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Friday, December 06, 2013

"Yes, Punky, There Is A Santa Claus"

Hello, everybody. I certainly hope that you have enjoyed the first five days of “THE POP CULTURE ADDICT'S ADVENT CALENDAR. I know that I certainly have been having a great time trying to come up with holiday themed topics for the first 25 days of December.



We're now on Day #6 of the calendar, and I have a fantastic topic up for discussion.




But before I do that, I just want to take the opportunity to pay tribute to former South African president Nelson Mandela, who passed away on December 5, 2013 at the age of 95. Certainly Nelson Mandela's contributions to global peace are nothing short of extraordinary. A man who committed himself to eradicating the world of racism by going after South Africa's apartheid government, he spent over a quarter of a century behind bars, and when he was elected president of South Africa in 1994, he became the very first black president and formulated the Government of National Unity to diffuse racial tensions. His efforts to fight for people's rights and stand up against racial injustice earned him a Nobel Peace Prize in 1993, a United States Presidental Medal of Freedom, the Soviet Order of Lenin, and the Bharat Ratna.

He even earned himself honourary Canadian citizenship in the early 2000s.  Not that I needed to really add that in there, but I thought it was a neat piece of trivia.

Whatever the case, I do believe that Nelson Mandela did so much good for the world, and he certainly made a huge impact on not just the people of his country, but the rest of the world as well.  Nelson Mandela, you will be truly missed.

Now, I actually have a bit of a confession to make in regards to this particular blog entry.  I had most of this typed out already before the news broke about Nelson Mandela's death.  Had I started typing this blog out a little later, perhaps I could have chosen a topic that might have gone along more with the good that Mandela did while he was alive.

Of course, now that I look at it again, I think the subject that I picked has the ability to do both.  After all, the television show that I am featuring in this particular blog entry promotes friendship and respect between people of different backgrounds and races...two things that Nelson Mandela fought for during his time served in prison as well as his time as South African president.

And, besides...since we're already in the middle of the advent calendar, it's got a little bit of Christmas flavouring to it.

So, this month, I decided that I would do the Friday Night on TV theme a little bit differently.  Instead of doing blogs on television shows as a whole, why not feature a blog entry on a particular television show episode where the theme is all about celebrating Christmas?  After all, I'm sure most of us remember watching television sitcoms and getting excited about the rare occasion when they would air a holiday themed show.  I'm not gonna lie here, some of my favourite sitcom episodes are the ones that aired during the month of December, because I really liked how every single Christmas themed episode had a happy ending.

So for this and the next two weeks, I'm going to be talking yuletide episodes of sitcoms of yore, in hopes that the holiday magic will permeate through the screen and into your heart.

(Or, at the very least, you get some sort of warm fuzzy watching people on a scripted show.)

So, for today's first episodic spotlight, we're going to look at a show that I already did a general blog on.  But when I came across this holiday themed episode online, I knew that I just had to write about it in my blog.  



The show is "Punky Brewster".  And the episode is entitled "Yes, Punky, There Is A Santa Claus", which originally aired as a sixty-minute episode on December 16, 1984 on NBC.

Now, those of you who may have missed the blog on "Punky Brewster", or don't remember what Punky Brewster was all about, I'll offer up a brief summary.  You have this man named Henry Warnimont (George Gaynes), a gruff sixty-something who makes his living as a photographer in the big city of Chicago.  At some point during the series, Henry crosses paths with a little girl named Penelope Brewster (Soleil-Moon Frye), but she prefers to be called "Punky" instead.  Tagging along with Punky is her beloved canine friend, Brandon.  As the series proceeds, Henry moves Punky and Brandon into his home, and at some point, Henry legally adopts Punky as his own.  Part of the series revolved around Henry adjusting to life as a father in his sixties and the struggles he faces as Punky matures from a little girl into a teenager.  And, the other half of the series showcases Punky dealing with the social struggles of school along with her friends Allen, Margaux, and Cherie.  



The one thing that I love about this show kind of goes along with the ideals of Nelson Mandela, in that he hoped that one day, people could work together and be kind to each other regardless of what the colour of people's skin was.  And certainly, Punky and Cherie 's (Cherie Johnson) friendship had no colour lines.

Anyway, there are several episodes of "Punky Brewster" that could be considered great (and yes, I readily admit that I watched and loved the live-action series), and I really could have focused on any of them.  But since we're into the month of December, I really wanted to do a Christmas episode spotlight.

Before we talk about the special, let's post the link, so that you can watch it too (at least while it is still up, that is).  Now, because it's an hour long show, it is often divided up into two parts in syndication, so here's PART 1, and there's PART 2.  Enjoy.  We'll talk about it when you come back.

Comfy?  Good.  Let's chat.

Okay, so since the television series "Punky Brewster" ran from 1984-1988, and since this episode aired in December 1984, it's a safe assumption to make that this is the first Christmas that Punky and Henry are spending together.  And I can only imagine how excited Henry is about giving Punky her best Christmas ever.  However, little Punky is feeling incredibly down about the festive atmosphere, and when Henry presses her about it, Punky admits that she misses her mother.

(A little backstory before we continue.  The story goes that Punky's mother took Punky and Brandon to a shopping mall in Chicago under the guise that they were going on a trip.  But once they arrived at the mall, Punky's mother disappeared and never came back, leaving Punky and Brandon homeless.  Punky and Brandon squat inside a vacant apartment in Henry's building, where little Cherie keeps Punky's presence a secret while bringing her food and drink.  But of course, the secret gets out, and well...this leads to Punky being taken in by Henry!)



Anyway, Henry does his best to try and cheer Punky up, but Punky still misses her mother.  And of course, things aren't made any easier at school when the class jerk, Billy Bahootsas (played by Danny Ponce of "The Hogan Family"), cruelly informs Punky and Cherie that there is no such thing as Santa Claus.  When Punky and Cherie inform Henry of what Billy has told them, Henry tries to reassure them that Santa is real and that he is capable of making miracles happen.  Punky, however, isn't buying it.

So Henry decides that he will make the children believe in Santa by volunteering to dress up as Santa for Punky's school Christmas party (sigh...remember the days in which public schools still had Christmas parties...I miss those days).  And to Henry's credit, none of the kids even recognize Henry as Santa...not even Punky.

Of course, this leads to Punky going up to Santa and giving him a seemingly impossible request.

The only present that Punky wanted for Christmas was to have her mother back home.

And, Henry was more than determined to make Punky's wish come true.

Of course, this leads to a comedy of errors of sorts.  After all, Henry had zero idea as to where he was supposed to look, or even if Punky's mother was even still alive.  But at the same time, he didn't want Punky to continue believing that Santa wasn't real...especially after Punky went to all the trouble to make sure that her mother had a present to unwrap when she came by to visit.

Oh, the conundrum!

And, on top of all that, the private investigator that Henry hires to find Punky's mother tracks down the wrong woman!  How is Henry going to save Punky's Christmas now?

Well, as luck would have it, Henry finds himself outside of a particular store that sells all sorts of holiday knick-knacks.  In fact, this knick-knack store happens to be called "Nick's Nook", and the store happens to be run by an elderly gentleman named Nick.

Well, knick-knack at Nick's Nook, give the dog a bone!  

Strangely enough, Henry doesn't seem to recall there being a Nick's Nook store in the past, and of course Henry would know that as he has lived in Chicago for years.  But Nick insists that miracles have a way of happening.  

Now, I won't spoil it too much for you (after all, why would I post the link to the whole show and then reveal it all), but I'll give you a hint.  A jewelry box plays a huge part in everything.

So, I'll leave you be to continue watching the special Christmas episode of Punky Brewster and keep reminding you to keep on reading the advent calendar for this year.  Because coming up on Day #7, I talk about a really tasty treat that I was introduced to in elementary school.  And, naturally, it's Christmas themed.  

Hope you're hungry!

Thursday, December 05, 2013

Gift Wrapping 101: A Video Blog

Hi, guys! I hope you're ready for another edition of the Thursday Video Diary entry.



It also happens to be Day #5 of A POP CULTURE ADDICT'S ADVENT CALENDAR.

(Yes...I decided to switch it up a little, and have a star shaped ornament every fifth day of the advent calendar.)


I'm going to be completely honest. I wasn't entirely sure how well-received these video blogs would be when I decided to start doing them last month.  As I talked about in my very first foray into video, I was extremely nervous about it, as I struggled with public speaking in the past due to a traumatic incident from my grade school years.  Even now, I still get nervous about speaking to people with my voice instead of through written words.  As you can tell, I tend to speak a little bit quickly, I mispronounce words, and I think that I say the word "like" way too many times to count.  I reckon that if I ever transcribed one of the video blogs that I've done so far, I would keel over in pain due to the amount of bad grammar and superfluous words that I pepper each video with.

So why do I keep doing it?

Well, practice makes perfect, right?  

One of these days, maybe a year or two down the road, I'll look back on these early video blog entries and laugh at how "green" I was back then!  But one thing that I will say is that I appreciate your patience throughout my ramblings and my bad camera angles, and the close-ups of my thumb because I don't know how to turn off the camera smoothly!  I mean, I can only promise you that things will get better from here.  They most certainly can't get much worse!

Because practice makes perfect, right?

I will say this though.  I'm certainly enjoying filming these videos.  They might not flow the smoothest, but they do come from the heart.  I've actually wanted to do more personal videos here for a while now, but again, that paralyzing fear that I had of public speaking prevented me from doing so.  I don't even think that I have that sexy of a voice, to be perfectly honest!  Granted, it's not Gilbert Gottfried bad or anything like that, but I will never have that booming baritone that Barry White or James Earl Jones made famous.  

But you know something?  I'm okay with that.  I haven't heard any bad complaints about how I sound, and that's good with me.  And, I imagine that the more video blogs that I do, I can find a way to control my pitch to make it seem more...um...professional?  Um, yeah.  That's it.

Because practice makes perfect.

I think you see where this is going, right?  How the more you practice at something, the better you get at it.

I know I certainly felt that way about gift wrapping.  But as you will see in today's video blog, all it takes is a little practice.  Everything will fall into place one day.


Wednesday, December 04, 2013

A Pink Christmas



Well, hello there, everybody! I hope you're ready to take part in the fourth day of “A POP CULTURE ADDICT'S ADVENT CALENDAR”! And, hey, look at that...today's ornament happens to have a pinkish tone to it, don't you think?

In fact...I know that pink isn't really considered to be that much of a Christmas colour, but let's go ahead and make the rest of this particular blog entry pink, shall we? Don't worry...I'll explain why this is the case in a moment.

Now, here's the interesting thing about this blog entry. Even though the bulk of this blog entry will be written in pink text, it's not because I was tickled pink over the idea of choosing this particular topic. In fact, since today happens to be “Whatever Wednesday”, where I let one of the murder suspects in the board game clue choose the topic for me, pink would be an impossible colour, as there is no pink playing piece in the classic game of Clue. I mean, yes, Professor Plum and Miss Scarlet are close to pink, but not exactly pink.



Even more strange? The card I chose was the Mrs. Peacock card! And, Mrs. Peacock is almost the direct opposite colour of pink!

But, here's where the idea to turn this blog pink came from.  If you've been following along with this blog for the past couple of months, then you are well aware that each Clue character represents a theme day for the blog.  For Mrs. Peacock, it means that we're going to be talking about a particular television show.

Now that works out beautifully for me, as there are dozens of hundreds of Christmas specials that have been made over the years...some of which I've talked about and many others that I have not.  

And, as it so happens, once I learned that this week's Wednesday blog entry was going to be television based, I happened to get inspired by another topic that I did earlier in the week.

This past Saturday, I did my blog on "Bluetoes, the Christmas Elf", and I mentioned that I happened to still have the special on an old VHS tape of Christmas specials that I taped off of television circa 1989/1990.  Miraculously, that tape survived...even if the several VCR's my family went through did not.

And funnily enough, if I look at the labels on the VHS tape that I recorded Bluetoes on, I have a list of the various Christmas specials that were on that tape!

Let's see what else I taped on that tape, shall we?  Well, I know that I must have put it on the 2-hour setting, as there aren't very many specials on the tape.  And, I was smart enough to know how to pause the recording while the commercials were playing, so that saved a little bit of space on the tape.  

Firstly, there was the classic CBS special, "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer", which is always going to be one of my favourites.  I have it on DVD now, so I don't really need to keep the VHS copy now...but I don't want to get rid of it, because of the fact that I can't find Bluetoes on DVD.

After Rudolph came Bluetoes.  And, it's just dawned on me that all the television specials that I have on that VHS tape have colours in their names.  "Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer", "Bluetoes, the Christmas Elf"...

...and the third and final special on the tape also had a colour in the title.  And, it happens to be the reason why I have coloured this blog entry entirely in pink!



Yes, we're going to be taking a look at the television special "The Pink Panther in:  A Pink Christmas"!

Now, I have a confession to make.  I have always been a huge fan of the Pink Panther.  When I was a kid in school, one of the things that made going home for lunch all that more special was the fact that CJOH-TV in Ottawa used to play cartoons during the 11:30-1:00 time slot.  Or, at least it USED to before the network decided to have a noon hour newscast.  Now, in most cases, the network would air "The Flintstones", but there was one period for about eighteen months where the network would air classic Pink Panther television shows.  In addition to the Pink Panther, the shows would also air other cartoon shorts within the same family of shows.  For instance, the show would also feature "Inspector Clouseau" episodes (which I admit that I didn't like as much as The Pink Panther), and "The Ant and The Aardvark" (which I LOVED just as much as The Pink Panther!)



It was really the only opportunity that I had to watch the Pink Panther on television.  The original series wrapped up the year before I was born, and those reruns were the only way that I could watch the show.  I mean, yes, they revamped the show in 1993 with Matt Frewer as the voice of the Pink Panther, but for whatever reason, I liked the classic version more.  To me, Matt Frewer will always be either Max Headroom, Trashcan Man, or the guy who turns into a zombie in the "Dawn of the Dead" remake...not the Pink Panther.

And, besides...in the cartoon series, the Pink Panther was almost always mute!  And, that's what made the cartoon so charming and wonderful.  Because you had a cartoon character who rarely spoke, the animators really had no choice but to rely on sight gags to get jokes across.  Thankfully, it worked out well.

And, in "The Pink Panther in: A Pink Christmas", those sight gags lead to one hilarious Christmas special that was also very heartwarming as well.  In fact, I'm going to post a link to the special HERE so you can watch along with me.  It'll make the discussion more fun, anyway!

Now, obviously I had to watch this special as a rerun.  The original airdate was on December 7, 1978...a full two and a half years before I was even born.  But I still have the special on VHS, and am now trying to find it on DVD.  But it is such a great show...even if at first, we see that the Pink Panther is a little bit of a brat.



Of course, you can hardly blame him for his erratic behaviour throughout the course of the program.  After all, it is the last couple of days before Christmas Day, and our little pink friend is having not the best time of it all.  He's cold, he's homeless, and he doesn't even have any sort of method for getting food.  He's on the brink of desperation, and all of the men, women, boys, and girls are too wrapped up in their own Christmas celebrations that they fail to notice that the Pink Panther is in dire straits.

I suppose I should also mention that although the special originally aired in the late 1970s, the actual setting of the show takes place much earlier.  I would wager a guess that the special is set around the turn of the twentieth century, given that horse drawn carriages are still present on the streets of the city.  But, I could be mistaken too.

EDITED TO ADD:  In the first song, the choir sings about "Twas the day of the ninety-four Christmas.  And, since the special came out in 1978, I assume this story takes place during the Christmas of 1894!  My goodness, that makes the Pink Panther REALLY old!

Anyway, the Pink Panther is starving, and as I said before, he will do almost anything for food.  Sadly, whenever the Pink Panther has the opportunity to get some food, something almost always goes terribly wrong.

I mean, right off the bat, our Pink Panther's Christmas Eve dinner consists of nothing more than a sugar snap pea.  And, a bird happens to steal it on him!  Of course, one might say that the bird did the big pink cat a favour, as a pea is hardly considered to be the most filling meal on Christmas or any other day of the week!  

And, then there's the fact that even though the Pink Panther has a nice warm coat of pink fur, it's apparently not enough to keep him warm during one of the most frigid days of the year!  Luckily, he happens to find a solution as a man happens to drop one of his packages as he tries to catch a streetcar.  Of course, one might question the ethics of stealing someone else's package...especially on Christmas Eve...but, hey, when times are desperate, cats do desperate things.



Fortunately, it works out to his advantage because it happens to be a Santa Claus costume.  And, as luck would have it, the department store Santa is out sick with the flu.  Ergo, what better way to buy food than to work as a department store Santa!  Surely, nothing could possibly go wrong, could it?



Well, that is until a little girl with a bag full of goodies sits on top of Santa's knee, and our hungry pink friend decides to decapitate her poor little gingerbread man with his teeth.  Naturally, it's very uncouth for a Santa Claus to actually take someone else's snack...especially if the Santa happens to be on the clock.  And as you can see from watching the link that I posted up above, Gingy-gate leads to a whole bunch of mayhem inside the store, including running through a children's choir, causing a disaster inside the fashion department, and ending up with the Pink Panther almost getting sold to a young child thinking that it's a life sized stuffed animal!

(I do hope that lady got her money back!  I don't know how return desks worked in the late 1800s, but if they were run the way they are now, she may be in for a battle!)

It seems as though every single time he tries to get a nice, hot meal, the world is seemingly conspiring against him.  He goes to a soup kitchen to get a free bowl of soup, and the kitchen runs out.  Then when he thinks he found some soup, he drinks it not knowing that it is actually dirty dishwater!

Then someone actually takes pity on him, and offers to buy him food, but when an ambulance drives by, the man turns out to be a doctor, and leaves the Pink Panther with the bill!  Needless to say, no money = no food.  The Pink Panther even decides to go into the world of petty crime, swiping a carrot right off of a little kid's snowman, and attempting to impersonate Yogi Bear by swiping some poor person's "pic-a-nic basket".  Needless to say, our poor impoverished pink pal doesn't make a good criminal.  In fact, he even tried to get himself arrested so that he could be guaranteed a nice hot meal in prison!

In short, the Pink Panther was absolutely desperate.

Towards the end of the special, hope arrives in the form of a police officer's luscious tasty honey glazed doughnut (stereotype alert).  When the cop drops the doughnut and it rolls down the hill, the Pink Panther rushes towards the doughnut with whatever energy he has left inside of him.  

In fact, our pink pal is so desperate and filled with frustration that when a little puppy dog snatches the doughnut away from our pink friend, he snatches the doughnut away from the dog, having had enough of coming so close to food and having it cruelly disappear as quickly as he had it.

But something strange happens.  When the Pink Panther is about to eat his prize doughnut, he turns around and sees one of the saddest looking pooches that ever existed.  I'm telling you, the dog looked about as sad as Nestor, the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey when his mother sacrificed herself so that he could live!  

And then the Pink Panther's brain cells started rubbing together.  All the dog wanted was something to eat.  In all likelihood, the dog was homeless too, just like him.  The dog probably hadn't had anything to eat all day, just like him.  And, when the Pink Panther grabbed the doughnut away from the dog, the dog felt just as he had, when he couldn't catch a break.

So, the Pink Panther decides to look into his heart and pull out the spirit of Christmas...and he gives half of the doughnut to the puppy, who gobbles it up in delight.  And, really, when you make a brand new friend, isn't that satisfying enough?

Of course, we can't very well leave this special on a sad note.  After all, one cannot survive on one doughnut alone.  And, a very special guest makes sure that both the Pink Panther, and his newly adopted pooch, have a very nice Christmas indeed.



So, that wraps up Day #4 of the advent calendar.  Allow me to remove my rose-coloured goggles now.

But do stay tuned for the fifth day of the calendar.  It's a video blog that will have me performing a standard activity during this time of year...as well as all of the mishaps that I have had over the years performing said activity!




Tuesday, December 03, 2013

December 3, 1927



Today is the first Tuesday Timeline entry for the final month of 2013, and as it so happens, it coincides with the third day of “THE POP CULTURE ADDICT'S ADVENT CALENDAR”. And, I will be the first one to admit that finding holiday themed topics for Tuesday Timeline entries has been a really big challenge. But, somehow I managed to make it work for today.

(Now I just have to find Christmas themed entries for December 10, December 17, and December 24.)

Anyway, I offered up a little bit of a clue as to what today's Tuesday Timeline entry happens to be all about in yesterday's blog. Before we get to work exposing the secrets behind that clue as well as talking about the topic itself, we've gotta start things off right, just as we do on this and every Tuesday.

It's time to take a look at the events that shaped the world...and the common thread is that all of these events took place on December 3.

So, on this date in...

1818 – Illinois becomes the twenty-first state admitted into the United States of America

1854 – Eureka Stockade – More than twenty Australian gold miners are killed by state troopers in an uprising over mining licenses

1901 – Theodore Roosevelt delivers a speech to the House of Representatives asking Congress to curb the power of trusts – a speech that had no fewer than 20,000 words

1910 – Modern neon lighting is first demonstrated by Georges Claude at the Paris Motor Show

1919 – The Quebec Bridge opens to traffic following twenty years of planning and construction

1927 – Laurel and Hardy release their first film, “Putting Pants on Phillip”

1951 – John and Greg Rice are born, and until John's 2005 death, the duo were known as the shortest living male twins in the world

1960 - “Camelot”, the musical, debuts at the Majestic Theatre on Broadway

1964 – Over eight hundred students of the University of California, Berkeley, are arrested following the takeover and sit-in of the campus administration building in protest of the UC Regents' decision to forbid protests on UC property

1967 – The world's very first human heart transplant is performed in Cape Town, South Africa

1970 – British Trade Commissioner James Cross is released after being held hostage for sixty days by a Quebec-based terrorist group

1973 – Pioneer 10 sends back the first close-up shots of the planet Jupiter

1976 – An assassination attempt is made on Jamaican singer Bob Marley, who survives and plays a concert just two days later

1979 – In Cincinnati, Ohio, eleven people suffocate to death while trying to find seats at Riverfront Coliseum just before a concert by The Who is set to start

1984 – Bhopal Disaster – a methyl isocyanate leak from a pesticide plant leads to the deaths of over 3,800 people, and sicken as many as six hundred thousand more in what is easily considered to be one of the world's costliest industrial accidents.

1992 – The world's first text message is sent by a test engineer for Sema Group

1994 – American AIDS activist Elizabeth Glaser passes away at the age of 47

1997 – At least 121 nations (except The United States, Russia, and The People's Republic of China) sign “The Ottawa Treaty” - a treaty designed to prohibit the manufacturing and deployment of anti-personnel landmines

1999 – Actress Madeline Kahn passes away at the age of 57 from ovarian cancer

2002 – Actor Glenn Quinn, best known for playing the role of Mark Healy on “Roseanne” dies of a drug overdose at the age of just 32

2012 – Typhoon Bopha makes landfall over the Philippines, killing 475 people

Some interesting facts, don't you think?

Now let's wish the following people a very happy birthday! Happy birthday to Phyllis Curtin, Jean-Luc Godard, Jaye P. Morgan, Nicolas Coster, Ozzy Osbourne, Heather Menzies, Mickey Thomas (Jefferson Starship), Don Barnes, Benny Hinn, Steven Culp, Daryl Hannah, Julianne Moore, Scott Ian (Anthrax), Steve Harris, Andrew Stanton, Katarina Witt, Brendan Fraser, Montell Jordan, Lu Parker, Vernon White, Bucky Lasek, Holly Marie Combs, MC Frontalot, Mickey Avalon, Malinda Williams, Troy Evans, Trina, Daniel Bedingfield, Rainbow Sun Francks, Anna Chlumsky, Brian Bonsall, Amanda Seyfried, Michael Angarano, and Jake T. Austin.

So, which date are we going to take a look at today?



Well, we're actually going to be going back to the date in which Laurel & Hardy released their very first film. December 3, 1927.

But, we're not going to be talking about a movie starring a couple of silent film stars in this Tuesday Timeline. Instead, we'll be discussing a person who made his claim to fame as a true blue crooner. His career spanned several decades, and he was the host of a variety show that ran for almost a decade.

And, it is here where that clue I posted yesterday comes into play. Here, I'll post it again to refresh your memory.



No, the theme of the blog is not Staples, or “back to school ads”. But take a listen at the song that plays in the background. You know, the one that goes “It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year”? Well, the version that the Staples commercial used was a cover version, and to be honest, several artists have performed this song over the course of the last fifty years. But admittedly, it's this version (reportedly the original version at that), that happens to be my favourite interpretation.



ARTIST: Andy Williams
SONG: It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year
ALBUM: The Andy Williams Christmas Album
DATE RELEASED: October 14, 1963
PEAK POSITION ON THE BILLBOARD CHARTS: N/A


Now, here's an interesting fact about the song. Believe it or not, it wasn't intended to be released as a single when Andy Williams set about recording a Christmas album (the first of eight he would eventually do). Columbia Records instead released Williams' version of “White Christmas” as the promotional single instead.  Somehow though, this classic song found its way into households and record stores all over the world, and the album itself reached the pole position on the Christmas album charts in 1963, 1964, and 1965, and stayed on the charts right up until 1973!

So, what does this song have to do with the actual Tuesday Timeline date?  It's quite simple.  For it was on this date eighty-six years ago today that the man who made this song famous was born!



Howard Andrew Williams was born in the small town of Wall Lake, Iowa, the son of Jay Emerson and Florence Williams.  He was the youngest of four boys, and graduated from University High School in West Los Angeles.

Now, does anyone want to take a guess as to how Andy Williams began his singing career...or at the very least, how he made the decision that he wanted to pursue a career in entertainment - when he was a child, he performed in a choir at a Presbyterian church.  Williams also performed on several radio stations with his brothers (as a quartet known as "The Williams Brothers") in several different states, including his home state of Iowa, California, Ohio, and Illinois.

(I suppose that it's kind of a moot point to mention that the Williams family moved around a lot.)

It wouldn't be until 1953 that Andy would begin singing professionally as a solo artist.  Prior to that, Andy and his brothers were signed by MGM to sing on the film soundtracks of such films as "The Harvey Girls" and "Good News" after being discovered and hired by Kay Thompson, then the head of the MGM vocal department.

TRIVIA:  According to Andy Williams' autobiography, "Moon River and Me", it was revealled that Andy and Kay had a relationship together.  At the time the relationship began, Williams was nineteen, and Thompson was nearly forty!  And, who said that "cougars" were a millennial thing?

Now, back to Andy's music career, as stated before, Williams began his professional singing career in 1953, but the problem was that his first six singles did not chart at all.  It wasn't really anybody's fault.  After all, we all know that Andy Williams had a lot of talent...it just took a while for him to make his mark.

Fortunately that time came just one year later, when Steve Allen asked him to perform on his talk show "Tonight With Steve Allen".  Williams quickly became a regular performer on that television series, and shortly after that switched record labels from RCA Victor to Cadence Records.  Now, Cadence Records was a considerably small label.  In fact, I suppose you could say that it could be considered an independent label by today's standards.  However, Williams made the most of it, and it proved to be an advantageous decision.  After all, his third single released with Cadence Records - "Canadian Sunset" - became a Top 10 hit in 1956!

More hits soon followed.  1957's "Butterfly" became Williams' one and only #1 hit on the Billboard charts, "Are You Sincere?" hit the #3 position in 1958, and by 1960, Williams had already been considered to be one of the most popular vocalists in the entire United States of America.  I wouldn't quite say that he was quite as popular as...say...Elvis Presley, but he certainly did have his entourage of loyal fans who salivated over him and his music.  And, why wouldn't they?  Andy Williams, after all, had a really unique voice.  After all, you heard an example of it up above!

Now, where many artists such as Elvis Presley and Mariah Carey achieve a lot of their success to single releases, Andy Williams success came from album sales.  Guess how many gold records he achieved over his entire career?  Go on, guess!  Five?  Ten?

How about EIGHTEEN gold records between 1956 and 1973?  How is that for successful?

And, that's not all.  Did you know that one of Andy Williams' biggest hits was one that he actually never got credit for?  Here, I'll set the story up.

Back in 1962, Andy Williams was asked to sing a song from the 1961 film "Breakfast at Tiffany's" at that year's Academy Award ceremony, which was written by the duo of Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer.  Here's that song below.



Now, many of you would be correct in assuming that "Moon River" would be Andy Williams' signature song.  And, the song ended up winning an Academy Award that very night.  But here's where things get tricky.  Because Andy Williams' version of "Moon River" was technically never released as a single, it was ineligible to enter the Top 40 charts.  But, don't feel too bad for Williams.  After all, lightning did strike twice when another composition by Mancini/Mercer ("Days of Wine and Roses") also won the Academy Award after Williams performed it.

And, of course, we cannot forget the variety show that Andy put on for nearly ten years.  When "The Andy Williams Show" debuted in 1962, nobody expected it to last until 1971.  But it did, and it was because of Andy's show that we were introduced to some really big talent over the years.  In fact, perhaps one of the biggest discoveries that Williams had on his show were a group of brothers from Utah known as the Osmond Brothers!

(So, the next time you ever see Donny and Marie on your television set, you can either thank - or blame - Andy Williams...well, depending on if you like them or not.  For the record, I'm okay with them.)

Having had experience hosting a variety show, Andy Williams also put on annual Christmas specials right around this time.  By all accounts, the Christmas specials began right around the same time he began hosting his show, and continued to air annually until 1974.  After an eight-year hiatus, the specials resumed in the early 1980s, and continued well into the 1990s.

And, here's a little extra piece of trivia.  As of right now, Andy Williams' record for hosting the Grammy Awards has never been broken.  He has been the only person to host the ceremony for a consecutive seven years in a row between 1971 and 1977.  And, to top off his general coolness, he actually defended John Lennon when Richard Nixon attempted to get the former Beatle deported!  

In Andy's later years, he still kept performing well into his eighties, citing that continuing to sing at concerts kept him young.  And, he certainly did keep performing as long as he could.  In May of 1992, Williams decided to open up his own theatre in Branson, Missouri, which he christened with the name "The Moon River Theatre", and over the next two decades, several performers appeared on Andy's stage, including Glen Campbell, Ann-Margret, Charo, Shari Lewis & Lamb Chop, Phyllis Diller, Pat Benatar, and David Copperfield, amongst others.

In fact, the theatre itself appeared on several episodes of the soap opera, "As The World Turns" in the summer of 2007, in which Williams himself made a guest appearance.

Sadly, all good things have to come to an end.  And, for Williams, the end came on September 25, 2012.  After being diagnosed with bladder cancer in November 2011, Williams underwent chemotherapy in order to fight the cancer, and by July of 2012, it had been announced that Williams had come back to Branson (after moving to Los Angeles to be closer to the hospital where he was undergoing the cancer treatment), and Williams was actually looking forward to performing in Branson that fall.



Sadly, his death at the age of 84 prevented him from doing that.

However, even though Andy Williams has been gone for a whole year, his music still remains a part of people's playlists and record collections, and his music will likely still be heard at holiday parties yet to come.



After all, they didn't call him "Mr. Christmas" for nothing.

And, that wraps up our Tuesday Timeline, and our third day of the advent calendar.  What's on tap for day #4?  Well, I don't know yet.  I figure that I'd let the Clue cards tell the future on that one.

One more note before I leave this topic for today, even though it has nothing to do with today's topic, I do want to send my condolences to the family and friends of actor Paul Walker, who was killed in a car accident in California on the afternoon of November 30, 2013.  


Monday, December 02, 2013

The Polar Express



Hey, everybody! Ready for the second day of “THE POP CULTURE ADDICT'S ADVENT CALENDAR”? I sure hope so, because on the second day of the calendar, the Monday Matinee gave to me, a discussion on a holiday movie!

And, although the movie has yet to reach its tenth anniversary (it was released in 2004), it has catapulted itself into a real holiday classic.

Now, I do wish to make one little disclaimer before I go ahead with this topic.  I had already had half of this particular blog entry already typed out before I heard about the news of the horrible train derailment in New York.  And, given that today's blog topic happens to heavily feature a train, I did consider choosing another topic because I did not want to seem insensitive to those people who may have been hurt or worse.

But since I had most of the entry written already, it would be a shame to shelve it.  So, I've decided to go ahead with today's topic.  After all, the theme of the film is all about bringing happiness to boys and girls all over the world.

Now, since I've brought up the topic of trains, I've always been surrounded by them.  My father worked for a major Canadian railway for a little over three decades, and I remember riding on a train at least once a year for the first twelve years of my life.  I went to all the train safety assemblies (which were kind of a refresher, as my dad drilled train safety into the heads of myself and my two older siblings for the duration of his career), I used to watch "Shining Time Station" and "Thomas the Tank Engine" when I was a kid, I owned a mechanical train set when I was younger.  Heck, even my very first Christmas ornament is in the shape of a train.

(I'll be talking more about ornaments a little bit later in the blog this month.)

Anyway, with growing up in a family where my father worked beside trains his entire career, trains were always going to be a huge part of my life.  But, who knew that trains could also be a symbol of Christmas?

I suppose that having a Christmas ornament in the shape of a train could have been a dead giveaway.  But then you have a Christmas song that talks about a little toy train.  Here, I'll post a link below.




And, I guess you could say that trains could also be a part of a Christmas celebration, especially after viewing this classic Coca-Cola commercial from the 1990s (even though it's really a convoy of transport trucks, it sort of gives off the illusion that it's a huge train, so yes I'm totally cheating here.)




But, I don't think there could be any better example of equating trains with holiday celebrations than this movie, which was originally released in theatres in November 2004.  And, the star of the whole movie was Tom Hanks, though you might not initially recognize him when you first watch this movie.

You see, the whole film was filmed almost entirely using live action performance capture technique, meaning that an actor could play more than one role in the movie while looking absolutely different in each role.  With the magic of computer generated graphics and the technology of motion capture, the film was a brilliant display of beauty.



No wonder people were so awed by "The Polar Express".  

Now, as I mentioned earlier, Tom Hanks was the star of the whole movie.  Would you believe that he played no less than SIX different roles in the film?  It's a wonder that Tom Hanks even had time to eat and sleep with such a huge commitment!  But then again, I suppose that it was all worth it, as Hanks really expressed a desire to be in the movie - which was based on a book that was written by Chris Van Allsburgh.  And with Robert Zemeckis as the director of the movie, all signs pointed to "The Polar Express" being a huge hit.  And, certainly, I've rung through several copies of the movie on both DVD and Blu-ray through the cash registers at work to know that people are still wanting to watch it.

But here's the thing about "The Polar Express".  Although the film made almost three times its budget in profits, it wasn't initially considered to be the most perfect film.  If anything, critics gave the movie mixed reviews.  While many loved the film's plot, and believed that the background visuals were gorgeous, others claimed that the characters appeared to be more like holiday zombies.  I'll admit that the film kind of looked awkward in some places, but at the same time, the film was released nine years ago. I'm willing to look the other way.  And besides, the plot of the film is so good, you can almost overlook some of the most terrible examples of bad CGI.

So, what's the film about?  Well, I don't think I can go into too much detail, because you know how I never ever want to spoil the ending of a movie, but basically the early plot goes a little something like this.

The story starts off fifty years in the past (which according to the film being released in 2004, takes place sometime during the 1950s).  And somewhere in the middle of a small community, a little boy has lost his faith in Santa Claus.

NOTE:  The small boy may have been played by Tom Hanks in the motion capture aspect of it all, but the voice was recorded by Daryl Sabara, best known for playing the role of Juni in the "Spy Kids" series.



Anyway, we have a little boy who finds it difficult to believe in Santa Claus, and is filled with more questions than answers when something absolutely magical happens.

After hearing a noise outside that sounds like a train whistle, the little boy goes outside to investigate and comes across a gigantic train.  The train is named "The Polar Express:", and the conductor promises the boy that if he hops on the train, it will take him to the North Pole, where the children on board can visit Santa.  Naturally, our hero boy initially treads with caution and thinks about not taking this once-in-a-lifetime offer because of the fact that he questions Santa's existence and he was likely told at a young age to not board any strange trains that pass by.



But throwing caution to the wind, he decides to board the train anyway, and as he is given his ticket, he discovers that there are other children on the train, including a little girl (Nona Gaye), and a know-it-all boy (Eddie Deezen).  Another boy named Billy (Peter Scolari) also boards the train, but it takes "Hero Boy" to pull the emergency brake on the train to stop it before Billy finds the courage to board "The Polar Express".

As the train moves closer and closer to the North Pole, the passengers are treated like royalty, with the train serves even providing free cups of hot chocolate to sip on.  After all, the North Pole is the coldest place in the whole world.  The little girl decides to take an extra cup and smuggle it into the next car so that Billy can have some too, but is caught by the conductor.  Luckily, the conductor is a nice guy, and he helps her deliver the cocoa to Billy.  Unfortunately, when the girl leaves to the next car, she leaves behind her ticket, which then proceeds to blow away when the boy tries to return the ticket back to her.  And, this causes a bit of a problem.  Without a ticket, the passenger becomes a stowaway.  And, in almost every case that I've read about, stowaways are almost always thrown off of a train if they don't have a ticket.  Whatever is a girl to do?  

And what happens when "The Polar Express" finally arrives at the North Pole?  Will the kids finally come face to face with the guy in the red suit, thus giving our young hero boy hope?  And, how does a little bell play into the equation?

Like I said...I won't spoil it for you.  Even if most of you have either read the book or seen the movie, I refuse to spoil movie endings.

However, there are some interesting tidbits of trivia from this film that I think some of you might be interested in.

1 - SeaWorld Orlando once had a motion simulation ride based on this film that opened up in November 2007.



2 - This movie reunited two former co-stars.  Peter Scolari and Tom Hanks once acted alongside each other some twenty-five years before this film debuted in a little show called "Bosom Buddies".

3 - This film would mark the last appearance of actor Michael Jeter.  The actor (who did the motion capture roles of Smokey and Steamer) passed away in 2003, a year and a half before the finished product appeared on screen.

4 - The locomotive pulling "The Polar Express" was based on the "Pere Marquette #1225" model.  Interestingly enough, 1225 is also the way that Christmas Day is written numerically.  And speaking of the 1225 connection...

5 - ...look closely at the tickets that are given to the passengers.  All the tickets contain the number 1225 on them.

6 - The motion capture actor for the little girl is a girl by the name of Tinashe Jorgenson Kachingwe (better known as just Tinashe).  After "The Polar Express" was released, she would later be known as a musician, being a part of the group "The Stunners".

7 - The real name of the Hero Boy is never mentioned once during the whole film.

8 - This was the first film to be simultaneously released as a 3D IMAX presentation.

9 - In 2006, the film was given the Guinness Book of World Record for being the first "all-digital capture film".

10 - The scene where Hero Boy looks at a picture of himself sitting on a department store Santa's lap is actually a nod to the author of the book, Chris Van Allsburg.  The name of the store is Herpolsheimer's, an actual department store in Grand Rapids, Michigan - the town where Van Allsburg grew up.

11 - Although the film was released nationwide on November 10, 2004, the film premiere was actually held in October 2004 - in Van Allsburg's hometown of Grand Rapids.

12 - When the conductor reads out the address of 11344 Edbrook, it is actually the address of the childhood home of director Robert Zemeckis.

And, that wraps up our look back on "The Polar Express".  I hope you all enjoyed that, because the advent calendar is in full swing.

And, coming up on Day #3, a Tuesday Timeline entry that I am hoping that you will enjoy.  And, to give you a little bit of a hint on what the subject is, a closing video.


Sunday, December 01, 2013

Ding-a-ling-a-ling-a-ding-dong-ding!!!

You've waited all year, and it is finally here! Day number one of the second annual edition of “A POP CULTURE ADDICT'S ADVENT CALENDAR!



And, this year, as you can see up above, I've decided to use ornaments to count down the twenty-five days within the advent calendar.

Now, if you weren't around last year for the first advent calendar I did, I'll gladly explain it to you.



Does anyone remember those advent calendars that they sold in stores? In most cases, they were pictures of a holiday scene that had several numbered doors stamped all over the front. Depending on the advent calendar, they could have 24 doors (one for every day leading up to Christmas Eve), or 32 doors (one for every day leading up to New Years Day). And, behind each door was a wonderful treat. Most advent calendars that I ever had when I was a kid contained chocolate treats shaped like bells, holly, snowflakes, and other Christmas imagery (which was a fantastic bonus for a self-confessed choco-holic such as myself). But other advent calendars featured stickers or pictures, or other fun treats as well. I always loved advent calendars because it was a fun way to count down the days until December 25.

So, last year, I thought about bringing an advent calendar to this blog, where each day was dedicated towards a holiday themed topic. Christmas music, movies, TV specials...even the Tuesday Timeline entries would have some reference to the Christmas season. And it was such a success last year that I thought I would try it again this year.

I have to tell you, I'm really excited about having the 2013 Advent Calendar begin on a Sunday. With December in full swing now, there are tons of holiday themed songs that I can choose from for the Sunday Jukebox feature. And, with four Sundays to go before Christmas Day, I certainly need all the ideas that I can get.



Today's blog entry comes courtesy of an all-girl group known as “The Ronettes”, a group that became popular in the mid-1960s with such classics as "Be My Baby", "(The Best Part Of) Breakin' Up", and "Walking in the Rain".




The group - whose best known line-up was Veronica "Ronnie" Bennett-Spector, Estelle Bennett, and Nedra Talley - earned a Grammy Award in 1965, and their iconic hit "Be My Baby" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999.  The group had eight singles chart on the Billboard 100, and of those singles, five of them made the Top 40.

And, as far as the Ronettes went, it was a real family affair.  Veronica and Estelle were sisters, and Nedra was their cousin.  The band was also considered a real melting pot of nationalities and ethnicities, as the Bennett sisters had African-American, Cherokee, and Irish roots, and Nedra was half African-American/half Puerto Rican.

The band unofficially formed in 1957 and initially was made up of six members; Veronica, Estelle, Nedra - and cousins Diane, Elaine, and Ira.  They played a few shows (with disasterous results), but by the early 1960s, the group seemed to hit their stride.  By 1961, the group had earned a record deal with Colpix Records, but before the deal was signed, Diane, Elaine, and Ira left the band, making the Ronettes a trio.

For the next two years, the Ronettes tried their best to have a hit single on the radio, but when they still failed to make a solid impression two years into their contract, the decision was made to try and find another record label.  Estelle somehow got a hold of a contact number for Phil Spector, a record producer for Philles Records, and contacted him with the hopes of securing an audition with him.  Phil agreed to the audition, and in early 1963, the audition took place at Mira Sound Studios in New York City.  At the audition, Spector played the piano while the Ronettes sang "Why Do Fools Fall In Love", and reportedly Spector was so blown away by Veronica's vocal stylings that he stopped playing and exclaimed that she was the voice that he had been looking for.

Spector's plan was to initially sign Veronica as a solo artist, but Veronica's mother put the kibosh on that idea, telling Phil that he signed all of the Ronettes, or none of them.  Of course, in order for the Ronettes to sign on to Spector's record label, they had to tell Colpix Records a little white lie - that the group was quitting show business.

The lie worked.  Colpix let the girls leave, the girls signed onto Spector's record label, and the rest is history.

TRIVIA:  Did you know that Veronica married Phil Spector in 1968?  That's how she adopted her new stage name.  The couple divorced six years later, and as we all well know, Spector is now behind bars serving time after being charged with murder!

Now, you might think that "Be My Baby" was the Ronettes' biggest hit.  But, here's the thing.  The group had another song that is well-known, and is likely played at almost every holiday party at least once a rotation.  

And, I bet some of you are scratching your heads right now, wondering what the song is.  Fear not, I'm posting it now.  And, to give you a hint before you scroll down, the title offers up a clue.





ARTIST:  The Ronettes
SONG:  Sleigh Ride
ALBUM:  A Christmas Gift For You from Phil Spector
DATE RELEASED:  November 22, 1963
PEAK POSITION ON THE BILLBOARD CHARTS:  N/A

Now, before I go ahead with the discussion on this particular version, I thought I would talk about the original version upon which this piece was inspired by. 




Now, you know all about how "Sleigh Ride" is all about somebody wanting to do nothing more than cuddle up next to their object of affection on a crisp, winter's day on a sleigh ride through pristine white snow fields.  But, what if I told you that the original song was written during a sweltering July day in 1946?  Well, that's how the story goes.  Leroy Anderson, the composer of the song, wrote the song during a summer heat wave, and by 1949, the song had been recorded by Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orchestra.

And of course, over the past six and a half decades, hundreds of cover versions of "Sleigh Ride" have been recorded.  So, what makes the version by the Ronettes different?

Well, believe it or not, the song appeared on an album that was a complete flop when it was first released!




You see, the song appeared on a holiday album in which Phil Spector arranged to have several secular favourites sung by artists signed to Philles Records.  These artists included Darlene Love, Bobb E. Soxx and the Blue Jeans, The Crystals, and of course, The Ronettes.  And, on the album of thirteen tracks, the Ronettes took part in four.  They recorded "Sleigh Ride", "Frosty the Snowman", and "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" by themselves, and took part in the collaboration "Silent Night" with the other artists who performed on the album.  It was definitely an ambitious project...one that Spector himself was quite proud of.

Unfortunately, one of the main reasons why the album flopped was because of the timing in which it was released.

I mean, don't get me wrong.  November 22 on any other year would have been the perfect day to release a Christmas album.  After all, it's just before the American Thanksgiving celebrations, and the date is quite close enough to December that people could have really enjoyed having the album play during their festive celebrations.

Unfortunately, the album release was on November 22, 1963 - which as you well know was the date that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.  It was a sad day in American history...and certainly not a good day to release a festive, happy Christmas album.

Of course, the release date of November 22, 1963 was already planned without the knowledge that something so tragic would happen that day.  But unfortunately, the original release of the album suffered as a result of that day.  The album was more or less a failure on the charts, barely even making a dent on the music charts.  Try as Phil Spector did, the album just didn't resonate well in the turbulent 1960s.

Flash forward ten years later to the 1970s, however, and the album suddenly had new hope.




You see, Apple Records (the same record label founded by the Beatles in 1968) made the decision to re-release the album with different cover art in 1972, and as it turned out, that decision was a good one, as the re-released version reached #6 on Billboard's Christmas Album Chart!  

So, it may have taken some time for the Ronettes to have their place on Christmas playlists all over the world...but wasn't it worth the wait?

Coming up tomorrow, we have Day #2 of the advent calendar...and in tomorrow's entry, we hitch a ride on the polar express!