The Pre-Thanksgiving Leftovers of Zack's Newsletter
Featuring: Love Boat Guest Stars! Gas Station Hacks! A Short Film About Donuts!
Happy between times, friends!
It is the lull between Halloween and Thanksgiving, to be followed by the build-up to various religious gift-based holidays.
I’ve been working full-time hours and teaching a class on film and TAKING a class on writing, so my life has consisted of sitting in front of screens and sleeping.
I’ve been advised to try taking walks during my lunch break.
Thanksgiving has always played a major role in my family. I have many fond memories of our gatherings, except for during the weeks before/during/after the holiday, when said memories are kind of black and white and scored to “Ride of the Valkyries.” It was all the 10-hour road trips.
In 2019, I did what I’d threatened to do for years and took a year off from the family gathering. I swore I’d make it up next year…which was 2020. And now it’s 2021, and we’re still limited in the gathering. There’s no 10-hour drive, but I cannot help but feel I jinxed things. The fonder memories have overtaken the more apocalyptic ones.
For 2020, I was GOING to bring a framed version of a drawing I got from Bill Amend of the comic strip FOX TROT recreating a moment from one of his Thanksgiving strips. He was at a comic convention in Charlotte and didn’t usually draw characters from the strip other than Jason, the nerdy youngest member of the Fox family, but made an exception when I explained what this strip meant, and also provided a picture of the original strip for reference.
…the significance of it was just I kept saying, “SO WHO’S READY FOR SOME PIEEEEEEEE?!” after reading the strip, and over the years it became a mild catchphrase at family Thanksgiving. That’s it.
In further honor of Thanksgiving, here’s a 1971 Dick Cavett show where he had on Jim Henson for 90 minutes with the Muppets. I associate the holidays with Muppet movies, and good, innocent memories. My dad would put on a puppet show for the kids; if relatives are reading this, here’s some equivalent you can show your kids this year.
LEFTOVERS:
Some links I kept cutting from previous newsletters for space reasons, not that they’re bad:
Here’s a story from the 1980s about the massive launch of BRAVESTARR, a space cowboy cartoon and toy line. I liked it, but it’s not widely remembered, which makes all the marketing and development put into it kind of grimly hilarious.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-12-21-tm-3736-story.html
And here’s a look at the Black Film Archive, an important new project that’s bringing many significant films to light.
https://www.rogerebert.com/interviews/something-significant-to-say-about-the-black-experience-maya-cade-on-the-black-film-archive
In the film class I’m teaching, one of the films we covered was MEET ME IN ST, LOUIS, which gave us “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” Here’s a look at the history of it and how the original lyrics were DARK AS HELL.
https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/occasions/christmas/original-lyrics-have-yourself-a-merry-little-christmas-judy-garland/
I remember when Simon Rex was an MTV VJ and played pretty-boy doofuses on a few TV shows, but dangit, I’m actually looking forward to his new movie RED ROCKET based on buzz and interviews like this.
https://www.vulture.com/article/simon-rex-profile.html
WELL, THAT’S AMAZING:
CHARO REALLY SHOULD HAVE GOTTEN MULTIPLE ENTRIES:
In one of those things the Internet was MADE for, someone complied (almost) all the guest stars from the opening credits of THE LOVE BOAT (they later admitted they missed a S9 episode with Andy Griffith and Kristy McNichol). The dang thing is almost as long as an actual episode of the show, and weirdly hypnotic. There’s that mixture of, “They were acting then?” “They were still alive then?” “Who?” and “WTF?” The latter includes the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders and Robby the Robot.
Morbidly, I wonder what if Very Serious Actors like George C. Scott and Oliver Reed had done guest spots, their contempt for the material seething from every pore.
AND FOR A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT SET OF GUEST STARS:
A friend asked me to post, and I oblige — NOT REMOTELY SAFE FOR WORK OR PUBLIC PLACES, the extended version of the 2011 ad campaign where Danny McBride’s racist, sexist, uber-bro Kenny Powers from HBO’s EASTBOUND AND DOWN takes over K-Swiss and proceds to run it his way. With appearances by Marc Cuban, Michael Bay, and many atheletes. It has given me some lines I struggle not to use in day-to-day life, such as, “Before you say anything, prepare to shut the F up.”
I HAD NO IDEA:
A link to a Twitter thread on a Superman ripoff that ran a total of ONE comic strip entry.
GOOD ADVICE:
A look at a writing technique on seeing the familiar from an unfamiliar perspective. I love stories like this and try to capture things like this when I actually bother to write something.
https://davidepstein.bulletin.com/reader/308221507559816
AND SOME WEIRD ART:
I was looking through stuff on Pinterest, and found a cartoonist named Colos I hadn’t heard of before, whose work has that bizarre mix of illustration and photos and such common in Monty Python cartoons. NOT SAFE FOR WORK.
http://allmyeyes.blogspot.com/2011/01/finding-colos.html?m=1
GIVE ME MONEY, PART ONE:
For $500, you can own or give me a very large version of the Turtle Van from the 1980s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!…you’d be shocked how often this technique has worked for me.
https://preorder.super7store.com/collections/teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-ultimates-party-wagon
ANOTHER COMICS TWITTER THREAD:
The last in a series of excellent recaps of the 1980s/1990s company Malibu Comics, focusing on their “Ultraverse” imprint. I read many of those books in middle school and high school, and it was a roller coaster ride as they introduced some great characters, saw some media attention, expanded too quickly, were bought by Marvel, saw several Marvel characters shunted over to their books, and went into a rapid decline of incoherent stories and scantily-clad female characters before imploding. And rights issues keep the books from being reprinted. But this brought back some memories! Lord Pumpkin 4 Life!
AND YET ANOTHER LINK TO A FILMED PLAY:
In my rummaging through YouTube, found a filmed PBS version of Shakespeare’s TWELFTH NIGHT from 1997 with Helen Hunt and recent Sexiest Man Alive Paul Rudd in the leads. Rudd hasn’t aged, has he? And this was kind of Peak Hunt, around the time MAD ABOUT YOU was at its peak, and she won an Oscar for AS GOOD AS IT GETS. I had quite the crush on her.
LIFE HACK:
Some of you might have known this already, but an anonymous angel put the following note on a pump at the gas station, and now I know how to mute those damn ads they play while you wait.
I’M REASONABLY CERTAIN SOMEONE WILL REMEMBER THIS:
Again, YouTube inspires some rummagings, and I found “The Doughnuts,” a short films they would play when I was in elementary school, about a boy who’s left to tend his uncle’s diner with its new automatic donut (that’s how I spell it, dangit) machine, which gets stuck “on” with a massive amount of batter going through. It meant a lot to me as a kid because we had (and still have!) a Krispy Kreme downtown where you could see the donuts being made in a similar apparatus.
The short was adapted from one of the stories in HOMER PRICE, a humorous book by Robert McClosky of MAKE WAY FOR DUCKLINGS and other children’s classics. The tales had a laid-back and satirical tone; the sequel, CENTERBURG TALES, for example, had a story about an insidiously catchy song that, while a deliberate homage to Mark Twain’s “Punch, Brothers, Punch” (mentioned in the story), introduced me to the concept of viral marketing in a way.
The short was also produced by Weston Woods Studios, a company that has done HUNDREDS of short adaptations of kids’ books for schools and libraries. You’ve probably seen their work and didn’t know it! Here’s some info on them, followed by the short film:
https://www.scholastic.com/westonwoods
GIVE ME MONEY, PART 2:
Some original animation cells from A CHARLIE BROWN THANKSGIVING are for sale and dammit I want this two-part one of Charlie Brown and Lucy with the football but I ain’t paying $1500 as I need to replace some furniture.
https://charlesscottgallery.com/products/a-charlie-brown-thanksgiving-peanuts-charlie-brown-and-lucy-with-the-football-2-lot-animation-cels-from-1973-melendez-schulz-3040
I always loved that special. Some of Vince Guraldi’s best music, Hilarious Snoopy bits, and a relatable story about having unrealistic expectations forced on you. Tho I always wondered what some of the dishes for Charlie Brown’s “meal” were supposed to be, and Woodstock eating turkey with Snoopy at the end always struck me as some form of cannibalism.
AND FINALLY:
A little photo setup I did.
Remember to use all these little buttons!