There are literally 4 people in the entire world who understand this note because they were there on that fateful day when we had a dramatic test reading of our friend's new book.

He's fan-riffic!

The last Hanna-Barbera / Mario crossover is Hong Kong Phooey (Hong Kong Phooey + Donkey Kong)

All he needs is to break open a crate and find his newest animal helper, Spot the cat.

On the fourth day of mashups, my Shannon gave to me...
Princess Snagglepeachs = Princess Peach + Snagglepuss

...and doooooooon't you forget it!

Today I present:
"Quick Draw Mariograw" (Quick Draw McGraw + Mario) and "Baba Luigi" (Baba Looey + Luigi)

Continuing with our Hanna-Barbera / Mario mashup, here is "Boo-Boo Bear" (Boo-Boo + Boo).  The text is a parody of Boo's dialogue as seen in Mario Party. 

Also, I have gone back through all of the posts I have made to date, and added a "click to enlarge" feature for any notes, like this one, that were shrunk down in order to fit the layout scheme.  Yay for increased legibility!

This week we're smashing together classic Hanna-Barbera  characters with characters from the expanded Super Mario-verse...

First up: Yoshi + Yogi Bear = Yoshi Bear

Wrapping up my series of educational posts, I present "The Meiji Restoration in Six Panels."

Text transcribed for easy reading:
Panel 1 - 1866: Tokugawa Yoshinobu, the 15th Shogunate, rules Japan
[picture of Shinsengumi holding sword]<- His army + police are the Shinsengumi
Panel 2 - Later in 1866: Saigo Takamori and Kido Takayoshi form the Satsuma-Chōshū alliance to restore the emperor to power [picture of handshake]
Panel 3 - 1867: Emperor Meiji ascends the throne after his father's death.  His supporters force Yoshinobu to resign, although he still holds power [picture of Shinsengumi saying "We're still here!"]
Panel 4 - 1868: Battle of Toba-Fushimi starts the Boshin War, Yoshinobu is defeated and stripped of all power [picture of Shinsengumi running away from one of the emperor's soldiers, shouting "Ahhh!"]
Panel 5 - 1869: Shogunate forces escape to Hokkaido and establish the separatist Republic of Ezo [picture of Shinsengumi saying "They'll never find us here!," with a giant arrow pointing to him that states "Look! Shinsengumi!"]
Panel 6 - May 1869: The Battle of Hakodate finally and officially ends the Tokugawa Shogunate, and the emperor's power is completely restored [picture of Shinsengumi slain by the emperor's forces]

(fun note: my computer didn't think "Shinsengumi" was a real word, and kept urging me to correct it to "gumshoeing")

[source: various textbooks.  I can't remember which ones at the moment, but the information is fairly standard history]

I regret being so glib and flippant with this note.  The reality of life for Heian court women was much more complicated than it seems:
- They were kept sequestered behind fences, curtains, and screens, with their only face-to-face contact being the women they worked with, certain family members, and their lovers/spouses.  (Although, they were freely allowed to have lovers, provided they were of equal social standing, so that's a plus.)
- Women had absolutely no privacy amongst their peers; ladies-in-waiting all slept in the same hall, with the only delineation between bedrolls being 3ft.-tall standing screens.  (cue the "not so hilarious" antics of having your secret lover stumble into the wrong cubicle under the darkness of night)
- The only time women were allowed to leave their confines were on scheduled field trips to observe a seasonal or cultural festival, go on a religious pilgrimage, prepare for a religious ritual, or take a leave of absence to visit their family.  Luckily, if one was creative, one could make an excuse for just about any field trip (So, I hear the flowers down by the hot springs are really pretty this year.  We're totally going to watch them bloom, and not, you know, to visit the hot springs.  We swear.) 
- Also, the Japanese at the time believed in Onmyōdō, a mixture of science and Chinese mysticism, in addition to practicing Buddhism, so their calendar was a highly complex tapestry of festivals and holy days of all different (sometimes conflicting) flavours. 
Unfortunately, the role of women in these events generally boiled down to "observe through the partially-obstructed window of their carriage," "sit in public with their faces hidden behind a screen," or "slave for hours making clothing and decorations for other people" (although we have documented accounts of women cajoling men into decorating the outside of their carriage in flowers for them, during a particularly relaxed spring outing). 
- Both courtiers and ladies-in-waiting did not usually have to fear for their lives or safety, but they were treated like performing pets (both by the nobility, and to a certain extent by each other), and every detail of their life was judged and scrutinized - they could lose court favour (which would not only endanger their position, but would also bring shame to their family's reputation) for such offenses as mismatching their clothing (easy to do with more than 12 layers of traditional "juni-hitoe" robes), not being able to generate witty puns or haiku on command, using the wrong type of paper for a letter, missing literary references in conversation, or (for women) showing their face to a man in public.  (Think court of Versailles + constant SAT tests.) 
- As preparation for their duties, court women were all taught to read and write (yay!), but they were also required to memorize thousands of pages of poetry, literature, and history in order to keep up with, and produce, interesting conversation and writings (boo!)  However, some women truly excelled in this environment.  Our only candid first-hand accounts of this era were penned by a woman, Kiyohara Nagiko (better known by her title of Sei Shōnagon), and one of the most famous epics in literary history, Genji Monogatari, was written by her rival and fellow lady-in-waiting Murasaki Shikibu.  These documents are the main sources we have today in understanding the lives of women then, and allow us to see the full range of their joys and sorrows.

[Source: general study of the era, including two different close-read translations of Sei Shōnagon's writings.  The only thing I double-checked before writing this post was how to spell the names.]

(Also, goths can be super-pretty and in tune with nature, too.)
(Additionally, I really like parentheses.)

This is a mashup of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and the flash video, "The End of the World" (video NSFW, or for anyone with class and good taste, due to language and violence). 

Her name is Aayla, but every single voice actor pronounces it differently, so I was poking fun at that in the first panel.  Also, she is totally kickass in canon, and she is my favourite Jedi, so this comic is meant to rib at the silly episode we watched, and is not making fun of her as a character.

Nathaniel asked for an "educational note," so here is a chart showing the fate of Henry the Eighth's wives: 
First is Catherine of Aragon.  Since she had not given him a male heir, and since his mistress Anne Boleyn was so much hotter than her, he tried to have their marriage annulled.  The Catholic church was having none of that, so he formed his own church, kicked Catherine out of court, and married his mistress anyway.  
When Anne also failed to produce a male heir, and when Henry found a new woman he liked more, Jane Seymour, he had Anne arrested on false charges of witchcraft and killed, so he could be free to pursue the new relationship.  (I'm sensing a pattern here.)
Jane gave birth to a son, Edward VI, but unfortunately died in childbirth.  Henry honored her by giving her a queen's funeral (even though she was never officially crowned), and he asked to be buried beside her upon his death. 
Three years later he married Anne of Cleves (I misspelled it in the drawing), but when he met her in person he thought she looked like a horse, divorced her almost immediately, and sent her off to live in a castle for the rest of her days. 
Next, he fell in love with and married the young Kathryn Howard.  She was later beheaded on charges of adultery and pre-marital relations, although chances are she may also have been a victim of politics and male privilege, like Anne. 
Henry's last wife was Katherine Parr, who had the good fortune to outlive him.

(Various spellings of "Catherine" were used interchangeably back then. I have chosen to use the spellings from each woman's signature.  I figure if that's what they wrote, that's what they'd want to be remembered as.)

[Source: Most of this I learned from history classes or from trips to England with my family, but I used Wikipedia to double-check my memory.]