And now I've scarred your childhood memories of the jolly fat man. It could be worse; when coming up with John's rationale, I compared Santa giving out coal to the gulags. I decided that probably should be cut from the script.

I've wanted to do a scene with these two brothers for a while now. As I've said before in commentaries, John is one of my favorite characters, and I love the old stereotypical police officers in movies and books. The two characters that probably inspired Sheriff Whitebucket the most are Buford T. Justice from Smokey and the Bandit and Bo Tully from Pat McManus's mystery novels. The combiniation of the Commie-fearing man and the sheriff just works so well. Looking at the last panel, I realized how amazing it would be to have a puppet show involving these two teaching kids about how amazing America is and the evils of Communism.

Have fun!

~Stretch Longfellow~