Whackbat

At 10:30 this morning I dragged Roger Ebert's three and a half stars to the movie theater for a breakfast-time showing of "Fantastic Mr. Fox," Wes Anderson's recent foray into stop-motion animation.

Unsurprisingly, hearing stop-motion-animated woodland creatures voiced by George Clooney, Meryl Streep and Jason Schwartzman deliver lines scribed by the chap responsible for "Rushmore" and "The Royal Tenenbaums" from a story penned by the dude who contrived "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and "Matilda" made me smirk like a kid pooping in the bathtub.

The best part of the movie, however, wasn't the voices, the dialogue or the plot. The best part of "Fantastic Mr. Fox" was Whackbat, which is now my second favorite nonexistent sport. (Quidditch, of course, is first.)

In lieu of trying to explain Whackbat myself, I found a tidy little piece about the sport's evolution on YouTube.

Have joy.