Saturday, November 21, 2020

Girls and Trolls Want to Have Fun

Began an early morning with breakfast and Mickey Mouse Mixed-Up Adventures. "Mickey's Thanksgiving Fun Race" has all the Disney characters and their friends or family members driving in cars representing common Thanksgiving foods. Mickey and Donald have a gravy boat-shaped car, but Mickey wants to go slow, and Donald wants to speed. All they end up doing is making a mess, until they finally realize that they can use both their approaches at different times. 

Daisy, Minnie, and Cukoo-Loca are "Happy Thanksgiving Helpers!" who are charged with making the big dinner. Daisy wants everything to be perfect, including her grandmother's Double-Berry Cranberry Sauce. When disaster strikes and their guests bring very different dishes, like Rabbit, she finally realizes that friends are a lot more important than "tradition."

Work was, surprisingly for the Saturday before Thanksgiving, not a problem. We were steady for most of the day, not dead, but not overwhelmingly busy. Had a bobble early-on with an order, but it was a small one the managers were able to refund. Other than that, no trouble whatsoever. My relief was even perfectly on time.

Did my grocery shopping after I finished. Took advantage of a lot of sales and several online coupons to pick up free eggs, pasta, and chocolate chips.  Found two small containers of dishwashing liquid on the clearance shelves. There were big coupons for sugar and yogurt, too. Wanted a turkey breast, but they're all out until Monday. Grabbed a pack of Christmas cards with a pretty stylized Christmas tree. Restocked cereal, low-salt black beans, almond extract, milk, Farina, mayonnaise, tea, and mushrooms. 

Threw on the current version of Muppet Babies while putting everything away. "Run, Fozzie, Run" has Fozzie fleeing into a story book when he breaks a flower pot and thinks Nanny will be angry. The others follow him, dodging all the things he's broken on the way. "My Brother Vinny" is Rizzo's big brother, a singing super star. He wants to be as cool as he is, but while he can dance, he's no singer. The kids try to convince him that he's better off being himself.

Worked on writing for a while after I changed. Gene tries to take on two of the sailors, but he's moving slow after being drugged and is easily taken down. Brett tossed over the shoulder of one beefy sailor...and tries to ask him out on a date. Gene is not amused as they're both dragged on deck.

Broke for dinner early at 6. Had leftover burgers and potatoes with a green salad (using my last farm market tomato) for dinner and cookies and herbal tea for dessert while watching The Nutcracker. Other than eliminating the Sugar Plum Fairy and her cavalier, the Mikhail Baryshnikov version from 1977 is about as straightforward of a Nutcracker as you can get. He's the Nutcracker doll under a spell; dainty Gerry Kirkland is Clara, the girl who saves him. As you can imagine, there's some wonderful dancing here, especially in the second half, when we see the candy from around the world. 

Watched Trolls World Tour when I got online. I go further into this year's sequel to Trolls at my Musical Dreams Movie Reviews blog. 

Animation Celebration Saturday - Trolls World Tour

Finished up on YouTube with the Match Game '73 premiere and another version of the Nutcracker story, The Nutcracker Prince. This 1990 animated film has more basis in the original E.A Hoffman story, The Hard Nut. Clara (Meghan Follows) still has to save the Nutcracker (Kiefer Sutherland) from the Mouse King (Mike MacDonald), but we get more of his back story. He was cursed by the wicked Mouse Queen (Phyllis Diller) after he freed pretty Princess Pirlipat (Mona Waserman) from an ugliness spell into the form of a doll. Her son swore revenge on him. Clara has to stop the Mouse King from harming her toy friends...and perhaps realize that she's growing up more than she'll admit.

Odd but charming Canadian entry into the Disney imitation race of the 1990's. Sutherland's stiffer than the Nutcracker, but Follows is a lovely Clara and MacDonald has some funny moments as the king of the mice who just can't keep his tail straight. The animation's fairly cheap, but it has an interesting look, especially when it switches from semi-realistic Disney to a cartoonier style for the "Hard Nut" sequence. Worth a look at least once around the holidays if you grew up with it in the 90's or have Nutcracker fans at home. 

No comments: