13 posts tagged “kid stuff”
More Childhood books I remember really, really liking was Donald J. Sobol’s juvenile mystery sleuth ENCYCLOPEDIA BROWN series. The first book I read in the set was ENCYCLOPEDIA BROWN AND THE CASE OF THE SECRET PITCH, (a book I found buried within three filled spindles of paperbacks at the back of the school library as part of the honorback system) and at the time I wasn’t really aware that it was part of an ongoing series. But I liked that one book so much that I went down to the local library to see if there were any more, and was excited to find that there were about ten books in that set, and even now, I can’t find the words to describe how COOL all those books looked together on the shelf! In any case, I immediately made it my mission to borrow each one, two at a time…til I’d read ‘em all!
One of the things that made Encyclopedia Brown stories so much fun was the way you were given all the clues to each case (read: chapter) and was given a moment to try and “figure it out for yourself”. Though some solutions were based on knowledge no average 3rd grader would know, (Ambergris floats? Who Knew?!) most of them were based on plain common sense, and these were the ones you could either solve yourself or at least go “Oh, yeah!! I shoulda known that!” (Like that story where the guy claimed to have hit his leg on the table, where there was a delicately stacked house of cards…!)
Besides Donald J. Sobol’s smart and fun storytelling, one of the BEST things about the book was the fantastic artwork by Leonard Shortall. Shortall illustrated in a very 1950’s suburban family style, perfectly suited for depicting Idaville, the “average American Town”. In the early books he drew with thick brush strokes, but as the series went on, Shortall’s work took on a very thin, spindly style (somewhat akin to Roald Dahl’s drawings in his Charlie and the Chocolate Factory books.) and these were my favorite illustrations of them all!
And while we’re on the subject of Shortall’s artwork, a kind of a funny thing, but back when I was obsessively and voraciously reading and re-reading the Encyclopedia Brown books, I developed this strong attraction for Sally Kimball, Encyclopedia Brown’s tomboyish second in command!! Something about how Shortall was depicting Ms. Kimball invoked images of the my ideal American sweetheart a la Lisa Whelchel or Maureen McCormick in my mind, but unlike Marcia Brady, all I got from my friends when I made this confession was strange looks!!
I once mentioned to Car about my childhood attraction to Sally Kimball, and she looked at me like I’d gone off the deep end! “But she was only a drawing in a BOOK!” she exclaimed, and…well, I really didn’t have anything to back me up! To me it didn’t seem so weird, but then again, I’m the guy who regularly posts about crushes he’s had on comic and cartoon characters, so my opinion’s probably not that great!
For me, the “Golden Age” of Encyclopedia Brown was the books I grew up with, that is, from Book 1 (Encyclopedia Brown: Boy Detective) through to Book 12 (The Case Of The Dead Eagles), and It had always been my wish to someday get all those books so I could reproduce that wonderful sight of the complete set with matching spines that I’d seen back during those early library visits!! Alas, the paperback versions for sale at the bookstore had entirely different covers (and some not even illustrated by Shortall!) so it seemed an impossible task.
As I got older, I’d occasionally see stray copies of Encyclopedia Brown books at rummage sales and book fairs, and on those rare occasions one of the editions from the library turned up, I grabbed it up, and with the arrival of EBAY (great at finding ex-library copies of books you remember reading as a kid, I tell you), I was finally able to complete my 12 book series with the covers I remembered from the library- the same covers I've uploaded here...! I even came across some of the paperback editions that I remember seeing growing up, which I ALSO bought! Can’t have too much nostalgia!
It always bothered me, as it was SO unlike the other titles. Then I was to find that “Secret Pitch” was initially entitled “Encyclopedia Brown Strikes Again”, an appropriate title for his second outing, and very much keeping theme of the other 11 titles. Why was it changed? I guess the term “Strikes Again” sounded a little sinister, and not at all like the “Encyclopedia Brown: Ally of Justice” themes the other titles have.
Ah, but it all became a moot point when book 12 in the series came out, as that one was named after a case, too: The Case of the Dead Eagles. Then all the books after it followed suit, i.e.: The Case of the Midnight Visitor, etc… Why I’ve even noticed that they’ve gone back and changed some of the OTHER original titles into “case” titles; books like Encyclopedia Brown Lends a Hand have been retitled “The Case of the Exploding Plumbing”, proving nothing is sacred as far as childhood nostalgia!
Not that this has anything really to do with Encyclopedia Brown, but the same thing happened to Gary Larson’s FAR SIDE collections. The original books all had titles like “It Came From The Far Side” “Bride of the Far Side” and Beyond The Far Side”, etc, etc. Then one day, the seventh or eight book came out, and it was called “Night of the Crash Test Dummies” or something like that. I was like “WHAA!!”Ahahahaha!
Back in 1979 or so, MAD Magazine came up with this pretty nifty novelty included in one of their quarterly Super-Specials- a flexi disc called “A Super-Spectacular Day”, which would play a total of 8 different endings...which one would it play?
Man, this was a fun disc! With a catchy tune the singer sang about how great the day felt like it was going to be
“It’s…A…
Great Big Beautiful Wonderful Incredible
Super-Spectacular Day
And your Heart is hummin’ with good times comin’
And you’ve got the happy feeling things are going your way
All the bells are ringing and a little bird’s singing while he sits on your window sill, saying, “Yessiree, I can surely see this will plainly be MOST DEFINITELY a Super- Spectacular Day!”
…then an obnoxious voice yells out “UNNTIIILLLLL…..!”
Then the “surprise” second half of the song sang about bad things happening all day, ending with the refrain “It’s not such a Super- Spectacular Day”
After much discussion and arguments about what was heard and remembered, we more or less nailed it down to SEVEN tracks, and trust me when I tell you, we were entirely SICK of the intro part of the song by then! Funny, it seemed so CATCHY the first 65 times we heard it!
1. Alien Abduction
2. Blind Date
3. Labeled School Nerd
4. Afflicted by Strange Disease
5. Stalled on the Train Tracks
6. Beaten by the Mob
7. Relations show up
SO…what was that 8th track? We couldn’t remember if we’d heard any more than the seven we confirmed, so we grudgingly went BACK to spinning the record, hoping in VAIN to hear the final song!
One thing my brother noticed upon careful examination was that though it seemed like the song played the first half of the song, then went into one of the eight variations, it actually was eight complete songs fitted onto that flexi, so your ending was already decided when you first dropped the needle on the beginning of the disc…not that it helped us any.
So after days of attempting to uncover the elusive eighth track without success, we became convinced that there was, in fact, no eight track to be found! Plus, this was MAD Magazine we were talking about, and it would be JUST LIKE “the usual gang of idiots” to have their readers losing their minds trying to find an ending that didn’t exist!
Fast forward to a few years ago- through the wonder of the internet, SOMEBODY (I forget exactly WHERE I got it- but whoever you are- a BIG THANKS!) finally came to my rescue- they had the original flexi disc (mine had long gone the way of most childhood things- worn to death!) and took the time to rip all the different endings! I was finally able to take a listen to that wonderful flexi of my childhood again, and YES, there WERE in fact EIGHT songs after all!
Wow, listening to the tune really brought back great memories of those days back then, when my friends would come over after school and we’d sit there spinning that flexi til the tune was spilling out of our ears! Ah, Great Times!
And that elusive eight track? Turns out it was some version about neighbor problems or something…really had a hard time understanding the lyrics! But you know, it DID sound familiar, so maybe we DID hear it a few times, after all!
Just dug out my DVD copy of Walt Disney’s Seventies Teen Comedy THE COMPUTER WORE TENNIS SHOES the other day…MAN, how I love this movie!
You know, the first movie I ever saw at a Drive In Theater (the long-gone Waialae Drive In, for those keeping track) was THE STRONGEST MAN IN THE WORLD, a movie I was to later find out was the THIRD in a series starring a VERY young Kurt Russell, or the FIFTH in a series if you count Fred MacMurray’s two movies “Absent Minded Professor” and “Flubber”, as they all happened at the same college.
We kids of the Seventies were blessed with not only great live action Disney flicks like ESCAPE TO WITCH MOUNTAIN, FREAKY FRIDAY and all those HERBIE movies, but also a television program called “The Wonderful World Of Disney” on Sunday nights that would show older Disney flicks as well!
I religiously watched this show (and it still hold a dear place in my heart, as many of you may have guessed by the NAME of my blog!) and as it happened, a few months after I had seen “The Strongest Man In The World” at the Drive In, they aired “The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes” on television!
I was like ‘HEY! It’s that same kid from Strongest Man In The World…at the SAME College! And he’s involved in ANOTHER kooky experiment! COOL!”
The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes(1968) was the adventures of a student named Dexter Riley (Russell) who attended Medfield College, a kid who always seemed to be in the middle of some zany scientific experiment that would give him and his school fame and fortune. It was followed by “Now You See Him, Now You Don’t”(1972), and then the aforementioned “Strongest Man In The World”(1975). In each movie, Dexter is involved in some experiment that gives him out of the ordinary abilities like super-strength or invisibility- well, in this one, he gets electrocuted by the school computer and absorbs all the knowledge, becoming a walking memory bank!
Yes, the movies all had a similar theme, but something about Computer Wore Tennis Shoes always seemed to ring a little bit truer...It seemed to have more heart. There was actual attempt to flesh out his friends and teachers, and you always felt like his friends really loved him, and his teachers (especially Mr. Quigley, played by super TV Dad William Shallert) really had his best interests in mind. Throw in Joe Flynn as the insufferable Dean Higgins and the extremely over-the-top Cesar Romero (he of Joker fame) as the dastardly A.J. Arnau, and you had a top notch comedic cast of well-thought out characters, each who made the show even better in their own way!
There were a couple of scenes that come immediately to mind which really show that “heart” I mentioned in them:
After Dexter becomes the walking computer, he becomes a media sensation, and the fame attached to it find him beginning to ignore his colleagues, but when he is involved in a casino bust, his friends raise the money to bale him out, and a humbled Dexter realizes what true friends his pals are.
The College has sent Dexter to compete in a College knowledge/trivia debate, and since they need 4 students to enter, Dexter brings along his not-too-bright buddies to round out the team. But towards the ending of the debate, Dexter’s powers are starting to wear off, and he is having a difficult time answering. Finally, it is down to the last question, but Dexter just cannot get the answer out. His knowledge is gone! But his pal Schuyler pressures Dexter- “But Dex, You KNOW this one! Remember?” then they all realize that it doesn’t matter if Dexter knows it- SCHUYLER knows it! Schuyler answers the question and wins the tournament, a sweet victory for the kid who never had confidence in himself!
And the stoic leader of Medfield’s challengers the Springfiled Rockets, Ms. “J” Reedy (what did the J stand for? I’m betting it was Jane) played by pretty actress Hillyard Anderson:
Nothing much has been reported on either of these fine actresses after The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes…whatever happened to them? I’d be really interested in knowing what they’re up to nowadays!
Over the years, although the allure of THE STRONGEST MAN IN THE WORLD and NOW YOU SEE HIM NOW YOU DON’T have diminished and they really seem like zany kiddie fare to the 40 year old me, THE COMPUTER WORE TENNIS SHOES just keeps getting better and better! The characters and the good-natured theme just shine brighter with each viewing, and that’s why I’m proud to say that even to this day this movie remains an all-time favorite!
Another one of my favorite books from my childhood was the supremely entertaining How To Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell, and illustrated by Emily McCully.
The story begins with a boy named Tom relating how he got sent to his room the previous night because he wouldn’t eat his Salmon dinner. When they find out he wouldn’t even try one bite, his friend Billy states that he’d try a bite of anything before he’d get sent up to bed.
“What about worms?” asks another boy, Alan who becomes the protagonist in the story.
“Sure”, says Billy. “Worms are just dirt, anyway”. So one thing leads to another, and before you know it, Alan has bet Billy fifty dollars that he can’t eat one worm a day for fifteen days.
The story is more or less centered around the new and creative ways to prepare the worms to make them appetizing (hence the title), but the thing that I really loved about the writing was the way each chapter built up little by little, as each day went by and another worm got consumed, you started feeling the desperation building up in Alan as the prospect of having to pay off a silly bet became more and more a of a possibility!
When Alan first dares Billy to eat the worms, it is CLEARLY nothing more than an off-the-cuff comment that he doesn’t expect to get too far: all he’s trying to do initiially is show up Billy for saying worms can be eaten with no big fuss. Then it becomes an issue, and the bet is formally made.
The four boys are divided into two teams- Alan and Joe against worm eater Billy and Tom. Tom is practical about the situation, and is the one who initially begins preparing the worms as fancy meals rather than the disgusting worms they are. "With Ketchup, Mustard or Cream Sauce, Worms can be good!"
After Billy’s eaten the first worm and has shown he’s neither sick nor scared to eat more, it stops becoming a statement of whether Alan thinks Billy CAN eat the worms, but rather how to MAKE HIM STOP, and that’s when things start getting good! He begins trying every underhanded scheme to get Billy to lose the bet.
Psychological Ploy: The first thing Joe and Alan try to do is make subtle hints that they’ve heard worms are poisonous. They create elaborate tales of people dying from eating worms, and even fake a letter from the family doctor stressing the danger of consuming night crawlers, but Tom reassures Billy that they’re fibbing. A call to the doctor by both Billy’s Father AND Mother puts his doubts to rest, and he devours the worms wholeheartedly after that!
Overload Ploy: The conniving duo try to make Billy give up by the sheer size of the current worm they’ve prepared for him. After scraping off the cornmeal, Billy is incensed to find that they’ve glues TWO worms together!
Diversion ploy: Joe and Alan pretend to make peace with Billy, and take him to see the Mets for an all-day event. Secretly they are planning to make Billy forget about eating a worm that day- they reason that even if he DOES remember, he’s not likely to find one at Shea Stadium! They make sure Tom, Billy’s voice of reason, isn’t invited on the trip just to be on the safe side. But after the long exhausting day, as he's just about ready to fall asleep, Billy remembers! He panics-it’s 15 minutes before midnight! If he doesn’t find and eat a worm soon, he’ll lose the bet! He runs to Tom’s and they race around with flashlights to find a worm, then run to Alan and Joe’s to wake everyone up so they witness Billy downing the worm!
When all Alan and Joe’s sneaky plots fail, finally, in an explosive end, they resort to Physical Violence!
It’s come down to the brass tacks, and there isn’t any other lie or deception Alan can do to prevent Billy from eating the final worm and winning the bet, so just as Billy is about to down the last worm, Alan tackles him and locks him in a closet, making such a brawl that the parents intervene- Billy is sent to his room before he’s had a chance to finish eating the last worm!
Alan and Joe think they’ve finally found a way to prevent Billy from winning the bet, but Tom has other plans! Using a diversion, he gets his little brother to sneak Billy the final worm by throwing it up into his bedroom window in a basket. Joe and Alan come racing out, but It’s too late, and Billy gulps the worm down raw! Everyone is so excited about the victory, even Billy’s mom has to laugh!
Epilogue:
The ending to this nifty little story is so great: we see the boys a few days later, and they are admiring the motorbike Billy has bought with the money he won from the bet, and all is good. Then Tom asks what kind of sandwich Billy’s eating for lunch, and he finds it’s…yep! WORMS!
Billy sheepishly admits that he’s developed a fondness for the worms, and is hooked!
Back in the seventies, K-Tel Records (ah, the immortal K-Tel records…!) released these compilations of novelty songs from various eras, some oldies and some only a few years old. The first of these was called “Looney Tunes” and the second that came out (I think) a few years later was called “Goofy Greats”. Now, I don’t remember these two LPs being advertised, but somehow, it seemed like all our classmates had them…and BOY, were we jealous!
These albums had some GREAT songs for kids, catchy and fun songs to sing, songs like the Royal Guardsmen’s SNOOPY VS THE RED BARON, the Rivingtons' PAPA-OOM-MOW-MOW, Jumping Gene Simons’ HAUNTED HOUSE and other zany songs like Ray Stevens’ THE STREAK, Sam The Sham and the Pharaohs' WOOLY BULLY and the awesomely demented TRANSFUSION by Nervous Norvous! We’d go to our friends houses and listen to the songs, wishing with all out might that we might get our very own copies of these great albums, but to no avail!
Then one day (around…oh…1977 or so), during our afternoon cartoons, Mighty K-Tel announced their LATEST novelty record collection!! It trumpeted a new bunch of songs to love- we got snippets of songs like “Pink Shoelaces” by Dodie Stevens, “Monster Mash” by Bobby Boris Pickett, “Beans In My Ears” by the Serendipity Singers and “I’m a Nut” by Leroy Pullins, among others! We begged to get this album for Christmas, and our Grandma granted our wishes, bestowing the highly anticipated album upon us!
One song I really ended up loving was this one by Paul Evans called “Seven Little Girls Sitting in the Back Seat” about this guy driving around with a bunch of chicks who only have eyes for his friend in the back seat with them.
I remember we’d drag out the kitchen table chairs and set them up so they looked like a car, and we’d crack up acting out the song, but it was one of the first times I noticed what a great pop song sounded like- the “structure” of a tune, the sweet backing vocals, the way that each verse went a little higher, and the last verse back to normal, as the guy gives up, and I remember thinking how great the song was!
But of all the great tunes on the album, by far the one we loved the MOST was Ray Stevens’ absolutely explosive “Bridget The Midget: The Queen Of The Blues”! This was a little masterpiece of his: An overzealous announcer introduces the energetic Bridget who proceeds to belt out the tunes while a drunken fan continually tries to get onto the stage…this was a song just MADE for us to act out, and all our friends would get into it, and I remember my little sister and me cracking up whenever it came to the part for our brother to be the drunken fan! I didn’t realize at the time that the voices were probably ALL Ray Stevens, sped up or slowed down, and now I can appreciate it on a whole new level! (and another side-note is that whenever I used to listen to this song, I never imagined Bridget to look like a midget.. In my head I always imagined the only “Bridget” I knew of: Richard Scarry’s character Sergeant Murphy’s little daughter! Ahahaha!)
Of the 15 or so tracks on Dumb Ditties, there were about three or four songs everyone wanted to “skip” (especially “On Top Of Spaghetti”, for some reason!), and then about half of the songs just couldn’t be “acted” out (like “My Ding-A-Ling” by Chuck Berry), and the remaining songs, or the “cream” of the LP, were all part of our “repertoire”!
What a bunch of crazy hams we all were…miniature Shecky Greenes, that was us!
But the point is how much we embraced and adored that album. All the songs were new to us, and I think we learned “Alvin’s Harmonica” before we’d ever heard of “The Chipmunk Song” (that Christmas one), “My Ding-A Ling” by Chuck Berry before “Johnny Be Goode, and my sibs and friends may be the only people around who consider The Kingsmen’s song “Louie Louie” as the OTHER song sung by the group that sang “The Jolly Green Giant”!!!
And here’s a funny thing: We had no idea just how “old” some of the songs were. For the most part, we thought these songs were made for the album! I remember my mother telling us that “Monster Mash” came out when she was a teenager, and well, THAT was a shock! When I was older, and listened to the Oldies channel, I was surprised how many of these “Dumb Ditties” like “If You Wanna Be Happy” By Jimmy Soul (Fave quote: I seen your wife the other day, and she’s UGLYYYYYYYY- but she sure can cook, baby!) Dodie Stevens’ “Pink Shoelaces” and Barry Mann’s “Who Put The Bomp (In the Bomp, Bomp, Bomp) were real, respected songs being rotated on playlists all the time! I was also pretty surprised to find that almost all of the tunes from Dumb Ditties were “edited”, and was constantly surprised to hear extra verses I never knew playing on the radio!
When I was older, and I’d hear some of those tunes on the radio, it would always remind me of my childhood, and I’d wished our Dumb Ditties LP had survived so I could sit down and maybe listen to it again. But it hadn’t. There was just no WAY..we really loved that album to death! So I kind of always hoped in the back of my head that they’d have the humor to re-release some of those compilations on CD.
Occasionally I’d see Novelty CD compilations, some even with the same names like “Goofy Greats, Looney Tunes, etc, but they’re (for the most part) unrelated packaged novelty songs; fun, but NOT the ones I grew up with. So the next hope was, of course, ebay.! After almost a year of (on and off) perusing the listings, one day I came across a seller offering a “like new” copy of the album, the very album these MP3 rips are from…YES, I HAVE a copy in my possession once more!
Ah, the nostalgic times are here again…
When I was growing up, my favorite stories to read were the ones centered around animals, whether it be Charlotte’s Web, Ribsy, Dominic or The Cricket In Times Square. Whenever there was a story featuring funny animal cartoons, that also was immediately snatched up.
One day a 7 year old me wandered into the neighborhood KRESS store. I would frequently browse through the store’s toy section and then hang out at the magazine rack reading the coloring books and other kid books there, usually ones like Tom and Jerry and Bugs Bunny. This time, I spied a new kid’s book at the rack featuring a new character I’d never heard of called Top Cat. I picked it up, and began reading the story “Top Cat: Candidate For Mayor” right there on the tiled floor. It featured Top Cat and his cohorts, a mismash of colorful cats with intriguing names like “Spook” “Choo-Choo” and “Fancy-Fancy”.
I totally DUG the characters, and ran home to fetch the change I'd saved in the top drawer of my dresser. The book cost about 42¢ in all, probably the best 42¢ I spent for all the times I read and re-read that storybook over the years. In fact, it is one of the few children’s books that I managed to hang onto all these years (most books I loved as a kid were lost or thrown out years ago and had to be re-purchased through ebay and whatnot) and the scans you see above and below are indeed from the original book I bought oh so many years ago.
So I loved the storybook I had about Top Cat, but that’s about where my mania ended, for the Top Cat show was NOT a show that was airing anywhere on television at the time. I was only vaguely aware that it WAS a show since it was being sold alongside other Hanna-Barbera books like Flintstones and the Jetsons. I would flip through the TV Guide every so often, hoping to see that they’d start airing the show here, but to no avail. When Hanna Barbera released a TV show comprised of classic characters for a series called Laff-A-Lypics, I remember watching in hopes that they’d bring Top Cat and his gang onto the show, but if they did, I never saw them. Eventually I put the book away, and there Top Cat remained, regaled to be no more than a beloved storybook character.
In the mid-eighties, this wonderful record series released by TeeVee Tunes came out. Dubbed “Television’s Greatest Hits!”, these double record sets featured themes songs of classic TV shows! I bought these mainly because they had fave TV theme songs of mine like “Love American Style” and “The Courtship Of Eddie’s Father”, not to mention the greats like “Mary Tyler Moore” and “My Favorite Martian”…
I’d sit there and listen to the song, and the first thing that hits you is the style and vocals of the song, you can clearly tell this came out during the golden era of Hanna- Barbera because it sounded so much like the theme for The Flintstones. It was also pretty catchy! A new facet of the show was grooved into what little I knew about the Top Cat Show, and that song became one of the more-played tracks on that side!
OK, that was that, though. Now we move right up to present day. One day I’m flipping around the TV schedule because I felt like watching some “Good Times” on Nick at Night. Scanning the bars of the program guide, I see this channel called “Boomerang”, and it’s line-up consists of older classic Kids Cartoons. Then right there at 10:00 that night, I see the show “Top Cat” listed! Wow! So I FINALLY get to see the show that’d been a mystery to me practically my whole life!
The show started with the blaring horns of the Top Cat theme song that I’d gotten to know so well over the years, and it was a real treat to actually see Top Cat moving for the first time! I only wished the other cats were in the credits as well. Then the show started, and...well, where to start ?!
Reading a book and looking at pictures of Top Cat and his “Intellectual Close Friends” is one thing, but MAN, actually HEARING THE VOICES along with the images…these voices really MADE the characters. In fact, I’d wager that until I’d heard the voices, I didn’t understand the characters at all, they provided so much in the way of “completing” the overall character.
I’d pictured your generic cartoon voices for the show, but these REALLY had the feel of those old sixties TV shows, and I’d later learn that, like the Flintstones was based on the Honeymooners, Top Cat was based on real TV show Sgt. Bilko! It took me a while to get used to hearing the voices, but once I settled in, It was the best thing about the show- these voice actors were the real deal, pros who knew how to use their talents to really bring the characters to life.
First off of course was Top Cat. With his Phil Silvers styled voice, he immediately became the shyster and con-artist he was supposed to be! Voiced by Arnold Stang, every line of dialog was like poetry to listen to- Top Cat really became the smooth talker he was!
The voices attached to the other cats in the gang really “fleshed out” the personalities as well. Reading my childhood book, they were merely members of Top Cat’s “gang”, but with distinct voices attached to them, they developed into cool individual characters with identifiable traits.
Spook had sort of a beatnik demeanor, usually peppering his dialog with “That’s like, outta sight, man!” slang and, along with Fancy Fancy (who seemed to be channeling Cary Grant somehow), were the “normal” cats, usually depicted hanging out or wooing some Gal Cats until T.C. calls them in, and it always made me laugh to think that they were so loyal to Top Cat that they’d drop a romantic interest in a second if he beckoned.
Choo-Choo is another one whom I just love hearing talk. Choo Choo’s got one of those traditional Hanna Barbera voices, slightly dippy and lispy, but so animate that almost every line he says is hilarious! Choo Choo's voice was provided by Marvin Kaplan, famous as Henry the Telephone Repairman on ALICE.
One thing that shocked me was that the character of Brain. I guess his name was supposed to be a joke of sorts as he’s the most clueless of the gang, but whoever wrote "Candidate for Mayor" must have took his character at face value, because in that story, he was really written as the “brains” of the outfit! So it was a bit of adjusting for me to see him as such a space case!
And then there’s Benny, probably my favorite character in the show. Reading the book as a kid, I couldn’t have imagined him with such a Joe E. Ross type of voice, but once I heard Benny as voiced by Maurice Gosfield, I knew that that was the only way he could have sounded! With his raspy voice and Barney Rubble-ish naivete, every scene he’s in is a joy to watch. Someone uploaded a short clip that I think captures Benny pretty well- The unsure right hand man who nonetheless totally trusts Top Cat no matter what the situation.
Checking up on the stats of the Top Cat show, I was shocked to discover that Top Cat had only a one season run of 30 episodes! Heck, no WONDER I never got a chance to see this show when I was growing up…in the annals of Hanna Barbera, the series practically made a nosh in the HB canon.
But I’ll ultimately tell you one thing that I’m positive of: If Top Cat HAD been on the air when I was growing up, there is no doubt in my mind that this would have been my favorite Saturday Morning Cartoon. This show REALLY delivers, lovable characters and terrific storylines, all made during the heyday of Hanna Barbera when they absolutely could do no wrong! This show is as great as I’d imagined it would be my whole life!
I’ve also discovered that TOP CAT had gotten the DVD treatment some time ago, and I'm moseying my way over to Amazon to grab that DVD box set while it’s still available! But until then, I’m gonna keep tuning in every night to Boomerang at 10:00 to enjoy what I’d waited to see for almost 35 years!
The Blue-Nosed Witch by Margaret Embry
Illustrated by Carl Rose
Well, here's the story of a little witch named Blanche who is constantly getting into trouble because of her youth and carefree attitude (re: always arriving late for the meetings). She belongs to an order of responsible, adult witches, and is only a member because of her ability to turn her blue nose on and off!
The Tale begins on the eve of Halloween Night, where the witches have big plans to perform a flight formation later that night. Afraid of being late, Blanche sets her alarm clock extra-early, and, ends up flying out much, much too early for the coven meeting. She meets up with children her own age who teach the young witch how to have fun trick-or-treating on Halloween Night!
I first read Margaret Embry's story of Blanche The Blue Nosed Witch in a "Collier's Junior Classics" Collection entitled "Harvest Of Holidays". I was completely taken in by the imaginative story and the characters you immediately fall in love with. It also has a timeless quality to it that all great stories seem to have: a "Once-upon-a-Time" feeling.
One day browsing the neighborhood Library I came across a bound library copy of The Blue Nosed Witch. As a child it never crossed my mind that the story might have been excerpted from an actual book! Quickly leafing through the pages I discovered to my surprise and excitement that the version I had read in the Collier's Junior Classic series was only an abridged excerpt of a longer, more detail story! Quickly leafing through the pages, I found a complete story chock-full of beautiful illustrations by Carl Rose on almost every page. Oh, the Joy!
Whereas the Collier's version had Blanche getting up to early for the Witches' Meeting and meeting up with kids who take her to one house for treats, in the actual book, Blanche and the kids go on to many more houses and have a few adventures on the way as well! Then when the kids decide it's getting late and go home, Blanche roams around by herself (and her cat Brockett) before realizing that because of all her adventures, she's going to end up being late for the Coven meeting, after all!!
This wonderful story has become a tradition for me and must be taken out every Halloween. I believe this book belongs in company of Charles Shulz' classic cartoon "It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" and Robert Bright's "Georgie's Halloween" as essential Halloween Treats!
This was the tale of a young boy named Opie who was trying to save up money to buy a Horse Saddle. You see, His Great-Aunt Etta had promised him that when he saved up enough money to buy a good saddle, she’d buy him the horse to go underneath it!
Unfortunately, Opie was a small boy, and all the really good after-school jobs went to the bigger kids, but there was one talent that Opie had that no one else did- He knew his way around town like the back of his hand. He could walk anywhere in town blindfolded, and so his way of earning money was to run errands or guide people around town whenever there was a thick fog in the town (which there usually was) !
One night during an extremely thick fog, he is asked by the barber to guide a csutomer to his hotel. The stranger is a chilling, scary looking man, who says nothing, but gives Opie a free pass to attend a show he is performing. Opie later finds out the man is Professor Pepper, a famous GHOST-RAISER, and that Saturday Night he planned on ressurecting the Ghost of Outlaw Crookneck John!
That night, Opie went, and it turned out to be the scariest night of his life!
I don’t know if it was the characters that were so funny, or the skits that were so intriguing, or simply the allure of the fabulous songs (written primarily by Jerry Rapozo, he of Sesame Street fame), but I absolutely adored this show.
I was first exposed to The Electric Company in first grade, way back in 1972 or so, and I remember the teachers telling our parents that this was a new program and that they were testing out TV as a new “medium” to teach children, with Electric Company (and Sesame Street of course) as the examples.
In any case, It DID teach me a lot, but the reason I kept watching every day was to see my favorite songs and favorite skits performed daily! They were too funny and too catchy! This went on year after year and even going into intermediate school, whenever I’d be doing something around the house or working on schoolwork, I would have the show on constantly. I remember friends coming over and laughing, saying, I can’t believe you still watch this show!” And I’d laugh back and say, “Yeah, and I always WILL!” But that came to an end sometime around 1980 or 1981, as PBS finally pulled the plug on my beloved show.
For the longest time, all I had to fill the void of The Electric Company were the audio cassettes I’d taped of some of my favorite songs. (Remember that, kids? Leaning the portable tape recorder against the speaker of a HUGE-ass wooden TV set!) Listening to the tapes, It made me miss the show even more, and I wished and hoped for the day some TV station would bless us with rebroadcasting the Electric Company in some way so I could watch these again! But more than anything else, it made me realize how dear these songs were to my heart.
In particular, it seemed the songs I missed the most were the songs performed by the the teen singing group “The Short Circus”. Those were the songs I loved best of all, and considering the vast amount of great songs the show had to offer, that’s saying something! I didn’t really know which season was which at the time - as the later years of The Electric Company were sort of a mish-mash of all the past seasons put together: repackaged and re-ran - All I knew was that I loved ‘em!
I think there were about four incarnations of The Short Circus during the original six season run of The Electric Company. My memories of the group were that the original group looked like Sesame Street performers until they sort of changed into a 70’s bubblegum Pop outfit, and later they turned into variety show style dancers so common in the seventies.
Douglas Grant / Zach
Melanie Henderson / Kathy
Irene Cara / Iris
Stephen Gustafson / Buddy
June Angela / Julie
The Short Circus 1972-73:
Douglas Grant / Zach
Melanie Henderson / Kathy
Denise Nickerson / Allison
Stephen Gustafson / Buddy
June Angela / Julie
The Short Circus 1974-75 :
Greg Burge / Dwayne
Melanie Henderson / Kathy
Bayn Johnson / Kelly
Stephen Gustafson / Buddy
June Angela / Julie
The Short Circus 1975-77 :
Rodney Lewis/ Charlie
Rejane Magloire/ Samantha
Todd Graff / Jesse
Janina Matthews/ Gail
June Angela / Julie
The only constant in the ever-changing looks of the group was the lovely June Angela, the sole member who was a part of EVERY version of The Short Circus that came out! That worked out great for me because I recall having a pretty severe crush on her! And Still Do!
Although all variations of the group were good, (and all featured June), my favorite incarnation was the line up from the second season (1972-1973), featuring June, Douglas Grant, Stephen Gustafson and Melanie Henderson with Denise Nickerson (famous as Violet Beauregarde in the Charlie and The Chocolate Factory movie) taking the place of Irene Cara (who of course went on to super-stardom with “Fame”).
Perhaps it was the Line-Up or maybe the songwriters were simply on a roll, but the fact of the matter is that during this second season, most if not ALL of my favorite Short Circus songs were released! Yes, as I mentioned above, this is the closest they got to “bubblegum pop”, and I just ate up every minute of it! The group at this point really gave me a “Partridge Family” or “Brady Bunch” feel, and can’t you just imagine the Circus singing “Time To Change” or “Let The Sun Shine In”?
“The Vampire”
The Short Circus channeling Scooby-Doo here! Special guest appearance by Morgan Freeman as Count Dracula! The Circus really did a lot of Horror-themed songs, didn’t they….Creepy Creature, anyone?
“Sing Out!”
Aw, another fave song, a real positive encouraging song, and when you add June Angela groovin’ up a storm, that just bumps it up a notch!
“The Sweet Sweet Sway”
Denise Nickerson’s showcase song! I like how Buddy and Zach are playing their instruments like they did back when they were a “band” in the first season, and I love the way June really seems to be enjoying herself during the song.
Another thing I really liked about this clip is that they utilized every single member of the cast for this song. Morgan introduces the song, and Judy, Skip, Lee, Luis, Jim and Rita are at the dance. Add in the Circus, and you’ve got everyone!
“Poison”
Two songs that taught me about poison were Sesame Street Sherlock Hemlock’s “X” song, and “Poison” by the Short Circus…Poison…”It’ll Kill You!”
“Chili”
In this clip the Short Circus is blue-screened into a bowl of Chili (with crackers on the side!) and I remember a kid going “I want to play in a big bowl of chili, too!”
“BOOM!”
I remember REALLY liking this a kid! I remember it was featured in the opening credits of The Electric Company every day, so I got to know the “look” of that particular video pretty well!
“The Fling”
Every time I watch this performance,. I have to wonder how long it took them to learn some of the dance moves they had to do on a regular basis. Some of them (like this one) were rather intricate!
“STOP!”
Every once in awhile, a member will get a “solo” song - like Melanie Henderson’s “Feelings are Funny Things” or Irene Cara’s “Hard Hard Hard”…well, this was Doug’s chance to shine, and he gives his performance 100%!
“Let’s Rap”
Melanie and Denise do some duetting together, and when they harmonize together singing, “Rap about something Heavy, rap about something Dumb , Rap about the way you feel Oh Baby , Rap, rap, rap ,rap…don’t be mum…” it just makes the song!
“The Blob”
I really like this song because everyone gets a chance to show off their singing a bit, and I really like the build up to the end with June’s operatic climax! Not only that, but the lyrics were just great: “It’s such a menace so you’d better stay alert, the way to kill it is to eat it for dessert!”
“Dunking Donuts”
I love how the lyrics are almost written like limericks, in that the last line is always humourous. “Dunk em in your fruit juice, dunk em in your tea…if you have a rowboat, you can dunk em in the SEA!” “Dunk em in your soda, dunk em in your soup…get the gang together, you can dunk em in a GROUP!”
“Hamburger”
One thing I always noticed whenever I watch this clip is that Melanie Henderson never actually eats her Hamburger, and I always wondered if she was a vegetarian or something. Humorous line: “Hamburger-if I’m messy, well I beg your pardon… Hamburger eat a piece before the cheese can harden!”
and last but not least:
Probably my very favorite song from the Short Circus
Not only does it invoke my childhood with its 70’s poppy sound, it seemed to be a bit longer than some of the other songs, and clocking in at 2:50, I really felt like it could have been released as a “Single”!
Awesome singing from the gang and I particularly like the choreography. Like when Julie sings about Ices, they all systematically stick out their hands as if to grab one, and when Buddy sings the line about a Parade, they all air-band a procession complete with Julie air-baton leading!
The video begins with the girls walking in from one side and the boys walking in from the other, ending up with the gang meeting up "on the corner" in town, they sing about various fun things that one can see or experience at the hub of the neighborhood, like meeting friends, eating ice cream, or seeing a parade!
Lots of stuff going on in the clip, but what always makes me smile is when Denise and June are doing a fancy little shuffle, and Melanie tries it out for a second before holding up her hands as if to say, “ahh, forget it.”…then she relaxes and puts an arm around June! And in another part, Buddy and Zach high-five each other….really nice, you feel like these kids were actually friends, and that always leaves me with a great feeling!
After sitting on the sidewalk and relaxing after the activities, It's time to go, and the song ends with the kids splitting back up and going home the way they came in, after a long day of fun on the corner!
It wasn’t until the Electric Company’s revival on the cable station NOGGIN that I finally got to put all the seasons and performances into a cohesive order. I was able to watch my beloved songs again (or at least the ones that NOGGIN decided to show), and I found my obsession return with a vengeance! This time, via the internet, I was able to enjoy a kind of Electric Company renaissance, where I could hook up with other nostalgics like me who’d never stopped loving the show either! I found that I wasn’t alone in my strong love of The Short Circus, and with every new clip I get to hear, or new skit I get to see, I continue to love them even more!
The first Beverly Cleary book I read was “Ribsy”. This was because in 4th grade, I was only interested in stories that featured animals in it, books like Charlotte’s Web and Trumpet Of The Swan or funny ones like Olga Da Polga. This book was displayed at the “featured titles” table, and upon seeing a dog on the cover, I snatched it up!
I was introduced to Ribsy, his owner Henry Huggins and the whole Huggins family for the first time. Ribsy had gotten lost, and this story told of the adventures he experienced as he tried to make his way back to his home. Generally speaking, Henry has only a supporting role in it, but I could feel how much he loved Ribsy, and I immediately wanted to read more about them.
The next time I was at the library, I checked out more of Beverly Cleary’s titles and was pleased to see another one called “Henry and Ribsy”!
The story is about Henry’s dream of going salmon fishing with his father.
Henry’s father tells him he can come along if he can keep Ribsy out of trouble! Henry thinks this is a good deal, but things don’t work out as planned, and Henry finds keeping Ribsy out of trouble turns out to be an enormous task!
The latter half of the book is about the fishing trip that they just barely are allowed to attend. Henry has high hopes of catching himself a salmon like older boy Scooter McCarthy always boasts about, but it is dashed when Ribsy disrupts the boat, and the boy and his dog are deposited back on the shore. Henry decides to make the most of it, and enjoys himself playing with Ribsy at the beach.
At some point he hears Ribsy barking at something, and Henry discovers it is a huge Chinook Salmon, struggling in the shallows of the river leading to the ocean. With Ribsy frantically barking, Henry wades in and attempts to catch the fish with his bare hands!
This book just totally captivated me. I’d never read a book that was so exciting to read.
The scene with Henry struggling with the Salmon just blew me away! I remember reading and re-reading that chapter over and over! This was it for me, and I knew I had to read EVERY Beverly Cleary book featuring Henry and Ribsy!
Next came the book that I guess I should have STARTED with, the first book in the series, simple entitled “Henry Huggins”. It was really cool to read this, though, because I knew Henry and Ribsy so well by now, and it was neat to actually read in “real time” about Henry just finding Ribsy as a stray for the first time! By the time I finished reading this one, I loved every one in the neighborhood, including Beezus and of course Ramona!
This led to me reading ALL of the Cleary books about Henry Huggins, including Henry and The Clubhouse, Henry and Beezus, Henry and The Paper Route, and even Ramona The Pest and Beezus and Ramona, which Henry makes brief appearances.
From then on I progressed to all of Beverly Cleary’s other wonderful series like The Mouse and The Motorcycle…but that’s for another post!
