Live and Let Bond

Started off with some of this week's American Top 40 episode. (For some strange reason, I think they played part of another episode around quarter of 8 - it went from #2 to #8, and from the 70s to 1981). At any rate, we were back in 1981 for another round of New Wave, early rap, R&B, pop, and the last vestiges of disco. Hits that week included "Rapture" by Blondie, "Morning Train" by Sheena Easton, "Angel Of the Morning" by Juice Newton, "Just the Two Of Us" by George Washington Jr., and "The Best Of Times" by Styx. Philly boys Hall & Oates had their second #1 hit with one of their most popular songs, "Kiss On My List."

Though I did make quick stops at the Logan Presbyterian Church Thrift Shop to drop off donations and at the PNC Bank in Haddon Heights to deposit my birthday money from Dad, I spent most of the morning cruising around Haddon Heights. This time, they really were having their town-wide yard sale. Alas, while there were plenty of sales around, I didn't have as much luck as last year. My biggest find was a huge sale with at least ten boxes of videos, some of them fairly rare older war movies, comedies, or westerns. I ended up with two Roger Moore James Bond films (The Spy Who Loved Me and Live and Let Die), the Laurel & Hardy comedy Pardon Us, the 80s action spoof Spies Like Us, and the Oscar-winning silent war drama Wings.

Other finds included:

Two Max & Ruby DVDs, Party Time With Max & Ruby and Afternoons With Max & Ruby.

A kids' video, Wakko's Wish, the Animaniacs movie.

Three Johnny Mathis records

Five records of instrumental orchestra recordings of popular songs of the late 10s and 20s.

Stopped at Simply Soups on the way home for lunch. It was around quarter after 1, and the place was busy with a big family that was trying to keep its toddlers from playing with the knick-knacks on the stairs leading to the main dining area. I had my usual soup (a spicy sweet potato puree with caramelized ham and pecans), can of soda (Diet A&W), and breadsticks.

Went straight home after that. There was a surprise waiting for me when I got in - my latest eBay find for the dolls had arrived. AG has made many different costumes for the dolls from the late 90s onwards, but one of the coolest was the flapper outfit from the mid-2000s. I got the whole outfit, including the silver fringed dress, purple heeled shoes, pink beaded necklace, and headband with the purple feather.

After I put most things away, I went right back out to get the laundry done. The laundromat was fairly busy with families getting things done when I arrived. By the time I finished my small order, almost everyone but a college girl was done. I didn't have a lot to wash, anyway. I was in and out in less than an hour.

I spent the rest of the day at home, watching cartoons and dubbing movies. Started with Max & Ruby. Ruby and Louise have a crush on (slightly) older boy Roger and want to find games to play with him. Trouble is, they keep picking girlie games. Max knows what "Roger's Choice" would really be. Max wants "Max's Dragon Shirt," but Ruby wants him to get a new pair of overalls. Max, as usual, figures out how to get what he wants. Ruby and Louise want Max to be their prince in "Ruby's Stage Show," but Max would rather be the dragon!

Switched to Wakko's Wish while making Chicken With Lemon Herb Sauce, spinach salad with lime ginger dressing, and boiled asparagus tips for dinner. The final episode of Animaniacs sets the cast in the town of Acme Acres, which has taxed within an inch of its life by an evil king and his obnoxious subordinates. The Warner siblings, Wakko, Yakko, and Dot, are homeless orphans. In need of an operation for Dot, Wakko makes a wish on a star. The star falls to Earth, and Wakko's told that whomever can reach the wishing star first will get to make that one wish. Soon, the entire vast Animaniacs cast - including the eternally scheming lab mouse pair Pinky and the Brain - are on their way across the country to find that star! But the greedy king, whom the Warner siblings have driven crazy one too many times, is also after the treasure, and will do anything to get there first.

If you're an Animaniacs fan, this one is a no-brainer. Almost the entire cast gets at least some lines (or a scene, in the case of the mime). Even kids who didn't grow up on this show might enjoy the irreverent, zany humor. Fun if you can find it (it's not currently on DVD).

Moved to James Bond as I finished up dinner and made Carrot-Oatmeal Bars for dessert. Live and Let Die was Roger Moore's first movie in the franchise. Bond is on the trail of Mr. Big, a narcotics dealer who is responsible for the lives of four people. He follows Big first to New York, then to New Orleans, then to the Carribean island of San Martinique. The "Bond Girl" is Solitare (Jane Seymour), a tarot card reader who may or may not be a voodoo priestess.

The Spy Who Loved Me is a bit more traditional. Here, Bond deals with a typical megalomaniac out to take over the world - in this case Stromberg, he of the lotus-shaped underwater hideout. Bond joins up with a female Russian agent (Barbara Bach) to find out what happened to a pair of missing Soviet and American submarines. It doesn't help that Bond just killed the Russian agent she was dating in the line of duty. And then, there's Jaws, the lackey with the metal teeth....

The Spy Who Loved Me is (along with Octopussy) my favorite of the Moore Bonds. For one thing, Jaws may be cartoonish, but he's one of the few villains of any kind who almost really damaged Bond. For another, it has some amazing action sequences, including the ski chase that opens the film. There's also the car that turns into a submarine; that's just cool. If you're a Bond fan, this is necessary; not a bad introduction to Moore's Bond movies as well.

Live and Let Die, on the other hand, hasn't dated nearly as well. "Blacksploitation" was hip at the time...but making almost all of the African-American characters bad guys doesn't exactly look great today. They apparently were trying for a gritty reboot to start Moore off (Q doesn't even appear), but voodoo ceremonies, goofy racist hillbilly sheriffs, and inflating head bad guys makes this look more like an especially violent Looney Tunes short.

Probably the best things about both these movies are their classic theme songs. "Nobody Does It Better" from Spy Who Loved Me was nominated for an Oscar; the Paul McCartney and Wings title song from Live and Let Die is considered the best theme from any Bond movie.

Went right into an even goofier spy movie, Spies Like Us, after Bond. Chevy Chase and Dan Ackroyd are a pair of office workers who inadvertently find themselves as real spies when government officials decide they need decoys for a major mission. The two are dropped in Pakistan without a clue and pretty much stumble around, trying to figure out what they're doing. When they finally do run across the real agents, it turns out they might be able to head off Armageddon, if they can stay alive and stay out of the Soviets' hands long enough to do it.

Not bad, not great. Reminded me a lot of Stripes, another John Landis 80s comedy about guys who don't belong in the Services saving the day anyway. Thankfully, while this one also runs out of steam towards the end, Chase and Ackroyd still manage some laughs, especially Chase being interrogated by the Russian agents. Not a bad time-waster if you run into it on cable or Netflix and you're a fan of Landis or the two lead comedians.