We plan to get the last of the decorating done this week, hopefully in the next day or three. So this evening I worked on decorating the mantle. I cleared off everything but the lamp, put up the long two-by-four with the cup hooks for the stockings, and placed on top of that the big wooden nativity set my stepfather made for us years ago on his scroll saw. I added the lighted garland, and it all looks festive. There's really only a few finishing touches to go.
While I was doing this, it occurred to me that I usually put on Christmas music while I decorate indoors. But this time what I was hearing was a lot of weird sound effects; my youngest daughter was playing a video game. Otherwise cute cartoon characters were giving off mournful wails and groans as they entered combat and blasted each other to destruction.
I'm not quite sure what it all means, but anyway, Merry Christmas.
Showing posts with label cartoon characters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cartoon characters. Show all posts
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Thursday, November 22, 2012
It's that time of year again
I assume they held the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade again, but I didn't tune in to any of it. Early in the day, my wife went to her mom's to help prepare the festivities, and I got up sorta kinda early to see if I could finish up my leaf blowing and outdoor Christmas light connecting. The front part of the house looks good now, and all the lights in front are in place except for a string of 50 LED lights destined for a bush near our door. Just ran out of time, before it was time to go over to Thanksgiving dinner.
It was a small, simple gathering, six of us, but we all had our favorite Thanksgiving fare. It was a quiet, restful afternoon and evening.
Not much else to say, but I did want to re-post a link to what I wrote on Thanksgiving 2008. I'll even ask the question again...what characters would you like to see made into those big Macy's Thanksgiving helium balloons?
It was a small, simple gathering, six of us, but we all had our favorite Thanksgiving fare. It was a quiet, restful afternoon and evening.
Not much else to say, but I did want to re-post a link to what I wrote on Thanksgiving 2008. I'll even ask the question again...what characters would you like to see made into those big Macy's Thanksgiving helium balloons?
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Happy Birthday, Mike!
It’s Mike’s birthday again, and boy did that year fly by! I spent some time earlier trying to think of something extra clever to post, but had a bit of writer’s block; other than to say that we got no mail today. So Mike, how did you get your birthday to be a postal holiday?
Anyway, instead of trying to come up with something new, how about something old.
I have good memories of the times my family and I would travel to Poppy’s farm in the Ozarks. Usually we’d stay a week, a few times almost two. Always there would be a day or two when Mike’s family would drive over from Branson. If the weather was good, and it usually was, we’d divide our time inside the house and outside in the yard. We could always come up with something to do, even if it was just to look at comics and crack each other up with jokes.
One year we came up with a club, the Human Bean Club. We tied a rope between two closely spaced trees and put an old blanket across the top, weighted down with a few rocks at the bottom; that was our HBC tent. A flag was hastily made with a sheet of paper, colored with crayons (probably from that box of smoky crayons I'd bought at a dime store in Forsyth that had a fire sale). This was - I think - 1964 or 1965. We agreed that having a club had merit, and eventually play money was made and I think membership cards (I can't prove the latter from the archives though). The HBC club lasted over a year, maybe almost two years.
Sometimes I was invited to Mike's house to spend the night, and the hours would fly by. Paper, pens and pencils were an absolutely necessity, and the "creativity" (silliness) would begin. The cartoons I'd draw would usually involve characters I'd make up with oval shaped bodies, hastily drawn hands and odd eyes, big honkin' tennis shoes and messy hair. The plots usually involved trying to outrun a tornado, or were a setup for some pun or play on words. In later years, I came up with one truly odd attempt to build a storyline combining elements of Star Trek, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Hogan's Heroes (hillbillies hiding from the rev'noors in underground tunnels, firing a phaser-like weapon to freeze an approaching tornado). If it was late enough and you were sleep deprived, it almost made sense. Kind of.
Mike had his own character, Fuzz-Man, whose special power was that he could attract lint and expand to giant size. Useful when dealing with his arch-enemies, Captain Endust, and the giant vacuum cleaner. Sometimes Mike would draw an already established super hero, usually Batman. Most of my stuff was just odd humor, but Mike's superhero themes inspired me to come up with Jello-Man. That character had worked in the Jello factory and one day had accidentally fallen into the vat of grape Jello (I had a purple pencil). Now that he was a shape-shifter, Jello-Man could thin himself out and ooze under the door when he accidentally locked himself out of his apartment. And he could also...hmmm...well, what else? I'll get back to you on that one. Someday.
Later and later it would get. We'd try to keep the laughter to a minimum as we passed the cartoons back and forth. We'd always get shushed once or twice from Mike's mom or dad. The stuff they put up with.
Once we got into foreign languages. Mike knew some German, and I had learned some French in class. We'd write the foreign words, then the translation. The sillier the better; things such as "I don't understand the beach", and "When will the potato sing"?
Once in a while we'd get philosophical. I had realized something that had troubled me a bit. At the time, M&Ms came in red, orange, yellow, green and brown. We'd been on a completely different subject, so I sprang it on him.
"Mike, why are there no blue M&M's"? We had a good laugh over that and pondered what we could do. We decided we ought to send the company a telegram:
DEAR M AND MS STOP WHY NO BLUE STOP
I wish we'd followed through and actually sent that, but neither of us quite had the nerve. But as we all know there have been blue (and purple) M&Ms for some years now, so they must have gotten the message somehow.
Once or twice we stayed up late enough that we heard the newspaper hit the front step. Mike would go out and bring it in, and we'd head straight for the comics page.
We had to be among the first in town to read the days comic strips in the Branson Beacon. Got a jump on most everybody else. That felt good. Then we'd finally get a few hours sleep, and pretty much be worthless for the rest of the day.
Mike, I hope you had a great day and made more fun memories!
(I'd like to read a response to this...I know I left stuff out.)
Anyway, instead of trying to come up with something new, how about something old.
I have good memories of the times my family and I would travel to Poppy’s farm in the Ozarks. Usually we’d stay a week, a few times almost two. Always there would be a day or two when Mike’s family would drive over from Branson. If the weather was good, and it usually was, we’d divide our time inside the house and outside in the yard. We could always come up with something to do, even if it was just to look at comics and crack each other up with jokes.
One year we came up with a club, the Human Bean Club. We tied a rope between two closely spaced trees and put an old blanket across the top, weighted down with a few rocks at the bottom; that was our HBC tent. A flag was hastily made with a sheet of paper, colored with crayons (probably from that box of smoky crayons I'd bought at a dime store in Forsyth that had a fire sale). This was - I think - 1964 or 1965. We agreed that having a club had merit, and eventually play money was made and I think membership cards (I can't prove the latter from the archives though). The HBC club lasted over a year, maybe almost two years.
Sometimes I was invited to Mike's house to spend the night, and the hours would fly by. Paper, pens and pencils were an absolutely necessity, and the "creativity" (silliness) would begin. The cartoons I'd draw would usually involve characters I'd make up with oval shaped bodies, hastily drawn hands and odd eyes, big honkin' tennis shoes and messy hair. The plots usually involved trying to outrun a tornado, or were a setup for some pun or play on words. In later years, I came up with one truly odd attempt to build a storyline combining elements of Star Trek, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Hogan's Heroes (hillbillies hiding from the rev'noors in underground tunnels, firing a phaser-like weapon to freeze an approaching tornado). If it was late enough and you were sleep deprived, it almost made sense. Kind of.
Mike had his own character, Fuzz-Man, whose special power was that he could attract lint and expand to giant size. Useful when dealing with his arch-enemies, Captain Endust, and the giant vacuum cleaner. Sometimes Mike would draw an already established super hero, usually Batman. Most of my stuff was just odd humor, but Mike's superhero themes inspired me to come up with Jello-Man. That character had worked in the Jello factory and one day had accidentally fallen into the vat of grape Jello (I had a purple pencil). Now that he was a shape-shifter, Jello-Man could thin himself out and ooze under the door when he accidentally locked himself out of his apartment. And he could also...hmmm...well, what else? I'll get back to you on that one. Someday.
Later and later it would get. We'd try to keep the laughter to a minimum as we passed the cartoons back and forth. We'd always get shushed once or twice from Mike's mom or dad. The stuff they put up with.
Once we got into foreign languages. Mike knew some German, and I had learned some French in class. We'd write the foreign words, then the translation. The sillier the better; things such as "I don't understand the beach", and "When will the potato sing"?
Once in a while we'd get philosophical. I had realized something that had troubled me a bit. At the time, M&Ms came in red, orange, yellow, green and brown. We'd been on a completely different subject, so I sprang it on him.
"Mike, why are there no blue M&M's"? We had a good laugh over that and pondered what we could do. We decided we ought to send the company a telegram:
DEAR M AND MS STOP WHY NO BLUE STOP
I wish we'd followed through and actually sent that, but neither of us quite had the nerve. But as we all know there have been blue (and purple) M&Ms for some years now, so they must have gotten the message somehow.
Once or twice we stayed up late enough that we heard the newspaper hit the front step. Mike would go out and bring it in, and we'd head straight for the comics page.
We had to be among the first in town to read the days comic strips in the Branson Beacon. Got a jump on most everybody else. That felt good. Then we'd finally get a few hours sleep, and pretty much be worthless for the rest of the day.
Mike, I hope you had a great day and made more fun memories!
(I'd like to read a response to this...I know I left stuff out.)
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Musical note
Sorry about the headline, but I'm in a hurry.
Over at my blog, Central Standard, I posted about some music that I'm enjoying these days, so if you are inclined to read it, here you go.
And since I'm in a hurry, I'll go no further than this about your post on the Macy's parade, Bob - I'm intrigued by the balloons you suggested and I think I will write a longer post later, but you conjured some nice memories.
Happy Saturday night!
Over at my blog, Central Standard, I posted about some music that I'm enjoying these days, so if you are inclined to read it, here you go.
And since I'm in a hurry, I'll go no further than this about your post on the Macy's parade, Bob - I'm intrigued by the balloons you suggested and I think I will write a longer post later, but you conjured some nice memories.
Happy Saturday night!
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Thanksgiving approacheth
Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade is only hours away, and what a production. I don’t watch it as often as I did when I was younger, but it is a part of my childhood memories. A week ago I thought about the big, helium filled parade balloons (and I wonder how much all that helium costs) and all the people who hold onto the lines and walk the balloons down the streets. I’ve got to think they practice many hours, and I wonder if Macy’s hires as many of the same people as they can who have worked with the balloons in previous years.
I expect most (if not all) of you reading this have seen the parade, or parts of it more than once, and you know most of these balloons look like well known cartoon characters. Snoopy has been in the parade the most, I think five times, maybe six; and I think there was a Charlie Brown balloon once. I don’t know if any of the other Peanuts characters have been in the parade (I think they ought to at least have a Linus balloon, or maybe Lucy, Sally, or Peppermint Patty). And I remember once that Rocky and Bullwinkle were parade balloons.
Okay, I’ll admit I’m going to sound like an older guy here, but it seems like the balloons were better back in the 1960’s. No offense, but some of the more recent entries seem to lack something by comparison, and I’m not sure how to describe it. Hello Kitty? Pokemon? Nothing wrong with including those, but I can’t quite relate to them. I guess they’re not part of my personal pop culture. All of this is a long setup to the question I asked myself at the kitchen table a week ago…
Which new and different Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons would I like to see?
I’ve been pondering this on and off this week, and I couldn’t narrow it down to 10. Anyway, here’s my list in “top-ten-style”.
19. Bat Boy (Weekly World News tabloid)
Wait, cancel that; can’t have everyone running through the streets in panic.
Okay, let’s start over…
18. Reddy Kilowatt (Old advertising mascot)
17. Sharky (Eek! The Cat tv cartoon)
16. Happy Beaver (Pixar animator, Jeff Pidgeon)
15. Crow T. Robot and Tom Servo (Mystery Science Theatre 3000)
14. Trogdor (Homestar Runner - Strong Bad email Dragon)
13. Chicken Boo (Animaniacs TV cartoon)
12. Mr. Toast, Joe the Egg, and Shaky Bacon (Dan Goodsell's The Imaginary World)
11. Alfred E. Newman (MAD Magazine mascot)
10. Rat and Pig (Pearls Before Swine comic strip)
9. Mr. Peanut (Planters Peanuts advertising mascot)
8. Boris, Natasha, and Fearless Leader (Rocky and Bullwinkle)
7. Yosemite Sam (Warner Brothers Looney Tunes)
6. Pinky and The Brain (Animaniacs / Pinky and The Brain TV cartoons)
5. Howland Owl and Churchy LaFemme (Walt Kelly’s Pogo comic strip)
4. Fester Bestertester (Don Martin books)
3. The Geico Gecko (Insurance advertising mascot)
2. Foghorn Leghorn (Warner Brothers Looney Tunes)
1. Bubs, Strong Bad, and The Cheat (Homestar Runner – Strong Bad email Colonization)
I expect most (if not all) of you reading this have seen the parade, or parts of it more than once, and you know most of these balloons look like well known cartoon characters. Snoopy has been in the parade the most, I think five times, maybe six; and I think there was a Charlie Brown balloon once. I don’t know if any of the other Peanuts characters have been in the parade (I think they ought to at least have a Linus balloon, or maybe Lucy, Sally, or Peppermint Patty). And I remember once that Rocky and Bullwinkle were parade balloons.
Okay, I’ll admit I’m going to sound like an older guy here, but it seems like the balloons were better back in the 1960’s. No offense, but some of the more recent entries seem to lack something by comparison, and I’m not sure how to describe it. Hello Kitty? Pokemon? Nothing wrong with including those, but I can’t quite relate to them. I guess they’re not part of my personal pop culture. All of this is a long setup to the question I asked myself at the kitchen table a week ago…
Which new and different Thanksgiving Day Parade balloons would I like to see?
I’ve been pondering this on and off this week, and I couldn’t narrow it down to 10. Anyway, here’s my list in “top-ten-style”.
19. Bat Boy (Weekly World News tabloid)
Wait, cancel that; can’t have everyone running through the streets in panic.
Okay, let’s start over…
18. Reddy Kilowatt (Old advertising mascot)
17. Sharky (Eek! The Cat tv cartoon)
16. Happy Beaver (Pixar animator, Jeff Pidgeon)
15. Crow T. Robot and Tom Servo (Mystery Science Theatre 3000)
14. Trogdor (Homestar Runner - Strong Bad email Dragon)
13. Chicken Boo (Animaniacs TV cartoon)
12. Mr. Toast, Joe the Egg, and Shaky Bacon (Dan Goodsell's The Imaginary World)
11. Alfred E. Newman (MAD Magazine mascot)
10. Rat and Pig (Pearls Before Swine comic strip)
9. Mr. Peanut (Planters Peanuts advertising mascot)
8. Boris, Natasha, and Fearless Leader (Rocky and Bullwinkle)
7. Yosemite Sam (Warner Brothers Looney Tunes)
6. Pinky and The Brain (Animaniacs / Pinky and The Brain TV cartoons)
5. Howland Owl and Churchy LaFemme (Walt Kelly’s Pogo comic strip)
4. Fester Bestertester (Don Martin books)
3. The Geico Gecko (Insurance advertising mascot)
2. Foghorn Leghorn (Warner Brothers Looney Tunes)
1. Bubs, Strong Bad, and The Cheat (Homestar Runner – Strong Bad email Colonization)
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