Happy Post-Labor Tuesday edition of Nightcaps to you, a real bittersweet day on the ol’ “The Far Side” desk calendar, if ever there was one.
It’s the symbolic end of summer, but with that comes football (and more importantly, hockey), and what a weekend it was.
But even though Summer ’26 is pretty much over, I’ve saved one summertime ritual for September: a road trip.
My wife and I (plus another passenger I will get into in a moment) will be driving from Orlando, Florida, to Pennsylvania Dutch Country to celebrate my old man retiring after 35 years of service in law enforcement.
Also, there’s an Iron Maiden concert nearby, but that was just a very happy coincidence.
I wouldn’t miss it for the world, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to still try to save a few bucks.
The original plan was to fly, and it was two things: inconvenient for when we were going and expensive.
15 DOG ESSENTIALS THAT MAKE LATE-SUMMER WALKS AND ROAD TRIPS EASIER
So, I convinced my wife that it would be better to drive over two days.
But I also convinced her that we could save even more cheddar if we brought our French bulldog, Carl, with us.
Now, the numbers check out. I stand by that. I’m also excited to give our newish Ford Bronco Sport a proper long-distance test. However, I’m starting to sweat it a little because if this road trip doesn’t go off without a hitch, I will hear about it for the rest of my life.
And I mean, I won’t get a break from “…remember how you made us drive to Pennsylvania?” ending any semi-heated discussion until I settle into a pine box for the ol’ dirt nap.
I think it’ll be good. I’ve planned it out to avoid traffic in major cities and also to make sure we’re on the road so I can listen to F1 practice on the radio (don’t tell my wife that part, though).
Hopefully, it’s entirely uneventful, and the biggest issue we encounter is a free continental breakfast somewhere in the wilds of North Carolina with a broken waffle iron.
Anyway, enough about my yapping… actually, that’s a lie, but we will move on to yapping about other stuff.
I went to see “Coyote vs. Acme” this weekend (which was great), and that meant sitting through about half an hour of trailers, ads, and Nicole Kidman waxing poetic about the magic of movies.
Half an hour before a movie that was only an hour and forty minutes…
Anyway, none of those trailers hold a candle to the one that dropped on Monday for awkward-moment GOAT Nathan Fielder’s documentary about disgraced tech leader Elizabeth Holmes, “You Can See Everything.”
BOX OFFICE COMEBACK: HOW SUMMER 2026 OFFERS A GLIMMER OF HOPE FOR HOLLYWOOD IN THE POST-COVID ERA
Even if you don’t know what it’s about, it might make your skin crawl; if you do, it will absolutely make you squirm.
Holmes famously lied a lot about her company Theranos’ capabilities and defrauded people out of millions, which landed her in the clink.
So, her staring at Fielder, talking about how she wouldn’t deceive him? Yeah, it feels a little like you’re looking at a female Hannibal Lecter with a more socially acceptable diet.
The three-hour documentary got rave reviews in its surprise screening, but more importantly, it birthed a slew of memes.
Well, I think I’ll have to clear a couple of hours and check that puppy out when it comes out in October.
And if you’ve never seen “Nathan For You,” you probably have a friend who will talk your ear off about it.
I used to be a big Guinness Book of World Records guy when it was all about fat motorcycle twins and people clipping dozens of clothespins to their face, but it’s gotten a little ridiculous. Most of the time it’s just people doing things that no one ever really thought to do before, and are therefore records.
Like, I could balance a few books on the end of a plunger and — voila! — record.
So, it made me happy to see an old-school-style record courtesy of Great Britain’s Leah Shutkever.
That record? Housing a burrito faster than any human being ever has before… when being filmed on camera by the people from Guinness.
Did anyone else just think of some David Attenborough-narrated nature documentary where a python swallows an antelope whole, or was that just me?
What a display, and nice to see the British loosening up a little on the manners front. Tough to be on the forefront of competitive eating if you’re more concerned with which fork goes where instead of cramming tortilla, rice, and beans into your food hole.
SUBSCRIBE TO ‘THE CRAIG CARTON SHOW’ ON YOUTUBE
Congratulations, Leah. We can’t wait to see what you gorge yourself on next.
In my humble opinion, one of the greatest bits of the last 35 years is Triumph the Insult Comic Dog.
The brainchild of comedy great Robert Smigel, I can throw on a Triumph bit from “Late Night” that I’ve already seen dozens of times and laugh hysterically like it’s brand new.
It’s genius.
However, Triumph may have taken a wrong step, and it was all because of his tier list of TV and movie dogs.
He’s No. 1 — which I can live with — but after that, things get wild.
That’s a great list… for me and the rest of the internet to poop on!
Wishbone on the same tier as Scrappy-Doo? One is a Jack Russell Terrier who exposed a generation to literary classics, while the other is Scooby’s nephew that everyone hates.
And Air Bud in the “Near Great” tier? Did I imagine this, or is he a multi-sport athlete who has bailed out multiple teams over the years?
Those are my gripes; others had theirs.
There are also a few omissions I think we need to include.
First is Muttley of “Wacky Races” fame, who I think needs to go in the average tier. Not a bad sidekick for Dick Dastardly, but could’ve been near-great had he helped him pull off more evil schemes successfully.
The other one is Tiger from “The Brady Bunch,” who was an abject failure.
Do you realize how bad you have to be to get written out of “The Brady Bunch” when they chose to write in Cousin Oliver?
…
That’s it for today’s edition of Nightcaps! See you tomorrow!
