Today's subject is Alf the Elf from Saban's 'Maya the Bee' (MtB) series.
I've covered MtB before, when I drew Alexander the Great ...but that was a while ago. Suffice it to say, MtB was a series I saw almost every day on NickJr during the early part of the 1990s (so I have some degree of nostalgia for it).
That said, I don't regard MtB as particularly good (per se), though in retrospect I can understand why I liked the series. I was blessed with a huge backyard in the 90s, complete with a garden and even a ditch wherein salamanders and crawfish could be found (it's one reason I include the latter in my Gene comics). MtB gave me a fictionalized perspective on the tiny world that was happening outside, which I suppose is why I enjoyed the series so much, despite its shortcomings.
Digressing a bit, but my yard was something else. We didn't have a gas mower, so we had to keep the grass at bay with a push-mower bought from a yardsale. If allowed to, the grass would become too tall and thick for the mower, in which case you had to go outside and cut the grass with a kitchen knife. :p Even so, I liked the tall grass. Many, many colorful things made their homes there, and when wet with dew, it would soak one's pants legs. :3
Alf's is among the best episodes of MtB. Now, that's not too high a bar, but this episode is genuinely good, at least IMHO.
The episode begins with Maya (who believes humans to be good) giving ear to some horrible-human stories, including,
IKETHEMOSQUITO (to Maya): "As you can see, Maya, I'm a mosquito---a male mosquito. And what I'm so upset about is humans. They try to kill me, but I'm not the one who flies up and stabs them to drink their blood---only female mosquitos do that. So you see why I'm upset? Humans don't even try to tell the difference! A female takes a chunk out of them, and they'll swat anything with wings! ...Humans? Humph! They think they're so smart---how smart can they be if they can't even tell a male from a female!?"
Oh, this is tempting ...so very, very tempting (but now is not the time).
I'm saving my opinions for my review of 'Dot and the Bunny' ...which incidentally is a story about identity politics (the bunny identifies as a kangaroo). Hey, I tried to keep politics out of my art, but it's become so increasingly difficult that I'm not gonna try anymore (my pro-life comic didn't go over too well, though I apologize for none of it) ...but I digress. :p :3
Anyway...
Alf is a guardian of the forest. Guardians like Alf are supposed to work in secret, but by happenstance, Maya catches a glimpse of Alf. Consequently, Alf has to grant Maya a wish. Because Maya has a fascination with humans (and has heard conflicting stories about whether humans are good or bad), Maya uses her wish to know the truth of whether humans are good or evil.
Alf (of course) grants Maya's wish (by showing some humans interacting with one another), but what was the conclusion?
Because I'm not reviewing this episode, I'll not spoil it, but I will throw out a hint,
ALFTHEELF (to Maya): "...I purposely chose to show you humans that weren't doing bad or cruel things, Maya. I wanted you to see them at their best tonight, so that if someday you happen to see them at their worst, you'll remember tonight. And understand this: if you open your eyes, you'll see that humans aren't all bad, and they're not all good---they're a combination of both. But as I said, tonight we'll look mostly at the good, and the best is yet to come!"
Ah, but there's a twist I'll leave up to my readers to see for themselves (providing the link to the video still works).
Pencil...
The featured pencil is the 'Sunset', by The Zellerbach Paper Company/Crown-Zellerbach, in San Francisco. These pencils were sometimes sold in packages of 12 that marked them as 'Schoolarama' products (made by the above-mentioned).
Yeah, despite the 'five-cent USD' mark, these pencils were sold in packages, albeit many were probably sold singly by merchants who wanted to (waaaaaay back when one could buy a pencil for a nickel).
I'm unsure of the precise vintage of these pencils, but they appear to be quite common---I've acquired an incidental handful just from buying lots of assorted pencils (albeit, this is the only one I have that bears the 'five-cent' mark, but it's far from the only 'Sunset' I've seen bearing this).
There were other pencils named 'Sunset'. Perhaps the most well-known 'Sunset' pencils were the coloring variety produced by Prov. Pencil Co (pre-1947), and later by Empire. There is/was a Chinese manufacturer that made 'Sunset' pencils which appeared very similar to the Zellerbachs.
