Enyclopedia Brown: The Grown-Up Years

Jesse Walker | 7.17.2012 12:33 PM

Patrick from Popehat looks back at the career of the late Leroy "Encyclopedia" Brown, "disgraced former detective for the Rover Avenue Police Department and later private investigator to the stars."

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Fist of Etiquette 13 years ago

The Croce song was based on this character? Was he genuinely the baddest man in the whole damn town?
1. Tim 13 years ago
  
  He was bad, bad.
2. RedDragon6009 13 years ago
  
  According to Croce, the song was inspired by someone he served with in the Army.
Paul. 13 years ago

So the SCOTUS gets all constitution-ey when it comes to a fictional character, but less so when it's a real case. Awesome.
RedDragon6009 13 years ago

How ironic that he dies on the same day as Donald Sobol, the author of the Encyclopedia Brown series of children's books.
1. CE 13 years ago
  
  Who said that Encyclopedia Brown was "smarter than a bathtub full of smart men" -- which always seemed to me an uncomfortable way to say it.
  1. RedDragon6009 13 years ago
    
    Someone who believes that you should be putting more than one man into a bathtub together...
Episiarch 13 years ago

"Why don't you make like a drum and beat it?"

Man, I loved those books as a kid.
1. Tim 13 years ago
  
  When did you grow up? For me, I knew it was over when Linda Carter hit the tube as Wonder Woman.
  1. Episiarch 13 years ago
    
    I never grew up, Tim.
    1. mr simple 13 years ago
      
      You know that's no defense against statutory laws, right?
      1. Episiarch 13 years ago
        
        I have learned that lesson, unfortunately.
  2. Warty 13 years ago
    
    Epi's correct, Tim. He's 4'9".
    1. Tim 13 years ago
      
      [insert dick joke]
      1. $park? 13 years ago
        
        Is that 'insert dick' joke or insert 'dick joke'?
        
        Episiarch 13 years ago
        
        Insert dick
2. Abdul 13 years ago
  
  Why don't you make like a hydraulic lift and jack it?
  1. EDG reppin' LBC 13 years ago
    
    Why don't you make like a tree and beat it.
    1. Episiarch 13 years ago
      
      Thanks, Biff. WRONG REFERENCE
    2. The Hammer 13 years ago
      
      Why don't you make like a tree and get the fuck out?
3. Warty 13 years ago
  
  Me too. No case too small!
4. Jesse Walker 13 years ago
  
  Man, I loved those books as a kid.
  
  Who didn't? If you were an American born after 1960 or so and you enjoyed reading, you were probably an Encyclopedia Brown fan as a kid.
  
  (Note: This claim is not backed up by any social science.)
  1. $park? 13 years ago
    
    Who didn't?
    
    Me. I've never even heard of this guy until now. And I was born in the early '70s.
    1. Episiarch 13 years ago
      
      PWN'D
      1. Jesse Walker 13 years ago
        
        I had a feeling that comment would be a beacon for counterexamples...
        
        Warty 13 years ago
        
        You left yourself an out, though.
        
        and you enjoyed reading
        
        Sparky's just an illiterate, that's all.
        
        Episiarch 13 years ago
        
        GOD DAMN IT WARTY
        
        Episiarch 13 years ago
        
        No, it's just that Sparky is illiterate. You have to cut him a little slack. Instead of reading, he spent his afternoons smearing lightning bugs on his forehead.
        
        $park? 13 years ago
        
        In my defense I spent a lot of time cooking grasshoppers with hairspray flamethrowers, blowing up frogs with firecrackers, and dropping tadpoles into pools of ammonia. You know, stuff real kids do when they're little.
    2. robc 13 years ago
      
      You missed out.
      1. Tim 13 years ago
        
        Scooby Doo with his subtle marxist-stoner undercurrent usurped child detectives in the early 70's
        
        kinnath 13 years ago
        
        I was forced to watch a lot of Scooby Doo by my kids.
        
        CE 13 years ago
        
        Those darn kids!
    3. The Hammer 13 years ago
      
      Well, Sparky, some of the kids you flung your crap at were probably reading Encyclopedia Brown at the time, so there's that.
  2. kinnath 13 years ago
    
    Never read any of these books (born prior to 1960 of course).
Tulpa the White 13 years ago

Paging barfman:

If Obama wants a fair playing field for America, he can start with college sports

It is the premise of President Obama's re-election: We have a choice to make between a candidate who favors the privileged, the comfortable, the powerful, and a candidate who wants a country where, as Obama has said repeatedly, "everyone gets a fair shot, and everyone does their fair share and everyone plays by the same set of rules."

As Obama sees it, the more affluent should pay higher taxes; big banks should stop playing fast and loose with exotic, risky bets; tycoons shouldn't be allowed to put their thumbs on the scale of political campaigns with unlimited, untraceable money.

But there's one arena, dominated by a privileged, insular few, where rampant hypocrisy and exploitation reign, where an obsession with conquest overrides the most basic standards of fairness, and where Obama has stood somewhere between indifferent and complicit. It's the arena of big-time college sports. And therein lies a tale.
1. generic Brand 13 years ago
  
  Finally! A candidate will tackle the scourge that is women's sports.
2. Hugh Akston 13 years ago
  
  HaHaHaHaHa
  
  As if anybody pays attention to college sports!
Tim 13 years ago

And speaking of dick comparisons:
"U.S. satellite imaging firm Digital Globe said Wednesday on its website that it had captured an image that appears to be the Chinese aircraft carrier Varyag during drills in the Yellow Sea."

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011.....t-carrier/
1. db 13 years ago
  
  Those are balls!
  1. Dagny T. 13 years ago
    
    This close, they always look like landscape.
2. Generic Stranger 13 years ago
  
  There seems to be a distinct lack of aircraft on that carrier.
Franklin Harris 13 years ago

What a whitewash. Nothing about Brown's complicity in the Case of the Bloody Glove.

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Enyclopedia Brown: The Grown-Up Years

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