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Saturday, December 15, 2012

How Do You Mend A Broken Heart?


I need to say something.

I honestly don’t know how I want to word this.  I spent hours trying to compose this message exactly the way that I wanted it to come across, but sometimes it’s sometimes better to just write what comes out of my brain in the heat of the moment, unedited and possibly even uncensored. 

I’m heartsick over recent events...and I really need to use this space to talk about how I am feeling.


On the morning of December 14, 2012, an unprecedented tragedy took place at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in the small town of Newtown, Connecticut.  An armed man barged into the school and opened fire on a group of innocent schoolchildren.  By the end of the carnage, twenty-six people were declared dead...among them, twenty children between the ages of five and ten, several teachers (one of whom was the shooter’s own mother), and the school principal.  The shooter inevitably took his own life.

You know, just watching the images unfolding on television, and seeing all of the witness accounts, it almost made all of us feel like we were all there, sympathizing with those parents who were anxiously waiting to hear word on whether their children were safe and sound, and grieving alongside those parents who heard the worst possible news imaginable.

When I first heard the news, I was in complete shock.  Even though we have bore witness to other school shootings (Ecole Polytechnique in 1989, Columbine High School in 1999, Virginia Tech in 2007), this one really delivered a sucker punch to almost everyone in the world, just based on the age of the victims.  The majority of the victims in yesterday’s shooting were children who died way too soon at a time which is supposed to be all about happiness and joy.

Life sometimes just isn’t fair.  L

Although Connecticut is fairly far away from where I am currently living, this tragedy has been one that has shocked and saddened me, and I share the feelings of despair and helplessness that the community of Newtown, Connecticut were feeling that day, as did most of the globe.  I suppose one would have to lack a heart not to feel something, anything.

I feel sad that so many people had to die.  I feel disgusted that a situation like this had to happen in the first place.  Most of all, I feel so incredibly sorry for those people who did lose a loved one yesterday.  I just want the community of Newtown, Connecticut, and the student body and staff of Sandy Hook Elementary School to know that the heart of this blogger, and the hearts of millions of people all over the world are as broken as yours are right now.  We are grieving your loss right alongside you.


I would like to offer up a moment of silence in memory of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings before I continue.  I did not create this video, but I think it says it all.  


I thought a long time about continuing on with the feature that I had going on all this month.  When I first heard about the news, I contemplated cancelling the blog topic for today, just because I wasn’t sure if I had the heart to talk about the Christmas season and holiday favourites when something so terrible happened.  I just didn’t feel like talking about a happy feature on the day after so much sadness happened, and I even considered not even doing a feature at all today.

But when I looked at what my initial topic was for today, and thought long and hard about it, I thought that maybe there was a way that I could take the topic and use it as a way to talk some more about how some of us might be feeling right now during this time.  And how at the end of the day, maybe there’s something that can come out of tragedy...something that we can all hold onto when the times get excruciatingly tough.


So with that, I welcome you all to partake in the fifteenth day of “The Pop Culture Addict’s Advent Calendar”.   I’m going to do my best to try and make this section not too long...just an introductory paragraph and a brief plot description.   Initially, I was going to give this topic a bit of a scathing review with biting, sarcastic wit...but I’m looking at it through different eyes, and am changing my whole perspective on it in the wake of yesterday’s tragedy.

Today’s subject is going to feature a Christmas special that many people might not remember.  I’ll be the first one to admit that had it not been for YouTube, I would never have even set eyes on it.  It’s not exactly a show that gets a lot of airplay.  I’m not exactly sure why that is the case now, but I had a bit of a hypothesis as to why this could have been the case when it first debuted in 1977.

My sister will probably want to tear a strip off of me for admitting this now, but when the show first debuted, she was five years old (and I hadn’t even been born yet), and at first she was really excited to watch it...but midway through she ended up becoming so emotionally distraught over it that my poor mother had to change the channel midway through.  But why would a television special elicit such a strong reaction out of my then-five year old sister?


I’m sure those of you who are my sister’s age or older might understand when I say the following words.  Nestor the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey.

By all accounts, the television special should have worked.  It was produced by Rankin-Bass, the creative team behind “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “Frosty the Snowman”.  And much like Rudolph, the entire special was done entirely in stop-motion animation. 

The story is set in the days of the Roman Empire, and in a stable lived a little donkey named Nestor.  Nestor was just like all the other donkeys in the stable with one glaring exception.  His ears were considerably longer than all the other donkeys.  They were so long, they dragged on the ground.  Now, you know how some kids could be cruel to other kids who may look or act differently than they do?  Well, all of the other donkeys used to laugh and call Nestor names, and Nestor didn’t like this one bit.  Thankfully, Nestor’s mother was entirely devoted to her son, and she was his rock during the early minutes of the special.  Nestor’s mother even gave her son some woolen socks to keep his ears warm during the cold winter months as a Winter Solstice present.


So for a few minutes, Nestor and his mother lived happily...until some soldiers from the Roman Empire came a knocking on their front door.  The soldiers are looking for some donkeys to take back with them for a fee, and the group that they end up choosing include Nestor.  But when the deal causes Nestor to become separated from his mother, Nestor tries to escape and causes a scene, which makes the soldiers believe that the stable owner has tried to trick them.  By the end of the scuffle, the soldiers take the remaining donkeys free of charge, and the angry stable owner who ended up losing money because of Nestor chucks the poor donkey out of the stable, heartlessly telling him that he didn’t care if he froze to death.

Nestor isn’t alone for long, as his mother manages to escape the stables to be with him.  But a terrible winter storm is fast approaching, and with no indoor shelter to be found, it quickly becomes a dangerous situation.  Like any mother would, she used her own body to keep Nestor warm during the whole storm.  By the end, Nestor was alive...at the cost of his mother’s life.

(This was the point of the show in which my mom had to change the channel thirty-five years ago.)


Nestor is obviously distraught over losing the most important figure in his life, and he isn’t sure about how to go on...until he happens to cross paths with a little cherub who introduces herself as Tilly.  And Tilly has a message for Nestor.  She tells him that he needs to find a way to get himself to the settlement known as Bethlehem.  She says that he should take pride in his long ears (the same ears that many of the other donkeys made fun of), saying that the ears were going to be able to do wonderful things.  He could use them to guide himself on a pathway that is true.  She also gives Nestor a prophecy...that he would use his ears to save the life of another in exactly the same way Nestor’s mother saved him.  But once Nestor ends up making it to Bethlehem, it seems as though history is doomed to repeat itself, as nobody in town seems interested in a long-eared donkey.

That is until a man and his very pregnant wife approach him.  Both are down on their luck without hardly any money to their names.  But the woman saw something kind and gentle in Nestor’s eyes, and they both decided that he was just the donkey that would help them.  Their names?  Mary and Joseph.


The couple then proceed to get caught in a violent sandstorm, which threatens harm onto the scared young couple.  Luckily, Nestor’s long ears makes the perfect protection for Mary to huddle up in as they make their way through the storm.  The ending for this story becomes much happier, as they make it to their destination in one piece, and Mary gives birth to baby Jesus. 

And alas, the prophecy came true.  Nestor’s ears helped save the lives of Mary, Joseph, and their newborn baby, who as you know was born on Christmas Day. 

I suppose the one thing that we can take away from Nestor, the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey is that the special is subject to a lot of interpretations.  Originally, I was going into it thinking that it was one of the most depressing Christmas specials ever made, and now I think that there’s a glimmer of opportunity and hope within it.  Yes, Nestor losing his mother was a horrible thing to have happened, and yes, the scene did make you cry...but seeing what it lead to at the end of the television special...well, in a way, it did offer hope to Nestor that there could be beauty at the end of a dark tunnel.  That there could be a day in which he could feel happy again.  That there was a way to look at something incredibly negative and still manage to hold onto something that will keep you going.

That something is hope.


I have a feeling that it is going to take a very, very long time for the community of Newtown, Connecticut to process everything that happened.  For the people who ended up losing loved ones in the tragedy, the pain will never truly go away.

But one thing that we can take from this is that broken hearts do eventually heal.  They may not heal over exactly the same way as they did before, and some people will forever be missing a piece of themselves from this day forward.  But I also like to think that those who do leave us unexpectedly never truly leave us.  They remain within ourselves, and their spirits live and breathe inside of us as long as we keep remembering them.  In the case of Nestor the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey, Nestor’s mother lived on through Tilly, the cherub that foresaw Nestor’s future.

And in Newtown, Connecticut, an entire community came together to grieve their losses and to support each other.  Taking solace in praying for those who were killed.  Holding onto their children a little tighter.  Leaning on one another to get through the first of many days of wondering ‘why’.

Trying to find some glimmer of hope in the wake of a tragedy. 

All that I can do at this time is continue to mourn those innocent lives that were taken away from the world way too soon, and continue to hold on to what seemingly little hope that we all need to have with us in order to get through what happened as best we can.

This post is dedicated to the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting of December 14, 2012.  Our hearts are with you all, and may you rest in peace as angels watch over you.


On that note, I’m ending this piece for today.  I’ll be back tomorrow with Day #16 of this blog, as I’ll try to continue on with the advent calendar. 

Keep on staying strong...and never lose hope or faith.  Just take comfort in each other during this time, and be kind to one another. 


Kindness and love is more powerful than hate and violence.

Friday, December 14, 2012

Silver and Golden Girls


It seems hard to believe, but yesterday was the midway point in The Pop Culture Addict's Advent Calendar. It's all downhill from here as we get closer and closer to the big day!

This marks Day #14 of the advent calendar, and since today is Friday, we're going to be looking at a holiday themed television show.

This week, we're going to be doing an episode spotlight on a particular sitcom that ran for seven years on NBC. It's been a while since I've done one of these, and I wanted to choose an episode that really focused on the real meaning of the holiday spirit.

And you know what? I think that I've succeeded in doing exactly that...albeit in a non-traditional manner.

First, let's discuss the show a little bit.



Last year, I already talked a little about the television series “The Golden Girls”, when I did a character spotlight on Blanche Devereaux (played by the late Rue McClanahan). But this time around, I'll be looking at the whole cast, which also included the late Bea Arthur as Dorothy Zbornak, the late Estelle Getty as Sophia Petrillo, and the very much alive Betty White as Rose Nylund.



It seems hard to believe that a show about four elderly women sharing a home in Miami, Florida would last seven years (it ran from 1985-1992). I honestly don't know if the show would have lasted had it debuted during any other time period. Yet, for some reason the show just seemed to click. The four main members of the cast worked incredibly well together with undeniable chemistry, and the writing was top-notch. I'll even admit to being a huge fan of “The Golden Girls”, especially now that I am adult and I can understand the meaning of the jokes and punchlines a little better.

So, I really wanted to put the focus on a particular episode of this program for the holiday season, and in this case, I couldn't think of a better episode to spotlight than the very first Christmas episode of “The Golden Girls”.



The episode was entitled 'Twas the Nightmare Before Christmas, and it originally aired on December 20, 1986. And guess what? I found it online! Just click on the link below, and spend the next twenty-four minutes and forty-eight seconds watching it. Go on. Click on the link and watch it. I'll wait.


Okay, now that you've watched it, we can discuss it. And even if you haven't, we're going to discuss it anyway. Just don't get too upset at me for spoiling it for you, because you were warned.



It's Christmastime in Miami again, and it looks like everybody is making preparations to spend time with their families. Rose is flying back out to St. Olaf, Minnesota to spend the holidays with her family. Dorothy and Sophia are planning to spend Christmas in New York City. And, I'm not sure where Blanche is going, but wherever she was headed off to, I'm sure she would have fun. After all, she seemed to have a lot of fun with Santa Claus!

And, yes, Blanche would actually hit on a Santa Claus. Heck, she'd hit on the Easter Bunny if she felt he was attractive enough for her out-of-control libido!



But with all the preparations that everyone is doing, it seems that all of the girls are having their own problems with the holiday. Dorothy is not impressed by the idea that Christmas has gotten incredibly commercialized and feels that everyone has forgotten the real meaning of the holiday. Sophia, on the other hand, is all about buying gifts and presents for everybody else...even if it meant borrowing Dorothy's credit card to do it. And Blanche just seems sort of preoccupied with getting lucky...though to be fair, she is like this the other 364 days of the year.

Oh, and Rose's St. Olaf stories drive everyone crazy as usual.

But Rose does come up with a brilliant idea. She talks about a tradition that she used to take part in when she was growing up in St. Olaf about how they exchanged handmade gifts instead of buying them. Dorothy is all for the idea, thinking that it was a great way to display what the holidays were really all about...until she ended up getting her gift.



A wooden maple syrup spigot...which Dorothy remarked would come in handy...if she were ever lost in the woods with a stack of pancakes.

(Gotta say, I love the one-liners of this show the best!)



Of course, Blanche's present to the rest of the girls isn't much better...a 12-month calendar of all the men that she...well...had relations with during all of 1986. Apparently Mr. September's pose was rather scandalous, though we viewers never see why...and honestly I'm all right with that.

Still, it was a nice enough party, and on Christmas Eve, the women are all ready to head to their destinations to spend Christmas with their families. But before that can happen, Rose has to finish her shift at the crisis center where she works. And on Christmas Eve, Blanche and Dorothy (who have come upstairs to wait for her to wrap up her shift) end up getting to know the clients of the office which include a pathological liar and a man who has an unhealthy obsession with matches.



And to top it all off, Santa Claus (not the same one that Blanche was lusting after, but a different one) barges into the crisis center with a bag of presents and a handgun, holding everyone hostage!



TRIVIA: The Santa with the gun was played by Terry Kiser, who also played a rather stiff role a couple of years after filming this episode...he played the role of Bernie in the movie “Weekend at Bernie's”!

Turns out that “Santa” is a little bit tired of spending the holidays alone, and since he used the services of the crisis center before, he figured that by holding everyone hostage at the place where he felt most happy, he could generate his own magical Christmas. The problem was that Blanche, Rose, and Dorothy were not too keen on missing their flights back home to entertain a Santa who has had an obvious mental breakdown. Rose, in particular, is uncharacteristically curt with the man, and says the following to the man after he tries to give her a present.

We don't want your presents!”

SANTA: “But, it's Christmas!”

Not for us, you've ruined our Christmas!”

DOROTHY: “Rose...”

I'll handle this, Dorothy. I'm not surprised that you always spend Christmas by yourself, You know why? Because you don't know what Christmas is all about! People don't owe you a nice Christmas because you decided that's what makes you happy. You can force us to stay here all night, but I'll be damned if you're going to force us to celebrate the most joyous holiday of the year with you!”

Wow. That was quite impressive, wasn't it? Too bad Santa is holding a loaded gun...

...which gets taken out of Santa's hands by an upset Sophia who is upset over having to wait outside in the car like a “dachshund”. And then Sophia gets upset that Dorothy can't tell the difference between a real gun and a toy gun (Santa was holding the latter). And then Dorothy and Blanche gets upset because they were fooled into thinking that the gun was real. And then Santa gets upset because he realized that everything that Rose was telling him about himself was the truth.

Needless to say, Rose, Dorothy, Sophia, and Blanche manage to make it to the airport with just minutes to spare, and they all hug each other goodbye as they board their flights...

...and then five minutes later, it's New Years Day and they all come back home.

Just kidding.

What REALLY happens is that a storm system passes over Miami, effectively grounding all flights out of Miami on Christmas Eve.

As a result, the women are forced to spend Christmas Eve at a diner. They're upset and depressed over missing their opportunity to go back home on Christmas. They do manage to befriend the man who is running the diner, and he does offer them their favourite cheesecake dessert, but all four of them are too depressed to eat them. The women later explain to the man that they were unable to go home for Christmas to spend time with their families, and the man seemed shocked because he thought all four of them were family, as they all got along so well and were really close.

(Well, he WAS half right, as Sophia and Dorothy are mother and daughter.)

But his observation ended up making all of them rethink everything. To them, it didn't matter where they were. What mattered was that they were together and they were enjoying each other's company. That was what Christmas was all about.



And it's interesting how the Christmas spirit can spread when one is doused in it. For when all four women end up having their realization, they tell the man to go home and spend Christmas with his family...they would run the diner while he was gone. There's even a little bit of a Christmas miracle at the end of the episode...something that almost never happens in Miami!

Now, don't you agree that this was a lovely Christmas episode to watch?



Unfortunately, I can't make the same claim for Day #15. Tomorrow we feature a holiday special so depressing, my poor sister had to beg my mom to change the channel midway through!

Thursday, December 13, 2012

No Matter How You Say It, The Message Is The Same


Hey, everybody!  Today is the lucky thirteenth day of “The Pop Culture Addict’s Advent Calendar”, and for today’s entry, it’s time for another diary entry.  I have decided to try and make all of these entries holiday themed to keep with the tradition. 

That being said, I want you to know that this particular entry is going to be one that could potentially ignite a firestorm of debate.  I am very aware of the risks in making my feelings known, but you know what?  I have a thick skin developed by years of having to overcome physical and emotional obstacles throughout my life.  I think I can handle it.

Okay, let’s not waste time here.  Let’s get on with it.

December 13, 2012

Well, diary, another holiday season is in our midst, and I am happy to report that this guy has his whole list crossed off this year.  Bought all the gifts, mailed out all the cards, and I am sailing down easy street this year.  I am actually in awe over how prepared I was this year.  But I stress time and time again, when you work a job in the field known as customer service at a retail outlet, you learn pretty quickly not to procrastinate.  This is coming from a reformed December 24th shopper, by the way.


You know, one thing that I always loved about the Christmases of the past are just how much happier and joyful everybody was.  I still remember walking down the downtown streets, all decked out in tinsel, wreaths, and bright, sparkling lights that seemed to shimmer like stars in the sky on a crisp December night.   Everyone was walking down the street, happily giving other people their best wishes, whether it was a Merry Christmas, a Joyous Kwanzaa, a Happy Hanukkah, or the more generic Happy Holidays.  It didn’t matter to me what people were saying to me, as long as they were kind and genuine about it (as I believe most of them were), I didn’t care what kind of a greeting I got.  I acknowledged every single one of them, because I was always taught that you should be kind and polite to people who do take the time to give you a nice greeting.

Unfortunately, the concept of doing unto others as you would have them do unto you has been lost on some people, and depending on the greeting that you give them, you might end up getting a reaction that can range from indifference to just plain hostility!

And that’s not cool with me.


Just to state for the record (and just so I can get it out there for everyone to read), I am one of the hundreds of millions of people in the world who celebrate Christmas.  It was the holiday that I and most of my peers celebrated.  It was the only holiday that we ever really knew.  We were all raised with both the religious and non-religious teachings of the holiday.  We spent a lot of time learning about Mary, Joseph, and Baby Jesus as much as we did learning about Santa Claus and his eight reindeer that pulled the sleigh all around the world to deliver presents.



But it wasn’t until I was older until I started learning about the other holidays in December that other faiths and religions celebrated around the same time as Christmas.  I learned about Hanukkah when I was around nine years old.  In fact, I believe that a children’s show on TVOntario was my first experience with learning about Hanukkah.  For the life of me, I can’t remember what the show was called, but we saw the lighting of the menorah, and we learned about the various foods that were associated with the holiday, and we also learned that it lasted eight days, in which each child would get one present on each of the eight days.  I must admit that as a nine-year-old child, I liked that part the best!



Kwanzaa is another holiday that a lot of people celebrate, and I was kind of surprised to learn that its origin is actually quite recent.  Apparently, the first Kwanzaa observance was held in 1966, after a man by the name of Maulana Karenga founded it as the first specifically African-American holiday.  The reason for the creation of the holiday was to give African-Americans a way to celebrate a holiday that celebrates their rich history and culture.  Kwanzaa is a week-long celebration that usually takes place between December 26 and January 1, which culminates with a feast and gift-giving.  There are seven core principles that are involved with Kwanzaa, and these seven core principles are unity, self-determination, purpose, faith, creativity, cooperative economics, and collective work and responsibility.

So, you know, when you look at it, there really isn’t a whole lot of difference in the way we celebrate Christmas from the way that the Jewish community celebrates Hanukkah, or the African-American population celebrates Kwanzaa.  In all honesty, I have to say that both Hanukkah and Kwanzaa sound like a lot of fun.  I have always said that I would like to be a fly on the wall and sit in on at least one of these celebrations.  I’ve always been a big fan of how cultures around the world celebrate holidays, and I think that it would be a fantastic experience to be a part of a Hanukkah celebration or to see a Kwanzaa gathering in full swing.  I think it would be a fun experience.

So, that being said, if someone were to wish me a Happy Hanukkah, I wouldn’t mind in the slightest.  I’d probably even wish them one right back, because I appreciate the fact that they thought of me enough to wish me the very best for the holiday season, even if I don’t partake in the same holiday traditions that they do.  I think it’s nice.

What isn’t nice is seeing people freak out and get mad because someone dared wish them a Merry Christmas, and them having a fit because they don’t celebrate Christmas.  Nor is it nice to wish someone a Happy Holiday, and have them jump all over someone because they celebrate CHRISTMAS, and they want everyone else to know that they celebrate CHRISTMAS, and if they don’t celebrate CHRISTMAS, then they should just keep quiet.

I mean, looking back at that last paragraph, it sounds absolutely silly, right?

Oh, and there’s this lovely image that I see floating around social media sites...shall we have a look at it?


Yeah, that’s really heartwarming and thoughtful for the holiday season, isn’t it?  Makes my heart swell with the same warmth as a glass of expired eggnog.

Seriously, who the heck is anyone to tell anyone else what kind of a holiday greeting they should use?  I’ll tell you what that is...it’s not exactly respectful.

If somebody wants to wish me a Merry Christmas, I say thank you and wish them one back!  If someone wants to wish me a happy holiday, then I say thank you, and wish them one back!  And if someone were to wish me Season’s Greetings...well, I may look at them a bit funny because Season’s Greetings always seemed a bit awkward to use for a holiday greeting...but I’d still thank them and wish them one right back!  It’s called being polite, being respectful, and being absolutely in the spirit of trying to make other people smile. 

The above picture that I showed earlier to me reeks of arrogance, as far as I am concerned.  And, last time I checked, arrogance does not make a very merry Christmas OR a happy holiday.

At the same time, I also think that it works both ways.  I don’t think that people who don’t celebrate Christmas should really want to take the holiday celebrations away from people who do celebrate Christmas either.  But to be fair, I haven’t actually met anybody who is offended that they were wished a Merry Christmas when they don’t actually celebrate Christmas.  That's not to say that this doesn't happen, just that I haven't encountered it.  In fact, I remember wishing someone a Merry Christmas once, and they politely smiled and said that they actually celebrated Hanukkah, but they were very polite about it and brushed it off.  We even got into a little bit of a friendly discussion about each of our holiday traditions.  It was a very nice moment that I have always treasured because we took the time to listen to each other.

THE WAY THAT PEOPLE CELEBRATING THE HOLIDAYS SHOULD BE!!!

I guess what I am trying to say is this...be respectful to each other, regardless of what holiday we celebrate.  No holiday is more important than another...and that's something that I think a few people have forgotten.  As I said before, when you really sit down and look at how Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa are celebrated, they’re all celebrated in a similar fashion.  In the end, the traditions may be different, but one thing remains the same...spending time with your loved ones and enjoying each other’s company.  That’s what the holidays are about...not launching a campaign to solicit support for which holiday should dominate the month of December.  As far as I’m concerned, every holiday is special, and should be treated with the same amount of respect.  I think that it's great to be proud of the holiday that you know best, and I think it is wonderful for people to share that spirit with everybody...but I don't believe that people should feel that their holiday is superior to anyone else's.  They all have their place in the world, and I think people who celebrate Hanukkah should have the same respect that people who celebrate Christmas get, and vice versa.  And if anyone wishes you a Happy Holiday, acknowledge it, and wish them well.  To me, that really showcases the Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa spirit more than anything else you could do!

I realize that this blog entry won’t change some people’s minds, and I don’t expect it to.  I’m just making my own thoughts known.  If some disagree with me, that’s cool.  I won’t hate you or plot your demise.  I’ll just nod my head, agree to disagree, and move on.  All I’m saying is that it’s okay to wish people whatever you want to wish them.  There’s really no point in getting offended about it. 

And, just think of how much happier your holidays would be if you went around with a positive disposition instead of finding an excuse to badger or belittle anybody else in order to prove a point!

So, I guess to end this diary entry off, I just have this to say.


It’s okay to say Merry Christmas, so Merry Christmas, everyone!


It’s okay to say Happy Holidays, so Happy Holidays, everyone!


It’s okay to say Happy Hanukkah, so Happy Hanukkah, everyone!


It’s okay to say Happy Kwanzaa, so Happy Kwanzaa, everyone!


And, you know what, even though I find the greeting to be a bit awkward to say, Season’s Greetings to all!

And that wraps up day #13. 


Coming up tomorrow on Day #14...we’re actually going to do an episode spotlight on a popular television show.  It’s very rare that I do an episode spotlight, but I think that the one that I’ve chosen will definitely put you in the holiday spirit, and will make you realize that as long as you’re with the people you love, anyplace can be considered home for the holidays.

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Operation: Triple Twelve


On “The Pop Culture Addict’s Advent Calendar”, this blogger has so far given to you...

11 trees to rock around
10 Tim Allen factoids
9 reasons to remember John Lennon
8 Claymation geese
7 EastEnders Christmases
6 holiday dreams
5 Whiz-Kid Cards
4 Elvis Christmas carols
3 Home Alone sequels
2 songs by Slade
And Olive, the Other Reindeer

So, what do I have in store for the twelfth day of the advent calendar?  Well, I decided to choose something that had a lot of reference to the number twelve because of what day it happens to be today.


Today, of course, is December 12, 2012...or, if you write it out numerically, it reads 12/12/12.  In other words, today is TRIPLE TWELVE DAY.

Because it was triple twelve day, I really wanted to do a subject that featured the number twelve.  The problem that I had today was the timing.  To me, it seemed to fall on the wrong day of the week.

Normally I have no problem writing for Wednesdays, as Wednesdays are a day in which we spotlight books and games.  Since it’s the holiday season, I predetermined that I would make the spotlight of the day based on a toy that I received as a gift for a particular Christmas. 

But when I tried to go back through all the Christmas toys I received as a kid, I came up empty.  None of them seemed to have the number 12 prominently featured in them at all.


If only 12/12/12 had fallen on a different day of the week...

If it had fallen on a Monday, I could have done a spotlight on “12 Angry Men” or “The Dirty Dozen”.  If it had fallen on a Sunday, I could have featured a band that released 12 albums, or a singer who had twelve singles that scored at #12 or higher on the charts.  And if it was a Saturday entry, I could have done a whole feature on the Ladybug Picnic sketch or the pinball machine that went to twelve.

Ah heck, let’s watch them both anyway.


I admit that I had to do a lot of thinking about this one.  How could I choose a toy that kept with the Christmas spirit, and yet still made a bit of a reference to the number twelve?

I couldn’t do Play-Doh...for one, I already did an entry on it, and for another, it only came with eight tubs.  I thought about doing a spotlight on McDonald’s Happy Meal toys, but the only thing that I could think of to write was that they ended up making me gain twelve pounds...and then some.

After hours of brainstorming (twelve hours, to be exact), I was about ready to give up.  But then I thought about the various board games that I had gotten for Christmas (I usually got at least one a year until I became a teenager), and I did a little bit of searching through search engines, hoping to find one that fit the criteria for today.

And, I happened to find one.

Ironically enough, the subject I settled on was the TWELFTH game that I looked up.  It was a board game that I ended up getting for a Christmas present in 1993, which was the year that I was TWELVE years old.  And, in the version I ended up getting, there were TWELVE different playing pieces that one had to attempt to remove from the game board.

And in this game, the game board happened to be a patient lying on a hospital bed.

Have you figured it out yet?


Yes, for the twelfth day of the advent calendar, we are going to be doing a spotlight on the board game, “Operation”, the game which turned every child who played it into Doogie Howser M.D.

(It’s kind of ironic for me to be featuring this game on Triple Twelve day.  I’ve only ever had one operation myself, and as luck would have it, it was performed on the TWELFTH of February!)

Yeah...I know...too many twelves for you to digest.  Okay, I promise you that I’ll quit...for now.


“Operation” was first seen on store shelves in the year 1965, after it was created by John Spinello.  It was originally made by Milton Bradley, but is now made by Hasbro after the latter company bought out the former.

And Operation was one of those games that could easily make you very frustrated.  I know that at certain occasions, I have wanted to take the game board and smash it against a wall or kick it down the stairs at least a dozen times!

The technology behind Operation was similar to the electrified wire loop game played in carnivals.  Take a look at the original game board for Operation (all versions prior to 2004).


See the guy lying on the bed?  The man is affectionately named “Cavity Sam”, as there are twelve openings cut into him each with a metal frame around them.  You’ll also notice that there is a bright red light bulb located where Cavity Sam’s nose is.  No, Cavity Sam does not have rosacea or got stung in the nose by a gigantic bee...but that nose is an important feature in the game.

Wherever the holes are in the game are twelve ailments that a patient can have wrong with them, and it’s your job to remove them as delicately as possible without causing the patient any discomfort.  You do this by taking the set of metal tweezers included with every game and carefully using them to extract each piece.  But you have to be very careful, because if the metal tweezers make contact with the metal sides around each opening, the red light will flash and a loud buzzing noise will accompany it, ending your shot at becoming a successful surgeon.

The game is played the same way all around the world, but the objective varies depending on region.  In the United States, a person gets cash for every piece that they remove.  The harder the piece to remove, the more money the player makes.  In the United Kingdom, however, the play money is removed, and the game is decided by the number of successful operations...the player taking out the most pieces wins the game.

And just what sorts of items do players have to remove from Cavity Sam?  Here’s the list of the twelve original pieces.

ADAM’S APPLE = an apple shaped piece located in the throat area

BROKEN HEART = a heart with a crack in the center of it on the patient’s right side

WRENCHED ANKLE = a wrench in the patient’s right ankle

BUTTERFLIES IN THE STOMACH = a butterfly in the...well...stomach

SPARE RIBS = a couple of ribs that are fused together

WATER ON THE KNEE = a bucket shaped piece in one of the patient’s knee joints

FUNNY BONE = located in one of the patient’s arms

CHARLEY HORSE = a small horse located near the patient’s hip joint

WRITER’S CRAMP = a pencil shaped piece located near the forearm

THE ANKLE BONE CONNECTED TO THE KNEE BONE = the only piece that is not made of plastic; is a rubber band that is stretched around two pegs between the patients knee and ankle

WISH BONE = located on the left side of the chest

BREAD BASKET = a piece of bread


These pieces are all in order from easiest to get out to the hardest.  Pieces like the Adam’s Apple and Wrenched Ankle are fairly simple to remove due to the easy grip and average sized openings.  But the hardest piece to get out is the Bread Basket, due to the fact that it is darn near impossible to grip, let alone getting it out of the game board!  Believe me, of all the pieces in Operation, I found the Bread Basket incredibly frustrating to get out, and it was often the one piece that was my undoing.


In 2003, there was a contest that allowed kids to vote on a thirteenth piece to be added to the twelve that already existed between three possible options – Brain Freeze, Tennis Elbow, and Growling Stomach.  The winning piece was BRAIN FREEZE, and it was included into the game design in 2004.

Operation is probably one of the most successful board games to be sold today, and as a result of its popularity, there have been several themed versions of the game made.  Over the years we have seen...


THE SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS OPERATION GAME


THE SIMPSONS OPERATION GAME


THE TOY STORY 3 OPERATION GAME


And, believe it or not, there was even a DOCTOR WHO OPERATION GAME.  Unfortunately, it seems to be only available in the United Kingdom...though with online shopping being more accessible than ever before, I’m sure you can order it if you’re a true Doctor Who fan.

It’s not hard to find a version of Operation that will tickle your funny bone...there are TWELVE different varieties of it, after all.

And that wraps up Day #12 of the Advent Calendar.


But do join us for Day #13.  It’s a diary entry...and this time, I talk about respect for others during the holidays...regardless of what you celebrate.