QUICK VIEWING GUIDE:
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS BELOW: ADDITIONAL VIEWING TIPS HERE
• SO -- WHAT'S THIS ALL ABOUT, ANYWAY?
• IS THIS SITE FOR KIDS?
• WHAT BROWSERS DO YOU RECOMMEND, INCLUDING BROWSER UPDATES?
• WHAT'S SO BUGGY ABOUT INTERNET EXPLORER?
• WHY DO SOME THINGS DISPLAY DIFFERENTLY ON PC's AND MACS?
• WHAT OTHER BEHAVIOR(S) ARE DIFFERENT BETWEEN PC's AND MACS?
• WHY DOES MY 'BACK BUTTON' WORK SOMETIMES, AND NOT OTHER TIMES?
• HOW CAN I TURN OFF THAT ANNOYING LITTLE PICTURE TOOLBAR? ( PC's)
• NO SPYWARE? ADWARE? HOW COME?
• HOW CAN YOU MAKE $$ DOING ALL OF THIS?
• CAN I EXPLORE YOUR SITE ON A DIAL-UP CONNECTION?
• WHY DOESN'T THE "CLOSE WINDOW" BUTTON WORK (on MACS)?
• WHY ISN'T THE "SOUND ON / OFF" BUTTON WORKING?
• CAN I MAKE SUGGESTIONS?
• I HATE ALL THIS. WHAT SHOULD I DO?
• SITE CREDITS
Like to MAKE CONTACT with us?
WHAT'S THIS ALL ABOUT, ANYWAY?   More Questions? PAGE TOP
First and foremost, it's about having fun. It's also about publicity, and if you're reading this, it's working. Curtis Amusements creates and develops entertainment content, and unlike some other outfits that claim they do too, we'll actually try to entertain you while you visit our website (not just throw a bit of sliding text and a blaring tune in your face and leave it at that). Feel free to explore any of our online entertainments, and we'll do more than just offer to entertain you, we'll do our best to deliver on that statement:
   
Are you looking for Conceptual Development services (e.g., scripting, treatments, storyboards, conceptual artwork) for your entertainment project? Are you looking for original Entertainment Properties? Are you looking for novel New Media ways to reach your own audience? We invite you to MAKE CONTACT anytime.
Are you just here looking for online amusement, adventure, and, well, entertainment...? Then YOU are the reason why we do what we do! Welcome, and -- HAVE FUN !
IS THIS SITE FOR KIDS?   PAGE TOP
Not really, no. While there is no "adult content" per se on the site, we feel that most of our Viewers must be at least in their late teens-and up to fully enjoy our style of humor and the majority of the content we present here.
Specifically:
If any Visitor (of any age) objects to topless mermaids, cocktail humor, gallows humor, twisted literary humor, cartoon bloodletting, unabashed cheesecake, animated explosions, bizarre wildlife, skulls and bones, and anything else like this stuff, then they are requested to PLEASE LEAVE NOW.
WHAT BROWSERS DO WE RECOMMEND?   PAGE TOP
CURRENT UPDATE: This site will now display properly in Google Chrome.
Google's "Chrome" browser now displays our animation and sound at proper speed, and we're very happy to recommend it. Give Chrome a try -- we think you just may make it your default browser (we have!)
MAC USERS: This site displays well on Intel Core 2 Duo Macintoshes, in Safari .
After many moons, we're very pleased to report that, with the advent of Intel Core 2 Duo Macs, our site will now display very well in the Safari browser for Macintoshes.
CURRENT UPDATE: This site will now also display properly in Safari for Windows .
The higher your system's processor speed, the more reliable this browser will perform. Default cache settings may need to be increased for some entertainment features.
To display properly in Firefox --
you must have the
"IE Tab" add-on,
available here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1419
CURRENT UPDATE:
Unfortunately, the release of Firefox 3.6 does not support IE Tab. If you have a previous version of Firefox with IE Tab installed, this add-on should continue to work fine. In fact, some Firefox users have un-installed 3.6 and gone back to FF 3.5 until this issue is resolved, which, hopefully, will happen sometime soon.
(The alternative add-on which can be found on Mozilla, known as "Coral IE Tab", does not function as well as the original IE Tab (as hundreds of reviews there will attest), and we do not recommend our Visitors install it, as it does exactly the same damage to our animated .GIF files that Microsoft's Internet Explorer does.
More than ever, we heartily suggest you just install Google's Chrome, or Apple's Safari (Mac or Windows), and then have fun with us.
What about Opera, and some other browsers?
Their multimedia-restrictive features make them poor browser candidates for our interactive online entertainment.
In short, different stuff goes wrong with 'em. They don't play our interactive sounds properly. They don't play some sounds at all. They don't perform properly with interactive layers, will not reliably respond to "show - hide" layer commands, and the advertisement inserts and additional toolbars some of them force on viewers may incorrectly render our design layout in one way or another.
If you just want to read the news, or go shopping, or scan somebody's blog, they're fine. But if you want dynamic interactive entertainment, they just aren't designed to robustly display the immersive New Media content we create. In fact, they're designed to subdue it.
WHAT'S SO BUGGY ABOUT INTERNET EXPLORER ?   PAGE TOP
How much time do you have? Just Google-up "Internet Explorer GIF problems", and see how many incensed returns from web designers and content creators you find since October 2006.
For us, the worst thing about IE 7 & 8 ( -- ASIDE FROM THAT FACT THAT MICROSOFT FORCES THE DISSEMINATION OF THIS BUG-FEST ON WINDOWS USERS WITH "AUTOMATIC UPDATES" -- ) is that they stall many of our animated GIFs on the last frame. Oh they download alright, but any animated GIF that's built to play only once (i.e.: a door opening, a flare firing, etc.) will stall on the last frame in Internet Explorer 7 and Internet Explorer 8. Microsoft developers elsewhere state this is for "security" reasons, but it absolutely mystifies us that, with all their resources, they can't develop a browser update that's capable of distinguishing maliciously-coded files from straightforward animated artwork. Shouldn't their "security" upgrades be sophisticated enough to do that? We think so, especially if this malfunction unfairly disables the work of artists, illustrators, and animators.

Looped (i.e., repeating) animations still work properly, but they're only a part of the show, so until Microsoft gets around to correcting their admitted bug -- http://connect.microsoft.com/IE/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=368081-- in IE 7 & 8, which they acknowledge, but refuse to fix, we strongly recommend that our Visitors use other browsers to view this site.

Microsoft's cavalier disregard for our (and other web artists and developers') time and labor spent in creating proprietary GIF animations, which are rendered in a standards-compliant file format no less valid than JPEG, PNG, and TIFF, is irresponsible (not to mention callous) in the extreme.

Most other (increasingly popular) browsers recognize and play GIF animations, and versions of Internet Explorer prior to 7 & 8 once played GIF files without problems and with perfect timing. Why the screwup? We don't know, but can say that the "automatic" dispersal of this problem-plagued browser has cost us a great deal of lost productivity and valuable time. However, we have been diligently working to implement code fixes sitewide to specifically work around IE 7 & IE 8's animation flaws, and things should perform well for our Visitors with increasing reliability.

We'll be -- cautiously -- glad to suggest future versions of the IE browser, should Microsoft's IE Development Team finally get around to making Internet Explorer function in a way that once again fully recognizes the validity of the GIF file format in concert with JavaScript events, and ceases damaging our creative work.

( On the other hand, if Google's "Chrome" browser continues to improve, we may just suggest our Visitors kiss off Internet Explorer entirely, and save any further headaches... )
WHY DO SOME THINGS DISPLAY DIFFERENTLY ON PC'S AND MACS?   PAGE TOP
Beats us. We're content creators, not code-writers. We build our site on Windows-based PCs, in Dreamweaver, which is supposed to be a cross-platform application. But some stuff just doesn't, er, cross the platforms. At least not all of it perfectly.
Creative content is our forte, and although we do a bit of custom-scripting here and there, and have the greatest respect for those who specialize in the intricacies of computer scripting languages, we're much more concerned with character development and storytelling in imaginative environments. Oh, we can build you a pretty hot website if you like, but if you need highly-complex custom scripting, we won't even pretend to be your guys. We can, however, provide you with a talking giant clam who mixes killer drinks in an underwater bar, so let us know if we can do anything like that for you, and we'll be glad to be of service.
WHAT OTHER BEHAVIOR IS DIFFERENT ON MACINTOSHES?    PAGE TOP
Lots of stuff on pre-OSX, pre-Intel Core 2 Duo Processor Macs. Problems with nested-gifs in animated table backgrounds, primarily, which cause most of the animations sitewide to display incorrectly. Because of this, we don't recommend that viewers with older Macs visit us, as things just don't play well for them.
However, if you happen to be looking in on one of the newer Intel Core Processor Macs (in Safari), nearly everything plays practically perfectly ("Hallelujah Chorus!"), and we couldn't be more delighted.
WHY DOES MY "BACK BUTTON" WORK SOMETIMES, AND NOT OTHERS?   PAGE TOP
Most of our entertainment environment pages are built with invisibly stacked "layers", which you are actually showing and hiding as you explore. Often when your view of a virtual location changes, you're not "leaving" that page, but rather "going deeper" into its layers. For this reason, it's best to use the "Navigation Bar's" directional pointers at the screen bottom, when they're visible. If you have difficulty "going back" to a previous view in that location, try using your browser's "refresh button" to reload that page.
Another possibility is that your browser is not allowing the interactive layer control script to function. Check out the Browser Compatibility& Updates section above, and see if the browser you're using to view the site is recommended, or may require an add-on (-like Firefox does-) to properly control our site's navigation features.
HOW CAN I TURN OFF THAT LITTLE TOOLBAR 'DOO-DAD' THAT KEEPS POPPING UP WHEN I HOVER OVER THE PICTURES?    PAGE TOP
Yeah, we hate that thing too. On PC's to turn off the "Image Toolbar", follow this path:

Go to your browser's 'TOOLS' MENU > Click 'INTERNET OPTIONS' > Choose the ADVANCED Tab > and, under MULTIMEDIA > CLEAR (UN-Check ) the 'ENABLE IMAGE TOOLBAR' Check Box.
~ or ~
To disable the Image Toolbar directly from the web page, hover over any image larger than 200x200 pixels (which will bring up the blasted little thing), and RIGHT CLICK on the Toolbar, then click "Disable Image Toolbar".
NO "SPYWARE, ADWARE", etc.? WHY NOT?   PAGE TOP
Because we insist on earning the trust of our Visitors.
Some of the virtual locations on our site offer souvenir features (most of them free) like posters or wallpaper f'rinstance, that are presented in "pop-up" windows, so the visitor can acquire them without leaving that location. We must be trusted not to include spyware in our pop-up windows or our available downloads.
Our immersive entertainment environments require Active X controls to play the wide varieties of interactive sounds and animations we present. We must be trusted not to use these features to propagate malicious code or other kinds of malware.
Our good reputation is important to us, and we will not take short-term advantage of our Visitors' personal information for short term gain. We must be trusted to be a safe place for you to visit, where you can enjoy yourself without any worry that your activities, or your identity, are being personally monitored, recorded, or conveyed to any unknown parties.
We now utilize Google Analytics, which has somewhat modified our long-standing "no Cookies" policy, We believe Google to be an ethical company, and that aside from the anonymous statistical information they gather, they neither cull nor disclose any personally-identifiable information about any of our Visitors. What they do tell us is how many Visitors we have worldwide, the number and frequency of monthly visits we receive, and what sort of browsers are most commonly being used to view our site.
That being the case, we still don't want to know where you've been before you got here, or where you go when you leave. We only care about entertaining you while you're with us, and believe that if we don't abuse your trust while you visit us, you just might tell your friends you had fun here. That's what we're building our reputation upon, so our growing audience will know they can count on us for quality entertainment, not intrusive sneakiness.
The bottom line is, we've no idea who you are personally, unless you tell us. And even if you choose to, via email inquiries or suggestions, we do not share any information about you with anyone else.
We're in business to entertain you, not to annoy you. If you find our entertainments annoying, however, that is another matter, and you may wish to click HERE...
SO HOW CAN YOU MAKE ANY MONEY DOING ALL THIS?    PAGE TOP
So hit our "Swag" links ( "YoYo Island's Tradin' Post" / "Crumpkin's Pumpkins' Gift Shop" * ), and buy a T-shirt already, skinflint. Or a real poster (not one of our freebie downloads), or one of our very nice libation mugs, or whatever. Pin up one of our ravishing calendars someplace where it'll get seen, and help us keep our stats rising, yes? Lord knows we only make a few pennies off the stuff after our manufacturers cut, but we do alright. And our Sponsors (who are doing alright already) will be very happy.
Additionally, the publicity we garner from building an online entertainment presence also helps us continue to develop business with our present and future Clients in the entertainment industry. And, we also build websites for interesting people. (Still, our latest calendars and posters are very nice...)
( * FYI, Zazzle and "CafePirates" will put trackingware on your computer, just like Amazon, or iTunes, or just about every other online store you're likely to visit. You can always delete 'em, so let's get going on that "T-shirt-thing" anyway, yes?)
I ONLY HAVE A DIAL-UP CONNECTION, CAN I STILL EXPLORE YOUR SITE?   PAGE TOP
For your sake we really don't advise it. Sorry, but you'll only go crazy waiting out the page loads. Chances are, if you're on dial-up, you've already given up on us waiting for this page to load.
This site really only works well for visitors with high-end DSL-or-faster broadband connections. T1's are better, and everything plays almost like TV on T3 pipelines. Oooo.
It's a drag, we know, but on the plus side, everything's getting faster, and will continue to do so. If you're looking in right now on, say, a friend's broadband-equipped computer, and all you have at home is dial-up, you might want to ask your local library if they've got broadband (a lot of 'em have blazing speed), and dig us there. Or pick up the tab for the brew and pizza at your friend's place.
HOW COME THE "CLOSE THIS WINDOW" BUTTON/GRAPHIC IN THE TRADING POST (and other) POP-UPS ISN'T WORKING?    PAGE TOP
Could be you're on a Mac. Even with the glorious advent of the new Intel Core Processor Macs, some of the scripting language we're using isn't recognized. (Lots of other stuff finally works great though - huzzah! ) So for now, the only way to close those windows is to use that particular pop-up's Close button.
WHY ISN'T MY "SOUND ON / OFF" CONTROL WORKING?   PAGE TOP
Good question. We don't know. Works fine on some systems, and not at all on others. The initial sound control files were built in an .swf-generating application which we won't name, but let's just say that the release of Flashplayer 9 has scrambled a number of peoples' work done in said-unnamed app. Sheesh. We're working on new sound controls, and we ask you to bear with us while we get them installed sitewide. Did we say "sheesh"? Sheesh...
Another possibility is that your browser is not allowing the interactive sound controls to function. Check out the Browser Compatibility& Updates section above, and see if the browser you're using to view the site is recommended, or may require an add-on (-like Firefox does-) to properly control our site's sound features.
CAN I MAKE ANY SUGGESTIONS?   PAGE TOP
Absolutely! Yes indeed, we appreciate hearing from our Visitors who are willing to offer helpful advice and constructive criticism about how we may improve our online entertainment experiences. By all means, MAKE CONTACT if you've got an opinion or suggestion you think we should be made aware of, we'll be pleased to hear your input.
We also invite you to contribute to our FAQs, if you're not seeing something here you're looking for.
( Visitors who frankly just don't like our content in general, please see following Q & A. )
I HATE ALL THIS, DON'T GET IT, THINK YOU'RE CRAZY, AM SUSPICIOUS OF YOUR INTENTIONS, DON'T LIKE YOUR SOUND/MUSIC/GRAPHICS, DON'T THINK ANYTHING'S FUNNY, THINK YOU'RE DOING EVERYTHING ALL WRONG, AM NOT ENJOYING MYSELF. WHAT SHOULD I DO?   PAGE TOP
Well, as the Old-Timers workin' the show would say, "If you're not having fun, go home."
If you don't like our Show, you don't have to hang around in the Tent. Sure, we're still trying to figure out how to do a lot of the new things we're up to, but what the heck, friend, most of it's free. The Owner good-naturedly suggest it's a big universe, and we're sure you're likely to find something to enjoy somewhere else in it.

If you still wish to convey any dissatisfaction you may have, please EMAIL US HERE, or through our Receptionist Page, and we will do our best to attend to your concern.

OTHER GUESTS WHO WISH TO RESUME HAVING FUN, MAY PLEASE CLICK HERE.
SITE CREDITS:   PAGE TOP
Original creative content, visual elements, and text designed & written
by Johnny Curtis
(excepting Client/Studio logos and portfolio project credits, as noted)
JavaScripting & additional creative technical services by Michael Biener
Start up IT services by Daniel Adams
Custom HTML scripting, technical consultation, and other White Knight feats
by Mike Hanttula / HANTTULA.com.
Special Thanks:
To Grady Sellards,
for his vital start-up assistance.
To David Johnson,
for his ongoing developmental feedback,
remarkable troubleshooting insights,
and invaluable liaison activities.
God Bless Al Sparber
And to Elizabeth Ann,
for cheering Seabiscut on, rain or shine.
VIEWING TIPS:    PAGE TOP
For best Framing in screen resolutions of 1024 x 768
or higher:
Adjust your Browser's HEIGHT so that the BOTTOM is set 1 to 2 inches below the first
ARROW-BAR...
WIDTH need not be adjusted, but requires a minimum 1024 screen resolution, and should center automatically in most compatible Browsers.
Browser TEXT SIZE, where adjustable, should be set to MEDIUM.
For the most satisfactory viewing experience, let the pages FULLY LOAD before you begin to interact with or explore the entertainment environment you're in. On some systems, the "Loading Layer" (page cover) will clear before all of that page's interactive elements (e.g., sound & animations) have finished downloading.
Watch your modem/router lights: if they're still flashing on and off like crazy monkeys, then goodies are still coming in, even if the Loading Layer has cleared. What can we say? Have a Mai Tai ( or whatever ) and relax for half a minute; it's coming, and when the little blinkies settle down things should play nicely for you.
If something doesn't seem to be playing right for you after the page appears to have fully downloaded, try using your browser's "Refresh" button to reload the page. This may help properly download any missing elements. The more basic site elements are cached, the more enjoyable your explorations should be.
 
 
Original sm Internet Entertainments Created & Produced by Johnny Curtis
Website by
in association with