES' LAUNCH
Hobbes, standing too quickly under ten green bottles standing on a wall, had one crash down on his head. Enormous crowds with balloons appeared and waved as the freshly launched Hobbes whizzed down the slipway and into the sea. "Bon voyage! Don't forget to write!" called billobv, dancing a little hornpipe. Alerted to the flaw by Hobbes saying, "Glub," billobv snatched up a bucket and started bailing out the ocean to find him, then switched to a wet/dry vacuum cleaner (see WET/DRY VACUUM CLEANER) and hoovered up the rest of it. Three seas away, Hobbes washes up on a golden-sanded island beach and opens a bar, but bans green bottles, also walls.

HOLIDAY DAY
Should he ever attain public office, Plucky has pledged to introduce a day's holiday celebrating the year's holiday days. Make your vote count.

HOSTAGE NEGOTIATOR VET - THE SERIES
(Toonplay.) Following a mouse incident (see MEECES/PIECES), billobv was eaten by a cat. Answering the telephone and realising help was needed, Rhia stepped out of the mousehole, reverted to normal size and picket up the cat, banging it on the back to get it to cough up billobv and some budgerigars. This didn't work, so she dropped a ladder and a packet of Trill down its throat, all of which hit billobv on the head in the approved manner. billobv managed to climb to freedom, except for being stuck in a hairball. The cat began to cough, while David, heedless of his own safety, filmed the events in the hope of selling the tape to The World's Greatest Rescues From Pets. The cat harfed explosively, sending billobv hurtling through the air, and ricocheting off a line of expensive collectible plates, a bowling ball rather preposterously left on the top shelf, a box of dodgy fireworks and into David, carrying them both into the refrigerator which slammed shut behind them to the sounds of dairy carnage. Afterwards, Rhia opened the door cautiously to reveal a final egg rolling around for far too long before falling on billobv's head in the approved manner. "Blimey," says David. "Hang on, is that a cheese you're holding?" notices billobv.

HOW HIGH IS UP?
(Toonplay.) Attempting to discover the height of the Toonplay location of the evening (a baseball dug-out, which is a bit like a cricket pavilion, except (erk) with spitting), billobv carpeted the ceiling in Velcro, put an accompanying hat on David Mouse and started throwing him upwards and catching him to see if he could get him high enough to stick. He could, but David was now too high for anyone to reach to pull down, so billobv had David put on some Velcro shoes, then put a Velcro hat on Okkay and started throwing her up and down as well, to see if he could get a chain going. With the third Velcro-hatted resident (Runt) billobv couldn't see where the other two were (the vaulted ceiling being too high for Taper's candle-y goodness to penetrate, or something), so Okkay started wiggling her toes as a guide. billobv then put on a straw hat, picked up a cane, shuffled Okkay's feet and called, "Round and round, round they go, where they stop, nobody knows! Find the queen of hearts, high or low, but you don't win if you find Okkay's toe." Everyone started betting piles of chocolate money, but at that point David remembered he hadn't tied his shoelaces, so Okkay fell off the ceiling on to billobv's head, scattering playing cards from his sleeves.

HOW MUCH IS A STONE?
"16 pounds!" says KT. "Free!" says Minerva Mink. "14 pounds seven inches!" says billobv. The answer is 12, but to a different question.

HOW TO DRAW BILLOBV
KT wondered idly how he would draw billobv were he to see him on a bus or something. billobv suggested it would be just some words (see BILLOBV: APPEARANCE) in a pleasing font, such as Attic, or the special billobv font he has constructed, but not yet scanned. Dot suggested a Doonesbury-style approach, using a floating rubber chicken. billobv votes against this by raising 68,033,519 hands in a box.

HUB CITY'S MARK (SIMPLIFIED FORM DUE TO ILLITERACY)
X. "H, surely?" points out billobv. Hub drops an aitch (on 'im).

HUG ATTACK
Emmy and Okkay attacked billobv mercilessly with hugs, heedless of his "Aghk!"s (see BILLOBV: STRENGTHS: GUARDED RESERVE). Pointing in a direction, billobv escaped by putting a hat emblazoned Hug Me on Plucky. "A narrow escape," says billobv gravely. "Hurrah!" adds Plucky.

billobv later gave Emmy a mechanical Hug-o-Tron, consisting of 36,014 arms and a button marked Hug, but she just used it to try to hug him again. He attempted to foil this second hug attack with his mechanical Anti-Hug-o-Tron, but the 36,014 arms slapped him about Three Stoogeishly instead.

ID COMPLEX'S EGO
Id Complex brought his ego to the Cafe with him. billobv patted it and gave it a biscuit, but soon it was being chased across country by Rex the Dine-Dimo (see RAD RAVEN), who was himself pursued by billobv2 and Rad Raven (see RAD RAVEN again) and, after a border incident, came close to provoking a huge fight. On reflection, Lola Bunny's declaration that "All egos must be checked at the door" ought to have been strictly observed. "If only I hadn't well-meaningly smuggled Id's ego through in disguise," says billobv. "I mean, if only someone hadn't," he corrects himself.

I'D HAVE GOTTEN AWAY WITH IT (IF IT HADN'T BEEN FOR YOU MEDDLING KIDS
KT was grilled by billobv. "Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of The Residents?" KT denied it vehemently, making his microphone go pop-pop-wheee. But now billobv sprang his clever trap. "In that case, why do you wear a mask? You don't? I thought it was a bit odd, a turtle wearing a mask shaped like a turtle." Just as the judge was about to bang his gavel and dismiss the case, WB Wolf loped forwards and tore off KT's head to reveal Joe Barbera. billobv then tore off WB's head to reveal Zeppo Marx. "It was a clever plan, Zeppo. Unable to express your natural comedic talents in the same way as your brothers, you adopted the persona of WB Wolf to yadda yadda yadda blah blah exposition wrap-up," he intoned. "And stop that," he aims at the Cafe patrons, who are running around tearing each other's heads off to reveal unsuspected masterminds.

ILLUMINATED SIGNS
Observing patrons flicking switches to illuminate signs, billobv tried his switch. A sign lit up that read "No Sign." Across the way, Plucky flicked a switch that lit up a sign reading "Sign Here." billobv strolled over and flicked the switch, but the sign read "Sign Moved." billobv took this as a sign and signed off.

ILL-THOUGHT-OUT THING THAT WENT NOWHERE
Taking advantage of Fu's new size (see RODENT OF UNUSUAL SIZE), billobv measured him for an excellent suit, planning to smuggle him into the stock exchange posing as a broker. Fu asked why. David Mouse asked why. The chorus asked why. billobv had no idea. "I'm putting this one under ILL-THOUGHT-OUT THING THAT WENT NOWHERE," he says, and has.

IMPENDING DOOM OF ENTIRE UNIVERSE
David Mouse brought it up, reminding billobv to flick the impending doom of entire universe switch to "Off."

IMPROVISED CHRISTMAS SONG
Forgetting the lyrics of The Twelve Days of Christmas, Chilly randomly inserted turtle doves instead. ("Six turtle doves, five golden rings, four turtle doves, three french hens, two turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear tree.")

IN LAST WEEK'S EPISODE
Captain Dan was about to be annihilated by Doctor Fiendish. Can Dan escape? (Pow!) No. "Wheee! Now we run the credits for half-an-hour," adds Emmy.

INSANITY
"Kinky Turtle is now known as What."

Within seconds, billobv was known as Whithertofore; David Mouse, Why; Vakko, How; Rad Raven, Where; Dakko, When; billobv, Kinky Turtle; Danger Mouse, billobv; David Mouse, Who; Danger Mouse, David Mouse; Rad Raven, I; Plucky, Where; Danger Mouse, It's; Kinky Turtle, This; billobv, The Narrator; David Mouse, Everybody; and Danger Mouse, billobv, attempting to convince everybody (not Everybody) that he was the real one. While marshalling his thoughts, billobv (the real one) was thrown off by Nickserv for being improperly named.

"This would be poetic justice if it weren't for me being entirely innocent," complains billobv (billobv) unconvincingly (adverb).

INTRODUCTION TO TOONPLAY
(Toonplay.) Alerted to the existence of #toonplay (see the explanatory notes at the top of the page of billobv) by Rhia and Runt sucking him in to it through a large straw (see also LAST STRAW, THE), billobv's introductory location was the slender branch of a large Christmas tree. "Owp! - This location could - aghk! - have been - oof! - better chosen, perhaps - Gaghk! Wow! Aghk! Ugh. It's okay, don't get up, I've landed," he opined. Rhia built him a nest, which he drove around at high speed, after souping it up with a big engine. Springing out of the way, Runt fell off a branch, but a different branch, so that's all right. billobv deftly caught the hurtling Runt in a fishing-net, but due to a miscalculation of density was immediately dragged down after him, shouting, "Brakes! Brakes!" Runt had left his in another tree or something, so quick-thinking billobv instantly wrote to the Better Brake Company, asking for their catalogue. Runt hoped they used first-class stamps, as the plunging duo were now only about fifteen feet from the ground, at which point Rhia, who'd been watching with some popcorn, flicked out her tail and hooked the net, making them boing up and down and their thanks to come out as "Tttthhhhhhaannkkks!" Rhia composed a song in celebration, with billobv accompanying her on the trumpet, except he'd got it wrong and it was a crumpet, which just made crumbs go everywhere.

INVISIBLE NUDES
Okkay, gripped by madness, dispensed photographs of naked invisible people.

ITALIAN JOB, THE
Legendary 1960s Brit caper movie involving Michael Caine, Noel Coward, three Mini Coopers and the world's largest traffic jam, finally available in widey-vision and seemingly completely unheard-of in America. Tsk.

IT'S A GRUEL WORLD
The saying that's often misquoted as "It's a cruel world" because the gruel one is stupid and makes no sense.

JAM
Eddie Izzard's favourite word.

Also, a strikingly bleak sketch show that, probably more than anything else, will never be shown outside Britain. Or repeated.

JEFF H BEAR'S CUE CARDS
Jeff had something witty to say, but forgot. billobv indicated his cue cards. Jeff became testy, because no one had mentioned them before and he'd been winging it for years. "That's right Jeff - no problems remembering witty lines with these cue cards!" says billobv, microseconds before dropping all of them everywhere in every direction at once. (See also FLAPPY CHEEKS.)

JEFF - STUNTBEAR
Dashing out of the Cafe, Jeff attempted to leap back in through a window, but they'd all been replaced with Lexan (a sort of armoured glass, or something) and he kept bouncing off. Eventually he crashed down through the skylight, but the move was disallowed on a technicality (involving landing on a judge) and it looked as if he wouldn't pass his stuntbear exam. Pointing in a direction, billobv slipped Jeff the answers, which were, "Fall down stairs... jump off building... flip double-decker bus 27 times... d)." Armed with a certificate, Jeff's first job was to double for Mr Fu being blown up in the next episode, and he was given a pair of adorable rat ears to wear so he'd be indistinguishable in the cutting, but Fu became cross (see CRUET FU) and did his own stunt thankyouverymuch, being blown up with a "Nyer" closely followed by an "Oh no! Aaarghh!" Meanwhile, Jeff doubles for the new Bond girl by adopting a voice.

JET ATOMIC AGE
What billobv is living in. Sort of like molesworth's young elizabethan bit, if you like.

JIGSAW BIT
billobv gave Plucky a 5,000-piece jigsaw of a 2,000-piece jigsaw with eight pieces missing. Chilly gave him the vacuum cleaner bag they were in, but on opening it exploded gigantically with a risible floop, layering everything in ash. Chilly cleaned him off with a wet paper towel and Emmy gave him a pair of sunglasses, leading to billobv's thinking he'd gone blind and visiting a qualified optician, who buffed and polished his eyes until, confident in his ocular powers, he could see a tiny, tiny pin in the far corner, except in crossing to it he fell over Donald Pleasence.

JONATHAN FOX
(Toonplay.) Rhia redrew Jonathan as a fox, making him officially a fox, which coincidentally was the same thing. billobv helped by putting huge Victorian beards on everybody, and prompting Rhia to sign her work to prove its authenticity, which she did with a tiny pawprint on the inside of Jonathan's elbow, then by signing her in turn, to show she wasn't a forgery either. "Good job I was here," phews billobv. Everyone clonks him with huge Victorian beards.

JOURNEY TO THE CENTRE OF DAVID MOUSE'S HEAD
Following the game of pupil pupong (see PUPIL PUPONG), billobv jumped into David Mouse's head. After accidentally switching off his eyes and deliberately twanging some neuron connections to see if he could make David dance or juggle or something, billobv came across a big thick leather book marked THOUGHTS. Reverently picking it up, he failed to notice it was a loose-leaf binder and dropped the pages all over the place, then stood on an electric fan, which made them whoosh about in a whirlwind. Grabbing handfuls of pages and stuffing them back in the binder in an order, billobv managed to save the day, triumphantly reaching the other side of David's head and popping back out. There were a few pages left over, but they probably weren't important anyway, so billobv crumpled them up and threw them in a bin. "That was close," says David, shaking billobv by the hand. "For a helicopter moment there I completely farm-house everything."

KATHY'S SQUOILING FOR A FIGHT
"Hey, I like the sound of the phrase," defends billobv. Kathy decks him with a single blow.

KINKY AND THE BRAIN
This one explains itself.

KINKY LOVE
A song by the Pale Saints that billobv effortfully recorded by electric means. KT pronounced it "Neat!" so that's gratifying.

KINKY TURTLE'S BIRTHDAY
After exactly a year, it was Kinky Turtle's birthday. As part of the celebrations, KT put on his new birthday suit, leaving billobv free to shell Plucky's navy except to miss. (See ADMIRAL PLUCKY.) KT was so taken with the thrills of the day that he eventually left still wearing his birthday suit, causing screeching tyres and fainty screams. No moral could be detected.

KINKY TURTLE'S BISTRO
KT has cleared out the dusty cellar of the new Cafe and constructed a charming bistro. billobv, while ordering a glass of orange juice, discovered there is also a sub-basement, by falling down its stairs, and that the sub-basement is flooded, by drowning. Fortunately for the floundering sink-gent, WB Wolf offered around mugs of cocoa, and by using his mug as a bail, billobv was able to drink himself to safety. The (now drained) sub-basement is currently unused, as billobv has trapped Bugzy's goad down there with a piano on the door. (See BUGZY'S GOAD.)

KNOWLEDGE-BASED PUN
After KT was disappointed by narrowly missing out on a medal, billobv asked if he knew anything about dinosaurs. KT did know something about dinosaurs, so billobv awarded him a diplomadocus.

KT'S 7-UP CARTOON
It emerged during KT's seven-letter phase (see PUNCH UP THE DIALOGUE) that he had drawn a cartoon in which he drank the popular chemical liquid 7-Up, and as a result was unable to speak except in seven-letter words. "Mmmmmmm! Amazing-tasting soda-pop refresh thirsty drinker!" he exclaimed in panel two. "Taxicab!" he continued in panel three, having run out of ideas. billobv awards him a chclate medalle.

KT'S AMERICA
A KT version of famous tune-song Wakko's America, which is being worked on even as you read these words with the eyes of your head, unless you're KT, in which case that's what you're doing instead. Also, you left a can of Dr Pepper behind last time. We've put it in the fridge.

KT'S FREQUENCY
billobv clonked KT's shell with a tuning fork to ascertain his frequency. It was Tonk. "Heigh ho," says billobv.

KT'S LITERARY CARTOON TEAM-UP
Roget Rabbit and Gertie the Thesaurus.

KT'S POLITICAL CAREER
Revealing his middle name to be Scandal, KT embarked on a campaign to be elected President (a sort of Prime Minister). Ill-advisedly singing during adviser Dakko's briefing, KT made a speech based on raising things and lowering other things, but got the things the wrong way around. Weirdguy, as a brilliant satirical comic, impersonated KT in a scathing and blistering manner, causing KT to drop 200,000,000 points in the polls. Dakko advised KT to try the middle class, but billobv lifted the middle class to show the pea wasn't there. billobv cued Jeff to deliver the punchline, but due to a slight mix-up with the cue cards (see JEFF H BEAR'S CUE CARDS), Jeff punched KT right in his bag of pretzels. KT's polls immediately jumped 200,000,007 points as his policy of being thumped in public found favour with the public. Jeff was hired to smack KT on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper whenever he made a speech, but after being hit on the nose 17,222 times KT bribed Jeff with free pizza, then retired from politics to open a newspaper stand.

LAWYER BIT
Hired as DM's lawyer, billobv champed, "My client is a packet of biscuits. This case is incontestable because the defendant is made of water. If you eat curtains, you gain kudos among zebras." He was under the impression the commission was for a liar. The judge raps him with a gavel.

LICH LORD'S DRESS
billobv had always imagined the Cafe's resident undead patron, Lich Lord, to be clad in a flowing black cloak. Instead, he turns out to be wearing an old T-shirt and leather trousers. "This was not impressively classy," says billobv, "so I gave LL a flowing black cloak, which he accepted with minimal violence. Hurrah!" Lich Lord hasn't yet noticed that the back of the cloak lights up with the message, "Eat at Joe's." What will happen next? Several people will eat at Joe's, presumably.

LICHY LICH, THE DEAD LITTLE LICH KID
Vakko's description of Lich Lord (see EVERYTHING (LICH LORD) FALLS APART AND MORE), which billobv likes lots.

LL is further called Uncle Lichy by Danger Mouse, which amuses LL exactly not at all.

His lack of amusement was further heightened again by billobv posing Danger Mouse and LL together in authentic Victorian gear, thumping off a rickety box camera flash shot, then framing the sepia print and hanging it with the elaborately-scrolled caption, "Mr Mouse and Uncle Lichy."

LIVE UPDATE WITH DOT WARNER
A fast-breaking news programme that swept the ratings in a dramatic new interpretation of the word "swept." Dot's contract was nevertheless renewed, but due to a technical error no one else's was, so every day at 6pm she now sits in an empty studio and sort of swings her feet and reads a book or whatever until the weather comes on, or would do if there were any. A Best Of compilation video will be available in plenty of time for the Christmas market.

LITTLE DOMES
billobv has been handing out those little domes with snow and reality in. "Well, that's L," he says, then adds several more entries and spoils it like a fool.

LOLA BUNNY'S VOICEOVER
Considering a career in voice acting, Lola gave as an audition her Scottish hillbilly cat. It won her the presitigous Best Newcomer Scottish Hillbilly Cat award.

LOLA'S LOOT
Inspired by the Daffy Duck short where he lays a golden egg, Lola pointed a gun at Plucky. This caused him to lay a golden egg, which Lola distributed among the Cafe using a gold-cutting knife or something. billobv planted his own fifteenth share of the egg like the potato in the story of the two blokes and the potato, and grew a golden eggplant, which he placed in the Cafe kitty (not kitty). The episode of sensible investment (see also TONY PANTHER'S MACKEREL) was marred only by Lola accidentally firing the gun, causing a bullet to pursue billobv ricochetingly for the rest of the evening at a low speed.

LOOKING PHAR(FIGNEWTON) BACK INTO HISTORY
Pharfignewton toiled at writing about a set of historical photographs. billobv displayed his own set of historical photographs, which showed billobv with Spencer Perceval, billobv with the old man of the mountains, and billobv with a photograph of billobv and Spencer Perceval. Everyone runs into the hills as he reaches for an 8mm projector.

LORD OF THE MOUSIE DANCE
Prompted by the Hamster Dance, David put on a straw boater, waved a cane and began dancing up and down the bartop. billobv started selling Dancin' David T-shirts, mugs, emblems, badges, bumper stickers, LPs, gyrating figurines, fire hydrants and high-quality collectible dinnerware. David put all the money into chocolate teapots, making billobv scrabble for a pen and a power of attorney, but too late. But! David had been eyeing the lucrative former-Soviet-Union chocolate teapot market, and quadrupled the merchandising revenues, using the colossal fortune to buy a bag of crisps. "This crisp is worth over seventy thousand pounds," sobbed billobv. "Also, it's Worcester Sauce. Bleugh." Liquidating the bag of crisps, David safely stored his sack of cash in a large fireplace, but then felt a bit chilly. "Here, use this petrol-soaked rag and bucket of napalm to start a fire," said billobv. After an incident, David picked up a bucket of water and threw it accurately, but it was vodka instead, and blew billobv up the chimney. Tony Fox alerted the air force, resulting in missiles missing billobv, but hitting Sylvester Fox's car, which annoyed Sylvester, especially as he was in the car. Qaianna turned up demanding to know what had happened to reduce Sylvester to some parts in a bucket, and billobv and David called on God to save the day, but God refused unless they cut him in on the T-shirt deal, then fingered billobv as the culprit anyway for a joke. "I just come here for the coffee," says David, idly feeding some coloured paper through a shredding machine.

LUPINE VULPINE
A phrase of Yakko's that's an excellent name for a Victorian villainess.

MAESTRO! FORTISSIMO
Maestro strolled into the Cafe. billobv and KT broke into reverentially hushed calls of "Leopold!" and swung a spotlight as he took the podium. Maestro brilliantly leapt to the floor, dashing water in his dazzled night-vision eyes, as billobv and KT broke into wild applause. "Bravo! Fortissimo! Encore!"

MAGIC
Having had mistletoe duct-taped to his head by WB Wolf, billobv magically made it disappear under the cover of a towel using only a pair of scissors and loud tearing noises. He then produced a coin from Wilford's ear and smashed Plucky's watch to bits before wrapping it in... hang on... Look, another coin from Wilford's ear!

MAGICAL FINGERS OF BILLOBV
billobv asked KT to pick 51 cards. KT picked the 51 of clubs. billobv pinched the bridge of a nose and intoned, "Is it... the 51 of clubs?" but Frostbite objected to his nose being used in the trick. billobv insisted that although it was Frostbite's face, he, billobv, had paperwork showing the nose was his, and gave Frostbite a 0.02 second glance of an old laundry list. Frostbite froze the list and shattered it. "Now I'll never get my socks back," says billobv.

MANCHESTER RULES
Playing with Margaret Mink using Manchester Rules, billobv dealt seven cards and laid down the two of hearts. Spotting the gap in his tactical play, Margaret unleashed a pack of lager louts, winning the hand.

MANKY
An excellent word meaning of poor quality, or dirty, that David Mouse used and which completely baffled KT's multiple linguals. David's clever suggestion that manky sounds horrible anyway (like, say, dank or mangy) was slightly spoiled by Vakko coughing "Swanky" in an "Inheritance" sort of way.

MARGARET DROPS HER SPROGS
After a suitable gestation period, Margaret Mink dropped her sprogs: three girls and a boy. They are Beatrix, Grace, Faith and Stuart, the family's progressing splendidly, and Fu's a big fan. (See CRUET FU.)

MATRIX, THE
My goodness, people really are easily pleased, aren't they? (See also THE SIXTH SENSE. Or rather, don't.)

MEECES/PIECES
(Toonplay.) Finding himself in another Toonplay location (a mousehole, with everyone shrunk to mouse size accordingly) (except any mouse residents, who kept their dimensions) (for some reason), billobv noticed outside a huge cat. "That's Jim," explained Nakko. billobv strode outside to say good evening. There was a loud yowl, a sound like fifty thousand tin tea trays falling down an echoey lift shaft, a bang, two more bangs, a squeal and a crash. billobv staggered back in. "Yes, silly me, you didn't actually say he was friendly." Mintaka hosepiped the cat with special skunk powers, leaving the way free to the refrigerator. David, jamming on a gas mask, scampered outside, bagsying the cheese, but billobv was not to be denied his chunk, and there developed a chase. billobv passed David in a little red wind-up car, slaloming between table legs in the approved manner, and probably going up an ironing board at one point. Due to insufficient winding, the mainspring began to run down, allowing David to dash past. billobv jumped out of the car, kicked the tyres, and fished around for his Pocket Eric Sykes, which he instructed to sabotage the route ahead while he wound up the key again and zoomed off alarmingly. A way in front, David spotted a detour sign and took a detour, which billobv, following, shrewdly ignored and crashed through, falling down a ravine. Shortly the Pocket Eric Sykes came running up to change the signs, and billobv hit him with his hat, then sent the Pocket Eric Sykes off first this time. Meanwhile, David had reached the refrigerator, but couldn't get up to the door handle. billobv arrived and, pulling a lever, extended his car upwards on one of those big sproingy trellis grabber things no one could remember the name of. But he'd neglected to check the tensile strength, and started waving around at the top like a plate in a Chinese juggling routine. David took advantage of the distraction to climb up the trellis thing, then jump across to the handle, let himself into the refrigerator and make off with the cheese. billobv, regaining control of the circuiting car, noticed the open door and concluded the Pocket Eric Sykes must have disintegrated it with a ray gun, leaving the way clear to the cheese. As David returned to the mousehole with a big cheese-shaped head, the Pocket Eric Sykes alerted billobv by semaphore to the return of the skunked-up and ferociously angry cat. Thinking quickly, billobv leapt into a large roast chicken, where the cat would never find him. The company tactfully fades out the following scene, but fades back in a bit later. (See HOSTAGE NEGOTIATOR VET - THE SERIES.)

MELODY MEPHIT'S SLOUCH
Resisted strenuous attempts by Plucky to free Melody of it, which billobv generally considered a good thing, as undoubtedly Plucky's well-meant cracklings would have led to packs of wild slouches roaming the streets. "Have you ever been attacked by a slouch?" asks billobv. "It is like trying to fight off a bag."

MENDELEVIUM
The best entry in a metals/chemicals pun routine. ("KT finds the defendant innocent and orders the security mendelevium alone.")

MEPE
(Toonplay.) An exclamation invented by Mintaka which is a bit like Pepe le Pew meeping. ("Ah, ze mepe" - that sort of thing.) (Whatever meeping is, anyway.) (See also FWAH!)

MICE OF THE LIVING DEAD
Taking pity on Mr Fu, who had been killed in the traditional manner, David Mouse brought the collapsed rat back from the dead as a zombie. Fu, staggering around in a zombie fashion, but unnoticed as this is hard to pull off on four legs, bit off David's hand. This caused David to become a zombie also, although with equally rubbish powers. (David, stumbling after potential victim Masem while drooling heavily: "Hey, don't go... I just wanna... uh... talk to you about something...") billobv, arriving at the critical moment, except just after the critical moment, observed David's stumpy appearance and gave him a sinister metal claw, then turned to straighten a tablecloth or something, thus missing David using the claw to drag himself into the rafters (see RAFTERS) after the increasingly suspicious Masem. Upon realising the cafe was crawling with zombie rodents, billobv flashed into action, shooting Fu accurately through the head while trying to wind his watch. This cured Fu of being a zombie, but left him completely dead. billobv attempted to counteract both problems by biting Fu with his pocket vampire, but the ruse failed. Meanwhile, David rampaged slothfully around, driving billobv to rebuild Fu as the mighty robot Mecha-Fuzilla to save the world from the zombie David (zombid? Dombie?) menace. Armed with a powerful theme song ("Fu! Fu! Fu! He'll step rashly onto you. Tum-da-daaaa (percussion bit, needs work)") Mecha-Fuzilla stomped towards David ("Daaaaaavid, King of Zombies, la la la la la la something-ombies") only for Yakko to knock out his batteries anarchically. Thus David, King of Zombies triumphed over Mecha-Fuzilla in the world's most useless fight. (The zombie-ism came out in the wash, or something, by the way, so that's all right then.)

MIGHTSHIRT, THE
The Cafe's long-running radio adventure serial, starring Matt Fox as the heroic defender of right at night. Here's an extract.

ANNOUNCER: Matt Fox harboured an amazing secret. By day a perfectly ordinary executive costermonger - by night, thanks to the power of his ludicrous sleeping garments - scourge of evil - proponent of justice - THE MIGHTSHIRT! Also starring William Shatner as Inspector Oldfatbloke. (MUSIC UP AND OUT.) SECOND COSTERMONGER: Jeepers, Matt! Looks like those alien invaders mean business. MATT FOX (ASIDE): Hmmm. Clearly a job for The Mightshirt - but it's only half-past four in the afternoon and I'm wide awake. Zounds. Earth is doomed! Until at least twelve midnight. At that point, Matt hastily left the Cafe. During his absence, the invasion was mysteriously repelled. He returned, expressing plastic regret that he'd missed all the excitement.

MIGHTY VOWEL CHALLENGE
KT challenged Weirdguy to avoid using the letter I for the rest of the evening. (He used Y instead.) KT then challenged billobv to use no vowel except I for the rest of the evening, but billobv pointed out it was always a good evening where he was, so he'd be stuck like it, well, all evening. Shortly afterwards, KT, eschewing Es, was mysteriously stuffed into a box of rubber snakes by two figures vaguely resembling Weyrdguy and billibv.

MINERVA FAN'S AEROPLANE
Piling into MF's 1950s D-6 aeroplane, the Cafe patrons remarkably failed to crash it while watching the in-flight film. KT was mentioning how he names his sketchbooks when billobv pointed out how confusing this would be once he had 719 of them, and named everything "billobv" to help. Tragically this left a cabin full of billobvs looking into camera as billobv the pilot stared blankly at an instrument panel exclusively labelled "billobv", but at least billobv couldn't be found to blame, until billobv (KT) named billobv (billobv) Sadie. billobv (KT) went on to realise that all Sadie had done was to splap stickers on everything that read "Hello, My Name Is billobv," and by peeling them off, equilibrium was restored. The aeroplane was then shot at by anti-aircraft batteries, but Plucky donned aviator's goggles and dropped tea trays and horrid plastic-wrapped lunches on them until they were destroyed, or had stopped for lunch. billobv then accidentally set his head on fire and was thoughtfully pushed out of the aeroplane by Sylvester Fox without a parachute to reduce by 100% the chances of that bit with the ripcord and lots of cutlery or whatever coming out.

MINERVA FAN AND HOBBES
Used to be Minerva Fan. Is now Hobbes. The connection is established.

MINERVA MINK GOES WHIP-CRAZY APE BONKERS
For a reason, Minerva began cracking a whip with remarkable accuracy - knocking a hat harmlessly into the air (which made billobv jump back in alarm and fall under a Wells Fargo coach) and putting out some candles (causing billobv to fall down a steep flight of cellar steps on his rickety way to replace a fuse). Later, Minerva fell asleep during Fu's science lecture, so billobv helpfully pinned a "Do Not Disturb" notice to her back. However, Minerva was woken by the pin, so beat him up despite protestations it was figurative. "If there's a moral here, I can't see it," says billobv. "Although being stuffed in this inkwell doesn't help."

MINERVA-MINK
The second Minerva, appearing after billobv painted another head on the original, which went on to pull away and extrude a body of its own. (Except not as spooky-1950s-movie as that sounds.) Everyone started playing up to M-M with a view to copping a snog, except billobv, who fell down a flight of steps. Minerva- expressed alarm, but billobv explained, "No need to worry, Miss -Mink, I entirely intended to bounce down this flight of steps on my head. I can't quite recall the reason, having just bounced down a flight of steps on my head, but it was a really good one. Anyway, as I was explaining about maintaining a seemly dignity, I - ", at which point, he fell into a tray of custard pies before catching his leg on a cylinder of helium and having his trousers inflated, thus floating into the air to bob gently against the ceiling. Minerva- deduces this kind of thing happens to him all through the picture, and later leaves in a small car for the coast, though hopefully stops before she falls off into the sea.

Some confusion subsequently arose over what to call Minerva- (Minerva- itself looking a bit like Minerva Minus or something), and after various tweakings, Minerva II (with its touch of regality) seemed to come out on top.

MISSING EVENING, THE
Due to a technical hitch, billobv failed to log an evening. "Oh no!" he blubs. "That means I never existed for that evening!" If you have a log of the Cafe of the evening of April 4th, 1999, contact billobv, who can then free his trapped parts.

MONSTERS ARE HUMAN TOO. WELL, NOT HUMAN, BUT YOU KNOW
Witnessing Rad's scrap with monsters under the command of Stardust, Vakkotaur pointed out that he too was technically a monster, and gave Rad a hug to show they weren't as a species all bad. "Good job I've never mentioned I habitually refer to any kind of enemy or miscreant in, say, a film or a game as a monster, eh?" explains billobv in an aside to Plucky. "No, that's me," says Vakko.

MONSIEUR FU, PURVEYOR OF TOP-QUALITY BLAGGAGE
What billobv suggested Fu put on his business card. (But it turned out there was no room between the words already there, as he'd swiped the business cards to start with.)

MONTPELIER SPLENDID, MASTER OF CLOCKWORK
A known associate of billobv (see BILLOBV) and a member of Professor Excellent's band of plucky adventurers and unofficial force for justice, The Mighty Champions, Montpelier has anti-climactically yet to appear. He's investigated Kenickie in his spare time between vanquishing the eccentricities of evil, however.

MONTY PYTHON, CONTINUING PERCEPTION OF BRITAIN'S COMEDY AS COMPRISING SOLELY
One thing that infuriates billobv is the equation of British comedy with Monty Python. "That was about 138 years ago," he points out reasonably. "What of Fry and Laurie? The Day Today? Brass Eye? Harry Hill? Victoria Wood? Ivor Cutler? Jerry Sadowitz? Eddie Izzard? Father Ted? The fantastically sinister The League of Gentlemen? The apocalyptically-more-sinister-than-that Jam?" "Still, that Lumberjack Song, eh?" comes the reply.

billobv has since learned that this is not for want of trying. KT reveals that American TV shows almost no humorous televisual enprogrammements from Britain except Monty Python and (dear lord) Red Dwarf. "This is disgraceful!" thunders billobv. "I'd do something about it, except I don't have to because I'm here already. Hurrah!" He ponders a British Comedy Party Bucket tape for the Cafe and welcomes suggestions for what ought to be on it.

The Comedy Party Bucket has been cancelled, as it turns out that recording NTSC-compatible tapes (as opposed to playing them) is a crikeyingly expensive and difficult process. Instead, billobv plans to pick up a bunch of books and possibly make some audio tapes. Further bulletins as events warrant.

MOOP YINKLE
"The notorious folk-singer bandit of Old Kentish Town?" asks billobv. No one seems to know, although later Yinkle is arrested by moustachey sheriff Yup Murphles, so that's all right then.

MORE CLIPBOARD BUSINESS
Brandishing a clipboard, billobv put Vakko on roller-skates and gave him a push. This led to a tick in the "Taur coordination on roller-skates: Minimal" box. He then put Vakko in a car and gave him a push, which led to a tick in the "Handbrake recognition: High" box. The experiment concluded with a crumpled billobv ticking the box marked "Becomes irrationally tetchy, impedes progress of science, stands on heads."

MORE MAGIC
billobv pulled Wilford's tongue, making his eyes spin until they stopped on two pound signs, causing money to pour from his ears. Wilford wondered why they weren't dollars, considering he was American, leading to the obvious conclusion: either the money or his ears were counterfeit. Heedless, grizzled prospectors approached thunderously from miles around in the Great WB Gold Rush, but billobv saved the day by turning the Cafe sign to "Closed." Freakalari then gave everyone Swiss chocolate, and Plucky twiddled his thumbs, glancing occasionally at the time using his new wrist-top sundial with small sun attached and keeping well away from dynamite.

MORRIS DANCE
"The Stanley Baker-style crumpled hero type who was briefly popular in late-1950s thrillers?" asks billobv, but no one knows.

MOTH
Mr Fu has a moth. He is training it to eat coats.

MOUTH
Yes, with its mouth.

MOUNTIE PIRATES VERSUS DRACULA: THE KINEMATOGRAPH
(Toonplay.) Taking advantage of the setting of a large bathtub, billobv fell into the water and, failing to understand a life-jacket, asked for a stewardess to be thrown in to demonstrate. Following Rhia's account of an earlier incident (see RHIA'S ACCOUNT OF AN EARLIER INCIDENT), everyone decided to make a film about pirates (ie, billobv said, "Let's make a film about pirates," and nobody could get to the door in time). billobv was distracted by discovering the Northwest Passage (Tony's nose as the fox quasi-snorkelled about the place) and pulling lots of ropes and things to make the sails move (technical sailing jargon) so he wouldn't crash into a looming Pluckberg and founder. The loofah mysteriously disappeared, until a hiccuping Tony admitted he'd probably eaten it by mistake, which set evolution back a few million years as the loofah was the link between lungfish and glaziers. Rhia and Plucky got out of the bath to have a bath and a shower respectively, and Acme arrived in time to be distracted from the ill-thought-out dialogue by three special effects. Tony drew a cutlass and billobv launched a pocket galleon, calling for a broadside or an omelette, depending on which speaking tube he was using. Rhia swooned into Cap'n Pluckweather's arms, and Tony fired lots of confetti over everybody with a stupid cannon. There was a brief interlude while Acme was rescued from managing to jam himself in the overflow pipe, and Tony, tiring of villainy, switched sides. To preserve balance, billobv revealed himself to be Black Bill, the scourge of seven seas and a bit of Todmorton, and gave Tony a taste of his trusty omelette, then clonked the props department with a frying pan. Re-equipped with a cutlass, billobv swung over to Tony's ship with a rope, at which point Tony blasted him point-blank in the treasure map with a shotgun, which was fortunate as the end of the rope hadn't been tied to anything and billobv would just have fallen embarrassingly into the water again. Rhia handed out the new pages, and everyone prepared for the next scene - the big car chase. Tony leapt into his purring Foxmobile, which instantly sank, and billobv tried to wind up his little Shriner car, but the spring fought back and he was whizzed around appropriately. The costumes arrived, and the scene continued with Acme dressed as Count Dracula, billobv dressed as billobv and Tony in his trailer phoning his agent. Taperlass and Chilly turned up as Mounties, Plucky put on a large moustache, some palm trees were delivered, the cameras began rolling and billobv dropped 493 contact lenses. Rhia jumped up and down on her director's hat and went to bed, missing the bursting dam by moments. billobv fired a flare gun in lieu of "Action!" but burned down the set. With the story wrapped up, billobv cued Taperlass to deliver the big punchline, but she'd gone home, so they called it a silent movie. Acme made a few shadow animals on the side of the bathtub for the James Bond-style end credits, and everyone agreed to have Rhia's name incredibly large on the marquee, while they'd all be billed microscopically as Alan Smithee. "I notice these contracts have sequel clauses," says billobv. Everyone runs into the hills. (See also WICKED CRAZY: THE BROADWAY MUSICAL.)

MR FU'S BIRTHDAY CELEBRATIONS
Mr Fu's birthday was marked severally in countries throughout the world by parades, orchestral blasts and the words "Happy Birthday Mr Fu" displayed across the heavens by a skywriter. Tragically, the poor-quality fly-gent rendered the improving message as "Happy Birthday Mr Uf," but by billobv's turning the sky around, Fu's name was correctly beamed across the world. That this act of quick thinking caused the planets to fall from their orbits, wreaking untold havoc across the face of the globe, served only to make the event ever the more memorable to those viewers who weren't squashed by bits of Venus.

MR FU'S MIGHTY PELT
WB Wolf, slightly embarrassed at being caught stalking Fu by Fu, explained that he'd read a newspaper report of ratskin rugs being sold for nearly two thousand dollars (17/6d). Dot suggested replacing Fu's coat with a felt pelt and splitting the proceeds, but Fu refused. billobv was reminded that a rat's pelt is nature's greatest form of protection - sturdier even than the hide of a rhino - and proceeded to experimentally bounce very small rocks and crumpled newspapers off Fu's back as illustration. Thinking how easily this could be worked up into an act (see THE AMAZING JEFFO), billobv prepared his climactic pelt offensive, but Fu testily brought the experiment to an end just before billobv could repeatedly smash him with a photocopier. billobv produced the relevant scientific journal reassuringly, but Fu pointed out the story about the rat's mighty pelt lacked authority because it was actually an advertisement for an ice-lolly that billobv was trying to cover with his thumb. There followed an extensive argument, during which billobv took his belt off to WB, causing his trousers to fall down and extraordinarily elderly people to laugh and applaud then die.

MR MEMORY
Iop, in a cameo appearance, wandered into the Cafe and asked to be a host. Immediately, KT had thrust him into a frightful tux and given him a microphone, while Fu and His Wen-chi Seven (all played by billobv via multiple exposures or something) performed introductory music. Iop froze in the lights (possibly stage fright - see THE AMAZING JEFFO) and KT quickly promoted billobv to host instead, giving him a ghastly tux as they didn't do frightful in his size. billobv introduced the master of mighty mental manipulation - the champion chamberlain of cogitated cerebration - Mr Memory! and as Fu conducted some tatty chords, KT was poked on stage with a stick. He'd totally forgotten he was Mr Memory and billobv had to nurse the act along by entirely randomly picking in an utterly unrehearsed coincidence Fu The Band-Leader as the volunteer from the audience, whose imagined picture Mr Memory would draw with the ink of a pen. (The act was called Mr Memory, as promoter billobv pointed out that to have had Mr Artistic Mind-Reader printed on the posters would have penalised profits with its plentiful print; he then fitted the mike with a spoffle.) The lights dipped, and a dramatic drum-roll built the suspense as Mr Memory drew - an ear of corn. Astounding the audience stunningly, Volunteer Fu then revealed he'd been thinking of - an ear of corn! although to avert suspicion the act was rigged he called it a train. billobv hurled the rat into the wings and properly interpreted his remarks for the audience, except they'd all gone home. billobv furiously went through the hand signals again with KT, turning to find the audience hadn't gone home but just to the bar, and he'd slightly tipped the wink over an open mike. The act closed to thunderous applause, but that was for billobv having chairs thrown at him as he tried to scamper away. "Next week - Vegas!" congratulates billobv. Within moments people from Vegas are kicking him badly.

MUSICIAN, COMPOSE THYSELF
A stern reminder to stack alongside the more well-known, "Physician, heal thyself." "Carpenter, heal myshelf," is also in there somewhere, but not when billobv's within earshot of patrons with hefty props.

MULTIPLE ANGLES
KT, looking into the space world of tomorrow with his special jet-powered atomic binoculars, foresaw a time when computer-generated films would be viewable from any angle. billobv simulated the effect in the present by putting KT in a tumble-drier and changing the viewing angle by switching the control dial around a lot, including bits where he watched KT in reverse and on stop-frame. "These digital tumble-driers are excellent," says billobv.

MYSTERY BOX
Departing one evening, billobv left behind a large box covered with question marks, that has a tag marked "Pull." As far as history records, no one dared go near it.

MYSTERY PRIZE
Demonstrating a cleverness, KT was awarded a mystery prize, but no one could work out what it was. This led to a fight. (See THIS LED TO A FIGHT.)

NAKKO IS A SQUIRREL WHAT IS A SQUIRREL
How Okkay described Nakko to a passer-by, which sounds a bit like the start of a song, but wasn't.

NARROWLY-ESCAPED KNIFE-RELATED INJURY
Inadvertently aggravating Sylvia Fox by taking a survey, billobv escaped knife-related injury only by the merest good fortune of the tick in the "Aggravated by questioning to the point of throwing knives" box providing a vital few extra microns of defence.

NEED ANY HELP WITH THAT PAPER BAG?
Danger Mouse crept up behind Toony and popped a paper bag as a joke. She smacked him one, but unbeknownst (What a lovely word. Unbeknownst unbeknownst unbeknownst. But anyway) to DM, KT had been resting his head in the bag. billobv leapt to the rescue by inflating another paper bag and drawing a turtle face on it, then sticking it to KT's shell, but KT insisted on talking a lot, and billobv couldn't keep up with redrawing his mouth all the time for the vowels. "I only have a stub of rubber," says billobv. Inspiration strikes and he draws on a pair of dark glasses, a surgeon's face-mask and a floppy wig. KT can now yatter away as much as he wants invisibly. "This limited animation thing is easy," brags billobv. "Well, as long as KT doesn't move around much."

NINETEEN HOURS
Hobbes suddenly drew attention to the fact that he had been in the Cafe for nineteen hours. billobv awards a chest of chocolate medals. It's supposed to be one, but Hobbes has a lockpick.

NORTHERNMOST POINTS
As the Cafe worked out which patron had travelled to a northernmost point, billobv asked if anyone on their way had found his blue pen. Weirdguy had, had kept it and was writing with it at that moment like a sinister fiend. billobv carefully prepared another blue pen to lose, this one rigged to squirt blue pen ink all over Weirdguy's head. "Ha ha!" relishes billobv, "except now I don't have that blue pen either."

NO-UPSET-O
The wonder drink with added vitamins C and Q.

NUMBER RHUMBA
Asking two questions, billobv adds a third point: "3 - Coins in the fountain." KT replies, "4 - He's a jolly good fellow." Michael Mink comes in on the bass with, "5 - Golden rings." KT waves a straw boater and crows, "6 - Teen candles." The audience applauds at the magnificent 7, leaving KT to 8 the whole thing. Dakko cameos with, "9 - I don't speak German," and the entire company 10 cues very much. The single peaks at 2,704 in the charts.

OH NO! AAARGHH!
billobv's common response to stairs, given in a regularly diminishing tone.

OH, WHAT A TANGLED WEB WE WEAVE DUM-DE-DUM-DE-DUM DECEIVE
Following the Fu-Hobbes swordfight (see RAFTERS), Fu prepared to leave. "Really?" asked billobv. "Really really? No just-turning-to-catch-Hobbes-off-guard? No letting-the-door-swing-closed-then-bursting-back in?" In fact, no. Fu left and the door swung closed, then Fu burst back in, and billobv spanged him with a shovel. A reverberating tonk raised suspicions, and Sylvester turned Fu over to reveal he was KT wearing a rat costume as a funny joke. "Ha ha!" laughs billobv appreciatively, flipping the shovel out of the window behind his back.

OK CHARLIE
An occasional billobvism. It's from How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, and it's all in the delivery. "OK Charlie." Like that.

OKKAYDOG
Okkaydog left to feed her cats, marking a new era in 'nine relations.

OKKAYFROTH
Destined to appear in a chapter all of its own in a book on great drinks through history under the title Why This Is Not A Great Drink Of History, Okkayfroth was used to revive Danger Mouse, who had challenged billobv to an arm-wrestling match, unaware that at that exact moment, KT had reconnected the power to billobv's robotic arms, thus leading inadvertently to DM being hurled through a wall. (See ROBOTIC ARMS.) Coming to, DM exhibited the odd symptom of lengthy blithering whenever Yakko was mentioned, and after a series of careful scientific tests including showing DM a photograph of Yakko, then, as DM squeezed his eye closed to escape the image and thus moderate his blithering, slipping the photograph under DM's eye-patch, billobv concluded that the revivifying drink was a tad suspect. Pressed on his brilliant deduction, billobv was found to have made the foaming liquid by spooning a mug into the bowl Okkay was using to soak her feet after a long walk, and, as everyone knows, Okkay stores her blither in her foot, like a sort of blither pancreas, except on a leg. "And the moral of the story is, don't go... for long... walks?" revealed billobv to the zoo-going orphan children at home, leaving Okkay to destroy the rest of the Okkayfroth for the good of the world while KT played the signature tune on a Moog and billobv strode off demanding rewrites.

OKKAY PB WARNER
Okkay's vengeful alter-ego, summoned whenever anyone mentions peanut butter (a sort of revolting paste invented overseas by a lunatic). No one exactly knows why Okkay hates peanut butter, as whenever anyone mentions it, this summons Okkay PB Warner, her vengeful etc etc.

OKKAY'S BIRTHDAY
Okkay's birthday, falling coincidentally on the day of her birth, was celebrated by the hoisting up one side of the world's largest skyscraper a picture KT had used over 618,552 pencils in drawing as the magnify button on the photocopier was bust, of Yakko bursting out of a birthday cake wearing a big grin. This prompted several patrons to run around in their birthday suits. billobv arranged for a busload of 19th century aunts to be delivered so they could say "Well, really!" and leave disgustedly. Yakko arrived to deliver a birthday Yakkogram in person, causing Okkay to blither until snorkels were needed. Cake is handed out. billobv gets a bit with a candle on, except for the bit.

OKKAY'S UNSOLICITED TESTIMONIAL
"billobv would certainly be funnier than Ernst Rubik with particular trousers!" billobv puts this on his official poster.

OKKAY WARNER DOES A LITTLE BILLOBV DANCE
Quite out of the blue, Okkay started answering billobv's little dance (see BILLOBV DOES A LITTLE DANCE) with her own interpretation of it, like the bit in a musical where two characters do a little dance and the people in the audience who don't like musicals realise finally and beyond doubt that they've crept into the wrong auditorium. With the smallest practice, Okkay could replicate the little dance perfectly, and has since added the little billobv2 dance to her repertoire. billobv for his part has grasped Okkay's little dance of the little billobv dance, so if they both happen to be in the Cafe, there's a lot of little dancing.

OLD SHELL GAME, THE
Attempting to retrieve their suitcases from the manager of the hotel, billobv set KT's shell, containing KT, atop a table beside two identical shells, whizzed them around a bit, then called on passers-by to guess which one KT was under. But KT hadn't withdrawn his legs or arms or head, so players guessed easily, and billobv had to pay out billions of pounds. KT then stuffed billobv into a shell and tried again, and thanks to billobv's connection breaking, no one could see him, so they won all the money back. To avoid suspicion, billobv put on a large false moustache, and referred to KT as Kinky Trousers. They then identified themselves to the folks at home, but forgot the shell game players would be watching as well, and were pursued in the approved manner.

O-O
The wonder surprise indicator.

OP
(Action.) A non-violent bop. (Literally, "bop without the plosive.") For mild rebukes; similar in effect to a 1950s British caper movie mastermind hitting a bumbling henchman with a hat. Not to be confused with "op" as in whatever op means in the context of special computer things.

OP EXCELLENT
"Operation Excellent," which is currently being kept absolutely unknown.

OP WICKER
"Operation Wicker," billobv's oft-alluded-to secret online thing. Several people are involved. It will be excellent.

billobv has officially announced "Op Wicker" to really be The Weekly.

PACKAGE BIT
(Toonplay.) Okkay gave billobv a big package. billobv opened the package to find a slightly smaller package. billobv opened the package to find a slightly smaller package. billobv opened the package to find a slightly smaller package. billobv opened the package to find a slightly smaller package. billobv opened the package to find a slightly smaller package. billobv opened the package to find a slightly smaller package. billobv opened the package to find a slightly smaller package. billobv opened the package and fell through a hole in the middle of the universe into a spooky vortex. billobv is now about the size of a tiny atom.

PAINT JOB
(Toonplay.) Following a doodle war, billobv painted David Mouse bright yellow so he resembled a bad canary impression. Immediately regretting it, billobv tried to repaint David properly, but had joined the Stupid Paint Colour of the Month Club and only had a tin of maroon. He tried dunking David in it hopefully, but David just turned maroon. At that moment billobv's latest stupid paint colour arrived by post and, confidently predicting it would be David-shade off-white, he tied a string to the mouse and dipped him thoroughly, only to read the label and find the stupid colour was cerise. Pointing in a direction, billobv hailed a taxi and escaped to the last place David would think of looking, but David hailed another taxi with the 731-point-winning cry, "Hurry! Take me to the last place I'd think of looking," and arrived at a costermongery in Omsk run by Urbel Orbel wearing a suspicious false moustache. At that point the paint dried, and David was frozen, statue-like, in mid-pose. The inflexible mouse signalled with his eyes for help, but billobv (for it was he) misread this as "Send more chickens" and loosed a bunch of chickens, which flapped around for a bit then roosted quietly on David's head. billobv immediately saw the ingenuity of David's plan and went on holiday, and after only 188 years the gripping action of the chickens' feet had scraped away enough paint for David to call for proper help by tapping a gas-pipe in Morse with a ladle clamped between his teeth.

PAPER, WONDER MATERIAL OF THE JET ATOMIC AGE
To demonstrate the power of paper, billobv flew around with a little paper jetpack. It immediately caught fire and he fell into the cellar. However, he was completely unharmed thanks to the shock-absorbent qualities of - paper! Marvellous.

PASSERS-BY WHO LEAVE IMMEDIATELY
Strange people. Maybe they're all taking part in a giant game of hide-and-seek.

PASS THE PARCEL
Everyone played pass the parcel, until Okkay ate it. Listening to Okkay's midriff with a stethoscope, billobv determined that a bit of a jiggle would loosen the outer wrapping, so Okkay jiggled like she'd never jiggled before. Hurrah! The music restarted, and billobv passed Okkay to his left.

PATENTS
KT, striking a pose, wondered what Patent Number One had been issued for. It was, of course, the idea of patents. Patent Number Two was for the number two, which people outmanoeuvred by using the public domain number one twice instead, then, later, several times for larger numbers. But whenever a two is used, a royalty is paid. Dakko realised this explained the lack of two-dollar bills (a sort of American pound note)., which was true - with inflation, the royalty for the number two comes to about three dollars and two cents (about four pounds eighty), thus trapping itself deeper in debt. "And now you know the rest of the story," says billobv, except they don't, because he's forgotten to return the library book again.

PEARS
(Toonplay.) Trapped on a flight to Mars, the Toonplay residents had to ration their sole form of sustenance - a small box of pears. A mere 8000000 miles out, Okkay snapped, bashing at the box with her head. billobv managed to talk her down. "It's the solitude of space that does it. Or possibly the big juicy round delicious lovely edible crisp green dew-kissed pears, I forget which," he remarked wisely. Then, "Mmmm." And "Pears! Pears!" as he bashed at the box with his head. Okkay shook him until he went wurgle-wurgle-wurgle, and all seemed well. But billobv was looking at Runt, who'd mysteriously become a large, Runt-shaped pear, and little swirly squiggles appeared in billobv's eyes. Runt hid behind a full stop erkingly, when suddenly! the flight to Mars ended, and they didn't land on Mars at all, but the Planet of Pears, where everyone ate their fill and disaster was averted (except for being stuck on the Planet of Pears, but that was marked down to a continuity error). "What a convenient wrap-up! I'll "pear" we won't be doing that again! Or something. Er. Look, just roll the credits and music and stuff," says billobv.

PEG-LEGS
KT stomped around on some peg-legs like a pirate. billobv strapped on some peg-legs as well, but taller ones, so he could be a pirate of the high seas. KT asks him to hit the high Cs, but billobv's delivery is a bit stilted.

PENNY
Rad Raven's new dino and friend to Rex (see RAD RAVEN AND REX), made out of pennies. "Wheee! Hurrah!" says billobv2.

PHASER
KT pointed a phaser at billobv. billobv, playing it cool, is unphased, so KT pelts him with jellybeans instead.

PHOTOGRAPH OF OKKAY
billobv compared Okkay with a photograph of Okkay. "It's Okkay! We've been looking everywhere except where you turned out to be." Okkay held up the photograph. "Wow! It's like me, only flatter!" Everyone looks into camera.

PIE FIGHT
"I'd advise against it," says billobv, levelling his splurge gun.

PIKE BIT
Given a pike, billobv used it to poke Dakko. Observing Dakko did not say, "Aaarghh! I have been skewered with a pike!" but instead ate it, billobv deduced it was the fish rather than the pole with the spiky bit on the end.

PLATFORM SHOES
With the aid of platform shoes, Danger Mouse stood in the general direction of tall. Realising the shoes were mounted on roller-skates, he then put them on billobv and gave him a push, watched him flurry across the floor multiple-legly and opened the cellar door as he approached, then closed it behind the skate-gent to afford him a little privacy negotiating the 6,033,519 stairs. billobv did the bit with striking the match and seeing lots of things looking at him and there followed an incident. Later, billobv emerged in a ragged state and, enticing DM with honeyed tones, gave the fiend mouse a box of chocolate money, which he wasn't expecting. The novelty confectionery turned out to be real money, at which point billobv realised he'd messed up at the bank, and the warm weather had liquidised his assets. Readers! Don't wear platform shoes, or you'll hurt your teeth and go bankrupt.

PLUCKY, BILLOBV'S UNCANNY ABILITY TO OFFEND WITHOUT HAVING THE SLIGHTEST IDEA HE'S DOING IT
Probably most famously in the Plucky/billobv "Look at my new page, everybody"; "It's a bit empty, isn't it?"; "What? What? I'm pierced to the heart. I wrote that page with two bullets in my hip while dragging orphans from a burning building, solving a local government crisis and fighting my way to the controls of the punctured aeroplane etc etc etc" exchange. "It seems to be a gift," says billobv mystifiedly. "What do you mean, gift?" demands Plucky, offended.

PLUCKY - ENTERPRISE DUCK
Plucky cleaned KT's clock, which KT hung on the wall and admired the sparkle of. Plucky's business now covers four-fifths of the island, like a big weed, although a big weed that cleans clocks.

PLUCKY'S PECKISH
That's nearly a joke, son.

PLUCKY QUACKS PINKLY
"Shouldn't that be "quinks" then?" asks billobv. Plucky shuts him in a drawer.

PLUCKY YAWN BIT
Plucky yawned. billobv swiftly put his head in the duck's gaping jaws ("Ta-daaa!"), pulling it out eight-twelfths of the way through the yawn for safety. A coin rattles in John Snagge's cup.

POCKETWATCH BIT
(Toonplay.) "No, this is no good, it just tells me the age of my pocket," said billobv. The entire population of the world ops him repeatedly. (See OP.)

POLITENESS
"Politeness isn't a contest, man," tutted billobv as Tex Marten gloated over his speedier hello to someone. KT agreed, adding that this showed he was the best and most polite and loveliest and most excellent so there nyer rasppp and no returns. billobv pulled his flapping tongue, unfurling 28 metres of it from KT's head and setting it to work in the stamp-licking mines as just punishment. Cleverly it escaped by attaching stamps to itself and posting itself to the Cafe care of KT's head. "Crafty fellow," says billobv, politely.

POMPT DE-POMPT POMPT DE-POMPT POMPT
The French for "Don't pink my waistcoat."

POST-HYPNOTIC SUGGESTION
By writing things on bits of paper and stuffing them in KT's head, billobv could subtly influence the turtle's behaviour. For example, a piece of paper with the number seven written on it caused KT's guess of a number between one and 21,059,003 to be seven. billobv writes, "React to the word 'twist' by singing," and prepares to ask Plucky about the book he's reading with the story of the eccentric dancing policeman and the reversal-filled mystery in an ancestral home, The Twistin' Inspector and the Twisty Tale of Twistleton Hall. Everyone runs for cover.

Later, billobv hasn't the heart to mention the low-quality movie I Know What You Did When We Twisted Again Last Summer.

POTATO FIGHT
KT upended a bowl of mashed potatoes over Vakko. billobv grabbed a mike. "The turtle's mashed the champ! And the ref's counting him out... One-potato, two-potato..." Vakko scoffed the potatoes strategically, flinging some around in his patented potato-scoffing... flinging... dancing move. Thing. billobv has dropped his pages again.

POTION COMMOTION (HEY, NOT EVERY TITLE'S GOING TO BE CLEVER AND IRONIC)
Unbeknownst (an excellent word) to Rad, Fu had palmed a second bottle of potion (see BLACK HOLE DA-DA-DAA) and now drank it, quadrupling his already disproportionate strength and increasing his natural belligerence threefold. Remembering how most of the Cafe patrons had accidentally stepped on him at least once in their lives - maybe twice - all right, upwards of 53 times apiece - Fu started demanding arm-wrestling rematches (result: Hobbes thrown through wall) and warning that he was right on the edge, and the slightest least small tiniest thing could tip him over. At that moment, billobv wandered in from using Okkay to moop the lawn, and asked, "Has that idiot rat shrunk back to size yet?" Fu began advancing with glaring eyes, effortlessly brushing off Jeff's attempts to restrain him and taking aim at billobv with a shower rail. Kathy flung her arm back to hurl an accurate load of dynamite, but Taperlass interceded by telepathically pinching Fu's carotids, inducing consciousness, so Kathy had to turn the motion into spinning and dropping the dynamite into a bucket of water, which made her stagger athletically in the approved manner. Taperlass used her mental bicycle pump to force the ill-combined potions out of Fu's pores. Another happy ending, except for Fu, who was left with a 90-minute gap in his memory, and everyone else, who felt mildly queasy at the sight of of the unconscious rat fountaining bubbling liquid from his skin.

POT PLANT
billobv gave Dakko a pot plant, which US patrons call potted plants. billobv uses the valuable picoseconds saved by the omitted syllable to divert a meteor that would otherwise have crashed into the Earth.

POWERFUL LUNGS (HELIUM CYLINDER)
billobv gave KT several balloon animals, but KT wouldn't allow Furrball to make a balloon animal of KT, so billobv ran a pipe from a cylinder of helium up the turtle's leg and inflated him that way instead. Furrball tied a string to KT's toe and started walking around with his turtalloon (or ballurt, no one could decide which). eventually reaching France. billobv made a balloon balloonist and floated it up to inspect the balloon KT, cleverly throwing his voice to recreate that famous historical moment when the Montgolfier brothers saw a giant squeaky turtle over Paris ("Sacre maroon! Champs-Elysses! Etc!") then put Plucky in a balloon model of a light aircraft and had him buzz KT, which startled Furrball into letting go of the string. As KT began to float away, Furrball leapt for the string again, but due to special physics, this merely left him dangling helplessly under the rubberised turtle as they skimmed Parisian rooftops. Thinking swiftly, billobv yanked the helium pipe from KT's shell, which led after an incident to KT and Furrball wrapped in string around the top of the Eiffel Tower. billobv climbed the PARIS, FRANCE sign that you always see leaning against the tower in establishing shots in films, but still couldn't reach, so it was left to Jeff H Bear to mount a rescue mission, immediately drawing up some blueprints and buying a shiny yellow hat. KT, seeking faster relief, cut the string with his Swiss Army Knife and fell heavily to the ground, where he stopped. Furrball followed due to normal physics. Jeff tore up the blueprint and threw it away, and Furrball ran the hosepipe up billobv's trouser leg to see what would happen, which was exactly the same thing as before, except billobv had cleverly taken along an inflatable crashmat, but couldn't blow it up more quickly than gravity. Meanwhile, France runs away and hides.

PRACTICE, A SHOCKING INCIDENT INVOLVING
billobv observes Kathy failing to flip Danger Omelette (see DANGER EGG). "Practise, that's what you need." He clutches his wallet and falls down. "Practice! Not practise. It's evening, I'm distracted. Look, it's an honest mistake, I was originally going to say, "Practise, that's what you need to do," but changed my mind, except in a slightly confused manner. However, no one seems to have noticed, so I'll just stroll away and not further draw attention to the error by giving it an entry in the page of billobv. Drat," he adds.

PRANKING RHIA
(Toonplay.) With Rita's attention distracted by the Goodyear Blimp or something, billobv organised a prank where they'd make it appear to her as if the world was upside-down. As the first attempt (trying to balance Rhia on her head before she looked round again) proved too difficult, the Toonplay residents decided to turn the world upside-down instead, with Runt providing a suitable crank. Feeling around at the side of the world, billobv found the socket and inserted the crank handle, warning everyone to hold on and secure loose change in pockets (with complimentary pockets being given to anyone without them. Also loose change) before giving a mighty turn. Due to an error, billobv's vigorous winding just made him turn round in circles on the spot, so Okkay began singing to cover the sound of billobv hitting things with a spanner. At that point the reality meter ran out, and no one had a ten pence piece. The only solution was for a volunteer to be hammered flat in the shape of a 10p and clunked in the slot, but drawing straws didn't work (billobv's drawing was smiling, and had some arms, and was waving), and the broom propping up reality was becoming dangerously bendy. Runt advised everyone to wear a paper bag on their head, but couldn't decide if it should be individual paper bags or a large communal one, but then! billobv found a 10p, which instantly squirted out of his grasp and rolled along to the end of an extremely thin branch of the Christmas tree (see INTRODUCTION TO TOONPLAY) as he'd worn his butter-covered frictionless Teflon Gloves that evening. Runt, thinking quickly, pounced the 10p, but hadn't quite thought about thinking quickly enough, as the branch pdoinged partingly and he was precipitated towards the ground. The bouncy reaction on the tree somersaulted Rhia on to her head, so the prank worked, phew gasp hurrah, and at the last moment Mintaka saved everybody for a happy ending, also chocolate medals.

PRONOUN (LETTER) TROUBLE (TROUBLE)
David Mouse fell asleep, emitting Zs. KT turned him on his side so he emitted Ns. billobv bent KT's I into a circle so he became Konky Turtle, KT repaying the favour and making bollobv, who then rearranged the fiend turtle's letters so he was Let Nikky Rut. David woke up suddenly and everyone scattered, feigning innocence.

PULL THE STRING
billobv gave Vakko a length of string with a ring on the end. "If you stick it to someone's back and pull the ring, they say silly things," he explained. Vakko wondered where it came from; billobv explained it belonged to a pull-the-string talking figure who wanted to be taken seriously and would bellow, "I'll show them I'm not just a selection of humorous catchphrases!" Well, sort of wrote down, actually, because obviously he wouldn't say anything unless you pulled the string. Vakko nods sagely then attaches it to billobv during a distraction and pulls it. "(Zzzzzzzip!) Wagga wagga! Hey!" says billobv. Vakko throws away the string, as it evidently does nothing.

PUNCH UP THE DIALOGUE
Dissatisfied with his dialogue ("Aghk! Oh no! Aieee! Oeurk!"), billobv demanded it be punched up. Danger Mouse started punching him up instead, while KT used a paper-punch to make all billobv's vowels come out as Os. Turning to Tony, whom he had accidentally drenched with a bucket of water, billobv apologised, "Sorry for yon drown, fox." Spotting his spoiling plan, KT began to speak only in seven-letter words. billobv responded similarly ("billobv pokes67 KT34567 recipro. Cally67") only for KT to denounce him as a cheater and a wastrel for abusing heptads. (See also KT'S 7-UP CARTOON.)

PUPIL PUPONG
(Toonplay.) David, concussed, rubbed at his eyes. billobv peeled them off, gave them a rattling shake, then put them back. Mintaka, entranced by the pretty movement, thumped David on the side of the head to watch his pupils bounce. billobv thumped the other side of David's head to get them to bounce back, which led to a game of pupil pupong. billobv, master of the game, paused - hovered - judged the moment - struck! The pupils buzzed back at an oblique angle. Mintaka returned the shot easily, and billobv, lunging, fell down some stairs. "I win!" crowed Mintaka. "Not so loud, I have a headache," groans David. Meanwhile, billobv jumps into his head. (See JOURNEY TO THE CENTRE OF DAVID MOUSE'S HEAD.)

QUANTITY OF TRAINING
After watching billobv survey a quantity (see BILLOBV SURVEYS A QUANTITY), Matt Fox expressed an interest in learning the profession. billobv rushes him through a crash course. "Are you, when will, how much, could you, which way, congratulations! Here's your certificate and official string." There's no time for a class photograph.

RACQUETBALL
Mr Fu suggested a game of racquetball, explaining the rules to billobv as being sort of like tennis, except in a very small room with a ball travelling as if shot from a ball gun. billobv served, only for Fu to duck and the 200mph rubber missile to ricochet off a table leg and punch a hole through billobv's head. Fu went on to win, three games to one.

RADAVIDACTIVE MOUSE
A superhero (David after falling in his own atomic reactor) who zooms to the rescue if people's lightbulbs blow when they're trying to read, although the attendant dripping of toxic sludge over the pages and knees is a high price to pay for the eyestrain-free bluey-yellow glow. Jeff quickly found Radivadactive Mouse's weak spot: he hates being used to reheat slices of pizza. This Christmas, look out for Radavidactive Mouse Action Sludge ("It glows! It gloops! It saves major financial institutions from diabolical fiend masterminds by hitting people with buses!") - it's the hot toy of the season.

RAD RAVEN, EDUCATIONAL RECORDING OF SCIENTIFICALLY-IMPORTANT SPACE TRIPS AND
In his capacity as accidentally-hired reporter for the Megaphone Newsreel, billobv2 has furthered world knowledge of space through being flown around it a lot by Rad Raven and pointing his camera at things. To date, billobv2 has accompanied Rad on expeditions to the edge of the galaxy, where he spanged off due to momentum and almost boofed into a planet, to the Cafe in the space year 9000AD, where giant insects were the dominant species just as science had predicted, and to the Cafe in the old year 60000000BC, where he was almost eaten by a dinosaur. In this last adventure Rad and billobv2 were joined reluctantly by billobv, whom billobv2 bopped gleefully all the way there and back, pausing only in the middle to become involved in a sinister plot by Rad's evil twin to destroy the planet, unexpectedly saving the day by jumping courageously into one of those big impenetrable dust-cloud fights with which these things always climax. As the smoke cleared it turned out Rad had overcome her pesky sister by force of will, and what billobv2 was enthusiastically belabouring with a club was billobv's head, but the sentiment was appreciated, except by billobv. Interested parties may apply to Rad for a loan of her info-packed scrapbooks, which feature diverse and interesting photographs of the trips, painstakingly glued in by billobv2 who managed to glue himself into volume three for a fortnight, commenting, "Wheee! Hurrah!" on his release. "Tch," eyebrows billobv, after regaining consciousness from the prehistoric beating. The latest trip, to another dimension, was greatly uneventful, as it was Rad's evil twin's day off, so they had a chat over a cup of tea and a bun, although it did introduce Rad's dinosaur, Rex, who eats spammers, talks with cards and is made out of dimes, a sort of American penny, so that's all right. (See also THERE'S ONE OF US, BUT ONLY A HALF OF YOU and REX, and PENNY and WHY, IT'S KINDLY OLD MR ZINGLEBLAUM, THE MAN WE LEAST SUSPECTED and BOOKSHOP BARNEY and TOURIST TRAP and BLACK HOLE DA-DA-DAA.)

RAD'S RAZOR
billobv was not entirely sure of the overall effect of his outfit, the results of Emmy's makeover (see EMMY'S MAKEOVER EMPORIUM). As usual, Rad had the measure of the situation: "billobv, you look like a girl." (See also BILLOBV WIBBLES FU'S LOWER LIP WITH A LOLLY STICK.)

RAFTERS
As Hobbes and Fu fought with swords, Tony helpfully lifted billobv into the rafters, where the fox traditionally retreated in times of peril. "Wow, everything looks so different from up here," remarked billobv. "Also, nice jacuzzi." The fight became more swishy and stabby, so Sylvester joined Tony and billobv by firing his cyber-hand upwards like a grapple, but had the settings miscalibrated and instead fired 755 bullets, which pinked billobv's waistcoat, causing him to fall in the general direction of down. Sylvester checked his dipswitches, and in fact had been correct all along, and billobv patted himself down to find not multiple gunshot wounds, but peppercorn, as a passing chef had accidentally wrung a pepper-mill over his head. "Occasionally I win one," beams billobv. Hobbes and Fu clasp each other comradely, throwing aside their swords, hitting billobv on the head with the hilts. (See also OH, WHAT A TANGLED WEB WE WEAVE DUM-DE-DUM-DE-DUM DECEIVE.)

RANDOM FIRE
Sylvester Fox fired his machine-gun hand. billobv zigged aarghingly the length of the Cafe, diving over the bar as slugs splattered across fittings and furniture mere picometres behind him. Sylvester explains he was in fact firing randomly. billobv points out he just manages naturally to get in the way.

REINFORCEMENTS BIT
Calling for reinforcements, KT was given some reins for cement. Had he known the Harry Hill badger parade fist-shaking "Boh!" bit, he would probably have done that.

RETURN OF DANGEROUS DEATH WITH DANGER MOUSE
As a sequel to DM's elaborate drowning incident (honestly, world's greatest secret agents, eh?), the famously eye-patched rodent had nine million gallons of rouge emptied on him from a police helicoper during a mix-up in KT's celebrated KT's America song (see KT'S AMERICA). Dropping dead and complaining to Chilly of the fact, DM failed to respond to Chilly's resourceful poking of him with a live electric wire as just a bit ticklish. Suddenly, billobv remembered that, after the original Dangerous Death With Danger Mouse, he'd written the helpful reminder "Don't Die" on DM's forehead with a blue pen (except accidentally backwards so you needed a mirror when you looked in the mirror). At the time, billobv had returned DM to his pristine snowy state by splapping a white sticker across the note, so now he merely peeled it away. Reminded helpfully, DM returned to life and shook hands all round. He then blabbed to his cousin, Toony Mouse, which billobv thought was a bit outside, especially as DM's twistedly embellished version made it look like billobv had knocked him into a lake then dropped nine million gallons of rouge on him. "I must ask you not to impugn my good name," commented billobv politely, as Toony was watching, so he couldn't lightly stun Danger Mouse with a cricket bat or something.

RETURN OF LICH LORD
To celebrate Easter undeadly, Lich Lord handed out chocolate in the shape of skulls. billobv gave LL a skull in the shape of a chocolate. LL gave it back. billobv tried again. LL bounced it off billobv's head. billobv presented it once more. LL threw it in the sea tied to 217 pounds of pig iron. billobv switched on a dictaphone recording of Danger Mouse saying, "Uncle Lichy!" What will happen next?

REWRITE!
billobv's traditional response to anything going spectacularly wrong, but which doesn't work if the cast pays no attention to the new pages, as he found when he rewrote a sequence where Fu thumped him up good into one where he was unharmed and excellent and Fu was locked in a small steel box at the bottom of the Atlantic with piped-in music, which Fu ignored and kicked him twice.

REX, A THOROUGHLY ALARMING LANGUAGE CRISIS CENTRING ON
Rex, Rad Raven's dime-dino, delighted everyone by saying his first word ("Spammers!") but then started to fall apart. This greatly distressed billobv2, who tried to hug Rex all the way around to keep him together. Several tense moments passed before Rad realised that the problem was caused by Rex trying to speak instead of using his cards, and the dino was quickly restored to health. "That was horrible," says billobv2, who had been on the point of blubbing. "There there, old fellow," says billobv comfortingly. billobv2 bops him and feels much better.

REX'S FEAR OF BILLS
The mighty dime-dino has one predator in the wild: the bill for services rendered. (You always seem to need change for 'em.) billobv successfully introduced a Private Member's Bill to address bills, and Rex now has a certificate of exemption authenticated by Parliament. "I forget the exact procedure," confesses billobv of the billobv bill bill's passing into law, "but it probably involved Black Rod and stupid trousers."

REX THE RUNT
A funny Brit cartoon where all the characters are stamped out of pastry or something. It's from Aardman, which means there's an almost 37% chance it'll be shown in America.

RHIA'S ACCOUNT OF AN EARLIER INCIDENT
(Toonplay.) "Well, like, I was being a seamonster at Acme's boat, and then there was a whirlpool cause okky couldn't steer, then David dissapeared and suddenly there was this robot duck, and acme turned the ship into a mechamouse, and then plucky pressed the buttons and the mouse went a bit crazy and the duck left. I think." (See also MOUNTIE PIRATES VERSUS DRACULA: THE KINEMATOGRAPH.)

RHIA'S CARNIVOROUS HAIR
(Toonplay.) Pointing in a direction, billobv stepped precisely behind Rhia, causing Rhia to spin in billobv-missing confusion. Scampish billobv then began redecorating wherever Rhia wasn't looking, causing her to spin faster in even more confusion, and swish her tail angrily. billobv had to lithely jump over Rhia's tail while trying not to spill armsful of decorating equipment, but as Rhia span faster still, he had to throw everything down a well, leap up and balance on one finger on top of her head in order to minimise the chance of being discovered. At this point, Rhia's carnivorous hair gripped him tentacley and attempted to devour the hapless lit cons. "Er, good evening," said billobv, as Rhia tried to wrestle her hair into submission with curling tongs. "So, your hair's carnivorous then, eh?"

Escaping from the hair, he runs into a forest and gets lost, from which Rhia attempts to rescue him with a trail of breadcrumbs slightly guiltily, but resultingly he is attacked by pigeons.

He eventually gets out by following two huge faux-German children. "Thansk!" he exclaims (see THANSK!). "And the witch's house is that way."

RHIA'S HOMEWORK
(Toonplay.) Rhia had to finish an essay on Comparative Literature in Contemporary Latin America, so billobv suggested, "And then the cavalry arrived, and the tyrant was deposed, and the train got through, and all the flowers grew again. Hurrah! The end," but it didn't really help.

RICHARD FOX AND DUCT TAPE
They don't mix.

RICHARD'S EYES
Wearied by a bout of particular silliness, Richard rolled his eyes. billobv watched them come to a stop. "Fox Eyes! All best are off."

ROBOTIC ARMS
In a curious parallel with billobv2 hugging Rad and Rex until his arms dropped off, billobv found himself slightly at a disadvantage in the elbow department when, as he used a wire to tug about a chunk of Ocelot-O, the tasty almost snack, for Dakkocelot's pouncing edification, Dakkocelot unexpectedly pulled hard at the skittering prey, tearing billobv's arm off. "Oh, tremendous," remarked billobv, before pursuing his arm around the Cafe as Dakkocelot playfully bounded hither and yon. Eventually regaining his arm when Dakkocelot dropped it on his head from the rafters (see RAFTERS), billobv solicited help in reattaching the limb. Obligingly, KT provided a needle and thread, and Kathy a nailgun, which billobv considered helpfully stronger than Plucky's makeshift blu-tack solution which had anyway stuck the arm to the wrong shoulder, so he pulled his arm away from Plucky's crude bindings to nail it on properly. Tragically, he pulled off the wrong arm and now had none, except for two, although they were unusefully on the floor. At this point, KT equipped him with robotic arms, but lowered the strength ridiculously too much after billobv attempted to shake him by the hand and made his finger bits crumple. Now unable to lift his arms to demonstrate how weak his arms were, billobv was challenged to an arm-wrestling competition by Danger Mouse and, perhaps unwisely, accepted. Unbeknownst to DM, KT had suddenly realised what billobv was on about, and had increased the arms' power, though spectacularly too much. As DM flexed his secret agent's muscles, billobv went to shake him sportingly by the hand and accidentally punched him through a wall before tearing himself out of the fabric of the universe while scratching his nose. A little later, he staggered back into the Cafe, sparking carbonisedly, wearing a mysterious hat and with all his own arms and a tremendous story about what had happened to him, which he forgot even as he thought to tell it. Dakko set the robotic arms to playing the piano, and billobv, doffing his mysterious hat, secured a delightful little dance with Kathy Squirrel to the music. The affair was brought to a satisfactory conclusion as billobv kissed Kathy gentlemanly on the hand and, turning, fell down a flight of stairs.

RODENT OF UNUSUAL SIZE
Because of an event, Mr Fu, everyone's favourite seven-inch rat (see DON'T DIE MR FU! et al) grew to seven inches and five feet. "Hurrah!" says billobv, throwing away sheaves of rat insult gags surreptitiously and suggesting Fu change his name proportionally, to Mr Fuuu.

Fu has now returned to normal size, but billobv still can't find his rat insult notes.

RUBIK'S TURTLE
Drawing two horizontal lines on KT, then two vertical lines, billobv started turning and twisting him to make the exciting new puzzle game, Rubik's Turtle. Dakko then drew an X in the middle square, leading to the exciting new puzzle game Rubik's Noughts and Crosses Turtle, or the Kinky Cube. Dakko and billobv had an exciting game of the exciting new etc etc, but didn't get to finish, as Jeff H Bear yawned, and billobv was compelled to pass KT within the circumference of Jeff's jaws, but accidentally dropped him down Jeff's gullet.
RUNT-ABU'S MYSTERIOUS CARDBOARD BOX
Equipped with the manifold powers of any large, excitingly empty item of packaging, and yet still a little more than that, Runt-Abu's box permitted time-travel of a splendidly confusing nature, though almost precipitated the erasing of much of history as if with a big shiny red button due to KT ordering a pizza with a notably unappetising onion topping. The prompt action of deactivatingly turning the box over saved the day, with everything turning out phewingly except for Mr Fu's being accidentally sucked through time and enduring a prolonged and extraordinarily dangerous off-screen adventure. One unseen consequence of inverting the box was the creation of billobv2. (See BILLOBV2.)

RUNT POUNCEHUGS BILLOBV
billobv completely missed this at the time. He now says, "Aghk!" appropriately. (See EXPRESSIONS OF DISMAY, A BILLOBV COMPENDIUM OF.)

SAD, CRYING CLOWN IN AN IRON LUNG
Sylvester Fox noticed an evil clown on the wing of Minerva Fan's aeroplane. (See MINERVA FAN'S AEROPLANE.) billobv, displaying his ticket, pointed out it promised a sad, crying clown in an iron lung and demanded his money back. Swiftly, KT painted billobv's face with onion-flavoured clown makeup and put him in an iron lung, which Sylvester then hammered a cork in the end of and wheeled to a recycling plant. Despite the skunk's best efforts to casually stand in front of the little window billobv had misted up and written PELH on with his finger, the patrons saw the message and immediately began to debate how you properly wrote HELP backwards in type. Eventually they decided on "H3_|q", but billobv had already been turned into a tin. "Anyway, that'll be wrongly reversed," complains billobv cannily.

SAFETY TIPS FROM TIMON
During a discussion about traffic lights and pedestrian crossings, Timon advised waiting at the kerb until you hear the tweeting. billobv thinks of The Tweeting Heart. "That infernal heart! But at least I know it is safe to cross." Buzby clonks him with a reference.

SALE OF THE CENTAURY
Chilly laughed. billobv recorded the laugh, converted it to a soundwave and sold 219,005 posters of the picture. Margaret Mink sold billobv for medical experiments. billobv sold Margaret a bridge. Vakko wanders past absently to justify the excellent title.

SASQUEHANNA HAT COMPANY
Responding to Okkay's little dance (see OKKAY WARNER DOES A LITTLE DANCE), billobv spilled the teetering pile of hats he was supposed to be delivering for the Sasquehanna Hat Company. Pharfignewton (see LOOKING PHAR(FIGNEWTON) BACK INTO HISTORY) produced a box of his own hats, which were Indonesian field military caps, including one of a one-star general, although disappointingly the general wasn't revealed when Pharfignewton lifted the hat. Tony Fox also lifted a hat, one of billobv's delivery, a fedora, leaving billobv one short, although he escapes censure by quickly fashioning a replacement from butter.

SAW/SWAY
Nakko became scared of a girl sawing her hips. No, swaying, he corrected himself. Everyone nods meaningfully and makes notes in little books.

SCARY COMPUTER TALK
What the Cafe sometimes has rather too much for comfort of. Just grit it out. It probably builds character.

Refreshingly, scary computer talk is entirely absent from Toonplay. billobv still falls off things a lot though.

SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS GOES "BOINK"
KT corrects the common misconception. In fact, scientific progress goes, "Aieee!" (Kablam!) "Coughcoughcough."

SCOTSMAN BOMB
Plucky tried to turn billobv into a Scotsman with a Scotsman Bomb, but billobv happened to be wearing his super-thermal anti-Scotsman long-johns, like in Batman. "Foiled by underwear," fumes Plucky, escaping in a one-duck submarine disguised as a piece of toast.

SECESSION
WB Wolf expressed the wish to travel east of Ypsilanti. billobv obligingly pushed everything east of Ypsilanti significantly far to the west, but it broke off and ran down a hill, picking up speed. billobv jumped for the tow-ropes in an attempt to bring the runaway countryside under control, but had miscalculated weight ratios, and was dragged behind bouncingly. The countryside, with billobv in attendance, hit a cliff and did the bit where the soundtrack went silent except for subtle wind effects as they flew into space, before landing on a lower plateau and carrying on, and eventually they fell into the sea, forming a small island kingdom. WB Wolf mistook it for South America and waved it away, so billobv sculled the island to a more advantageous position and did a little hula dance, but then the whole thing vanished over a waterfall. Meanwhile, commuters from Ypsilanti drop puzzledly into a large quarry.

SECRET AGENT BUSINESS
Exploiting Danger Mouse's secret agent powers, billobv directed him to conceal three cups of tea in the bough of an oak, then guard the blueprint to a sandwich, because they were Britain's secret tree-teas and submarine plans. DM squirts him with secret ink from his secret pen.

SECRET OF LICH LORD
Hallowe'en saw a guest appearance of Lich Lord. At the stroke of midnight, or 3pm, or evening, depending on your time zone, LL pulled off his cape to reveal he was, in fact - Good Lord - Great Gadfrey - Well well well. Patrons look at each other in bafflement. "I couldn't have been more surprised if it had been kindly old Mr Zingleblaum, the man we least suspected," says billobv. "Hang on if it's Hallowe'en, and Lich Lord's a mouldering zomb-o anyway, shouldn't he have been dressed as a lovely daisy or something anyway?" he adds. A Whoisit Break is started for the folks at home to discuss the various theories of Lich Lord's true identity. (See WHOISIT BREAK IS OVER and, unrelatedly, WHY, IT'S KINDLY OLD MR ZINGLEBLAUM, THE MAN WE LEAST SUSPECTED.)

SECRET OF PLUCKMANIA
Observing Plucky packing away something like the fourth lunch in under an hour, billobv wondered if Pluckmania is merely an elaborate ruse to get everyone together so he can eat them. Sylvester Fox chuckled dismissively and there entirely failed to be a wipe to Sylvester in a big pot. "This could have been planned better," thinks billobv. Sylvester hits him lightly with a cricket bat. Plucky feels peckish. Resignedly billobv hitches a lift to PLUCKY, BILLOBV'S UNCANNY ABILITY TO OFFEND WITHOUT HAVING THE SLIGHTEST IDEA HE'S DOING IT for the ninth time in a row.

SETTLING THE BILL
After buying a spectacularly overpriced sandwich from KVRTaka and failing to get away with handing him a coin attached to a piece of elastic 34 million times, billobv paid in full using Plucky's chequebook and Plucky, because he couldn't do the signature. Plucky took himself back and stuffed billobv into the till instead. This reminded Taka that Plucky's account was overdue, but billobv magnanimously insisted on paying for it himself, with a huge cheque. Frostbite appeared to be about to say something about the cheque, but mysteriously fell into a giant vat of custard after billobv pushed him.

SEVEN-LETTER NURSERY RHYMES
As a continuation of KT's seven-letter phase (see PUNCH UP THE DIALOGUE and KT'S 7-UP CARTOON), the melodious chelonian has been translating various nursery rhymes into that demanding form. Here, by arrangement with the estate of KT (the car he drives around in, or something) are some of them. Try reading them in the tones of an important newsreader for extra effect.

KINKY TURTLE'S SEVEN-LETTER RHYMES JACK AND JILL Jacques, Jillian climbed hillock. Purpose: acquire liquids. Jacques tripped, cracked cranium; Jillian endured similar. OLD MOTHER HUBBARD Grandma Hubbard entered kitchen. Mission: doggie's chewtoy. However, pantry's holding nothing; canine's hunger's unsated. THREE BLIND MICE Triplet blinded rodents. Triplet blinded rodents. Observe animals scamper! Observe animals scamper! Rodents pursued farmer's partner; matron's cleaver trimmed hinders! Witness bizarre episode thereof: Triplet blinded rodents!
"These are excellent," says billobv, "although I think "doggie's chewtoy" should be "nourish mongrel"." KT decks him with a thesaurus.

SEVERALLY KILLING SYLVESTER FOX BY MISTAKE
With Fu on holiday (see FU GOES HAWAIIAN) billobv gave a few tables a cursory polish. Sylvester stylishly moved aside with his cup and saucer as his disintegrated into a smoking pile of toxic slag and questioned billobv's polishing formulae and powers of chemistry in general. While trying to alert the public to the smouldering table ruin with a sign cleverly altered from "Danger! Wet Floor" to "Danger! Monstrously horrible acidic slagpile! Stay back! Whooooo!", billobv accidentally killed Sylvester by removing all the oxygen from the Cafe with a pocket fan. Attempting to revive the death-gent with Plucky's help, billobv proceeded unintentionally to blast Sylvester around bruisingly with some air, punch him in the head and mortally offend him (see SYLVESTER FOX, A TERRIBLY, TERRIBLY IMPORTANT THING ABOUT). Thinking swiftly, billobv then constructed a small corral, hung a sign above the gate saying The Dead, dragged Sylvester in by his ankles, smacking him against bits of furniture on the way and then, with studied casualness, pulled Sylvester's arm across his shoulder and walked him out to where they'd started from, whistling all the way. He had, in fact, quite literally brought Sylvester back from The Dead, and Sylvester returned to life with a horrible groan. The moment was spoiled only by billobv shaking Sylvester's hand clean off, and the skunk machine-gunning him continuously for 119.4 seconds. "I almost talked my way out of it," says billobv. "As Sylvester aimed his Gatling cannon, my mind worked like lightning. However, I was really counting on the fool thing working like a mind, and the rest is history."

SHEILA WARNER
"I'm not in this," complains Sheila, echoing Weirdguy. (See WEIRDGUY'S COMPLAINT.) And, er, she isn't, except for a cameo as Chief Scientist in CHILLY MOUSE'S MOTHER. "Lots happens and I'm behind at the moment," explains billobv. "So don't kill me or anything." As Sheila inspects the page, he cleverly throws blankets over the bits where he woundingly offends Plucky (see (Floomp! - A blanket)), just in case.

Sheila has since appeared briefly as Captain Tights (see CAPTAIN TIGHTS) and as the initial cause of the spooky mutation bit (see CRUET FU).

SHOCK! CONSTERNATION! UPROAR!
Plucky - drinks milk!

SLOW POKE
billobv gave KT a slow poke. ("Poooooooooke.") KT responded appropriately. ("Toooooooonk.") Time marches on.

SMILES
billobv swapped Okkay's and KT's smiles, resulting in KT trying to say "Yig-ped" but its coming out like "Yakko" and Okkay trying to say "Yakko" and its coming out like, er, "Yag-ko." billobv then swapped Dot's and Dakko's heads, but Dot didn't like the beard so swapped them back. billobv took KT's head and put it under one of three thimbles, then swished them round and round, round they go, where they stop, nobody knows. Dakko, with the correct head, said, "Yig-ped," and listened closely, then pointed to the thimble that yig-pedded (or possibly y-yig-ped) back. But he was supposed to find the queen of hearts, so lost all his money. "Saaaay, how did you fit KT's head in a thimble?" asks Dakko. "Perspective!" answers billobv.

SMILING WAVING BEAR PHENOMENON
Seizing control of the Hubble Telescope, Chilly focused on Jeff, who accordingly smiled and waved. Space scientists all over the world run into each other in excitement.

SNAKES
Due to budget restrictions, keeping the lid on a tin of purple food colouring unmindfully dropped in a swimming pool full of cornstarch meant that the box of snakes was left open. They promptly sprang out and attacked billobv, who threw open the question of how to save him to the studio audience. "Call now with your top snake-handling tips! Winner gets a piece of pie," he explained, being dragged back into the snake melee. "Call now! No, really." Vakko suggested scaring them away with the rubbish firework-style snakes, but the real snakes just waved their own firework-style snakes back at him. Meanwhile, KT sneaks away with the pie.

SNOGGING
Britain's (see BRITAIN) finest export, after guilt.

SPAM HUNT
Rex and Penny went on a spam hunt, chasing down and eating spammers. Tussles ensued, resulting in the two coin creatures being confined to bed. (See WHY, IT'S KINDLY OLD MR ZINGLEBLAUM, THE MAN WE LEAST SUSPECTED.)

SPARKKLAY
billobv's suggestion for renaming Okkay after she'd gone through a car wash, but she fell in a bucket of mud and forestalled the debate anyway.

SPEAK BILLOBV
It's easy to speak billobv. Merely pepper your conversation with exclamations like "Crikey," "Crumbs" and "Lawks," and complicated and pointlessly unfathomable references to unknowably obscure things you uniquely find tremendously funny. Hurrah! You're indistinguishable from the real thing. (Blimey. - billobv.)

SPELL ME
Idly, Hobbes ran billobv through a spellchecker, which didn't like his "Waghk!" and suggested an alternative, which is why whenever you now push billobv down a well, he says, "Walk!" (which tends to make KT start walking, in fact).

SPICY MOVIE
Theories were flung with fling to the identity of mysterious patron Spicy Serv. Not fooled by the protestations of "I'm just zis bot, you know?", billobv deduced Spicy Serv was sitting in a large, wing-backed chair, with the lights arranged so he or she is deeply in darkness, with perhaps a mysterious silhouette in there somewhere, and began looking around for the secret panels, miniature submarines and poised atomic missiles that usually go with sinister mysterious overlord types. He found a pencil, which convinced Nakko, who advocated driving Spicy Serv into the sea before the mystery figure killed them all. Nakko had based his reasoning on the well-known narrative cliché of someone giving someone else a pencil, the story usually padded out with 90 minutes of car chases and stuff, but everyone turned the wrong way at the junction or something, and ended up outlining a film called Cop Tips Cow Two Million Dollars, then playing a game of ludo and forgetting.

STARING CONTEST
An escalatory staring contest led to Plucky having false half-basketball eyes, and Chilly having fake half-Neptune eyes. But neither could beat billobv, who could keep up his piercing stare forever, as long as he didn't type "blink." (Drat.)

STERN LECTURE
What Fu planned to give, but billobv convinced him a stern lectern would be better, as it carried more weight and, if the crowd turned nasty, gave a place to duck behind. "What?" says Plucky.

STORY SO FAR, THE
Okkay became lost because of a cold, so billobv filled her in on the story so far. "Then lots of other things happened, and some, and what, then, in fact and that, so you see, The End."

STRANGE INFLUENCE
"The Cafe appears to be exerting a strange influence over me," discusses billobv with John Abbott as they are badly lit from below. "My seemly dignity is being eroded. I find my rehearsed aloofness disintegrating into joining in with things. My heavens, man, I'm using exclamation marks." John pauses from practising reacting to poor-quality special effects. "Who cares?" he points out. billobv sets fire to his tie and upends his chair, but has forgotten to stop this bit going in.

STRANGE, ODD AND INTERESTING HEAD
How Nakko described a bit of billobv.

STRESSED ERIC
The much-hyped Great British Hope for cartoons, except it turned out to be awful - a laboured farce where the main character was totally, unlikeably pathetic with never even the slightest possible chance of success. Of the six episodes, one was fabulously funny specifically by throwing out all the rules of the show, one had some good jokes, and the rest were unwatchably disastrous. Written by some of the Absolutely folk, animated by Klasky-Csupo, particularly cruelly in a similar style to Duckman. Tragically, billobv learns that Stressed Eric has been picked up by a major US network and is being heavily promoted (with the main character re-dubbed as "an American ex-pat," natch), with much emphasis being made of how Britain loved the show. This is a repellent lie. US readers! Sit in your homes and tut distractedly. You owe it to the better shows we have. (See also CAPTAIN STAR.)

SUB ZERO
The second, immensely disappointing Batman cartoon movie. Most annoyingly, it's not rubbish, just dismissably mediocre, so you can't even do the "Substandard, more like" joke.

SYLVESTER FOX, A TERRIBLY, TERRIBLY IMPORTANT THING ABOUT
Sylvester Fox is not a fox, but a skunk. "This is terribly, terribly important," says billobv, who by the merest good fortune fell shortly afterwards into a monstrously horrible acidic slagpile, removing the smell.

SYLVESTER FOX, ARCH-MASTERMIND
Using David Mouse to pick the lock of the Cafe liquor cabinet by jamming his head in the mechanism and wiggling him about a lot, Sylvester Fox marked his crime by leaving a monogrammed glove to taunt Dot's Police (see DOT'S POLICE), except it was all of his hand as an exceptional taunt. Tune in next time for another exciting episode of Sylvester Fox, Arch-Mastermind.

SYLVIA FOX, THE FIENDISH CURSE OF
Inflicted upon billobv for no readily explicable reason, though he took it in good grace, mainly because when he tried to complain, Sylvia threw knives at him.

SYLVIA SPECIAL
Following Fu's annihilation of Sylvia's prized Foxmobile with the Ford Car (see VIVA FU!) and an interlude of gruesome violence against billobv to teach him not to be a passenger in a car or something, Sylvia gave the rat ten minutes to replace her Taurus with a vehicle of equivalent value or be stamped into wallpaper paste, pinning billobv to a table with a knife to ensure Fu wouldn't just jam on a hat, grab a carpet bag and leave the country by train. Fu immediately jammed on a hat, grabbed a carpet bag and left the country by train, but, pausing at the border to buy a map and scavenge in a tuck shop, he found a book of photographs in his wallet while pretending to rummage for a tip. Glancing through the record of happy times with his chum billobv, including the day when billobv stuffed a rampaging goad in his house as the nearest available container (see BUGZY'S GOAD), the pelt experiments (see MR FU'S MIGHTY PELT) and billobv's accidentally flopping him inside-out by grabbing two of the flattenedly unconscious rat's limbs and cracking him smartly downwards to re-inflate him "as they do in cartoons all the time," the normally unsentimental rodent found himself ringing the Cafe with a quivering lip, although fans were relieved to learn this was merely to ask Sylvia to give billobv an extra killing from him. Sylvia answered with unexpected warmth, as billobv2 had just got billobv and Fu off the hook by delivering a scary slabby dart of black carpower, the Sylvia Special, hand-built in Garboldisham and curling a lip at 0 to 60 because by that time it's hit 204. As the slightly dazed rat returned pardoned to the Cafe, barely noticing being shaken across the rippling floor to the bar as Sylvia took Egg for a test drive, Slappy burst in demanding to know who'd stolen her custom black Mustang. It turned out to be the Nazi officers and the alien from Alien from Mexico and everyone laughed later over tea, except Fu, who threw a fearful strop. (See EVIL DEAD FU.)

TAPERLASS, THE AMAZING TRANSLATION POWERS OF
Leading on naturally from WB Wolf setting various people in reverse, KT sampled Plucky's backwards quacks for musical purposes. This led to a round of quacking, as part of which billobv translated the "hill of beans" speech from the end of Casablanca ("Quack quack quack quack quack quack" etc etc) and challenged anyone to work it out. "It's from The Graduate!" guessed WB. "The Usual Suspects!" deduced Mr Fu. "Bogart's bit in Casablanca," said Taperlass, leaving billobv stunned like a punned fund. It is easy to see why she has a sidekick.

TAUR AND TURTLE - HUMOURISTS
The short-lived Vakko and KT double-act. Just short enough for billobv to have all the posters printed before Vakko morphed out of his taur form, in fact. "That's showbiz," says billobv, tearing up the entire print run. "Look, I've changed back," observes Vakko.

TEDIOUS CREAM
Plucky had a tub of tedious cream.

TELECHUBBIES
Plucky's observation of what the Teletubbies would become if they let themselves go.

TELEPHONE DIRECTORY
What Okkay fiendishly slipped within Taper's reach after Taper explained she read anything she could get her hands on.

TENSES
"They tend to change in the page of billobv," said billobv, "unexpectedly," he adds.

TERRIBLE ALBUM THING
billobv recently bought a Madness compilation album called Madness: The Business: The Definitive Singles Compilation. It includes interviews with the band and friends except not, for instance, in the accompanying booklet, but on the CD. And not, for example, as separate tracks, but at the end of the songs, so you can't even program them out. Incredibly, some of the interviews are mixed over the music. "Altogether," says billobv, "I can't easily recall anything so spectacularly moronic, except quite a few events."

THANSK!
KT's "Thanks!" which is catchy and stuff. In fact, you'll be using it all day tomorrow. Ooo-eee-ooo.

THANK UPON YOUR BEAKY FACE, A
How billobv thanked KT for something somewhere at some point.

THAT WAS JUST ODD
After updating the page of billobv so haphazardly that it took an entire week, billobv strolled into the Cafe, then just stood there getting every possible conceivable thing utterly, utterly wrong. After several minutes he was compelled to leave and dash cold water in his face before returning. It was just odd.

THERE'S ONE OF US, BUT ONLY A HALF OF YOU
For their latest adventure (see RAD RAVEN, EDUCATIONAL RECORDING OF SCIENTIFICALLY-IMPORTANT SPACE TRIPS AND), Rad flew billobv2 to Kid Force Headquarters, the secret base from which she fights crime and sends letters with a Kid Force postmark. Slightly disappointed that they weren't going to fly into KT's head as he'd suggested (KT protested he hadn't cleaned up in there yet, so billobv2 dropped his complimentary chocolate pudding on KT as they flew past), billobv2 jumped off and pressed 618 buttons, including the one that blows up the world. Trying to unpress the button with a screwdriver and running around in a small circle until he fell down, billobv2 was relieved to see that Rad had made a mistake, and that he'd just switched on the television. As billobv2 played under one of Emmy's anvils, Rad spied a note stuck to one of the consoles. Her evil twin, Stardust, had kidnapped the entire Kid Force and demanded Rad give herself up in return for their safety. Quickly she devised a clever plan while billobv2 tried to bite through some wires: disguising billobv2 as herself as a decoy, she'd creep in through the back door and let everyone out. All now depended on billobv2's brilliant impersonation of Rad convincing Stardust. billobv2 ran in. "Hello Stardust! Wheee! I mean, Grrrr! Give me back my friends. Grrrr. Hurrah! I mean, Yes!" Amazingly, the deception worked, and Rad sprang in after releasing the other superheroes. Baffled that there appeared to be two Rads, Stardust started a big fight, which billobv2 joined in by grabbing billobv to use as a club. By this point, Rad had overcome her twin by force of will, and the smoke cleared to reveal billobv2 hitting billobv against a wall. Unpleasantly, although Stardust has destroyed Rad's memory, billobv2 has come into possession of the facts, but to tell her what she can't remember would undoubtedly break her heart. "What will happen next?" asks billobv2 gravely. "Wheee! Hurrah!" he adds, throwing billobv down a well.

THERE'S SOMEBODY AT THE DOOR
billobv stood at the door, handing out hats and stuff as a coincidentally large number of patrons left simultaneously. "Cheerio... Cheerio... Cheerio," he waves. "Hold on, I've zipped myself into your coat."

THIRTY FINGERS
(Cameo.) A passer-by billobv was disappointed to learn is not a henchman. "It's a waste of a good name," he considers.

THIS LED TO A FIGHT
After no one could decide on the nature of KT's mystery prize (see MYSTERY PRIZE), billobv clonked Canuckguy with a tureen. CG struck back with a well-placed adverb, so billobv propped open his opponent's trousers and poured in a bucket of sugar-hyped puppies. Gesturing in a manner, CG turned the puppies into guppies, leaving billobv confounded ("Gurses!") until he threw CG into the ocean with a weighted cummerbund to save the flappy fish. Thinking swiftly, CG turned the cummerbund into a cucumber, which popped to the surface and floated there while CG continued to sink, guppies escaping from his cuffs. billobv felt a bit guilty and started to drink the ocean with a straw, but it began to rain. Fortuitously, Canuckguy landed in the Undersea Kingdom and was saved by Crash Corrigan, but that's another baffling in-joke. "Victory is mine!" crows billobv. "Except for the 918,003,712,000,010 pints of salt water. Blagh."

THNTRNTeiee
The logical ultimate extension of ThE INTerNeT.

THUMBTACKS
KT gave billobv a pound of thumbtacks, leaving billobv sorely taxed. "Also, they're properly called drawing pins," says billobv, spoiling the rhythm and point and everything.

TIME LAPSE
billobv, lagging horribly, began reacting to things that wouldn't occur until later in the evening. "That's right, KT - it was a large custard. Four points," he congratulated KT, who was on holiday or something. "Take this rap on the head with a liquorice stick, pesky squirrel!" he admonished Nakko, who hadn't turned up yet. Hobbes rolls his eyes for seven hours.

TIMMO'S COAT (OF WAX)
Timmo Warner oiled KT's joints and gave him a good coating of turtle wax. At that exact moment, billobv went to clap KT on the back in a friendly manner, so he slid straight off the polish and fell down a well. "Hey, I just cleaned that!" grumbles Timmo, buffing KT again.

TISKET-TASKET
KT challenged Plucky to a game of tic-tac-toe (noughts and crosses). Mishearing, Plucky began pelting KT with Tic-Tacs. billobv approves of the cunning tactic.

TIT FOR TAT
(Toonplay.) Falling from the latest Toonplay location, a house on the tippy-tip-top of a high mountain, billobv called for a rope. David threw one down, which bonked billobv on the head, but that's an incidental detail. Pulling on the rope until the house was at ground level, billobv stepped in and let go so it twanged back up to the correct height. David had to straighten the ornaments, but unknown to him, billobv was following closely behind, unstraightening the ornaments again, so David had to go round and round the room at increasing speeds. But unknown to billobv, billobv wasn't unknown to David at all, and David cleverly faked straightening an unstraightened ornament, leaving billobv straightening the ornaments without David's further intervention. Upon realising, billobv unstraightened David's tie. David kicked dust over billobv's shiny shoes. billobv painted the front of David's waistcoat and nodded firmly at him. David squashed billobv to the thickness of a thin pancake with an anvil. billobv drew a beard and moustache on David with a big black pen. David drew a flat flowery dress on billobv. billobv twanged David's nose, then ingeniously hid in a pile of pancakes, which David later ate. "So perhaps not at all ingeniously, then," says billobv. "Also, someone draw a trapdoor on this mouse's stomach."

TONY FOX'S AWARD
billobv gave Tony the well-deserved trophy for Greatest Height Achieved From Standing Position In Response To Unexpected Quack From Hiding Turtle. (See also FOX... TONY FOX.)

TONY FOX'S SIGNS
Observing Tony holding up conversationally-engraved signs with his tail, billobv tried the technique himself, but ended up displaying things like "For Sale" and "No Parking Between the Hours of 10am and 5pm." Tony held up a further sign revealing the sign thing took years of practice and special fox things. billobv nods sagely, holding up a sign in understanding that says "Max Headroom 15ft" and knocking himself out against it.

TONY PANTHER'S MACKEREL
The sleek-gent gave billobv a mackerel. Investing it wisely, billobv was soon able to return the floppy fish, along with a box of similar. "This is a bit like those Sylvester/Elmer shorts demonstrating economics," says billobv, "except not much." Tony toast-racks him with a single blow.

TONY'S WALL OF DEATH
Fizzing with an energy that failed to be dissipated by his traditional bouncings-around, Tony ran up the walls, keeping himself circuiting by centripetal force. billobv erected a small umbrella, but Tony returned to earth in a controlled manner. Danger Mouse then pushed billobv off a cliff to see the umbrella used as parachute bit, but it wasn't that kind of umbrella and billobv was flung 612,409 miles into the ground. "Oh no! What a disastrous error on my part," DM entirely failed to say. Using the umbrella as a crampon, billobv was eventually able to climb back up the cliff, whereupon he examined a saucepan catalogue, chose the latest model, sent off an order, waited six to eight weeks, took the saucepan and traded it with a tiny child for a hula-hoop, put DM in the middle and set it hulaing, except because he'd nailed one side of the hoop to a wall, it was DM who was whirled round and round. billobv nods Ollieishly.

TOONY MOUSE'S ARMS
Deprived of an arm in an off-screen incident by The Jackal (not Edward Fox), Toony poked about in a pile of 68 replacement arms billobv gave her, coming up with a big gorilla arm that she screwed on with satisfaction and used to pound Jackal repeatedly until he gave her real arm back. "I'd've made some brilliantly clever jokes about arms," says billobv, "except I wasn't sure if Tony and Richard's standing to one side cracking their knuckles expressively was to furtherly intimidate the unbunky Jackal, or to arm themselves against puns. Oh no! Aaarghh!" he adds. Toony gives him a hand.

TOONY MOUSE'S ARMOUR
Toony now has a suit of armour to hand as a precaution against any felines cutting up rough, except not. (See BOWLING WITH BEDROCK BARNEY (SYLVESTER FOX).)

TOONY TENNIS
A game billobv invented for which you need two spatulas and Toony Mouse, except Toony wouldn't play, even though billobv offered to spot her twenty points.

TOURIST TRAP
Bound by supervillain rules to be friendly once a year, Stardust opened her headquarters to a tour group consisting of Rad Raven, billobv2 and billobv dragged along by the arm while trying to read a book. Stardust showed everyone the lounge, control module, kitchen, balcony, satellite landing bay and torture room, where a big force field imprisoned them. billobv looked up from his book, How I Conquered The World In 12 Colossal Steps by Stardust, to find giving up before chapter six, How I Tricked Several People With My Tour/Force Field Ploy, was a bit of a mistake. The anti-superhero force field leached away Rad's strength, but Stardust had reckoned without the non-superhero billobv2, who fired billobv through the ceiling with a steam catapult, with the hapless book-reader frantically grabbing the force field generator as he passed, and pulling it off its wobble-stand destructively. Rad Raven sprang forward and had a bit of a biff-up with Stardust, before Stardust escaped through a portal and her headquarters started falling down, most of it hitting billobv on the head as everyone escaped in the nick of time. "Wheee! Hurrah!" says billobv2, which is about as good a moral as you'll get.

TRICK OR TREAT
Misunderstanding the famous American tradition, billobv responded to DM's knocking on his door at Hallowe'en by ushering the mouse in out of the bracing weather. DM then sat around awkwardly nodding at his bag and making throat-clearing noises for seven hours and nine minutes before delivering a short video presentation explaining what was supposed to happen. billobv gave him a toffee. About to fire eggs all over the place using an egg gun, DM instead curiously pulled a small tag on the side of the toffee, which caused it to burst open into a 98-pound four-ounce slab like a chocolate life-raft or something. "Hurrah!" says DM in a squashed sort of way.

TSUNAMI 3000
Obtaining a soda siphon, Rhia began spraying random patrons, and Neu's pockets. billobv strapped on his Tsunami 3000 water-gatling and waited for Rhia to draw first (to be fair), but Rhia became entangled with Okkay, who was in a peanut butter state and flopping bits of herself at patrons' ears. Rhia managed to wrestle Okkay into a convenient vending machine, turning exhaustedly to see billobv standing behind her, his water reservoir fully charged (with Lake Windermere) and the T3000 ready to fire, indicated by the ominous power hum. At that moment billobv slipped on a bit of Okkay, and the T3000's nozzle touched the vending machine casing, activating the hair-trigger mechanism and leaving the Cafe untouched but shooting billobv on a superfine column of water into low orbit. billobv struggled to reach the off switch, but hit a space platform first and spanged off in the general direction of down. Thinking swiftly, he pulled at his parachute cord, only to find he'd tightly strapped it to the backpack of the T3000, which floated away to safety. Jeff laid out a pillow at the last moment, which billobv rocketed into, then somersaulted off, landing prettily. "Hurrah!" says billobv, shaking Jeff's hand and awarding him 78 medals, then 13 more medals and a hat.

TURTBALL
Enclosing KT in a hamster ball and dropping him in a pinball machine, billobv began to play turtball. Seven points short of a high score, KT burst his legs through the bottom of the ball and screeched to a halt, then began strolling around the table, tauntingly going just not quite close enough to the targets. He then returned the favour and began to play billball, but had in error stuffed billobv into a squash ball, which ricocheted off a mushroom at 417.1 mph and smashed through the glass top and the Cafe skylight. Later, billobv staggered back. "Tilt," he offers, keeling.

TV WAR
billobv waged a terrible TV war with KT, Dot and Hobbes, in which each side rocketed over to the other their most foully untransmittable television programmes. It was a really good idea, except that no one knew any of the opposition's shows, except Red Dwarf, which led to a guerrilla struggle between billobv and Dot of "It's rubbish"; "No it isn't"; "Yes it is"; "Isn't"; "Is"; "No"; "Yes"; "Isn't"; "La la la. Sorry? What? I can't hear you. La la la la"; "Pow!" etc etc. After branching out into complaints about Paddington Station's sock shops (or something), the war was brought to a sudden end when THNTRNTeiee declared for the US by throwing billobv off six times in four minutes. "At least I have saved Britain," wheezes the defeated billobv, having rowed the country with some oars to a position of safety around the back of Europe. "And just you wait until we get digital TV, with over 208 channels of amazing rubbish."

UNDERWATER PARCEL BOMB
Weirdguy posted Mr Fu to Abu Dhabi in a box marked "Generally fragile, but please destroy anyway." The box was returned along with a wanted poster depicting Weirdguy as sought for attempting to destabilise the region with plague. WG was relieved to see the artist's impression was of someone with curly hair, but Wilford, acting in the interests of world justice, taped a wig to his head, causing fright. Meanwhile, everyone had forgotten who Mr Fu was, and as shaking the box caused a stream of invective, worked out they'd been sent a talking bomb. billobv advocated plunging it underwater, realising you couldn't take any chances with such a cunningly engineered device that it even sounded exactly like Mr, er, Thingy shouting, "It's me in the box! Me! Fu, dammit!" However, before they could blow up the parcel in a controlled explosion, Fu managed to bite through the return to sender sticker and knock open the lid, tumbling out with a fusillade of coughs. "Good old Mr, er, you know... Small fellow. Whiskers," says billobv, trying not to look like he's been stamping the box into a bucket of water and violently hitting it with a mop.

UNKNOWINGLY BEAR-RELATED INCI...
"Fu! That was it. Mr Fu. Yes," he adds, sitting down, but sliding off the mysteriously over-polished chair and striking his head on the floor.

UNKNOWINGLY BEAR-RELATED INCIDENT WITH JEFF H (OBVIOUSLY BEFORE HE WAS KNOWN AS JEFFHBEAR), AN EMBARRASSING
BILLOBV (FOLLOWING SOME MOMENT): One false move, and I'll bear-rug you.

JEFF (EYES FLASHING): You do realise I am a bear?

BILLOBV (DIFFIDENTLY): Oh, right. (RUNS AWAY.)

UNREASONABLE VENDETTA
The ill-thought-out action movie.

UNRULY PUPILS
billobv blew in KT's ear, making both of KT's pupils end up in one eye so he looked like this - ( ).(oo) - then stood to his blind side and started copying his every move, flicking back to innocent inaction whenever KT turned his head suspiciously. billobv got away with it (... away with it) for quite a while (... a while) until he became too ambitious (... became too ambitious) and was caught red-handed, also by the throat. Pointing to a decoy, he put on a large moustache, fooling KT, except the turtle then recognised his font and stuffed him in a revenge sack. "This just goes to show," says billobv. "... to show," comes a mystery echo. (See also PUPIL PUPONG.)

UNSEAS, SAILING, SAILING, SAILING THE MIGHTY
See DAVID MOUSE'S EMULATION OF BUSTER KEATON (DESPITE BEING UNCONSCIOUS), A DRAMATIC RESCUE SHOWCASING.

UPDATES
The page of billobv is updated (cough) eccentrically, but after slipping behind to almost a year's worth of evenings, billobv has returned it to topical excellence. As of this evening there are 446 entries, comprising 39,004 words and 238K, distilled from 125 Warner Cafe (and Toonplay) episodes totalling 6.9mb. Crumbs, eh?

This is already out-of-date, as billobv's added some more things. KT clapped him on the back congratulatorily, but this made billobv drop the big bag of pennies he was taking to the bank, and patrons made spectacular pratfalls for the next two hours. That'll teach, er, someone.

UTHE A THADDLE, THILLY
A miscalculation over a pumpkin led billobv to wonder about kithkin, kithkath and kithchathe, before giving Th' Kinky Thurthle his ththankthth for a prethent. KT then took two aspirins in a glass of water, but couldn't find any so drank billobv instead. After inspecting KT from the inside using his helmet lamp and testing the acoustics by conducting the Royal Philharmonic in a rendition of (Way Down Deep) In The Middle Of The Turtle, billobv clambered his way to KT's tonsils, except KT hadn't any, so he fell off. (Eventually billobv managed to get out by climbing the staircase and leaving through the escape hatch in KT's head, so that's all right.)

VAKKO'S HONKING HORN
The wily taur had set up a device that honked (or something) whenever his name was mentioned, so he could devote his attention to fishing (or something) without missing anything. To test synonyms, he asked patrons to see if they could trigger the device by mentioning horses. "Trigger? Horse? That's a joke, son!" pointed out billobv, then, as Vakko moved to hoof him down a well, "Vakko Vakko Vakko Vakko Vakko Vakko," permitting an escape covered by the cacophony of honking (or something).

VAKKO'S PHONOGRAPH PLANS
Vakko recorded some secret plans on a phonograph, backwards on the inside of the cylinder for safety. billobv easily broke the code by inverting the universe, but Vakko had cleverly dictated the plans in an invertiverse, trickily reverting the decoded recording. billobv records all this on a gramophone record, then exactingly fills in the groove to keep it safe from Communist spies. Meanwhile, everyone in the universe falls up to the ceiling and looks confused.

VIVA FU!
Having won a Ford Car (a revolutionary concept in motoring that's just some car) in a Kinky Turtle Random Word competition, Fu lit out for Mexico, land of several things no one could quite completely agree on. Along for the ride, billobv, who had caught his cufflink in the glove compartment while leaning in to shake Fu's hand congratulatorily. In pursuit, the entire massed police force of the world and Tony Panther as Harvey Keitel, and OJ Simpson shouting, "Come back! I'm televisually important!" Fu attempted to complain about the predictability of the situation, but was attacked by Nazi officers clambering along the running boards to question him about the lost Ark of the Covenant before he could finish. He then attempted to complain that this was merely silly, but the sound of billobv owping as his head was bounced off the dashboard by the alien from Alien that had climbed out of the glove compartment spoiled his concentration. Shooing the intruders away and telling them to hitch a lift in a lorry or something, Fu raced back to the Cafe. billobv asked how a seven-inch rat could properly control such a powerful machine without at least some telephone directories to sit on, at which point Fu swerved into the car park and crashed into Sylvia Fox's Taurus, destroying it comprehensively to teach billobv a lesson, or something. A situation developed. (See SYLVIA SPECIAL.)

VIXENS IN HIS DRESSING ROOM
See WICKED CRAZY: THE BROADWAY MUSICAL.

VIZ
The Brit adult comic, which, while largely rude, has moments of inspired excellence - Oswald (Mind My Brolly) Mosley, The Blackshirted Funnyman, for example (a spot-on parody of 1940s Film Fun stories), and Gilbert Ratchet. Michael Mink expressed appreciation of billobv's various attempts to get him to like Viz, but still hates it. "Oh no! It's that sort of cartoon ending!" says billobv.

VOTE FOR BILLOBV
A plot, like billobv winning the lottery but having the ticket eaten by a dog, billobv's identical twin coming to stay or billobv losing all his money in a crooked poker game, that mercifully hasn't been used.

WAITER, I'D LIKE THE FUDAVEBILL
Egg, being given Mr Fu, Dolphin Dave and billobv in a semantic miscalculation, idly mutated them into a single entity. billobv suddenly developed an irrational fear of being stepped on, and also couldn't scratch his nose. Fu pointed out it was, in fact, his nose, and said, "Blimey." Dave countered with, "Notablimey!" then billobv did a little dance, accompanying himself with extra legs, before attempting to save the day by ingeniously altering Fu's deed poll (see CRUET FU) to read, "Fu, Dave and billobv as separate entities," but this just left a piece of paper with some new words on it. Fu complained that his back ached, but he couldn't find it. billobv could, knuckling at it helpfully, but accidentally snapped it. Fortuitously, he then found he could stab at pieces of litter with Fu's prehensile rat tail and use it to practise fencing, which was vastly amusing, except to Fu, who thumped him with a Dave-ish fin. At that point, Rad Raven unmelded everyone. This felt a bit anti-climactic, but then the Cardinal's guards attacked billobv with swords, which rounded things off neatly.

WARNER CAFE TITLE SONG
billobv's musical number for an imaginary Warner Cafe title sequence. (You can download the original Wakko's America song as a 428K mp3, if you like.) It doesn't attempt to name everyone, only the patrons billobv has met - which, due to his tendency to appear in the evening, comes to about one-seventeenth of the total. (However, if you clearly recall seeing billobv and aren't mentioned here, you're entitled to clonk him crossly.)

(See also DON'T DIE, MR FU!)
WARNER CAFE TITLE SONG v1 by billobv
(TO BE SUNG MORE OR LESS TO THE TUNE OF "WAKKO'S AMERICA," EXCEPT WITH CONSIDERABLY MORE SYLLABLES.) (IT DOES WORK THOUGH.) First there's Sheila, she's a Warner Sits with Plucky in the corner She buys everyone a snifter, winking "Put it on my bill" Margaret dries, Michael corrects her, the Minks cued by The Director To a soulful soundtrack sax as Lisa Simpson knows the drill Haviland and Jeff; Lichy, Slappy are sore, Cant'ring lightly round the tables comes the archer Vakkotaur As a jockey we find Okkay and she does a little dance And she blithers over Yakko if she's given half a chance. (I don't think he minds though, I really don't.) Back in Britain where it's fittin' Runt's been bitten by the twittin' Of the crackpots in the Cafe as they run a mile amok Now the mice are getting loony, David's spoony with Miss Toony Next to Masem throwing verbs while Danger, Chilly try to duck Famous Dot Warner, we say she's cute (Our contractual obligation or she'll bust us in the snoot) Richard Fox is in the rafters and there's Tony on the couch Then they both look into camera and they swap themselves about. As the lights dim on the dancefloor Mr Fu bursts through the front door Kung fu sidekicking dramatically and breaking all his bits He's swept off screen by Nakko as we pan across to Dakko Playing draughts with Dave who claims he's not a fishie (though he is) Down from the skylight, Penny, Rad and Rex, Followed daintily via parachute by Rhiacat, then Vexx Emmy Warner's helping Lilly think of lots of things to do And Hobbes is stalking Kinky Turtle for the joy of saying "Boo!" (He's incorrigible, that tiger. And what's more, he'll photograph the incident.) Sylvester doffs his hat politely, Taper views the Cafe brightly, In the tub, Mel, Sylvia, Lola, Kathy, Minerva look for hunks Neu and Nia tick reports as Weirdguy juggles things he's caught, Matt, Egg and Tex express the thought it's hot and scramble for their trunks Colin, Felina, Towi, Acme and Jo, Dusty, Lari, Furrball, Teleia and Wilford you know, Varro jostles for position as we see the camera flash And everyone says "Cheese!" as we mix to the title splash. WARNER CAFE. That's all the patrons We know! BILLOBV: Good evening. Are we ready to start yet? EVERYONE: Boh!!!

Patrons billobv has so far remembered he'd forgotten: one. (Wakkanne.) Oops.

WARY CLEANER
Plucky wrote a game called Wary Cleaner. "It is the best name ever this week," says billobv.

WEIRDGUY'S COMPLAINT
"Hey! I'm not on this page," complains Weirdguy. "Yes you are," points out billobv. (See GRAVY AND TEXAS THREATENED BY PLOTS.) "There's no joke here," sulks Portnoy.

WEIRDGUY'S SLAVE
By nefarious means, billobv was made Weirdguy's slave. Seizing a chance, he twiddled the letters so he became Weirdguy's slate and sat around on his roof for a bit. Weirdguy sent Topol up to see billobv off, at which point the roof collapsed and everyone ended up in Weirdguy's porridge.

WET/DRY VACUUM CLEANER
billobv had the brilliant idea of using a wet/dry vacuum cleaner as an alternative to aqualungs. "You just suck the water out of where you want to go, then move forward a bit, then blow it back into the sea behind you," he explains, demonstrating and disappearing over the horizon at a rate of knots, until the electrical cord goes taut and pulls out the plug.

WHAT ARE DUCK BILLS MADE OF?
Just a question that suddenly struck billobv.

WHAT ARE THE CHANCES OF THAT HAPPENING, EH?
Asked by billobv following a coincidence. "One in one, evidently," observes Vakko.

WHAT HAPPENED NEXT
Approaching Okkay's booby trap (see BOOBY TRAP) without due care and attention, billobv plunged 982,015 miles down the concealed hole and lost his place in his book. Okkay whipped away the cloth to reveal the hole had disappeared and bowed to thunderous applause. She then removed her hat, gestured wigglingly, and pulled billobv out by his ears, except billobv had already fallen out of the portable hole in Margaret Mink's pocketbook (a sort of exotic wallet), and Okkay was holding a traditional giant grotesque interdimensional monster, which she put in a box and left on the counter. "If it eats me, I'm writing a letter of complaint," adds billobv, and everyone dances off stage to the closing music.

WHAT'S BUZZIN', COUSIN?
Confusion broke out over the exact familial relation between several patrons. By everyone talking at once, it was clarifyingly established that Danger Mouse was Chilly's cousin, except not Mouse but Fox, as was Toony, except not Gal but Mouse, and not to Chilly but Danger, except Mouse and Mouse, who's a mousie hunk, except to Chilly not Toony, both Mouses especially the two. "I'm glad I'm an only billobv," comments billobv. "Well, except for the seven duplicates."

WHAT'S WHAT, WHAT?
billobv has been compiling a list of handy phrases for divining the nature of someone's sighing heavily. So far the list is: "What's the ruckus, duckus?"; "What's the squarrel, squirrel?"; "Not in the pink, mink?"; "Feelings hurt, turt?"; "Why kerplunked, skunk?"; "Feeling raw, taur?"; "Whither friskers, whiskers?"; and the all-purpose, "Why so doon, toon?" Tenaciously, patrons remain cheerful.

A good new one is marking Okkay's sighs with, "Feeling rocky, Okkay?" but this makes Okkay giggle, spoiling it. Twah.

billobv has since discovered that Okkay rhymes Okkay with "Okay" and not "Ock-A" (or, indeed, "rocky") at all. Which has thrown him completely.

One that didn't work at all was, "What's the minker mat? Er, I mean, why minervated, Enerva? Oh, never mind."

Okkay sighed once too often, causing klaxons to blare and red lights to strobe frighteningly, as she'd set off the super-sensitive Sigh Detectors. (The good intentions of the government monitoring agency were somewhat undermined by the concrete-shatteringly loud alarms and big spooky flashing lights, but there you go.) Penitently, Okkay unsighed, but this coincided with Minerva (not Minerva- - see MINERVA-MINK) sighing herself, and the simultaneous polar emissions caused the Sigh Monitoring Unit in Shepton Mallet to explode with a dull thump. "I haven't the faintest idea what that taught us," says billobv. "Hurrah!" adds everybody.

WHERE'S FU?
Mr Fu has disappeared. "I hope he returns," says billobv. "Also, I seem to have misplaced my wallet."

Fu has returned! but almost immediately went off to get dinner. "Hurrah!" says billobv. "Also, I seem to have misplaced my replacement wallet."

WHERE THERE'S A WILL, THERE'S AN OLD DARK HOUSE AND LOTS OF ACTORS
"Must think of an excuse for putting this in," muses billobv.

WHINE BIT
billobv bottled KT's whine over being secretly laughed at in zebra bars (see LAWYER BIT). "A few years in the cellar and it will have matured into a delightful strop," observes billobv. A vinegarily shoddy vintage explodes behind him, pinging a cork off his head.

WHITE FUR AND BLACK STRIPES
Hobbes' colour scheme, as officially announced by Hobbes. Zebras everywhere adopt the "Hobbes Standard."

WHOISIT BREAK IS OVER
It was Minerva Mink.

WHY-A-DUCK BIT, THE
billobv can't remember any of this after "Because I don't want Junior crossing the track on his way to reform school," so is secretly thankful no one joins in when he brings it up on some flimsy Plucky-related pretext.

WHY DOES BILLOBV "DEOP"?
An entirely fair and valid question from Chilly on seeing billobv once again switch himself off as a spookily-powered patron immediately on arrival. The answer is, billobv has a hair trigger. The Cafe in its wisdom has evolved a generously fair approach to passers-by who do unmistakably antagonistic things like explosively jettison pictures made out of letters or demand irrelevant details: where they would politely explain the offender's error, billobv, if he had not disarmed himself, would have vapourised them on the instant. "I am delighted to meet new people," he explains, "but if they become eerie, I will annihilate them without the pause of a blink. Call it a weakness." To date, billobv has fired once, on a recidivist wielder of eerie named Yuffie, who pointedly failed to respond to the more tolerant patrons' programme of mocking. "I feel justified," he muses, as Yuffie's evaporated form smokes away.

billobv has curiously been permanently "deopped," simplifying things.

WHY, IT'S KINDLY OLD MR ZINGLEBLAUM, THE MAN WE LEAST SUSPECTED
For Hallowe'en, Rad Raven suggested investigating a nearby haunted house, but insisted Rex stay behind following his recent exhausting spam hunt. billobv2 smuggled Rex along anyway in a convenient pocket, while billobv considered the likely result of creeping around in darkened corridors with a bat-wielding duplicate ready to repeatedly club anything that moved and sensibly put on a hat. Following an interlude (see DAKKOCELOT GNAWS ON THE EAVES), Rad, billobv2 and billobv exaggeratedly tiptoed through the house in the approved manner, their path illuminated only by Rad's torch as they'd forgotten to turn on the lights. Suddenly, for some reason or other, several patrons purported to be billobvs 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 327. The one and only original billobv maintained his seemly dignity, while billobv2 proved his duplicate credentials by hitting billobv again with the bat by mistake. As the number of fakes grew to include billobvs 2806 and 5781, Stardust appeared and took over the lot, instantly creating a small army with which to attack Rad. A platoon of ghosts and monsters also came to Stardust's aid, while at the critical moment Rex jumped out of billobv2's pocket. billobv put on a better hat, and, seemingly like a fool but in fact as a brilliant diversion, fell through some rotten floorboards into the cellar. Rad, identifying a small device being used by Stardust to control her forces, levitated the spark-box and flung it across the room, where billobv, opening the cellar door, caught it square on the head in another brilliant manoeuvre and smashed it into 139,014 pieces before falling senseless back down the stairs. This left Rad and Stardust struggling in the approved manner, but they were interrupted by a hole in time and space opening beneath them, into which they fell in the approved manner. billobv, again opening the cellar door, managed to catch Rad by the belt using an umbrella, and by shouting "Heave!" while Rex and billobv2 shouted "Ho!" he was able to pull both Rad and Stardust to safety, only for Stardust to leap back into the hole of her own accord, vowing revenge as she closed it behind her, although not quite quickly enough to stop billobv2 pouring a glass of milk into it in a pointlessly inconveniencing way. "Well, at least she didn't say 'I'd have gotten away with it if it hadn't been for you meddling kids'," observes billobv. billobv2 hits him in the approved manner. (See also MONSTERS ARE HUMAN TOO. WELL, NOT HUMAN, BUT YOU KNOW.)

WICKED CRAZY: THE BROADWAY MUSICAL
Mr Fu's epic piece of musical theatre, also known as Vixens in His Dressing Room, starring Fu and Slappy as ill-fated lovers divided by class, species and temperament, and featuring a plane sucking David Caruso singing about roof tiles into its jet intake and crashing on a big boat hit by an iceberg, then landing just ahead of a hurricane on a volcanic island populated by dinosaurs which is sunk by a meteor. The opening night went remarkably smoothly, marred only by Tony Fox accidentally walking off with the budget, somehow-director billobv being clubbed unconscious by the audience which then rioted but fortunately was destroyed by the ramshackle special effects before reaching the stage, and Fu and Slappy becoming infuriated by the dangerously shoddy production before Act Three and deciding instead to marmalise billobv with a remote-controlled tornado and 35 enraged wrestlers until he gave up more than 15% of the door receipts. Reviews unseen at this time, although Slappy's "Now that's tragedy" as the final curtain fell off the pole onto billobv's head will do until something better comes along.

WICKED ONE-TIMER FIVE-HOLE
As billobv practised at the crease, Richard Fox blasted down a wicked one-timer five-hole on him. billobv still has no idea what this is, but assumes it shattered either his wicket or his pelvis, so has retired sportingly to the pavilion. Well played, Mr Fox!

billobv has recently learned it is an ice-hockey phrase. Apparently, they also have a crease. "Bof," chuckles billobv. "An amusing cross-cultural mix-up. Also, I can't seem to move any of my bits."

WILY TURTLE STALKS ITS PREY, THE
KT crept up behind an unsuspecting billobv, who too late noticed pigeons fly startled from a tree. The wily turtle pounced the hapless billobv and stole his telescope, rendering billobv unable to bring far objects to a close position. KT, examining something, found the blue button, and pressed it, which caused anything appearing larger to become larger, then waved the telescope around randomly and indiscriminately, causing billobv to lose control of his point size a bit like this, only more so. KT has a pictorial record of the sequence, which he'll send out in calendar form if you ask politely.

WILFORD TAKES THE AIR
Swept up by the lengthy and exceptionally detailed talk of Pluckmania arrangements, WB Wolf wished he could without delay take a trans-Pacific flight. billobv snapped ("Aieee! It's like watching someone's holiday slides, except beforehand") and shot WB across the sea with a big catapult, almost hitting Minerva Fan's aeroplane. (See MINERVA FAN'S AEROPLANE.) He immediately felt guilty, except not much.

YAKKO'S BOARDROOM TABLE
Yakko's demonstrations of new science (see SCARY COMPUTER TALK) are held around one of those enormous boardroom tables from James Bond, so if someone asks about databases he can press a button. The buttons are on billobv's waistcoat, which led to a round of curious pressings, resulting in Vakko almost destroying Asia by opening an envelope with R on it instead of B, billobv's chair tipping backwards but fortunately only causing him to hit his head on the floor as the disintegrating chamber didn't come with this model, and billobv saying "Oog!" as Danger Mouse pressed his bellybutton by mistake. Yakko rolls his eyes and puts on his sunglasses (see ANTI-BEASTLINESS SUNGLASSES).

YAKKO'S RHYME FOR "PEACHY"
"Nietzsche", obv.

YAROOO!
An excellent exclamation.

YE GODS AND LITTLE FISHES
KT declared himself omniscient, laughing off Weirdguy's attempts to stop his thoughts being read with an aluminium hat. billobv sprayed WG with Omnipotence-O to stop KT being omniscient at him, but KT knew he was going to do that. The episode of godhood concluded with billobv spraying Danger Mouse with Omnipresence-O and having him surround KT's wagons.

YCKULPS
Plucky reminded everyone that Plucky spelled backwards is Ykculp, which gave KT the yckulps. (See also ETLRUT YKNIK.)

YODEL-IDLE-ADEE-O
KT speculated that billobv was secretly Eric Idle. Plucky revealed billobv had been idle for forty seconds. Gadzooks!

YOU'VE GOT TO HAVE A SYSTEM
Okkay gave billobv a piece of her mind, but it was the piece that controlled blithering and he put it in a safe-deposit box, then handed over one quarter of the treasure map that indicated its location. "The other three are scattered to the four corners of the world, except one of them, obv, in the traditional manner," he explained. A parrot hopped into shot saying, "Pieces of mind! Pieces of mind!" Later, there's a storm and some ships and an island and stuff, and everything works out in the end.

ZORROS
What Minerva Fan calls foxes, as that's what they are in Spanish. (See also POMPT DE-POMPT POMPT DE-POMPT POMPT and, tangentially, CHOPPO.)

From the house of billobv, abolished 1629. (Or something. - Everyone.)