On this day in 1970, the 42nd Academy Awards were handed out. The Oscar for Best Song – Original For Movie went to a song from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Burt Bacharach and Hal David wrote Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head for the film.
Some felt the song had the wrong tone for a Western, but director George Roy Hill insisted on its inclusion. Robert Redford, one of the stars of the film, was among those who disapproved of using the song, though he later acknowledged he was wrong:
“When the film was released, I was highly critical: How did the song fit with the film? There was no rain. At the time, it seemed like a dumb idea. How wrong I was, as it turned out to be a giant hit.”
The song is used in a memorable scene where Newman pedals a bicycle through the countryside with Katharine Ross riding on the handlebars. When she gets off, he does some impressive tricks, riding with no hands and even backwards. He finally gets a little too clever and ends up in an encounter with a bull.
Dionne Warwick convinced Bacharach to get BJ Thomas to sing the song. Thomas was getting over laryngitis when he recorded “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head.” It gave the song a raspy quality that the producers of the movie liked. Eight weeks later, Thomas recorded another version that was released as a single in October 1969. This version, with the famous horn solo added to the end, made #1 in the US the first week of 1970 and stayed there for four weeks. BJ said: “I was in the right place at the right time, and probably got their best song ever.”
This week, I got an unexpected package in the mail. The contents made me laugh out loud. Let me set it up for you…
I woke up one morning after having a ridiculous dream. In the dream, I was meeting my old radio buddy, Johnny Molson. I do not know the reason for our meeting. In the dream, he hands me this tricycle. The thing is literally beat to hell. It is rusted and the front wheel is bent. I am speechless and have no idea what to say. Before I can say anything, John says:
“The guy at the antique shop says it could have, and probably belonged to Dean Martin! See the whiskey stains on the seat?!”
I wake up and chuckle from this dream and I message him to tell him about it. He responds:
I responded that if I ever got ahold of Jerry Lewis’, I would do the same.
That had to be two or three weeks ago. I had all but forgotten about this until I got home from work one night. The package was sitting on the kitchen counter. When I opened it, I saw a picture frame. As I pulled it out of the box, I began to laugh out loud. The picture?
That wasn’t all. There was a note:
It was a much needed laugh. Even as I look at the pictures in this blog, I’m laughing. It is so important to have friends who will go the extra mile and put extra effort into getting a laugh. John and I have been friends for over 30 years and I’ve always appreciated his quick wit.
Over the past week, I have featured some of my blogging friends in a round of Share Your Nostalgia. I always feel happy when someone tells me “Yes! I’d love to participate and write something for you.” I feel even better when those who respond are those who will write a piece that you find interesting and entertaining. This week, was no exception.
This round tapped into the childhood of my guest bloggers. I asked them to write about their favorite cartoon or cartoon character growing up. Each of them wrote a piece different from the other. Each relayed an experience that was unique to them, yet shared with you and me. I extend to each of them my sincere gratitude for taking time to participate. Thank you!
I love features like this because the contributions will sometimes be familiar and sometimes be an introduction to something new. That has been the case with each Share Your Nostalgia round. Randy, Max, Dana, Dave and Paul all wrote of familiar toons (Gumby, Underdog, Musical cartoons, Huckleberry Hound, and Top Cat). Christian introduced us to a long running German cartoon (The Show Starring the Mouse). Now, it is my turn to wrap up the topic.
Saturday mornings were such a great time for my brother and me. My mom often slept in on Saturdays (because she was watching old Kung Fu movies the night before). My dad would usually be at work. So when we got up, we’d run out to the living room and turn on the TV. Cartoons were usually on until noon and on all three of the network stations. Chris and I would be up around 8am and be in front of the TV until the toons were over.
The one that was a staple was The Bugs Bunny Road Runner Show.
This show seemed to be on all morning. It was constant Looney Tunes! We watched this a lot. We discovered other shows when we’d switch channels because Pepe LePew, Road Runner or some other character we weren’t really into came on. When we discovered that, we were really perplexed as to what to watch. Neither of us knew how to read the TV Guide, so we often stumbled on shows by accident.
I believe that is how we discovered the crazy Laff-a-lympics show, which featured many Hanna Barbera characters.
If the Super Friends was on, we’d certainly stop to watch that. Both of us were fans of the superheroes. The show paired Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and Aquaman with The Wonder Twins in some seasons and Wendy, Marvin and Wonder Dog in others.
I seem to also remember watching all things Scooby-Doo. We’d catch the classics (Scooby-Doo Where Are You?) and The New Scooby-Doo Movies. The “movies” featured famous folks that the gang would meet (The Three Stooges, Laurel and Hardy, Batman and Robin, Don Knotts, Jonathan Winters, Sonny and Cher, Jerry Reed and even the Addams Family) and the real star (in most cases) provided their own voice.
So many cartoons! Saturday mornings were heaven for us kids!
Dave said in his piece that he tended to like the Hanna Barbera cartoons more than the others. I don’t think I’d be wrong to say that they “owned” Saturday mornings. As a matter of fact, my choice also comes from Hanna Barbera – Hong Kong Phooey.
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1974. Confetti and banners appear high above a parade. We see the back of our hero riding in a convertible. Then the narrator says: “Who is this superhero? Sarge? No. Rosemary, the telephone operator? No. Penry, the mild-mannered janitor? Could be!”
Hong Kong Phooey aired from September to December. There were only 31 episodes. To me, it seemed like there were so many more. The show aired September through December of ’74 and was rerun through 1976. There were so many things that I loved about this show.
Fun Fact: Originally the show was meant to be a vehicle for Huckleberry Hound, playing Hong Kong Phooey, until it was decided to make it more original.
Our hero is kind of clumsy. Many times it is his sidekick, Spot, who is there to help him catch the villain. He sort of reminds me of the Inspector in the Pink Panther movies. He’s a bumbling, clownish character. Spot would sometimes prove to be the brains of the two, helping Hong Kong Phooey out of certain jams. The humor of the incompetence of Hong Kong Phooey is a recurring theme of each episode.
Greg Ehrbar, host of The Funtastic World of Hanna and Barbera Podcast and author of Hanna-Barbera: The Recorded History said, “Joe Barbera and the team auditioned everyone possible for the perfect Penry/Hong Kong Phooey voice. Scatman Crothers really impressed them with his talent in 1966 with his performance as the Cheshire Cat in the album version of the classic Alice In Wonderland. He voiced Meadowlark in the CBS Harlem Globetrotters series in 1971 and became the definitive Hong Kong Phooey in 1974, making him the first African American to play the lead in an animated TV series.”
I cannot imagine Hong Kong Phooey without Scatman’s voice. It was a perfect fit.
Sergeant Flint finds himself annoyed by our hero and feels that he is a hinderance to the police. The character is voice by Joe E. Ross, who many remember from Car 54, Where Are You? He even uses his “Ooo Ooo” catchphrase for this character.
Rosemary, the telephone operator is voiced by Kathy Gori. She explained in an interview how she came up with the very unique voice: “My inspiration was “Rhoda”, played by Valerie Harper, on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. It was a combination of Rhoda and Rhoda’s mom, played by Nancy Walker. I used to watch Rhoda all the time and thought that’ll be funny.”
Rosemary is an important character because she always answers a call about a crime and tells Sergeant Flint about it. Penry, the janitor (and HKP’s secret identity) over hears her. Then he’s off to change and fight crime. To do so he goes behind the vending machine, jumps into a filing cabinet (always getting stuck, and is freed by Spot) and once disguised, jumps on an ironing board that flattens him against the wall only to drop onto a couch that he uses to bounce into a dumpster that houses the “Phooeymobile.” The vehicle can change into other forms of transportation simply by hitting a gong!
When perplexed with a problem, he never worries about it. He simply turns his copy of The Hong Kong Book of Kung Fu, a correspondence-course martial-arts instruction handbook!
The idea of having a clumsy and incompetent character be a hero was not something new. It was the precursor to many other characters including Inspector Gadget. The premise works and fans enjoy it. Hong Kong Phooey was feared by criminals and admired by citizens, despite his clumsiness and flaws.
Over 50 years later, Hong Kong Phooey remains popular. Kathy Gori (Rosemary), says she still receives fan mail in connection with the cartoon! One guy took his love for the cartoon a bit far. In 2002, a plumber in England changed his name legally to Hong Kong Phooey out of admiration for the character. He did this without telling his wife, who only found out when utility bills addressed to Hong Kong Phooey started arriving at their house. She was not pleased.
In 2006, I saw that the entire series had been released on DVD. Naturally, I rushed out to buy it. The DVD set includes commentary on select episodes as well as a documentary of the show from its development through its legacy. The set also includes production designs, never-before-seen original artwork, and new interviews. It was worth every dime!
Finally, I couldn’t write about the “number one super guy” without playing his theme song!
Again, I thank all of the bloggers who participated this time around. Perhaps I’ll come up with another topic in the future. If you have a suggestion, please let me know. Thanks for reading!
A while back, I asked some blogger friends if they’d want to write a piece for my Share Your Nostalgia feature. In the past we have looked at Favorite Childhood Toy and Favorite Childhood Book. Today, we go back to Saturday mornings. This was when we sat in front of the TV with our favorite cereal and watched hours of cartoons. So I asked my guests to write about their favorite cartoon or cartoon character growing up.
Today’s guest blogger isPaul, who along with Colin, run the Once Upon A Time in the 70’s Blog. It features music from the 70’s, 70’s Pop Culture, Movies and TV from the 70’s, and Life in the 70’s in general. If you’re looking for a trip back to the groovy years of disco, this is the site for you.
Will Paul be featuring a cartoon or cartoon character from that decade? Let’s find out together. Take it away, buddy….
Sharing your nostalgia is a great way to dive deep into thoughts and memories you haven’t considered for some time, so I was delighted when Keith reached out to ask us to write about our favourite animated characters.
Animation has come a long way since I first started watching cartoons and although I’m a big fan of modern shows like Family Guy there’s something about old-school cartoons that take me back to a happy place, so for this task I was compelled to reconnect with my 10-year-old self.
As a child of the 60’s, cartoons were undoubtedly the highest form of entertainment available to our generation, consider also that there were only two television channels available for the first six years of my life in the UK and I was 24 and married by the time we reached four channels.
Growing up in Scotland I don’t remember many British cartoons of note although there was a popular series of science fiction based supermarionation shows created by Gerry & Sylvia Anderson – Fireball XL5, Stingray, Captain Scarlett and Joe 90, being the stand outs.
As a kid I was aware of the Disney universe of course but the most watched, most loved cartoons in our stratosphere were Looney Tunes and Hanna Barbera productions. Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Foghorn Leghorn, Tom & Jerry, Yogi Bear and The Flintstones were all favourites but if I had to pick one cartoon that always grabbed my attention it would be Top Cat.
It’s worth noting that in the UK, the show was called Boss Cat as there was a well-established brand of cat food already utilising the Top Cat name in the 60s, however, despite the name change, the original “Top Cat” theme was still used, which confused the hell out of us.
Okay so why Top Cat, I hear you ask?
Well, the best cartoon characters for me have always been multi-dimensional, for instance, when you watch the Road Runner, you know before the start of each episode that Wile E Coyote is never going to catch him. Similarly, Tom is never going to get the better of Jerry, whilst Sylvester has as much chance of lunching on Tweety Pie as Dick Dastardly and Muttley have of ever winning a round of Wacky Races.
As entertaining as these cartoons are, you know exactly how each episode is going to play out, there’s zero jeopardy.
That’s why I always preferred characters like Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck or Foghorn Leghorn, all of whom may come out on top more often than not, but who were often victims of their own hubris and were never quite as smart as they thought they were.
Top Cat (close friends get to call him T.C.), fell into this bracket, he always assumed he was the smartest cat in the room (or alleyway), but his stunts often missed the mark. This of course can be traced back to the cartoon’s origins and the fact that T.C. was based on Phil Silver’s ‘Sergeant Bilko’, a fast-talking hustler who’s get-rich-quick schemes rarely paid off.
Every cartoon requires an antagonist and Officer Dibble was the hapless policemen tasked with keeping T.C. and his crew in check, however, he was no stereotypical bad-cop, Dibble was a friendly enemy and the audiences’ sympathies often lay with him.
Whilst TC and Dibble are the protagonist’s, part of Top Cats appeal was its ensemble cast featuring T.C.’s crew who all had their own personalities and foibles….
Benny the Ball, is TC’s loyal, naïve and diminutive best friend.
Fancy-Fancy, is the Cary Grant talking womanizer of the bunch.
Choo-Choo, is the shy, sensitive one.
Brain, is the ditzy, slow-witted one.
Spook, is the cool-cat, the Miles Davis of the bunch.
I read somewhere that the Dead-End Kids, a tough street gang who appeared in early Jimmy Cagney movies were an inspiration for the writers, which makes sense as T.C. and his gang lived on the streets of New York, railed against authority and used their wits to get by, just like the Dead-End Kids.
I was staggered to learn that Top Cat was cancelled after only 30 episodes in 1962, I could have sworn that I had consumed hundreds of episodes as a kid and perhaps this scarcity of supply is another reason why I appreciate the series so much.
It’s also weird to think that I watched all these iconic cartoons in black and white until 1970 but I can only remember them in colour.
Animation has obviously moved on so much but as a kid you didn’t worry about things like production values and with one television per household, I was just delighted to get any screen time, particularly whenever Top Cat appeared on our screen.
Today’s photo flashback takes me back to one of the craziest trips I’ve ever been on. My buddy Steve asked me and a bunch of friends to go up to his parent’s place for a weekend fishing trip. It was a weekend to remember, although some of the guys don’t remember much of it.
As I recall, we all arrived at his parent’s place in the afternoon. Each of us had brought beer to drink. Once we were settled, there was a bonfire. We were all telling stories and laughing while drinking the beer. Next door, it sounded like they had been partying for much of the day. A couple of the guys went over to say hello. They came back saying that they had a lot of booze and that we should all go over later.
We had planned on getting up early to head to Skidway Lake to fish the next day, so after a while, a couple of us decided to call it a night. Others decided to go back next door to hoop it up a bit. They paid for it that night and the next day. My best friend, Jeff, and I had nabbed bunk beds when we arrived. I was on the top bunk and asleep before he got back from next door.
In the middle of the night, I could hear him throwing up below me. I figured he’d grabbed a trash can or something. It wasn’t aware until the next morning that the receptacle he threw up in was my shoe! Thankfully, he was kind enough to clean it while hung over.
The above photo makes me a little sad. I was at my goal weight when this picture was taken. I really wish I could get back down to that weight. I’m trying.
When we walked outside in the morning, I remember seeing all the beer bottles on the picnic table and laughed like crazy. I had to get a picture of it. I think we all took it easy that night and only had a beer or two.
As far as the fishing trip itself? Skidway Lake is not too deep. We were pulling up 3 inch fish. It was quite humorous actually. We almost always got a fish with every cast, although there were far from anything you’d share with anyone.
Despite his hangover, Jeff caught the biggest fish of the trip!
A while back, I asked some blogger friends if they’d want to write a piece for my Share Your Nostalgia feature. In the past we have looked at Favorite Childhood Toy and Favorite Childhood Book. Today, we go back to Saturday mornings. This was when we sat in front of the TV with our favorite cereal and watched hours of cartoons. So I asked my guests to write about their favorite cartoon or cartoon character growing up.
Today’s guest bloggeris no stranger to readers of this blog. He is my friend, Dave, from A Sound Day. He has been hosting his monthly music feature Turntable Talk for 3 years. I have been lucky enough to write for every topic. He is also the one who encouraged me to host a feature of my own, which is this one. I have used his presentation as a blueprint for my feature. I appreciate Dave’s support on this. I probably would have never started it, had he not encouraged me.For that, I thank you!
I’m excited to see what Dave’s thoughts are, so I’ll turn it over to him….
Thanks to Keith for inviting me back to this round of his super “Share your Nostalgia”. I love the idea and the picks for toys and books were pretty simple for me. But this round is a bit different. Keith mentioned that I challenged him a little in the last round of my Music round-table, Turntable Talk, with a tricky topic. Well, I think he’s going tit-for-tat here; I had to think some about this one – a favorite childhood cartoon.
I loved cartoons as a kid, but it’s odd. I loved music then too, and I seem to have an almost photographic (or is it audio tape?) memory of the music I heard back then. It seems like I could close to pull a top 30 chart from the early-’70s out of my head and it would be fairly close to accurate; I can hear a few bars of a song from that era and usually I’ll identify it if it was on radio back then, even if I’d not thought about it for a couple of decades. Not so the cartoons though! My memories of the ones I watched are now a bit fuzzy.
Reading Christian’s column earlier this week, it occurs to me I could have gone for Peanuts and A Charlie Brown Christmas. I loved that show then, love it now and I likely have seen it each and every December since I was a kid, so I remember it pretty clearly! But even though it was animated, it somehow seems more like a “special” than a cartoon for me.
I do remember, as many others here will probably comment on too, that it was a different world back then. The Flintstones and Jetsons (both of which I liked) were something of a different breed, half hour cartoons with a full story line, and they played Monday-Friday when I was young. They were like a sitcom made via animation and the forefunner of The Simpsons, which for years as an adult in the ’90s was a weekly “must see”.
I remember seeing the Flintstones a lot during my school lunch breaks … the public school was just five doors up from our house so coming home was easy and I often had my sandwich while enjoying Fred and Barney’s antics. But otherwise, cartoons were pretty much just a Saturday morning thing. No Cartoon Network or round-the-clock programming with cartoons then, so they were a special treat. Many a Saturday I’d be up before my parents and crept into the living room (no TVs in our bedrooms back then either) and turn on the big old console TV quietly and laugh my head off at the cartoons.
Now, it’s tough to really pick a particular favorite but what I recall well is that there were essentially two diffferent cartoon streams. There was Merrie Melodies/Looney Tunes and Hanna-Barbera. The first two were technically separate but by the 1940s had pretty much merged and were interchangeable. They were the dominant ones that played week after week, hour after hour it seemed. There were shows like Looney Tunes and the Bugs Bunny & Roadrunner Show. They were, I guess, the “stars” of the cartoon world – Bugs Bunny, Roadrunner and Coyote, Tweety bird and Sylvester the Cat, Porky Pig and of course, everyone’s favorite sexually abusive skunk, Pepe le Pew. There were endless numbers of the short cartoons featuring those characters and while I enjoyed them somewhat, they didn’t really grab me all that much.
Bugs Bunny actually bugged me somewhat – he was too smug, too arrogant. Looking back, I think it was indicative of my upbringing. Both parents rather stressed “don’t brag. Don’t show off” to me, and while even though my Dad wasn’t British (my Mom was) they both rather exuded that British “stiff upper lip” persona. As such, that smug, show offy rabbit got under my skin … though not as much as it did Elmer Fudd’s. Same goes for Tweety, as much as I love birds. And the Coyote, he I sort of felt sorry for. But even now recall wondering “why does he keep buying stuff from Acme when it always backfires on him?”
I much preferred the Hanna-Barbera ones, though I didn’t see them nearly as much. They likely weren’t as popular overall. I guess Yogi Bear was the most famous of their Saturday morning characters, there were shows which incorporated Yogi into the title. I found Yogi, Booboo and their never-ending quest for a pic-a-nic basket kind of funny. But the real stars to me were some of the minor or secondary characters who’d have their own little bits now and again. Specifically, Auggie Doggie and Huckleberry Hound.
Huckleberry Hound was a laid-back blue dog with a southern accent apparently designed to sound like Andy Griffith. He’d try various jobs, like dog catcher or even ancient knight, usually not too well and was often outsmarted by local crows. All the while, his love was playing on his old banjo, singing “My darling Clementine” rather off-key. It was the first animated show to win an Emmy by the way, going back to 1960 when it won Outstanding Achievement in Children’s Programming. When I found this old clip of him on Youtube, it made me smile and think back again.
Auggie Doggie was a little dachshund pup who adored his father, Doggie Daddy. Auggie just wanted to make Dear Old Dad proud and Doggie Daddy doted on his son (in his Jimmy Durante-like voice) and together they took on a number of adventures… usually with unexpected consequences. For instance, in a review of the first season of its clips, storylines included Auggie creating a flying saucer and taking off into space and “Good Mouse Keeping” where the pair “try to get rid of an annoying mouse from their home” with the mouse always getting the upper hand.
I liked those three dogs a lot, and perhaps even more because they weren’t as omni-present as the Merrie Melodies crew. Looking back, there was a sort of innocence and naivete about them perhaps lacking in the competitors which were a little mean at the core. Its a child-like quality that seems entirely welcome in shows for small children and something that, my very limited experience suggests has long disappeared from 21st Century cartoons. Those are usually better drawn or computer-animated and more action packed but lacking in storyline or morals. It’s nice to think back to a simpler time and simpler childhoods and watching a few of these old cartoons helps me do that, so thanks Keith for the topic. I hope you all have similar recollections or trips back to happy times of your past with the others’ picks too.
I feel like it’s been forever since I posted a personal update. My wife’s surgery, her recovery, the daily features, and this week’s Share Your Nostalgia, I’ve been a bit busy. So let me bring you up to date.
My wife is recovering nicely. She will be heading in for another post op check up next week. Her hope is that they clear her to go back to work. She had made it no secret that she is bored and hates laying around. She’s already been her stubborn self and doing things that the doctor told her not to do. That’s how I know she is ready to go back!
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Our photographer, Beth, at Enjoy The View hosted a Spring Mini session recently. We love taking our kids here. The session is 15 minutes long, which is about how long they will behave. Beth had a dog that the kids loved named Roxie. They asked her where Roxie was when they walked in. Beth whispered to us that Roxie had passed away a few days before. Ella heard her and after the session, she told us she had to get a card for “Miss Beth” because “she has to be really sad.”
When the session started, they were ok. However 5 minutes in, they started to get crazy. They were moving SO much. I cannot even believe the great shots she got of them. Sam and I looked at each other when we saw the photos and asked, “Were we at the same session? I could swear they never stood still!”
Here is one of my favorites:
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My brother came up for a visit over the weekend. The kids have been cooped up and wanted to get out of the house. We decided to take them to the Sloan Museum, which has a lot of fun for kids. They have this huge water area for them to play.
They also have a cool treehouse that they can climb in.
When we pulled in, we could see just how busy they were, but we ventured in anyway. It was packed. We had the two kids and four adults and it was a challenge for us to keep them in our sight. They love playing with the other kids, but for us, it was wall to wall people and I was afraid we’d lose sight of them. In the end, they had fun and I was glad to be out of there!
We all went to dinner afterward at our favorite steakhouse – Lucky’s. My brother had never been there before, and we have never taken the kids there. Andrew was a hoot.
They brought out a salad and he was eating it when he found a leaf of spinach. “What?! A leaf?!? Who puts leaves in a salad?!”
There was a bottle of wine on the table and they asked if they could have some. We said that it was not for kids and it was alcohol. Andrew says, “Alcohol?!? People die from that on Dr. G!”
(Dr. G Medical Examiner is a show that follows this doctor doing Autopsies!)
Despite the 30 minute wait, the food was excellent. My brother and his partner decided they would go back to the hotel because it was close to bedtime. Sam and I walked in the door and we were ready for bed.
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My brother has read just about everything on Anne Frank. Sam knows that I read a lot of World War II books. She had asked if we’d ever been to the Holocaust museum here in Michigan. I had no idea that there was one. We looked and they were open on Sunday, so we met there about 1pm. We took the kids to Nana’s.
When we walked in, the first thing I saw was a train car. As many know, German soldiers loaded many Jewish people on these cars and took them to the gas chambers. I had read about these cars, which many books describe in detail. I felt it was smaller than I pictured.
This museum not only looks at the events of WWII and the Holocaust, but it takes it a step further and features the stories of survivors who moved to the US and to Michigan. I was disappointed when we found out that one of those survivors was there doing a talk an hour before we arrived. Her name was Irene Miller.
She has written a book about her experience and they had copies in the museum shop. My brother and I both bought copies. When I got home, I noticed she had autographed them. I cannot wait to read this.
It took us about 90 minutes to go through, but I can see where it might take longer. There are many of those codes you can scan with your phone and it takes you to videos with more information. As you get to the end of your trip, there is a hallway with Michigan survivors.
It truly was a very moving experience. I am so glad that we all decided to go. I hope to go back again soon and revisit some of the things we didn’t do.
One of the most sobering facts was that there were over 6 million Jews died during the Holocaust. A quote on the museum website from a Midland High School student makes a good point:
“The Zekelman Holocaust Center shows how much of an impact the Holocaust had on the world. Looking at the number six million in history class doesn’t show much, but seeing the impact here does.”
On the outside of the building are six peaks. They represent those 6 million lives.
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My brother’s visits are never long enough, but I am always glad to see him. We’re hoping to make the trip down to see him over the summer, if possible.
A while back, I asked some blogger friends if they’d want to write a piece for my Share Your Nostalgia feature. In the past we have looked at Favorite Childhood Toy and Favorite Childhood Book. Today, we go back to Saturday mornings. This was when we sat in front of the TV with our favorite cereal and watched hours of cartoons. So I asked my guests to write about their favorite cartoon or cartoon character growing up.
Today’s guest blogger is someone that I recently connected with on WordPress. I enjoy her writing so much that she has already contributed a guest blog here. Her blog, Regular Girl Devos, is full of gems. Some of her features are a Monday Motivation piece, Quotes that will make you think, Praise pieces, blogs to Find Your Purpose, and various Stories. I’m glad to have Dana here again. I wonder what her take on cartoons is …
Thank you, Keith, for inviting me to write about such a fun subject! I’m going vintage, so hop in my time machine as I dial in the spring of 1963…
My mom worked to make ends meet, so I spent my days at grandma’s house. Every Monday, grandma and I would go to the grocery store. As she drove the old Chevy, I would stand on the bench seat next to her, excited for the treat soon to come.
In my bare feet, I ran past the western pony ride in front of the store to the Kiddierama Cartoon Theater Booth, just inside next to the checkout lanes. Slipping past the red velvet-like curtain, I would slide onto the wooden seat and wait for grandma to push the button on the outside. It was dark, but not scary. As we were usually there on Mondays, I wouldn’t have to share my little movie theater with anyone. Soon, images would flicker on the small screen and the music would play.
I delighted in the dancing woodland creatures, insects, and even trees and flowers. I experienced all kinds of music, from classical to swing-time jazz and barbershop quartets. When it stopped, I hopped out to push the button again—no coins needed!
I remember many of these musical animated short films, but until I began my research, I didn’t realize how many studios produced them. Disney began making Silly Symphonies in 1929, and Terrytoons began the same year. Walter Lantz Productions followed with Swing Symphony, MGM had Happy Harmonies, and Warner Brothers had Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes.
Most of those I saw in that little booth were from the early days and I loved them! Stories told only with music and dancing violins, what is not to like? Here are a few links to my favorites:
Of course, the most popular animated musical movie was Disney’s “Fantasia,” released in 1940. The cartoons produced during the “Golden Age of American animation,” from 1928 through the 60s, are the best!
Because I also love vintage movies, I enjoy the cartoons starring classic Hollywood actors like Clark Gable, Bing Crosby, and Jimmy Stewart, just to name a few. One, by Merrie Melodies, is called “Hollywood Steps Out.” It includes caricatures of over 40 of Hollywood’s most popular performers. Here is a link to IMDb if you would like to learn more: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0033724/?ref_=ls_t_2
If you appreciate vintage comedy, watch this one by Looney Tunes from 1942 of Abbott and Costello called “The Tale of Two Kitties.” It is hilarious!
Does anyone else remember these tiny theaters in the stores?
“A cheerful heart is a good medicine, but a downcast spirit dries up the bones.” Proverbs 17:22
Welcome back to The Music of My Life. I began this feature last May on my birthday. Over the past 11 months, I have featured 10 songs from every year of my life. The songs featured were released in that week’s particular year. It may have been a bigger hit the following year, but I decided to stick with the rules I had put in place.
This week, I guess I am breaking on of the rules. The rule was that I’d feature 10 songs per year. Last week (2015) I was able to get 10 songs, but from here on out I doubt I will be able to. Whether lyrics were just to raunchy, or some other reason, I found myself looking at songs I disliked or had never heard of. Every once in a while, I’d come across a song or two, but it has become very difficult.
So today, let’s tackle two years 2016 & 2017. It was during these two years that I was going through a very difficult time. These were the last days of my marriage and the beginning (and end) of the divorce. I was only occasionally doing a DJ gig here or there, so I became unfamiliar with many new songs.
Let’s start in 2016 first,
2016
My first pick for ’16 is an amazing song by Tim McGraw. Humble and Kind was written by Lori McKenna. She wrote the song at her home when her kids were at school. She set out to write down what she and her husband would want the children to know, fully aware that kids are bombarded with advice and most of it goes right through them.
“Honestly, it’s a very simple song,” she told The Boot. “It’s really just this list of things that I wanted to make sure we told them, in this rhyme form. I was lucky that the chorus made as much sense as it did. I did write it in that one sitting; it took me a few hours, but it was a lucky day.“
Tim McGraw says, “I guess I had it for a year and a half or so, and it was just her and an acoustic guitar playing it. The night that she wrote it, she sent it to me, and I listened to it over and over, and I just fell in love with the song and her version of it.”
“I knew I wanted to record it, but I just couldn’t quite get my head around how I wanted to do it,” he continued. “I couldn’t get past her demo of her singing it. It was just so beautiful and so touching. If anybody’s ever heard Lori just sit and sing with a guitar, she could sing anything to you and sell it to you. It’s so beautiful what she does.”
It is a fantastic song with a universal truth.
Humble and Kind
My wife and I don’t really have a “song” that we claim for ourselves. We’ve talked about it before and we have songs that were “possible” songs, but never came up with one. One of those possible songs was From The Ground Up.
While we were just beginning our life together, the fact that the song was written about a couple that had been together a long time didn’t matter. Because all relationships have to start from scratch and move forward.
This song finds Dan Smyers and Shay Mooney singing of a love between an elderly couple that’s rooted in commitment and grows deeper with every passing year. “‘From the Ground Up’ is a song that started with a conversation about our grandparents and the love that they shared for the 65-plus years that they were married,” Smyers said. “It tells the story of the life that they built through their power and dedication to each other, and the perseverance to endure whatever would come their way.” (from songfacts.com)
From The Ground Up
Next is a song that Time magazine hated. Justin Timberlake’s Can’t Stop the Feeling. They voted it the worst song of 2016. They said, “The insipid earworm – which was ostensibly recorded for an animated movie about trolls – became essentially unavoidable at any social gathering where someone in attendance was likely to use the phrase ‘cut loose.’ Forget the feeling – just please, please stop this song.”
This song was huge at the few DJ gigs I did do in 2016 & 2017. From songfacts:
Justin Timberlake told People he would never have written the song if it wasn’t for Trolls. “Listening to [producer] Gina Shay and [directors] Mike Mitchell and Walt Dohrn talk about the movie and how it was really inspired by the ’70s, I started bringing up the soundtrack from Saturday Night Fever, movies where the soundtrack was released before the movie and got people equally excited,” he explained. “The movie seems like an unabashed pop song to me, so I was like, ‘Let’s just write an unabashed pop song.'”
“Our task was to write a song that encapsulated the message of the movie, and by the way, we want people to be able to dance to it,” Timberlake said on the red carpet leading up to the Oscars. “When I was watching the movie it reminded me of disco, so that’s where I got the idea for a modern disco song.”
Can’t Stop The Feeling
Next is a powerful song from Alessia Cara – Scars To Your Beautiful. Cara said to her fans before premiering the song. “The standards that we have to kind of face as young women in everyday life just to feel, or look a certain way, or act a certain way, because there’s a lot of pressure being a young girl, and just girls and women in general,” she said. “So I wanted to make a reminder to just love yourself and appreciate yourself no matter what.”
Many of her fans, as well as people hearing it for the first time, have said how much this song meant to them. I can agree with them.
Scars To Your Beautiful
Play That Song by Train was a song that was playing in the background while I was doing something. I was able to pick out the familiar melody, which made me wonder “What is this? Is this a current song? Who is this?”
(Songfacts) The song is built around the melody of the much covered classic “Heart and Soul” written by Hoagy Carmichael and Frank Loesser in 1938. American band leader Larry Clinton recorded the most successful version in 1939, reaching #1 on the chart. Modern listeners probably best known it as the song that Robert Loggia and Tom Hanks play and dance to on a giant foot-operated electronic keyboard in the 1988 movie Big.
The video shows Train singer Pat Monahan dancing around a sunny Los Angeles as he listens to the song. There is a nod to Big as we see him at one point moving back and forth on a giant keyboard. It’s kind of hard not to feel good when you hear that melody.
Play That Song
2017
If the melody of Feel It Still by Portugal The Man sounds familiar, there is a reason. Songfacts explains:
The melody on this track kicks it like it’s 1961, interpolating the Marvelettes hit “Please, Mr. Postman.”
Ooh woo, I’m a rebel just for kicks, now…
Oh yes, wait a minute Mister Postman…
“That ‘Please Mr. Postman’ melody is every bit of the way we grew up,” John Gourley said in his Songfacts interview. “I grew up with dog-mushing parents – which I know is a bizarre thing for anybody outside of Alaska. And even within Alaska, it’s such a small community within the state. So I grew up around really long drives. We were off the grid our whole lives until I left. Like, an hour drive to town. Sometimes a two-hour drive to town. That’s four hours, both ways. So we would just listen to oldies radio, and ‘Please Mr. Postman’ is a staple.
I always wanted to sing something to that melody. It’s a totally different song, and that to me is what music is about. What songwriting is about is paying homage and creating something new. It’s no longer ‘Please Mr. Postman.’ Now, it’s ‘Feel It Still.'”
Feel It Still
I didn’t know much about Imagine Dragons until I started working at the Adult Contemporary station. I played quite a few of their songs there, including Thunder. What struck me about this song is that he is a boy with dreams of being on stage. His classmates make fun of him for dreaming about being a star. The tables turn in the second verse, as the Dragons frontman (Dan Reynolds) flips the script on those who mocked him.
Now I’m smiling from the stage While you were clapping in the nose bleeds
Karma strikes back. Reynolds says, “‘Thunder’ is: ‘I’m so happy for a really (crappy) middle school and high school existence and getting kicked out of college. It’s reflecting on all those things and saying, ‘Good, I’m happy for all that because that brought me to this place of being. It created angst inside of me that bred art.'”
Thunder
Speaking of Karma, Taylor Swift sings about it and a bit of revenge in Look What You Made Me Do. This is another song that interpolates another as it follows the rhythm of Right Said Fred’s I’m Too Sexy.
Right Said Fred frontman Richard Fairbrass explained how Swift interpolated their tune:
“The title of ‘Look What You Made Me Do’ is based upon the verse of ‘…Sexy.’ That’s basically it. What’s weird about ‘Sexy’ is that when people sing it, they sing the verse, not the chorus – nobody sings that. Everybody sings: ‘I’m too sexy’ – it’s the verse that people have latched onto, not the chorus.”
In Taylor’s song they adapt that rhythm and attitude of the ‘Sexy’ verse as a chorus – so they’ve just interpolated it differently, that’s all it is. I’d be an idiot to complain about it. We’ve been really lucky to have been picked by somebody like Taylor, who is obviously very cool and very successful and open-minded and relaxed about it. She’s not like some people.”
Fun Fact: Taylor Swift’s bathtub in the music video is filled with $10 million worth of Neil Lane diamonds.
Look What You Made Me Do
Ed Sheeran’s Perfect was a song that I suggested as a possibility for “our song” to my wife. It is a truly beautiful love song.
Ed Sheeran wrote this waltz-time love song for his girlfriend Cherry Seaborn, who is an old school friend. After writing it he had no idea whether or not she really likes the track. “I just recorded it and sent it because she was living in New York at the time so I didn’t see her reaction,” he told BBC Radio 2. “I think she liked it.”
Ed calls the song a bit “cheesy,” but I truly like it.
Perfect
The final pick for this week is a song I played at both stations I was working at. I was doing part time work at the country station and part time work on the adult contemporary station. Meant to Be played on both stations. It felt weird to say Florida Georgia Line on the AC station and even weirder to say Bebe Rexha on the country station.
Bebe Rexah said the song was one that helped her get through some personal issues:
“I’ve recently been going through heartbreak, and I listen to the song, and it makes me feel better and like there’s some type of destiny and if something doesn’t work out then, there’s something better waiting for you,” she said. “I think that’s something we need more than ever with all the events going on in the world. People want to feel safe and like everything’s going to be OK.”
Just how did FGL and Rexha get together for this song? FGL’s Tyler Hubbard says,
“Man, it was pretty organic. We ended up, last-minute, kinda out of the blue, getting together with her in LA when we were [there] writing, and wrote it kind of on a whim, late-night. The next thing you know, we just kinda hit gold, if you will. A really special song kinda fell out of the sky, as we call it. It doesn’t happen like that every time we get in a room to write.”
The song really has the life lesson of “It will happen if it’s meant to be” in it.
Meant To Be
Well, that wraps up 2016 and 2017. I had trouble finding my songs, did I miss one of your favorites? Tell me which ones in the comments. Next week, we’ll combine 2018 and 2019. On my list a song that has one of the weirdest videos I have ever seen. Also on the list some movie music, a country ear worm, and a touching song about grandparents. See you then.
A while back, I asked some blogger friends if they’d want to write a piece for my Share Your Nostalgia feature. In the past we have looked at Favorite Childhood Toy and Favorite Childhood Book. Today, we go back to Saturday mornings. This was when we sat in front of the TV with our favorite cereal and watched hours of cartoons. So I asked my guests to write about their favorite cartoon or cartoon character growing up.
Today’s featured guest blogger is one of the first bloggers I connected with after starting this blog 7 years ago. I don’t recall who found who first, but I believe we connected talking about old toys. Since connecting, I’ve found him to be like an old friend. Max runs the Power Pop Blog and features some great music. Max and I have a lot in common and today proves it as he picked on of the characters on my list of favorites. Take it away, Max …
“There’s no need to fear…Underdog is here!“
Thanks, Keith, for hosting this and coming up with this great idea! I watched a few Underdog episodes for the first time in years, and it was worth it.
When I was growing up, we kids had two prime times for cartoons. Saturday mornings were our Super Bowl, packed with classics from Warner Bros. and Hanna-Barbera. Even Land of the Lost—though live-action—was a can’t-miss favorite. But not all the best cartoons aired on Saturdays. Every weekday morning, from 6 to 7 a.m. before school, we had another dose of animated fun, with shows like Rocky and Bullwinkle and Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse keeping us entertained.
Underdog debuted October 3, 1964, on the NBC network under the primary sponsorship of General Mills, and continued in syndication until 1973 (although production of new episodes ceased in 1967, for a run of 124 episodes.
Underdog’s secret identity was Shoeshine Boy. He was in love with Sweet Polly Purebred, who was a news reporter. I would watch this cartoon before going to school in 1st and 2nd grade. Underdog would use his secret ring to conceal pills that he would take when he needed energy. NBC soon put an end to that.
For many years, starting with NBC’s last run in the mid-1970s, all references to Underdog swallowing his super energy pill were censored, most likely out of fear that kids would see medication that looked like the Underdog pills (red with a white “U”) and swallow them. Two instances that did not actually show Underdog swallowing the pills remained in the show. In one, he drops pills into water supplies; in the other, his ring is damaged, and he explains that it is where he keeps the pill—but the part where he actually swallows it was still deleted.
The shows introduced such characters as King Leonardo, Tennessee Tuxedo, Commander McBragg, Klondike Kat, and more. Underdog was voiced by Wally Cox. Underdog always talked in rhyme and I’m a sucker for that in this and Dr Seuss. Two of the villains every week were Simon Bar Sinister and Riff Raff.
W. Watts Biggers teamed with Chet Stover, Treadwell D. Covington, and artist Joe Harris in the creation of television cartoon shows to sell breakfast cereals for General Mills. The shows introduced such characters as King Leonardo, Tennessee Tuxedo, and Underdog. Biggers and Stover contributed both scripts and songs to the series.
When Underdog became a success, Biggers and his partners left Dancer Fitzgerald Sample to form their own company, Total Television, with animation produced at Gamma Studios in Mexico. In 1969, Total Television folded when General Mills dropped out as the primary sponsor (but continued to retain the rights to the series until 1995; however, they still own TV distribution rights.
Underdog became a pop culture icon, with reruns airing for decades. The character was featured in toys, comics, and even a 2007 live-action film starring Jason Lee as the voice of Underdog. The theme song remains one of the most recognizable in cartoon history.
Various Ramblings of a Nostalgic Italian 