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Sunday, December 04, 2011

Sunday Jukebox - Do They Know It's Christmas?

You know, amongst all of the bad news surrounding the economy, the schizophrenic nature of the value of a dollar, and the doom and gloom that today's economy seems to be plagued with, I can see how the last thing people would want to do is just give money away.

It's been reported that charitable organizations are struggling to raise money all over the world this holiday season. With pennies becoming harder to pinch, and with belts being tightened to the point where we have permanent grooves around our midsections, it's tough to spread the wealth around.

And it's not because everyone is the world is greedy, and want to keep money to themselves either. I'm sure there are some Scrooges and misers who would rather die than give their pennies away to people, but not everyone is like this. I know I would love to be able to donate to some of my favourite charitable organizations if I was financially able to.

Of course, that's not to say that one needs to have money to be able to give back to the community. People can volunteer at soup kitchens to feed the needy. They could wrap Christmas presents at a local mall for charity. They can organize toy drives where people donate toys for kids to open up on Christmas, or they can go door-to-door singing Christmas carols. Even a gesture as simple as making someone a card for the holidays can be considered giving back to someone.

Or, if your name happens to be Bob Geldof or Midge Ure, you could just record a song for the Christmas season where all the proceeds for the record went towards stopping the plight of world hunger.

And, that is the topic for today's blog entry.



I'm sure that anyone who was around in the mid-1980s remembers the single 'Do They Know It's Christmas?'. I know my sister who was twelve at the time had the single in record format. It's hard to miss the distinct cover design, which was illustrated by artist Peter Blake, and that album cover held a prominent place in my sister's bedroom for many years.

The year was 1984. During that year, the BBC had a series of news reports about the famine that was going on in the country of Ethiopia. In October of 1984, a BBC reporter named Michael Buerk was featured in a report showing scenes filmed in Ethiopia. It really was a sad sight to behold. Lots of people who were literally starving to death because they didn't have the necessarily food, water, or medicine to survive.

It kind of made you realize that as stressful and expensive as the holidays can get for us, things could always be worse. And in Ethiopia in 1984, they were living the 'worse' day in and day out.

The news reports were quite tough to watch, and it naturally affected the people of the United Kingdom in a variety of ways. In the case of Bob Geldof, the images were so powerful and emotion-evoking that he immediately came up with an idea. What if he wrote a song for the 1984 Christmas season where all the proceeds went towards ending the famine in African nations? Certainly, songwriting was something Geldof was experienced in, having been a part of The Boomtown Rats at the time. But he needed help in creating the perfect song. He called up his friend James “Midge” Ure, who was the lead singer of the band, Ultravox.

Together, they ended up writing the lyrics and melody of the song, which they entitled 'Do They Know It's Christmas?', and the date the song was to be recorded was planned for late November 1984. At the time, Bob Geldof had been scheduled for a radio interview with BBC Radio 1 DJ Richard Skinner to promote an album. Instead, he used the interview to promote 'Do They Know It's Christmas?', talking about how he had planned to assemble a group of musicians from all over the United Kingdom to participate in the recording. Geldof's hope was that the media interest in the song would be high as more and more names were signed onto the project.

By the time the recording session had been booked for November 25, the media was perched outside Sarm West recording studios, waiting to snap pictures and video of each singer and band as they arrived to record the song. The use of the recording studio was free of charge, courtesy of the owner, music producer Trevor Horn. Initally, Geldof wanted Horn to produce the record himself, but Horn was unavailable at the time. There was one catch though. The use of the studio for free was only available for 24 hours, so if the song was to be recorded, it would have to have been done in a day.



And when you have a group of musicians, some of whom had never met each other, and some of whom regularly competed against each other on the UK music charts, it was expected that the session would have some conflict and some problems. But, we'll get to the behind the scenes action in a bit.

For now, let's enjoy the song.



ARTIST: Band-Aid
SONG: Do They Know It's Christmas?
DATE RELEASED: November 29, 1984
PEAK POSITION ON THE BILLBOARD CHARTS: #13
PEAK POSITION ON THE UK CHARTS: #1 for 5 weeks

Now, before I go on with the details behind the making of the song, I think we should find out who exactly sang on the record, as there were a LOT of artists that took part. Here's just a few...

Bob Geldof, Simon Crowe, Pete Briquette, Johnny Fingers (The Boomtown Rats)
Midge Ure, Chris Cross (Ultravox)
Bono, Adam Clayton (U2)
Phil Collins (Genesis)
Tony Hadley, Steve Norman, Martin Kemp, Gary Kemp, John Keeble (Spandau Ballet)
Simon Le Bon, Nick Rhodes, John Taylor, Roger Taylor, Andy Taylor (Duran Duran)
Paul Young
Martyn Ware, Glenn Gregory (Heaven 17)
Marilyn
Jody Watley (Shalamar)
Keren Woodward, Sara Dallin, Siobhan Fahey (Bananarama)
Paul Weller (The Style Council)
James “J.T.” Taylor, Robert “Kool” Bell, Dennis J.T. Thomas (Kool & The Gang)
George Michael (Wham!)
Francis Rossi, Rick Parfitt (Status Quo)
Boy George, Jon Moss (Culture Club)
Sting (The Police)
David Bowie
Holly Johnson (Frankie Goes To Hollywood)
Stuart Adamson, Bruce Watson, Tony Butler, Mark Brzezicki (Big Country)
Paul McCartney


...among others...

Most were British based, but there were a few Irish and Scottish groups that took part. The song even had a bit of American flavour to it as Jody Watley and Kool & The Gang became a part of the single's final cut.

Now, I have to say that it was quite a feat to have a whole bunch of musicians of varying styles, tastes, and levels of popularity come together to record a song where all the profits would go towards a good cause.

And the song was one that people rushed to buy. Within days of its release, the song hit the top of the British charts in late 1984, staying there for five weeks. In the United States, the song didn't quite chart that high, but it did make the Top 20 on the Billboard Charts, peaking at #13 in early 1985 (reason being that the American charts counted airplay in addition to record sales, and back in 1984, the song didn't get much airplay). In the UK, the song was re-released on the charts the following year, this time peaking at #3...one of the few instances in which the same song made the Top 5 in two different years at two different times.



The song did very well in sales as well. Between 1984 and 1985, the single sold over three and a half million copies. For thirteen years, the song held the record for being the highest selling single in UK history, the record broken in 1997 with Elton John's remake of 'Candle In The Wind', as a tribute to the late Princess Diana. With the success of Band-Aid's single, Geldof used that success as the basis towards the formation of 1985's Live-Aid, a concert extravaganza held that summer, in which an estimated 1.9 BILLION people worldwide watched the event, which much like the Band-Aid single, raised funds to end world hunger.

But as I said before, the recording of the song didn't exactly go off without a hitch. There were some rather comedic moments, and there's some interesting facts about the recording of the song itself that are worth knowing, but there were also some tense moments between some of the singers, and one almost didn't show up at all!

Did you know, for instance, that the song was recorded out of order? The first part recorded was the end of the song where the chorus of “feed the world, let them know it's Christmas time' was sung in an endless loop. The reason behind that was to have everyone get involved in the song straightaway, allowing the group shot to be photographed at the same time.

Also, it should be noted that each musician involved in singing the main body of the song, sang the whole version of the song. Some artists like Sting and Simon Le Bon had previously recorded their parts beforehand, but chose to re-record them once again. Tony Hadley of Spandau Ballet was the first soloist to take to the microphone, and the rest followed suit. From there, Midge Ure would listen to each recording and cut and paste the segments that would eventually be used for the final cut.

Remember the opening of the song where there's a drum rhythm? That effect was achieved through a combination of electronic drum beats, a snippit from a Tears For Fears song, and the actual drum set that Phil Collins had brought with him to the session!

Boy George almost didn't even make it to the recording session! Despite Bob Geldof calling Boy George in New York the day before the recording session, asking him to be a part of the record, by the time the session began at nine o'clock that morning, Boy was still nowhere to be found. It took a while for Boy George to agree to fly out to England to record the song, and he arrived at around six o'clock that evening.

It was reported that Boy George did not get along with another George during the recording session. Apparently, Boy George and George Michael didn't gel well together, and both of them traded insults with each other.

As far as the band Status Quo goes, they were originally supposed to have sang the verse with the 'Here's to you...' line, but apparently Rick Parfitt wasn't able to hit the high notes for the verse, so they were replaced.  However, it was reported that they contributed to the recording session in other ways...by bringing alcohol and drugs.

Silly '80s bands.

There was even a bit of tension between Ure and Geldof during the recording of the song, as Geldof would constantly barge into the production booth while Ure was inside, telling the singers what lines to sing.

Boy George was the last vocalist to sing his part on the record (made sense since he was the last one to arrive), and after that was done, the work began on the B-side of the record, a song called 'Feed The World'. That recording featured spoken word messages from artists who didn't sing on the A-side, which included Bowie, McCartney, and the members of Big Country.

The recording was finally completed on November 26, 1984 at 8am...almost 24 hours after the process began.

Soon after 'Do They Know It's Christmas?' was released, the current #1 artist at the time, Jim Diamond, urged people to skip over his single the following week, instead prompting people to buy 'Do They Know It's Christmas?' instead. He ended up getting his wish, as the song lasted five weeks at the top, being dethroned by Foreigner's 'I Want To Know What Love Is' in early 1985.

Perhaps the most telling evidence of the song's success comes with this fact. The original song was re-recorded twice more. Five years after the original version was released, a new version was re-recorded with what were the top British artists at the time. The group name was Band Aid II, and these artists included Lisa Stansfield, Wet Wet Wet, Kylie Minogue, Jason Donovan, Cliff Richard, and Bananarama (making Sara Dallin and Keren Woodward the only people to sing on both the '84 and '89 versions) of the song. Like its predecessor, the second version also made it to #1. It was a nice effort, and some of the singers were quite good, but I preferred the original. What do you think?



A third version was recorded in 2004, but I'm definitely not a fan of that one, so I won't post it. You could probably find it if you put the words Band Aid 20 in the search engine, Google.

Other countries put out their own efforts as well to help donate money to the people of Africa as well.



USA for Africa released 'We Are The World' on March 7, 1985.



Canada's Northern Lights followed suit with 'Tears Are Not Enough' that same month.



There was even an effort put out by Yugoslavia!

But Band-Aid did it first, and in my opinion, they did it best, and the song did what it set out to do, which was to raise awareness of third world countries.

And I think if anything, it made us all realize, if only for a moment, that as bad as we think things might be here at home, it's nothing compared to what others may be going through.

Saturday, December 03, 2011

Sat A.M. - Saved By The Bell "A Home For Christmas"

It's a bit of a rarity for me to devote a blog entry on a single episode of a live-action Saturday morning show...particularly one on a show that I've already done a previous entry on.

I know that I've done the episode spotlights on TGIF days, but this episode spotlight on a Saturday is something new to me, so I hope I do it justice.



I know some of you might be scoffing at the idea of me doing an entire episode spotlight on the NBC Saturday morning sitcom Saved By The Bell, but there's a reason why I wanted to do this.

It's because for what the show was, and how cheaply produced it was, it managed to churn out a rather enjoyable holiday show. In fact, I'm going to say that they managed to make a pretty enjoyable hour of programming, as the message behind it was a good one.

I know when I first saw it around the age of ten, I liked it.



The topic for today's blog entry is about the one and only Christmas themed episode the original Saved By The Bell series did back in 1991. Yes, I know that Saved By The Bell: The New Class had Christmas themed episodes too, but I didn't think any of them were all that memorable. The one they did in '94 was a Christmas In July episode. How festive. The one they did in '95 was a basic retelling of the holiday show the original cast did four years earlier. How plagiaristic. And don't even get me started on Christmas 1996 when they BURNED DOWN THE MAX and replaced it with something that a Crayola crayon box barfed up!

And yes, I did do extensive research on this show, including the lame spin-off, and yes, after all that, I stand by my opinion that the original Christmas show was the best of them all.

Before we get into this episode's discussion, let's talk a bit about the original version. The show was actually a retooling of the show 'Good Morning, Miss Bliss', which had debuted in 1988. In 1989, half the cast (including Miss Bliss) were let go, and the show was changed to the name 'Saved By The Bell'. It ran for four years, the last episode airing in May 1993.

One of the reasons why the show was so popular for kids who grew up during that time period was because of the characters. The six main characters of the show each had their own distinct personalities and quirks, so that everyone who watched the show could identify with someone on the show.



You had Zack Morris (Mark-Paul Gosselaar), the blonde, preppy-dressing, girl-crazy guy who was a lazy student but incredibly street smart...well, provided his plans didn't blow up in his face. There was A.C. Slater (Mario Lopez), an army brat used to moving around from school to school, who was the typical jock of the series. Samuel “Screech” Powers (Dustin Diamond) was the intelligent, but socially awkward teenager who had an easier time understanding quantum physics than relationships. Kelly Kapowski (Tiffani-Amber Thiessen) was your stereotypical pep squad leader who always managed to put on a happy face, and whose worst insult in her vocabulary was 'jerk'. Lisa Turtle (Lark Voorhies) was the rich girl, whose parents were in the country club scene, and who loved designing clothes almost as much as buying them. And Jessie Spano (Elizabeth Berkley) would have made a great feminist during the 1970s, but found her environmental beliefs and women empowerment views to be largely ignored at Bayside High School.

Quite the motley crew of teenagers, aren't they?

I'd probably say that out of these six, I'm most like a weird hybrid of Zack and Screech, with maybe a smidgen of Kelly mixed in for flavouring. But, that's just me, I suppose.

Now that you know who the characters are and what the show is about, we can continue.

If you want to watch the show before reading the detailed description, you can do so in these following links. Each word in the following sentence represents one part in the story...I just hope that it's not regionally blocked.  So, just click on here!



The episode spotlight that I want to talk about is the episode entitled “A Home For Christmas”. It was originally a two-parter, with part one airing December 7, 1991, and part two airing on December 14, 1991. It's Christmas in Los Angeles, and Zack and his friends arrive at Zack's house for a small party to kick off their Christmas vacation. And after Zack's mother surprises them with homemade gingerbread cookies, we learn about how the gang plans to spend their holiday.

Slater, Kelly, and Jessie managed to get part-time jobs at a shopping mall. Kelly got a job working as a sales clerk at a men's clothing store, Slater got a job at the gift wrapping kiosk (which he does a poor job at), and Jessie took on a job playing one of Santa's elves, and failing miserably at it. I would have suggested that Jessie would require Prozac to get through her shifts as an elf, but then I thought about that caffeine pill freakout, and realized that it probably wouldn't have been a good idea.

Surprisingly enough, Lisa, who was normally known for being the self-absorbed one, decided to spend her time volunteering at the hospital as a candy striper, and was a key figure in organizing a Christmas party for the sick kids there.



As for Zack and Screech...well...they'd end up having a Christmas adventure of their own. While Screech was showing off a doll that apparently drank all the water in the entire city of Los Angeles, Zack quite literally ran into a young woman who was making her way to work. The woman was a bit put off by Zack at first for making her late for work, but she did volunteer two pieces of information. Her name was Laura, and she worked at one of the many stores in the shopping mall. But first, Zack had to get Screech dried off.

It was in the men's room that the next piece of the puzzle fell into place. A middle-aged man happened to be in the restroom at the same time that Zack and Screech were there, and taught Screech how to get dried off in a hurry. But then Zack seemed to notice that the man was applying shaving cream on his face to shave in the mall's restroom, and came to the conclusion that the man was homeless. After leaving the man some money in the restroom, Zack and Screech continued their search for Laura.

Luckily, Laura's place of employment was at Moody's Store For Men, which was the same store that Kelly worked at, so finding Laura was quite easy for Zack. Zack immediately asked her out, and Laura was reluctant, but Kelly went to bat for Zack, telling him that she could trust him...provided they ate near a security guard. But then when the man that Zack and Screech helped passed by the store, and Zack was telling the group that he hoped that the money he left him would be used for food, and not on drugs and alcohol, Laura's mood chilled, and she turned Zack down cold. Zack was left confused about the whole thing, and the fact that Slater and Lisa were making fun of him over the snub just made the whole thing smart more.



Luckily, after Laura happened to pass by the food court, and after Screech helped Zack convince Laura to give him a second chance, Laura warmed up to the idea of going on a date with Zack...even if she had an unusually voracious appetite. But, hey, maybe the idea of dating a female Jughead appealed to Zack.  As a finale to their date, Zack and Laura went to visit with Santa (after a bruised and exhausted Jessie let them in at the front of the line), where Laura had a rather huge wish to give to Santa. Zack questioned Laura about what she wished for, but she wouldn't even give Zack a hint. Eventually, Zack let it go.

But later on, Zack, Slater, Screech, and Jessie come across a disturbing sight as the man that Zack and Screech helped earlier has now passed out on the floor. Luckily, Zack and Slater managed to revive him, and the ambulances took him to the hospital. But when the gang headed off to Moody's to pick up Kelly for the hospital Christmas party, and they fill her in on what happened, Laura has a rather weird reaction to it all. Why would she feel so strongly about this?



All is revealed at the hospital party. Turns out our homeless man was taken to the same hospital that the party was held, and with help from Lisa, Zack manages to find out where the man's room is. So with Slater and Screech tagging along, they wander through the corridors of the hospital to find the room, and are shocked to see that Laura is by the man's bedside.

And it is here that all the pieces of the puzzle fit together. The man is Frank Benton. The girl is Laura Benton. They are father and daughter. Which means that Laura was homeless too.

Now it all made sense...her turning Zack down the first time, her reaction to his hospitalization. The reason why Frank passed out was due to malnutrition, and once he started feeling better, Zack and his mother invited the Benton family to dinner at their home, where Frank explained how he and Laura ended up homeless. Frank was let go from his job, and was unable to keep up with his bills. He and Laura headed off to California in hopes of finding work, but the economy back in late 1991 wasn't that great. Besides, with only one rumpled suit and no forwarding address, it made the search for work all that much difficult. Laura's job at Moody's was the only income that they had. In that moment, Zack decided that he really wanted to help Frank and Laura out, simultaneously realizing how lucky he and his family were in the process.

The next day, Zack's mother was planning the annual mall Christmas play, a retelling of the Charles Dickens classic 'A Christmas Carol', and Laura expressed interest in acting in the play with Zack and his friends, but knew that Mr. Moody wouldn't let her off work to act in it. To put it mildly, there wasn't a whole lot of personality difference between Moody and Ebenezer Scrooge. Kelly tried to get Mr. Moody to change her mind, and let it slip that Laura was homeless, but Mr. Moody wouldn't budge, even going so far to say that if he had known she was homeless, he never would have hired her, as he had the belief that all homeless people were thieves.

What a class act of a guy, huh?

Of course, Zack came up with a brilliant (if not totally commercial) idea to get Laura in the play, which was to give Moody free advertising during the play in exchange for Laura being allowed a role. Sigh...I guess there's commercialism in everything, isn't there. But, seeing as how happy it made Laura, I guess we can overlook it.



But Laura's happiness wouldn't end up lasting. For when she arrived back at Moody's, Mr. Moody accused her of shoplifting a sportsjacket, and threatened to call the cops on her, prompting Laura to flee the mall, visibly upset. Oh, but lest you think that Laura pulled the wool over our eyes, Mr. Moody was the one who acted terribly. Turns out that the sportsjacket that Laura was accused of stealing wasn't stolen. Kelly had put it away on the store's newly created layaway plan. As in, Kelly had another salesgirl put it aside so that she could buy it for Laura's father, as Laura had told Kelly that the sportsjacket was what Frank needed for job interviews. Kelly had planned to pay for it after the play was over, but ran late trying to get changed, and she and Zack arrived at the store just seconds after Laura ran away. And neither one of them were happy with Moody at all. I know I wouldn't have been.

A search throughout the whole mall progressed as Zack, Kelly, Zack's mother, and the rest of the gang split up to tell Laura that they believed in her. It wasn't until Zack and his mother arrived at a Christmas tree lot that they happened to come across Frank and Laura, who were planning to spend Christmas Eve in the back of their car. Of course, Zack and his mother weren't going to let that happen, and after explaining the circumstances behind the sportsjacket scandal, Frank and Laura were convinced of their friendship, and accepted their offer to spend Christmas Eve with them.



The next scene takes place at the Morris family living room where Frank and Laura are enjoying a nice Christmas with Zack and his friends, with the exception of Kelly. Turns out that Mr. Moody had asked Kelly to work late on Christmas Eve, which makes everyone else roll their eyes in disgust, claiming that Moody hadn't learned anything from the experience.

But then Kelly came in, with Mr. Moody following behind her carrying a present!  Turns out that Mr. Moody suddenly had a change of heart, and was terribly sorry about misjudging Laura. He wished her a merry Christmas, offered her some prime shifts for the after-holiday sales, and left...but judging by the grimace he uttered, I have a feeling that Kelly might have twisted his arm a bit in making him come. Whatever the case, Laura ended up with the sportsjacket, which she happily presented to her father for a Christmas present, and Zack surprised them with the news that the Bentons could stay with the Morris family as long as they needed until Frank found a job.

The ending was simple, yet perfect, as it had the whole gang singing 'Silent Night'.

So, what lessons can we learn from a Saved By The Bell Christmas? Well, I think one lesson is to not judge a person based on what they might have heard from others. Upon first glance, would you have thought that Frank and Laura were homeless? No. They looked a lot like any average person who passed through the mall. Zack had no idea that Laura and her father were homeless when he met her. But when he found out, did he run away or judge her? Not in the slightest. In fact, he actually tried to help her, and got his friends to open their arms up to her and Frank. Which is what the whole point of the holidays is about.

I guess if there's one thing we can take out of a Saved By The Bell Christmas, it's the pleasure and joy that Zack and his friends got out of helping someone who had fallen on bad luck. Because when you look at it, and if you were in a dire situation as Frank and Laura Benton were in, wouldn't it be nice if someone went out of their way to help you, as Zack did with them?

Think about it and reflect on that for a second.

Friday, December 02, 2011

TGIF: A Charlie Brown Christmas

Before I kick off today's blog entry, I'd like to post a little mood music, if you don't mind.



There. That's better.

You know, today is December 2, and we're just 23 days until Christmas. But, looking outside my window, you'd never know it. The weather's been unseasonably warm (which delights some people in my area, but depresses me), and instead of there being snow on the ground, we have green grass. Again, some may be enjoying it, but I like me some snow on Christmas. But, there's still time yet for the snowflakes to fall.

I get so much delight out of the little things that make Christmas seem more...Christmasy. Snow on the ground, the various lights and decorations on trees, the happiness that people are supposed to feel.

The key word there is 'supposed'.

Lately, it seems as though the closer and closer we get to Christmas, the more and more grouchier some people seem to get.

And why are these select people getting so grouchy?

I think it's because of the fact that Christmas has gotten incredibly commercial.  So commercial that the various advertisements, store flyers, and catalogues are practically in your face saying 'BUY ME!'

I mean, all you need to do is take a look back to last Friday to get some examples of what I'm talking about. As many of you know, last Friday was the shopping holiday known as 'Black Friday', a magical day where stores slash the prices of such items as video game consoles, television sets, clothing, and bedding accessories in hopes of getting major profit. They say that day is the kickoff towards the holiday shopping season.

But reading about some of the horror stories that have emerged from Black Friday over the years, one has to wonder if the day is really worth it?

Sure, the stores and merchants make a killing in profits and cash. But the people who are buying the items that are on sale are making a killing themselves, as in they're literally trying to kill each other in hopes of snatching a $99 television or $3 bath towel. A couple of years ago, a Walmart associate was trampled to death when a crowd of anxious shoppers stormed the doors. Last week, a woman in California pepper-sprayed other customers in front of her in hopes of getting a discounted XBOX 360. And I watched a clip of another Walmart location on the local news where people were literally crawling over top of each other just to get bath towels.

And, I just shake my head with a combination of disgust and disappointment. Is this REALLY what Christmas is all about? Waiting in line hours before the store opens up and practically risking yourself bodily harm just to get a stupid hunk of plastic that one can use to waste more time with? That's shameful. Although I do understand the rush one feels when they save a fortune on an item that they get on sale, there's nothing in the world that I would want that badly that would involve me pushing someone out of the way to get. If they don't have the item I want, I'll just wait until it becomes available. I may pay more money, but at least I'll keep all of my fingers and toes. And for those of you who say that Black Friday is fun, remind me never to come by any of your holiday parties.

But you know, I'm probably not the only one to question the true meaning of Christmas. Back in 1965, another person had those same feelings of what the true meaning of Christmas really was. Like myself, he didn't think it was about the presents, and the spending, and the huge bills people rack up. And like myself, he seemed to be one against everyone else in the world.




Yet in Charlie Brown's case, it all seemed to work out.



Yes, today's blog entry (and the first of many holiday themed entries for the month of December), happens to be about the very first Peanuts themed prime-time special that aired on television. That special being 'A Charlie Brown Christmas'. The show made its debut on December 9, 1965. Just like 'It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown', the special aired exclusively on CBS until the year 2000, and was moved to ABC in 2001, where it has aired since. This special has become a holiday tradition for many generations, and sometimes airs twice, even thrice, during the month of December.

Here's a little bit of irony in regards to the special. Many people don't know this, as the special has been edited since the original broadcast, but the special was sponsored by Coca-Cola. Seems kind of bizarre that a special about finding out the real meaning of Christmas was sponsored by a soft drink company, but it was the only way that creator Charles M. Schulz could get the money to finance the special. During the first three years the program was aired, there were references to Coca-Cola present in a couple of scenes, but by 1968, they were removed. Part of the reason why the final song in the special was cut off was because of a Coca-Cola message that originally aired during the closing credits, which said “Brought to you by the people in your town who bottle Coca-Cola”. That's your trivia fact for today.



The special was the first one in a long series of television specials starring the Peanuts gang, and it was completed on a shoestring budget. As a result of this, the animation in some places looked choppy. To add to the hardships in producing the special, a lot of the child actors that were cast had no experience in the field of voice acting. A couple of them had difficulty reading the script, so their lines had to be cued one line at a time. As a result, a lot of editing had to be done regarding the voice tracks, which lead to lines being poorly delivered and with a lack of enunciation.

It should also be known that after the special was completed, network executives from CBS had several complaints about it, such as the production team's refusal to add a laugh track, as well as the use of children as voice actors. They also had two majorly huge complaints that had they gotten their way would have changed the course of the special forever. But, I'll get to that in a second.




'A Charlie Brown Christmas' starts off at an ice skating rink that nature created by freezing a pond. Charlie Brown is talking with Linus about how upset he is about Christmas being over-commercialized. Despite the presents, the cards, and the tree decorating, he can't bring himself to get excited over Christmas.

As the show continues, Charlie Brown's disillusionment rises. He doesn't receive any Christmas cards from anyone, and his younger sister writes Santa a letter asking him to bring her cold hard cash in lieu of presents. Even his dog Snoopy seems to be caught up in the commercialism of Christmas, as the sole reason behind Snoopy decorating his dog house is to win a holiday display contest.



But then Charlie Brown gets a brilliant idea, courtesy of Lucy and her psychiatric help stand. Although Lucy gets a little too nickel happy, she suggests that Charlie Brown direct their school play involving the Nativity. Charlie Brown thinks this is a great idea, and the perfect way for him to experience Christmas in a more traditional manner.



Yet when he gets to the school auditorium, he sees the cast members of the play dancing to modernized music and dancing, basically going against all of the traditional values that he had hoped to exhibit during the school play.

And it is here that we come across one of the major complaints that the network executives had against the program when it was first developed.



The music.

I know it seems hard to believe that the music would be something that the executives would want to get rid of. The music made the special. The track entitled “Linus and Lucy” was one of the best pieces of music ever created! Have a listen to it!



And the network executives HATED it! They had felt that the music (composed by the Vince Guaraldi trio) was too jazzy for a children's program. I'm guessing that they probably wanted something more...traditional. Or maybe something more childlike? Who can say really? But I really can't imagine Charlie Brown without that iconic music, and I'm glad that Charles M. Schulz and Bill Melendez stuck to their guns and fought for the music to be heard.

Anyway, back to the story. Seems Charlie Brown really wanted a chance to prove himself to the rest of the cast, and he had a vision of making the school play one filled with tradition and getting rid of the commercialism altogether.

And what better way to capture the spirit of Christmas than by having an old-fashioned Christmas tree as the centerpiece of their school play? Of course when he shares the idea with the rest of the gang, Lucy and the others are all for the idea.

Provided that Charlie Brown bought one of those shiny, pink-tinted aluminum trees that looked like nothing that could ever come out of nature, but because it was modern and looked groovy, it had to be great.

So Lucy and the others give Charlie Brown the money to buy the tree, and Charlie Brown and Linus head down to the Christmas tree lot, eager to find a real, traditional Christmas tree to use in the production. But when they get there, all they see are those tacky looking aluminum trees in every colour imaginable except green. Hmm...so maybe people aren't so into the modern aspect of Christmas after all.

Without a real tree to be found, Charlie Brown and Linus almost give up. But then, Charlie Brown sees it.



Now to most of us, this looks like a branch that one might come across after the tree has been trimmed and pruned to make them suitable for decorating purposes. But to Charlie Brown, this little tree was perfect for exhibiting the point that he wanted to make about Christmas being traditional. Linus is concerned that Charlie Brown might be making a mistake in selecting the tree, but Charlie Brown insists that with some lights and decorations, it will be the perfect tree to use.

If only snobby Lucy and the others could see things the way that Charlie Brown could. For when Charlie Brown brought in the little twig of a tree, he got laughed at and made fun of. According to the Peanuts gang, the blockhead screwed up again, and they wasted no time in making fun at his expense, taking glee and delight in what he thought was a great tree.

Sigh...so much for the Christmas spirit spreading amongst that mob.

Charlie Brown is naturally upset. I mean, wouldn't you be if you were in his shoes? He wonders if anyone actually knows what Christmas is all about.

It is here that Linus steps up to the stage, symbolically drops his blanket on the ground, and in one of the most poignant scenes in the whole show makes this speech, taken from the Gospel according to Luke.



Wasn't that a beautiful moment? I'm hardly considered to be the religious type myself, and even I was moved by it. Linus' monologue brought everyone to silence, and the way he delivered it in his childlike manner was just...wonderful.

So therefore it gave me great shock to learn that Linus' monologue could have ended up on the cutting room floor if network executives had their way!

I know...it seems shocking that such a wonderful scene would even be considered to be edited out of the final production. Apparently, network executives didn't think that the average person wanted to sit through Bible passages in a special about Christmas. This was a battle that Melendez and Schulz refused to back down on. Schulz was adamant that the scene be kept in, because according to Schulz, if they didn't show the real meaning of Christmas in the show, who would?

The network executives finally gave in, and aired the show as it was produced, but they didn't expect the show to last beyond one airing. Boy, were they wrong!

So, inspired by Linus' words of wisdom, a newly revigorated Charlie Brown takes his little tree and vows to decorate it himself. He leaves the auditorium, places the tree next to Snoopy's doghouse (which ended up winning the contest), and starts decorating the tree by placing a bright red ornament ball on the branch. The tree immediately wilts and Charlie Brown is distraught, thinking that he has killed it. He's about ready to dejectedly give up on the idea of having a real, true, Christmas.

But, wait. It appears as though Linus' words have melted the hearts of the Peanuts gang who moments ago showered Charlie Brown with cruelty and hurt feelings. With Linus following behind, the Peanuts gang come across the tree where Linus says that it's not a bad tree after all. Having lots of decorations to choose from in regards to Snoopy's doghouse, the Peanuts gang to to work on the tree in hopes of surprising Charlie Brown. This was the end result.



Wasn't that sweet?

I have been in love with this show since the first time I saw it on television years ago. In the end, Charlie Brown got his wish. He got to experience a real traditional Christmas filled with carols, friendship, and tradition. The Peanuts gang learned a valuable lesson about how sometimes being modern and materialistic wasn't always the way to go. And I think that the viewer can take a lot out of this Christmas special.

That Christmas isn't about battling with people over Black Friday deals. It's not about outdoing one another with holiday light displays. It's not about shopping at the most expensive stores, buying the most expensive wrapping paper, sending the most expensive Christmas cards.

I think ultimately, Christmas is what you make of it. But as far as I'm concerned, Christmas is about spreading love and joy to others around you, and finding joy in giving, rather than receiving.

And for those of you who still have yet to learn that lesson, I hope that it will come to you, no matter what holiday you celebrate this month.


Thursday, December 01, 2011

Thursday Night At The Arcade - StarTropics

It seems hard to believe, but we're now in the final month of 2011. Crazy how this year has flown by, huh?

Anyways, for the month of December, I have a whole bunch of holiday themed entries planned, but they won't start until tomorrow. Rather than oversaturate you with twenty-five days of Christmas goodness, I'll designate one or more day of the week to a regular topic (but if I can make a connection to Christmas, all the better). Reason for this? There's not a lot of video games made where you have to rescue Santa, nor is there a Christmas carol version of Singstar or Guitar Hero, or Dance Dance Revolution.

Although the four games that I'll be featuring in the weeks before Christmas WERE Christmas gifts I received as a child, so at least we have that going for us.

Okay, so let's get started.

When it comes to logic puzzles, and games that force you to use your brain, they can be both a blessing and/or a curse. I've always loved video games and brain teasers that make you think. In fact, if one were to go through my collection of video games for the various consoles that I've played over the years, most of them are puzzle games, role playing games...heck, I even have a video game for Sudoku.

Because I think that a good video game, much like a good jigsaw puzzle or brain teaser, should make a person think. They should make a person want to play it because of the challenge level. That's not to say that I want to play games that require you to have a degree in physics or robotics, or anything like that. I just like games that require a lot of intelligent thought. Which is probably why you'd never see games such as Halo, Call of Duty, or Grand Theft Auto in my gaming library. Not saying that they're bad games, but they don't really make one think about much except stabbing, shooting, and bludgeoning people to death.

But, hey, those are the games that the so-called “cool” kids play, and I never really saw myself as “cool”. Isn't cool such an overused word, come to think of it?

So, wouldn't it just absolutely terrible if you were putting together a puzzle that was, oh, say...1000 pieces, and you only ended up having 999? That would be absolutely frustrating. It was as if you had spent all that time working on that puzzle only for it to be incomplete.

Or how about when you're playing a role playing game, and you have come to a point in the game where you're absolutely stuck in the game and don't know what your next move is? You might come across a boss that you're unable to defeat. Or maybe you're stuck in a dungeon that is like a maze and you can't get out. Or maybe you have absolutely no idea what town to go to in order to make the story advance. These events may make one want to pull out all the hair on their head, but nowadays people can visit websites like www.gamefaqs.com to get any information that they need to get through the game without difficulty.

Or, maybe you get a game for Christmas one year, and your first instinct is to throw away all the non-essential pieces in the game that you don't need (instruction booklet, maps, etc), and it turns out that one of the pieces that may have been thrown out is a piece that you actually need to COMPLETE the game? And because the game came out in 1990, you were literally as a loss as to how you would get the information needed to solve this impossible puzzle.

That was the situation that many, many people who had this game faced, and as a result of this, unless they had a lot of free time on their hands, the game was pretty much unbeatable.



That was the situation that many people who owned a copy of the 1990 Nintendo game, StarTropics, faced.

But before we get into that situation that caused gamers to down an entire bottle of Advil to get rid of the stress related headaches caused from the frustration of the game, let's talk a little bit about StarTropics.



StarTropics was released in North America exactly twenty-one years ago today, on December 1, 1990. It was released in Europe two years later. Surprisingly enough, it never saw a release date in Japan, which was odd, since many of the Nintendo games that were released came out of Japan.

The best way that I can describe this game is that it is a tropical island version of 'The Legend Of Zelda'. In fact, the gameplay is almost exactly like the gameplay of the Zelda series. The only difference was that StarTropics had a clear cut storyline that was linear, whereas Zelda was more open-ended. Even so, it was still a fun game to play, where you'd have to move and leap and boeing...ahem...boing across gaps and chasms.



You take on the role of Mike Jones, a teenaged boy who went to the fictional C-Island, to visit his Uncle Steve, an archaeologist who lived and worked on C-Island. However when Mike arrives on C-Island, he finds that his uncle has gone missing without a trace. Mike is naturally worried about his uncle, and sets off to find him. With assistance from Baboo, who worked as the assistant of Mike's uncle, Mike takes off in his uncle's submarine to travel to different island nations in hopes of finding his uncle alive. Shortly after Mike takes off from Coralcola (the main settlement of C-Island), he discovers a message in a bottle sent from his Uncle Steve. The letter explained that he had been abducted by an alien race, and that the only way he can escape is by rescuing him.

Wow...tropical islands AND aliens? This game just got a whole lot cooler!

With the help of the robotic control system in his uncle's submarine (affectionately named NAV-COM), Mike could travel from island to island in hopes of finding out what happened to his uncle. But along the way, Mike will be sidetracked by various villagers and people on the islands, and he will have to help them with their problems in order to continue his quest. For instance, in one level, he has to help reunite a mother dolphin with her baby, who had been kidnapped by a giant octopus. In another level, he has to help the Chief of Miracola revive his daughter, who fell into a deep sleep as a result of a curse. In one level, you even have to dress up as a woman in order to get help from the female-run village of Shecola. Some of the puzzles are rather ingenious as well.  You have to play a keyboard to open a door, based on clues given by a bright red parrot. You have to enter an abandoned village to fight off a whole bunch of ghosts. You even get swallowed whole by a gigantic whale in the middle of the game!

But wait...you have help in the form of weapons and items. When you first play the game, Mike is only armed with a yo-yo. Now, some may think that a yo-yo is no defense against evil monsters and scary things, but Mike must have won some yo-yo competitions in his youth because he can shoot off his yo-yo with deadly force. During the course of the game, his yo-yo can be upgraded into better weapons to use, but only if his health is high enough. There are also temporary weapons he can use as well, such as baseballs, baseball bats, and slingshots.
THE ANSWER IS 747
At the beginning of the game, Mike only starts off with just a few hearts. During the course of the game, Mike will be able to find large heart containers that will add hearts to Mike's life meter (a maximum of 22 hearts can be placed in the life meter during any game). And as the game progresses, he'll need EVERY heart he can get, as Mike only has three lives during the course of any game (unless he gets rare 1-UP's in the game through the Try-Your-Luck minigames that occasionally pop up). If Mike loses all of his lives, it's game over, and he'll have to start at the very beginning of the dungeon he was playing at the time.



At the end of each level, Mike will usually face some sort of boss character. And, each boss will have some sort of strategy to defeat them. For instance, when you're fighting the octopus that abducted the baby dolphin, you have to wait until he gets close, freeze him with a snowman doll, and attack away until the deep freeze melts. In another, you have to use a rod of sight to make a giant ghost appear to kill him. In another battle, you have to defeat a boss by making the platform that he's standing on sink into the ocean below. Some of these boss battles are fairly easy. Some are obscenely hard.

And once you rescue Uncle Steve, there's one level where Mike will have to board a spaceship...



...ahem...I said SPACESHIP...



...to defeat the head alien (named Zoda) once and for all to save not only the island nations that Mike visited, but also to rescue a treasure that Zoda had Steve take while he was under Zoda's control.

All in all, I though StarTropics was a decent game, and incredibly challenging. So challenging that I only really did manage to beat the game once and only once. But really, it was a fun game to play, and it turned out to be one of the better presents that I received from Santa back on Christmas 1991.

But now here's where the frustration comes into play. It was bad enough that the gameplay for StarTropics was challenging and difficult. Turns out that many gamers couldn't get past chapter four in the game at all.

Why was that?

Because in order to get through chapter four of the game, you needed to know what the secret code was to get a radio frequency needed to advance further in the game. And what was worse, the code was NEVER revealled in the gameplay at all.

Or, was it?

When most people got the StarTropics game brand new, they found the cartridge, an instruction booklet, and a letter written on parchment paper from Mike's Uncle Steve, congratulating Mike on his success with the high school baseball team, as well as his looking forward to his visit.

Now, if you're like a lot of game players, the most important part of the game was the cartridge itself, and it wasn't uncommon for people to think the letter was just some fancy added bonus and threw it away in the trash.

What many gamers didn't realize until it was too late was that the letter CONTAINED THE CODE NEEDED TO COMPLETE CHAPTER FOUR! Can you imagine a gamer getting to chapter four, and the game prompting you to enter the 3-digit code needed to advance, and you didn't have the letter? That would be frustrating!  



Gamers were so frustrated by it that Nintendo Power magazine was forced to publish the code in order to keep up with the demand of letters from fans asking about the code!

Here's the letter in question.


And, here's the message blown up in case you can't read it.



Thank goodness I was a bit of a packrat back in my childhood. I managed to still have the letter that came with the game, and I managed to get through without any problems. But it was an ingenious move by Nintendo, and it added an extra bit of challenge to the game. Those who didn't have the letter? Well, you could still play the game by guessing the code, but with one thousand different possibilities, needless to say you'd be wasting a lot of time.

But, you've now seen the letter, and I know what you're saying...there's no code on the letter at all.

Ah, but there is.



There's a point in the game that sounds like a cryptic clue that doesn't make a lot of sense the first playthrough. But the clue reads 'tell Mike to dip my letter in water'.

And that's all you needed to do. You didn't have to dunk the entire letter in a sink full of water, for that would destroy the letter. But, if you look at the empty space down below the letter, all you had to do was dip that part in water, and the code would appear, written in invisible ink.

Cool, huh?

Now, for people who bought the game used, or who lost their letters, they were pretty much out of luck until the Internet came along. And, I have revealled the code to all of you in this blog entry somewhere.

You just have to look for it. There's three clues that reveal the 3-digit number hidden somewhere on this entry.

Can you figure it out?