Toot Toot, Hey, Blip Blip
Chek out this funky 1980 commercial for a handheld electronic game called Blip. I started watching it and immediately thought, “Hey, I had this.” The game was kind of like pong, and as I recall the moving blip of light would cause the machine to make little whirring noises. It pretended to be an up-to-date electronic game, but actually the mechanics involed were pretty old school. Thanks to Jerry Beck of Cartoon Brew for unleashing this one!
That brings to mind another old electronic game from that period: Merlin (at first I thought it was called Mr. Merlin, but no that name belonged to a short-lived TV sitcom from back then). Every Christmas Eve, my parents would let me and my brothers open one gift early. On one such year I picked a gift from my grandparents, and I was truly excited to find that it was a Merlin. You could play tic tac toe on it! Anyway, dig the jingle on this one. Those old commercial jingles are manna from heaven.
Charlie Brown Music; Asshat Santa
I was going to link to the swell NPR story on Vince Guaraldi’s musical contributions to A Charlie Brown Christmas, but Christopher has beat me to it. Rats! Instead, we have to make due with a YouTube user’s demonstration of Santa Claus’ jerkiness in the Rankin-Bass holiday classic Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer:
Getting Reacquainted
Another interesting development: one of my ex-coworkers contacted me to do CD reviews for a local upscale lifestyle magazine. I accepted. It’s a sweet little gig — three mini-reviews a month, no restrictions but for a vague instruction to cover a wide variety of genres (and presumably stuff that would appeal to free-spending North Scottsdaleite families). It’s neat, but also scary. I haven’t done any professional music writing since 2000, but in the past week the old thrills/frustrations of music criticism have flooded back. Mainly that the major labels can be a pain in the butt to deal with, and that the indies are much more accessible (and now, six years on, doesn’t it seem so quaintly “20th century” to ask for a physical copy of the music you want to cover?). Just this morning, I dealt with a music conglomerate switchboard operator who acted as if reciting the name of his employers was the most arduous task ever known to mankind.
Anyways, I’d like to fish for some suggestions here. For this first one, I have new releases locked in from The Pernice Brothers, Nanci Griffith, and an undetermined third artist. But I only have a few things in mind for the next go-round (which is due a week later), compounded by the problem that December/January is traditionally the slowest period of the year for new releases. Anybody got ideas?
The Cold Wardigans
Mr. Jenkins has posted scans from a fascinating fallout shelter handbook from 1962. Very Kennedy-era, and yet paranoia never really goes out of style. Yes, in forty years the Department of Homeland Security’s Chicken Little warnings will seem quaint as well.
At flickr, I’ve just posted some scans from a 1956 McCall’s magazine fashion shoot taken at Disneyland — 1, 2, 3. And don’t miss the sweetened goodness collected at the Sugar Frosted Cereal Museum. Now I need myself a bowl of Cap’n Crunch.
A Feast of Disney Music
Happy Thanksgiving … I’ve gorged myself on turkey, cornbread stuffing with apple pieces, and boiled parsley carrots. That said, I did manage to waddle to the computer and download some neat old Disney music which iTunes just recently added to their store (thanks for the tip, Julie!). For me, the highlight was Walt Disney Takes You To Disneyland. This was the first LP released on Walt Disney Records in 1956, less a travelogue than a sweeping orchestral suite (and a true time capsule of ’50s “see the world” optimism). I especially enjoyed the Space Age/Exotica stylings on the Adventureland and Tomorrowland tracks. iTunes has it for only $4.99, a great deal.
I also downloaded the Walt Disney Records Archive Collection, Vol. 1, a 25 track online-only collection which includes rare tracks from the years 1956-1979. While the music is uniformly nice and sounding excellent, iTunes includes only the barest of info on the tracks — and the set’s accompanying “Digital Booklet” is just a lousy pdf file containing some album cover repros. It’s somewhat pathetic that this message board post from a Disney music fan has more info than what iTunes can provide for its own paying customers. Other than that annoyance, this is a beautifully selected compilation which might serve as a harbinger for future iTunes/Disney offerings.
In other Disney news, the company has set up a special area on its website for their Legacy Collection DVD releases (spotted this at The Disney Frontier Blog). Most exciting is the entry for an upcoming collection of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoons. Yes, yes, yes!!
Dept. of How Funny
In five plus years of doing this weblog, I’ve never gotten an email from somebody I wrote about — until now. A few days ago, former Entertainment Tonight correspondent Dixie Whately sent me a response to this. She wasn’t pissed off; on the contrary she was funny and sweet! These days Ms. Whatley is doing some film reviewing and a lot of stone sculpting and photograpy. Her lovely work can be seen here.
By the way, Christopher and I met exactly twelve years ago on this date. Happy anniversary to us!
Birthday Haul #3: Cartoon Modern Book
A wad of extra birthday cash inspired me to go to amazon.com and purchase the book Cartoon Modern: Style and Design in Fifties Animation written by Amid Amidi of Cartoon Brew and Animation Blast magazine. Although I haven’t yet read it, the book looks absolutely gorgeous and smartly designed with tons of beautiful film stills and production art. I also like how it was organized alphabetically by studio, encompassing not just theatrically released shorts but television (dig the early, cooler lookin’ Flintstones!), commercials and industrial films. There’s also an intruiging section on animation trends in Europe. I could be completely wrong about this — but paging through the book gives one the sense that during this period the big movies studios’ animation units were becoming obsolete, which paved the way for dozens of smaller studios to step in and produce more visually innovative work. I can’t wait to read this one.
How Logo Can You Go
Fun little diversion: identify the correct logo in the quickest time (via Kris at Web Goddess). Being presented with six minute variants on popular e-company logos might sound simple, but some of them are unexpectedly tough. I completed the quiz in just under two minutes. The fact that it took me five tries before correctly guessing the MySpace logo oughta tell you how often I visit that horrid site.
Everybody’s a Critic
Scott Tobias of The A.V. Club Blog writes on the succession of stand-in critics on Ebert & Roeper, which points out many of the same things as my previous post on the subject. Namely that people within the entertainment industry have serious credibility problems when they slip into critic mode. On the other hand, TV babe Aisha Tyler ended up being surprisingly insightful on her two E&R appearances — so I don’t know how to think anymore.
Simple Pleasures …
… finally locating a good Scrabble game for the Mac. It cost me twenty clams, but I’ve been trying to get something like this for years.
A Face That Could Crumble Stone
In honor of his recent passing, I present Bill Griffith’s impressions of Jack Palance in a 1988 Zippy the Pinhead strip. GSN just reran an old ’60s Password in which the movie toughguy faced off against Lauren Bacall. Mr. Palance may have been a pretty effective actor, but he was a terrible Password player.
Birthday Haul #2: Looney Tunes Vol. 3
The birthday loot continues with the Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Vol. 3. I supplied my parents with a suggestion to get either this or the Rhino Girl Group set, and they bought both. Maybe becoming grandparents brought out their indulgent side, but we’ve definitely been enjoying the cartoons on these DVDs. The format is the same as previous collections, with themed discs filled to the brims with vintage animated shorts and a generous array of extras. With many of the popular (and overplayed) classics used up on the first two volumes, they’re starting to delve into the more obscure and interesting stuff here.
If I had one minor complaint, it would be with the forced intros by Whoopi Goldberg warning of the cartoons’ non-PC content in the most condescending way possible. The footage automatically plays when you insert each disc (and it’s the same on all four discs!). Although skippable, Warner Bros. has earned the ire of many a Looney Tunes fan with this misguided method of appeasing professional complainers. These sets are clearly marketed to the adult collector (not kids), so why bother catering to idiots? On the upside it appears that Whoopi is missing on the Volume 4, out this week. Maybe they’ve replaced the auto-play warnings with simple and unobtrusive text panels preceding the more offensive ‘toons (which Warner has already effectively used on the Busby Berkeley DVDs). Despite all that I’d still say this is the best of the first three Golden sets, with entire discs devoted to two of my fave Looney Tunes subjects — Porky Pig and Hollywood parodies. I’m so thankful these mini-masterpieces are back, looking and sounding better than ever!
Birthday Haul #1: Girl Group Sounds Box
This is coming a month late, but starting here I’m sharing my impressions from a year of unexpectly large birthday giftage. The parents answered my number one wish by gifting something that I’d been saving up all year to get: Rhino’s mammoth One Kiss Can Lead to Another: Girl Group Sounds Lost and Found box set. Soon after I opened it, Christopher chided me by saying “That is such a gay gift to ask for.” Indeed, gay it is: 120 songs spread out on four compact-shaped discs with a diary-shaped book, housed in a fruity hatbox-shaped container. Yeah, and so what? One listen will tell you the ladies collected here truly rocked every bit as much as the guys.
As for the individual tracks, the compilers have taken an expanded definition of “Girl Group Sounds” which encompasses gritty R&B, Soul, Garage Rock and several solo female performers. Although some were mid-level hits back in the ’60s, most didn’t chart at all which results in a set full of neat goodies (and one track by The Goodees, the Southern White Trash Shangri-Las). I had already owned about a third of these songs and was familiar with much of the rest due to diligent listening to the Spectropop’s Girl Pop online radio station, but that didn’t diminish my enjoyment of them. In fact, listening to this reminded me how much I appreciate a nicely picked and thoughtfully sequenced compilation — a rarity in this download-and-go era. It made even the most familiar tunes sound fresh. There are too many highlights to mention, although I was glad that they included several tracks by the amazing Cookies and their various aliases (including The Cinderellas’ “Please Don’t Wake Me” and “Baby Baby (I Still Love You)”, likely the most astonishingly great double-sided single ever pressed). Liner notes by Sheila Burgel of Cha Cha Charming are so fine, doo lang doo lang doo lang. Now I’m hoping Rhino puts together a similar package for the male artists who recorded in that style.
Stroll through the Daisies
I’m walkin’ on sunshine. My pal Patrick is sharing six Sunshine Pop compilations which he originally assembled in 2002. I never get tired of this kinda music, evocative of moony couples walking though sun-dappled fields. I’m particularly interested in hearing more from harmony-based vocal quartet The Arbors. These guys may have looked like accountants from The Bank of Squaresville, but in 1969 they released an LP of amazing contemporary rock covers which included their brief but gorgeous take on The Doors’ “Touch Me”. Take a listen and see if you agree.
The Arbors: “Touch Me”, from the LP The Arbors Featuring I Can’t Quit Her/The Letter (1969). Thanks Ion!
Election Day
Now that election day is almost over, it’s time for a few hopes. Firstly, I’m hoping people in my home state of Arizona actually vote and not sit on their collective butts watching Dancing with the Stars or whatever — action is always better than inaction. Secondly, I’m hoping that AZ gets a big dose of common sense and votes no on Proposition 107. This is our version those “marriage is between a man and a woman” bullcrap amendment proposals which have already gone through several states (and passed unfortunately). Thirdly, a hope for less confusion in the future. My state has two anti-public smoking propositions which cancel each other out — don’t make the same mistake we did and vote the wrong way (it should be yes on 201 and no on 206). Fourthly, I’m hoping that Maricopa County residents are good animal lovers and voted yes on prop 204. This one, if passed, would ban veal crates and other inhumane treatments at meat farms in the valley. Never mind that this prop only affects the one pig farm in our county — it’s the message that counts.
Onward to the candidates. We love our governor, Janet Napolitano, and voted for her to continue on for another term. Yeah, she’s likely a big dyke who needs to come out of the closet, but I’m hoping a more secure second term will encourage her to join the family. The other candidates were also no-brainers. Normally I vote from my head and not my gut, weighing the individual candidates’ merits and not toeing the party line. Not so this year. I voted straight Democrat, and hopefully others across the U.S. who are infuriated with the Republicans feel the same way. The Brady Bunch said it best: “When it’s time to change you’ve got to rearrange.” So true.
