Share Your Nostalgia – Round 3

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 Paul, 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.

Share Your Nostalgia – Round 3

Today’s guest blogger is 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.

Comedy, Cartoons, and Classical Music

The Barber is 209 years old!

It was on this day in 1816 that Gioachino Rossini’s Barber of Seville premiered in Rome, Italy. It is considered to be one of the greatest masterpieces of comedy within music, and has been described as the opera buffa of all “opere buffe.” (For those wondering what an opera buffa is, it is “a comic opera (usually in Italian), especially one with characters drawn from everyday life.“)

Rossini wrote The Barber of Seville in just 12 days! On top of that, he wasn’t even 24-years-old and had already written 16 operas at the time! Wow! If you think you are unfamiliar with the opera, I assure you, you are wrong. You have heard it in one way or another in pop culture over the years.

The music of Rossini’s The Barber of Seville has been ingrained in popular culture longer than any of us have been alive! From Citizen Kane to Mrs. Doubtfire to Pixar’s Luca, Rossini’s famous comedy has been indelibly woven into film and television history. One of the most recent occurrences can be found in Seinfeld‘s “The Barber” in which the opera’s music replaces the incidental bass lines for the episode. Another was in The Simpsons‘ “The Homer of Seville,” in which the title character discovers his hidden talent for opera singing.

One of the oldest appearances was in the Little Rascals feature, The Our Gang Follies of 1938. In the story, Alfalfa quits singing pop music to become an opera singer. Needless to say, the audience didn’t care too much for his version.

The most memorable to me (and many others) came about in the cartoons. Woody Woodpecker gave it a try …

Tom and Jerry’s hijinks went on throughout their version …

The one that is the best, of course, belongs to Bugs Bunny. The Rabbit of Seville is a classic. Sadly, I could only find it on Youtube in 3 parts….

Who would have thought that a piece of music 2 centuries old would still be making us laugh??

Friday Photo Flashback

This week I was looking for something non-blog related and came across a photo I forgot about.

This is a five or six year old me. I had been taking organ lessons with the sweetest teacher. I remember there was a store in the mall that sold pianos and organs, I took my lessons there.

By the looks of this picture, I would guess this was taken at our old house. The couch in the back makes me wonder if this is at my grandma’s house, but I don’t think so. My brother might be able to clarify that. Grandma had an organ, too, so it is slightly possible that this is at her house.

At any rate, I remember how difficult it was for my short legs to hit the pedals on the ground. My teacher, Mrs. Bostick, was so nice. She would often say, “Keep eating right, and those legs will grow long enough to do it!”

If you look on the left of the top keyboard, you will see some yellow, green and white switches. Those switches could make what you played sound like a clarinet, horn, tibia, trumpet, etc… They could also add vibrato and other effects.

Our organ had one of those “beat buttons.” You could have it play a drum line for you based on the type of song you were playing. It had reggae, swing, tango, rock, etc… As you can see in the above picture, many of the organs had a control for how fast or slow the “drums” went.

The photo of me makes me remember a lot. First, the lovely Mrs. Bostick. I miss her letters since she passed away. Second, the fact that I once had thick hair. And last, that the one song I loved to play on the organ was used in a Bugs Bunny Cartoon.

“Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms” was a song in one of my lesson books. It was fairly easy to play and the chords were easy, too. I played it a lot because it was one I played well.

As far as the Bugs cartoon, well, the joke (and song) were used a lot:

Rocking At The Schoolhouse

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I thought about ways to tie this post into Movie Music Monday, but I really couldn’t find a way to do it. That being said, the feature will return next week. I decided to revisit one of the first topics I blogged about, as there are many new followers since 2018.

As a kid, we lived for Saturday mornings! We never slept in because we knew that all morning long we had our choice of back to back cartoons! There was Scooby-Doo, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Hong Kong Phooey, Blue Falcon & Dynomutt, The Laff-O-Lympics, The Flilntstones, The Pink Panther and many more! It was great! We’d sit and watch these shows all morning long with a big ole bowl of cereal and laugh away!

Saturday mornings, while full of explosions, anvils, and slapstick silliness, was also educational at times. I know this for a fact because one of the things that helped me in school was School House Rock. These little three minute musical features helped me learn multiplication, history, and English. I cannot tell you how many times I found myself singing those songs in school!

Schoolhouse Rock made its debut on this day in 1973. It remained a Saturday morning staple through 1985. The story of how it came about is much like that of today’s Internet sensation Miss Rachel. A caring parent wanted to help their child.

The series was the idea of David McCall, an advertising executive of McCaffrey and McCall, who noticed his young son was struggling with learning multiplication tables. He noted that his son had no issues remembering lyrics to Rolling Stones songs and thought music might help. He hired musician Bob Dorough to write a song that would teach multiplication. The song would became “Three Is a Magic Number.”

Tom Yohe, an illustrator at McCaffrey and McCall, heard the song and created visuals to accompany it. That led to Radford Stone, producer and writer at the ABC network. He suggested they pitch it as a television series, which caught the attention of Michael Eisner, then the senior vice president in charge of programming and development at ABC, and cartoon director Chuck Jones.

The first season was Multiplication Rock. Learning the times table is one of those things that ALL kids absolutely hate! God, I hated those 60 second tests where you had to write the answers to as many problems as you could. The stress of that was awful for an elementary student. School House Rock helped!

“Three is a Magic Number” was the first to air. If it truly is a magic number, what better way to illustrate it than with a magician?

Counting by twos was illustrated by Noah and the ark. The biblical account talks of Noah bringing all the animals on the ark in pairs. So throughout this number, Noah answers his son’s question of how many animals were on the ark by counting the animals two by two as the exit the boat.

What child didn’t do a bit of daydreaming in school? To remember how to multiply 8, all we had to do is think about the little school girl who daydreamed she was a figure skater. She skates her figure 8 and the song told us how.

The most memorable one for me was counting by fives. I remember when I had to help my son learn his times tables, I sang the “ready or not, here I come” song which helped you count by 5. This little song centered around a game of hide and seek, and they had to count to 100 by fives while the rest of the kids hid. To this day, when I have to count by fives – I think of this song!

The next season was called Grammar Rock. It focused on the parts of speech. Before they taught me about nouns and verbs in school, I was ahead of the game because i’d already heard of them on Schoolhouse Rock.

English was one of my best subjects. I remember being in 5th or 6th grade and going to something called the Academic Olympics. Schools within the district had these little game show like contests with teams for Math, Science, English, and History. I was chosen to be on the English team. I certainly never had an issue with the parts of speech because of Schoolhouse Rock.

Yep! Thanks to SHR, the little girl and her dog – we knew a noun was “a person, place or thing”!

What’s happening? Verb! That’s what’s happening! The coolest “action” hero? Well, I don’t know about that, but a verb shows action….and I always remember him!

Why do I remember this? Because the music was cool. The character was cool. We didn’t even know they were trying to teach us something!!! We were learning and it was cool!

And what about describing a noun? Well all you had to do was unpack some adjectives…but watch out for the scary, hairy bear!

Adjectives and adverbs were so hard for some kids to get. I could not ever understand why. I got it pretty quickly … because of a little girl and her trip. You see, her friends ask her to describe her camping trip. She said that all she had to do was unpack some adjectives.

Schoolhouse Rock’s song about adverbs was memorable because it was just a fun little song that takes place in (where else?) an adverb store! Need an adverb – shop at Lolly’s! The brilliance of this song is it is like a commercial for the store…and they really sell it! If I really needed to go buy and adverb – I would shop at Lolly’s!! After all … they are family owned!

I still remember learning about interjections for the first time. I also learned about the punctuation that followed it. This song was full of characters – the kid with the flu who needed a shot, the gal getting asked out on a date, the fans at the football game, and others who were all full of interjections!

While all of these are memorable, probably the most memorable Grammar Rock song is about three small words and a small little train conductor. The bluesy swing song with the repetitive refrain and the amazing vocal talents of Jack Sheldon makes Conjunction Junction one of the all time BEST sing a longs. Jack is one of the most memorable voices from the series.

Ask any child of the 70’s to give you a conjunction and they will spout off “and”, “but”, and “or” immediately! That’s a sure bet!!

As America headed into the Bicentennial celebration in 1976, the series created a season called America Rock. This focused on aspects of the American government and important moments in American history. Some of the biggest events in US history were brought to life in 3 minutes of musical perfection!

Interest in American History is still abounding today. A few years ago, there was an AMC series called Turn! which was about the Revolutionary War and George Washington’s spies. Then there was an HBO series on John Adams and the role he played in the Independence of America. Let’s start around there …

No More Kings was a silly little song about the colonists coming to America and being taxed for everything. This leads to the Boston Tea Party and America wanting no part of King George (who can see what’s happening through his telescope).

What followed was the Revolutionary War. Which got it’s own song called The Shot Heard Round the World, which of course is then followed by the Declaration of Independence, which got it’s own little song … and Fireworks.

Thanks to Schoolhouse Rock, today I can still recite:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident,
That all men are created equal
And that they are endowed by their creator
With certain inalienable rights.
That among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Then, of course, after we declared our independence, we had to have a Constitution. Memorizing the Preamble of the Constitution was no problem for me in school … I had it set to music!

There have been many Amendments to the Constitution, and the 19th was a biggie! It allowed women to vote! It is hard to imagine that they didn’t have that right until 1920!! The right was referred to as Women’s Suffrage. School House Rock Tackled this historic occasion with the song “Sufferin’ Until Suffrage”.

Women were American’s too. They wanted the right to vote. The video for this song is part cartoon and part black and white pictures of women throughout history. It’s a rocking number that gets the point across and you can here the “victory” in her voice in this “gospel”-ish song.

Oh, we were suffering until suffrage,
Not a woman here could vote, no matter what age,
Then the 19th Amendment struck down that restrictive rule.

As I stated earlier, people are still interested in history. A couple years ago, there was a movie about the battle over AC/DC current between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse as electricity was gaining use throughout the country. I am currently reading a book about that battle. This point ties in with the next song.

Throughout history, we’ve seen many inventions that have made our world a better place. “Mother Necessity” was the character who is in this song and the “mother” of the inventors of these wonderful things. We hear of the Wright Brothers and their airplane, Thomas Edison and the light bulb, Eli Whitney and the cotton gin, Samuel Morse and the telegraph, Alexander Graham Bell and the telephone and a few others.

“Mother Necessity where would we be indeed!”

Finally, the School House Rock showed me how the legislation process happens…with our friend, Bill. Bill is just that – a bill.

How does a bill become a law? I learned how with this song. Performed again by Jack Sheldon (Conjunction Junction) perfectly, you learn about the whole process and lengths a bill goes through to be a law. Naturally, we all feel great when he finally becomes a law at the end!

In 1985, Schoolhouse Rock left the air. It was a few years later that some new songs and new seasons came out. In 1993, two new songs were made for Grammar Rock. One was about prepositions.

Then, in 1995 an entire new series called Money Rock aired until 1996. In 2003, the creators began work on two more songs to include in the 30th anniversary collection. They were about the Electoral College and How the President is elected. Finally, in 2009, a direct to DVD collection called Schoolhouse Rock: Earth was released in response to climate change.

I hope you have enjoyed this look back at one of my fondest childhood memories. Thank you School House Rock for helping me and many other children learn so much about so many things! Now, to end with an interjection….

“Darn! That’s the end…”

Have a slice

I meant to post this yesterday, so consider this … leftovers.

March 14. 3.14. Pi Day!

While a good slice of pie is delicious, it is also one of the great comedic elements of our time. Think about it, a pie in the face is always funny! Many comedians knew this and there are plenty of examples.

Buster Keaton knew it

Laurel and Hardy knew it

Charlie Chaplin knew it

The Three Stooges knew it

Bugs Bunny knew it

Pies were funny on classic TV shows, too! Like The Soupy Sales Show

And I Love Lucy

Bewitched

And even Gilligan’s Island!

Pies were funny in movies, too. Like The Perils of Pauline

Blazing Saddles

And, naturally, the amazing pie scene from The Great Race

Here’s a great shot of director Blake Edwards actually throwing a pie at star Natalie Wood

Even though technically yesterday was Pi (pie) day… I give you permission to grab yourself a slice of your choice. Remember to enjoy a good laugh too!

Friday Photo Flashback

Its time for another edition of my Friday Photo Flashback. I stumbled upon a photo that brought back many memories making me happy and sad at the same time. Take a peak:

If I was going to put a date on this, it is probably around 1996 or 1997. It looks like it was taken at a home I lived in with my then girlfriend and future ex. It is a terrible picture of me, as I am obviously caught by surprise here. I still have hair and am still wearing glasses. I’m also sporting one of the T-shirts I had made for my DJ business. But it is not me (or the big honking computer monitor) that catches my attention – it is the stuff I can see in the background.

A lot of it I can make out just by looking at it. However, I viewed it by zooming in and a lot caught my attention. The bookshelves alone are full of fantastic memories! The book shelf on the left side of the picture holds a boat load of VHS tapes. On the top shelf I can make out some Soupy Sales Show videos and some videos we must have recorded off TV (hand made lables). On the shelf below that I can make out the VHS tapes of the Three Stooges shorts, Jack Webb’s Dragnet movie, and the Jack Palance version of Dracula. Each shelf would hold two rows of VHS tapes. So I can only see the front rows of what is on the shelf. It seems like the third shelf down is also holding video tapes, but the three hole punch on top of the computer monitor is blocking it.

This photo is obviously taken after 1994. That is when Honey Radio went off the air. Honey stuff is all over this room! Right above the three hole punch, you can make out a black and gold Honey Radio coffee mug. On the top shelf of the right book case, I can see the the Billboard Top 100 Chart book and Pop Singles book. These were part of the Honey on air studio. Behind me on the wall is a chalk caricature that was drawn of me while I was out doing a remote broadcast. I LOVED that thing, and it is long gone now. (This may be the only photographic evidence of it). Next to that is a wooden sign with the Honey Logo on it. Below that sign are two frames. One contains one of the last Honey Happenings newsletters (which has my picture in it) and the other is a shot of me and my old morning show partner.

On the wall behind me in the photo is a beautiful framed photo of the Three Stooges. I received that for Christmas one year from my parents. Under that is the top of a Blues Brothers concert poster. At one point, I used that when my partner Steve and I would don our Blues Brothers hats when we DJ’d. And right below that are the Three Stooges dolls I wrote about in a previous Friday Photo Flashback. You can see the tag on the Curly just behind my ear.

Heading back to the bookshelves. The bookshelf on the right has SO many books that I wish I still had. There is a book on Bugs Bunny, a book on World War II that I had given my grandpa, a few books with Three Stooges scripts, an amazing biography on Curly, and the wonderful Ted Sennett book on the Art of Hanna Barbera.

On the second shelf, I can make out the Milton Berle Joke books I used when I was on the radio, biographies on Stan Freberg and Jackie Gleason, and books I had forgotten about. One example of this is when Thomas Chastain offered up a new Perry Mason novel –

Another example is the books by William Harrington series with Columbo as the star –

The next shelf contains books about movies and TV shows. I had books on Get Smart, Batman, Perry Mason, The Munsters, and more. The coolest of the TV show books were two with trivia and scripts from Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

There are other little trinkets and treasures on the shelves I can see, but the ones on the top of the book cases are ones I wish I still had. I can see my prom glasses up there (yes, they gave high school kids in 1988 wine glasses!), I had two because I went to prom with a gal in my junior year and then my senior prom.

On the left, you can see the boxes that contained limited edition Blues Brothers dolls. I had both Jake and Elwood.

Also on the top of the shelf are Ralph Kramden and Ed Norton figures – limited editions, as well.

I had no idea there was an Alice figure that went with those two until I was searching for pictures.

Finding the photo with all of these memories was such a treat to me. I am sad to remember so many great books and things that are no longer in my possession, but the memories of them remain.

A Trip Down Memory Lane (Part 2)

I stumbled across something recently that I immediately connected with. I jotted down a bunch of the things mentioned in the article, but can’t recall where I saw it. It may have been on Facebook or Reddit. At any rate, I thought this was something that might jar your memory, too!

You can find the first batch of memories in Part 1 here:

A Trip Down Memory Lane (Part 1)

Let’s continue with Part 2 …

Video rental stores

I can remember the first time we had a VCR. To rent tapes was quite expensive at first. Over time, it became the thing to do on a Friday or Saturday night.

I remember walking through the store to get to the New Release Wall. Often times, I would wait until a movie came out on video to see it. The only problem was that sometimes all the copies would be checked out. There were plenty of times I’d see a film I didn’t even know existed. I would pick up the box and read the synopsis on the back and we’d make a decision as to whether or not to rent it.

Then, of course, you’d always check out the classics. Movies were still a bit expensive to buy at the time, so I would rent Smokey and the Bandit, Cannonball Run, and so many other movies I had grown up with.

I truly miss browsing the shelves to see what movie to watch. I miss sitting on the couch with a bowl of microwave popcorn with the lights down watching videos without the issues you’d experience at the movie theater.

Making plans – looking up movie times

Before videos, you went to the movies. But before you could do that, you have to get a newspaper and look up the movie times. Theaters would take out full page ads to promote the movie times. I remember your entire date revolved around the times that a movie would start. Dinner before or after the movie – depended on when the show started.

Sometimes, you could call the theater and they had a dedicated phone line with a recording that gave show times and the movies that were showing.

Calling a friend and talking to their parents first

I remember how many times I would call up a friend and their parents would always answer. Some of the parents were nice and would chat with me as I waited for my friend to get on the phone. Other times, they were short.

As a teen, when I called a girl to chat, I was always freaked out if their dad answered the phone! “That Keith boy is on the phone for you!” Yikes!

If the conversation went on for more than 20 minutes, which it often did, my folks or their folks would get on you because they had to use the phone. Summers I would spend a lot of time on the phone, mainly in the evenings talking to girls who I had a crush on.

When TV went off the air at night

Back in the day, when there were only 3-5 channels to watch on TV, many stations went off the air at night. Today, if you wake up in the middle of the night, you can turn on the TV and get 100 stations of stuff to chose from. When I was a kid, however, you would turn on the TV and see the above test pattern with audio of a single tone playing loudly.

“This concludes our broadcast day” the announcer would say. Sometimes it would be followed by the National Anthem and then the test pattern. Because of this, I would grab my little radio and listen to the late night DJ’s and my love for radio was born.

Sitting down to read a book because nothing was on TV

When we only had a few channels on TV, there would be those times when there was “nothing to watch.” It was then, that you would go to the bookshelf in your bedroom or living room and grab a book to read. There were many hours spent reading books on my bed. My imagination took me to the streets of London, or the deck of a ship as I read adventure stories. I wish I had read more as a kid.

Saturday morning sitcoms/cartoons

Saturday Mornings were heaven for my brother and I. We grabbed a bowl of cereal and plopped down in front of the TV to watch cartoons. Bugs Bunny, Scooby Doo, the Laugh-O-Lympics, Captain Caveman, and more! When the cartoons were done, there were other shows on we watched like Dr. Shrinker, The Monster Squad, and Electra Woman and Dynagal. Those shows bring back many fond memories of Saturday mornings. It was the perfect way to kick off the weekend!

Not being accessible to work outside of the work hours

It is far too easy for employers to reach employees today. I get work email on my phone, although I try to avoid looking at it when I am not there. Employee burnout is high in every profession. The line between work life and home life is blurring. People are bringing work home with them. They are taking work calls during “home time.” This, to me, is unacceptable.

Work needs to stay at work. They get 40 hours of my time during the week, and sometimes more than that (even though there is no pay for it). I try my best to ignore anything work related when I am home. That needs to be my time with family.

I truly miss those days when you only had to think about work when you were there. I miss the days before cell phones when you could actually play 18 holes of golf without having to read text messages or emails from work. If I am out on the beach, the last thing I want to be doing is answering an e-mail.

I love the fact that we can have a phone with us to call someone in an emergency or snap a picture of a neat moment, but when the tech starts to intrude on family and leisure time, we are only adding to burn out or losing precious time with what is really important.

Color My World!

This is some sort of new trend I guess – Adult Coloring Books! They have been around for a bit, but recently at the store, I saw an entire rack of them – FOR ADULTS! Supposedly this is a big way to reduce stress.

I used to love to color as a kid. I had plenty of coloring books with Bugs Bunny, Hong Kong Phooey, and other cartoon characters of the time. I remember going to my grandmas house and there was an end table that had a door on it. When you opened the door there was a huge stack of coloring books and a big old bucket of crayons. We colored for hours.

If you were lucky as a kid, you didn’t just get the box of 24 colors – you got the big box of 64 colors with the built in crayon sharpener!

This was the only way a kid could get the gold or silver crayons!

It’s been some time since I sat down and colored with my boys. However, now that Ella is 18 months old, we got her the box of Jumbo crayons to color with.

In order to avoid any unwanted crayon on the walls, we gave her some paper and let her draw.

She has always seemed to do things with her left hand, so I have a feeling she will be a Southpaw (which will be good when she plays softball!). She began to draw with her left hand and when she got a second crayon, she began to draw with both. The more I watch her, the more I think she may be ambidextrous.

Watching her color was just a joy! I know she is going to be so creative. I was having as much fun watching her as she was having drawing.

The door of the refrigerator is a place of honor for kids. When your artwork is placed there, you know it is special. Ella produced many “fridgeworthy” drawings the other day. This is the first completed crayon drawing:

This, one, however, will NOT go on the fridge! It will go in a frame for us to treasure for many years to come. Is she Rembrandt? No. Is she Picasso? No. Is she Van Gogh? No. Is she da Vinci? No. But maybe one day she will listed among those famous artists because of her work. I will applaud all of her creativity and encourage her to continue doing whatever she loves to do!

If I am being completely honest, her artwork is more priceless and hold more value to be than any piece of art from the “masters”.

Happy 81st Birthday Bugs!

Bugs Bunny is 81 today! He made his official debut in the cartoon “A Wild Hare” on July 27, 1940. It was one of many appearances with Elmer Fudd.

Elmer was one of many who faced off against Bugs over the years. Other’s included Yosemite Sam, Daffy Duck, Pete Puma, Wile E. Coyote, and many more. Off the top of my head I jotted down my favorite Bugs Bunny Cartoons. I had to look up the titles, but I remember them all so well. I am sure I am forgetting many of them.

I won’t go into many details on all of these, but if someone were to ask me which Bugs Bunny Cartoons were a “must see” this is my list. Here there are (mostly) in chronological order:

Baseball Bugs – 1946

Who can forget the 96-95 win that Bugs chocked up against the Gashouse Gorillas??

Racketeer Rabbit – 1946

This was remade in 1954 as Bugs and Thugs with a VERY different Rocky. What is great about this short is that Rocky is a direct copy of Edward G. Robinson. Hugo is a dead ringer for Peter Lorre.

This is probably one of my favorites. The guy doing Robinson’s voice is great!

When Bugs comes in as “Mugsy” flipping a coin like George Raft, it kills me. So many great gags in this one, including “Curtains” and “Gimme the dough.”

Bowery Bugs – 1949

Remember how Bugs drove Steve Brody crazy enough to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge??

Long Haired Hair – 1949

Giovanni Jones is practicing at home for his concert. As he is singing, he begins to sing along with Bugs who is playing a banjo, a harp, a tuba, etc… Needless to say, he is angry. He destroys all the instruments, but Bugs get’s even at the end.

“What do they do in Mississippi, where skies are drippy?”

I wonder how they looped that note for so long!!

Rabbit Hood – 1949

My buddy John posted a picture from this on my Facebook page today. I told him that this was definitely on my list of favorites. Bugs squares off against the Sheriff of Nottingham in this one. Who can forget when the Sheriff is Knighted?

Arise “Sir Loin of Beef” (BANG) Arise “Earl of Cloves” (BANG) Arise “Duke of Brittingham” (BANG) Arise Baron of Munchausen” (BANG) Arise “Essence of Myrrh” (BANG) Arise “Milk of Magnesia” (BANG) ……

When the Sheriff of Nottingham starts singing London Bridge is Falling Down … I lose it every time!

Love the Errol Flynn cameo at the end, too!

Hillbilly Hare – 1950

I have blogged about this one before. How can you not love Bugs taking over for the Square Dance Caller and having these two hillbillies beat the snot out of each other??

It’s a classic!

Rabbit of Seville – 1950

There is a meme that floats around the internet that says “All I know about classical music, I learned from Bugs Bunny!” This is one of a few cartoons that feature classical music. This one The Marriage of Figaro and The Barber of Seville. It again features Elmer Fudd. Just looking at the pictures – you can hear the music, can’t you??!!

Bunny Hugged – 1951

Bugs Bunny out wits a wrestler known as The Crusher!

I’m sure many of bugs tricks went against all of the rules of wrestling!

Much like the scene with the Sheriff of Nottingham singing London Bridge, the scene where the Crusher is “Just passing by…” makes me laugh out loud!

Ballot Box Bunny – 1951

Yosemite Sam is running for Mayor. So Is Bugs. The campaign is on.

Sam wants Bugs to play a song on the piano. He has rigged it to explode when Bugs hits a specific key. Of course, Bugs keeps playing it wrong.

Frustrated at his playing it wrong, Sam jumps in and plays it right … (BOOM!)

Rabbit’s Kin – 1952

A rabbit named Shorty is running from Pete Puma. Our pal, Bugs, helps him out.

Pete Puma is voiced by the great Stan Freberg!

The great gag in the short is “How many lumps do you want?” referring to sugar. Pete answers “Oh, three or four” and gets whopped on the head with a hammer or something

Bully For Bugs – 1953

Another great adversary of Bugs – The Bull from this cartoon..

Favorite scene: The Mexican Hat Dance

Baby Buggy Bunny – 1954

Bugs finds a baby outside the rabbit hole.

The baby, however, is none other than Baby Face Finster, a known criminal!

It doesn’t take long for Bugs to figure it out. One of my favorite scenes is when Bugs is spanking him and there are all kinds of weapons falling out of his diaper and bed clothes.

Ali Baba Bunny – 1957

The greed of Daffy Duck is so well exhibited in this one. Upon popping out of the hole they are digging, Bugs and Daffy are in a cave filled with riches! Bugs doesn’t see it, but Daffy does and he pushes Bugs back into the hole claiming “It’s Mine! All Mine!”

This cartoon brought about the catch phrase “Hassan Chop!”

What’s Opera, Doc? – 1957

Here is another example of classical music in cartoons – What more can I say other than “Kill Da Wabbit!”

Show Biz Bugs – 1957

Another great example of the Daffy Duck/Bugs Bunny feud.

Daffy’s dangerous stunt wows them all in the end ….

The Unmentionables – 1963

Cashing in on the classic show The Untouchables, this one features Bugs, Rocky and Mugsy.

Unlike the Edward G. Robinson character, this Rocky is much different. I always love when he says, “Shuddap!”

The Hunting Trilogy – Rabbit Fire (1951), Rabbit Seasoning (1952), and Duck! Rabbit! Duck! (1953)

All so very similar, but all equally great!!

Shoot Him Now! Shoot Him Now! Great bit from Rabbit Seasoning.

Bugs has brought many laughs to me both as a child and as an adult! I am sure I missed some of your favorites, so please feel free to comment with them.

Happy 81st Birthday, Bugs!