Newsday TV Book, November 27-December 3, 1977.

This issue came into my home at the point in my life when I was deep in the throes of Star Wars mania, looking forward to a Christmas with no Kenner toys produced yet. There was probably more SW booty under the tree, but I mainly remember getting the calendar and the Early Bird Certificate Package (which arrived around my birthday in March, so all in all, not bad).

I have an awesome (and I don't throw that word around) run of 1977 Newsday TV Books spanning the last five weeks of the year, beginning with the Sunday after Thanksgiving and ending with a New Year's Eve Saturday. Somehow, I have never covered an entire issue, just done here-and-there scans. So, at last, I begin a look at the run with an issue chock full o' holiday delights, and a cover spotlighting the premiere of Rankin/Bass' The Hobbit.

The article's author talks with (or at least has some quotes from) Arthur Rankin, who died in 2014. His longtime partner, Jules Bass, passed about a month ago. I love that Warren Berry included a line (which it seems he heard himself, back in the early 50's) from the stage act of voice provider Brother Theodore, who memorably harangued attendees by bellowing "An intelligent face in my audience is as rare as rocking horse shit!" (Newsday changed the line a bit.)

The TV Line addresses various Fernwood 2-Night concerns, Ritter mania (including a reference to a brief childhood favorite, ABC's San Pedro Beach Bums), and the boys in the 'bots.

The cable feature logs the movies, specials, and sports to be found on the tee-vees of early adopters, back when HBO stood for "Having Boobs Out." (I haven't had HBO in ages, but I suspect this may still apply.)

I found something that interested me on each page of the Sunday schedule, so here's the whole dang thing. Abbott & Costello, March of the Wooden Soldiers, a Viskupic John Wayne in a helmet with celluloid straps, Archie Bunker possibly wreaking domestic terrorism on Meathead, and the noseless preggo fashionista of Dan Howard's Maternity Factory Outlet. (And of course, plenty of reviews penned by the mordant John Cashman.)

A poorly-margined scan doesn't affect what I'm after: a tiny, hammered knight available from... a fence company? Oh man, imagine buying a couple hundred and making an actual fence of armored little people around your yard!

Another San Pedro Beach Bums reference, in the text of the close-up on the Honeymooners Christmas Special, which I haven't seen because it almost certainly sucked.

I can't say I specifically recall "The Story of Sniffles the Snowboy," that year's animatronic display at Hicks Nurseries in Westbury, but I probably wandered among its slowly-moving, whirring automatons. Strolling families were guided so that they found themselves ultimately corralled through the gift shop, where mom always bought me some random piece of crap of my choosing. One which I DO specifically recall: a Brady Bunch activity book that had some sort of paper-chain, cut-it-out-yourself-but-with-adult-supervision-you-dopey-kid magic trick that I couldn't figure out, and so frustratedly tore into a hundred pieces. Stupid Brady kids, think they're so smart!

Here's the Wednesday morning and afternoon listings, for the close-up on that night's final Bing Crosby Christmas special, filmed about a month before he groaned his last in October. I remember my older brothers making a point to watch the scenes with David Bowie, and commenting that Bing looked at the subdued, unpainted Ziggy Stardust as if he indeed had just fallen to earth. Bowie's filmed solo bit of him lip-syncing "Heroes" may stand as the strangest thing in any conventional Christmas special ever.

All day Saturday, three pages packed with notable yuletide favorites (including Mr. Magoo, still on channel 5--I woulda swore his Christmas Carol was on channel 11 by this time) and horror movies.

That's it for now, but keep checking back, I'll be posting more holiday hubbub as we barrel ever closer to the big day!

(And since I brought up the Star Wars Early Bird Certificate Package, here's the commercial--plus a bonus!--if Blogger's video uploader chooses to work for me, which it rarely does.)

(Okay, it worked on my phone, but I see nothing on my computer. Good enough.)