The real-world origin of the mythological figure known as Santa Claus goes way back—I mean waaaaay back—but Hollywood has had their share of fun creating origin stories more befitting such a beloved character.
I remember, for instance, the Rankin-Bass animated TV special Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town, featuring voice actors Mickey Rooney and Fred Astaire (this year is its fiftieth anniversary). In 1985 RB made a second origin story, The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus.
Last year, Spanish animator Sergio Pablos added his Netflix feature film Klaus to the pile and gained an Academy Award nomination for his effort. A former Disney imagineer who worked on Tarzan and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, he and his team at SPA Studios animated the film by taking 2D digital animation and lighting it as if it were 3D.
The story involves a young postman, a privileged rich kid, assigned to a remote northern village in order to establish a successful post office and prove his worth. He stumbles upon a way to get it going when he meets a reclusive toymaker and encourages him to make toys for the children of a community at war with itself. Complications ensue. Jason Schwartzman voices the young postman and JK Simmons (who sounds just like Peter “Optimus Prime” Cullen in this) voices Klaus.
I like that Klaus is (mostly) grounded in the real world, with almost nothing in the way of what could be considered “magic.” The usual myths about Santa have a real-world foundation and are developed through the rumor and exaggeration of the children.
The animation reminded me of the work of Don Bluth in places. It doesn’t resemble the Pixar/Dreamworks CGI style we’ve come to expect these days, but it is something more than traditional 2D. The effect is startling, and it brings a fresh twist to computer animation. I kinda hope it catches on.
Crystal from In the Good Old Days of Classic Hollywood is seriously ill, according to her brother Jarrahn, and while a blogathon may seem unimportant in the face of that, Gill from RealWeegieMidget Reviews has agreed to take over in her absence. I don’t know Crystal well, but I know she’s a dedicated classic film fan whose blog has a strong following. Here’s hoping she recovers as soon as possible. Best wishes to her family.
Henry Hathaway tends to be associated with westerns, and indeed, some of his biggest hits as a director were in that vein: How the West Was Won, The Sons of Katie Elder, and of course, the original True Grit. A perusal of his IMDB page reveals a variety of movies, including war, film noir and drama. While he may not have had a clear signature style as a director, he was one of a number of Hollywood filmmakers from the Golden Age who turned out reliable product again and again; a go-to man.
A former assistant director during the silent era, he got his break in the early 30s making adaptations of Zane Grey westerns with Randolph Scott. In 1935, Lives of a Bengal Lancer with Gary Cooper got a Best Picture nomination and Hathaway was on the radar.
If you’re a professional actor, voice acting for cartoons sounds easy, right? Just speak into the mike and do what you normally do. But for those who have made careers embodying animated characters on television, it can be almost as involving as live-action; certainly as meaningful.
I’m gonna stick to TV for this post; I imagine many of us have at least a passing familiarity with the voice talents who originated in the movies: Clarence Nash, Pinto Colvig, Chuck Jones, Arthur Q. Bryan, Mel Blanc, Daws Butler, to name a few. And I’m only highlighting a few among many.
—Alan Reed and Jean Vander Pyl voiced, among other characters, Fred and Wilma Flintstone. He got his start in radio, appearing in The Shadow, The Life of Riley, The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show and Crime Doctor, as well as the movies (including Disney’s Lady and the Tramp) and early TV. She also started in radio, appearing in The Halls of Ivy and Father Knows Best, as well as TV. She was in the original Flintstones pilot, when the show was still called The Flagstones.
While Fred and Wilma were visually inspired by The Honeymooners’ Ralph and Alice Kramden, the voices were not. Fred had Ralph’s temper, but not his Brooklyn accent, while Wilma seemed a bit less sassy than Alice. Their voices fit their looks: Fred’s voice was heavy and earthy and Wilma’s was light and thin.
Back in the 70s and 80s, it was still possible to see animated shorts that originally played theatrically on free television, so the newer, made-for-TV cartoons I watched as a kid were mixed with much older material.
The animation career of Walter Lantz goes all the way back to the silent era. At Universal, he directed Oswald the Lucky Rabbit shorts and his studio created Woody Woodpecker, Andy Panda, and Chilly Willy, characters that played on TV beginning in the late 50s.
Tex Avery began at the Lantz studio and helped develop the Looney Tunes characters at Warner Bros., but in 1942 he moved to MGM, where his cartoons took on an even wilder tone. In addition to creating new characters like Droopy Dog, he directed memorable shorts like “Red Hot Riding Hood” and the controversial “Magical Maestro” (which is hilarious; I don’t care what anyone says).
Paul Terry co-founded Terrytoons in New Rochelle, New York in 1929, and among the studio’s best known creations include Mighty Mouse (another superhero) and Heckle and Jeckle (a comedy duo).
In the midst of an intense hearing for Alabama senator and U.S. Attorney General appointee Jeff Sessions, there was a surprising bit of silliness: Jeff Sessions is a big fan of “Schoolhouse Rock!”
During the hearing, Republican Sen. Ben Sasse said that there was a “civics crisis” in the U.S. and asked about Sessions’ thought on [President] Obama’s use of executive orders. While arguing that Obama’s use of executive power was an overreach, Sessions said that he felt “Schoolhouse Rock!” was “not a bad basic lesson in how the government is supposed to work.”
There you have it. What more do you need than an endorsement from an actual government representative on the effectiveness of Schoolhouse Rock! as an educational tool?
This series of musical shorts was part of my childhood as it was for most kids of my generation, and I grew to anticipate it as much as the other series on Saturday mornings. They were proto-music videos, with original, catchy songs designed to make kids learn about science and math and history in a fun way, to the point where they don’t even realize they’re learning—and it works. I can still sing the preamble to the Constitution without missing a beat.
“Three is a Magic Number”
The brainchild of ad exec David McCall, who wanted a better way for his son to learn multiplication, he hired musician Bob Dorough to write a math song. The result was the first SHR hit, “Three is a Magic Number.” McCall’s co-worker, illustrator Tom Yohe, made some accompanying images and they pitched it to ABC as a series. The SHR pilot, featuring “Three,” debuted in 1971; two years later came the series. Yohe and George Newall were the executive producers and Dorough, who died two years ago, was musical director.
The following are some of my favorite songs in the series. Links to the videos are in the titles.
—“Verb: That’s What’s Happening.” Music by Zachary Sanders, lyrics by Dorough. The song is all kinds of awesome, but I’m still hoping somebody, somewhere will do something with the Verb superhero character in the video. He’s already cool enough to have his own movie; give him a TV show, a comic book, a toy line, something.
—“Unpack Your Adjectives.” Music by Blossom Dearie, Lyrics by Newall. Blossom Dearie (yes, that really was her name) was a jazz singer in the 50s and 60s and yes, she really did sing in that high, girlish voice. I liked this video because I can easily imagine a kid on a camping trip who complains the whole time about the tiniest things using adjectives like “frustrating” and “worst” to describe it. Plus, I just thought the little girl slapping signs on everything was kinda funny.
“I’m Just a Bill” taught how a bill becomes a law.
—“The Shot Heard ‘Round the World.” Music and lyrics by Dorough. A greatly simplified, but memorable summation of the Revolutionary War, I just remember liking the song a lot. It came in handy while writing my novel, too: I remembered this song while making a passing reference to the war.
—“Interplanet Janet.” Music and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens. Obviously one that appeals to the SF geek in me, this is another character I’d love to see something else done with, but first I think she’d have to be defined. She seems like an alien life form but she has a body like a rocket ship?—which makes me think she’s actually some manner of cybernetic creature. She probably doesn’t need to breathe since she can travel in space, but what does she use for propulsion? If there’s never been a planet Janet hasn’t seen, how fast can she travel? Light speed? Inquiring minds want to know!
—“Electricity, Electricity.” Music by Sanders, lyrics by Dorough. EEE-lec-tricity. Once you hear it, you can’t unhear it. EEE-lec-tricity.
I worked in Tower Records in 1995, which is how I learned of the rock album of SHR cover songs, Schoolhouse Rock Rocks(which makes an excellent companion piece to the rock album of cartoon theme songs, Saturday Morning Cartoons’ Greatest Hits). Listen to “I’m Just a Bill” by Deluxx Folk Implosion to get an idea of what the album’s like.
Dorough gathered new groups of musicians together to make more SHR songs in 1994-96 and again in 2009.
SHR aired on ABC, and in 1996, Disney bought ABC, so Disney... sigh... owns the rights to SHR now—but at least they actually play the series on Disney+, which is good.
SHR was and is a lot of fun and it’s good to know it hasn’t been forgotten.
This is not meant to be a definitive post on Japanese animation. There are other places you can go for a more comprehensive study on the subject. This will be much more subjective and personal and chances are I’ll have missed your favorite show and/or movie, so please, no whatabouts. I just feel I should bring it up because no discussion of Saturday morning cartoons is complete without it.
I was a tad too young for Astro Boy, Gigantor, Kimba the White Lion and Speed Racer, but they were among the first wave of animated programs to hit the States through syndication. The animation is on a par with American cartoons of the 60s: limited, stiff, broad.
Some of these characters, such as Astro Boy and Kimba, were the creations of the man considered the Japanese Disney, Osamu Tezuka. A cartoonist as well as an animator, he was first published at 17, and his graphic novel series—“manga” in Japanese—remain in print to this day. In 1961 he founded his own animation production company and his TV adaptation of Astro Boy was the first to be dubbed into English for an American audience.
The cartoons of Jay Ward are different from Looney Tunes in that there’s a higher premium on words. Not that Bugs Bunny and pals don’t engage in funny banter; they do, but with Ward his cartoons are all about the wacky wordplay: the ever-present narrator, the quickness of the delivery, the stronger sense of a plot as opposed to variations on a theme (Elmer tries to shoot Bugs, Wile E. Coyote tries to eat the Road Runner, etc.), perhaps as a means to compensate for the—let’s be honest—limitations in the animation. The scripts and the strong voice acting, shorn of the visuals, would make good radio plays.
Ward, a graduate of UC-Berkeley with an MBA from Harvard, was a television pioneer. In 1948, he and his longtime friend, animator Alex Anderson, made an animated pilot film for NBC, The Comic Strips of Television, featuring a variety of original characters. The only one NBC liked became the first animated series made for TV, Crusader Rabbit, debuting in 1950. Ward served as producer and business manager for the duo’s Television Arts Productions.
I watched some episodes for this post. The roots of later Ward shows are clearly visible: funny animals in a serialized show—squeaky-voiced “straight man” CR and dimwitted partner, in this case a tiger named Rags; villains, of a sort, who are equally silly; an omniscient narrator who interacts with the characters. The animation is very primitive, but the characters are endearingly cute and the serialized format makes one want to know what happens to them.
CR was syndicated nationwide, mostly at NBC affiliates including in New York and LA, until 1952, then a second series was commissioned in 1956 by new parent company Capital Enterprises, but Ward and Anderson lost a legal battle over ownership rights.
Next Ward packaged some more new characters in an unsold pilot, The Frostbite Falls Revue, set in the territory known as the North Woods, which covers northern Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan. It didn’t succeed, but two minor characters from the series did pretty well for themselves...
I suspect I knew, even as a kid, that Rocky & Bullwinkle were a little different from most cartoons. The fast pace, the number of jokes that flew over my head but seemed significant somehow, the humor that relied on bad puns and other turns of phrase—it wasn’t Scooby-Doo by any means.
I was used to cartoons with, shall we say, a limited range of expression, but I wasn’t accustomed to cartoons this sharp-witted. I still preferred action-adventure shows overall, but I made time for R&B whenever they were on, in its various incarnations (like Looney Tunes, it appeared under different names).
The original show, Rocky and his Friends, aired on ABC in 1959 before switching to NBC as The Bullwinkle Show in 1961. After 1964, it aired in syndication. Ward created the show with Anderson and Bill Scott. Fun fact: Dudley Do-Right, one of the show’s feature characters, began life as part of the original lineup for The Comic Strips of Television. He went on to a spin-off series of his own.
Ward and Scott collaborated on two more series, George of the Jungle (a Tarzan parody) and Super Chicken (a superhero comedy), both from 1967.
In addition to cartoon series,Ward is notable for his commercial illustration. I never ate kiddie cereals Cap’n Crunch, Quisp or Quake but he designed their mascots. Here’s the first Cap’n Crunch commercial from 1963, and it’s very much of a piece with Ward’s other cartoons:
Ward died in 1989 of renal cancer. DreamWorks Animation currently has the rights to his characters. We could use a little more of their kind of madcap humor, don’t you think?
Filmation cartoons were hit or miss for me. Often times, I liked the characters, but the actual animation could leave me cold. It never seemed as lively as it should have been—but there were some good moments.
The studio began in 1963 with three guys: Lou Scheimer, Hal Sutherland and Norm Prescott—and yes, the name is indeed a melding of film and animation, because they worked on both. Scheimer and Sutherland went back in television animation as far as 1957, and Prescott was a former disc jockey, if you can believe that, before getting into movie production.
In the company‘s early years, they did commercials, an Oz movie and some series pitches that never got far. Then DC Comics came to them wanting to adapt Superman and other heroes of theirs for animation, beginning in 1966. This led to series featuring Archie and Sabrina in 1970.
For my money, the Looney Tunes characters of the Warner Brothers Animation studio may be the funniest cartoon characters ever created. All I have to do is think of a scene of one of their classic cartoons, a line, even a word or two (“wabbit,” “puddy tat,” “duck season”) and the giggles start.
No, they weren’t always PC (especially during the war years) and some of the characters wouldn’t fly today, but audiences were a lot less uptight about such things back then. People knew how to laugh at themselves without getting butthurt, unlike today.
I’m more convinced than ever that we as a society have lost something precious because of this. In the early weeks of the quarantine, once some of the early Virus-related memes and jokes surfaced, I couldn’t laugh at them. Even now, I find it difficult to do so, but the fact that some people can find humor in something as deadly serious as the pandemic is pretty remarkable—but we’re getting off-topic.
The Looney Tunes are not the only representatives of WB’s stable of cartoon characters by any means, but they are the best, and they have a long and proud history.
Once upon a time, Saturday morning was magical. Armed with nothing more than a bowl of sugary cereal, a spoon and a drink of some sort (it didn’t matter what), you could spend hours parked in front of the TV and commune with talking animals, monsters great and small, heroes both super and non-super, cavemen, aliens, teenagers, sentient cars and little blue elves in funny hats.
You could journey to the farthest reaches of outer space or go forwards or backwards in time; travel in race cars, spaceships, magic carpets or World War 1 biplanes; control giant robots or wear magic rings; go on tour with rock bands or solve mysteries, and all from the comfort of your home.
I’m speaking, of course, of children’s animation. Cartoons.
These days, entire channels are devoted to cartoons, whether from the glory days of Saturday morning or afterschool or newer, more modern material. One can call up one’s favorites on demand from video websites like YouTube and Vimeo, or buy box sets of them on DVD or Blu-ray. This is all well and good, but someone born in the last thirty years or so will never truly understand what Saturday morning meant to those of us who looked forward to it every week.
I’ve wanted to share my memories of Saturday morning in more detail for awhile, as well as show some respect to the people responsible for creating these characters or adapting them for animation. Now seems like a very good time. My focus will be on the creators, but I’ll also discuss their creations, naturally—and afterschool cartoons will be included in the mix where appropriate.
I will not discuss The Mouse and his friends. There is a mountain of information already out there about The Big D, its history, its role in shaping American pop culture (though these days, they buy it from other people and absorb it into their ravenous maw more than they add to it), and certainly plenty of fan tributes. I feel absolutely no need to pay any more homage. At least not now.
So let’s start instead with the company that, in many ways, is synonymous with Saturday morning for a generation of kids.
I was halfway through art school when I decided I’d rather study cartooning than illustration. Many of my friends wanted to break into professional comics, which to them meant Marvel and DC Comics. A few already did while they were still in school, so I thought I had to draw superheroes too, and to draw like them: men and women with perfect physiques in a semi-realistic style. I did my best, but it was a struggle. One of my teachers recommended I look to a different model of successful comics: a series out of France called Asterix.
European comics characters crossed over into movies and TV when Kevin Feige was still in diapers. Some examples Americans knew about for years include the animated film version of Heavy Metal; the Jane Fonda flick Barbarella, and of course, The Smurfs on Saturday mornings!
In 1726, before the American Revolution, before the births of Thomas Jefferson, Charles Darwin and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Jonathan Swift published a novel with the humble title Travels Into Several Remote Nations of the World in Four Parts by Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and Then a Captain of Several Ships. And if you think that’s long, you should’ve seen what he wanted to call it!
Swift’s piece of speculative fiction was a brutal satire of British society and politics, but somewhere along the way, people only remembered the tiny people and the giants and reinterpreted it as kiddie lit, which I suppose is like reading Animal Farm, remembering only the talking animals, and turning it into a nursery rhyme. Anyway, by 1939, it was deemed safe for the younglings and thus was turned into an animated musical because amusing little kids was totally Swift’s true intent all along.
I had talked about Fleischer Studios here before—the animation studio responsible for Betty Boop, Popeye, and other early 20th-century cartoon characters. They first brought Superman to the big screen shortly after his creation. Their rotoscoping technique of animation would be duplicated at Disney and elsewhere for decades to come.
I don’t have a whole lot to say this month for once—except, of course, to remind you the Butlers & Maids Blogathon is later this month and there’s still time to join Paddy and me for it if you want. Leave a comment here or tweet me at @ratzo318 and you’ll be set.
This Chaplin GIF is submitted in an attempt to lighten all our spirits.
It’s not too late to reboot 2020 so we can start over, is it?
The holiday season, at least, was a good one. Virginia took me to a Cirque du Soleil show at Madison Square Garden, and in turn, I took her to a performance of Messiah at Carnegie Hall. These were our Christmas gifts to each other. It was the first time I had seen either one. On Christmas night we had dinner with friends—I made a salad—and on New Year’s Eve she and Sandi were once again part of the annual free choral recital in midtown Manhattan. Ann was part of it too, for the first time. It was kinda funny how many people I knew in the chorus this year. Our after-party was a tad smaller than last year, but that was okay.
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Last month was a sad one for Trekkies. On the heels of the death of popular Deep Space Nine supporting player Aron Eisenberg, we lost more stars, from both sides of the camera. I’ve talked about DC Fontana here before; not too much more to add. As a woman writer, she was an inspiration to many who came after her, whether they were professionals in the industry or fans writing for SF zines. As for Rene Auberjonois, I remember feeling good about him joining the cast of DS9 because of his TV and film work elsewhere, and his was a tremendous contribution. His interpretation of Odo was as a multi-faceted character, loaded with contradictions, yet with a human touch underneath his brusque exterior. His relationships with Kira and Quark were fascinating to watch unfold and they brought so much depth to the overall story. Great artists who gave us much to be thankful for as fans.
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On a somewhat happier Trek-related note: I had made peace with the belief I would never get to see Star Trek: Discovery, but Ann acquired CBS All Access last month and she was kind enough to invite me to her house so we could binge-watch it. No, I did not expect to do that quite so soon after my little experiment, but life, y’know?
We watched the first twelve or so episodes of Season 1, over two nights. I won’t go into specific details here, but while some things were impressive—Michael Burnham is a unique character in Trek lore, with her own set of morals, and I like the premise of a disgraced Starfleet officer seeking redemption—there was a lot more I didn’t care for. The technology which clearly is superior to that of Kirk’s era; the profanity, which wasn’t Scorsese-level but served no purpose I could tell; the gee-whiz shots of outside the Discovery and then zooming inside; the stronger-than-usual emphasis on action; the unnecessary redesign of the Klingons; the de-emphasis on Starfleet values; the generic American crew; the lack of humor, THE CONSTANT GODDAMN CUTS.
If you wanna get into specifics, let’s talk in the comments. For now, I’ll just say: I understand this is set during a time of war, but even during the Dominion War, DS9 placed a greater emphasis on character and plots tailored around each character than what I’ve seen from Discovery so far. That may change, but I’m not convinced yet. Here’s hoping Picard will be better.
Angela’s Ashes is one of my most cherished books and Frank McCourt is one of my most beloved authors. The vividness of his descriptions, the way he created a narrative voice and sustained it, his sense of humor, his empathy for his characters, made him a treasure to read, and still does. Plus, he became a literary star late in life, which provides hope for this aspiring writer.
In 2007, two years before his death, McCourt wrote his first and only children’s book, Angela and the Baby Jesus, which could be considered the prequel to Ashes. It’s based on a story his mother, Angela, told him as a kid about when she was a kid, set during Christmas. In 2017, Netflix and Ireland’s Brown Bag Films adapted the story into a 30-minute animated short, Angela’s Christmas. Malachy McCourt, Frank’s brother and a bit of a celebrity himself, narrates and Ruth Negga voices Angela’s mother. The late Dolores O’Riordan of the Cranberries performed a song.
In 1910 Limerick, Ireland, young Angela is about to celebrate the Christmas season at church with her family. She sees a doll of the baby Jesus on display in its traditional tableau, with Mary and Joseph, in the stable, etc., and being a child, thinks He must be cold. She secretly steals the doll and takes it home to warm it up, only to discover why what she did was wrong from her mother. Director Damien O’Connor, in this interview, discusses the meaning of the story to him:
The story is ultimately about family with warmth representing love. That connected into everything - visually you have the blue and gold in almost every shot with gold representing love. As Angela moves through the story she moves from the cold blues into the warmth, eventually ending up fully basked in the gold heat of the family fire. Once you have the theme then you have a clear path for the writing, if a scene was not working in the script it was usually because we strayed from the theme.
Frank McCourt fans will recognize the Limerick represented here as the one from his childhood as depicted in Ashes: devoutly Catholic to the point of superstition, yet basically warm-hearted and sentimental like many people at Christmas time. The computer-generated animation is splendid; Angela is wide-eyed and innocent, yet with a soupçon of Irish sassiness. I like the interaction with her brothers. Negga as the mother adds exactly the right touch. Absolutely worth viewing whether you’re Catholic or not.
So what do I think about that Cats trailer? Now that you’ve heard everyone else’s opinion...
Back in the 90s, I saw on VHS a production of the Broadway show, so I’m familiar with it. I always thought it was peculiar. This, though, is on another level. The trailer didn’t freak me out as much as it did some people—I stayed up half the night watching “reaction” videos on YouTube—but yeah, turning the cast into CGI human-cat hybrids may not have been the wisest decision. (On the other hand, we now know a Thundercats movie is possible!) It’s doubtful the fans of the show would have accepted an animated version, though, so this is what we’re left with, not that anybody was clamoring for a Cats movie in 2019 to begin with. Plus, while I can hardly object to Jenny Hudson’s rendition of “Memory”—easily the best thing about that trailer—from the looks of her, I couldn’t help thinking she’s just reprising her role from Dreamgirls.
Still, it is Cats, and because it’s Cats, people will turn out for it, especially at Christmas. It’s one of those things where if you love it, you adore it wholeheartedly. I know; I was the same way with Rent, but that didn’t have CGI human-cat hybrids. So I guess between this and the Lion King remake, this will be remembered as (with apologies to Al Stewart) the year of the cat.
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Don’t have too much else to say at the moment, so let’s jump straight to the links:
I’m taking a longer summer vacation than usual to catch up on my fiction writing. If anything eventful happens, or if you wanna talk, I’ll be on Twitter (@ratzo318), but otherwise, I’ll return here on July 12.
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Add the City Cinemas Paris in midtown Manhattan to the endangered species list for movie theaters in New York. I haven’t been here much, but it’s a gorgeous one-screen theater that feels both modern and old school. I even remember the first film I saw there; it was Polanski’s Death and the Maiden, with Sigourney Weaver. Also saw Life is Beautiful. In recent years, I went there a few more times with my movie-going crew. Don’t know if I’ll make it back there this summer or not, but if it folds, New York will have lost another cinematic treasure.
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Not much else to say right now, so let’s go straight to the links:
Toy Story 4
seen @ Cinemart Fiveplex, Forest Hills, Queens NY
SPOILERS
The first three Toy Story films rank up there with the greatest live-action trilogies in history. The fourth is a kind of post-script, one I never would’ve thought was necessary until I actually saw it. TS4 reminded me that these films were, and always had been, Woody’s story. His relationship with Andy has always lain at the heart of everything: not a parent, not quite a guardian, but something more than a friend (Randy Newman’s theme song notwithstanding), and for the first three films Woody’s purpose was to be there for Andy, no matter what. Now, though, Andy has grown up and moved on, and Woody is young Bonnie’s toy now — but his relationship with her is not the same.
Toy Story was Woody’s story. But his story has come to an end.*
Normally I don’t talk about blogathons in advance other than my own, but I’ve signed up for one that represents another first for this blog. Silver Screen Suppers pairs movie and TV stars with recipes. You might be aware that I’ve gotten into cooking in recent years, and I’ve found it fulfilling. The blog’s creator, Jenny Hammerton, has self-published Hollywood cookbooks, and she’s currently working on one devoted to the show Murder She Wrote. She has a ton of recipes lined up and she’s giving her readers the opportunity to cook them before the book comes out. Instead of a blogathon, it’s a cookalong!
So yes, I intend to cook a recipe and blog about it here on WSW. The recipes in the cookalong are tied to the MSW cast and its guest stars, many of whom come from Old Hollywood. The one I’ve chosen is for a guest star, Glynis Johns. I’m unfamiliar with her; a basic search reveals she was in Mary Poppins, and was quite the hottie in her youth.
I hope to find the MSW episode she was in and write about that (no guarantees), but even if I don’t, I’ll cook the recipe associated with her, chicken paprika. Apparently it’s her own recipe, or at least it’s attributed to her. The cookalong runs from September 30-October 5. My post will go up in October. (EDIT: Just remembered this won’t be the first time I’ve cooked for the blog, but it will be the first time I’ve documented the process.)
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I’m afraid I don’t have much to say about Doris Day. I was never a huge fan. One of my mother’s favorite songs is “Que Sera Sera.” She used to sing it a lot when I was a kid. I’ve seen Day in Pillow Talk (liked it) and The Man Who Knew Too Much (don’t remember it). Ivan used to do a feature called “Doris Day(s)” that he keeps promising to bring back. Maybe her death will spur him into reviving it, so you should visit him and prod him if you’re interested. I know she wasn’t all sweetness and light, like her public image had been. Maybe if she had more of an edge in her films, I might’ve been more interested in them? Dunno.
As for Tim Conway, here’s an anecdote about him from Carol Burnett’s memoir This Time Together. Burnett was friends with Cary Grant, who was a big fan of her TV show. He particularly enjoyed Conway and Harvey Korman. Burnett introduced them to each other, and one day Conway, Korman, Grant, and their respective wives hung out together. Grant had an awesome time. He thought Conway and Korman were hilarious. The following week, Grant invited Conway and Korman out again, and again Grant was fully entertained by the duo’s antics. The third time, same thing, and the more this kept going, the more Conway and Korman feared they’d run out of material. But this was, after all, Cary Grant, and they didn’t wanna let him down. Finally, Conway got a call at the same time Grant always called him, and he said, “If that’s Cary Grant, I’m not home!”
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Sometime within the next week I expect to finish my experiment in binge-watching television. I chose the first seasons of two streaming programs, Ozark and Longmire. I’m watching the former one episode at a time, and when that’s done, I’ll watch the latter all at once, and then I’ll compare. The more I read about bingeing, the more convinced I am that I should take precautions when I binge — and some people have expressed concern (I ain’t no Morgan Spurlock), so for the record, I intend to alternate between sitting and standing often, snack healthily (fruit, nuts, berries, etc.) with a break for a home-cooked dinner. Given what I’ve read, and the responses to my inquiries about bingeing from my friends, I think I know what my results will be, but I’m gonna see this through anyway.
My reaction isn't too different from yours, I imagine: I'm not thrilled at Disney's monopolistic takeover of American pop culture and I fear this may not be the end.
The former's acquisition of the latter is a reaction to the rise of online streaming as a viable outlet for film distribution. The Mouse wants in on that — and once they launch their own platform for it this year, they will —but they also wanna stay competitive.
I guess at this point all I wanna say is this: if you're fed up with Disney owning everything, step outside your comfort zone and see what else is out there. The little guys, the properties without a budget, without a slick marketing campaign, will need our help to survive now more than ever. You don't have to settle for the same old thing if you don't want to — and obviously, this applies to way more than just movies and television.
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This month's link roundup includes stories related to the Disney-Fox deal, none of which involve superheroes:
