Search This Blog

Thursday, November 07, 2013

Attempting the Avoidance of Holiday Stress

It took me a while to come up with a suitable topic to write about for this week's edition of the Thursday Diary. But after setting up some holiday displays in my area, I came up with a topic fairly quickly.

November 7, 2013




How many of you have actually started your Christmas shopping yet?  Be honest.  I'll completely let all of you know that I am totally behind the eight ball this year.  

I know what you must all be thinking though.  This is only the seventh of November.  There is still a little over a month and a half left to go yet before the big man in red slides down the chimney for another year.  But I guess I should explain the reasoning behind why I am so behind this year when it comes to shopping for Christmas.

Firstly, this year, I'm really struggling with trying to come up with ideas for holiday shopping this year, and part of the reason is because we're trying something new this year.  While there is no limit on how many gifts that we are going to buy each other, the stipulation is that all of our presents this year have to cost five dollars or less.  Here lies the challenge.  There's not a whole lot of options that I can do on a shoestring budget per gift when you run the risk of getting repetitive.  




But despite that challenge, I think that it will be a fantastic Christmas anyway.  For one, Christmas is not all about materialism, and making sure that you get the most expensive presents that are available - well, unless your holiday shopping experiences include shopping for gifts from the Neiman Marcus catalogue.  (I mean, seriously, have you checked out some of the stuff in that catalogue?  Gives new meaning to the phrase "in excess"!)

For another, I actually welcome the challenge to purchase gifts on a budget.  After all, when I was a kid, my budget was eerily similar to the proposed one that my family plans on implementing.  I only had five bucks to spend on a person, and I really had to be creative.  Fortunately, at that time, our shopping mall was an oasis for the shopper on a tight budget, and I managed to get some really nice presents for everyone.

Mind you, a five dollar budget was a lot of money twenty years ago.  And, back in 1993, I only had six people to buy gifts for.  In 2013, my giving list has doubled, but five dollars can only get you so much.  Luckily, I have a plan in motion.

There's a craft fair coming to the mall, and I'm sure I can find some really nice things there on a shoestring budget.  For what it's worth, our dollar stores in 2013 are a lot more elaborate than they were back in 1993, and I can definitely buy some quality gifts on a budget.  And, of course at my workplace we have the wonderful five dollar DVD bin - which I'm not afraid to admit has a great selection of films.

The point is that will shopping on a budget be hard?  Yes.  But do I appreciate the idea of thinking outside of the box and being really creative with gift options when you only have a limited supply of funds?  Absolutely.  If anything, I think my holiday shopping for this year will be absolutely stress-free.




And really, isn't that the best Christmas gift that you can give yourself?  The gift of a stress-free holiday?

I certainly wasn't always like this.  As I mentioned earlier, I'm kind of behind the eight ball this year for holiday shopping.  By mid-November, I have almost all of it completed.  But before I started working retail, I was always the guy who would wait until December 22 or December 23 to even start my shopping.  But after having nearly a decade of sales floor experience, I have quickly learned my lesson, and now strive to have my holiday shopping finished by November 30 at the very latest.

This year, I might be a week behind schedule, but that's not too bad because I'm also the kind of person who thinks about what gifts to give people all year round.  This year is going to be a little more interesting, but in a good way.

Having first hand experience over what it is like to work in a department store during the month of December, I used to see people get incredibly stressed out all the time...especially when they couldn't find a particular item that was featured in the ad because it was sold out.  Back in the days in which I was working in the grocery side of the store, I had people get angry because we ran out of cream cheese, or Pillsbury Crescent Rolls, or anything else that was a key ingredient in holiday feasts, with people not realizing that we don't have a whole lot of control in how much stock we receive on the delivery trucks per order.  




I still get a kick over the one lady who blasted me and told me that I "DESTROYED her Christmas" because we ran out of egg nog.

Which would be understandable if the incident occurred on Christmas Eve.  In reality, that incident happened just after the first of December, and we ended up getting more egg nog the very next day anyway.  No need to blow a gasket over it.

But you know, with the holidays, it comes with the territory.  




I imagine that when the PlayStation 4 is released on November 15, we are going to have a mob of people barging through the doors, all eager to get their hands on one of the coveted gaming systems.  I know that I certainly have had a number of customers asking me all sorts of questions about whether they can pre-order it, whether our store will be opening up early that day to sell them right at 12:01, how much they are going to cost, if they can buy more than one (seriously, unless you have a family of fourteen, why would you need more than one?).  And, perhaps the most important question - how many are we going to have in stock, and will they be guaranteed one.

Well, I'd say if you camped outside the store and was first in line, you'd likely be able to walk out of there with one.  But, why would anyone want to?

Here's a confession for you.  In most cases, I will NEVER buy the first edition of a video game console.  The lone exception was my Nintendo 3DS, which I purchased a couple of weeks after it was released - and the sole motivator behind that purchase was so I could play a video game that was only available on the 3DS.  

But in general, I will wait at least a year before I purchase a brand new item.  Why?  Because do you have any idea just how unpredictable some of the first edition electronic items are?  I don't want to risk waiting in line for the top of the line gadget only to find that it has a flaw or bug in it which leads to the product being unusable at the end of the ordeal.  And, even so, I don't really need anything that badly that I would want to stand outside in the cold weather for hours on end.  It's just added stress that nobody needs.

But then again, I suppose that if I had small children who really had their hearts set on unwrapping the one thing that they really wanted to get for Christmas, then I might feel a little bit differently.  And, maybe I would be one of those people who dig out the long underwear and parka to camp outside of a store in order to make their dreams come true.  But, it wouldn't be out of commercialism.  It would be out of love.

And, as I close out this Thursday Diary entry, I think about the idea that my family has come up with for exchanging presents, and I'm thinking that it's going to be a great Christmas tradition.




After all, Christmas isn't about the items you give.  Instead, it's about the people you share it with.  And isn't that more valuable than a PlayStation 4?

You know...that gives me an idea for next week's blog entry.  But I'm going to keep it under wraps for the time being.  You'll see it next week.

Wednesday, November 06, 2013

Why, Charlie Brown, Why?

This is going to be one of those Whatever Wednesday entries where I ask myself a question. Can I do a blog entry in less than two hours?

Because that's how much time I have to write this entry. But, you know something? I love a challenge. So, on with it.

I don't have a whole lot of time to explain what the Whatever Wednesday topic is all about, but I imagine most of you already know by now what it is. So, I reach into my bag of Clue cards and I draw the Mrs. Peacock card. And, what that means is that I'll be talking about a television program or television special.

And, I'll be completely frank with you. This television special is a little on the serious side. It has its moments of classic humour, but it also deals with a very serious topic...one that really was never talked about in a children's special.

That topic is cancer.

Now, one of the reasons why I participated in the Relay for Life earlier this year was to both celebrate those people who have either fought cancer and survived, or to remember those who lost their battle with the deadly illness. My grandfather died of lung cancer in the summer of 2000, I lost a dear online friend of cancer in 2011, and just last year, one of my co-workers succumbed to the disease. In all three of those instances, I was old enough to understand what was happening and although it broke my heart to know that I would never see them again, at least I could take some comfort in knowing that they didn't have to feel any more pain.

But imagine being a child and having a friend or a loved one battling cancer. Depending on how old the child is, they might not understand what is happening, and they might have all sorts of questions over what their loved one is going through, and trying to explain it to them might make them even more scared.

Or worse, what if the child themselves is going through cancer treatments, and they don't know what is happening to them. It's an already scary situation to be in. Imagine being a parent in that scenario, trying to help your child feel better and give them encouragement that everything will be okay when in all honesty, you have no idea what the final outcome will be.

It's not an easy topic to talk about. It certainly isn't an easy topic to dedicate a twenty-two minute cartoon special about.

But Charles M. Schulz and the Peanuts gang did exactly that. And the end result was a television special that was frank, honest, informative...and extremely emotional. The first time I watched this special on television, I had to have a box of Kleenex by my side. And that was really rare for me, because I usually don't cry during television specials. I kept my composure through Nestor, The Long-Eared Christmas Donkey, and that television special was all kinds of depressing.



Today, we're going to be looking at the Peanuts special, “Why, Charlie Brown, Why?”, which aired for the first time on March 16, 1990, and has aired sporadically ever since. Can you believe that it was the thirty-third Peanuts special ever made? And, it's also one of the hardest ones to find. I don't even know if it was ever released on VHS or DVD. But, if you want to watch the whole thing, I do have a link to it right HERE. But as I said, be warned. You will more than likely shed a few tears watching it – I know I did. And, I'm not afraid to admit it either.



The special begins as we meet the newest member of the Peanuts gang. Janice Emmons is the newest classmate of Charlie Brown and Linus, and she is best known for her long blonde hair, her charming personality, and her love for swinging on the playground swings. The higher she goes, the better.

TRIVIA: It turns out that the actress who voiced Janice grew up to become a huge star. She was voiced by then 12-year-old actress Olivia Burnette, who has since appeared in JAG, NCIS, and Sons of Anarchy.



Unfortunately, Janice is also known for one other thing. She bruises way too easily. When Janice was boarding the school bus with Charlie Brown, Sally, and Linus (and Snoopy, who hitched a ride on the back of the bus), she stumbled and hit her arm, telling Linus that she had bruises from three weeks earlier that did not heal. Later on in the day when the kids are taking a test, Janice starts feeling very sick, and develops a fever of 102. Linus encourages Janice to go to the school nurse, and Janice eventually leaves school that day, having been picked up by her mother.

Three days pass, and Linus – who has developed a fondness for Janice – is getting worried about her, wondering where she has been and if she is okay. The teacher later informs Charlie Brown and Linus that Janice is in the hospital and the two boys decide to pay Janice a visit at the hospital to give her their get well wishes and they are shocked to discover that Janice is a lot sicker than any of them actually thought.

It turns out that Janice has leukemia, a type of cancer that affects the production of blood cells. And, naturally, Charlie Brown and Linus are filled with all sorts of questions about the kind of treatments that Janice is receiving while in the hospital.



Now, one thing that I will say about this special is that it never sugarcoated any of the details, nor did it try to talk down to the viewer. Janice was very open about everything she went through. She talked about all of the tests that she had to do, which included getting X-rays (which didn't hurt at all), having to go through chemotherapy (which she explained helped her get better, but with the side effects of losing her hair and feeling sick to her stomach often), and having to go through bone marrow testings (which Janice explained hurt a lot). You could tell that Janice's dialogue through the whole hospital visit scene was researched extensively, but presented in such a way that children could understand what was happening to Janice.

And, perhaps the most moving part of that scene in the hospital was Janice's drive to beat the leukemia and get back to school so that she could play with her friends again and swing on the swing set with Linus. Janice was optimistic that she was going to be okay, and I thought that too was awesome to show. Back in 1990, there were still so many unanswered questions about cancer treatments, and although we have come a long way in cancer research and inventing new treatment options over the past two decades, this television special still has a lot of relevance even today. The fact that Janice was facing the battle with a lot of optimism inside of her was a beautiful thing to see. It wasn't the moment where I teared up, but it was still a beautiful scene.



Of course, Linus saw nothing beautiful about a nice girl like Janice having to undergo treatment for cancer, and when he and Charlie Brown leave the hospital, Linus asks Charlie Brown why Janice had to get sick. Charlie Brown didn't have an answer for him, mainly because he didn't know. And, I imagine that a lot of people had the same reaction Charlie Brown had when they were trying to explain to someone why they or someone they loved got sick. It's not an easy thing to talk about. And, I appreciate the fact that the Peanuts gang even attempted to do a television special on such a difficult topic. Because we have all known someone who has battled cancer. Maybe some of you reading this blog entry right now are cancer survivors yourselves.



I also think that the show was realistic in that it showed a significant amount of time between Janice's first treatment and the day in which Janice was well enough to go back to school. In real life, it can take months for treatments to work. In the case of “Why, Charlie Brown, Why?”, we can assume that because of the changing colours of leaves that Janice begins her treatment around October. By the time that Janice is released from the hospital, there's snow on the ground and the swings are pinned up for the winter, showing that it is at least January or February, meaning that a total of three or four months have passed since. Again, I applaud the Peanuts gang for trying to keep it as realistic as possible.

Now, I won't spoil the complete ending for you. There's a reason why I posted the link up above. I want you to watch it. Let's just say that the last ten minutes were especially emotional. I'll just leave it at that. But here's a few clues to go on.

Clue #1: If you hated Lucy Van Pelt before (and believe me, Lucy is one of my least favourite Peanuts characters), you'll want to send a lynch mob after her after watching this special.

Clue #2: When a bully picks on Janice after she comes back to school, it may be the one and only time you see the normally cool-headed Linus explode in anger. It truly will make you stand up and cheer.

Clue #3: You meet a couple of Janice's family members, and you also learn more about the struggles that a family goes through when one of their own is battling cancer. Trust me, it's a very honest look.


Clue #4: That final scene makes me tear up every single time.

Tuesday, November 05, 2013

November 5, 1965

I hope that you're ready for the first Tuesday Timeline of November 2013, because this week, we're going to be rocking out!

In case you haven't guessed, we're going to be making some sweet, beautiful music today in our weekly look back through time. But before we crank up the record player, let's have a look back at some other exciting events that took place on this, the fifth day of November.

Let's begin with the historical happenings! How about it?

1138 – Ly Anh Tong becomes the emperor of Vietnam – at the age of two

1605 – Guy Fawkes is arrested

1831 – American slave leader Nat Turner is tried, convicted, and sentenced to death in Virginia

1872 – Susan B. Anthony votes for the first time in an American election despite women not being allowed to vote, which leads to a one hundred dollar fine

1895 – George B. Selden is granted the first American patent for an automobile

1900 – Natalie Schafer (d. 1991) – best known for her role as Lovey Howell in Gilligan's Island – is born in Red Band, New Jersey

1912 – Woodrow Wilson is elected to the presidency of the United States

1914 – France and the British Empire declare war on the Ottoman Empire during World War I

1916 – The Kingdom of Poland is proclaimed by the Act of November 5th of the emperors of Germany and Austria-Hungary

1925 – Sidney Reilly, a Jewish-Russian secret agent is executed by the OGPU

1931 – Singer-songwriter Ike Turner (d. 2007) is born in Clarksdale, Mississippi

1943 – The Vatican is bombed during World War II

1945 – Colombia joins the United Nations

1957 – Actor/model Jon-Erik Hexum (d. 1984) is born in Englewood, New Jersey

1960 – Singer Johnny Horton dies of injuries sustained in a car accident at the age of 35

1967 – 49 people lose their lives in the Hither Green rail crash – among the survivors, Bee Gee member Robin Gibb

1977 – Canadian-American bandleader Guy Lombardo passes away at the age of 75

1983 – Byford Dolphin diving bell accident kills five and seriously injures one

2003 – Gary Ridgway – otherwise known as the Green River Killer - pleads guilty to 48 counts of murder

2006 – Saddam Hussein is sentenced to death for his role in the massacre of 148 Shi'a Muslims twenty-four years earlier

2007 – China's first lunar satellite – Chang'e 1 – goes into orbit around the Moon

2008 – Author Michael Crichton passes away at the age of 66

2010 – Actress Jill Clayburgh dies of cancer at the age of 66

(Is it just me, or did a lot of people die at the age of sixty-six on November fifth?)

Why don't we move on to a happier subject? Here's the list of famous faces blowing out candles today! A happy birthday to...Douglass North, Christopher Wood, Elke Sommer, Art Garfunkel, Sam Shepard, Peter Noone, James Kennedy, Joyce Maynard, Kris Jenner, Mike Score (A Flock of Seagulls), Mo Gaffney, Robert Patrick, Bryan Adams, Tilda Swinton, Andrea McArdle, Tatum O'Neal, Famke Janssen, Sam Rockwell, Tamzin Outhwaite, Corin Nemec, Danniella Westbrook, Ryan Adams, Lisa Scott-Lee (Steps), Sebastian Arcelus, Samuel Page, and Andrew Hayden-Smith.

So, what is the date that we will be looking at this week?




How about November 5, 1965?  That sounds like a great day to reflect on.  Sigh...I almost missed this old logo.  It's been over a month since I've used it.

And, another interesting fact about this blog entry.  This is my 900th post since I began this blog two and a half years ago!  So, for this being my 900th blog entry, I know that I had to choose a topic that was huge.  

And, what better topic than a single that was released forty-eight years ago that defined a generation of people?  In fact, the word "generation" happens to be one of the two words found in the song's title!  Would you like to hear the song in its entirety?  I'll post it below.  Don't worry.  We'll talk about it in more detail after the video.





ARTIST:  The Who
SONG:  My Generation
ALBUM:  My Generation
DATE RELEASED:  November 5, 1965
PEAK POSITION ON THE BILLBOARD CHARTS:  #74
PEAK POSITION ON THE UK CHARTS:  #2

Okay, first things first.  The song only peaked at #74 in America?!?  Really?!?  At least in Canada, it made the Top 5! 



But, who really cares about something as trivial as a chart position anyway?  The song itself is one of The Who's biggest hits ever.  And, that's a bold statement to make considering that three of their other singles were used as theme songs for all three CSI television shows!

Did you know that Rolling Stone Magazine listed this song as number eleven on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time?  And, did you know that VH1 ranked this single as the thirteenth greatest rock and roll hit ever?  This particular song is unique in that it is one of a handful of songs that has been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame!  How's that for an honour?

At the time that the single was released, The Who had four key band members.  They were Roger Daltrey on lead vocals, Pete Townshend on guitar, Keith Moon on drums, and John Entwistle on bass guitar.  And, if you want to thank one person for the song's conception, you can give all the kudos to Pete Townshend.

It was on a train trip that Townshend took (try saying that last sentence seven times fast) which inspired him to write down the lyrics that would make up the song "My Generation".  But here's another interesting theory about how the song came about.  According to a couple of sources, Townshend allegedly wrote the song after an incident in which the Queen Mother had Townshend's hearse towed from a city street because she was offended by the sight of it!

I don't know exactly how accurate that story is, but given the context of this tale and the meaning of the lyrics contained within the song, it does seem to hold a little bit of weight.

Look, we've all been there in our lives.  When I was a teenager, it always seemed as though we were always picked on by people of an older generation.  And that older generation was likely picked on by the generation before that.  

But, in all fairness, I find myself complaining about the teenagers du jour...particularly those ones who have lost all of their self-awareness by burying their faces in a smartphone.  You can't escape it.  You either get judged by the generation before, or you judge the generation after.

I think that's why so many people love this song so much.  It's a perfect "screw you" song to all of those people who make unfair judgments just because when you were born.  I mean, one of the lyrics of the song is "I hope I die before I get old", famously screeched by Roger Daltrey himself.

The now almost 70-year-old Daltrey.

The song was also purposely delivered in an angry stutter by Daltrey, and there have been several explanations as to why this was the case, ranging from being influenced by American R&B, to trying to sound like a British mod on speed!  And naturally the instrumentation had to match the song.  John Entwistle's bass solo in the song was one of the first to be heard on a rock record, and after breaking the strings on three different Danelectro bass guitars, he ended up using his Fender Jazz Bass with a much simpler solo.  Although given how well the solo turned out, I admit that it would have been interesting to hear what Entwistle initially wanted the solo to sound like.

At any rate, it was a song that defined a generation and demolished the generation gap.  And, that's why "My Generation" is the subject for this blog.

Monday, November 04, 2013

Meet The Flintstones - On The Modern Stone Age Silver Screen

How many of you remember your thirteenth birthday?

For some of you, it may have been just yesterday. For some of you, it was five years ago. And, maybe for some of you reading this, your thirteenth birthday was a half-century ago.

Well, I remember mine. Mine was in May 1994. That's almost twenty years! And, now I suddenly feel the urge to go to the pharmacy down the block and picking up a container of Metamucil.

And, I have a personal story to tell you about my thirteenth birthday, and that story will flow into today's Monday Matinee topic.

My thirteenth birthday was kind of an emotional one for some odd reason.  The actual day itself sucked, as I recall.  It rained all day long, I had a rough day at school, and to top it all off, the only thing that was on television that night was a "Sesame Street" prime time special.  Oh yeah.  Good times for the teenager of 1994 to be had for sure.

Then again, my thirteenth birthday fell on a Wednesday that year.  Who wants to celebrate their birthday on "hump day"?  At least if it fell on a Saturday, Sunday, or Monday, I didn't have to go to school!

(NOTE:  Whenever my birthday falls on a Monday, it falls on Victoria Day - a statutory holiday here in Canada.)

Fortunately, my party (which was held two days later on a Friday evening), went a lot more smoothly.  I had long decided that I wanted to have a bowling party when I turned thirteen, and I wanted to have a co-ed party.  I invited a friend of mine who went to another school, plus two girls who were in my class.  As I recall, seventh grade was not a good year for me, and at that time, I was contemplating cancelling the whole thing as - well, truth be told, I didn't really like ANYONE in my class aside from three or four kids.  If only they had placed me in the other seventh grade classroom where all the kids I got along with were, it might have had a different result.  But, hey...you can't change the past.  You can only grow from it.

And, I'm apologizing for going off topic again.  I do that a lot.

For what it was worth, the bowling party was a hit.  And after bowling, we decided to grab a bite to eat at the McDonald's which was across the street.  At that time, I was still very much a fan of the fast food joint, and my friends agreed that it would be a good place to have my birthday dinner.

Well, that is until we all decided to throw french fries, ice cubes, and packets of ketchup at each other inside the restaurant - away from the Playland area!  Hey, what can I say?  We were thirteen...not thirty.  I was more amazed that none of us were thrown out of the place!

(And, in all honesty if was the right time with the right people, I'd launch a food fight inside of a McDonald's in a heartbeat!)

But the food fight at McDonald's wasn't the only thing that I remembered about my thirteenth birthday.  I also remember there being a very special promotion going on inside of the restaurant at the time of my party.

Although the movie hadn't come out yet (the official release date was May 27, 1994), I do remember there being lots of posters that were based on the yet-to-be released film.

The first poster talked about how the popular McDonald's sandwich known as the "McRib" was coming back to McDonald's locations for a limited time only.  I understand that there are a lot of people who loved that sandwich, and would buy a dozen of them at a time, but the minute they put raw onions all over that sandwich, they forever lost me as a customer.  Still, there was a reason why they chose May 1994 to bring back the McRib.

And this leads to the second promotion.

The second promotion of course related to those McDonald's Happy Meals.  You know, the meals that were for kids and where they would receive a toy to play with as they hardened their arteries with grease soaked Chicken McNuggets and cheeseburgers?  The meals which I readily admit to being forced to eat because at that time you just couldn't buy the Happy Meal toys separately!  Well, as it so happened, McDonald's had a Happy Meal that was based on that upcoming movie.  The logo was even changed temporarily as a result of the promotion for the movie.  Instead of McDonald's...



...it became RocDonald's!

But then again, I guess that was to be expected, when you consider that the toys featured Fred Flintstone, Barney Rubble, Dino, and Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm.  And, on that note, the reintroduction of the McRib on the McDonald's menu also made sense, when you consider that a rack of ribs always made Fred's car tip over sideways!

Yes, we're going to be talking about The Flintstones in this blog entry.  But not the popular Hanna-Barbera cartoon series.  Instead, we're going to be talking about the slightly less popular live action adaptation of the cartoon series, which was turned into a feature film in the spring of 1994.



But, I'm also going to be honest with you.  Yes, "The Flintstones" film got mediocre reviews, and yes, the film didn't perform as well as it probably was expected to.  But when I rented the movie from the video store a few months after it was released on film and watched it, I didn't find it all that bad.  Really, the only major criticism that I had about the movie was that little kids might not understand some of the plot, as the storyline sort of followed what was standard fare on an episode of "The Young and the Restless".  The rest of the film was a fun distraction, and I will definitely say that as far as the cast was concerned, they tried their very best to bring the world of Bedrock into a live-action interpretation.



That cast included John Goodman as Fred Flintstone, Elizabeth Perkins as Wilma Flintstone, Rick Moranis as Barney Rubble, and Rosie O'Donnell as Betty Rubble.

Also rounding out the cast were Kyle MacLachlan, Halle Berry, and in what would be her final appearance in a motion picture, Elizabeth Taylor!

Now, as I explained before, the film was a bit difficult for little kids to follow along with.  Being thirteen at the time the film was released, I got it right away, but for kids who were, say, six or seven, they might not have had such an easy time.  Heck, when I was six, I thought embezzlement was some kind of breath spray that made your breath minty fresh! 
And yet for poor Fred Flintstone, he ended up falling right into a nasty little trap set for him, courtesy of one man by the name of Cliff Vandercave (MacLachlan).



But before we touch upon that little plot development, we probably should talk about how Fred got himself into this position in the first place.

Now, if you've watched the cartoon at all, you know that Fred and Wilma live right next door to Barney and Betty Rubble.  Wilma and Betty are best friends, and although Fred would rather not admit to it, he and Barney share a friendship themselves - even if Fred gets annoyed with Barney every other day.  

(I mean, if your next door neighbour kept coming up with ways to steal your Fruity and Cocoa Pebbles, would you not be a little ticked off yourself?)

The film opens at the workplace where Fred and Barney both work - Slate & Co.  It's basically a mining job, only instead of cranes, they use gigantic dinosaurs to do the work for them.  You see, back in the Stone Age, there was no PETD (People for the Ethical Treatment of Dinosaurs), so dinosaurs were essentially regarded as nothing more than household appliances or office supplies (well, except for the lovable Dino, who has a lot of love to give to anybody who happens to visit the Flintstone residence).

It turns out that the newly appointed vice president of industrial procurement of the company is a very bad boy.  And, if Mr. Vandercave has his way, he would bilk the company out of millions of...well...whatever currency was legal tender in Bedrock.  And, to ensure that his plan was successful, he recruited the lovely Sharon Stone (Berry) to assist him in his evil deeds.



TRIVIA:  Believe it or not, the casting agents of the film really wanted Sharon Stone to be played by...well...Sharon Stone!  But when the real Sharon Stone was unable to commit to the film, Halle Berry was chosen instead.  And to her credit, she did a fine job, considering that she was still a relatively new actress at that time.

But with Vandercave and Stone working together for the greater evil, they needed someone to take the fall while they got away scot-free.  They needed someone who was inept enough to not suspect a thing.

Enter Fred Flintstone.

Now, Fred is basically stuck at an impasse career-wise.  He is basically stuck working a dead-end job.  But to Fred, it's enough for him, as he has a lovely wife and a beautiful daughter named Pebbles.

Next door, Barney and Betty have tried to have a child for years, but they just couldn't find a way to conceive one.  So, with help from Fred who gives Barney and Betty some money to make an adoption happen, Barney and Betty manage to raise enough money to adopt Bamm-Bamm.  In a show of gratitude, Barney wishes to pay Fred back for his kindness.

And when a career test that both Fred and Barney take happens, Barney sees his chance.  When Fred bombs the test - which also threatens any future attempts to move up within the company - Barney (who passes the test with flying colours), switches his test with Fred's, leaving Fred to get the promotion of a lifetime.

Vice-president of Slate & Co.

Of course, Barney is absolutely devastated because technically, he was the one who really earned the job.  But what Barney and Fred don't realize is that with Fred as vice-president, it gave Cliff Vandercave the prime opportunity to make his embezzlement plan a success.

And he does this by manipulating Fred into doing everything he wants.  

He starts by appointing Sharon Stone as Fred's personal secretary.  Cliff feels that by having Fred engaging in a tryst with Stone at work, it will get Cliff closer to getting access to more control within the company - making his job a lot easier.

He also suggests that since Barney flunked the test (which was actually Fred's test), then Fred should fire Barney from his job - offering the argument that they only wanted success stories at Slate & Co.  Fred is very reluctant to do it.  In fact, he refuses to fire Barney.  But as Fred soon realizes, his influence can only go so far.  Nonetheless, Fred tries his best to ease the situation by helping Barney with his financial difficulties, even though Barney is none too pleased with him.

And then things really get rocky.

Cliff tells Fred of a development he has backed which will make the quarry work much easier, and operate on a lower cost, saving lots of money and generating a huge profit.  The solution is in the form of a machine that will do twice as much work than the current staff of quarry operators, and Fred quickly figures out that Cliff is strongly hinting at him terminating the employment of all of the quarry workers for the machine to be built and fully-operational.  And you thought that your job was easy!

The problem is...there is no machine.  Absolutely no machine at all.  It's just a scam that Vandercave has cooked up to bilk as much money out of the company as he can before fleeing.  Worse, he plans to pin the whole thing on Fred, setting him up to take the fall!  To make matters worse, Barney and Fred have a huge falling out, and when Barney drops the bombshell that he switched the tests with Fred, not only do Barney and Betty refuse to speak to him, but Wilma takes Pebbles and moves out of the family home, leaving Fred alone to handle the angry mob of laid off quarry workers and have to find a way to escape the clutches of Cliff Vandercave.

So, what happens when Fred discovers the real motivation behind Cliff Vandercave's evil plot?  Will he have anyone in his corner to stand up against him?  Turns out that at least one person is on Fred's side...and it might be someone that you might not expect.

So, that brings us to the end of today's blog.  Would you like to know some trivia about the film?  Yes?  Okay!

1 - Jean Vander Pyl (the original voice of Wilma in the cartoon) has a cameo in this film.  Look for her in the conga line scene!

2 - The whole cast performed this film barefoot.  This meant no glass props at any time!

3 - When you see Barney driving an ice cream van, listen very closely to the song it plays.  It's the same theme song that The Jetsons used!

4 - Harvey Korman played the role of a dictabird in the film.  In the original cartoon series, he voiced The Great Gazoo!

5 - Rosie O'Donnell nailed her audition for Betty Rubble for being the only actress who could nail Betty's signature laugh.

6 - The B-52's perform two songs in the film as the BC-52's.  One is a reworking of the "Bedrock Twitch", and the second song was the one below!



7 - John Candy was once considered for the role of Fred Flintstone.

8 - The film's budget was $45 million.  Ten per cent of that alone was used to construct the community of Bedrock!

9 - For Elizabeth Taylor to agree to appear in the movie, producers made her a deal.  They would donate the profits generated from the film's premiere to her AIDS foundation.

10 - No actor who auditioned for Barney Rubble could be taller than 5'6".  This may explain how Rick Moranis got the part, though Danny DeVito was also considered.

11 -  Rather than cast a new voice for Dino, the producers just used old tapes of Mel Blanc, who had died five years prior.

12 - John Goodman filmed this movie in between the fifth and sixth seasons of "Roseanne".




Sunday, November 03, 2013

Rush Rush

Hello, everybody! And, welcome to another edition of the Sunday Jukebox!

You remember how last month, we had a bit of a theme month, where all the songs that I featured had a connection. That connection, of course, being that all the songs had music videos which could be considered scary, gory, or just plain weird. Very befitting for the Halloween season, don't you think?

Well, now that Halloween is over, the pumpkins have now been thrown out, and the Halloween candy that is left over is now at 50-75% off retail price, I need a new theme. And, I think that I've come up with one for this month that I hope that you all enjoy.

But before I do that, I would like to warn all of you living in Canada and the United States (barring Arizona, that is) that if you have not yet set your clocks back an hour, you probably should get around to doing that right now. Actually, you should have done it back at two o'clock in the morning.

It's a little phenomenon known as “Daylight Savings Time”. The con is that it gets dark at four in the afternoon. But the plus is that we get an extra hour to do with whatever we like with.

(Though admittedly, I'll be spending my extra hour in bed catching some well deserved Z's.)

But like it or not, daylight savings time is here to stay, and well, today is the day we bend time back around.




Why, thank you, Paula Abdul for illustrating my point very well. That particular song was recorded back in 1993, for inclusion on the Beverly Hills 90210 television soundtrack. Unfortunately, I bet most of you probably haven't heard of that song as it never hit the charts. I honestly don't even think that it was released as a single. But it does make the perfect soundtrack for November Daylight Savings Time.
Get it? Bend time back around? Turn the clocks back an hour?

(Man...I'm bombing on stage faster than Fozzie Bear. Wokka, wokka, wokka!)



Anyway, since I posted a Paula Abdul song earlier in this blog, I thought that I would keep Paula Abdul as the focus of today's blog. I honestly don't know if I did a blog on Paula Abdul before. I may have brought her up in a blog that I did on American Idol, but I don't think I've talked about one of her songs.

Oh well. No time like the present, right?

In fact, I think that Paula Abdul has sort of inspired this month's theme. What if I did a spotlight on some of the biggest hits of the 1990s? The all 90's Sunday Jukebox would make a great topic for this month's blog. After all, a lot of people are becoming nostalgic over the decade, and I believe that some people have actually thrown 1990s nostalgia parties, where they listen to 1990s music and dress like Kurt Cobain or one of the Spice Girls.

(And, honestly as someone who spent their teen years in the 1990s, it makes me feel really old knowing that the 1990s ended fourteen years ago.)

Now, when it comes to our first Sunday Jukebox subject – Paula Abdul – ironically enough, the 1990s were not exactly the greatest decade for her. In the 1980s, she was a huge star. She began her career as a choreographer, teaching dance moves to some of the biggest performers of the decade. If you watch closely, you can even spot Paula Abdul in a couple of Janet Jackson videos!

(Those videos being “Nasty” and “What Have You Done For Me Lately”.)



And, of course, Paula Abdul shot up to fame with the release of her debut album – 1988's “Forever Your Girl”, which spawned no less than six singles – four of which hit the number one position!



And then in the 2000s, Paula Abdul revived her popularity by appearing as a judge for the first seven seasons of the reality series “American Idol”. Paula Abdul was considered to be the “nice judge” of the series, and although towards the end of the run she was accused of being ditzy and loopy, I thought that when she first signed on to be a judge, she offered the budding singers some decent advice.



Even in the 2010s, Paula Abdul is still doing well, even releasing her own line of jewelry and accessories which can be bought through Avon catalogues.

But the 1990s? Let's just say that they were a rough decade for Abdul. Her marriage to Emilio Estevez hit the skids, she was involved in a plane crash which caused her to be in debilitating pain for years, she fought a battle against bulimia and won, and her music career really fizzled out. In fact, her last studio album that she released was 1995's “Head Over Heels”, which bombed on the charts (although ironically enough, two of my favourite Paula Abdul songs - “Crazy Cool” and “My Love Is For Real” both appear on that disc).

Really, the only part of the 1990s which weren't a major struggle for Abdul was the early part of the decade. Specifically 1991.



In 1991, Paula Abdul released the follow-up album to “Forever Your Girl”. That album was entitled “Spellbound”, and the disc spawned five singles – all of which hit the Top 20.

Of those Top 20 hits, two were number one hits. One, “Promise of a New Day” reached number one in September 1991. And today's single happened to be Paula Abdul's biggest hit, spending a total of five consecutive weeks at the top of the charts in the summer of '91.

It also seems to be a rather contrasting title, given the fact that today is the day we fall back and enjoy a lazy 25-hour Sunday. But, you know what? Let's go with it. There's a lot of trivia to be found within this five minute single.




ARTIST: Paula Abdul
SONG: Rush Rush
ALBUM: Spellbound
DATE RELEASED: May 2, 1991
PEAK POSITION ON THE BILLBOARD CHARTS: #1 for 5 weeks

Rush Rush” marked a couple of firsts for Paula Abdul. It was the very first single from “Spellbound”, and it also happened to be the very first time that Paula Abdul released a ballad.

Seriously, just listen to Paula's 1988 debut. I dare you to find one soft ballad that makes you want to take your date close and dance underneath the spinning mirror ball in the middle of a ballroom floor. And, “Knocked Out” doesn't count. You can't find one, can you?



It's really unknown as to why Paula Abdul didn't try her hand at singing a ballad prior to “Rush Rush” being released in May 1991. Perhaps because of the fact that Paula made her living as a choreographer prior to becoming a singer, maybe Paula believed that dance music was all that she could do. But you know, whatever the reason, ballads seemed to give Paula Abdul much attention. Not only did this single top the charts, but another ballad “Blowing Kisses In The Wind” was a Top 10 hit for Abdul in early 1992.

And, I suppose that Paula is hardly the only artist to hold off on releasing a ballad until they firmly established themselves as superstar on the charts. Janet Jackson's first ballad came almost four years after she released her “Control” album. Madonna's first ballad didn't come until three years after she released her debut single. Even Lady Gaga didn't release a ballad until after she had a few singles under her belt.

Rush Rush” was composed and produced by the songwriting team of Peter Lord and V. Jeffrey Smith (both members of the Family Stand), and believe it or not, the song was recorded using something called a 'scratch vocal'.

I'll admit that I actually had to look up that term, as I had never heard it before, but a “scratch vocal” is a vocal performance laid down by a singer to provide a reference to a producer when crafting other pieces of a recorded song.

It's basically a template or rough draft for a song so that producers and musicians can get the right tempo, or hit the right key. Once the instrumental portion of the song is finished, the singer often returns to the recording studio to polish it off.

In the case of “Rush Rush”, however, the vocals you hear in the finished product was never meant to appear on the final cut! Believe it or not, Paula Abdul's singing was a “scratch vocal”!

Turns out that when Paula Abdul dropped off the scratch vocal to Lord and Smith, they really liked it, and thought it was good enough to be used as the main vocal track for the single!

Though, I suppose that the very creative music video certainly helped the single reach the top of the charts. After all, the person who directed the video (Stefan Wurnitzer) really did his homework on the classic movies of the 1950s.



Particularly with the 1955 film classic “Rebel Without A Cause”, which starred James Dean and Natalie Wood.

In the video, Paula Abdul plays the role of Natalie Wood's character. And James Dean's character was played by early 1990s movie heartthrob Keanu Reeves.

And, yeah...I know what you're saying. Keanu Reeves and Paula Abdul re-enacting a classic movie from the 1950s. You think that it's a trainwreck in the making.

Okay, so the acting was definitely not Academy Award winning. But surprisingly enough, it worked surprisingly well. After all, the entire plot of “Rebel Without A Cause” was a boy disobeying his parents, standing up to a group of bullies at his school, and falling in love with the girl of his dreams, and all of the classic scenes of the movie were re-enacted in the “Rush Rush” video, including the iconic race scene.


And, that's all I have for all of you today. I hope you enjoyed this look back at early 1990s music, because we've got more where that came from this month! If you love all things 1990s, this is definitely the month for you to check in.

Saturday, November 02, 2013

The Toys That Turned Cool Cucumbers into Hot Peppers

For whatever reason, I seem to have mixed feelings about the month of November. It's not my most favourite month in the year, but I certainly don't despise it. Truth is, I'm just kind of indifferent to the month of November.

There's a lot of good things about the month of November. I enjoy the cooler temperatures a lot (yes, I am one of those weird people who actually prefer the mercury to be hovering around freezing rather than up in the nineties or hundreds). My mom was born in November, so that's always a good thing. For most of us in North America at least, November marks the appearance of the good kind of daylight savings time in which we GAIN an extra hour of rest rather than lose one. And, November is also a month in which we all pay our respects to those men and women who sacrificed their lives in the name of freedom.

(And, I will have a special Armistice/Remembrance/Veterans Day feature planned for this upcoming November 11.)

But, you know, there are some bad points about the month of November. November usually brings in the early planning stages of the holiday shopping season (which if you work retail as I currently do can be more scary than Halloween). November brings forth the horrors of the crazy spectacle of the event known as “Black Friday”, and back in the days in which I attended high school, November was always a bad month as we had midterms right around that time of year. And anyone who has ever remembered taking a high school midterm knows how stressful they can be.

So, yeah...November is one of those months that I have very mixed feelings about.

And, as it so happens, today's blog topic also happens to be something that I have had very mixed feelings about ever since I began working in retail.



In just a little under two weeks from now, Sony is set to release their brand new PlayStation 4 console. And working in electronics for the first time this holiday season, I have to admit that I'm very relieved that I happen to be off that date. If I had a dollar for every time I've been asked by customers when the PS4 is going to be released, well...I certainly would never have to worry about money again. And I imagine that there will be a similar reaction to the XBOX One system when it is released later this month as well.

On one hand, I am a little bit nervous about working in a brand new department with a brand new video game console being released. If we happen to run out of consoles, and don't have enough to meet the demand, well, it could be a very interesting experience. At the same time, I should be okay with dealing with that potentially stressful situation as I have co-workers who are used to it.

But on the other hand, I sort of understand the excitement that those customers would have over something brand new. I still have fond memories of going through the Sears Wish Book with a black marker, checking off all the things that I wanted to get that Christmas, and with luck, Santa would bring me at least one of the things I wanted...even if it did end up being the hottest toy of the year.

And, that's exactly what this blog is about. The hottest holiday toy fads, and the steps that some people will take to ensure that they get their hands on one.

Now, when it comes to the consoles, games, and accessories for the PlayStation 4, customers have been pre-ordering them online since October, and I imagine that as November runs into December, we'll be selling quite a few pre-order game cards, ensuring that customers will get what they want before Christmas. But back in the days before the Internet and pre-orders, you might be amazed at what people did to get the hottest new toys.

To begin, let's take a look at a toy that has the distinction of being on the Top 10 list of Hottest Holiday Toy of the Year twice...fifteen years apart!



FURBY (1998, 2012-2013)

When the Furby doll was reintroduced in the 2010s, a lot of kids believed it to be a brand new toy. But what some didn't know was that the Furby was 1998's hottest selling toy. Trust me, my niece who was two years old in 1998 was absolutely obsessed with the Furby. She even had a Furby computer game that she played all the time!



So, what made these fuzzy, brightly-coloured...creatures so popular? Well, the fact that they came in an assortment of colours such as red, pink, green, orange, and blue (though initially, they came in only white, black, or grey) made them appealing to children of both genders. But their selling point was the fact that they could actually talk back to you in both English and Furbish (the mother tongue of all Furbies). In fact, when a child received a brand new Furby, the Furby was programmed to speak nothing but Furbish, but as time progressed, and the more that the child played with their Furby friend, the more English they learned, making the child feel as though they were teaching their Furby how to talk.

I even managed to find a Furbish to English dictionary online (I know...I didn't know that one existed either). Would you like to learn how to speak Furbish? Have a look at the following translations below!

Wee-tah-kah-loo-loo = “Tell me a joke!”
u-nye-noh-lah = “Show me a dance!”
wee-kah-tah-wah-tee = “Sing me a song!”
u-nye-boh-doo = “How are you?”
u-nye-loh-lay-doo = “Do you want to play?”
u-nye-ay-tay-doo = “Are you hungry?”

The original fad of Furby lasted for approximately three holiday seasons, petering out in early 2001. But a revamp and remodel years later has safely secured its place in toy stores all over the world once again. Trust me. The toy department is close to the department I work in, and I often get asked about Furbies by random customers.

Well, them, and Monster High dolls.



TICKLE-ME-ELMO (1996)

Ah. Here's another toy that my now seventeen-year-old niece played with when she was a toddler. Truth be told, the doll came out the same year my niece was born.

Now, as far as I'm concerned, I liked Elmo enough, but I wasn't overly a huge fan of his. Had I been toddler aged, I would have likely asked my parents for the Tickle-Me-Cookie Monster doll instead.

That said, I can see why the Tickle-Me-Elmo doll was a huge success. All you had to do was squeeze Elmo and he would laugh at you and tell you that you were tickling him. Do it three times in a row, and he would laugh harder and his whole body would start vibrating. Here, I'll post a video of the television commercial below. It can probably explain what it does better than I can.



The doll was so successful that on the tenth anniversary of the doll's launch, in September 2006, the TMX Elmo was released, which was more or less a souped-up version of the original.

Now, here's the thing about Tickle-Me-Elmo. Tickle-Me-Elmo came out just before the explosion of online shopping sites like eBay, Amazon, and Etsy. Back in those days, if you wanted a doll, you waited outside in a line in hopes of getting your hands on one. And, depending on how long you waited in line, when the store doors finally opened up, the resulting stampede might be worse than that of the Running of the Bulls! There was one incident inside of a New Brunswick Walmart where a store clerk was trampled by a stampeding crowd, eager to get their hands on the Tickle-Me-Elmo doll. He ended up surviving the incident, albeit with torn jeans, a pulled hamstring, a broken rib, and a concussion! Craziness, I know.

Even more crazy was the fact that people were stocking up on the dolls and actually selling them for the same price that a scalper might charge for concert tickets! In some newspaper classified ads (keep in mind that the Tickle-Me-Elmo doll predates Craigslist and Kijiji), some people were charging as much as two thousand dollars for one Tickle-Me-Elmo doll!

Nowadays, you can pick up an original 1996 model of the Tickle-Me-Elmo on eBay for approximately thirty bucks. How times change.



TEDDY RUXPIN (1986)

I will state this right off the bat. I never owned a Teddy Ruxpin doll. I never really wanted a Teddy Ruxpin doll in the first place. To me, it was just a glorified tape player that just happened to be shaped like a teddy bear. If anything, one of the funniest memories I have of a Teddy Ruxpin doll is when one of my classmates brought in a Teddy Ruxpin doll for show and tell, and we had fun putting rock and roll tapes inside of the tape deck. You know, just to see if Teddy Ruxpin could sing “Born in the U.S.A.” as well as Bruce Springsteen.



But although I didn't care for the toy itself...I will admit to watching the television cartoon series. Of course, the television series was launched a few months after the toy became the hottest selling toy of 1986. With all of the television ads that were playing at the peak of its popularity, and the number of times I remember seeing kids requesting a Teddy Ruxpin doll in their letters to Santa (that my hometown newspaper used to print every December), it's a wonder that they didn't completely sell out altogether. I'm sure in some stores, they had a hard time keeping up with the demand, but I always remembered seeing Teddy Ruxpin and his friends on store shelves throughout the late 1980s. Maybe it was just an American thing.



CABBAGE PATCH KIDS (1983)

Now, here's where we get down to the real dangers of seeking out the hottest new toy of the season. Anyone who was anyone had to have a Cabbage Patch Kid.

In fact...I have a bit of a confession. I actually owned a Cabbage Patch Kid when I was a wee little tyke. I think my mom entered my name in a contest and I ended up winning. The grand prize was a Cabbage Patch Kid. I don't know if I actually wanted a Cabbage Patch Kid, but I did play with it for some years afterward. Not sure exactly what happened to him though. I think he's packed away somewhere.

But let's back up a little bit. When I won the Cabbage Patch Kid as a prize, I think I was three or four. That would date back to 1984/1985...the time in which Cabbage Patch Kid fever was in full swing.

The plush dolls, created by Xavier Roberts, were unlike any other doll that was released at the time. They were soft, huggable, came with their own little outfit, a certificate of adoption which had the Cabbage Patch Kid's name and birthdate...and well, they had a face that only a mother (or father) could love. Oh, let's be honest here. Some people thought that Cabbage Patch Kids were the ugliest things ever made. But I liked mine. And, back when Cabbage Patch Kids were introduced, every other kid seemed to like them too.

They liked them so much that in 1983 (the height of the doll's popularity), parents would do just about ANYTHING to get their hands on one. Mobs formed outside of toy retailers, with people literally biting, kicking, and pushing people down on the ground, just to get their hands on the dolls. There were even reports of some overambitious parents actually running towards delivery trucks carrying the dolls, and the poor delivery drivers became collateral damage! The response was just unreal! In fact, let's flashback to 1983, just to fully illustrate what I mean.



Shades of Black Friday anyone?

These days, Cabbage Patch Kids are not nearly as popular as they were some thirty years ago...but they are still manufactured, and are still a great gift to give your child or grandchild. And, hey...now you can buy one and not have to worry about having your nose broken or your hair pulled!


So, that's my list of toy fads that drove people crazy this holiday season. And now I turn the floor over to you.

Do you have any fad toy stories? Were you one of the ones waiting in line for a Cabbage Patch Kid, Furby, Tickle-Me-Elmo, or any other toy? Share your stories here, if you like!