#prolefeed

FREDDIE JONES, holding up a copy of the latest number of the National Exaggerator tabloid: Hey Daphne, did you notice this story in the latest National Exaggerator about some mermaids giving diving lessons off the Florida Keys to runaway children--?

DAPHNE BLAKE, irate at the notion: Freddie, THERE ARE NO SUCH THINGS AS MERMAIDS!!! When exactly will you get that through your head?

[Whereupon walking by, we find--]

WALLY GATOR: I beg to differ on that point, don't you know, being a Florida boy myself!

He did not know her name, but he knew that she worked in the Fiction Department. Presumably — since he had sometimes seen her with oily hands and carrying a spanner she had some mechanical job on one of the novel-writing machines. (p. 5)

There was a whole chain of separate departments dealing with proletarian literature, music, drama, and entertainment generally. Here were produced rubbishy newspapers containing almost nothing except sport, crime and astrology, sensational five-cent novelettes, films oozing with sex, and sentimental songs which were composed entirely by mechanical means on a special kind of kaleidoscope known as a versificator. (p. 24)

As she came nearer he saw that her right arm was in a sling, not noticeable at a distance because it was of the same colour as her overalls. Probably she had crushed her hand while swinging round one of the big kaleidoscopes on which the plots of novels were ’roughed in’. It was a common accident in the Fiction Department. (p. 60)

Julia [...] worked, as he had guessed, on the novel-writing machines in the Fiction Department. She enjoyed her work, which consisted chiefly in running and servicing a powerful but tricky electric motor. She was ’not clever’, but was fond of using her hands and felt at home with machinery. She could describe the whole process of composing a novel, from the general directive issued by the Planning Committee down to the final touching-up by the Rewrite Squad. But she was not interested in the finished product. She ’didn’t much care for reading,’ she said. Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces. (p. 74-75)

British newspapers:

And we certainly know how it would come out on A Pup Named Scooby-Doo: Freddie shares a copy of the latest National Exaggerator featuring some Obviously Weird and Illogical Story such as relates to the week's case, prompting Daphne to take issue with said story as thus:

FREDDIE JONES, excitedly: Did you see the story in this week's Exaggerator about a drunken cat murder--

DAPHNE BLAKE, interrupting: FREDDIE!! Cats CANNOT get drunk, and it would be highly unlikely for a common housecat to murder someone, let alone a big cat such a lion or tiger!!

[For some reason, the Cattanooga Cats "themselves" turn up]

THE CATTANOOGA CATS "THEMSELVES": SO THERE!!

KITTY JO: Take it from such cats who KNOW these things! And ourselves, we don't prefer liquor of any kind!

[And to add to the whole shaming exercise--]

SNAGGLEPUSS, obviously flamboyant as ever: Heavens to Jack Daniels!! Such a notion as felines engaging in outright murder has certainly got to be annoying, stupifying even!!

[Brief silence]

FREDDIE JONES: Uh--now that you've helped set the record straight--

SUPER SNOOPER, after clearing his throat after seeing another tacky tabloid: Uh, leave us face it, Blab, we are not the sort to get attention by way of following cheap tabloid-type stories as are, shall we say, serving only to distract a vulnerable class of people from their own failings and weaknesses--as if the fare on the TV wasn't awful enough, to begin with!

BLABBERMOUSE, sensing a slight sense of disappointment: Geez, Snoop--not even this latest Bigfoot-type story from the National Exaggerator?

SUPER SNOOPER: To quote a certain Daphne Blake unto Freddie Jones of Scooby-Doo's crew, Blab, "there is NO SUCH THING AS BIGFOOT!"

BLABBERMOUSE: Wouldn't he also be known as Sasquatch?

SUPER SNOOPER, being a little more frustrate: Sasquatch, my friend, is basically a Canadian term for Bigfoot, and the two, understands, are essentially one and the same!

(Meanwhile--)