Headlines, links and little stories to make your tail wag. Guest posts welcome. Tips: patch.ofurr@gmail.com.

Furries at Burning Man – Amazing fursuit programmed to light up with movement! Don’t miss the suit at 1:10. (Vid by Vox Fox).

German news article: “EUROFURENCE In Video – The Furries conquer Neukölln.”

The coming 2016 Furpocalypse is getting ridiculous: Netflix announces “Mascots” movie, from famed mockumentary maker Christopher Guest.

Brace yourselves, Disney’s Zootopia is coming. Now this: a grade-A Hollywood director is tackling “fursploitation”, my catch-all genre that has many mediocre failures and just a few sparkling hits (like CollegeHumor’s Furry Force.) Chris Guest is famous for popularizing “mockumentary” with movies like This Is Spinal Tap and Best In Show. His “Mascots” will be on Netflix in 2016. There’s little info about it yet except a very short summary:

Welcome to all the drama, intrigue and occasional excitement of the 8th World Mascot Association Championships, where a group of ‘unusual’ men and women, with big heads and furry suits, compete to win the prestigious Gold Fluffy Award and be crowned best mascot in the world.

There’s no proof it’s a capital-f Furry reference, but assume it has something to do with it. Even if they don’t say so, marketers don’t live under rocks. Of course they don’t care about a tiny audience of us, but mainstream furry references are aimed at anyone who’s spent time on the internet.

Why does “fursploitation” comedy often fail? Look back at the great comments from Troj, about the unimpressive web series, “Fursona Files.” Basically, taking something that’s already absurd and trying to make it MORE weird and silly doesn’t make comedy with a heart or a brain. It doesn’t make sympathy for the characters. Bad parody for it’s own sake usually comes from outsiders who don’t know any furries.

Aside from Furry Force (where the real comedy is about the villain, Victor Vivisector, and his overblown reactions) – my pick for a fantastic comedy-drama with furries is the underexposed Oscar-contender German movie, Finsterworld. It’s surprisingly thoughtful.

Let’s hope Chris Guest’s instincts for good movie directing steer it right. Deadpanning absurd situations is a good approach. He should research furries, even if they aren’t directly a target.

Oh, I forgot to do furry drama. Mockumentary? How dare they!

I mailed Christopher Guest’s agent and Netflix inc. to ask for publicity sent here.

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History

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Just shared: Bay Area Furries at San Francisco Pride parade 2002 – a likely historical first.

Tom Howling notes:

The first time, as far as I know, that a furry contingent marched in a Pride parade. It was a controversial decision: Quite a few furs at the time felt that it was dangerously conflating furry with sex and sexuality.

Furries were in the parade again in 2004 and 2005, but didn’t come back until 2014 and 2015. Search this site for stories and videos of each of those appearances.

Sleazy Movie Maker Keeps It Up (tip: Higgs Raccoon).

Higgs: “Rick Castro is still flogging Plushies & Furries after 14 years…”

He was like a mockumentary maker, except he allegedly lied to everyone involved and it isn’t funny. His sex movie aired (censored) on MTV around 2001, and they say right away he stopped pretending to care about people he used. He’s held more responsible than most, for pushing Furry as fetish based, and not a creative fan interest that includes some people who are kinky too. In 2005, he opened a fetish art gallery. It lends a name to his film festival where he’s showing this old junk. If your target hates what you’ve done, including those in it and some who are actually involved in the sub-section of kink… stop that.

25 Years of the Disney Afternoon.

“The Disney Afternoon officially ran from September 10, 1990, until August 29, 1997. Disney first blew the doors off of syndicated afternoon television with its greatest hit, DuckTales, which premiered in September 1987. It would run for four seasons—100 episodes—becoming Disney’s most prolific animated program.”

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Books and Publishing

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New Anthro Zine: A Glimpse Of Anthropomorphic Literature is now accepting submissions.

Follow two new Furry publishers on Twitter. Thurston Howl and Weasel Press.

Cats of the Rennaissance (Tip: Higgs Raccoon.) Cats Are Taking Over Famous Western Artworks.

Legacy by Hugo Jackson – Bookworm Review.

Fred Patten reviewed this here. Now, site volunteer Poppa Bookworm has a video review.