The Genius of Charles Darwin

[Ray de Galles]

The Genius of Charles Darwin

[Bored Of Education]

The Genius of Charles Darwin

Yes, thank you, everyone, I think I got the point when WE mentioned it.

[Ray de Galles]

The Genius of Charles Darwin

Aw, I was still looking for a pic of an elastic pigeon as well.

[Bored Of Education]

The Genius of Charles Darwin

That's why religion still exists, you know, because you atheists are so generous and polite with your passing of information

[Gangster Octopus]

The Genius of Charles Darwin

STOP THE PIGEON NOW!

[Bored Of Education]

The Genius of Charles Darwin

Hey, look, everyone, a thread that started off with Dawkins, Darwin and creationism that has ended up with pictures of pigeons and "Wacky Races" quotes.

I think the "Football" lot have stolen our thunder.

[Wyatt Earp]

The Genius of Charles Darwin

Isn't it, in fact, a quote from Stop The Pigeon?

[Bored Of Education]

The Genius of Charles Darwin

No, it's a quote from "Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines"

[Wyatt Earp]

The Genius of Charles Darwin

Ah, yeah:

Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines was a Saturday morning cartoon produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions for CBS from September 13, 1969 to September 5, 1971. The show's working title was Stop the Pigeon, and the show's theme song (derived from "Tiger Rag" and sung by Dick Dastardly himself) repeats the phrase so often that it is easy for that to be mistaken for the show's actual title. Under the working title, Dick and Muttley were not part of the cast; a chubby, heavy-jowled Red Baron-esque pilot and a dachshund in flying goggles were the central figures. It appeared that those figures were not going anywhere insofar as development, so the characters of Dastardly and Muttley were plucked from Hanna-Barbera's earlier Wacky Races for the series.

[Ray de Galles]

The Genius of Charles Darwin

I am struggling to think exactly how Dastardly & Muttley were deemed to be "going anywhere insofar as development"?

Yes, they switched from failing to win car races to failing to stop a pigeon but I don't feel that we learned more about their character, motivation and back-story as a result.

[Wyatt Earp]

The Genius of Charles Darwin

Sassafrassarassarassa Rarri Raer.

[nefertiti]

The Genius of Charles Darwin

But the pigeon Dastardly and Muttley try to stop is evidently a tumbler pigeon (just look at the way it dodges the cannons, and other devices use by our two titanic tearaways)

As the tumbler pigeon features prominently in Darwin's argument in "The Origin of Species"

No one would ever have thought of teaching, or probably could have taught, the tumbler-pigeon to tumble, an action which, as I have witnessed, is performed by young birds, that have never seen a pigeon tumble

the entire show is obviously a metaphor for the vain attempts of fundamentalism and reaction ( embodied by Dastardly and Muttley) to prevent the progress of scientific thought, represented by the undefeated pigeon.

[Guest]

The Genius of Charles Darwin

Part two of this is on now (Dawkins/Darwin, not Dastardly & Muttley).