Old Promos for Classic Christmas TV Specials

It's no secret that one of the rituals of celebrating Christmas in America is enjoying the classic Christmas television specials that have aired for decades, such as Rudolph, Frosty, the Grinch, and my personal favorite, A Charlie Brown Christmas.

In the spirit of my Christmas TV commercial post I made the other day, here are promotional spots for these specials from years past. I'm sure when I was a young boy that I saw these promos air just as they did in these clips. I was going to be really industrious and put them in chronological order, but it's getting late and I'm feeling tired :)   Please enjoy them just the way they are.

They are a bit repetitive, showcasing some of the same specials, but it's interesting to see how they were paired with each other differently year after year. For my money, Charlie Brown was best paired with the Grinch, while Frosty was better paired with 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, but however they aired, they were required viewing, especially in the days before VCRs and DVDs were widespread. If you missed them, you missed out for a whole year. Oh the humanity! Enjoy!




Oh, one more thing...

Tuesday's Forgotten TV-Movie: Home for the Holidays aka Deadly Desires (1972)

Today I bring you the first Christmas-themed Tuesday's Forgotten selection of the season. Surprisingly enough, it's a thriller.

Home for the Holidays (aka Deadly Desires) is an ABC TV-movie about four adult sisters who return home to spend Christmas with their ailing father. Much to the girls' surprise, the father asks them to kill his new wife, who he believes is poisoning him. The women write off their father's belief as the paranoid ramblings of an old man; but soon, strange events lead the daughters to think that, just perhaps, the old man isn't so crazy after all.

The film stars Sally Field, Julie Harris, and Walter Brennan, to name a few, and was written by Joseph Stefano (who adapted Robert Bloch's Psycho for the screen), produced by Paul Junger Witt, and executive-produced by Aaron Spelling.

Here, almost exactly 40 years to the date (November 28, 1972), is the telefilm in its entirety. I love that this video includes the ABC movie night intro of the time. This movie is not to be confused with a previous Tuesday's Forgotten Film, the 1995 Thanksgiving comedy of the same name.

Enjoy!

Classic Christmas Commercials

Ho Ho Ho! Welcome boys and girls to Christmastime 2012 here at Me and You! This is without a doubt my absolute favorite time of year--always has been, always will be. As much as I love the Countdown to Halloween, Christmas is my first love when it comes to holidays. And until the new year arrives, I'll be all Christmas, all the time--and Chanukah and Kwanzaa and New Year's Day, if I can. I may not post every weekday, as I do with Halloween, but every post I make will be Christmas-related.

And now, on with the yuletide festivities!

First, as I usually do, I start with some cool Christmas-themed commercials. Here's a fun one for Verizon Wireless featuring the Misfit Toys from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.



Verizon Wireless strikes again with a reveal of what naughty kids receive from Santa these days.



Here is a two-minute commercial break from Christmastime 1981 with several holiday ads, including a commercial for Polaroid featuring the Muppets I've never seen before.



It's fallen on hard times these days, but back in 1983 Sears was one of the most important places you could go Christmas shopping!



I know when I think Christmas, I think of...Pizza Hut?



Finally, as long as we're eating fast food at Christmas, we might as well go to Burger King!



There are plenty of great Christmas commercials out there, so I may feature more of these in the future. Stay tuned!

Thanksgiving Cornucopia

I'm sure you're all either traveling or expecting guests at your home, so I'll leave this post up for the whole weekend so that you can check it out at your own convenience. You can consider the next few clips to be either appetizers before the big day or palette cleansers after the meal. Either way, let's get to it!

First, when cooking your turkey, make sure you baste it with a lot of butter. Then wrap the bird in cloth soaked in butter. Then add more butter. Then eat. Then call your cardiologist. That's the Butterball way!



Next, Thanksgiving is very big in Sicily!



Finally, here are some old clips from the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City. I love Thanksgiving parades, and I really enjoy watching parades from years past.



As always, I'm very thankful for you, my great readers. Happy Thanksgiving!

But wait, what's this?



IT'S THE HOLIDAY SEASON! Roll out the holly, hang the mistletoe, hang the stockings, trim the tree, bring it all on! Come Monday, I'm all Christmas, all the time! I love it! See you then!

Tuesday's Forgotten TV: The Thanksgiving That Almost Wasn't

It's a crazy busy day, so I'm making this a fast one. For Tuesday's Forgotten TV, I offier the animated TV special The Thanksgiving That Almost Wasn't.

This 1972 Hanna-Barbera special is an oh-so-fictional telling of the first Thanksgiving day involvingtwo young boys (one Pilgrim, one Indian) and several talking animals. See, fictional.

Enjoy!

List O' Links for Friday November 16, 2012

It's the last Friday before the holiday season, so enjoy it now, because every weekend for the rest of the year will be consumed with shopping and holiday parties. Get in the groove with these loopy links!

I'm not sure what the hottest toys are this year, but if you want to know what some of the hottest toys were from 1952 through 1983, I can help you with that.

Here is some cool looking retro artwork of the original Star Trek crew.

Speaking of cool artwork, no one was cooler than Dr. Seuss. He even made advertising look great.

Instant Cosby's gonna get you, gonna look you right in the face.

So there was that time Yvonne Craig appeared on the Merv Griffin show in full Batgirl costume...

Finally, with the Hostess family of baked goods on the verge of disappearing, now is a good time to remember the joyous creations that were comic book ads for Hostess cakes and pies.

Have a great weekend!

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles--The Thriller!

I've spoken before about my love of the movie Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. It's one of my favorite comedies of all time. But one creative fan, however, saw something different in the film--something terrifying.

Below is a YouTube video someone made of the movie, reimagined--or "recarved," as the video title puts it--as a psychotic thriller. It also borrows from the John Candy film Uncle Buck. Nicely done. Enjoy!

Tuesday's Forgotten Film: Pieces of April

Because of its early arrival this year, Thanksgiving is just a little more than a week away. Time to start turning our attention that direction, and we start with this week's Tuesday's Forgotten Film, the 2003 comedy drama Pieces of April.

The movie stars a pre-Tom Cruise Katie Holmes as April, a Bohemian in Manhattan who invites her strait-laced suburban family to her apartment for Thanksgiving dinner.Suffice it to say, April isn't exactly on the best of terms with her family--"never have"--but she does her best to make an effort to reconnect, despite hesitation from her family, especially her sister. Throw in her total lack of cooking acumen, the reluctant involvement of a reserved neighbor (with a working oven), and her family's surprise to April's African-American boyfriend, and you have a traditional, and traditionally dysfunctional, family Thanksgiving.

Here is the film's trailer. Thanks!

List O' Links for Week of 11/9/2012

I haven't done a List O' Links post in a long time, so it's time to rectify that. Here are a few links to keep you from getting work done this fine Friday!

For those looking forward to the holiday season, especially holiday music, SiriusXM satellite radio has announced their holiday channel lineup for 2012.

Do you think today's comics are an unreadable, sophomoric mess? Don't be such a cranky pants. The comics back in your day weren't always so great either. Case in point: the ridiculous Justice League lineup DC tried to pass off in the 1984 annual.

Chevy Chase has made quite a spectacle of himself with his frequent public battles with his bosses on the NBC comedy Community. However, he's had a very long track record of being, well, an a-hole.

Here's a casual perusal of the Fall Preview issue of my former employer, TV Guide, in the season of my birth, the fall of 1974. Anyone up for Sonny Bono as a solo act?

Finally, with the new James Bond flick drawing everyone to the multiplexes in the US this weekend, here is what fans have long needed--a scientific chart of his sexual exploits.

Have a great weekend!

Monkees Screen Tests

One more Monkees post this week won't hurt. Here are the boys taking their screen tests before they were cast. The Mike Nesmith and Davy Jones tests are featured on an episode of the series, but I've never seen Mickey Dolenz and Peter Tork's screen tests before. Enjoy!

Monkees Demos Performed by The Original Songwriters

Continuing the Monkees theme a bit, here are a couple of demos for the band recorded by the original songwriters.

Carole King performs "Pleasant Valley Sunday." It's great to hear her take on this classic Monkees song (which, of course, is really her song).

I have a great version of her singing "The Porpoise Song," which she also wrote, but the audio quality isn't the best. I'll try to get that uploaded in a future post.

Here, Harry Nilsson demos "Cuddly Toy;" the Monkees would record this song for their Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn, & Jones Ltd. LP. Nilsson would become a close friend of Micky Dolenz.



This last song isn't a demo, but it is an interesting listen nonetheless. This is Neil Diamond's version of "I'm A Believer," which he wrote (as well as "A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You" and "Look Out, Here Comes Tomorrow"). I don't know whether he or the Monkees released it first, but they both, along with modern band Smash Mouth, have embedded the song in pop culture consciousness.



Thanks!

Tuesday's Forgotten TV: The Monkees on The Hy Lit Show, 1968

The Monkees are about to start a nationwide tour this month (minus Davy Jones, of course), so in preparation for the occasion, here is one of a few Monkees posts to appear this month, starting with a Tuesday's Forgotten TV moment.

Here, the boys appear on the syndicated Hy Lit Show to promote their movie Head. Hy Lit was a legendary radio DJ here in Philadelphia, who briefly had a weekday TV series that appeared mostly on the Kaiser/Field stations such as WKBS-TV Channel 48 in Philadelphia and Kaiser flagshipWFLD-TV Channel 38 in Chicago.

The boys are their usual silly selfs, joking around with Lit as well as fellow radio DJ Long John Wade. Enjoy Peter Tork's beard!

Happy 5th Anniversary to the Blog!

Hello everyone! As you can see, I've put away the blog's Halloween decorations for another year. I really hope you enjoyed the Countdown to Halloween here. Whether you did or didn't, please let me know in the comments. I'm always looking for ways to make the blog better.

Speaking of the blog itself, a momentous occasion has passed. Last Tuesday, October 30th, marked the fifth anniversary of the blog! It's hard to believe it's been that long. But I wouldn't trade the experience for anything. I love writing here!

The blog is my one creative outlet. It allows me to blow off steam, escape from the everyday toils that we all have, and just gives me a small bit of pleasure, seeing what I've posted and being able to say, "Hey, look what I did!" The blog has been a very positive experience for me, and for however long you've been reading, I hope it's been a positive experience for you.

I don't post as often as I used to, but I have no plans whatsoever of stopping. In fact, I'd like to do some different things with it in the future. I've really enjoyed the interviews I've done with comic creators such as Chris Sims and the Virtual Comic Con, and I plan on doing more interviews in the future. For years I've wanted to try podcasting, but my increasingly limited time plus total ineptitude with the necessary software has pretty much squashed those plans.  Of course, if you have a pop culture podcast and ever need a guest, I'm available (wink wink).

After every anniversary, I go back through the past year's posts and label my favorites as Best of Me and You. They are the posts that I like the most or represent the kind of material I enjoy featuring here, so if you're new to the place and want a better sense of what the blog is about, those posts are a great place to go.

I've patted myself on the back enough for one day, so I'll wrap up by asking you to take part in the survey along the right of the blog. Please be brutally honest with what you think, and I will take all advice and criticism seriously. I can't make the blog better if I don't know what you the reader like and don't like. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for supporting the blog, and stay tuned--the best is yet to come!