Thanksgiving Leftovers.

An ad from the TV Guide, this week 1981.

Any NYC area kid from the era will tell you this was a big deal. Not so much "Son of Kong," by which time you were almost certainly eating, but boy, missing the King on Thanksgiving was a bitch.

From a 1977 Newsday, the debut of "The Hobbit," which featured very little CGI. It was made by Rankin/Bass, and even scripted by Romeo Muller, scribe of Rudolph and other stop-motion Christmas stalwarts. This film did not turn into the annual presentation the producers had hoped for.

This week, 1976. I was an ABC devotee during this period. I think I watched every show featured in this Thanksgiving preview.

Two Ads from the Newsday TV Book.

Look kids---Billy is obviously incapable of rationally evaluating an ID of any kind! Come on down for your late-night parking lot binging holiday needs! CRAZY Billy's!

For Long Islanders, an ad for the Nassau Farmer's Market from this week, 1978. Good pickles!

Sayonara, Funnyman.

Pat Morita died the other day. As a kid, I really enjoyed him on "Happy Days." I remember cracking up when, describing Fonzie's crash into the chicken stand, he threw the drumstick in the air and went "frrt!" Classic. He also had a memorable guest spot on "The Odd Couple" as the Japanese soldier driven to fits when forced to deal with Felix Unger. Here is my small tribute to the man, and the ABC sitcom that was tailor-made for him in 1976, "Mr. T and Tina." It didn't last very long, but these vidcaps from the commercial touting its premiere demonstrate the thespic subtlety that would later earn him an Academy Award nomination.

Thoughts on the Star Wars Holiday Special, 11/17/78

Here at last are my musings on the Star Wars Holiday Special. (I know you were asking, as well as many of your loved ones. You’re welcome.)

[2023 UPDATE! For the 45th anniversary, I've put together a bunch of individual posts I had made into one post. I didn't quite understand how to use Blogger back in the day, but now I totally have a grip on it... except I couldn't center the pictures. Or fix the janky spacing of the first few pics. Eh, fuck it.]

If you haven't seen it, I recommend immediately picking it up off eBay (I'm sure it's on DVD by now). [Or just watch it on YouTube.] Get it with the original commercials if possible, they're half the fun. This bizarre spectacle, like many of the cheesy variety specials of the seventies, was co-written by Bruce Vilanch. He has a real ear for Vaudevillean shtick, but not so much for the science-fiction stuff. I used to say I disliked this show, but I can't deny having watched it twenty or so times since I got it a few years back, and I can aver without reservation that it is far more entertaining than all the Star Wars films put together. If you haven't seen it... at some point while reading this you may think I am kidding. I am not. It is that peculiar.

Mark Hamill cameos as Luke Skywalker. I'm not familiar with the entire SW canon, so I have to ask: how did Luke end up with Marlo Thomas' nose?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Carrie Fisher as a strung-out-looking Leia.

 

 

Chewbacca's dad, the absolutely repulsive Itchy. The Wookiees must venerate their elderly. I mean, how useful is a weak, toothless, mangy Wookiee?


Chewie's son Lumpy, who looks like Adam Rich before he was rescued from a Mexican carnival.

Here's the Christopher Lowell-ish ringleader from the utterly fabulous hologram circus. I love the choreography of the finale, when the music reaches a thrilling, dramatic crescendo, and the performers all take a slight step forward... and then back. And then, the same foot forward... and back. And that's it.






Diahann Carroll as the object of Itchy's affection. Art Carney gives Itchy a virtual reality porno cassette that he plugs into the "Mind Evaporator." (Clever name, Bruce!) Here, she's writhing orgasmically because, as she says, she can feel her creation. I guess Itchy's got some skeeter bites need scratchin'!


At the beginning of the Mind Evaporator segment, you see these Sea-Monkey-looking things swimming around. I swear these are seen again in "Revenge of the Sith," but I forget when. Some nerd can back me up on this, I'm sure...




Unfortunately, this was the best vidcap I could get from the Spinal Tap-esque Jefferson Starship segment. The song is just atrocious. "We'll vanish without a trace in a cigar-shaped object," Marty Balin promises, but never delivers.


From the rather cool cartoon segment, here we see Threepio camping it up as he minces to the cockpit.


If you look closely at his ATM card, you'll see that Boba Fett's real name is Carl.


Harvey Korman (as creepy, spout-headed stalker "Krelmin") sexually assaults the cantina owner played by Beatrice Arthur.


Bea drunkenly serenades a rodent of unusual size.


Han Solo embarrasses Lumpy by saying his voice has changed. Ugh, can you imagine what a pubescent Wookiee smells like?


Chewie and Mala make out, which is kind of interesting in that they are both played by men.


The Wookiees, clad in robes that must be terribly hot and stifling, do something blurry involving glowing orbs.


The sneaker-clad Wookiees then shuffle celestially into the tail of the Hale-Bopp comet, and it's over.


And now for some words from a few sponsors of the SWHS...

First up, it's the Reggie bar. "The candy they named after me," says Reggie Jackson, stating the obvious with his usual charming smugness.


Tobor, a very advanced robot who rolls forward... and backwards! At the end of the ad the VO says, as if dropping a real bombshell, "Tobor is 'robot' spelled backward." How do you spell "zzzzzzzzzzzz" backwards? Because that's what any kids who got this piece of parc for Christmas said within five minutes of opening it.


Here, Marilyn Maksela enjoys some pudding-in-the-mix goodness.

Man, this commercial has more close-ups of cakeholes getting crammed than.. well, ahem, I wouldn't know what, would I?

Happy Life Day!!!

The Five People You Meet in Hell.

Last week, Oprah asked George Clooney what five people he would like to have to dinner. I don't remember his answer, but then Donna asked me. I got stuck after Elvis Costello and Al Franken. As I was about to add Robert Anton Wilson, I instead turned the question to her. After a few minutes of thinking out loud through many possibilities, she finally settled on Denis Leary, Jim Carrey, Ian Wright (the perpetual traveller from Globe Trekker and Lonely Planet), Jeffrey Dahmer and Dennis "BTK" Rader. I started explaining why I felt that particular combination might not turn out as well as she may hope, and she told me that I shouldn't be able to criticize her answer. I couldn't argue with that and so stopped, silently imagining the awkward introductions (not to mention the mess to be cleaned after such a soiree).

As she prepared to walk out the door for work, I suggested "What about Manson?"

"Please," she declared, "I am so over Manson." Sorry, Charlie.

From TV Guide, this week 1977: "Has The Fonz finally met a girl he can't handle?"

Yes. I don't believe Fonzie (or any man) will be oiling this Leather any time soon.

Besides, The Fonz wouldn't fuck that one with Potsie's dick.

11/13 add: I Googled "Potsie's dick" to see if I was the first to virtually conjure this appalling vision, and lo and behold got 73 results. Apparently there's quite a pornified "Happy Days" fanfic movement out there, mostly gay-themed. "Happy Days?" I mean, I could see queering up "The A-Team" or "Dukes of Hazzard," maybe even "Knightrider," but "Happy Days?" Does anyone really want to read about Al cornholing Arnold? Or how about Laverne and Shirley doing the "Mallachi Munch" on Joanie?

I believe, in any case, that I am the first to use Potsie as punchline when positing a situation in which one would not wish to engage in intercourse with an unappealing woman such as to preclude the act even in the case of supplanting one's own penis with that of an inferior.

Malph would probably work too.

From TV Guide, this week 1976: The Barbarino in the Plastic Bubble

Can you read the text below the title?

It says, "Inside, he is protected. Outside, there is the risk of death... but the chance of love." That would make a great condom ad.

From TV Guide, this week 1976: Wonder Island Nazis. I HATE Wonder Island Nazis.

Well, just let the Nazis have something for God's sake, maybe they'll settle in and stop bothering everyone! Wonder Woman can sublet the Fortress of Solitude until she finds a new place...

From TV Guide, this week 1979: The Afterschool Special that taught me everything I needed to know about high school

And I may be Edward Furlong in a wig.

From TV Guide, this week 1979: I spot a trend...

"At last," I exclaimed on that November 13, "reality television! A man who sings while washing the windows of the Empire State Building! A story on the Jewish Home and Hospital for the Aged! Now if only they could combine those two segments into some sort of lowbrow game involving avarice, debauchery and general lowest-common-denominator morality, then you've got something!"

From TV Guide, this week 1979: Gossip you'd forgotten

Wheel of Fortune host and televangelist seen canoodling!
(The difference in age is shocking!)

Ad from the Newsday TV Book, this week 1978

This is from an ad selling the "Enurtone Method" to stop bed-wetting.

Johnny seems to be smiling a little. Maybe he enjoys the attention just a mite. Hey, at least he's getting noticed by those three cool-looking guys. Maybe they're not cool, but their houses probably don't smell. If the Enurtone Method doesn't work, I'd recommend this to Johnny's folks.

Trivia from the Newsday TV Book, this week 1978

Corky? Circus Boy?

Question two.

This is easy...

Question three...

This one is worth the pic of Buddy alone...

Answers...

How did you do?

50 more days!

I thought it was a little odd, my wife and I listening to Christmas music on November 3rd, but we were after all going Christmas shopping. (Odder still is that she's almost done with hers, and has been for a while.) I expected Christmas decorations when we got to the mall, but I was surprised to note that many of the stores were playing Christmas music, too. Then today she calls from work to say that she was flipping through stations on the way there and found that 106.7 has gone all-holiday music all the time. I didn't think that would happen for two or three weeks. I remember once when I was a kid, I started listening to my family's Reader's Digest box set of yuletide favorites around mid-October, and even I knew I was nuts.

So my point is that I am listening to christmas music now and it's real nice. Don't be surprised if you see lots of 70's Christmas images popping up here soon and continuing for two months (with a stop-off at Thanksgiving, of course)...