It
is Day #22 of the POP CULTURE
ADDICT'S ADVENT CALENDAR, and it also happens to be the final installment of the Scrooged
series that I have implemented for the Christmas season every Thursday.
And
believe me when I say that I've saved the best for last. Or, is it the worst for last? I don't know. Tell you what. I'll let
all of you be the judges of that.
This
year, I've had a bit of a harder time getting into the spirit of the
holidays. At first I thought it had
something to do with the fact that in my family, I'm the only one who is
uncoupled and childless, and therefore, I'm left feeling like a fifth wheel of
sorts. I still feel that way on
Christmas, but that's not the main thing that's bringing me down this year.
It's
people's attitudes. That's what's
bringing me down.
Is
it just me, or do people seem to be completely all about themselves? I mean, I know, I'm preaching to the choir
here given that I'm writing my feelings in my own personal blog that I've kept
up for five and a half years now.
But
the levels of narcissism and entitlement that I see this time of year - a time
which should be about GIVING and not RECEIVING - it's bringing me down.
Thankfully,
in the department that I am in right now, I'm spared a lot of that hassle. As long as there are fruits and vegetables
on the floor for people to buy, I get by unscathed. But I could count how many Christmases that I ruined when I
worked in other areas of the store.
When I was in electronics, it was sixty-seven. And I guarantee you that of those 67 Christmases, none of them
were my fault even though the customers made sure to let me know that it was.
I
mean, I get it. Christmas is a time
that can be frustrating. Trying to buy
gifts for people you only see once in a while with money you don't have can be
a bugger for anybody. But we also can't
forget the fact that Christmas should be about kindness and joy, treating each
other with respect, and having fun either.
So
when I hear some of my co-workers telling me stories about how irate, bullying
customers have made them cry because they were in a mood and decided to take it
out on them - I'm sorry. I have a REAL
problem with that.
First
of all, how dare a person try to hurt the very people who are trying to help
them as best they can. Personally, that
would call for grounds to have the customer escorted out of the building and
banned from the store for life - well, much like that lady from Kentucky that
made the news recently for making racist comments towards two customers. If stores can ban people for harassing
customers, I think they should be able to do the same for people harassing
retail staff.
And,
on that note, I think stores have every right to have the people working behind
the register to speak up if they feel that a customer is intimidating or
abusing them. I mean, it's not an
invitation for the cashier to pick the customer up and throw them into the
display rack of Juicy Fruit gum, but I see nothing wrong with cashiers telling
customers that their behaviour is unacceptable and that they need to stop or
take their business elsewhere.
Businesses need to take the bull by the horns and stand up to abusive
customers and tell them that it won't be tolerated.
And,
just on a personal level, when it comes to dealing with customers myself, I
live by the golden rule. Do unto others
as you would have them do unto you. If
customers are sweet, kind, and appreciative, there is NOTHING I won't do for
them. Well, aside from loading their
groceries in the car and paying for them out of my own pocket. If I did that for everybody, I'd be on the
streets. But in most cases, I'll
perform excellent customer service for them because they deserve it. That's not to say that I won't serve the
surly ones either - but I'll be the first to admit that there are only so many
allowances that can be made.
And if a customer is swearing at me and abusing me, I'll just walk away and let
management deal with it. Like I said,
none of us in retail need to take customer abuse. At Christmas or any other holiday.
Rant over. It's Christmas. Be kind to each other. And if you're unable to behave yourself in a
store...shop online.
According
to the calendar, today is the first day of winter - and the shortest day of the
year. But don't worry. I've got a great story to tell you for Day #21 of the POP CULTURE ADDICT'S ADVENT CALENDAR. This is all about Christmas wishes and how one of my wishes came
true. But there's a little bit of a
twist to how this story played out.
The
year was 1994, and one of the hottest games to be released on the Super
Nintendo that year was "Final Fantasy VI".
Only,
it wasn't called Final Fantasy VI here in North America. It was Final Fantasy III. You see, in North America, only three of the
six games at that time were released - I, IV, and VI. And Nintendo relabeled IV as II and VI as III. It's quite confusing and that's a lot of
Roman numerals for all of you to decipher, but needless to say, Final Fantasy
III or Final Fantasy VI was the big game that year.
And
I wanted it. I wanted it so badly.
I
mean, it was a difficult enough game to even try and rent from the video store
(and for that matter, remember when you COULD rent video games from a video
store?). At the time, Blockbuster
hadn't arrived yet, all the copies at Video Visions were rented out, and there
was actually a waiting list over at another video store in town! Apparently it was such a popular game that I
couldn't even rent it for one day - which was definitely not enough time to
play it in!
Looking
back on it, I can see why it was such a popular video game. You got to fight in mechanical Magitek
suits, the way you learned magic spells was ingenious and fun, and it's the
only game in the series where some madman destroys the world and you have to
fight in an apocalyptic wasteland to try and restore the balance. It's also a very long game to play for the
Super Nintendo. It took me about 35
hours for me to find every possible secret within the game by the time I got
the chance to play it.
By
that December, I had managed to get the chance to rent the game once and only
once - and I didn't even make it off the Veldt the first time around. And I was salivating for more Final Fantasy VI action. I mean, yes, I already had
Final Fantasy IV (which in North America was Final Fantasy II, but you already
know this story), but I had played that game over and over again. I wanted the chance to play the newest game.
Finally,
two days before Christmas Eve, a copy became available to rent. And because the video store I rented it from
was closed on Christmas Day, I had to have it returned before midnight on
December 24th. I figured that there was
no way that I was going to get the game for Christmas because it was a lot of
money at that time, so if I could at least rent it before Christmas, that would
have been good enough.
So, Christmas Eve came and went, and while I was out getting some last minute
things with the siblings, my mom returned Final Fantasy III to the store before
the deadline was up so we could avoid the late fees. And I was already trying to find a way to rent the game again
after the holidays were over.
You
can just imagine my shock when I opened up a gift that Christmas and I had my
very own copy of Final Fantasy III in my hands!
My family also was pretty much guaranteed that I would be spending the
rest of my Christmas holidays playing this game, but they were glad that I got
the game.
Now,
here's where things get really funny. I
immediately disappear to my room to play the game - but what was strange was
that I already had the game in my Super Nintendo. How was it that I had two copies of the same game?
It
was there that I quickly discovered what had happened. When my mom took back the video game...she
accidentally grabbed the wrong one!!!
She ended up returning my copy of Final Fantasy II! I mean, it was an honest mistake. My mom knows very little about video games. She saw the words Final Fantasy and just
went with it.
So,
on Boxing Day, we called the video store to report the mistake, and apologized
profusely for it and we wanted to make the switch so I could get my old game
back. What we didn't count on was that
the game was already rented out to another person!!! Oh, I can just imagine the disappointment in that person's eyes
when they thought they were getting Final Fantasy III, but instead got the wrong
game.
But I guess they weren't too disappointed in the long run because when I
FINALLY got back my copy of Final Fantasy II - two of my save files had been
erased and replaced with their own save files!
Which meant that I had to play that game all over again!
Of course - that waited until I finished playing
Final Fantasy VI. My own copy this
time.
Sometimes
when I try to come up with topics for the Tuesday
Timeline
portion of the blog, I sometimes stumble upon a topic that I call a happy
accident. In today's case, this subject
is the only idea that I could come up with that was holiday related - but the
fun thing is that when I was doing research on it and watched the clips on
YouTube, I found it to be enjoyable, fun...and I couldn't wait to talk about
it!
It's
also appropriate for Day #20 of the POP CULTURE ADDICT'S ADVENT CALENDAR!
Of
course, as always, we'll be taking a look at the events that didn't make the
cut - starting with...
69 - Vespasian enters Rome to claim the title of
Emperor
1606 - The Virginia Company loads three ships with
settlers, setting sail to establish the first permanent English settlement in
the Americas - Jamestown, Virginia
1803 - The Louisiana Purchase is completed
1860 - South Carolina is the first state to make an
attempt to secede from the United States of America
1916 - The Battle of Verdun ends, resulting in victory
for France, during the First World War
1917 - Actress Audrey Totter (d. 2013) is born in
Topeka, Kansas
1939 - Actress Kathryn Joosten (d. 2012) is born in
Chicago, Illinois
1942 - Calcutta, India is bombed by Japanese air forces
during World War II
1946 - "It's a Wonderful Life" premieres in
New York City
1951 - Nuclear power becomes a reality as a plant in
Idaho becomes the first to generate electricity
1957 - The first production model of the Boeing 707
makes its first flight
1971 - Doctors Without Borders is established by Bernard
Kouchner and a group of French journalists
1973 - Singer Bobby Darin dies at the age of 37
1984 - The Summit Tunnel fire takes place near the
community of Todmorden, England
1985 - Pope John Paul II announces the institution of
World Youth Day
1989 - The United States Invasion of Panama deposes
Manuel Noriega
1995 - 159 people are killed when American Airlines
Flight 965 crashes into the side of a mountain in Colombia
1996 - Astronomer, cosmologist, and astrophysicist Carl
Sagan dies at the age of 62
1999 - Canadian country singer Hank Snow passes away at
the age of 85
2007 - Queen Elizabeth II surpasses Queen Victoria as
being the oldest monarch to rule over the United Kingdom
2009 - Actress Brittany Murphy dies, aged just 32
And
for celebrity birthdays, join me in wishing the following famous faces happy
birthday! Birthday greetings for Beverly Pepper, John Hillerman, Kim Weston, Bobby Colomby, Peter Criss, Uri Geller, Dick Wolf, Alan Parsons, Cecil Cooper, Oscar Gamble, Peter May, Jenny Agutter, Michael Badalucco, Blanche Baker, Anita Ward, Billy Bragg, Mike Watt, Robert Cavanah, Rich Gannon, Chris Robinson, Jonah Hill, and Joanna "JoJo" Levesque.
All
right. Now comes the fun part. Can you guess what date I'm going to go back
in time to this week? Go on. Take a guess! Okay, okay, I'll tell you.
Believe
it or not, we're going to go back in time 46 years to the date of December 20, 1970.
Now,
I do not remember this date at all. It
was ten and a half years before I was born.
But it was on this date that a very special edition of a talk show that
aired every Sunday night until 1971 was broadcast.
I
wish I could have been alive to have seen the Ed Sullivan Show when it was in
its prime. Sadly, Sullivan died seven
years before I was born, so I've never known a world without Ed Sullivan in
it. It's a real shame too, as his talk
show was one of the premiere spots to catch the hottest bands on the music
scene. I mean, we're talking about the
talk show in which the Beatles made their American debut! Now that's a very big deal! I think that maybe only the Ellen DeGeneres
Show could even slightly compare to the Ed Sullivan Show when it comes to
introducing new talent.
Of
course, it wasn't just musical groups that the Ed Sullivan Show hosted. In fact, Jim Henson and his Muppets made at
least twenty-five appearances on the show between 1967 and 1971! Add the fact that Sesame Street had debuted
in 1969, and you might say that Jim Henson was extremely busy as the 1970s
arrived.
On
December 20, 1970, the Ed Sullivan Show aired a very special holiday special
which featured Ed as the narrator of the story that he was reading to a group
of children - who were the children of members of the crew that worked on the
very show. And given that this would be
the very last holiday special that the Ed Sullivan Show would air before going
off the air, it had to be something very special.
After
watching it online just recently, I have to say that not only did Sullivan and
the Muppets succeed in creating a heartwarming special, but it also featured
the first appearance of a well-known Muppet (though he went by a completely
different name in this television special).
So,
sit back and hear the story of "The Great Santa
Claus Switch"!
Now,
your favourite Muppet performers are a part of this special, and of course, Jim
Henson plays the role of unlikely protagonist Fred, the Christmas elf (as well
as a sidekick of the main antagonist), but other Muppet performers in this Christmas
story include Richard Hunt, Frank Oz, Fran Brill, Jerry Nelson, John Lovelady,
Danny Seagren, Cary Antebi, Greg Antonacchi, Byron Whiting, Marilyn Sokol, and
John Byrum. As far as human characters,
there was only two - Santa Claus and the nasty Cosmo Scam. Both were played by Art Carney.
The
story begins at the North Pole, where Santa's six elves - Zippity, Skippity,
Hoppity, Bing, Bong, and Fred are busy finishing up the toy order in time for
Christmas Eve. Santa Claus is excited
to be spreading the Christmas magic around for another year, but ironically
enough, his magic trick of trying to make a coin disappear fails each and every
time. Fred is doing his best to try and
make Santa's workload a lot lighter, but nobody seems to take him seriously at
all, and he sometimes struggles to be heard.
Believe me. Sometimes I know
exactly how Fred feels.
Unbeknownst
to the elves and Santa in a nearby cave is the hideaway of the nasty Cosmo
Scam. He and his menagerie of creatures
which include two gigantic monsters in green and blue named Thig and Thog, a
spider like creature named Lothar, and this curious looking creature...
...which
kind of looks a lot like GONZO, don't you think? Truth be told, this is really the first appearance of Gonzo in
the Muppet franchise, but back then he was given a different name - Snarl. And Danny Seagren provided his voice back
then. By the time he was renamed Gonzo,
Dave Goelz had assumed the role full-time.
Back
to the story, it appears as though Cosmo is getting really annoyed with
Christmas in general and he decides that he wants to sabotage it. And how he plans on doing exactly that is by
kidnapping Santa Claus and switching places with him until Christmas is over. It seems like an ingenious plan.
And
considering that Cosmo makes the switch with Santa while Fred is singing a song
about wanting to be more helpful, I'd say his job was made surprisingly easy!
But
as Cosmo quickly learns, sometimes it's not easy to fool everybody. One by one, beginning with Fred, the elves
suspect that Santa isn't exactly acting like himself. I mean, one of them catches Santa smoking a cigar - which to me
is a death wish as his beard could ignite like a roman candle - but that would
be the child in me saying this. But as
the elves discover that Santa isn't really Santa, Cosmo imprisons the elves one
by one - replacing them with his own minions.
Meanwhile,
Santa tries to break through the hard shells of Thig and Thog by teaching them
the true meaning of Christmas, and showing them that giving is much better than
taking. That was where the real magic
of the holiday lies. But can Santa get
through to them in hopes that they release him on time for his trip around the
world? And will an unlikely hero step
up to the challenge of stopping Cosmo from ruining Christmas?
Well, as a special treat, I'd like you to click HERE. I
figure since I got to watch this television special, it's only fair that you
all have the chance to as well. Just
make sure you do it now. I've no idea
how long it will stay up!
All
right, it's T-minus six days until Christmas morning. This means, I have six more days of the POP CULTURE ADDICT'S ADVENT CALENDAR to go.
Which
makes this Day #19.
It's
also the final day in which I have to talk about Christmas memories at
school. And to be honest, I was trying
to come up with a topic for the day.
I
mean, I know that we had a ton of Christmas parties in school...but I already
wrote about that a few years ago.
There
were also times where the whole school gathered in the gymnasium to sing
holiday favourites - and where we learned our janitor had a secret talent of
playing the piano. But, I've already
talked about that as well.
So,
I thought outside of the box, and wondered...were there times in which I
remember doing something nice for someone else in school? And, the answer is yes.
In
fact, throughout my elementary school days, I can remember doing something nice
for most of my teachers - well, at least until I reached high school, that
is. In fact, quite a lot of students in
the class took part in this tradition of sorts.
How
many of you remember buying Christmas gifts for your teachers back in the
day?
I
know it was an optional thing at my elementary school, but I think a lot of
kids made the decision to buy their teachers a special gift as a token of
thanks for helping them learn how to write in cursive, multiply by nine, and
figure out why baking soda and vinegar makes model volcanoes go kaboom.
And
yes, I was one of those kids who took part.
It
was actually kind of a fun experience.
We'd present our gifts to the teacher on the last day of classes before
Christmas break ended, and the teacher would often open them up in class. Now, granted, I suppose this made the kids
who did not bring a gift feel sort of awkward, but none of the teachers
stressed that we HAD to buy them anything.
Besides, like the Simply Red song states, for some families money was
too tight to mention. Or, some may have
thought their teachers were complete jerks and didn't deserve a gift.
I mean,
certainly they had the right to feel that way.
Believe me, if my parents weren't insistent that I give my first grade
teacher a gift, I never would have given her a present at all. I can see where they were coming from. Maybe they thought that if I gave her a box
of chocolates, it would soften her towards me and she'd be a little bit nicer.
It
didn't work, but at least we took the high road.
Now,
I should mention that when it came to buying gifts for our teachers, more often
than not, it was our parents that bought and chose the gifts, wrapped the
gifts, and signed the tag. Basically
our only job was to bring the gift to school.
But at least I had some ideas that differed from everyone else's.
I
remember one time, I gave a gift of a wooden calendar to a teacher - I think it
was third grade. Mind you, the calendar
was useless after 1990 (though I suppose he could have reused it in 2001), but it was a pretty decent gift. Another time, I gave my sixth grade teacher
a wooden clock which was absolutely beautiful.
And you know, to be honest, she deserved it as she was my favourite
teacher in elementary school.
However,
sometimes the students would give gifts that were quite similar. I don't know if my fourth grade teacher
managed to finish the eighteen boxes of Pot of Gold chocolates that she had
been gifted by most of the class. And,
I'm wondering if my second grade teacher found a spot for all of the coffee
mugs that she was given by her students.
At least all of the twelve mugs she received had different designs on
them!
Still,
I think that was part of the fun of giving gifts to teachers. Sometimes you never knew how creative - or
how monotonous the gifts could be. And
what made it really nice was the fact that every single gift given to our
teachers was appreciated. Or at least
they faked it long enough to wait until they could sell it at their garage
sales six months later.
Again,
the tradition of giving gifts to your teacher sort of petered out by the
seventh grade. By the time I entered
high school, we never bothered - mainly because of the fact that by then I had
four or five different teachers, and that could get quite costly! But it was a cool tradition to take part in
while it lasted!
Though part of me wonders just how many of those
gifts our teachers received ended up getting re-gifted? I'm predicting 40%. I'm optimistic.
So, now here's a question for you. What
gifts did you give your teachers in school if you did? And if you're a teacher yourself, what are
some of the strangest or most creative gifts you've ever gotten from your
students?
Two
weeks ago in the POP CULTURE ADDICT'S ADVENT CALENDAR, I chose a song that was
contemporary and modern. Last Sunday, I
chose a song that was more classic and traditional.
This
time around, on Day #18, I'm totally going novelty.
Why
you ask? Well, some of the greatest
Christmas songs that have ever been recorded have been silly, goofy, and just
plain weird. I mean, let's see what
ones I can come up with on the spur of the moment.
Well,
there's Dominick the Donkey, the song that essentially begins with the
hee-hawing of a donkey in heat...or at least that's what I had always
thought. Very annoying, but somehow it
fits.
And
who could forget the Chipmunks singing about how they want Santa to hurry fast
so that Alvin can get his hula hoop!
There's
also Bob and Doug McKenzie and their twelve days of Christmas...which to me is
a celebration of all things Canada. And
getting drunk. But that's beside the
point.
Anyway,
there's a lot of silly songs that one can sing during the holiday season. But there's one song that I have deemed the
silliest of them all.
Part
of the reason why the song is so silly is because of the fact that it was sung
by a ten-year-old girl. You might think
that might be too young for somebody to have a holiday favourite, but keep in
mind that the same year this song came out, a 6-year-old named Barry Gordon
recorded the song "Nuttin' for Christmas". And, well...he grew up to be Donatello in the Teenage Mutant
Ninja Turtles cartoon!
In
the case of this song, our singer DID want something for Christmas. One might call it a rather unusual
gift. She didn't want a crocodile, or a
rhinoceros.
Only
a hippopotamus'll do!
Yes,
today we're going to listen to the song "I Want a Hippopotamus for
Christmas" sung by Oklahoma-born child star Gayla Peevey for the Christmas
season of 1953! It seems hard to
believe that song is over 60 years old now.
It was one that played on our local AM radio station for years, and it's
a song that has been covered by a lot of different artists.
And
it's also a song that has an urban legend attached to it.
The
legend states that the song was originally recorded as a bit of a fundraiser
for the local zoo in the town where Gayla lived. And, how when Gayla was singing about wanting a hippopotamus for
Christmas, she was really referring to wanting one for the zoo.
It's
a nice story, but one that Gayla herself proved to be not exactly true. What really happened was that a local
promoter in the area heard the song, liked it enough to play it on the radio,
and it soon became one of the biggest holiday hits of the year. And while the song was played, he launched a
campaign to actually raise money to buy the little girl a hippopotamus for
Christmas - which she ended up receiving as a gift that Christmas!
Of
course, it would be extremely difficult to housetrain a hippopotamus (not that
I've actually ever tried, mind you, but I doubt my neighbours would appreciate
it), so Gayla donated it to the zoo.
And that hippo reportedly spent the rest of her life at that zoo - a
whopping 50 years!
And in case you were wondering, the hippo was
named Matilda.
Welcome
to Day #17 of the POP CULTURE
ADDICT'S ADVENT CALENDAR! I can't believe that
Christmas is almost here and that the 5th edition of the calendar is almost
over. I'm going to have to come up with
some big surprises for the upcoming week.
Well,
as I look outside, do you want to know what I see? Here...have a look.
Snow. LOTS and LOTS of snow. I guess that Winter Storm Warning that we
had last night came true. I guess the
one thing that I can see as being a positive about snow around this time of
year is that if the temperature remains about the same for the next eight days,
this means a white Christmas for us here.
And, for some reason I find Christmas much more enjoyable when there's a
little bit of snow on the ground. It
sure beats last year where it was 30 degrees warmer than it should have been,
or the year before where we had a Christmas Eve thunderstorm.
I
can guarantee you that kids are loving this kind of weather right now. They see it as endless fun of making snow
angels, building snowmen, hiding in snow forts, and trying to catch snowflakes
on your tongue.
I
can also guarantee you that most adults hate this weather right now. Shoveling snow, driving on slushy roads,
having to bundle up with dozens of layers...yeah, you get the drill.
Well,
today's television special is one that has both worlds colliding in a huge way
- and how one magical snowman with a corn-cob pipe, a button nose, and two eyes
made out of coal got caught right in the middle of it.
Unfortunately,
it also happens to be a television special that wasn't exactly well
received. Truth be told, I don't like
it as much as the classic 1969 television special "Frosty the
Snowman". But, the positives of
the show are that it had a great voice cast and a fairly decent plot - even if
it wasn't quite executed that well.
Today
we're going to look at the CBS television special "Frosty Returns", which originally aired on December 1, 1992 and has been
broadcast annually on the network ever since.
This time around, John Goodman voices the role of Frosty, and this was
one of the first projects for Mad Men star Elisabeth Moss, who plays Frosty's
sidekick, Holly. Jonathan Winters also
serves as the narrator for this special, much like Jimmy Durante did for the
first Frosty special.
The
story begins on the last day of school before Christmas vacation in the tiny
town of Beansboro. The town is famous
for its winter carnival that is held during the Christmas holidays, and with
there being so much snow, it's almost a guarantee that it will be a huge
success.
But
for Holly, she's struggling to find her Christmas spirit. She only has one friend - a geeky kid named
Charles who happens to be obsessed with the weather. She thinks that if she performs a magic act at the carnival,
she'll be able to enjoy the season more, and make some new friends in the
process. But while she is practicing
some of her tricks with Charles, her magic hat blows off of her head and lands
on a nearby snowman, transforming him into Frosty.
And
then the three sing a song about how snow is awesome. Okay, so the song selections aren't that brilliant, but Mark
Mothersbaugh does all the musical scoring for this show, and I've liked him
ever since he was in Devo. So, I'd say
it's sort of hit and miss.
Well,
one person who doesn't think snow is awesome is a man by the name of Mr.
Twitchell (Brian Doyle-Murray). He's
really the most eccentric man you could ever find in a Christmas special. One might say that he's a bit of a nutter -
that's Britspeak for crazy. He hates
everything to do with snow, and he plans to make it all go away. And he also plans on using his hatred of
snow to become the King of the Winter Carnival...which sounds like the most
ironic thing ever, but just go with it.
How
he plans on doing this is with a new invention he calls "Summer
Wheeze". The name may not be
attractive, but the product certainly is for those people who hate snow. One spray, and the snow melts away
permanently. This means that all a
person needs is one can of spray and their lawns will remain green all year
long.
Needless
to say, his sales pitch seems to work, and Beansboro quickly embraces the new
product. Soon after, Beansboro goes
from a winter wonderland to a place where the streets are covered in greenery.
But of course this means big trouble for
Frosty. In a world where Summer Wheeze
reigns supreme, he finds himself on the verge of extinction forever. And while he does have allies like Holly and
Charles to keep him from fading away, there's not a whole lot of time. Can the three of them convince the
townspeople that snow can be a good thing in hopes of saving Frosty from a
watery grave?
Well...I don't want to spoil it...there may be the rare person out there who
hasn't seen it. But given how most
Christmas specials have a happy ending wrapped up in a big red bow, I'd say
that the odds are good for Frosty.
Last
week on Jem Reviewed, we watched what could be considered the closest thing to a holiday special that Jem ever did. Oh, and Danse sustained an injury that
nearly killed her career, but she got through it just fine.
It's
Day #16 of the POP CULTURE
ADDICT'S ADVENT CALENDAR, so let's see what this episode is all about.
Ah,
Episode 39:
Roxy Rumbles. Gee, I'm gonna take a wild
guess here and say that Roxy is the focus of today's show. Which is good, since she's never had a
standalone episode yet.
We're
at a television studio where the Misfits are filming a promo for a music video
show of some sorts, and the woman in charge is explaining that the script for
the promo will be shown on a teleprompter.
I didn't realize that teleprompters existed back in 1987. I thought they still used cue cards back
then. You learn something new every
day, I suppose!
There's
just one minor snag. Roxy has a bit of
a secret that seemingly only Stormer knows.
Roxy is illiterate. Now, back in
the 1980s, illiteracy was a huge problem, and this sparked lots of those
"Give A Hoot, Read A Book" events to fight illiteracy. In fact, that seems to be the theme of this
entire episode.
When
it comes time to film the promo, Pizzazz, Jetta, and Stormer are on cue with
their lines, and they do a really good job.
But when Roxy takes her turn, she completely flubs the lines and
announces the name of the wrong band!
And when Pizzazz and Jetta notice Roxy's blunder, they get into a fight on the
soundstage! Actually, some might find
that more entertaining than the actual promo itself. But either way, four Misfits in a pile on the floor doesn't make
great television, so they're escorted out of the building while Jem and the
Holograms film their own promo.
Oh,
look...Jem and the Holograms are with Ba Nee, and they're filming a promo for
their "Rock Out Illiteracy" tour!
Told you this would be the main theme of the show! The only other thing of note during their
promo - aside from Ba Nee being able to read better than Roxy - is the fact
that the tour's first stop is Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Back
at Misfits Music, Eric is doling out the money for all the Misfits - minus
expenses like Pizzazz's bedazzled rhinestone outfit. Seriously, Pizzazz...bedazzled rhinestones? Were you channeling Dolly Parton?
When
it comes time for Roxy to get paid, she's upset that it's in the form of mere
fifty dollar bills. Turns out that Roxy
smashed a guitar that was worth $24,000!!!
What was the guitar made of?
Gold? Of course, Roxy's holding the
bill upside down - but because of her illiteracy she can't understand why.
And
Pizzazz and Jetta make jokes about Roxy being stupid because of her illiteracy,
which really sets Roxy off. She decides
that she is going to quit the Misfits and storms out of the building. Stormer proves that she's a friend to Roxy
and tells her to come back, but Pizzazz and Jetta keep making fun of her. Part of me wishes Stormer would leave to
find Roxy and start up their own band...this is cruel of Pizzazz and Jetta to
hone in on Roxy's insecurities and bully her because of it. No wonder she turned out this way.
But
this leads into what I think is one of the better songs in the series. Roxy takes a turn as a solo artist in the
song "I'm Gonna Change", and it's a beautiful song and video that
depicts the confusion and shame that Roxy is feeling about her inability to
read. I also love the storyboard of the
video which switches from black and white to colour. And, in this edition of Jem Trivia, Roxy's singing voice is
done by Ellen Bernfeld - who also sings for Pizzazz as well. Though Ellen tweaks it a bit to make Roxy
sound a little different from Pizzazz.
Nice touch there.
As
Roxy finishes her song, a bunch of leaves blow around her. But a strange orange piece of paper lands in
her hair. Roxy pulls it out and
immediately recognizes it as a lottery ticket.
Now, part of me wonders how she could know that if she can't read, but
maybe she's played the lottery before and knows what a ticket looks like.
Roxy
goes to the lottery headquarters to see if her ticket is a winner. She hands the man the ticket and prepares to
leave, but the man stops Roxy dead in her tracks when he announces that her
ticket is worth one million dollars!
Somewhere in Los Angeles, there's someone weeping...but Roxy is cheering
and gives the man a huge hug! Wow, you
know something...when Roxy is with the Misfits, she's cruel and vicious. Away from them, she's quite pleasant! Maybe that's why Roxy and Stormer are so
close...they're both more similar than they think.
At
any rate, with Roxy becoming an instant millionaire (which in 1987 would buy a
lot more than a million dollars now), she finds the motivation to quit the
Misfits for good, and to tell Pizzazz and Jetta a few choice words before
storming out. They won't be pushing
Roxanne Pellegrini around any more!
Naturally,
Pizzazz pitches her own fit and storms out of the recording studio. But Stormer notices that Roxy is dropping
money out of a big bulky suitcase and wonders where she got it all from. I'm wondering why Roxy would think it would
be a good idea to walk around the streets of Los Angeles with a million dollars
stuffed in a suitcase! But we've no
time to think about common sense here.
Stormer is worried about Roxy and she and Jetta follow her to see where
she's going.
They
follow her to a ritzy department store which Stormer describes as the richest
store in town. Sure enough, Roxy has
decided to drop some major cash on a shopping spree and a makeover for herself.
Now,
in the video of Roxy's makeover, they reuse the song "Gimme! Gimme!
Gimme!" from Episode 9 - but to be honest I think a better song would have
been "Designing Woman".
Either way, Roxy looks absolutely gorgeous. In fact, if you dyed her hair a little bit more pink, she could
pass as a Jem lookalike! It's a wonder
they didn't use her instead of Clash in that episode where Jem's reputation was
being ruined.
So
after Roxy blows a bundle on new clothes - and apparently a new sportscar to go
along with it - I'm actually wondering if Roxy has any money left! The doorman of the department store tells
Roxy to be safe going home or something like that. And this prompts Roxy to declare that she is going to go back to
her hometown and rub her success in everybody's faces!
Oh,
and look at that. Roxy hails from
Philadelphia. Hmm...isn't that where
Jem and the Holograms are kicking off their "Rock Out Illiteracy"
tour?
Ah,
yes...there's the Holograms now, with Raya handing out books to the people in
the crowd. Um...it's a nice idea,
but...if someone is illiterate, they wouldn't be able to read it. Still, at least they're trying.
But
a glammed up Roxy doesn't really care about Jem and the Holograms. She's more interested in going back to her
old crummy neighbourhood to rub her success in everyone's faces. To which I reply that Roxy only got that way
through a lucky break and she's already spent a quarter of that million on
herself.
She
happens to come across her old friends, "The Red
Aces", who
are talking to Ba Nee for some reason.
It seems as though Ba Nee is trying to convince them that reading is
fun, but they blow off the little girl.
Roxy approaches as soon as Ba Nee leaves and the leader of the Red Aces,
Linc, is immediately attracted to her new look. I get the feeling that Roxy and the Red Aces all grew up in the
wrong part of town, and it wouldn't surprise me if Roxy dropped out of school
because the public school system failed her.
Anyway,
Roxy has decided to come up with a way to get everyone in Philadelphia's
attention. She's going to throw her own
party in the streets. In fact, she
plans on hosting it just a block away from the Jem and the Holograms stage so
that she can steal all of the attention away from her. Yep, you can make a Misfit look like a
fashion model, but she'll still be a Misfit.
Later
that day, Jem and the Holograms and Ba Nee are trying to get back to their
stage, but a huge traffic jam has blocked their way. When they try to figure out what the commotion is, they find this.
Welcome to the Roxy Rumble! It's a
carnival in the middle of the street!
There are free rides for the kids, free food for the adults, free
T-shirts for everybody! Did I mention
that everything is free? Apparently,
Roxy has no idea about investments and saving, so she's been using her million
dollar windfall to fund the whole thing.
Why do I get the feeling that Roxy is going to be dealt a massive dose
of karmic retribution?
I mean, yes...Roxy set out to do what she wanted to do...she stole all of the
people away from Jem's concert. But
given that the topic of the show is illiteracy, I wonder if Roxy gave any
thought to acquiring permits to host the event, or making arrangements to pay
the vendors, or making sure that she ordered enough stuff. I mean, one would have to know how to read
to be able to plan an event this large, shouldn't they?
Sure
enough, the Roxy Rumble hits a snag when people get a little carried away and
start demanding more stuff. It's not
long before the T-shirts and free food disappear and the people in the crowd
start fighting with each other over the stuff.
It's like an outdoor version of Black Friday!
The fights get wildly out of control, with people punching each other out, and
booths getting destroyed, and the merry-go-round collapsing into a giant pile
of wood and horses. I sure hope nobody
got hurt!
Even Jem and the Holograms are caught in the middle of the crossfire as they
dodge flying hot dogs and shredded T-shirts!
It's a real mess. I wonder how
long it will take for the Philadelphia police to show up.
Apparently
not long. Well, okay, several hundred
people got injured or covered in mustard before they got there, but
still...they came.
And
it appears as though Roxy is in a lot of trouble. She never got a permit to host the event, she signed contracts
promising to repair any damages, and she signed contracts to pay off the food
vendors, and Roxy is left wondering what she is going to do.
Now,
one might think that Jem and the Holograms are doing a good deed for Roxy by
stepping in and taking over Roxy's problems.
And sure enough, thanks to Jem, Kimber, Raya, Shana, and Aja, all of the
vendors get paid, the repairs get paid for, and nobody gets sued.
But
Jem can't resist pulling the "I Told You So" card by rubbing it in to
Roxy about how important it is to read the fine print in a matter of fact voice
that makes Roxy tell her off. Jem just
shakes her head and sarcastically accepts Roxy's gratitude. See, it's times like this that I wouldn't
mind Roxy punching her in the nose.
Jem's really gotten a huge ego this season, and it's not very pleasant
to watch. But what is nice to watch is
seeing the rest of the Holograms handing out information to the Red Aces about
improving their literacy. After all,
they got a first hand account of what not being able to read can do with the
Roxy Rumble disaster.
And
we get another rehash of the song "Open a Book". And if that song sounds very familiar -
well, we just heard it five episodes ago.
Oh, great, so we aren't even finished Season 2 yet and they're already
reusing Season 2 songs? Well, look at
it this way...what other song could they use?
Oh,
and when the tax collectors come to take their share of the winnings that Roxy
won (remember, in the United States, you have to pay taxes on everything that
you win via lottery, game show, or Survivor - right, Richard Hatch?) - it
leaves Roxy without a penny to her name!
It's a valuable and expensive lesson for Roxy to learn.
Roxy
at this point has hit rock bottom, and she looks as if she is about ready to
puke. But this is where I think one of
the sweetest moments of the whole show comes into play. You see, Ba Nee has watched the whole thing
unfold, and has quickly figured out that Roxy is illiterate. So, Ba Nee approaches Roxy with a book, and
gives it to her, telling her that it will help her learn how to read and that
she can use it as a stepping stone in becoming more literate. Even
more surprising and touching is that Roxy doesn't punch Ba Nee out or cuss at
her.Instead, she takes the book and
seems genuinely touched that someone would care enough about her to want her to
succeed.I get the impression that
there hasn't been a lot of people in Roxy's corner.
Of
course, once Eric and the Misfits arrive, Roxy tells Ba Nee to go away. I guess even a Misfit can't be seen with
tears in her eyes and love in her heart.
Turns out that Roxy signed a contract with Eric prohibiting her from
leaving the Misfits during the time that is listed on the contract meaning that
Roxy is forced to go back to Los Angeles with the Misfits, and this essentially
ends Roxy's millionaire status for good.
Now, you'd think that this would be a sad ending.
But
surprise, surprise...Roxy is actually reading the book that Ba Nee gave
her. Sure, she's not reading it very
fast, but she's making an honest effort.
Of course, Jetta can't resist poking fun at Roxy because she's a genuine
bitch in general, but Roxy throws her out, locks the door, and continues to
read the book - determined to learn how to read once and for all and not
letting anybody stand in her way.
Wow. This might be my favourite episode of the
series yet. Season 2 is showing a lot
more depth to characters that were previously one note. I was thinking that Roxy was an unapologetic
sociopath who hated everything. But
after this episode, I'm really liking Roxy a lot. She's clearly been hurt a lot, and built up a wall around people
so that nobody can break through it. It
took the love and caring of a little girl named Ba Nee to make Roxy see that
not everyone is out to hurt her. And I
love the fact that Roxy and Stormer seem to have developed a close bond. Maybe Roxy helped Stormer become more
assertive while Stormer helped Roxy become softer.
Next week...A Very Special Episode of Jem! And, it airs two days before Christmas! Um...yay?