Hey Man, This IS Christmas Music!

Merry Christmas!

Best Christmas Song Ever

Run DMC - Christmas in Hollis - Great sample from Backdoor Santa. Old School Run DMC. Macaroni and Cheese. It doesn't get any better than this.



Die Hard - Terrorists take over an LA highrise? On Christmas? This movie reeks Christmas spirit and I'd watch it every Christmas day if I had the time.

There's No Such Thing as a Bad Boy

Backdoor Santa - Clarence Carter - Unfortunately this one doesn't have an actual video to go with it which is too bad because this is the funkiest Christmas song ever. It's even funkier than The New Kids on the Block Funky Funky Christmas which has the benefit of having the word "funky" appear twice in it's name. Those two funkys are also the only funky thing about that song.



BONUS - A horribly inappropriate performance of Backdoor Santa by the kids of PS22 wherever that is. I wonder if their music teacher ever really listened to the song.



Boys Town - When I was little and couldn't fall asleep on Christmas eve my parents used to put the little portable black and white TV in my bedroom to keep me from waking them up every hour asking them if it was time to open presents yet. For some reason, Boys Town was always on in the wee hours of the morning. It's not even really a Christmas movie although it does have a Christmas scene in it. Back in the early 90s, I found a copy on video and I've been watching it every Christmas Eve since.

Whoops!

Forgot to post yesterday so I'll double dip today. Tomorrow and Christmas are already done though so I can rest after this.

Bad Religion - Silent Night - I've been looking for a recording of them doing Holy Holy Holy that I heard on the radio about 10 years ago if anyone has it.



Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys - Empty Chair at the Christmas Table - I discovered this one while looking for music for this thing. I've long been a fan of Bob Wills but never heard this song.



Hard Rock Coco and Joe - I have vague memories of the song on this but no real memories of seeing it although I'm sure I did when I was a wee little one as I was a big fan of Ray Rayner who would air it every year. Not really a movie but I've got to get dressed for dinner in an hour so I'm going to cheat a little.



Star Wars Holiday Special - This one gets a lot of crap for being really awful today but if you were 7 or 8 when this thing aired, it was canon. I had to wait 30 more years to visit the Wookie planet again.

Walk Don't Run

The Ventures - Sleigh Ride - We heard this song last night at the Zoo Lights thingamajigger at the Lincoln Park Zoo and it reminded me that I needed to dig out (if one can really do that on iTunes) the Ventures Christmas album and give it a listen before the 25th. Aside from being put together by one of the greatest instrumental groups of all time, it's kinda cool because each song is begins with and is sometimes based on a popular guitar riff from back in the day.



Jingle All The Way - A great idea for a movie ruined by the casting of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sinbad.

You'll Shoot Your Eye Out

Bruce Springsteen - Santa Claus is Coming To Town



A Christmas Story - I prefer watching this every year to It's a Wonderful Life.

Snow Day

No School Today!

Trading Places - I suppose this isn't really a Christmas movie but it takes place around Christmas and sees Dan Akroyd nearing the end of an era when he was actually funny.




Silver and Gold - Burl Ives - There are better songs in this Christmas special but this one has the Burl Ives snowman playing a banjo.

All day long I listen to people give me excuses why they can't work. My legs hurt. My back aches. I'm only four.

Mele Kalikimaka - Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters - I actually discovered this song a couple of years ago on the Chris Isaak Christmas CD but this is, I think, the original version.



Scrooged - Not Bill Murray's finest hour but even bad Bill Murray is better than most anything else.

What Happened to you Dennis Leary?

BSO Double Feature Today

The Brian Setzer Orchestra - Dig That Crazy Santa Claus - Grace and I have been rocking this one in the car a lot lately. There's two things she likes in her music; repetition (jingle jangle) and words she recognizes (Santa, presents, etc...). This one's got em both.



The Brian Setzer Orchestra - Zat You Santa Claus? - This one's a Louis Armstrong cover. The original's a great tune but the BSO does a nice little bit with Santa running around on the stage throwing candy canes to the audience. Watching these makes me even more bummed that the Christmas tour was canceled this year.



The Ref - One of the funniest and most pessimistic Christmas movies ever made. Kevin Spacey before he was famous and started hamming it up. Dennis Leary before he stopped being funny. Directed by the underrated Ted Demme before he died. Christine Baranski before my mom knew who she was. If you haven't seen it yet, I think it's time.

Possibly the Most Suggestive Santa Claus Lyric I've Ever Heard

EDITED: Now with a longer version of the song.

Elvis - Santa Claus is Back in Town - I've been listening to the BSO version of this one in the car quite a bit but this one's got the Jordanaires. This is from the 68 Comeback Special I think which I though was live but I'm beginning to suspect was lip synced which is a shame because Scotty Moore should never be reduced to pretending to play the guitar.



National Lampoons Christmas Vacation - It's years like that that make me appreciate this movie even more. Easily the best of the Vacation movies.

Ba Dum Dum Dum

Ok, so this was supposed to be a 12 days of Christmas thing but since I apparently can't count backwards, it's become a 10 days of Christmas thing. And yes, I know the 12 days happen after Christmas but who really wants to listen to Christmas music or watch Christmas movies AFTER christmas?

Anyway, here's the 10 best Christmas movies and songs that I can think of this week for which I was able to find Youtube videos.

John Denver and The Muppets sing the 12 Days of Christmas. We listened to this album a gazillion times back then and it's popular enough in our house now that Lisa and I both own copies so we don't have to share. I only wish it had more Sesame Street Muppets since Grace has no idea who any of these guys are.




Elf - It's new but it's become somewhat of a tradition to watch it while we're wrapping gifts in the basement. Even if this weren't hysterically funny and incredibly quotable, it would be great for the Rankin Bass inspired scenes. Also, the first time we get to hear Zoey Deschanel sing before putting out a pretty decent album as She and Him.

Kangargoo

This was one of those games that I was better at than others. I think I was able to actually get to the 4th or 5th level on this which isn't that great but then I was never that good at video games to begin with.

I Blame Phil Donahue

I think every child in the 70s was made to suffer through this Free to Be You and Me stuff. I know we had the book at home and maybe a record as well. Here's a crazy one about boys playing with dolls. Someone should tell him they're called "action figures."

Weeble Wobbles Wobble But They Don't Fall Down

Trips to Grandma Funke's house usually meant also going to Toys R Us to get a new toy. These usually fell into one of two categories, Weeble Wobbles or Fisher Price Little People. Once my sisters came along the gift train stopped service in my neighborhood but it was a good couple of years.

I Really Miss Shows Like This

Kids shows used to be fun and adventurous. I wish they'd make more shows like this. Also, one of the greatest kids show theme songs ever.

Also, the character designs for this show were done by the legendary Alex Toth who apparently hated Bandit. I always liked Bandit and thought it was clever that they portrayed him as a real dog and not some super smart Lassie type.

ONTV

ONTV was a precursor to Cable TV. You had to have this big box on top of your TV and spend what I'm sure was an ungodly amount of money but you got all sorts of cool movies on your TV. I think this may have even been before the home video boom started making it even cooler. Eddie Shavaz who lived across the street from me was the only person I knew who had it.

Whoops!

It's been busy on the homefront and I didn't realize I'd fallen behind. Spent the weekend decorating the house and finishing up an article I was writing. Now that it's all behind me it's back to posting. Here's a really boring one. A complete walk through of the first Zork. Way back in the 80s before we cared about things like graphics and sound, Infocom text games were all kinds of awesome. I don't think I ever finished any of them but it was fun to try. I think Infocom may have tried to update the Zork franchise in the 90s with fancy things like pictures and sound but it didn't take.

The Last Unicorn

Up at Cardinals Manitowish Lodge in Woodruff, WI, they had a TV and VCR in the lodge along with a bunch of videos they'd taped off of cable TV. The most played was probably The Last Unicorn which I've seen more times than I care to admit.

Happy Birthday Mom

Here's the first movie I remember seeing in the theater. I may have seen other movies before this but I don't remember them if I did. I do remember we went to see something else but it was sold out so my parents thought it would be fun to see this instead. I'm still not sure what they were thinking.

The Black Hole

This one hasn't aged well. Watching it today, it's kind of boring but the robots were cool and I wanted one of those double barreled laser guns really bad.

Throw Him In The Hole!

This is one of the few movies where I've felt it was not only acceptable, but necessary to talk back to the screen. I saw this with Tony at the Deerbrook Mall theaters and I think we almost got kicked out. It was a pretty lame movie but at the time, it had some pretty cool special effects.

The Gate

Spike! What Did You Just Say?

Transformers: The Movie

Saw this one opening weekend with Jim. It's actually a great movie and I own it on DVD but it sits in my memory for one reason alone. Spike swears. We were shocked, SHOCKED I say, when early in the movie, Spike lets out a long drawn out profanity. This is a movie based on a kids cartoon and it had a swear word. I was earth shakingly disappointed when it came out on video with the naughty word edited out. Thank god it was restored for the DVD.

Condorman

This is one of those movies that looked much better than it actually was. It also stars Michael Crawford, who later went on to star as the Phantom in the mega popular Phantom of the Opera on Broadway and who Lisa and I saw in the far less popular FX in Vegas.

Not sure why I can't find the trailer in English but I did manage to find the awesome boat chase.

The Untouchables

Still one of my favorite movies. I saw it on the 4th of July with Jim instead of going to see the fireworks. We were both working at Dominicks that night and the store was dead. I had negotiated with our manager Armin to get the 3rd off so I could go to the comic book convention and he told me that if I did, I'd have to work the 4th. Apparently he was having a tough time finding people willing to work that day. The store was so dead that our assistant manager actually ran out of things for us to do. When I asked him if he wanted me to sit around and do nothing he told me no, stand around and do nothing. That, and the time I had an incredibly bad headache are the only two times I've skipped fireworks.

Beat Street

Actually, this was probably the first rap album I ever owned.

Funky Cold Medina

Can't remember if I owned this one or not.

Tone-Loc |MTV Music

NWA

The second Rap album I ever bought. Accidentally left it in family station wagon with the volume cranked a few times.

N.W.A. |MTV Music

Run DMC

The first rap album I ever bought. Run DMC's Raising Hell.

Run-D.M.C. |MTV Music

The Choice is Yours

This isn't really my childhood but I'm feeling my age and it was more than 15 years ago so we'll dive into the hip hop pool this week.

I found this video a couple weeks ago and since I don't care much for political propaganda or campaigning, I sat on it. I've watched it more than a few times since then and now that the election is over, I'll share it.

Obama seemed to inspire the hip hop community to record a whole punch of politically minded stuff this year. This is one of the better recordings I've heard. It's Dres from Black Sheep updating the classic The Choice is Yours for the Obama campaign. I've read he did this all on his own dime over a weekend but the result is pretty good.




And here's the original...

Journey Arcade Game

This was considered pretty high tech back when it first came out. I can't remember if it was this or Tron where Brad Cheskes started bullying my friends and me because we ratted him out for cutting in line at Tilt.

King's Quest

This was the first PC game I ever played and it hooked me on the Sierra Online model of gaming for quite a long time. It was also the first game I played where there were multiple solutions to problems which gave the game a little more replay value than most.

Hardware Wars

I don't remember the first time I saw this. It may have been at the community house before another film but I remember thinking it was the funniest thing ever. I think my friend Stafford may have owned a copy on 16mm as well. The public library had a copy that we would sometimes set up in the conference room.

Star Wars Holiday Special

I realize this is pretty campy now but when I was 7 or 8 it was canon. For years I had distorted memories of this thing being awesome and I wanted to know more about the Wookie planet and the treehouses. I still haven't seen the whole thing since the first time it aired. It's easy enough to find so it might just be that I don't want to taint my memories of it.

My 45 Collection: Disneyland Main Street Electrical Parade

I used to have this ratty little 45 record player and a little box of 45s. I can't remember what all of them were but I remember this one for sure. It was a cool little picture disc that I'm guessing my family picked up on a trip to Disney World one year. While the label reads Disneyland Main Street Electrical Parade, at Disney World they used the same music for their light parade which was on a series of small barges on the lagoon. The highlight of the week for me was watching that parade go by on the nights they did it and I listened to this record quite a bit. I'll credit it with giving me an early appreciation for the Moog. The song is Baroque Hoedown by Jean Jacques Perrey.



Here's the song.



Here's some video of the Disneyland version of the parade which goes down Main Street at night. I have yet to find video of the Disney World barge version which is smaller, but in my mind, much cooler, especially now that not all the hotels face the lagoon.

Son of Svengoolie

Happy Halloween! I can barely remember what I was for Halloween most year. I know I was Darth Vader in one of those cheap plastic costumes one year. My dad made me a really cool viking shield one year and I used it a couple years in a row. Beyond that, I have no recollection of any of my costumes. So instead, here's The Son Of Svengoolie who was a local TV host who aired old horror and B movies on Saturday afternoons. In particular, this is the opening to the one time when they aired a 3D movie. I think we had to go to the A&P to get the glasses. Maybe they were in the Trib though.

Omnibot 2000

During my early teens, I got an Omnibot 2000 for Christmas or my birthday. I was 2 foot high robot made by Tomy that could be controlled by a remote or programmed with a cassette tape to do all sorts of mundane things. It was all kinds of awesome until the battery died. I couldn't find a commercial for my model but here's the commercial for the next version which is a little shorter and shinier.

Don Gato

Mrs. Cibald (sp?) had a few songs she liked to make us sing over and over again year after year (This Old Hammer, Shoo Fly, etc...) but Don Gato was our favorite. I'm not sure if we ever sang it in concert but from 1st - 5th grade we sang it in class a few times every year.

Our version was a little more uptempo than this...



But not as hard core as this...

Holy Priceless Collection of Etruscan Snoods!

I used to *LOVE* the old Adam West Batman series. For a long time, that's what Batman was to me. Even now, I'll still watch it if it's on and don't understand the shame that fanboys feel when they think about it. It was pretty cheesy and over the top. This was probably its finest hour.

Misfits of Science

So Bruce Springsteen has been tapped for the half time show at the Superbowl next year and everyone is debating what he should play. I think it would be totally cool if he did Dancing in the Dark and at the end of the song, pulled Courtney Cox up on stage to dance with him just like in the video. It's not like she's got anything else going on right now. I think her FX show was canceled. Maybe the two people who remember it will update Misfits of Science for her. I think I was 13 or 14 when this show aired. I was just getting into comics and thought this was cool because it was as close to an X-Men television show as I was going to get for the next 10 years.

Automan

There's something magical about that age when you're old enough to stay up a little late but too young to be going out on your own on a Friday night. Pretty much that meant that you stayed up watching crappy TV shows. This was one of them. It was about a dude who could turn into a car. I think it was inspired by Knight Rider a little bit and there's definitely some Tron thrown in there as well. Of course it wasn't nearly as good as either of them but I was 10ish so what did I know about quality? I'd watch anything with a talking car in it.

E.T.

Forget that this movie is a classic and that I saw it more than a few times in the theater. When it was rereleased a few years ago on DVD, there was a lot of drama over the fact that Spielberg went back and took all the guns out of the movie replacing them with walkie talkies. That didn't bother me at all. What bothered me was the removal of the best line in the movie (at 6:49). Also, this was filmed during that brief time period when playing D&D was cool.

Shogun Warriors

What kid wouldn't want giant fighting robots? These things were awesome but my mom would never get me one. I think Tony had a couple though so I still got to play with them.

Lamest Toy Ever: Yo Ball

I'll admit that I couldn't get a yo yo to come back up the string until I was in high school. This toy was made for losers like me and was insanely popular for a month or two while I was in third grade. This commercial seems to be from a later period though.

Hard Hat Mack

Back in Jr. High we got our first computer, an Apple IIe. I had played around with them at school a little bit and we used to pass around copies of games on old 5 1/4 floppies. Cannonball Blitz was the first but I couldn't find anything about it on Youtube. Hard Hat Mack was the 2nd game we traded back and forth. It was a Donkey Kong clone but a little faster and (I thought) a lot more fun.

In 8th grade, tired of taking woodshop for the millionth time, Jim and I persuaded our assistant principal (later Lisa's boss in Wilmette) to create a computer programming class for us. Mike Daley caught wind of it and joined us. The librarian pulled the class out of a book and would hand us lessons to work on each day in basic and then go back into the library to do whatever it is she did. Most days, when we'd finish out lessons early, we'd play games. Since these were illegal copies, they weren't too happy when they caught kids with the discs. One day, we were all playing and Mike and I heard the librarian coming in. We quit out of the game as she walked in the door but Jim didn't notice and kept hammering away at the keyboard as she stood behind him. I'm pretty sure that disc was confiscated and we monitored more closely from that point on.

My mom probably still knows the librarian's name or has lunch with her every month and is mortally embarrassed that I'm admitting to this on line.

Our First VCR: Darby O'Gill and the Little People

Featuring a young Sean Connery of all people.

Our First VCR: A Walt Disney Christmas

This was a compilation tape of a few Disney animated Christmas shorts. It got played over and over even though Christmas was really over already. For some reason I have vivid memories of the first segment which is presented here.

Our First VCR: Tron

I don't think I ever got the chance to see this in the theater but we rented the crap out of it way back when.

Our First VCR: Old Yeller

I had 3 younger sisters so we were on a bit of a Disney kick. Here's Old Yeller in 5 seconds. I don't remember it ending this way.

Our First VCR: Pete's Dragon

For Christmas of 1982 (I think) we got our first VCR and spent the next two weeks renting 3 or 4 movies a day from Video Hotline. Some we rented more than a few times.









Here's a bonus video. I'm including it because the description on YouTube read, "Recorded on February 20, 2008 using a Flip Video camcorder. No Copyright Infridgement." and that made me laugh.

Lancelot Link and the Evolution Revolution

Back in Jr. High, channel 50 started showing reruns of Lancelot Link Secret Chimp in the morning before school. I was instantly hooked and how could I not be when the show was James Bond with monkeys? At the end of each episode, LL would play a number with his band, The Evolution Revolution.

She's Having A Baby

When I was in high school, John Hughes came to town again to direct She's Having a Baby and filmed the wedding scene in our church. This is the same church where I went to Sunday School, was confirmed, married, and where Grace was baptized as well. My youth group leader took me over one day before a meeting and I got to meet Hughes (chain smoker) and sit in Kevin Bacon's chair while no one was looking.

Santa's Village

We didn't go here as often as we did Kiddieland and I remember the car ride being excruciatingly long even though I probably spend more time in the car going to Games Night now.

Best Cartoon Ever Part 2

Many many years later, Warner Bros. brought Chuck Jones back into the fold to create new Looney Toons cartoons. One of them was a sequel to One Froggy Evening entitled Another Froggy Evening. It's not as good but it;s still a kick to see Michigan J. back in action. I don't think it was ever released theatrically (it appears on the Space Jam dvd for some reason) but I did manage to see it at a Chuck Jones appearance at the Warner Bros. Store Gallery in Water Tower when Lisa met a guy at a wedding who worked for them and got us some free passes. You weren't allowed to go anywhere near Chuck Jones unless you were buying an original piece of animation art (no cericels) so I got to look at him from afar but they were running the cartoon on a giant screen every half hour or so and we stuck around to see it a couple of times at least.

A few years later, I met Roger Ebert at a book signing and rather than ask him a good question, I asked him how he felt about being immortalized in a Chuck Jones cartoon. He didn't even know it existed.

Best Cartoon Ever

Aside from being a classic Warner Bros. short and considered by many to be one of, if not the best, cartoon ever, this is one of those many times where Tony and I came to appreciate something completely separate from each other only to discover our mutual admiration for it at a later date.

Normally, I wouldn't write such a long run on sentence but that would make my mom happy.

Kiddieland

We took Grace here for the first time a couple months ago. I have a feeling we'll be making many trips in the future.

The Minaquabats

The family used to travel up to Cardinals Manitowish Lodge on Trout Lake every summer and we'd always catch a Minaquabats show while we were there. Woodruff, WI is also home to the world's largest penny.

Best Toy Ever

Super Fuzz

This is a movie I desperately wanted to see but my mom wouldn't let me. I put it on my Netflix Queue but it has mysteriously disappeared. I thought that bullet catching bit was the coolest thing ever way back when.

Evel Knievel Motorcycle

For a kid in the 70s, Evel Knievel was a god. He was right up there with Mohammad Ali, KISS, and Neil Armstrong. I had the motorcycle seen in the commercial and I couldn't for the life of me get it to land as consistently or as nicely as it did on TV but I still had a blast trying.

Smash Up Derby

#298 on the list of toys I desperately wanted but my mom would not buy.

Pitfall

A double feature today. I don't think I've wanted anything more than I wanted Pitfall way back when. Tony and I would go to Video Hotline and pester them for a rental copy that didn't exist every day for a month or so until finally I did something good or my parents just got sick of me asking for it and took me over to Toys R Us to get a copy which we played endlessly in my dungeon of a basement. I think I may have even taken a picture of my high score to mail in for a Pitfall Harry patch at one point.



As a bonus, a related video reference only Tony will appreciate.

Gigglesnort Hotel

We'll start with the clip that inspired this whole thing.   I was bumming around Youtube at home one day and found a clip from a show my friends and I used to watch called Gigglesnort Hotel.  Here's the opening.