In february, I wrote about the time that Anne and I discussed Highlights for Children at great length:
"You know what I always hated about Highlights?" Anne said, "some idiot kid had always circled the hidden pictures."
"Seriously!" I said, "fuck that kid, man. That kid's a dick."
"And what kind of parent gives their kid a pen to draw all over a magazine that's obviously intended for more than one kid to read?"
"Asshole parents," I said, "it's called Highlights for Children, you jerk, not Highlights for your Children. Highlights should have done a Goofus and Gallant about that, man."
Well, look what arrived from the fine people at Highlights for Children a couple of weeks ago:
DUDE! That is totally me sitting next to Goofus, expressing my non-profane displeasure! DUDE! DUUUUDE!
… I know, right?!
After all these years, I am an indirect contributor to Highlights for Children.
My life is weird.
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Dude! Weirdly awesome!
I do love, however, that they totally drew the “Don’t be a dick” expression on animated you’s face.
Well done by all!
See?? It’s “Don’t be a dick” for kids!
This made my day!
As Highlights readers (we have a three year old) we appreciate your PSA for the Highlights world.
That is just too cool!
We have our own copy as subscribers so my kid can be Goofus all he wants (but not at the Dentist’s office).
Did they send this to you directly, or did you find out about it sideways?
It was sent to me directly. They also sent me a framed print of the artwork that is hanging in a prominent place of honour in our house.
I remember Highlights when I was a kid and yes…some other kid ruined it for me too. They ought to make the pages of that magazine ‘pen-proof’ or something. I love how they drew the WTF?! look on your face with your arm hooked behind the couch.
This art is made of Awesome. Period.
What’s even weirder is thinking that someone at Highlights magazine is cool enough to be a reader of Wil’s blog. 😉
They should send it to everyone in their renewl package 🙂 I save the magazines for other kids, so they should learn to not be a dick.
Yep, the profanity was definitely implied. WTG Wil!
Dude! Now you’re famou- oh yeah.
Being German, I don’t know Highlights but there were similar magazines when I was a kid and I hated it when they were defaced, too. Well pointed out and well done to Highlights for picking up on it in this fantastic way.
“After all these years, I am an indirect contributor to Highlights for Children.”
uh…i think by the fact its you in the picture and they sent you a framed print that makes you a direct contributor…
Wil,
That is awesome. I remember when Highlights used to come with simple games in BASIC (I think). I saved a ton of them just for that reason. Thus beginning my love of programming. I think I was 11(ish) at the time.
Would this be an example of “Don’t be a Dick & Jane?”
ok, now that is totally awesome. 🙂
Was this a one-off just for you, or is it actually appearing in the magazine?
My first thought was that it’s a photo of Peter Joseph, creator of the Zeitgeist series of films, but it could be David Koresh. I don’t expect Wil to look at children with great vengeance and furious anger.
That is amazing, but I think it’s hilarious that you’re staring at some child in furious aggravation. They need to draw the lazy parent there so you can stare at them in annoyance.
you should send them a thank you letter and offer to write for them now and then. could we get a pic of you holding the framed copy?
RIGHT THIS VERY MOMENT, I have a Highlights subscription waiting on my decision to be filled out. I think this just tipped the balance.
Goofus and Gallant in color! Totally different from how I remember it.
This is actually in the magazine.
That is too cool, and all so true!
but, why can’t *I* see the picture? *sigh* Don’t be a dick interwebs 🙁
I don’t know, it looks more to me like Evil Wil Wheaton just finished handing Goofus the marker…
You look like the parent of the red-headed child.
Hola Senor Wheaton,
F those kids with uncontrollable Sharpie markers. F the kids with the crayons. F the wee little wankers with an uncontrolled desire to whip out their best #2 pencil and have their way with an unsullied magazine.
F the pre-law majors who have their way with the newspaper you find on the subway or train, and half-finish the crossword while misspelling eight words. And, especially, F those GDMF’in MFers who put about three words into the crossword in the free magazine you run into on airplanes
F all y’all! Well, not the literate folks. Just the rest. Though I guess they’re maybe not reading the internets ™.
Goofus thinks that you can trademark a common phrase like “Hidden Pictures” just by capitalizing it and throwing an ® on it. Gallant realizes that common words and phrases belong to everyone, just like when Microsoft got bitch-slapped for trying to trademark Windows.
Not that Gallant would ever, ever say anything like “bitch-slapped”. But he thinks it sometimes.
But more importantly, way to improve the world a tiny bit more than you already have, Wil.
The DBAD version of Wil Wheaton also attended the optimistically titled “Million Fag March” in Topeka, Kansas a few weeks ago (albeit in 2D form):
http://goo.gl/JjlnW
For those non-link-clickers out there, the image is a young woman holding a sign with an image of Wil Wheaton and the words “Wil Wheaton Says Don’t Be A Dick.”
So now everyone from the readers of Highlights for Children to the picketers of Westboro Baptist Church has been, as it were, schooled. 🙂
That is fucking awesome!
Even an inadvertent win is still a win.
WOW! I had no idea that the folks at Highlights were so cool! but now that I think of it, I guess they have to be! (He said, suddenly realizing that the “highlight’s” authors from his childhood were probably retired and long since replaced by folks his own age)
I also cursed the heavens when I found a filled out issue at the dentist… so much that my Mom finally ordered a subscription! The only trouble is that I’d play with the magazine instead of doing my homework…..
As an English major, I’m kind of ashamed to realize that I pronounce Gallant as “Gul- lont” in my head.
Is there nothing that you can’t do?…You’re now adding little children to the demographics that are reaching with your entertainment empire…
Seriously…It’s just another sign that Wheaton’s Back!…And this time he ain’t gonna leave.
Ironically, we got an offer in the mail for Highlights last week. I thought to myself, if we get Arianna this, it won’t be all marked up and 30 years old. And yeah, someone from Highlights totally reads your blog but that couldn’t be more you.
You realize you’re making this the first ever collectors edition of Highlights, right?
Even more so than the beard…It’s the eyebrows that scream “Wil Wheaton”!…Wil’s eyebrows of disapproval.
I wonder if original post commenter Eric G. Myers http://profile.typepad.com/ericmyers2 was partially responsible for this.
You know you’ve made it as an actor and a blogger when you’ve made it into Highlights! lol Truly though, that is awesome!
Oh, Highlights, you are still so awesome, even if my kid still won’t read you. (At 7, my oldest is sadly not getting into reading the way I’d want him to. I have high hopes for my second kid, though.)
HAHA! That is terrific.
Dearest Wil (or anyone of his loverly fans)…
I am trying to buy audio versions of the books without luck. (your own/his own books not just read by him)
Maybe I’m blind and it’s right there but I exhausted the itunes, amazon and lulu, and have been reading blog entries over again etc without finding a functional link. Can you only buy them on Audible now?
Thanks in advance for any help.
*mind blown*
Non-profane?? Clearly you are saying “Dude! WTF?”.
/it’s all in the body language.
You’re doing almost everything I’ve ever dreamed of doing (not done dreaming/trying to make dreams reality). Next thing you know, you’ll be offered to work on a film restoration project for something I love such as Murphy Brown. Or, more likely(ish), Star Trek.
(I do get to perform some film restoration work for NFL Films, but 20 hrs/wk for 6 months is not enough work!)
I love this. Fortunately this was never a problem for me growing up, as my family had probably the only nationwide household subscription to Highlights for Children. My dad spent several weeks trying to find an adult-sized watch band for the Tommy Timbertoes watch he’d sent away for.
That is wonderful! Do you know what issue it was/will be in?
(Because yes, as someone above said, you’ve totally made this the first collectable issue of Highlights.)
That is soo frickin’ awesome! If you weren’t a part of American pop culture, now you are!
As an employee of Highlights for Children, I find this hilarious and wish there could be more cross-over between our content and the Star Trek universe.
Art imitating Life. Fan-frickin-tastic. For a sec, I didn’t recognize it. I remember the old-school Goofus and Gallant. (…The Wheaton is Everywhere…)
I didn’t have anything to do with it, but it’s pretty cool to see my company do something like this. Wil + Goofus and Gallant. Damn proud to work here today.