I'm just a guy who likes the classics. I love Old Time Radio Shows. I love Classic TV. I love Classic Movies. I love songs from the "Great American Songbook". I dig songs from the first decade of Rock and Roll. Don't get me wrong, I am not opposed to newer things. My musical taste ranges from Classical to Classic Rock and Country to Rap. I love a good book and am always looking for something to read. I tend to lean toward historical fiction, biographies, mysteries, and more.
I have always believed that our past (and the things we've experienced in it) make us who we are today. That being said, after reading through some old My Space blogs (yeah, that's about how long it's been since I blogged regularly), I decided that I should once again write. Welcome to my blog. I hope you find it interesting, thought provoking, and entertaining in some way.
CONTACT ME AT - nostalgicitalian@yahoo.com
Happy 51st Birthday to country singer Billy Currington! Billy was one of those artists who got lots of airplay when I was working in country radio. He hit the scene in 2003 with the serious debut single, “Walk a Little Straighter, Daddy.” The song was written about his alcoholic stepfather, and the chorus of the song was something he wrote when he was 12 years old.
He has released seven studio albums, and had eleven number one songs. He’s had some fun songs like “Pretty Good at Drinking Beer,” “People are Crazy,” and “Drinkin’ Town with a Football Problem.” Then there are the sultry songs like “Don’t,” and great loves songs like, “Must Be Doin’ Something Right.”
“Must Be Doin’ Something Right” was a song that struck a chord when it hit my desk in 2005. The first line is “A woman is a mystery a man just can’t understand.” If that didn’t hit home for all men who have ever been in a relationship, I don’t know what will!
It took me a very long time and a lot of relationships to get where I am today. Believe me, all I wanted to do was “get it right!” I always felt bad whenever I did something to upset my gal. I hated to disappoint her. I always wanted things to go perfectly, but they rarely did. With every break up, I couldn’t help but wonder what I did that led to it.
I could relate to exactly what Billy is singing in this song, and when he gets to the chorus, I rejoiced for him. He say, “I must be doin’ something right …” and explains why. As a guy, I was like, “Atta boy! Keep it up!!”
It is a great love song. Yet, even though things are going great, he still (like most guys) has no idea what he is doing to deserve this happiness. “Don’t know what I did to earn a love like this, but, baby, I must be doin’ somethin’ right!”
I had the chance to meet Billy a couple times and he is one of the nicest guys. He’s real down to earth and one of those guys you’d like to just hang out and watch football with.
On this day in 2005, Walk The Line opened in US theaters. The biographically film starred Joaquin Phoenix as Johnny Cash and Reese Witherspoon as June Carter.
The movie was based off of two Cash autobiographies. The first being “Man In Black: His Own Story in His Own Words”” from 1975. The second: “Cash: The Autobiography” from 1997.
The film was praised by many and won numerous industry awards, including an Oscar for Reese Witherspoon. However, some critics found the film too constrained by Hollywood plot formulas of love and loss, ignoring the last twenty years of Cash’s life and other more socio-politically controversial reasons he was considered “the man in black.”
Johnny’s daughter, Roseanne Cash, had mixed feelings about the film. She did not enjoy the “painful” experience of seeing the film, “because it had the three most damaging events of my childhood: my parents’ divorce, my father’s drug addiction, and something else bad that I can’t remember now. I don’t resent them making it – I thought it was an honorable approach.”
The soundtrack featured nine songs sung by Joaquin Phoenix, and four songs by Reese Witherspoon. It was well received and won a Grammy Award for Best Compilation Soundtrack Album for Motion Pictures. While there are so many songs to choose from on this soundtrack, I will go with my favorite Johnny Cash song – here is Ring of Fire.
Parenting can be rough some days! This week, Sam had a doctor appointment, so I had to take Ella to school. Afterward, I had to drop Andrew off at Nana’s house so I could go to work.
Usually he is all about going to Nana’s. For whatever reason, he did not want to go. He was clinging on to Sam when it was time to leave. Eventually, I had to just scoop him up or Ella was going to be late.
This led to a non-stop meltdown. He fought to get buckled in his seat. He was kicking the back of my seat. He was screaming and crying.
The drive to the school is about 30 minutes, and then we have to wait a few minutes before we can go inside. I was not in the mood to listen to him scream for that long.
Normally, I can put on the kid music channel on Sirius XM and that works. He will settle down most of the time. That morning, however, he didn’t. Ella suggested playing his two favorite songs. After 10 minutes I was ready to try anything.
The first song is from the most annoying kid host EVER – Blippi. He has way too much energy and he just gets on my nerves. Andrew loves his music. So I searched for The Excavator Song. God help me…..
While the crying slowed down a little, it didn’t stop. So Ella suggested another song, Chipmunk At The Gas Pump. Yeah, you read that right.
The kids have a few sing-along Tonies. (A Tonie box has figures you can buy and set on top of it and it plays songs or stories.) One of them is from the Laurie Berkner Band. They do a lot of kid songs. Apparently, the Chipmunk song is on there. So I had Google find it and I played that next.
So the song is goofy enough, and then you see the video and it takes a whole new turn….
Anyway, the crying stops midway through this one. When it is over he says he wants the Blippi song again. When that is over, Ella wants the Chipmunk song again. And it goes on like this for the remainder of the trip.
After I drop him at Nana’s, I head into work. Almost four hours later, I am going through patient charts and for no reason at all I start singing, “Jump! Jump! Pump it up! Chipmunk at the gas pump…”
My coworkers looked at me like I was nuts. Rightfully so. The next day, I was shaving and that doggone Excavator Song wouldn’t get out of my head…. Urgh!!
One of the hardest things about using my library’s Libby App is the occasional wait. This was the case recently as I had finished one book and was waiting for another. When this happens, I usually go to the other Library App (Hoopla). It is there that I will grab something short to read until my book becomes available.
I began to search for something like a short mystery when I stumbled on a title that screamed “Film noir.” The audio book was a little over 6 hours long. That’s three trips back and forth to work, so I borrowed it. Viviana Valentine Gets Her Man is a 1950’s detective story and didn’t take a lot of thought to get through.
As I read it, in my mind I pictured an old black and white detective movie. There were the occasional slang words (like “dollface”) that added to the “noir” feel. It wasn’t something that blew me away, but it wasn’t a bad little read.
Here is the Goodreads synopsis:
Life as a secretary in New York just got tougher when Viviana Valentine’s boss winds up dead in this debut historical mystery, perfect for fans of Susan Elia MacNeal and Frances Brody.
New York City, 1950. Viviana Valentine is Girl Friday to the city’s top private investigator, Tommy Fortuna. The clients can be frustrating, and none more maddening than fabulously wealthy Tallmadge Blackstone, who demands Tommy tail his daughter, Tallulah, and find out why she won’t marry his business partner, a man forty years her senior. Sounds like an open-and-shut case for a P.I. known for busting up organized crime—but the next day, Viviana opens the office to find Tommy M.I.A. and a lifeless body on the floor.
The cops swoop in and Detective Jake Lawson issues a warrant for Tommy’s arrest. Desperate to clear Tommy’s name, Viviana takes on the Blackstone case herself. When she goes out for a night on the town with the heiress, she begins to learn the secrets behind Tallulah’s life and loves—and discovers that the body in the office is none other than Tallulah’s betrothed. Meanwhile, Lawson is itching to solve his murder case, and continues harassing Viviana for answers—until she’s the victim of an attack by a group of goons hooked up with a gangster named Santino Napolitano, a.k.a. Tino the Conderoga. Tino’s connected to the death of Tommy’s brother, and now he’s trying to get to Tommy through Viviana.
But Tommy’s still missing, and Tino is still out for blood. As Viviana digs into the dirty history of the Blackstone empire, she suddenly realizes the true danger at hand. Now, it’s up to her to find her missing boss and make sure she doesn’t turn up D.O.A.
I plays out just like an old movie and was enjoyable. If you are looking for a book you can get through quick, check it out.
Today’s flashback takes me back to around 2008. I’m not 100%, but based on the ages that the boys look, it is about right.
My oldest son was diagnosed as being on the Autism spectrum. After a brief search, we became quite involved with the local support group. We found that there were many other parents with children on the spectrum.
One of the big events that they would do every summer was the Walk for Autism. They had the event at a local park and it was a fun day for everyone. There were games, food, and giveaways. The walk raised money for our support group and local families.
One year, my buddy Chris, brought out some of his Star Wars buddies. There is a Michigan chapter of people who dress up as various characters and make appearances at events. The characters would lead the walkers around the path every year.
Chris has a few Jedi outfits, a Darth Vader outfit, and this amazing Chewbacca outfit. I want to say that he made it with the materials you would use for a hook rug. The details were amazing! He had some mini-stilts that he used for height. He even had the Chewbacca “growl” down. My kids (and every other kid there) thought he was awesome!
Naturally, Chewy had to get a picture by our station van. It’s so much cooler than the Millennium Falcon…
The Star Wars Crew presented folks with many photo opportunities. I have one with me getting choked by Darth Vader somewhere. They were so nice to donate their time and spend the day with us.
My boys are pretty much men now. Dante is 22 and Dimitri will be 18 next year. It is fun to look back and see them so little. I wish I got to see them more now. Sigh. Long story.
I spent the weekend putting up the outdoor decorations. Believe it or not, no one was hurt in the process!
With the weather as nice as it was, I decided to get the lights up before it got too cold. I worked on the front yard first. We added two blow up penguins this year. I’m normally not one for these inflatables, but they were only $10 each! Sam loves penguins, so I couldn’t pass up the deal.
It looked cute with one on each side of the arch we got last year. You never really know what it is going to look like until it get’s dark, though. Somewhere between this picture and the next, I decided to put the extra tree on the front porch. Sam says it is too much. I’m not sure….
Sunday I decked out the side porch. Sam bought LED lights this year and they look extra bright. This is the easiest part of the house to decorate. I was going to change it up a bit, but decided to stay with what I’ve done in the past.
I guess I should have known that by doing the outdoor lights now (which is not odd), that Sam would start thinking about the inside. Monday I was home with the kids and they were kind of going crazy. Sam decided we needed a project to do, so I went downstairs and brought up the tree.
Bitsy, our kitten, isn’t even a year old yet. So we knew that the tree would be somewhere she’d want to explore. We decided that when we put the tree up, we’d leave the ornaments off of it. There are some fragile ones that we don’t want broken. Sam said we needed to compensate a bit for having no ornaments. So she bought a boat load of LED lights for the tree. Even after placing 900 lights on it, she still thinks there could be more!
We have a few other decorations in the basement, but I think we’re just gonna roll with what we have for now. I am not going to lie, sitting in the front room with all the lights off but the tree is one of those amazing moments I look forward to each year.
Christmastime is a happy time for me. I know it is early, but after all the stuff that has gone down over the last couple weeks – I like to be in a “happy place.”
Welcome back to The Music of My Life, where I feature ten songs from each year of my life. In most cases, the ten songs I choose will be ones I like personally (unless I explain otherwise). The songs will be selected from Billboard’s Year-end Hot 100 Chart, Acclaimed Music, and will all be released in the featured year.
I suppose it is when you are on the backside of 20, you begin to really understand how fast the years go by. I turned 26 in 1996 and I was told, “30 is just around the corner!” One co-worker told me that every thing starts to fall apart when you turn 30. I learned that he was right!
My first pick from 1996 has a Meatloaf vibe. “I would do anything for love, but I won’t do that. The Gin Blossoms will “follow you down, but not that far.” Follow You Down was their first single from the “Congratulations…I’m Sorry” album. The album got its name because that was what people said to the band finally having hits (Hey, Jealousy & Found Out About You) after struggling to get one for years.
The song was a last minute addition to the album. “We were working on the record, and I’d come home at night to my hotel room, and I had those chords, and finished writing by the time we got home,” guitarist Jesse Valenzuela told songfacts.com. “We’d already finished the record, but I had this great song, so I demoed it up and I sent it to my main A&R man, David Andaly, the great David Andaly, and he said, ‘Why are you hiding this thing? Let’s put it on the record.’ So we went and recorded it right away.”
This is one of those songs that really stuck out to me on the radio. I loved the little harmony on “Anywhere you go.” It was another one of those songs that I would crank up the radi.
Follow You Down
Let it be known that I am not the biggest Celine Dion fan. However, I think Diane Warren is one of the best songwriters ever. Diane wrote the song Because You Loved Me for the movie Up Close & Personal.
From songfacts.com:
Diane Warren explained in the book Chicken Soup For the Soul: The Story Behind The Song how she honors her father in this song. Said Warren: “I saw the film with the director, Jon Avnet, on a Friday. I thought, ‘What would I want to hear at the end of the movie?’ Jon played me a tape of a gospel singer to give me a sense of what he was looking for – something really soulful.
I went into my office on Saturday, the following day, and the chorus came quickly. Michelle Pfeiffer’s character is thanking Robert Redford’s character for believing in her. The song became personal at the same time that it was telling the story of the film. Once I began, it became a way of thanking my dad for everything he did for me and the support he has always given me. He believed in me and my music from the time I was a little girl. When I was 15, he took me around to music publishers. Not only did he support my goals, he supported me financially while I was struggling in the beginning.
I had to wait for months to see if my song would be chosen to use in the film or if they would select one of the other four submissions. Thank goodness I had just started therapy! It got me through it.”
When I was DJing weddings, I would say that 8 out of 10 couples used it as their wedding song. Even Vince Gill and Amy Grant used it for their first dance. Lyrically, it is just spectacular.
On a Billboard podcast, Diane Warren said, “I feel like it was a leap in my craft. I felt that when I wrote that song, it was better than I was at the time, if that makes sense. I was like, ‘Whoa, this is probably my best song.’ There’s something lyrically about it.”
Because You Loved Me
My next pick was actually a hit back in 1973 for BW Stevenson. My Maria was written by Daniel Moore and Stevenson. It is basically Three Dog Night’s Shambala written about a woman.
In 1996, it was covered by Brooks and Dunn and it went straight to number one on the Country Chart. It was also named Country Song of the Year.
This version made Moore happy as it made him more money than any other version. He said, “The original sold 950,000 singles, Brooks & Dunn’s version has sold over 6 million. The original version got about 1,500,000 US radio performances. The Brooks & Dunn version is over 6,500,000 US radio performances and still going.”
It was one of Brooks and Dunn’s biggest hits, but it almost wasn’t recorded. Ronnie Dunn admitted he was reluctant to cut the song when the idea was first presented to him. “I thought, ‘Oh man, it’s just that falsetto thing,'” he remembered. “It’s a rock song, in my opinion. And I was very much wrong.”
Personally, I like the Brooks and Dunn version better than the original. I also have fond memories of a few of the country stations I played this one on.
My Maria
Next is a song that was never released on a Weird Al album. The song Spy Hard was recorded and used as the title song for the Leslie Neilsen movie of the same name.
Anyone who has seen a James Bond film knows the importance of the opening credits. They were all very unique and this song (and video) were a nod to those Bond intros. Spy Hard is unique in that it was recorded with an orchestra (which was conducted by Bill Conti of Rocky fame).
There is a Bond Urban legend that says that for the song Thunderball, Tom Jones held the song’s final note long enough to pass out; in this film, Yankovic holds it long enough to make his head explode. Originally, Yankovic had planned to loop the note to the required length, but in the studio, he discovered he was able to hold the note long enough that no looping was required. What a talent!
As for the movie itself? Let’s just stick with the song ….
Spy Hard
One of the first songs I remember playing when I started at my first country station was by a group called Ricochet. Many of the “older” songs I was playing were new to me at the time and that included Daddy’s Money.
This song was their second single and it was a number one hit for them. I could relate to the song in a way. Whenever the choir at church there, I often found myself staring a a pretty girl singer. The opening lyric:
Can’t concentrate on the preacher preaching My attention span done turned off I’m honed in on that angel singing Up there in the choir loft
I love the line, “My attention span done turned off!” The only thing that makes me chuckle more in this song is the fact that it goes out of the way to make sure you know that she is “a good bass fisher!” Now, what man doesn’t want that in a woman?!
This is on my list because I love singing along to it.
Daddy’s Money
I knew Alanis Morissette from the children’s comedy show You Can’t Do That On Television. When her Jagged Little Pill album was released I was struck by the deep and profound lyrics of many of the songs. Some of the lyrics shocked me, honestly.
At a live show, she explained how the song came about:
“When relationships get healthier and healthier we somehow equate that with not being as passionate or as sexy,” she explained. “I’ve kind of realized that it’s actually sexier when there’s less drama. It’s been better, and I never thought that that would be the case because of the whole clingy, overly dependent roller coaster that often times seemed very passionate and very sexy. And when I wrote ‘Head Over Feet’ about this particular person it was the first time that I actually had a glimpse of what it would be like to be in love and have it be something that was inducing of the heart palpitations, yet at the same time I could spend a couple minutes and actually not think about that person. It was very new to me.”
I was dating a gal in 1996 who was not as vocal about her feelings as me. I have always believed in letting people know how you feel about them. I always thought it was odd for me to say “I Love You” and not hear it back in return.
I had made a cassette tape of love songs for this gal and it had a huge variety of singers. She actually liked it a lot. She told me that she had a song that made her think of me and told me to listen to it. The song was Head Over Feet.
Knowing this gal like I did, it made perfect sense for her to use this song. She was exactly like the gal in this song and I was exactly like the guy. It wasn’t exactly the way I wanted her to express her emotions, but it worked.
Later on, she broke up with me by putting a note on my windshield. That even led me to some pretty dark times.
Head Over Feet
Some of my music blogger friends are familiar with the next song. I love it because it has that 60’s Beatles feel to it. It’s from the imaginary group called The Wonders. That Thing You Do becomes a hit for the group in the movie of the same name.
The song was written by Fountains of Wayne bass player, Adam Schlesinger. He said, “That was 1995 I think I first heard about it, or ’96, and I was just starting out. I had a publishing deal as a writer and they told me about this movie – they said that they were looking for something that sounds like early Beatles. And they knew that that was an era that I liked a lot. So I just took a shot at it and got very lucky and they used the song.”
Adam says he is better known for this song than Fountains of Wayne’s Stacy’s Mom.
I admit that this is a song that I play over a couple of times when it comes up on my music playlist. I just love this one.
That Thing You Do
One of the best interviews I’ve ever done was with Jewel. She promoting a country album when I chatted with her on the air, but I was very familiar with her music. Some folks wanted to write her off as a one hit wonder after her song Who Will Save Your Soul, but You Were Meant For Me stopped that!
Jewel wrote the song during the time she was homeless and living in her car. During that period she started having panic attacks and anxiety, and came up with her own way of coping, using mindfulness exercises to retrain her brain. In an interview with ABC radio, she said the line, “Dreams last for so long even after you’re gone” is about “the love of fantasy versus the actual reality.”
Songfacts.com says, “Jewel wrote the song during the time she was homeless and living in her car. During that period she started having panic attacks and anxiety, and came up with her own way of coping, using mindfulness exercises to retrain her brain. In an interview with ABC radio, she said the line, “Dreams last for so long even after you’re gone” is about “the love of fantasy versus the actual reality.”
At the time, this was the biggest-selling single in the history of Atlantic Records, and Jewel became the label’s first artist to grace the cover of TIME magazine (July 21, 1997). She is such an amazing singer and songwriter.
You Were Meant For Me
Beavis and Butthead were so successful that they got their own movie – Beavis and Butthead Do America. The soundtrack included songs from Ozzy Osbourne, White Zombie, No Doubt, Isaac Hayes, and AC/DC. It also included a cover of the Ohio Players’ song Love Rollercoaster by the Red Hot Chili Peppers!
While the original was a number one song, the Chili Peppers’ version didn’t do much in America. It did go Top 10 in the UK.
It’s not that I love this song, but I do like the more modern take on it by the RHCP. The video is kind of fun to watch too.
Love Rollercoaster
Remember the movie The Mirror Has Two Faces? Me either.
I Finally Found Someone was a hit for Barbra Streisand and Bryan Adams. Streisand initially wrote the love theme with veteran composer Marvin Hamlisch, but her producer, David Foster, envisioned it as a duet. That’s when Bryan Adams and his producer, Mutt Lange, were brought on to the project.
Barbra says, “Bryan played our track and heard me humming and fell in love with this little theme that I wrote, and then he and his producer Mutt Lange wrote a counter melody based on the track that I sent him. And they wrote the lyrics. So that’s how that happened.“
The single gave Streisand her first Top 10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 since 1981 and was a top ten hit. This was a song that I would often suggest to couples who did not want the most popular wedding songs (like the aforementioned Celine Dion). This was also a song that I mentioned to my wife as a possible “our song.”
Adams and Streisand have two very distinct voices, but they blend well together and this is really a fantastic and underrated love song.
I Finally Found Someone
This year was a difficult one for me to narrow down to ten songs for some reason, so I am sure I left off a few of your favorites. Tell me about yours in the comments.
Next week, we’ll look at 1997. I can see that this was another difficult year to pick ten songs as below the ten I have another nine artists names! The list does lean a bit alternative, but there is also some pop, country and swing!
I mentioned that my breakup of 1996 began some dark times. In 1997, there is a song that ties in way to closely with what I was doing in my personal life … More on that next week.
If you made a list of bands that helped define the 60’s and 70’s, the Rolling Stones would surely be on that list. From the moment they hit the scene, they continued to make records and tour and did so for decades afterward.
On this day in 2012, they released GRRR! another hits compilation album. It was intended to commemorate the band’s 50th anniversary. The album features two new songs titled One More Shot and Doom and Gloom. Both new songs were released as singles.
When Doom and Gloom was recorded, it marked the first time that Mick Jagger, Ronnie Wood, Charlie Watts, and Keith Richards had been in the studio together for seven years, since 2005. It didn’t exactly burn up the charts, but it did do well in some parts of the world.
Despite poor chart performance, Billboard magazine named “Doom and Gloom” the eighteenth best song of 2012.
In an interview with Esquire magazine Keith Richards said this was laid down very quickly. “I don’t think the Stones have ever cut a track so fast,” he said. “It was like three takes and – boom! We were like looking at each other and going, ‘Got anything else?’ It was amazingly quick. The Stones are amazing that way, their chemistry and their energy when they get together. The hard bit with the Stones is getting them together.”
He went on to say, “At first I said, Hey Mick, ‘Doom and Gloom’ is a kind of weird title for a 50-year celebration, you know? But you know what the Stones are like, it’s always against the grain. But he came up with it and it’s a great track and a really quite ‘funny’ song, actually – there are some great lyrics.”
For me, this sounds like a classic Stones song. Jagger is actually playing the guitar lick on it.
It’s hard to believe that Demi Moore is 62 today! Her career has included some big box office hits. Those include Ghost, A Few Good Men, Striptease, GI Jane, Indecent Proposal, The Juror, and many more.
With so many great movies and great soundtracks to choose from, I had plenty of songs that I could feature. Instead, I picked a rather obscure one because it features Demi actually singing.
In 1986, she starred alongside John Cusak in a silly film called One Crazy Summer. Is it a great film? No. The New York Times said, “In spite of the director’s flair for zany humor, this film is just absurd.”
Demi plays a rock singer who is trying to raise money to save her grandfather’s house. Cusak’s character and his nutty friends promote one of her shows and it is a big success. At the show, she songs a song called “Don’t Look Back.”
The song has your stereotypical 1980’s sound, and the vocal actually isn’t bad. If she had released an album … I might have bought it.
It was on this day in 1891 that the amazing Carl Stalling was born. You may not know him by name, but I guarantee you know his work!
Carl is probably best known for arranging and composing music for cartoons and animated films. If you have ever watched a Looney Tunes or Merrie Melodies cartoon, you have heard his music. While at Warner Brothers, he averaged one complete score each week, for 22 years!
As a young man, he played organ accompaniment to silent films. It was about this time he met Walt Disney. Walt had him arrange some music for a few of the early shirts. He even had Carl do the voice of Mickey Mouse in 1929’s The Karnival Kid. He worked with Disney for two years.
In 1936, he began working on music for Warner Brothers. From 1936 onwards, Stalling was the film score composer for almost every theatrical animated short released by the company until he retired.
Director Chuck Jones was asked about Stalling:
A few years back, Carl’s music was released on an album called The Carl Stalling Project. A year or so later, they released a second volume. It is actually very cool to listen to!
You can listen to the amazing soundtrack on YouTube! Some of the cuts have studio chatter, which I always love listening to. Here is a link to the albums:
Back in 1969, a childhood staple premiered on National Educational Television, a precursor of PBS. 55 years later, Sesame Street continues to entertain and teach children everywhere!
I grew up watching the show. I always got a kick out of Ernie and Bert. I even had an Ernie hand puppet.
Kermit the Frog was the newsman I trusted most as a kid. I loved watching Grover mess up that one guy’s order at the restaurant. I remember that artist who painted the number of the day on whatever he could find. Guy Smiley seemed to host whatever show was happening and Cookie Monster couldn’t get enough cookies! I loved Count Von Count and the fact that there was always a thunder clap and lightning when he laughed!
They were my first TV friends. Oscar the Grouch, Big Bird, the Martians, the Twiddle Bugs, Mr. Hooper, Susan, Bob, Gordon, Maria, and Luis kept me company and helped me learn so much. I remember having the Sesame Street Little People, too!
We played, we learned, and we sang songs! Who can forget the Pinball Song? The Lady Bugs Picnic? “C” is for Cookie? I Love Trash? The People In Your Neighborhood? Sing? The Alligator King? It Ain’t Easy Being Green? I Don’t Want To Live On The Moon? Rubber Duckie? I had Rubber Duckie on a 45 and played it on my portable record player!
The format has changed a lot and so has the cast. Additional Muppets have been added, and some new humans have replaced old ones. The show has been shortened to 30 minutes, and it is mostly Elmo now. The number and letter of the day are just throwaways now and only get a brief mention. It lacks so much of what it had, but it is still going!
I could always count on Sesame Street to do exactly what its theme song said it would do – chase “the clouds away!” Great memories for sure!
Various Ramblings of a Nostalgic Italian 