100 Days Until Halloween 2018!

While we're still very much in the throes of summer, with all of its surf, sand, and sunburn, there is one thing worth noting today...

...it's only 100 days until Halloween!

Which means it's only 69 days until the Countdown to Halloween! And God willing, I will be participating once again in this multi-blog extravaganza. It's easily the biggest time of the year for this blog in both number of articles and number of readers. So while I certainly don't want to rush things, I just wanted to put the Countdown on your radar a little bit.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled summer.

I can't guarantee others will let you return, however.

Thanks!

Walt Disney, Donald's Lucky Day (1939)

Today is Friday the 13th, but instead of posting something Jason Voorhees-related--with the exception of the image above--I'm going in a different direction.

Please enjoy the 1939 Disney Donald Duck cartoon "Donald's Lucky Day." Donald is a bicycle messenger unwittingly hired by thugs to deliver a bomb on Friday the 13th. Will Donald's luck run out?

No, it says so right in the title.

Have a great weekend!

Tuesday's Overlooked TV: The Fantastic Funnies (1980)

This week's Tuesday's Overlooked TV is the 1980 television special The Fantastic Funnies.

Airing on May 15, 1980 on CBS, this hour-long special showcased the most popular newspaper comic strips of the 20th century up to that time, many of them in animated form, some for the first time. The special was hosted by Loni Anderson with a special guest appearance by her WKRP in Cincinati co-star Howard Hessman in character as Dr. Johnny Fever.

I was going to write more at length about this special, but another blogger has already done so, and better than I could have done it (what a shock). Charles Brubaker of the animation blog Cartoon Research wrote a great article about the special, and you can read it here. Great stuff!

I will, however, provide the entire special right here, courtesy of the online Museum of Classic Chicago Television. I remember seeing this special live when it first aired, as I loved both cartoons and comic strips. Enjoy!