A Trap for Santa!

This year...this crappy, crappy year...we're going all out, with our first major multimedia holiday special!

By which I mean, I told Jeff I wasn't feeling the Yuletide spirit this year, and he decided to remedy that by forcing me to record an impromptu commentary track to a forgotten D.W. Griffith Christmas movie. It was fun, I have to admit, although it involved more cannibalism than I was expecting.

Minyans

 

While his wife Mary had tactfully pointed out the bigger issues (they were far from home, couldn’t find a hotel room, and her water broke in a barn) it wasn’t until this moment that Joseph began to have second thoughts about hiring that party clown for his son’s birthday.

My Heart Belongs to Daddy (Because He's an Organ-Collecting Psychopath)

By Bill S.

It's Father's Day, and, as we do every year, we celebrate by remembering the movie and TV dads who make us grateful for the ones we had. This year, we'll spotlight three memorably awful TV dads (if your own dad was worse, you have our sympathies.)

Billy (Denis Leary) on "Animal Kingdom"

It might not come as a surprise that none of the Cody brothers has the same biological dad. Apparently when Smurf was on the road, she hooked up with a different guy and added a new kid to her brood. (Instead of forming a pop band, like Shirley Partridge, she opted to make petty crime the family business. Probably because the wardrobe was cooler.) It's hard to decide which of Smurf's exes was the biggest waste of space, but I'd pick Billy, the father of youngest son Deran (the "nice" one). After abandoning him for years, Billy drops back into Deran's life, reeking of cheap liquor, skunk weed, and poor judgement (all of which were probably factors in the kid's conception). He nonetheless earns Deran's trust, and repays that trust by sticking around long enough to help the Codys pull off one job, then heading to Deran's bar to help out with some cleaning -- namely, the safe, which he empties, and takes off all over again.

August Cartwright (John Emmett Tracy)/Dr. Ethan Campbell (Sebastian Roche) on "Batwoman"

After witnessing a car plunge into a lake, he dives into the water to rescue 13 year old Beth Kane. He brings her to his home...and holds her prisoner, to be a playmate/pet for his facially deformed son Johnny, who's also basically a prisoner, isolated from the outside world. He turns those children into monsters. As a bonus, he also recovers the body of Beth's mother, and keeps the dead woman's severed head in a freezer, with plans to transplant her face onto his own mother. He later surgically alters his own face to assume the identity of a respected doctor.

This guy would scare the crap out of Norman Bates.

Dr. Martin Whitley (Michael Sheen) on "Prodigal Son"

A prominent surgeon, responsible for saving countless lives. Also, a serial killer responsible for at least 23 murders. When his son discovers one of the bodies, and with it, the truth about his father, he's emotionally scarred for life. 

Michael Sheen deserves an Emmy for turning "My boy!" into the creepiest phrase in the English language. In the Season one finale, we learn Whitley has also done severe damage to his seemingly normal daughter, leading him to proudly beam, "My girl!"

This guy would scare the crap out of August Cartwright.

I'll close with a message to all you Dads out there: Parenting is tough, and you may, at times, wonder if you've made the best choices for your kids. Take heart -- if you're not a murderous sociopath, chained to the wall of a prison cell, wondering when your kids will visit, then you're probably doing an okay job.

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Easter

It was the most difficult and joyless Easter the kids had ever known, separated from friends and family by the quarantine. But they didn't complain, or lose faith, and the Easter Bunny was so touched by their pureness of spirit and the goodness in their hearts that he rewarded the children by revealing his true form to them. It wasn't as enchanting as they'd hoped, and things didn't improve much when he whisked them away to a shuttered AMC multiplex and made them watch his entire collection of vintage 35MM porn.

Happy New Year

“Look” Grandma said, “It was the Great Depression. Private nursing jobs were hard to come by, and if your plutocratic employer wanted you to help him snipe debutantes from his oxygen tent, well then you steadied his palsied hand and didn’t ask any impertinent questions.”

Hey guys. I hope everyone has a good New Years, and a better new year. 

That's Entertainment? Babes in Toyland (1934)

By Hank Parmer

Since this is the time of year when Christmas movie reviews litter the intertubes, and since the retro stuff seems to be more my bailiwick, I thought a look back at the 1934 Laurel and Hardy vehicle Babes in Toyland (original title: March of the Wooden Soldiers) might be worthwhile. Even though the holiday connection is rather tenuous, with Santa only appearing for a short cameo, and in fact, according to the movie's outrageously overacting villain the action is taking place in the middle of July.

But from the time this loose adaptation of Victor Herbert's insanely popular 1903 operetta debuted in November of '34, it's been considered a Thanksgiving/Christmas holiday film. So much so that it became a staple on second-tier TV and UHF stations, before Rankin-Bass, etc. began to crank out fare oriented toward a more contemporary kiddie market. There was even an edited down to 45 minutes version, which was distributed free to public schools back in the 1950s.

The "bogeymen" certainly scared the willies out of me when I saw this movie as a preschooler. Viewing it as an adult, though, I can't help but feel there's way too much Victor Herbert -- okay, "The March of the Toys" is a catchy little tune -- and nowhere near enough Laurel and Hardy. Although it is slightly refreshing to see a kiddie flick that wasn't put together for the sole purpose of merchandising hunks of Chinese plastic.

We begin with an introductory solo from Mother Goose:

Sorry... Thought it was the porta-potty!

Of all the lands you youngsters will travel in your dreams, she promises in her tune, the best of them is Toyland.

And at first glance, it does seem an enchanting place. Characters from nursery rhymes and fairy tales throng its quaint, quasi-Medieval streets, everyone from the Three Little Pigs to the Cat with a Fiddle. Who's relentlessly stalked by a mischievous monkey in a Mickey Mouse costume.

That's the original Mickey Mouse, who if you ask me looks more like a rat. His presence here might seem odd to anyone familiar with the litigious ways of our modern entertainment juggernaut, but back then Walt was eager enough for the publicity to let Hal Roach borrow the character. Although that hairy, prehensile tail is disturbingly un-mouselike.

Nursery rhymes are literally interpreted here in Toyland, even to the extent of egregious child neglect, like the rock-a-bye baby whose cradle is precariously parked twenty feet up in the top of a slender pine.

The main plot revolves around the Old Lady Who Lives in a Shoe. You know, the one who had so many children she didn't know what to do. (Note that the question of how she came by all these children is deftly handled by identifying her as Widow Peep. You know, lady, contraception might have been something worth checking out.) Tragically, she's actually only in her mid-thirties.

The eldest of her extensive brood is Little Bo Peep. (Charlotte Henry -- who, at age 19, had played the title character in Paramount's 1933 film of Alice in Wonderland.)  Bo Peep's love interest is Tom-Tom, piper's son and lead tenor. (Felix Knight)

But there's a dark undercurrent to life in this magical realm and capitalist's paradise. For starters, creepy Silas Barnaby (Henry Brandon) is about to foreclose on the old lady's shoe. As is traditional in these affairs, he offers to forget about the mortgage, if he can have innocent Bo Peep's hand in marriage.

Brandon -- billed here in his first credited movie role as "Henry Kleinbach" -- was actually only twenty-two at the time he played the distinctly Fagin-esque miser, a part that launched him on a career as a character actor on the silver screen. Mostly portraying heavies, albeit thankfully without the age makeup. Occasionally in A-list features like John Ford's The Searchers, where he played "Chief Scar", but more often in far less prestigious fare. (MST3K fans may remember him as the space pirate "Rinkman" from the Rocky Jones epic Manhunt in Space.)

Surprisingly, Widow Peep also found space in her size 1000 Doc Marten for a couple of lodgers, Stannie Dum and Ollie Dee. As she's preparing their breakfast, Ollie notices she's holding back the tears. When he learns the cause of her distress, he gallantly offers to donate their savings to help pay the mortgage.

But oh dear, Stannie raided the piggy bank. He spent their entire accumulated capital -- a dollar and 48 cents -- on something he calls his "pee wee". Ollie promises he'll try hitting up their boss for a loan.

On their way to work, Ollie demands to see Stannie's pee wee.

Have a Very World O' Crap Christmas!

I hope everyone's having a lovely day. This is the first Christmas in 20 years or so that Mary and I have been apart, as we drew the Comfort the Afflicted and/or Quadrupedal straw -- she's out in the desert looking after her bedridden mother, while I'm dog-sitting for my sister up in Portland.

I grew up with dogs, but it's been decades since I've owned one, and I'd forgotten how labor-intensive they are -- both emotionally and, uh, alimentarily -- but the companionship they provide is top-notch. However, like the Ethiopians that various British rock stars sung about in "Do They Know It's Christmas?", the dogs apparently don't, and since the house isn't decorated (there was no point since the family would be out of town for the holiday), I've been doing my best to pretend it's not actually the Yuldetide in order to modulate my self-pity.

But then Facebook decided to bombard me with memories of Christmas Pasts, and while I still don't care about the holiday, I do miss Riley, because nobody could get into the spirit of the season like she could:

So Merry Christmas (or ELSE!, apparently....)

Live Bloggin' Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

BILL S: I think I'll "Liveblog" tonight's airing of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer"

SCOTT: I think that might be a good idea--

BILL S: TRY AND STOP ME!

SCOTT: Um...

BILL S: In the 50's and '60's, Burl Ives was known as an Oscar-winning character actor and Grammy-winning country singer.Today he's known mainly as a talking snowman.

SAM THE SNOWMAN: Some people say I'm just a ripoff of Frosty the Snowman, but can Frosty play the banjo? No. And do I make sinister promises as I melt, like "I'll be back again someday!", which sounds like something a serial killer would whisper just as you pulled the lever on him in the death house?

Again, no.

Anyway...🎶 Have a holly, jolly Christmas... 🎶

BILL S: If I can't recall "the most famous reindeer of all", why would I remember the others?

BILL S: The lightbulb aspect of Rudolph's nose isn't nearly as off putting as that damn NOISE it makes--it's worse than the Emergency Broadcast test signal.

SCOTT: This has been a test of the Emergency Broadcast Network. Had this been an actual red-nosed reindeer, you would have been instructed where to tune in your area for news and official information.

BILL S: Why aren't Rudolph's parents more freaked out by the fact that he's only a few minutes old and can already speak, and identify Santa? That's some creepy demonic shit there.

SCOTT: To be fair, baby Rudolph is slightly less disturbing than the madly crackling zombie deer head in Evil Dead II.

Slightly.

BILL S: In the first of many times Santa will behave like a total dick in this cartoon, warning Donner that his kid's abnormality will disqualify him to pull the sleigh.

SANTA: Why you little freak! Your parents ought to pin your ankles together and leave you to die of exposure on a hillside, like Oedipus. But I suppose then you'd just come back and bang your mother!

BILL S: All these years I thought the elf aspiring to be a dentist was named "Herbie". It's HERMY--a name that probably dropped in popularity after this cartoon aired.

BILL S: Donner is so embarrassed by his kid's birth defect he forces Rudolph to wear a fake nose. Great parenting, dude.

BILL S: The elves put on a cheerful musical number about how great it is to work for Santa. His reaction: "It needs work". First off, it sounded fine, and second, even if it wasn't, they're toymakers, not professional singers. And they're doing it for him. Ungrateful bastard.

BILL S: The Reindeer Games: bringing back all of our most awkward memories from middle school gym class.

Oh great, now the President's weighing in...

DONNER J. TRUMP: So ridiculous. Rudolph must work on his Anger Management problem, then go to a good old fashioned movie with a friend! Chill Rudolph, Chill!

BILL S: How the heck does Clarice get that bow on her head? Even if she could somehow grip it with her front hooves, she'd fall flat on her face. And don't get me started on the fake eyelashes.

BILL S: "She thinks I'm cuuuuute!!!"

So we have confirmation Rudolph's straight. Still not so sure about Hermy.

BILL S: Santa, being a dick again, telling Donner he should be ashamed of Rudolph, who remember, is still a child, and being subjected to taunts, not just from other kids, but even the coach.

SANTA: You're son's a FREAK! You should have had him DESTROYED!

DONNER: I know, but there's so much paperwork--

SANTA: Nonsense! I RULE these frozen wastelands with an iron hand! Say the word and I'll make that grotesque insult to nature DISAPPEAR! We'll bury him in an unmarked grave, salt the ground, and declare his very NAME a CURSE!

DONNER: Um--

SANTA: What! YOU have a BETTER idea??

DONNER: No! Of course not, sir. I mean...you know...maybe show him unconditional love? Build up his self-esteem a little...?

SANTA: None of that's covered in your dependent benefits. Check your employee handbook, under the "So You've Whelped an Abomination" section, then skip down to subsection IV: Bury, Salt, Curse.

BILL S: "There's Always Tomorrow". Nice tune. Clarice has a nice voice. Yes, I know what I just said.

BILL S: I could swear when this thing originally aired, Hermy and Rudolph had another duet, "Fame and Fortune"--was it cut to make room for more commercial time?

SCOTT: From Wikipedia:

1965–1997 telecastsThe 1965 broadcast also included a new duet between Rudolph and Hermey called "Fame and Fortune", which replaced a scene in which the same characters sang "We're a Couple of Misfits". Viewers of the 1964 special complained that Santa was not shown fulfilling his promise to the Misfit Toys (to include them in his annual toy delivery). In reaction, a new scene for subsequent rebroadcasts was produced with Santa making his first stop at the Island to pick up the toys. This is the ending that has been shown on all telecasts and video releases ever since. Until sometime in the 1970s the special aired without additional cuts, but eventually more commercial time was required by the network. In 1978, several sequences were deleted to make room for more advertising: the instrumental bridge from "We Are Santa's Elves" featuring the elf orchestra, additional dialogue by Burl Ives, and the "Peppermint Mine" scene resolving the fate of Yukon Cornelius.The special's 1993 restoration saw "Misfits" returned to its original film context, and the 2004 DVD release showcases "Fame and Fortune" as a separate musical number. 

1998–2004 CBS telecastsMost of the 1965 deletions were restored in 1998, and "Fame and Fortune" was replaced with the original "We're a Couple of Misfits" reprise...The "Peppermint Mine" scene was not restored; until 2019, it had not been shown on television since the initial broadcast in 1964.

 BILL S: Is anyone else completely grossed out by the Abominable Snow Monster, AKA The Bumble?

Yukon Cornelius: Beware, boys! His tangled, matted, hairy junk is right at eye level!

BILL S: Oh great, they escaped from the Bumble--by floating on a tiny ice raft to who knows where.

SCOTT: I always assumed they were floating down river, Huck 'n' Jim style, to the town of Hyperthermia, MO.

BILL S: The Misfit Toys are sentient, and can talk, sing and dance--that's way cooler than the crap the elves are making.

BILL S: "How would you like to be a bird that doesn't fly--I swim!"
So...a penguin?

BILL S: King Moonracer is a winged lion--which makes him the biggest freak on the island.

KING MOONRACER: Yeah, very funny, smart guy. Too bad for you my cloaca's opening...

BILL S: Rudolph returns home, and learns that his parents and Clarice have left to look for him. They could be dead or seriously injured, but all Santa cares about is how it affects HIM. Without Donner, what will he do? I dunno, use the other seven Reindeer? All this time, he never had a backup plan?

SCOTT: And he's agitated and skinny--everyone comments on it. I think while everyone else is busy making toys, Santa is off secretly cooking meth.

BILL S: Why don't the reindeer escape the Bumble by just FLYING AWAY?

SCOTT: People asked John McCain the same thing, and the answer is the same: the Bumbles, like the North Vietnamese, received sophisticated anti-aircraft batteries from the Soviet Union. The North Pole is where the Cold War got COLD, man.

BILL S: "Why doesn't he get it over with?" Gosh, you almost never hear someone in a holiday special aimed at children express a yearning for the sweet relief of death.

If I ever go missing, I hope nobody in my family is stupid enough to look for me in the den of a dangerous predator.

BILL S: Oh, great the Bumble wants a job. Just what we need, a ladder that eats and poops.

BILL S: "That silly elf song is driving me crazy"
It's a good thing he didn't hear the new verse:
"We are Santa's elves
No life for ourselves
We're enslaved by a cranky tyrant,
We are Santa's elves"

BILL S: The snowstorm is so terrible Santa will have to cancel Christmas. I'm sure Jesus will be very disappointed.

JESUS: Alexa, where's my stuff??

BILL S: So, earlier, Santa was worried about how he'd be able to fly without Donner, his lead reindeer, but now he's asking Rudolph, who's NEVER done it in his life, to lead them all?

Rudolph is was too forgiving. If it had been me, I'd be like, "Oh, NOW you want my help? Suck my pointy antlers, old man."

BILL S: I wonder if those living Misfit Toys are creeped out by the inanimate toys the elves made--imagine being on a plane where half the passengers are mannequins.

SCOTT: Well, I was on a plane once where about half the passengers were watching Mannequin.

It was chilling...

BILL S: Also, an umbrella isn't a parachute, so those Misfit Toys are crashing to the ground to their deaths.

LES NESSMAN: The toys are hitting the ground like bags of wet cement!

BILL S: In the X-rated version of "Rudolph", the line "he went down in history" had a different meaning entirely.

BILL S: Well, that's it. Hope you all enjoyed my live blogging of 'Rudolph". Good night all.

Dr. Tongue's House of 3-D Apathy

ME: Look upon this fearsome black cat! Harbinger of evil! Mistress of the dead! She is known as Shadow and her name is spoken only in dread whispers! FEAR HER!

SHADOW: I refuse to participate in this bullshit.

ME: C'mon, it's Halloween--

SHADOW: Fuck off.

All right, fine. Mary's the one with the holiday mojo, but she's been out of town this week caring for her mother and my efforts to enlist the cats in some Halloween hijinks have clearly fallen flat. So I guess I'll just make a drink and go watch It or Them! or some other pronoun-themed horror flick. Hell, maybe I'll get drunk enough to go for a noun (albeit starting slow, with a vague one) and put on The Thing.

Happy Halloween guys.

Happy Father's Day

By Bill S.
It's Father's Day, and as always, we celebrate the occasion by remembering TV and Movie dads who make us grateful for the one we had. This year I thought I'd take a slightly different approach, by focusing on one TV show, and honoring a film actor who excelled at playing questionable dads. I'll call it the "RiverDuvall" edition.

WORST TV DADS
The men of Riverdale.  An insane mix of Beverly Hills 90210, One Tree Hill and Peyton Place (with just a smidgen of Twin Peaks sprinkled in), Riverdale is one of my favorite current guilty pleasures. (To give you an idea of just how far it strays from the old "Archie" comics, the reigning male sex symbol is Jughead, owing mainly to the casting of Cole Sprouse.) Just about every parent on the show is a hot mess in one way or another, with the exception of Archie's dad Fred (one reason among many why Luke Perry will be sorely missed). Among the show's terrible dads...

Clifford Blossom (Barclay Hope). The father of twins Jason and Cheryl, he earned his money supposedly by selling maple syrup, but that's just a front for drug trafficking, including a substance known as "Jingle-Jangle" (an in-joke reference to a bubblegum pop hit by The Archies). When Jason found out, Clifford killed him. Once his secret was known by the town, he committed suicide. Barclay Hope returned to the series to play Clifford's twin brother Claudius, allowing to play a terrible uncle.

Hiram Lodge (Mark Consuelos). Don't ask my why I know this, but Mark won the "Choice TV Villain" prize at last year's Teen Choice Awards. Veronica's dad is the richest man in town, and it turns out he's a mob boss intent on owning all of Riverdale. Which is pretty much what we all suspected although in the comic book, although there he didn't have washboard abs and teeth that outshine the sun.

Hal Cooper (Lochlyn Monro). I'd have to recap three seasons worth of storylines to describe how evil Betty's father was, but I'll just bottom-line it for you all: he turned out to be the serial killer known as "The Hood" who'd been terrorizing the town. Which really put a strain on his relationship with Betty.

Edgar Evernever (Chad Michael Murray). The leader of a creepy religious cult known as "The Farm". With the help of his teenage daughter Evelyn, he lured otherwise sensible people into joining by hypnotizing them into believing they were seeing deceased loved ones...and then harvesting their organs for sale on the black market. Edgar's inclusion on this list is debatable though, since we eventually find out that Evelyn is neither a teenager nor his daughter, but actually his wife. Well, one of them anyway.

WORST MOVIE DADS
A while back, I devoted a Mother's Day column to actress Jessica Walter, who played quite a few terrible moms in her career. This year, I thought I'd single out an actor for his portrayal of bad dads: seven time Oscar nominee Robert Duvall. Of course in his six decades long career, he's played a wide variety of memorable characters. Yet it's surprising how often he earned a spot on the Bad Dad list. Among them:

Lt. Col. Wilbur "Bull" Meechum in The Great Santini.  Probably the movie character who leaps to the front of our minds when we think "terrible dad", Bull was a bully, a racist, homophobic, sexist and seemingly incapable of showing any warmth. Who could forget the scene where he bounces a basketball off his son's head? Most of the characters are afraid of standing up to him, which is why we're grateful for his daughter Mary Anne (Lisa Jane Persky), who uses humor to undermine his authority and call him out on his crap. My favorite scene is the one in which she jokingly claims to be pregnant, describing the father, "Rufus", as  a negro, intellectual, pacifist homosexual: "You'll get to like him after awhile, Dad. Dwarfs are easy to like, especially when they're cross-eyed!" Bull is not amused.

Mac Sledge in Tender Mercies. The role that won him an Oscar. Mac is a once famous country star who destroyed his life with hard drinking and hard living. He gets a second chance in life when he meets a young widow with an eight year old son, quitting drinking and finding Jesus. Which is all very nice for him, but what about the people he left behind? He hasn't had contact with his teenage daughter, Sue Ann (Ellen Barkin) in many, many years, and when she tries to re-connect with him, he barely makes any effort. He won't even sing the song he sang to her when she was a child--her one fond memory of him--he pretends not to remember it. (The song in question is "Wings of a Dove", which every country singer knows) Later, we learn the girl has died in an automobile accident. This is heartbreaking for us, and we only saw her for a few minutes. But Mac doesn't seem to register any grief about it. Which is not the case for his ex-wife, Dixie (Betty Buckley). In a movie where everyone--especially Mac--keeps a tight reign on their emotions, Dixie wears them on her sleeve. If Mary Ann called out her dad in The Great Santini, Dixie fills that role here. She suffers a breakdown following Sue Ann's death, and, from a hospital bed, lays into Mac like nobody else would. We'd have liked to see her smack him (he used to knock her around, which why they split up). But I guess her words packed enough punch, because by the end of the movie he's finally able to admit how senseless his daughter's death was. Which means that, just maybe, he won't screw up things with his stepson.

Mr. Childers in Sling Blade. He's not the main villain in the film--that would be Dwight Yoakum's scuzzball character Doyle. In fact he's barely in the film. But as the father of this film's protagonist Karl (Billy Bob Thornton), he was an abusive creep, who may even be responsible for his son's brain damage. He's definitely responsible for the death of his second son, who was born prematurely and was, according to Karl, "no bigger than a squirrel". He gave the baby (wrapped in a bloody towel) to Karl (then about six or eight years old) and told him to "get rid of it", which Karl, afraid of disobeying him, does by burying the baby alive.

Euliss "Sonny" Dewey in The Apostle. Sonny arrives in the Bayou of Louisiana to start a new church and preach the Gospel. His natural charisma brings in a lot of followers--he even wins over a construction worker (Billy Bob Thornton) who'd planned on knocking the church down. He also becomes a local celebrity, appearing on the radio.

Oh, did I happen to mention that the reason he's really in Louisiana is to flee a murder charge in Texas? See, after showing up at his kid's little league game, he beat his wife's lover with a baseball bat, leaving him in a coma (he eventually dies), and attempted to drag his wife home (by her hair), scaring the crap out of the kids. He leaves town, dumps his car in the lake, and destroys all evidence of his past life. When his wife hears him on the radio, she notifies the police, who show up at the church during the service. He asks them to wait until it's over, then proceeds to give a long, long sermon (it's like a filibuster) but finally turns himself in.

Judge Joseph Palmer in The Judge. When he becomes the suspect in a hit and run accident, he seeks the help of his attorney son Hank (Robert Downey, Jr.). One problem: Hank is reluctant to take the case, because he's convinced the judge is guilty. That probably tells you all you need to know about him. (Although Hank does change his mind once he finds out the attorney appointed to his father is Dax Shepherd.)

Robert Duvall is now 88 years old but as far as I know, isn't retiring. He could probably keep playing terrible dads when he's 100. I'm rather looking forward to seeing him, at 100, bouncing a basketball off his 80 year old son's head.

Happy Father's Day to all the Dads out there!

Happy Memorial Day

While researching an unrelated magazine article I came across this photo in a newspaper morgue, showing the Memorial Day Parade on Spring Street in Downtown Los Angeles in 1915. I could find no details about the event, but it's almost certain there were Civil War and Spanish American War veterans present. Possibly a few elderly survivors of the Mexican-American War and the various pre- and post-Civil War Indian campaigns, as well as the Boxer Rebellion, the Philippine Insurrection, our adventures in Samoa, and our occupation of Nicaragua. Two months after this Parade we would invade and occupy Haiti, which was followed by our occupation of the Dominican Republic, the Punitive Expedition into Mexico, and then, two years later, our entry into World War I. Even in peacetime, it seems, we've kept our troops busy.

Happy New Years!

Happy New Year! If you aren't doing anything fun (and Lord knows we aren't) come to The Slumgullion and join us for our annual tradition, as we exorcise the old year with burning sage and pissy comments:


And because you're the best people in the world, here's some holiday-themed cat photos while I still have a mildly reasonable excuse for squeezing them in.

You Better Watch Out!

By Bill S.

The holiday season is upon us once again, and that means it's that time of years for Christmas carols, gift shopping, tons of cookies, and of course, TV special. A few years back, Scott and I both revisited the Rankin-Bass classic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. This year, I've decided to have a look at another Rankin-Bass childhood favorite, Santa Claus Is Coming To Town. Like the previous one, it boasts good production values, nice music...and a story so insane you wonder what they were smoking when they made it.

It begins with newsreel footage of children preparing for Santa's Christmas Eve visit, then cuts to a postman, riding a snowmobile en route to the North Pole. His name is S.D. Kruger, and he informs us that the "S.D." stands for "Special Delivery", but I'm guessing it doesn't stand for anything and he just makes up something different to fit the occasion, like T.S. Garp did. S.D. is voiced by Fred Astaire (hiring a brilliant dancer to do voiceover work makes as much sense as anything else in this special). When the snowmobile stalls in a snow bank, he has a lot of free time, so he tells us about the letters kids write to Santa Claus, revealing that he opens their mail and reads it before delivering it, which can't possibly be legal. According to him, in addition to the usual requests for toys, kids ask a lot of questions about Santa: "Why do you wear a red suit?" "Why do you come down the chimney?" "How do you know if we've been bad or good?", etc. We hear a lot of children, off-camera. They might simply be voices in S.D.'s head, which is preferable to a bunch of kids being stranded in a frozen wasteland. Real or imaginary, he tells them to settle down, and spins for us a tale of Santa's origin.

It begins in a bleak, depressing place called Sombertown, presided by the Mayor, the Burgermeister Meisterburger, a squat, ugly man with a thick German accent and a permanent scowl on his face. His dinner is interrupted one day by the appearance of Grimsley, described as "the lawkeeper" (Police chief? Army general? Ancestor of Wayland Smithers?). Grimsley sports a Kaiser helmet, a pencil thin mustache, and a prissy British accent. He also brings with him a baby, found on the Murgerbeister's doorstop. There's no identification, other than a name tag reading "Claus" and a note, asking the Burgerchedder to raise the baby. (And really, who wouldn't want to leave their kid with that guy?) Of course he refuses, and tells Grimsley to take the baby to the "Orphan Asylum", which, according to him, is "the proper place for foundlings" (I'm guessing "foundling" is a euphemism for "bastard").

Grimsley heads for the orphanage, dragging baby Claus on a sled, because I guess pulling a bulky object through the snow during a blizzard is easier than simply carrying a baby. The rope breaks, and the sled is carried away by a heavy wind. Grimsley half-heartedly races after it, calling out, "Do come back!" (Even as a kid, I thought that was a stupid thing to say). After making the barest minimum effort to rescue baby Claus, Grimsley gives him up for dead and heads back home. Fortunately, the animals of the forest are able to rescue Baby Claus, shielding him from the dreaded Winter Warlock. They bring him to the home of an elf family, the Kringles, leaving him on their doorstop. The baby is discovered by brothers Ringle, Dingle, Wingle, Tingle and Zingle, who immediately take a liking to him and bring him to the Elf Queen, Tanta Kringle, a sweet-voiced old lady with a perennially cheery demeanor. She decides they should adopt the baby, naming him Kris Kringle. There are cheers all around over this decision.

The elves raise the boy, and while they home school him, the animals of the forest are in charge of P.E., teaching him to run, jump, and laugh like a seal. They also school him in the family business: toy making. According to Tanta Kringle, the Kringles were well known for their fine craftsmanship, as she explains in the musical number "The First Toy Makers To the King". She doesn't explain how they went from being internationally known toy makers, working for royalty, to living in a tiny shack in the middle of nowhere. I can't imagine the elves blowing their earning on hookers and coke. (Well, to be more precise, I don't want to imagine that). But the real reason might be that they have no way to transport the toys, so they just keep piling them up on the porch, which doesn't seem like the best way to run a successful business.

Years pass, and Kris grows into a young man, sounding like Mickey Rooney, only taller. He decides it's time to deliver the toys to actual people, which delights the family. Tanta even makes him a red suit like the ones the elves wear. He kisses Tanta, bids goodbye to Jingle, Pringle, Single, Mingle and Der Bingle, then gathers the toys in a sack and heads for Sombertown.

Along the way he meets up with a stranded penguin, who was headed for the South Pole, but apparently took a wrong turn at Albuquerque. He names the bird Topper, and adopts him as a pet. Together, they manage to get away from the Winter Warlock, who lives in the Mountain of the Whispering Wind. As a kid, I found the Warlock scary, but he doesn't actually do anything but cackle maniacally and issue threats in a booming voice.( I guess when you're six, that's plenty scary.)
Meanwhile, in Sombertown, the Burgerurger suffers a fall down the steps of City Hall. When he discovers the cause was a toy left on the steps, he decides to ban all toys, and, in a parody of Tanta Kringle's song, he describes the various ways he'd like to mutilate them. Having all toys outlawed over a minor, avoidable injury seems like a rather extreme reaction; I guess we should be glad he didn't trip on a banana peel, because then all the Sombertownians would be condemned to a life of severe potassium deficiency. 

Kris finally arrives in Sombertown, and doesn't make much of a favorable impression with his colorful clothes and cheery disposition. He seems baffled that inhabitants of a place called Sombertown are a bunch of crabby assholes. When he explains that he just wants to distribute some toys, they all go apeshit and run back home, locking their doors. He comes upon a couple of kids who are washing socks. They look completely miserable, as any kid would, and he scolds them for it. He then cheers them up by offering them toys. They spread the news to some other kids, and pretty soon they're all flocking to this friendly stranger. Miss Jessica, the school teacher, comes upon this scene and explains to Kris that toys are illegal, and at first tries to defend the law. When Kris, who finds this law ridiculous, hands her a china doll, she acknowledges that the law is stupid, and agrees to help him hand out the toys. Kris expresses the joy of giving in a song:

If you sit on my lap today
A kiss a toy is the price you'll pay
If you sit on my left knee
Don't be stingy! Be prepared to pay!

WHAT. THE. FUCK? It sounds like a pedophile anthem. Which may be the reason it was cut from the most recent televised broadcast of the special.

The Burgerchef intrudes on this happy scene. He's ready to have the children arrested until Kris rushes to their defense, claiming responsibility for the toys. He then gives the BrentMussburger a yo-yo, which delights the old man, until Grimsley reminds him that he's breaking his own law. Flustered and embarrassed, he urges the police to arrest Kris, who escapes by climbing up a tree and hopping from rooftop to rooftop until he reaches the forest, and finally racing away. The policemen take one look at the woods where Kris disappeared, decide it's not worth the trouble to go after him, and return to Sombertown. What efficient law enforcement they are. (Incidentally, while everyone is impressed by the skill with which Kris eludes capture, nobody mentions that Topper, a tiny penguin, was able to keep up with him the whole way.)

Kris and Topper make their way to the Mountain of the Whispering Wind, and are captured by a pair of Tree Monsters. The Winter Warlock threatens to destroy them, but Kris pleads with him to be let go, offering him a present. The Warlock, touched by this gesture, orders the trees to release him. When Kris hands the Warlock a toy train, his icy heart melts, and he feels reborn, He wonders how long that feeling will last, but Kris assures him that making a change from bad to good is as easy as walking, in a toe tapping number, "Put One Foot In Front of the Other".

(The lesson to be learned here is that it's easier to reform a centuries old evil wizard than a grouchy old man with a sprained ankle.) Winter (as he's now called) strikes a bargain: in exchange for more toys, he'll teach Kris some of his magic tricks, including the Magic Crystal Snowball, which allows he to see and hear people far away. Kris gazes into it, and sees Miss Jessica wandering in the woods calling for him. He finds her, and discovers that the children want more toys to replace the ones Burmashaver had destroyed. He agrees to this, and she kisses him, causing him to blush.

When the Boogiemaster discovers the children have toys again, he calls for all the homes of Sombertown to be locked during the night. Kris is discouraged by this, until Topper, through a series of gestures, gives him the idea to go down the chimney. This enrages the Masterblaster even further, so he demands that the police go from house to house searching for toys. (This might be a good time to point out that the animation was outsourced to Germany, which possibly explains why the police look like Nazis). 

With the doors locked the night, and daily searches of homes by the police, Kris wonders how he'll be able to get more toys to the children. He should probably be more concerned with the human rights abuses going on in the town, but I suppose when you have several decades worth of toys piled up in front of your house, finding a way to get rid of them might feel like a bigger priority. So he comes up with the idea of hiding the toys in the children's stockings, which are hung above the fireplace to dry, on the not unreasonable assumption that no police officer will want to stick his hand inside a wet, crusty sock. His instinct prove correct, and once again the kids have toys to play with. This proves to be the last straw for the Murkinblister, so he decides to lay a trap for Kris, arranging for police officers to lay in wait at one of the houses to arrest him. At first Kris protests, but when he looks out a window and sees another officer holding Topper in one hand and a jar of barbecue sauce in the other, he goes quietly. Meanwhile, officers are dispatched to the Mountain of the Whispering Wind, where they arrest Winter, Tanta Kringle, Jangle, Bangle, Spangle, Tangle and Dangle, as accomplices to Kris' crimes. All of them are thrown in jail. The Megabastard then gathers up all the toys in a pile and lights them on fire, in front of the children, who are all reduced to sobbing messes. (Since Kris warned against them crying, but didn't mention any exceptions to that rule, those poor kids must think they're really screwed.)

Jessica goes to the Burgermerger and tries to make plea on behalf of the prisoners, asking him to let them go. When he refuses to listen to reason, she has an epiphany: Sombertown really, really sucks. (We figured this out in the first five minutes) She expresses her newfound clarity in the song "My World Is Beginning Today", which is my favorite number in the show, partly because the song is pretty, and partly because the visuals are so utterly weird. Here, watch:

It's like tripping on acid with Petula Clark -- which is why it's my favorite number in the show. The most recent broadcast of the special omitted this entire sequence. When it was being carried on cable, the conversation between Jessica and the Meister Bräu was retained, but the song was cut down to the final two lines, which was jarring for those of us who remembered it, and probably more so for first time viewers. (Lesson learned: Cable networks are such greedy assholes they'll sacrifice plot continuity for two more minutes' worth of advertising time. But you already knew that.)

Jessica visits the jail, and asks Winter if he has any magic that might help them get out. Alas, his magic mojo is off, and all he has is a handful of magic feed corn that enables reindeer to fly. This seems like an oddly specific thing for anyone to be carrying around in their pocket, even a wizard. Jessica takes the corn and feeds it to some reindeer. Sure enough it works -- they soar into the sky and fly to the jail, where they free Kris, Winter, Topper, Tanta Kringle, Mango, Tango, Django, Durango and Fandango. (Wait, TOPPER? They threw the penguin in jail?) It's not clear how the reindeer managed to get in the jail cell, unless it has no roof, which seems like a major design flaw.

The group (along with Jessica, who has joined them) are now on the run from the Sombertown police. Wanted posters bearing Kris Kringle's likeness are plastered everywhere. But Kris has now altered his appearance by growing a heavy beard. Tanta Kringle suggests he stop using the family name, and go by his birth name, "Claus". (Oddly, nobody wonders whether that's his first or last name. I guess he's a one-named celebrity, like Cher.) 

Kris and Jessica are married in the forest, under some stars, on Christmas Eve. There's no minister officiating, but they "stood before the Lord", which I guess is enough for a trailer park-style common law marriage. Hoping to make the ceremony special by lighting up the trees, Winter prays to Jesus for a little more magic. It works. (Kids, don't try that at home -- at least not in front of your parents.)

In order to evade the police force of one little town, the group treks all the way to the North Pole, where Kris decides they should build a new home, and the best toy factory in the world. And so they do, although how they accomplished that in such an isolated region remains a mystery. (Did the Kringles assemble an entire house with their little hammers?)

Kris continues to deliver toys to all the children of the world. Because of his outlaw status, he still has to make these deliveries in the dark of night. Years pass, his legend grows, and his outlaw status changes when the Burgermeisters die off and people realize the toy ban is stupid. Now too old to keep making frequent deliveries, Kris decides to limit his trips to one night a year, and picks that holiest of night, Christmas Eve. And that's the whole...

WAIT A COTTON-PICKIN' MINUTE, BACK UP HERE!!! 

The Burgermeisters "died off"? That was an inherited title? So, at some point, years after this story took place, the Bugermeister Majorbugfuck had a kid? Really? That fucking guy?

With who? I can't imagine anyone having sex with him. (Well, to be more exact, I don't want to imagine that.)

So, to recap, here are the answers to the questions asked by the children at the start of the show:

"Why is Santa Claus sometimes called Kris Kringle?" He was adopted by an elf family named Kringle. "Claus" is his birth name. The "Santa" part was added when people decided to canonize him even though he isn't dead, because why wait?

"Why does Santa wear a red suit?" It's the uniform of his elf family.

"How did he learn to make toys?" Again, the elves.

"How does he see us when we're sleeping, and know when we're awake?" He learned black magic from a born-again demon.

"Why does he visit homes by going down the chimney?" A penguin suggested it.

"Why does he leave toys in stockings?" To hide them in case Nazis search your house, a problem that still persists to this day.

"Why does he have a beard?" So he wouldn't be recognized by the police. Of course, today he'd have to shave it for that to happen.

"Speaking of beards, how did he meet Mrs.Claus?" After spending his entire life (well into adulthood) living with five old men and his adopted mother, and having had zero contact with any other human beings, he married literally the first single woman he met.

"How does he make reindeer fly?" Magic corn, which contradicts what we saw in Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, where they were a race of metas who could fly, talk, and apply false eyelashes.

"Why does Santa visit us on Christmas Eve?" Because he figured it would be easier to deliver gifts to all the children of the world in one night, instead of spacing things out in multiple trips.

"Why didn't the parents of Sombertown rise together in disgust, and kick the living shit out of the Burgermeister?"

Oh, wait, that wasn't a question on the show. That was my question.

Merry Christmas to all of you, from all of me!

Christmastime is Here

I'm back from Miami and elbow deep in notes and audio files. And since the interviews I conducted are considered proprietary information, I can't just send them out to be dealt with by Della and her Dictaphone, but have to laboriously transcribe everything myself. So my Christmas Spirit is barely budging the needle this year.

However, my brother Miles concocted this dreamy, Island-flavored take on A Charlie Brown Christmas for his own amusement, and it perked up my sagging holiday mood considerably. And I was thinking that if you too are suffering from Seasonal Mood Sag, it might do the same. So pour yourself a Mai Tai (or spike that eggnog with a little Captain Morgan) and enjoy this tropical yuletide carol... ukulele & Hawaiian slide/steel guitar

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope everyone is having an enjoyable day, free of politics, familial strife, traffic jams, and Cottage-Cheese-and-Lime-Jello salad molds. I succeeded in screwing up my back yesterday, so I'm passing it with hot cocoa and Vicodin, while Mary is busy in the kitchen, making her famous Hollowed Cabbage with Cat Food Surprise!

Crap. I just spoiled the surprise, didn't I?

Just kidding. But there is some culinary drama afoot, since she couldn't find a turkey breast at the market this year, and instead is attempting, for the first time on any stage, to cook at entire turkey in our weirdly proportioned, dollhouse-sized oven.

I guess we'll know the outcome in a couple of hours. In the meantime, we're watching The Gauntlet, the six episode, designed-to-binge 12th season of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

(And after one episode, I have a theory to share about the E.T. ripoff Mac and Me. So this piece of crap has more -- and more blatant -- product placement than any film I've ever seen: Coke, McDonalds, Skittles, even Sears ponied up to take part in this disaster. It cost a reported $13 million, and while it admittedly looks like a Steven Spielberg picture -- by which I mean one of the Super8 movies he shot in his backyard when he was 12 -- it earned less than half its budget back at the box office. So my theory is that the filmmakers saw Mel Brooks' The Producers, and got a brilliant idea! They cut a bunch of cross-promotional deals, sucked up millions in corporate cash, lensed a guaranteed failure for peanuts, then pocketed the balance and moved to Togo, which has no extradition treat with the United States. Q.E.D.)

So how are you guys passing the day? Pleasantly? Or like a kidney stone?

In the meantime, let's enjoy some holiday cheesecake, as Jean Arthur and Lillian Roth demonstrate pantless turkey hunting techniques.

Papa Don't Preach

By Bill S.

It's once again Father's Day, that time when fondly remember our dad, if we're lucky enough to have fond memories of our dad. We can take comfort in knowing they're nothing like these guys--

WORST TV DADS

Modesto Cunanan (Jon Jon Briones) on "American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace" Who could possibly be more creepy and gross than spree killer Andrew Cunanan? Only his father, who, according to this series, played a big role in molding Andrew into the monster he became.

Kevin MacArthur (Stephen Rannazzisi) and Andre Nowzick (Paul Scheer) on "The League".

The MacArthurs are both terrible parents-for instance, they send their kids to Sunday as "free day care". Jenny made last month's list of terrible TV moms, and Kevin makes our list of terrible dads for, among other things, inviting the kid who's been taunting his daughter with bullying insults over the house. Not to resolve the bullying problem, but to learn some choice insults he can use on his friends.

As for Andre, sometimes, a picture's worth a thousand words...

He doesn't become a father until the final season, when he begins dating Pete's ex-wife. They have a baby, Andre Jr. (or, as Andre insists on calling him,"The Deuce"). It becomes obvious to everyone (except Andre), that Pete is actually the biological father, and when (in a "flash-forward" sequence) Junior learns the truth on his 18th birthday, he reacts the way any kid would to the news that Andre's not his dad: overjoyed, he flees the house immediately.

WORST MOVIE DADS

J. Paul Getty (Christopher Plummer) in All the Money In the World (2017). 

When his grandson is kidnapped, Getty is reluctant to pay the ransom, because, he says, he doesn't want to set a precedent that could lead to more kidnappings. Which might be true, but it seems a more likely reason is that he's a miserly, penny-pinching bastard. When his daughter-in-law, desperate to raise the money, tries to sell a gift he'd given her (which he told her was a valuable antique) she discovers it's virtually worthless. 

Dean Armitage (Bradley Whitford) in Get Out (2017) 

His wife Missy made last month's list of terrible moms, and Dean makes this month's list of bad fathers. If his efforts to welcome his daughter's black boyfriend into the home seems forced and insincere, it's probably because mad scientists aren't known for their social skills.

Max (Edward Herrmann) in The Lost Boys (1987) 

Father to a brood of rowdy (if hunky) teen vampires, Max courts single mom Lucy Emerson, hoping to merge the families to create, in the words of Edgar Frog, "The Blood Sucking Brady Bunch'. Which, now that I think about it, would actually have been awesome.

Finally, to sing us out, here's Malcolm Gets, as Gordo in "A New Brain", recalling a tale of his terrible dad:

Happy Father's Day Everyone!

(For more examples of terrible movie and TV fathers, check out my previous columns! 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011)