Lots of housework and not much tv viewing today. I had to make an extra effort to find something Christmassy to watch, so I settled on this.
I remember owning a plush Bill the Cat, an Opus, this book and all of Breathed's Bloom County books and maybe a little Outland. I do not ever recall watching the TV Special that came as a result of this book. Tonight I rectified that oversight.
'twas a nice little romp with some cool cameo voices. One I recognized immediately, the other I did not. I shan't spoil it for you, so check here after you watch the special.
I was flipping around my Twitch Channels and watched a bit of Final Wars and Destroy All Monsters and then switched over to a Cartoon channel. (CartoonBlast if you wish to check it out.) Well, they've entitled their feed, "The 25 Days of Christmas" and I've decided to steal their idea. First, I watched Mickey's Christmas Carol (1983) which features some cool cameos by Jiminy Cricket, Mr. Toad, Willie the Giant, the Weasels, and others. Here's a snippet, search for the whole thing yourself.
Next Toy Tinkers (1949) with the Chippendale DancersChip & Dale and Donald.
Good Will To Men (1955) is an incredibly bleak but fascinating short by Hanna Barbera.
Finally a Silly Symphony of The Night Before Christmas.
I'll try and add some cartoons daily. There are plenty to choose from!
Meanwhile, being the 1st of December, that means it's Calendar time. Here are my Star Wars and Jurassic Park entries for this month.
Last year's Chibi-Godzilla calendar.
Picked this up yesterday for a buck. I may find a place for this Kubrick on my tree. (If I had one.)
Since Poker night was cancelled, here's the next best thing. (Scott Hilburn)
Lastly, I just can't get away from posting Godzilla stuff. I scored 4/6 tumblers at a buck a piece and a tea cup. Far cheaper than a full price Kuji at 900 yen.
I'm off to bed soon, I have an early morning of HoHoHoing with the kiddies tomorrow!
I'm currently watching Wacky Races on Cartoon Network Japan mainly because there's nothing else on and they're running 6 episodes straight. I looked up the name of this show in Japanese and it is チキチキマシン猛レース or Chiki Chiki Machine Mou Race. For an episode guide and a peek at a real-life recreation of the Wacky vehicles, check this out.
The above was taken from my TV, below was scammed from the net.
Much to my surprise, I mentioned Chiki Chiki before and there is a clip of the opening and closing within. Here is the video again for those non-history buffs.
As an aside, I just realized where Chiki Chiki Machine is derived from. It comes from チキ・チキ・バン・バン Chitty Chitty Bang Bang!
For all of my Hanna Barbera links to date, click the label below or here for easy access. And for lots of background info about Wacky Races, watch this...
At the two minute mark there, you can see some contribution from Iwao Takamoto. He was responsible for the original character design of such characters as Penelope Pitstop, Astro and Scooby-Doo. I would love to learn more about him, I need to investigate further.
Speaking of Penelope Pitstop, she followed up Wacky Races with ペネロッピー絶体絶命 or the Perils of Penelope Pitstop (episode guide here.) Voiced yet again by Janet Waldo, her nemesis is the Hooded Claw who unbeknownst to her is her guardian, Sylvester Sneekly, campily voiced by Paul Lynde. For the theme in Japanese, watch this...
Another spinoff character is of course Dick Dastardly (voiced by the ubiquitous Chikao Ohtsuka.) His sidekick, Muttley, is far more famous than he here in Japan and goes by the name ofケンケンKenken (voiced by Takumi Kamiyama.)
ps. A long time ago (7 years!) when I wrote about Groovy Ghoulies the link to their theme song was unable to be embedded. I'm happy to report that I can now embed it!
I'll revisit Hanna Barbera the next time one of their shows catches my eye.
I'd hoped to tie up the loose ends of some Pre-Countdown to Halloween posts but circumstances have caused me to lay low. Therefore to make up for it, here are some YouTubes of Hashimoto-San. I vaguely recall seeing these though I remember Deputy Dawg more so. When created in the early 60s, there were slightly racist overtones but for the most part, the Japanese people mice and traditions were held in high regard. This is because these were written by Bob Kuwahara, a Japan-born and American-raised animator.
Another St. Patrick's Weekend has come and gone and last night a pretty good time was had by all. It certainly made up for last year when everyone stayed home huddled under their blankets with neither power nor gas! Once again, I spent the evening at the Ha'Penny Bridge, quaffed several pints of Guinness, sang a couple of out of tunes and pinched a few people who weren't wearing green (and maybe a few who were.)
Hey, Ha'Penny needs to update the site I linked to above. That guy doesn't work there anymore!
This guy does:
Here are some photos of the entertainers that I met last night.
A couple of pals:
And of course several gals:
That last picture features a couple of Canucks from my neck of the woods in Brampton. The woman lives just a few blocks from my home! IaSWAA!
I've also included some wacky St. Pats' pics scammed from around the web. These incredibly awesome cartoons are by the incredibly talented Para Abnormal creator and a few random others:
The first & last toons are my favourites!
*Has anyone ever heard anyone ever utter the phrase, "Faith and Begorrah"?
I wanted to write a long diatribe about the centennial anniversary of Charles Addams' birth and have spent the night reading up on him and watching Youtubes about him. Alas, for some reason, Youtube isn't allowing me to embed anything, so here is a mashup of 3 animated tributes to his genius. Mr. & Mrs. J. Evil Scientist meet The Gruesomes meet The Creepleys.
Way back in 1994, BigBob & I were perusing the museums of NYC and happened upon an Addams display. I purchased a poster and somehow it ended up here in Japan, I must have brought it over at some time in the past. While tidying, I came across it and I think I'll post it upon my closet.
While I'm hawking birthdays, how about a heads up to Dr. Stephen Hawking who turns 70 today? (That's odd, I can embed this one?!?)
Finally, I shared my birthday with that dude JC and also with one of my coworkers. I gave him a Dragonball shot glass and he reciprocated today with this odd character. Is he an action figure from Deliverance?
Surprisingly enough, no. When one is making a CupNoodle, this little fellow is used to keep the lid down while the boiling water cooks the noodles. Pretty cool!
I found a copy of the Deluxe Two Disc Set of Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs for a couple of bucks and thought the spooky scenes from it would make a swell post for a sombre Sunday. I haven't seen this since the 60s and apart from the songs which I remember well and the highlights that were often rebroadcast, I had forgotten much of it. I didn't recall Doc as being spoonerific, Grumpy as such a redneck and Dopey seemed to be channelling Harpo via Alfred E. Newman. Shrek and other imitators have usurped these characters so that the originals have been neglected.
Without further ado, here are my favourite spooky scenes from 白雪姫 (Shirayuki-hime) or Snow White!
Unfortunately, it's taking ages to download any more pics, some aren't coming through at all and I'm way overdue for bed. So what you see is what you get.
There were several bonuses on the first disc including an amusing trivia game where you gather dwarfs as you ride through a mine shaft (in Japanese so it's a little tricky), "Someday your Prince will come" sung by Streisand, a tour hosted by Angela Lansbury. I haven't checked them all out, but on the extra disc there's Storyboards, Making of, Layouts and some Deleted Scenes such as this:
Another bonus was a Silly Symphony, so join us as a rather Satanic version of Hades kidnaps Persephone in The Goddess of Spring:
I found a copy of Snow White on the Interwebs for your perusal:
