Saturday Selections

Share Your Nostalgia Update

Recently, I asked if anyone would like to participate in a “Guest Blog Series.” I’m happy to tell you that I have enough interest to proceed with the series. I have asked for guest bloggers to write a piece about their favorite childhood toy. They will write about that one special toy that they will never forget. I know many of the writers well, and am looking forward to their piece.

The series will begin on Sunday, October 20th. Each day will feature one of my guest bloggers. There is still time if you would like to participate. Drop me an e-mail at: Nostalgicitalian@yahoo.com if you are interested. I’m excited to walk down memory lane! Stay tuned!

The Silly Monty

On this day in 1969, Monty Python’s Flying Circus Premiered on BBC1.

The sketch comedy show featured the talents of John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, Eric Idle and Graham Chapman. The series stands out for its use of absurd situations, mixed with risqué and innuendo-laden humor, sight gags and observational sketches without punch lines. Live-action segments were broken up with animations by Gilliam, often merging with the live action to form a segue to the next bit.

I recall seeing it for the first time on Channel 9 out of Canada. I remember it was nothing like I had ever seen before. It was completely crazy. One of the first bits I ever saw was called the Funniest Joke in the World. A guy writes a joke that is so funny, he dies laughing. Everyone who reads the joke does the same. The joke is so funny that it is dangerous and it is used as the ultimate war weapon. It was so ridiculous!

Monty Python created some of the funniest sketches in comedy. They include The Dead Parrot Sketch, The Lumberjack Song, The Spanish Inquisition, Spam, Election Night Special, Cheese Shop, The Ministry of Silly Walks and Nudge Nudge. Each of them make me laugh.

The one that kills me every time is the stupidest bit ever. I laugh like crazy when I watch it. So for your enjoyment… The Fish Slapping Dance

The Argument Clinic is a sketch that was done on the show, however, I prefer the recording of it a little better:

The absurdity of the Bookshop sketch shows the brilliance of the writers. Cleese plays a marvelously frustrated book seller who is forced to deal with a very picky customer.

There are so many classic sketches, I could write a whole blog about them, but I will move on.

Life is Just a Bowl of Larry’s

Today is the 122nd birthday of my favorite Stooge – Larry Fine.

I was late to the Larry party. I, like most Stooge fans, loved Curly. However, while working at my first radio gig, a co-worker changed that. My pal, Johnny Molson, was a Stooges fan. I remember him telling me that Larry was his favorite. I couldn’t imagine why. He didn’t really do much … or so I believed. Johnny told me that the next time I watched the Stooges to forget about every thing else going on in a scene. “Just watch Larry,” he told me.

I am forever grateful for that advice. I noticed things that I would have never seen if he hadn’t told me that. Larry’s facial expressions are priceless. His reactions are like no other. Larry added more to those films than people realize. Once I started watching him, I gained such an appreciation for his contributions to the group. Moe and Curly’s personalities are so big that they can easily overshadow the “Larry-ness” that is the glue that holds the team together!

Happy Birthday, Porcupine!

World Teacher’s Day

Today we celebrate teachers all over the world! Whether you are teaching currently or a retired teacher, I thank you for all you do. YOU play such an important role in the lives of your students.

Back in April of 2018, I wrote about some of the teachers who made a difference to me. Some of them have since passed away, but it is worth sharing again.

Let’s Take a Quiz and Thank a Teacher … or two.

Have a wonderful weekend!!

Fall Funny

Writer’s block today. Interestingly enough, November is National Novel Writing Month. This reminded me of one of my favorite Monty Python recordings, entitled “Novel Writing.”

I love how they take a thing like writing a novel and do a play by play and commentary for it. I hope you get a laugh or two from this…

Monty Python Meets Airplane!

This blog’s title is the only way I can think of describing what I have to say is the funniest thing I have watched in a VERY long time! Before I go on, I need to acknowledge and thank Lisa at Boondock Ramblings and Erin at Cracker Crumb Life for leading me to discovering what I am about to write about.

You can find Lisa here:

https://lisahoweler.com/

You can find Erin here:

https://crackercrumblife.com/

Both of these bloggers are doing a weekly series entitled “Tis the Season Cinema. Each week they are reviewing a holiday movie or special. As a fan of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, when I saw they were reviewing “A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong” I had to read about it.

The 2017 production is done by the Mischief Theatre, a comedy troupe I have never heard of. They had a show on the BBC called The Goes Wrong Show in which the Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society puts on a weekly play. As the play is presented in front of a live audience, whatever can go wrong – does! It is sheer silliness and I laughed like I haven’t laughed in a long time!

I watched this before I went and watched episodes of the show. It is something you can watch and not worry about having seen anything prior. One source describes the episode this way:

Blacklisted by the BBC after ruining Peter Pan, the Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society do not take their ban lying down and force themselves back on the BBC by hijacking the jewel of the Christmas schedule, a live production of A Christmas Carol, staged by a professional cast. As the Cornley gang try to make the show work on television, they soon realize they are completely out of their depth, with no idea how to direct a live studio or handle the special effects. Worse still, their internal rivalries are revealed on television, while an angry professional cast tries to get back into the studio.

You can watch A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong on YouTube for Free (with ads) here:

https://youtu.be/fLOi5H3ylBo

After watching this, I had to see more. I believe Lisa from Boondock Ramblings mentioned that they did a series called The Goes Wrong Show and I searched for it on YouTube. I was able to watch the entire first season (like 6 or 7 episodes) for free. I again found myself laughing hysterically. It had all the silly situations from Monty Python’s Flying Circus and the fantastic site gags and dialogue from Airplane.

The cast is simply amazing. The fact that they can keep a straight face amid all the chaos is truly something worth seeing. I can’t recommend this highly enough. Do yourself a favor – check this gang out – and enjoy some laughs!

After Thoughts

My brother watches a lot of British shows. So I asked him if he had ever seen it before. He replied that he had and that he loved it. He also stated that he has watched the shows more than once. Shame on him for not telling me about this sooner!

Johnny Molson, a buddy of mine from radio, often appears in plays in the Springfield, Illinois area. He recently performed in The Play That Goes Wrong. He promoted it on his Facebook page and I remember thinking how cool it would be to see him in the play. I had NO idea that this play was actually written by some of the cast members of The Goes Wrong Show! It was a HUGE hit in London. From Wikipedia:

The Play That Goes Wrong is a 2012 play by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer, and Henry Shields of Mischief Theatre Company. It won Best New Comedy at the 2015 Laurence Olivier Awards. As of September 2021, the show has been running since 2012 in London; since 2014, the play has undertaken five tours of the UK.

This only makes me wish I had been able to see Johnny in this play even more.

Perhaps it will make the rounds again somewhere close by. Until then, I will watch what I can on the internet or streaming. There is a Peter Pan episode I have yet to see. Maybe I will review that for you at a later date.

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.