Back to School Toons

It was still cloudy and cool when I got up this morning. Had breakfast and wanted to watch cartoons, but the DVD player wasn't behaving. Put on my 1983 Singin' In the Rain LP instead. Tommy Steele starred in this stage version of the famous 1952 movie. On one hand, "Temptation," which was only used as underscoring in the movie, has been added in full here as a number for Lina. More half of the remaining Nacio Herb Brown-Arthur Freed score has been dropped in favor of songs from other movies and shows of the 20's and 30's. I'll pass "Be a Clown," which despite being written in 1948, is the song "Make 'Em Laugh" was modeled on anyway. "Too Marvelous For Words," however, is from a 1937 Warner Bros musical, "Fascinating Rhythm" is a Gershwin number, and "I Can't Give You Anything But Love" is from the stage revue Blackbirds of 1928.

Evidently, this did end up on Broadway a few years later, sans Steele but with all its original music intact. It seems to have done well enough but was no world-shaker. This looks like it's more popular in England, where the original film is probably not as well-known. It's been revived there twice in the last fifteen years, including in 2012. They're trying to get a French production on Broadway as I write this, once again with the original music.

Made the bed while the record was on. It's been too chilly at nights for my white cotton summer sheets and thin quilt for at least two weeks. Switched them out for my slightly heavier tan and blue sheets and blue and tan-striped comforter.

Worked on writing for the rest of the morning and early afternoon. Leia, Charlie, Chip, and Lance make their way to the back of the building, only to find that Bobby Fett has escaped with the tank. Remembering that her brother is still in the building, Leia leads the others to rescue him instead.

Meanwhile, Luke is still fighting Vader on the catwalks. He manages to avoid being tossed in the tank, but he may not get around Vader's fighting skills for much longer...

Broke at quarter of 2 for lunch and two more school-themed Tiny Toons Adventures episodes. "Son of Looniversity Daze" has Plucky feeling incredibly guilty for cheating on a test, Hampton dealing with a new mechanical locker that won't give up his lunch, and the duo and Buster trying to get a piano down to Yosemite Sam from the Looniversity Clock Tower. "Test Stressed" goes further into tests, taking them, and types of tests. Plucky wants Shirley to channel Einstein into his brain, but he's not happy with the results. Furball has no better luck trying to catch Little Sneezer as a test for his teacher Sylvester. Fowlmouth wants to ask Shirley on a date. He can't do that without his curses being worse than Charlie's, until Buster comes up with a solution.

Work was actually pretty quiet, and never more than mildly steady. I spent most of the day gathering carts and baskets and doing trash. I did have to help clean up a major spill on the iced tea/powdered drink mix/nuts aisle right before leaving. Someone tried to pull the middle box out of a towering stack of 12-packs of Diet Pepsi. You'd think people would have more sense. I was barely able to do that and the trash and get out on time.

At least it was a nice day for all of this. Even as I was sitting down to write, the clouds were vanishing. By the time I was getting carts, the sun was out, the breeze was blowing, and it was a gorgeous mid-70's.

I wanted to watch movies when I got home, but the DVD player just would not work. It would play the first ten minutes or so, then stop. This has been happening more frequently of late, including when Lauren visited in May. I finally gave up and listened to music and watched YouTube for the rest of the night.

I'm going to have to replace the darn thing as soon as I have the money. I no longer need a DVD recorder, anyway. I dubbed everything I needed to dub ages ago. I can buy the least-expensive decent player on the market.