Laser Pals Story
The Laser Pals are the creation of cartoonist Terri J. Garofalo.
Co-owners, Robert Garofalo and Jack Mahin, were hard at work running another company when weird things started happening... Each night when the employees would head home and Robert would close up the building, ZOOM! - something would zip past and go clattering through the garbage bins. Robert would freak out -"AUGH!!" Jack and Robert would search the bins and the surrounding area - Nothing.
This went on for a while. Something had to be out there. Jack suggested to hire a guard dog. They went to the local shelter and found a big brown dog that hardly looked ferocious enough to guard anything. Robert took a liking to him anyway. He named him Granite with the hopes to toughening up the lovable pooch's image.
Granite turned out to be more helpful at cleaning up the leftover food in the fridge. He tended to let other animals in that needed shelter like mice and such. It was about this time that Granite showed up with Bernie the bird. While annoyed with the extra mice, Rob and Jack kind of liked the bird. Bernie was pretty good at opening cans and, therefore, quite useful.
Still, the mystery of the garbage bin bandit remained just that. Granite couldn't figure it out. Even with a keen sense of smell he wasn't able to track anything that moved that fast.
Then, it happened. They closed up as usual one evening, heard the rush among the bins and went home. The next morning there was graffiti! A large lightning bolt was drawn on the front door. What was worse was it wasn't paint... IT WAS ETCHED! No amount of scrubbing would take that off. This was permanent.
"Great," said Rob, "Is THIS the new company logo?!"
Jack told Granite he'd better step up the surveillance.
Granite stayed up all night waiting for the etching bandit. In the early morning hours, just before daybreak, came a strange sound... zzzzzZZZZZZZZTTTTTTttttttt!!! Granite leaped to his feet barking like a loony.
All he saw was a trail of sparks. Whatever it was was gone.
Robert and Jack came in to find a perfectly etched face of a cat on their front door just below the lightning bolt. Granite had a lot of explaining to do. How could he be duped by a cat?! At least they now knew what they were dealing with.
The next night Granite was ready. He donned his night-vision binoculars, poured a large cup of coffee and proceeded to camp out right on the stoop. There's no way this cat can't get past me now.
Around about 4 a.m. came a WHHOOOOSHHHH zzzzzZZZZTTTTTtttttt!. Granite had no time to blink. The cat was gone in a shower of sparks. Granite turned around to survey the damage only to find his OWN face etched right next to the cat's!
Needless to say, Rob and Jack were not amused. They were beginning to suspect their faithful canine was in cahoots with the cat. "JUST CATCH THAT CRAZY CONFOUNDED CAT!," Robert hollered.
The following night, Granite nearly taped himself to the door. How could anything get past him now?! Sure enough, ZAP! Now there was Bernie the Bird's face.
The next night was the Sparky, the old cart horse's picture. "WHAT ELSE?!!!" Robert was fuming now. What do I do now, go into the pet picture business?!!"
Jack thought that might be a good idea. But, Robert didn't want to hear it right now. "You must admit, those drawings are really good," said Jack.
Granite didn't know what else to do. Maybe tonight would be the night. Once again, he was duped. Over the lightning bolt appeared the words, "Laser Pals". Granite was totally exasperated.
In frustration he yelled out to the cat, "What do you want? A Job?"
Then, quietly, out of the shadows strode a bright orange cat with an attitude to match. She was blowing the smoke off her magic claw, the same one that marked the door every night.
Granite was shocked. "You're pretty talented," he said for lack of anything else to say.
"Yup," she said.
"So you want a job?," Granite asked.
"Yup," she said.
"We don't have much call for etching," said Granite.
"Yes you do," said the cat. "Your company is Laser Pals and I am Laser Cat. I do your etching.
Granite didn't know what to say. Robert and Jack had arrived in the meantime. They'd taken in the new company logo on the front door, looked at the cat and basically got the gist of what was going on.
"So, we're a laser etching business now, eh?," said Rob.
"I guess so," said "Jack."
Laser Pals was born.
Jack's Vision Quest
The Laser Pals were working their magic, doing research and development to come up with the best products to honor the great pets of the world when Jack heard the call, "OwwOOOOOOOO!!!!" It was the wolfish 'Call of the Wild'... Whether he was reading too much Jack London or the coyotes were picnicking outside his window at night, Jack was convinced he was beckoned by nature to return to the wilderness. You would think it would have been Granite or another of the Laser Pals animal species, but humans too can hear the call. Jack thought long and hard about it. In the end, he felt it was best to listen to his soul and head out. And so, it was adventure time. He climbed into his trusty birch-bark canoe and paddled down the river and into the sunset. The next morning the Pals got to work. There was a note on the desk. Granite picked it up, scanned it and said, "Oh oh..." He handed it to Rob who read it aloud.
"Dear Laser Pals,
I'm off on a vision quest into the wild. It's something I just have to do. I won't be back, so carry on without me. Granite, you can eat all the snacks in my drawer. Bernie, you can eat my pencils. Laser Cat, you can graffiti my desk. And, Rob, you can have my old coffee mug. Where I'm going, I won't need any of that stuff.
See Ya,
Jack."
Rob had a minor freak out... "AUGH! Like I'm going to manage all these lunatics myself... Where's our creative sort, Terri?"
"She's hanging in her studio," Granite piped up. "I'll get her."
"Just tell her she's now second in command," Rob said.
Granite toodled off to the Research, Development, Artistic Endeavor, Idea Factory & Humor Mill of Laser Pals, a.k.a. Terri's office. He padded in and announced. "Jack left. You're second in command."
"WHAT?!," she shrieked? "You mean to tell me I have MORE to details to add to my heaping plate of nonsense?!"
Granite cowered at the rant and wondered where the sense of humor had gone.
It took a couple seconds for Terri to get over herself. "What the heck. Jane of all trades; master of some... Might as well make use of those multi-taskin' skills," she relented.
It was a relief to find the humor back. Granite had been the brunt of her rants before when he accidentally dropped Terri's camera in Sparky's water bucket. It had been tough to explain the cute picture of the little birds in the barn nest when a week's worth of product photography was floating around in a purple bucket.
Alas, the cog was back in the machine and Laser Pals forged ahead with new and exciting ideas to apply to the laser-etching world, all with a dash of good humor as always.