Furry Old Lobster Video
Cody sends in this delightful video for Furry Old Lobster. I think this might be the only way anyone will ever get the joke about smashing open clams on their bellies with stones.
Cody sends in this delightful video for Furry Old Lobster. I think this might be the only way anyone will ever get the joke about smashing open clams on their bellies with stones.
August 28th, 2006 at 9:01 am
I can’t see it because of a filter but I’m hoping somebody will spoil it for me. I always thought that was just a reference to how otters smash open clams. Am I unusually dense on this one and missing something?
August 28th, 2006 at 9:15 am
No that’s exactly what it is. I always wait for people to at least smile in recognition when that line comes around, but they rarely do. Oh, I know: it’s not funny. Oh well…
August 28th, 2006 at 9:32 am
Ah. Glad to see I wasn’t missing out on something. I smile at that line. It brings back fond memories for me as I was raised by Sea Otters and still return to the sea annually to visit and frollic in the waves.
August 28th, 2006 at 9:32 am
Hey, *I* got the joke about smashing open clams on their bellies with stones, and I think I might have smiled. But that’s what you get for not being in the room.
August 28th, 2006 at 10:03 am
Furry Old Lobster is one of my favorites! The “smash open…” line is the key to the whole song. Definitely the song when I concluded that you were a genius…because how else would you have come up with the concept for this song?
August 28th, 2006 at 1:27 pm
I get the “smash open” thing, but the whole song confuses me — where did the idea that sea otters were lobsters come from in the first place? It smells like some kind of an inside joke that got turned into a cool song, but I missed the opening part of the joke. Can anyone fill me in?
August 28th, 2006 at 1:58 pm
Spiff, you require the complete world knowledge. Many things will become more clear after reading the works of pan-expert John Hodgman.
August 28th, 2006 at 2:15 pm
A reasonable question Spiff. This is from the deranged mind of John Hodgman - there is a section in his book on the history of the lobster in America. The short version is that the creature we originally called a lobster (a kind of sea otter) was destroyed by the import of the crustacean variety we are all familiar with today. I guess without that back story the song sounds a little nuts.
August 28th, 2006 at 5:33 pm
Nuts! It’s genius, if you have complete world knowledge.
August 28th, 2006 at 7:04 pm
I knew it was one of those things where all the cool guys knew what was going on and I wasn’t a cool guy (yet). Just to cement my persona as a complete noob, it’s all from the fevered Hodgman brain, or is it based on some long-lost fact that I never learned anywhere?
August 28th, 2006 at 8:51 pm
Fevered brain. Though the genius of Hodgman is that sometimes the stuff he makes up is more true than the actual truth…
August 28th, 2006 at 10:49 pm
It’s a joke? Just down the coast in Monterey, the place is still teeming with the furry old lobsters. They taste great! As a general rule, I don’t eat endangered species, but they’re just too darn tasty to pass up.*
I had one of the new furless ones with the claws this past weekend, and it’s just not the same.
I haven’t had one of those furry new lobstahs yet, though. (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furry_lobster)
*NB: yes, I got the joke, and no, I don’t eat otters… often.
August 29th, 2006 at 6:37 am
By way of cementing a fine JoCo tradition, please note the image at 0:46 — paw claps!
August 31st, 2006 at 3:09 pm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/06/sci_nat_enl_1141830109/img/1.jpg
Cross breeding between the furry old lobster and the evil crustacean?
October 15th, 2008 at 8:43 am
Is there a specific species of Otter that this song is referring to? Such as the (supposed) extinct Stellar Sea Otter, or is it just referring to otters in New England in general? I wish they were around here still….I’ve never seen a live, wild otter…