RONCOM

Opening this weekend:

Ron's Gone Wrong--"B-bots" are the hot new item every kid wants. Shaped like big glowing Tic Tacs, B-bots are personalized robotic sidekicks programmed to cater to each individual kid's tastes, and to maximize their social media presence.

The craze for this highly plausible consumer product is the premise of this CGI animated comedy, a Brit production distributed in the states by 20th Century. Our junior-high-age hero Barney would love a B-bot for his birthday, but Barney's dad, a struggling novelties salesman, can't afford to get him a brand new one, so he gives him one that literally fell off a truck.

This is Ron (voiced by Zach Galifianakis), and he's damaged goods; he has indeed gone wrong, and his screwy malfunctioning antics generate much wacky mayhem. Initially appalled, Barney gradually learns to love his well-meaning but haywire pal in a way that the kids with functional B-bots can't. Ron, who seems like a cousin of the similarly minimalist and deadpan Baymax in Disney's 2014 Big Hero 6, is indeed a lovable presence.

The overarching point of Ron's Gone Wrong--that true friendship can't be programmed; it's messy and always requires compromise and acceptance--is a good one. But the movie's more direct and immediate points, about our society's alarming if not terrifying addiction to social media, are probably more urgently needed.

FEAST/BEAST

The advice of Baymax from Big Hero 6 is well taken, I suppose…

Happy Thanxgiving everybody! On the staggeringly long list of that for which I’m thankful is the pet microchip. Here’s why:

This past Sunday morning I was coming home with some fast-food breakfast when I saw this sweet lab-pit-bull mix (I’d guess)…

…no collar no tags, wandering in the street a block or so from the house. When I stopped the car she came right up to it and put her paws on the rim of my window. I gave her some bacon, then went home, but after breakfast I went back over in the car and she was still poking around aimlessly. I invited her into the back seat, and amazingly she jumped right in, so I went home, got The Kid, and we took her to Maricopa County Animal Control (AZ Humane Society no longer takes healthy strays; I guess now by law they have to go the Pound).

By the time we got her there The Kid’s face was streaked with tears; they’d totally bonded. Anyway, we took her in there, and sure enough, she had a chip! Then an hour and a half or so after we got back home I got call from the Pound saying that her people were there picking her up. So if you ever wonder if those chips are worthwhile, there’s my testimonial.

Even higher up on my thankful list are my superb nephews and their superb significant others, and on the list of that for which one of my nephews and his wife are thankful is their cat, Miles Davis…

Miles disappeared a few weeks ago, leaving them, it need hardly be said, sick with worry. But after he was gone more than a week, Miles reappeared, visibly thinner but not otherwise noticeably worse for the wear.

So, in honor of Miles…

Monster-of-the-Week: …our Thanxgiving Day MOTW is the Wampus Cat, a cat monster from American folklore sometimes depicted, as in the case of the mascot of Conway High School in Conway, Arkansas, as six-legged…

Go Wampus Cats!