Bill here. Dave and I took the wives to see Counting Crows last week, where Dave caught the flu. I contend he caught it sniffing up that redhead in the tubetop. Doesnt matter. According to him, its all just dreadful. What a drama queen. To help, I mixed up some homemade Tamiflu from stuff I found in his garage, but was he grateful? No, he just threw up on me. Ingrate.
And Dave is diabetic, which means that when his temperature goes up and he cant eat, he goes blind. Thats apparently something they leave off of the diabetes sales brochures. He was in the dark for about seven hours and youd think it was the end of the world: bitchin and moanin and screaming at his dead mother, whom he swore was in the room with him. I calmly pointed out that he didnt inherit the disease from her. He just screamed at me again, then passed out. Hes much better now, coming in and out of consciousness like a leaf on a Tim Leary ocean of chaos.
Anyway, our LEO uberlords tell me that we have to print something this week or we lose our parking space, so I thought Id take a look at my favorite Christmas videos. Not exactly original, but what do you want for free?
A Muppet Family Christmas (1987) Long out of print in the US used copies go for upwards of $150 you can still get all-region imports for under $25. It features every single Muppet, monster, Fraggle, thingie, whatsit and Sesame Streeter in existence in 87, all arriving unexpectedly at Foz E. Bears moms house for Christmas. The video suffers just a bit from corporate skulduggery: They were forced to remove a Muppet Babies song because Disney was busy buying up Henson characters between air-time and video-release. A few other minor slices, but its still a full TV-hour of non?stop Muppet songs and silliness that could put even the most jaded of Scrooges in a holiday mood. But the best part is a brief cameo by Jim, himself, at the very end, just a couple of years before his death in 1990. Its the finest Christmas present he could have given. I get misty just thinking about it.
The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992) Digging through my video annex, I see that there are at least 25 different versions A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens haunting tale of Ebenezer Scrooges redemption. To continue with the fleecy theme thus far, Id suggest The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992). With Jims passing, son Brian struggled with the reigns of the family business, launching such ambitious projects as Farscape in 1999. But this was one of his earliest successes, with Michael Caine as that squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire secret, self?contained and solitary as an oyster. Man, I wish I could scribble that good. Kermit The Frog makes a surprisingly proud and upright Bob Cratchit, with Miss Piggy as his wife, of course, while The Great Gonzo keeps things wonderfully off-kilter as our spry narrator, Mr. Charles Dickens, himself. Rizzo the Rat accompanies Gonzo as our Everyman/Greek Chorus, all to some of Paul Williams best original tunes (at least one of which was cut, again by Disney, just to put the dick back in Dickens). All this, plus some of the finest sets the Muppet Workshop has ever produced, can be had on DVD for under a sawbuck ($10, numnuts), though we suggest you invest another fiver and grab the 2-disc 20th Anniversary Blu-Ray Edition. Yule love it! Sorry.
A Christmas Carol (1938) Okay, I need just a bit more to get the hell out of here, so well continue with the Scrooge thread. My personal, non-Muppet fave A Christmas Carol is the one with Reginald Owen in the lead from 1938, with much of the Lockhart family as various Cratchitii. Father Gene the judge from Miracle on 34th Street portrays put-upon clerk Bob, while mother Kathleen (Blondie, 1938) plays the Missus. The best-remembered of the children is Belinda, played by daughter June Lockhart, who made quite a career out of playing moms. She was Lassies mom from 1958-64, distaff head of the Space Family Robinson on Lost In Space (1965-68), John Larroquettes mother on The John Larroquette Show in 93, and she popped up yet again as Leons Mother in a 95 episode of Roseanne, among hundreds of other roles. Or, if you have a more historical bent, she famously lead anti-war rallies winding up behind bars on more than one occasion back during the Vietnam days.
Mister Magoos Christmas Carol (1962) What? You prefer your ghostly visitors more animated? Then enjoy the overlooked Mister Magoos Christmas Carol, a 1962 TV movie starring Jim Backus as Scrooge, Jack Cassidy (husband of Shirley Jones) as Cratchit, the great Royal Dano as Marleys ghost, outré movie legend Les Tremayne as Christmas Present, and voice-artist supreme Paul Frees as pretty much everyone else. But what really sets this apart is the absolutely extraordinary music. And heres a clever bit of movie trivia for your next boring holiday gathering: one additional song, called People, was written for this cartoon, but its authors, Bob Merrill and Jule Styne, missed their deadline. They sold it instead to Barbra Streisand, and it remains her signature tune to this day.
Uh, oh. Daves crying again -- says You assholes enjoy your Toll House cookies, ya hear? so Ill end with upbeat humor: Whats the difference is between a diarrhetic prostitute and an epileptic oysterman? One shucks between fits.
Merry Christmas, Bill
A More Complete Listing and Free Vids at videotapeworm.com