She Was The Mouseketeer With Tits, Darlings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                Time is swiftly closing in on the baby boomers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                 One of that generation's---and I should know, darlings!!!!!!!--earliest icons, Annette Funicello, died yesterday at the age of 70, following a courageous quarter century battle with Multiple Sclerosis.  The disease may have gotten Annette in body in the end, but not in spirit, and not in memories of her.

                                    When I was a little thing, and not able to distinguish between time, I watched "The Mickey Mouse Club" as though it were something being presented me for the first time.  Which it actually wasn't; by my time, all that I watched had been shot, and was now in syndicated reruns.

                                       Annette was instantly my favorite of the Mouseketeers.  In the cases of some small boys, whose instincts were manifested early, it was those tits that made her popular; for me, on my way to another path, it was my instinctual sense of what constitutes star quality.  I knew Annette "had it," and I wanted some of it.  Which is why, back in those days I wanted to be Annette!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                        Darlings, I simply adored "The Adventures Of Annette," a suburban teen in a mall town, with the most stunning bedroom, not to mention a Princess phone, you could imagine.  It gave me thrills and chills, as I anticipated by own Princess adolescence!!!!!!!!!!  Was I wrong on THAT one, loves!!!!!!!!!!

                                           I remember Annette in her debut in "The Shaggy Dog!"  (With its title tune, "He was the shaggiest dog!  He was the shaggiest dog!"). Her role in that was an extension of her one on "The Adventures Of Annette," but we all just wanted more of her.

                                             Let's see..."Babes In Toyland," where she was Bo Peep.  I loved that one! And who could forget "The Misadventures Of Merlin Jones," and its even better sequel, "The Monkey's Uncle??????????"

                                                 Then came Frankie (Avalon) and those "Beach Party" movies. No one worried about sun screen or skin cancer back then, especially when, as these films told us, you could look as good as Frankie and Annette, spending your youth in carefree indolence on the beach!  Yeah, right!!!!!!!!
If I had done that, I would have melanomas popping off me every week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  And, remember girls, what salt water and sea air does to the heir and skin???????????

                                                     I even loved Annette on those Skippy Peanut Butter commercials.

                                                      Annette will truly be missed by this age group, and I, for one, was sad to hear about her passing yesterday.  Glad that her suffering is at an end, and knowing she is in some post-enchantment universe, where a dream is truly "a wish you heart makes."

                                                        Annette believed that wholeheartedly, even though aspects of her life, especially the end, were no picnic.  Let us remember her beauty, and her joie de vivre.  May we all be inspired by it.

                                                        And never forget this, girls--

                                                        "I love the Monkey's Uncle, wo wo!
                                                         I am wild about his chimpanzee!
                                                         And I wish I were the Monkey's Aunt!"

                   This is how I wanted to look in college, darlings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!