Ranking Rankin.

Once again activists want to cancel Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, the Rankin-Bass special that features the titular hero being bullied, risking his life, and finally finding acceptance only after he earns the respect of others rather than being loved for who he is. 

I'll admit it's a rough one. Santa's a jerk, to put it mildly, as is Coach Comet; Rudolph's parents are humiliated by him; the Bumble is scary; we see Rudolph being rejected by random woodland creatures; and on and on. 

I doubt these idiot activists will get anywhere. The 1964 special is still very popular, popular enough that even side characters like King Moonracer gets his own lawn decoration. 

Personally, I feel that Rudolph, which is very faithful to the original song, should not go away. Santa's a crappy boss, the elves are miscellaneous dodos, the other kids pick on our hero, he gets involved with a freak for an elf and a gun-wielding knucklehead, he falls in with a pack of misfits, he gets spurned by royalty (who nevertheless demands a favor), the girl he loves is sweet but an airhead, and all the while death stalks from above with big nasty teeth. In the end, he learns it is better to go out like a hero than live like a slug. Is there a better life lesson in any kids' show or movie you've ever seen?

I thought I would give my own rankings to the various Rankin-Bass Christmas specials while we're on the topic. They were a vital part of my yuletide TV experience, and while I haven't seen most of them in years, the memories are quite vivid. For a kid, it was appointment television when there was such a thing.

I'm leaving off all the non-Christmas RB specials, which included Easter and Thanksgiving and even Independence Day (Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July), although I'm leaving Rudolph's Shiny New Year because it ran around the same time as the Christmas shows. Also, I can't rate the ones I have not seen, but they will be discussed. In alphabetical order:

The First Christmas: The Story of the First Christmas Snow (1975) -- I think I've only seen the end of this one, so I shouldn't comment. Seems a little maudlin, but most kids' stuff with any drama is maudlin. Rating: N/A

Frosty the Snowman (1969) -- Lots of things to like about this one, especially Jimmy Durante. Santa (Paul Frees) comes off very well, too, as does Frosty's rabbit pal, Hocus Pocus. Frosty's kind of a moron, but after all, he was made of snow, and was just born. On a scale of 0 to 5: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

Frosty's Winter Wonderland (1976) -- Just okay. Andy Griffith subs for Durante, Frosty gets married, the Bible gets a little respect. Has a lesson about why good things must come to an end. Jack Frost (Paul Frees) is a weenie. 🎄🎄 Speaking of Jack Frost: 

Jack Frost (1979) -- This one really is a Groundhog Day special, since it's mostly about winter, not Christmas, and the narrator is Buddy Hackett as a groundhog. (Typecasting, I know.) Totally different from the Jack Frost of the Frosty's Winter Wonderland. He falls in love and becomes human but must fight off the wicked Kubla Kraus (Paul Frees) and loses the girl. A rare bittersweet story on a children's special. 🎄🎄🎄🎄  

The Leprechaun's Christmas Gold (1981) -- Never seen this, but Art Carney stars, so it has that going for it. N/A

The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus (1985) -- Never seen this one either. People tell me it is exceptionally weird. It's based on an L. Frank Baum book, so I'm not surprised. His Oz books are intensely imaginative and disturbingly weird. N/A

The Little Drummer Boy (1968) -- Greer Garson narrates the story of Aaron, the title character, who hates everybody except his animal pals, and with good reason. Then he hears about the birth of the new king in Bethlehem. Heartfelt and dramatic, with Jose Ferrar playing Ben Haramad and Paul Frees playing a cast of thousands. Docked a tree because the song on which it was based is stupid. Who the hell wants a kid banging a drum around a newborn?  🎄🎄🎄🎄

The Little Drummer Boy, Book II (1976) -- Greer Garson returns and wonders how she got caught up in this moronic sequel about Aaron, the Magi, and a bellmaker. The sound of digging is caused by Rankin and Bass going to the well once too often. 0

Nestor, the Long–Eared Christmas Donkey (1977) -- Basically the Rudolph story set in the Bible, only instead of Rudolph and his freakish nose we have Nestor with his freakish ears. Nestor carries Mary to Bethlehem and protects her from a sandstorm with his huge ears. It's very sweet, although I have no idea why Nestor becomes a hero to the animals who made fun of him at the start of the cartoon; not like the birth of Jesus made the evening news. Given a score of four, plus one because my wife loves Nestor. Paul Frees plays three parts. 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄

Pinocchio's Christmas (1980) -- Never saw this one either. It has Alan King in it, which is interesting. Paul Frees has two parts. N/A

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964) -- Discussed above, docked a star because Santa (not Paul Frees) is such a complete ass. 🎄🎄🎄🎄

Rudolph's Shiny New Year (1976) -- Bizarre story of Rudolph having to rescue the Baby New Year, who has ridiculously huge ears, or else the new year will not occur. Has some pretty clever fantasy concepts explored in some interesting ways, and some great songs ("It's Raining Sunshine" is a standout) but since it was usually shown in the week between Christmas and New Year's my wife calls it the Pro Bowl of Christmas specials. Voices include Red Skelton, Harold "Great Gildersleeve" Peary, Frank Gorshin, Morey Amsterdam, Don Messick, and... Paul Frees! 🎄🎄🎄

Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town (1970) -- Mickey Rooney in this Santa Origin Story, narrated by North Pole mailman Fred Astaire. Great songs, great villains (Keenan Wynn, Paul Frees), a mention of the Nativity, all good. Loveable Santa. My wife hates Jessica's big number but it usually gets cut anyway these days. It set the template for Han Solo's origin film Solo, in that every quirk associated with the character has to be explained during the course of the story. 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄

Santa, Baby! (2001) -- Sounds really interesting, but I didn't know it existed until yesterday. N/A

The Stingiest Man in Town (1978) -- Never seen this cartoon, but holy cow what an all-star cast! Walter Matthau as Scrooge, Tom Bosley as a humbug, Robert Morse, Dennis Day, Theodore Bikel, Debra Clinger, and Paul Frees in three different parts! N/A

'Twas the Night Before Christmas (1974) -- Joel Grey and George Gobel, as the fates ordained long ago! High-stakes story as a town rushes to restore a broken clock that will pay tribute to Santa, who's mad at the whole town for not believing in him. Kind of a snotty Santa in that regard, and odd-looking with no mustache, but a good score helps a lot. No Paul Frees, though. 🎄🎄🎄🎄

The Year Without a Santa Claus (1974) -- Everyone's favorite. Does the plot make sense? Who cares? Mickey Rooney returns, Shirley Booth sings, Dick Shawn and George Irving as the Miser Brothers, terrific songs ("I Could Be Santa Claus," "I Believe in Santa Claus," "It's Gonna Snow Right Here in Dixie," and the unforgettable Miser Brothers numbers). Top notch. Again, no Paul Frees, though. Maybe he thought a guy named Frees should have been Snow Miser. 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄

Those are my ratings, meaningless as they are. What do you think?

For want of a branch.

I'm writing this on Saturday evening, and I'm a bit tired. Had to do some payin' work this morning, but the afternoon was all Christmas Christmas Christmas! 

It went pretty well, if I do say so myself, and I do, because by tradition nobody helps me, unless you count looking for flaws afterward. Since I refuse to get up on the porch roof and run strips of lights along the gutters, and since I paid a fortune to have the gutters fixed this year and I'm not touching them, the second floor of Casa Key gets illuminated by lighted figures in the windows. They all have separate timers, and synching them is impossible, so every year I see them come on at different times, and I don't give a darn anymore. When they're all lit up they look great.

The porch did not get done yet, because it rained most of the day. That's on the list for tomorrow.

Inside I put up the tree, and there was the real problem. Of course there was a problem! Have I ever written a post that went "Everything was great, the end"? What fun is that?

Here's the thing: I'm missing a branch.

When we moved into the house, with its forced-air heat, we decided to change tradition and go with a fake tree. It gets so dry in here during the cold months that the static electricity damn near gives my wife a pompadour. We thought a live tree would drop all its needles in a week and burst into flame. 

 I grew up with a fake tree -- the same one for decades -- so I'm used to them. For a couple of years the Mrs. and I used one from Walmart, which was about as high-quality a Chinese artifact as you might expect. Then we invested in one from Christmas in America, proudly made in a factory in Newburgh, New York, right here in the lower Hudson Valley. We've enjoyed it for quite a few Christmases now.

It's a pretty realistic thing, seven feet tall and dark green. It has a top section that's one piece, but the middle and lower sections are constructed of layers of individual branches. And somehow, since last year, I managed to lose one of the upper branches.

How could this happen? 

I've looked everywhere for it but found no sign. It vanished from the box in the cellar somehow, just as my spare car key, another set of keys, and my glasses just vanished from the cellar. That's where all these things were last seen. I know it's not mice, because A) mice have no interest in these things and B) my wife is scared of mice and has the world's greatest mouse radar. If we had a mouse in here someplace she'd know long before the dogs did.

"It's The Borrowers," I told her, "only stupid. We have the world's stupidest borrowers."

Well, I turned the hole in the tree toward the wall, but I know it's there. The branch may yet appear in one of the ornament boxes, but I have no memory of tossing the loose branch in there. That's not where it belongs. I tend to take things down quickly in January, but I don't just chuck things into random boxes.

It's bad enough when I get critiqued by others for my decorating; it's worse when I know there's a flaw and I can't do anything about it.

No point in trying to buy a spare branch from Christmas in America, which was driven out of business in 2012. Probably by those damn cheap fake trees from China. 

If the branch doesn't turn up this year, I'll probably have to buy a new tree for next year. It will probably be very difficult to get one made in America. 

Grumble, grumble.

And I hated The Borrowers. Couldn't even finish the book.

Bah.

Merry Christmas.

Music history in the remaking.

If Wagner had written The Nutcracker Suite rather than Tchaikovsky

 

Cookie!

December 4 is supposedly National Cookie Day, at least according to our friends at National Day. 

You would hardly think we need a holiday for cookies in the United States. Really, every day is cookie day. Here are some stats from a report by the South Florida Reporter:

• Americans consume over 2 billion cookies a year … about 300 cookies for each person.
• The average American eats 35,000 cookies in a lifetime.
• 95.2 percent of U.S. households consume cookies.
• Half the cookies baked in American homes each year are chocolate chip.
• Santa Claus eats an estimated 336,150,386 cookies on Christmas Eve.

I caution that the sources listed on this story are not rock-solid, and in fact contradictory. For example, American men currently enjoy a life expectancy of 78.54 years, which would mean we're eating about 446 cookies a year, not 300 (35000 ÷ 78.54). Usually we eat more than one cookie at a sitting, but do we eat an average of 1.22 daily? I yield to no one in my love of cookies, but days go by without me touching any, and I have an extreme sweet tooth. I guess it's possible but it seems like a lot.

As for Santa, he needs the energy to visit all the houses. Also, like Cookie Monster, he is magical, so the normal rules don't apply.

But back to the holiday. According to National Day, National Cookie Day was invented in 1987 by Matt Nader of the Blue Chip Cookie Company, in San Francisco. The company is still operating, but has been owned by Donna Drury-Heine and Bob Heine since 2005. Its HQ moved from San Francisco to Milford, Ohio, and is now heavily invested in the mail-order cookie business. Supposedly Clint Eastwood said they had the best cookies he ever ate. You wouldn't want to contradict Clint, would you? 

I hate to bring up controversy, but the Days of the Year site claims that Nader did not invent the holiday, although it is coy about how the holiday began. Let's not dwell on that. I wouldn't want to be accused of taking part in a rumble.

However it got here, I'm not surprised that this holiday was placed early in December, Christmas being so heavily associated with cookies. According to an ugly but informative site called The Food Timeline, small cookie-esque bakes for special occasions go back to ancient times. The site quotes a McCall's magazine story that says the Christmas cookie craze was all over Europe by the 1500s. The page even has an American Christmas cookie recipe from a cookbook published in Albany in 1796! 

So what should we do to celebrate National Cookie Day? Days of the Year says "On Cookie Day people can get together to bake cookies together, which can turn out to be a surprisingly good time. Parents can have fun baking the first batch of cookies their children will ever bake with them, which is also guaranteed to be an unforgettable experience." The site also includes a recipe for peanut butter cookies. National Day also suggests baking cookies, but allows for just buying some at a local bakery. I guess there's no wrong way to celebrate National Cookie Day except to say, "No, sir! I will not celebrate this day of cookies! No, I think not!"

Christmas cookies have been a matter of some interest to this blog before, including a comprehensive rating of the the little treats. Know your cookies, is what we say at Vitamin Fred. And Happy National Cookie Day.

The obits.

This week in the Obituaries....

BO STICKELY
(April 22, 1946 - December 1, 2020)

Action movie fans mourn the passing of Bo Stickely today, born in 1946 in Cornflower, Iowa. Stickely is best remembered for a string of martial arts films from the early 1970s, including Face Punch Master and its sequel, Kick Nuts Champion.

Stickely came to California to work the potato fields following the dragon fruit blight of 1969. While in the southern part of the state he took martial arts lessons with part-time stuntman Jay Femur. Femur recommended Stickely to his studio contacts based on his student's tough but handsome demeanor and iron-hard skull. Joel Woot of Woot Films saw in Stickely "a chance to make some of that karate money with a white dude." In Stickely's first film, 1971's Drunken Monk Punk, he played the world's greatest martial artist, a peace-loving man who will not fight unless he is so drunk he loses all coordination and manual dexterity. When his pet hamster is stolen, however, he goes on a sober rampage.

"I love making movies," he once told the Hollywood Reporter. "They just point me at someone, tell me what to say, and when to hit him. And I get paid!" He added, "I never took a single acting lesson, you believe that?" Fans did. He went on to star in a series of cheap but satisfying films, including Silent But Deadly, Bloody Spleen, and You Killed My Master III: Running Out of Masters. 

In the 1980s, the end of the grindhouse era and an enormous beer gut brought Stickely's film career to a halt. Small parts in television also came to an end when he was guest-starring on an episode of Golden Girls and thought he was supposed to beat up Bea Arthur. 

For years afterward he made a small living signing autographs at film conventions, before retiring to the Punch Drunk Home for Stuntmen and Others, where he died on December 1 from cancer of the islets of Langerhans. 

HIBISCUS FLOWER
(February 7, 1935 - December 2, 2020)

Folk music pioneer Hibiscus Flower, née Henrietta Lipschitz, was born in Levittown, New York, twelve years before the town was founded. In her adult life she discovered the joys of the folk-music movement, changed her name, and tried to get in on the action.

"I love writing songs for the common working man," she told a Village Voice interviewer in 1962. "All the college kids say the common working man would love my songs if he ever heard them."

Flower was not a singer -- she confessed to having "a voice like a broken hairdryer" -- but between 1958 and 1966 she wrote 451 folk songs. Many of these were recorded by groups such as the O'Hara Experience, the Pantless Four, and Pickle 'n Sickle. One of her biggest hits, "The Ol' Red Rooster," was a #30 hit for Nearsighted Mickey Meara in 1963. 

Following the "Electric Dylan" shock of 1965, Flower retreated to her Upstate New York home in Coxsackie with a sick headache, where she continued to write in seclusion. That is, until 1970, when a reporter from the New York Post visited her in her arbor, where she wrote all of her songs. Hanging in the arbor was a wind chime that emitted five notes -- A, C sharp, D, F sharp, and G -- which he realized were the only notes she ever used in any of her songs. "Every melody she ever wrote came from those chimes," the reporter concluded, and Flower's songwriting career effectively came to a close. 

Still, her best-known songs, like "Pick Up Yo' Shovel, Eb," "Ain't Seen No Sunshine in Waukegan," and "The Ol' Combine," continued to be recorded by bands including Hilljack Shine and Wickëd Blüd. For the next fifty years Hibiscus Flower was able to live on her royalties while collecting dead butterflies, live cats, and resentments, until her passing on Wednesday from cardiac arrest -- or, as she wrote in "Broken Hearted Billie," "a heart that just done stopt." 

 

HOWARD ZINKLE
(November 18, 1951 - November 30, 2020)

Pioneering food scientist Howard Zinkle, known to friends as Zinkmeister, passed away suddenly on December 3, 2020. Zinkle was best known for his work on established lines like Reddi-Wip, Cool Whip, Dream Whip, and Miracle Whip. But he also made great strides in the field of dehydrating and freeze-drying foods, and was known in some circles as the King of Waterless Comestibles. 

"I was so crushed when NASA said that our freeze-dried ice cream would crumble in space and ruin the gears or whatever," Zinkle told The Smithsonian. "We worked really hard to suck the moisture out of ice cream. It's not easy. Not to mention the chocolate syrup."

Zinkle, who earned a Ph.D. in Food Science from the Grenada School of Eats, was employed as a Food Consultant for Heinz and Campbell's, among other food giants. His plan to make condensed condensed soups, which would fit a serving for eight in a two-ounce can, never came to fruition, and he often found himself tinkering in his own laboratory. Zinkle is distinguished by holding the third-most patents of any U.S. individual for inventions that don't work.

Zinkle was experimenting with a revolutionary new appliance, a self-cleaning microwave oven, when he was fatally injured in the explosion. In accordance with his instructions, Zinkle's freeze-dried remains will be interred in a shoebox this Friday in the Hallowed Halls and Greenish Grounds Memorial Plaza in Garden City, New York.

Fred's Book Club: Toy Gory?

Welcome to Wednesday (a.k.a. Hump Day), and thus another of the seemingly endless schleps into Fred's Library for the Humpback Writers feature. The writers probably are humpless, although today's writer/artist, Tony Millionaire (a.k.a. Scott Richardson), has a twisted sense of humor that would make any Igor proud. 

With Christmas officially looming, there is a lot of talk about toys -- which makes some people think about Toy Story, the Disney property that doesn't bear thinking about, considering its horrible implications. I was once at a wake where the deceased was in the coffin with a Woody doll -- I don't know if Woody went into the ground with the mortal remains, but think about it in Toy Story terms for a moment. Tony Millionaire is a man would appreciate that.

I first encountered the artist's fantastic work in the late free weekly NYPress, run by Russ Smith. Millionaire's comic strip Maakies was almost an anti-comic strip. Starring a seafaring monkey called Uncle Gabby and the suicidal alcoholic Drinky Crow, its bloody adventures were grotesquely and gorgeously rendered in ink. Like most alternative humor, it could be hilarious and depressing at the same time. Often the little strip-below-the-strip was the funniest thing in the newspaper.

When I saw that Millionaire had published a children's book featuring a sock monkey that looked like Uncle Gabby, I found it difficult to believe. I figures it would be a "children's book" like Edward Gorey's or (at best) Roald Dahl's, with unbelievable cruelty inflicted on nasty children.

I was wrong. It is a charming book about toys come to life, especially the classic title toy, a monkey made of old socks.  

Sock Monkey is strange, don't get me wrong. It opens with a real-life monkey having a toothache, which is eased when the monkey pulls out the tooth. The tooth lands in an orchid, which is brought home by an explorer called the Captain. The Captain plans to give the plant to his young granddaughter, Ann-Louise, and brings it back from his butterfly expedition. 

Then the plant and its glass cover run into peril due to his granddaughter's toys, led by one Mr. Crow. 

"FLUKES AND FLAMES! What is all the consarn racket in here?" bellowed the Captain, as he rushed into the greenhouse, swinging a broom. "Here I am, peacefully sleeping after a months-long voyage, only to find magical dolls and crows disturbing the tranquility of the night! Away with you!" and he swept them out the door! "Blasted come-to-life toys! If it wasn't for all the magic around here, we wouldn't be having all this infernal chaos all the time!"

The monkey's tooth lands in his sock, which is turned into a sock monkey, which comes to life extra-fast because of the tooth now concealed inside. 

The next day was Ann-Louise's birthday, and it was the happiest birthday she ever had. For once her grandfather had not surprised her with one of his dusty curiosities, this year she opened her present to find a beautiful, soft, cotton sock monkey. She hugged him to her cheek and to her delight the monkey started to whisper all about his adventures in the house. 

"I'm going to name you Uncle Gabby, because you gab so!" she laughed. 

Mr. Crow is at first frightened by the sock monkey, but they become friends. Later the story sort of comes full circle as Mr. Crow and Gabby team up to shoo off a goldfish that is after a tooth fairy, and Ann-Louise thus gets a dime for her baby tooth. 

It's a sweet book, peculiar in its way but never scary. I was startled to see a G-rated version of Uncle Gabby and Drinky Crow, but it works. And, I just love Millionaire's drawings. The Great Lileks has been running some work from cartoonists of the past who put a lot of time and detail into their art, and Millionaire is one of few living cartoon artists I know who does so as well.  

Maakies came to an end in 2016 when the free-weekly market faded away. But Tony Millionaire continues on. There were more Sock Monkey books, as well as books featuring character Billy Hazelnuts and of course Maakies collections. For my money, he is the true artist for the toys-come-to-life genre, a one-man Island of Misfit Toys, whether G- or R-rated.  

Scenes from December 1.

It's December 1 and we're just gettin' this party started! Woo! So let's see what's going on so far this Christmas season. 

OMG! IT'S BACK! 

If you have been following this blog for a while, and God love you for it, you may recall that in 2019 the house pictured still had that Christmas wreath up in May. In fact, it didn't come down until August. One day in August it was just gone, and I thought it probably fell off or disintegrated. It didn't appear last Christmas, so that had to be the reason. Obviously not the case, because it's back, baby! 

It's funny to me because I imagined Dad saying, "You wanted to put that wreath up, you take it down!" And daughter saying, "I'll get to it." And August arrives and Dad angrily pulls it down and flings it away. But not so -- it's here again! 

The clock is ticking. Will it last until August 2021? 

Meanwhile, in the supermarket, It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas™, but Barney and Ben don't want hopalong boots and a pistol that shoots. 

They want Stretch Armstrong!  Stretch Armstrong is a sort of Plastic Man like hero doll action figure with the obvious appeal that his limbs and whatnot are stretchable and bendable. Kenner released the original Stretch in 1976, but I had no idea the old man was back, and in his original wrestling trunks look. I recommend the Wikipedia page on Stretch Armstrong, just to read about the bizarre film adaptations that have been in the works since 1994. 

What's new in the paper aisle? We always love to see normal products in seasonal packaging, right? Well, I do, anyway. Christmas up the whole joint! 

Um... I don't think Puffs tissues has really got the idea here. These were billed as the seasonal boxes -- and apparently they are, in the broadest sense:

I don't get it. There's nothing wintery about these boxes. The top one looks like a Google doodle celebrating rhythmic gymnastics and the bottom one looks like a birthday edition for people who cry at parties. This is what they're forgoing Christmas designs for? 

Looks like the geniuses at Procter & Gamble are at it again. They seem to like alienating their customers. I think P&G is in the control of a cabal that is trying to make the company fail. If so, good going, cabal! 

That's all I have so far, but we've not even scratched the surface yet. The supermarket was playing Greatest Hits of the Eighties when I was there Saturday and I got "Tempted" stuck in my head for hours. Next time Perry Como will probably have reemerged from beyond to sing "Silver Bells." We shall see.