Certified Rotten Potato – My “Jabberwocky” Souvenir (Sketch)

This is the third in my unplanned series referencing things related to Monty Python. (The first one. The second one.)

I was 15 when the film Jabberwocky was released in 1977, directed by Terry Gilliam, of Monty Python. I went with my sister on opening day — as we would do again two years later to see Life of Brian (see this story).

If you are unfamiliar with the film, it tells the story of Dennis, a medieval peasant who unwittingly becomes involved in his kingdom’s struggle against a terrifying monster: the Jabberwocky. Dennis carries with him a potato given to him by the woman he loves. The king, Bruno the Questionable, is a self-absorbed ruler who surrounds himself with sycophants and is detached from the real struggles of his people. Rather than the peasants, King Bruno is more responsive to the kingdom’s merchants, who find the Jabberwocky good for business — creating a populace that lives in insecurity and fear, too terrified to leave the city’s walls.

So: prescient.

Souvenir Spud

To mark the auspicious opening of Jabberwocky, everyone who came to see the movie was given a potato, and a “Certificate of Authenticity.” The certificate said, “bring it back one year from today and we will give you a brand new one.”

I put the potato in a Ziploc bag and pinned it to my bedroom wall with the intention to return to the Camelview theater the following year and to make them honor their end of the deal.

Remember: I said I was 15.

There was no doubt in my mind that I would claim my new potato after one year.

Months passed. I had one of those stereotypical teenage bedroom walls that was covered with posters and mementos. I would sometimes forget about my tater contract with the Camelview theatre. It was lost in the visual noise on my wall, but holding vigil, waiting to be redeemed.

Unredeemed

I didn’t forget the redemption day. But the teenage brain goes through some rapid changes during those years. What’s it called again? Maturity?

I turned 16. Then one day I noticed the bag still pinned to the wall. There was a pool of dark brown liquid at the bottom. The potato was shriveled and squishy. Some sprouts had furtively poked out from some of the tuber’s eyes only to die from lack of oxygen.

I looked at rotting potato corpse on my wall and I asked myself: Is this really going to happen? Am I going to plan my return to the theater, get someone to drive me there, so I can walk in with this bag in one hand and the certificate in the other, approach some theater employee and say, “Hello, I’ve come to claim my potato” — just to see the looks on their faces?

Today this is exactly the kind of dumbass thing that teenagers do for views, likes, and clicks. To be totally honest, I might have held out and actually done it — actually gone back to the theater — if I had known someone with a Super 8 movie camera who would have filmed me returning the potato.

Instead I took the bag off of the wall and threw it in the garbage.

The medium of this sketch is ball-point pen and colored pencils, tweaked a little bit in GIMP.