Bill Wright Mouse and Corn Pop popping on the apricot tree

In his recent post "Love Pop," William Wright interprets Pop as a reference to Jesus as our Father. We typically think of Jesus as the Son, not the Father, but the Book of Mormon gives him the latter title as well.

My own recent "pop"-related posts have referenced the Mormon children's song "Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree." Although in modern American usage, corn refers only to maize, its original meaning is simply "seed." If Jesus is Pop, then Pop-corn would be the seed of Jesus. Interestingly, Mosiah 15, the same Book of Mormon chapter that most explicitly identifies Jesus as the Father, also holds forth at considerable length about how the holy prophets are metaphorically "his seed." This is also the same passage that talks about the beautiful feet upon the mountains, to which William Wright has so often referred:

And now Abinadi said unto them: I would that ye should understand that God himself shall come down among the children of men, and shall redeem his people. And because he dwelleth in flesh he shall be called the Son of God, and having subjected the flesh to the will of the Father, being the Father and the Son -- the Father, because he was conceived by the power of God; and the Son, because of the flesh; thus becoming the Father and Son . . . .

And now I say unto you, who shall declare his generation? Behold, I say unto you, that when his soul has been made an offering for sin he shall see his seed. And now what say ye? And who shall be his seed? . . .

Behold I say unto you, that whosoever has heard the words of the prophets, yea, all the holy prophets who have prophesied concerning the coming of the Lord . . . are they not his seed?

Yea, and are not the prophets, every one that has opened his mouth to prophesy, that has not fallen into transgression, I mean all the holy prophets ever since the world began? I say unto you that they are his seed.

And these are they who have published peace, who have brought good tidings of good, who have published salvation; and said unto Zion: Thy God reigneth! And O how beautiful upon the mountains were their feet! (Mosiah 15:1-3, 10-15)

In "Love Pop follow-ups: Joseph and a Rainbow Stick," William Wright discusses a "rainbow swirl unicorn lollipop" which his son bought, decorated with pictures of Mickey and Minnie Mouse. This type of candy, which has a twisted shape like a unicorn's horn, is typically called a unicorn pop -- or you could abbreviate it further to 'corn pop. In my post "Of the Faithful," I mentioned that William Wright considers Words of the Faithful to be "the work of one bad dude channeling another bad dude." WanderingGondola left a comment about "bad dude" memes, and I replied with a reference to Joe Biden's famous "Corn Pop was a bad dude" monologue. When William posted about a 'corn pop, then, this made me curious enough to look up a transcript of the Corn Pop monologue. The Corn Pop news cycle was long before I was aware of the existence of William Wright -- who except on his blog goes by Bill -- and so I never noticed this part of the story:

There was a guy named Bill Wright Mouse, the only White guy, and he did all the pools.

It is Bill Wright Mouse that arms Biden with a six-foot chain and instructs him to tell Corn Pop, "You may cut me, man, but I'm gonna wrap this chain around your head."

Bill Wright Mouse? What the hell kind of name is that? Searching for the name brought up this brief bio of a Bill Wright who used to do Mickey Mouse comics for Disney -- but not only Mickey Mouse:

Wright was one of the main inkers on the daily and Sunday 'Mickey Mouse' pages. From 1943 on, he also started to do penciling on the Mickey Sunday pages. Bill Wright continued working for Disney until his death in 1984, drawing daily pages with such characters as 'Scamp', 'Br'er Rabbit' and, of course, 'Mickey Mouse'.

Besides Mickey, the Uncle Remus character Br'er Rabbit is mentioned. William Wright's post with the Mickey Mouse unicorn pop also mentions Uncle Remus -- specifically the Disney adaptations of his stories, which the other Bill Wright would have drawn -- and ties him in with the interpretation of the Love Pop logo.

Coming back to apricots, they are closely related to almonds, so much so that the Chinese language does not distinguish between the two, and many Chinese products using the word almond in English (such as "almond tofu," which contains neither almonds nor soybeans) are actually made with apricot kernels. This is possibly relevant in connection with the rod of Moses. We don't know what kind of wood it was made of, but we know his brother Aaron had a rod of almond wood, so that seems as good a guess as any.