Happy Thursday to you all, and welcome to another scintillating edition of Meet the Critters, where The Nest exposes all the warts about your favorite inanimate Friday actors! We have a VIP under the microscope today, the Shelf’s least favorite public servant, Uncle Sam! Let’s see if we can dig up enough dirt on him to ensure he won’t get re-elected again…
If spending the night with Mitzi were cause for a scandal, nobody would ever get elected on the Shelf.
NAME: Uncle Sam
SPECIES: Politician. Oh, and he’s the only human among the regular cast…
SHELF PERSONALITY: Uncle Sam is my go-to when I need an elected leader for an episode. He’s played a mayor, a governor, but usually shows up as the Shelf President. He has all of the essential qualities that make up a successful politician… he is greedy, corrupt, power hungry, and has a way of deflecting criticism and stealing credit.
A true Man of the People…. er, Man of the Critters.
RUNNING GAGS: Because Shelf Critter Theatre got its start around the time of the 2016 election, Uncle Sam generally played Trump to Luna’s Hillary… and took on the qualities of everyone’s favorite orange buffoon. Uncle Sam enjoys using Twitter and finding ways to deport certain critters from the Shelf for arbitrary reasons…
He also loves to participate in protest rallies…
Sam is usually seen behind his “soapbox,” which is a retro double pack of Palmolive face soap I acquired from my Grandma’s house after she died five years ago.
I think you set up your soapbox too close to the grassy knoll…
ESN PREMIERE: Uncle Sam was first brought off the Shelf to play Bashful’s opponent in The Great Debate in October 2016. In that episode, Sam’s lines all involved repetitive politispeak mixed with a heavy dose of BLAH BLAH BLAHs thrown in. I think my intent was to make this manner of speaking a recurring gag for him, but Sam proved to be more interesting when he can pontificate on talking points and go on senseless rants…
The State of the Shelf speech ought to be another snoozer…
ICONIC SCT EPISODE: I don’t think any story captured more of Sam’s sleazy portrayal of the critters’ choice for man in charge than last year’s season-ender “I’m The Pied Piper,” where Sam plays the mayor of Shelfelin.. a town looking to get rid of a unicorn infestation. Sam screws over the hero of the story, and no doubt gets a nice write up in the paper about his successful operation to get rid of the horned terrorists…
Thank you for using your MARIHUANA to chase off the unicorns. Now we’re going to arrest you and charge you with illegal possession.
WHAT’S IN A NAME?: It’s a representation of Uncle Sam, so what else am I going to call him? Aunt Louise?
WHAT IS HE?: Uncle Sam is a bingo dauber made to look like the iconic American figure for sale around the Fourth of July. Here is a rare shot of Sam without his red hat, where you can clearly see he was used to cover up many a O-69…
I feel naked without my headwear…
WHERE DID HE COME FROM?: From the concession stand at the Knight of Columbus Hall I was a Thursday evening regular at for much of the first decade of this century. I guess I kept him because he was different from the standard, plain Jane bingo daubers I ran through… and since I added him to the critter Shelf at some point, he was there when I first needed someone who looked Presidential for a story.
What a clever way to win votes…. if convicted felons could vote, that is.
CAN I GET ONE TOO?: I couldn’t find any Uncle Sam themed bingo daubers at all using a generic search on Google Images…. but my keen eye still found what I was looking for in one of the results that came up! In April 2016, Colorado governor John Hickenlooper signed a bill into law regarding bingo operations in the state, and used a red and blue Uncle Sam bingo dauber exactly like the one I have to accentuate his signature! Pretty cool that an actual politician out there has used the Shelf’s most crooked politician to enact a state law! I wonder what other SCT critter Gov. Hickenlooper could call on for bill signings in Colorado…
Need any assistance signing that 4:20 law into effect, dude… I mean, Gov?
More crazy and unimpeachable critters to come next Thursday…
Evil Squirrel's Nest 
I have to admit that I feared uncle sam as I was a kid… I always thought he is like catweazle the eternal nightmare of my childhood…. and I screamed like a banshee as I saw him on stilts once…
I think anyone looks scary on stilts. They’re usually just clown giants…
Uncle Sam without his hat looks like he’s been bashed on the head causing a serious injury to his Presidential person! I like that he has the official “Presidential smirk” – gives him an air of authenticity that’s perfect.
Pam
You can always trust someone with a smirk and a glaring head injury. And since Uncle Sam bleeds red, it’s proof that he’s not actually an alien bent on taking over the Shelf… which is a plot for another day.
Are you SURE about that alien thing??????????
Oh Lawd – Uncles Sam and 420 – shaking my head and laughing my hiney off. XOXO – Bacon
I want YOU to get stoned!
Snorts and rolls with piggy laughter! I’ll tell mom Uncle Sam said so. XOXO – Bacon
Uncle Sam is one of those characters that I instantly recognize, but am not sure that I trust. I’ve seen him on posters and in books and on commercials, but I dunno. There’s something shifty about him.
Well, first off, he likes to point at people, which I’ve always been told is very rude. And then there’s that issue of just why he wants me in the first place. I’m not in the habit of following the orders of old men dressed in strange costumes.
Exactly!
Don’t messing with my Gov. Hick. He’s a good guy. I’m surprised I missed that bill signing. Just goes to show governing is boring work most of the time. ⚖️
I know someone else from CO who praises him. Anyone official who signs a bill with a bingo dauber is alright with me… especially when it’s one of my cherished “critters!”
He’s a pragmatic and quirky guy but has mostly done a good job, both as gov. and mayor of Denver. Plus he has a great last name.
I never noticed that Uncle Sam’s nose is kind of wide and flat or that his hair points downward in two reverse devil horns on his forehead. Or, that he’s so shiny. Either I’ve just never paid much attention to him before or his hat usually hides those things!
BTW, I brought home a new dog a week ago and the thing went absolutely crazy when I let him loose in the house. He was all BARK BARK BARK BARK BARK! And then he started alternating his barking episodes with HUMP HUMP HUMP! He humped our socks (while we were wearing them), a dog toy, the corner of the ottoman, the air and then he went back to BARK BARK BARK BARK BARK! I was thinking I had a real life Fleabag on my hands! (And socks) Thankfully, he was just really excited to have a new home and he has calmed down but he still completely loses his mind and goes crazy barking and jumping at least once a day and I think, “ oh no, he’s having another Fleabag episode!”
LOL!!! I think I can assume two things….
1. You won’t actually name the dog Fleabag
2. He has a 0% chance of ever being sold to the Chinese buffet if he keeps acting up.
Congrats on your new addition! And I hope he doesn’t have too many more Fleabag episodes, or drop Tootsie Rolls everywhere!
Right on both assumptions. We named him Gary and he’s captured our hearts so fully he could get away with just about anything. Fleabag might stick as one of his nicknames though. He still has episodes of mindless barking a couple of times a day. He gets so excited that it’s like the brain just clicks off!
I have an iron Uncle Sam penny bank, but I think I like your guy better. For one thing, he kind of looks like You Know Who and he doesn’t have a beard, possibly the ONLY Uncle Sam I’ve seen without one. He looks more like a pol and less like a snake oil salesman. I think you’ve got him perfectly synced for his role in this world. Now, all he needs is a bad rug and an orange “tan.”
My Uncle Sam has a beard, you just don’t notice it because it’s hanging all the way from the bottom of his chin, and of course is in 2D.
Perhaps if you’d named him Aunt Louise, he might’ve been a loving, cookie baking character instead… And we all know the world needs more people like that more than we need more corrupt politicians. 😜
It’s much easier to have a politician around than an Aunt Louise in my screwed up imaginary world, though. I could probably get Mitzi to bake cookies though… assuming an apron wouldn’t be too much for her to wear.
“Politician” should definitely be a species. Or maybe a sub-species.
I think the Politicae species is somewhere down there near fungus and algae on the biological charts.
I like this Uncle Sam character. BINGO! I would have NEVER guessed.
Uncle Sam never takes off his hat to reveal his hidden past….