Headed out after the cartoons ended. My first, brief stop was at WaWa for Propel water. It was too nice of a day to hang out inside. Though it wasn't as warm as it had been and the strong wind was much cooler, it was still nice enough to get out and enjoy a ride. Had lunch at Simply Soups in Audubon. I hadn't eaten there in a long time. Enjoyed a cup of chicken orzo soup and half of a grilled chicken with spinach and mandarin oranges wrap at a chrome table in the wide, sunny picture window.
It was past 1:30 when I finally made it to Barrington Antique Center. They were a lot busier than usual for them. I forgot that not only is this a holiday weekend, but the kids are already off for the NJEA convention. I explored for over an hour, but I didn't really find a whole lot. Picked up a pretty vintage journal with a purple flowered fabric cover and home-made cranberry thumbprint cookies for me and a cute ornament for Amanda.
I had thought of going to the House of Fun, but it was past 3 when I finally got out. I wasn't crossing Clements Bridge Road during rush hour. Rode back under the highway and past Stanfill Manor and Towers and the Atlantic Avenue School to Haddon Heights instead. Hit the bathroom at the Haddon Heights Library quickly after I got in. Didn't see anything interesting on their sales shelves, so I moved on.
I didn't initially see anything interesting at Doc's Finds, either. Not only do their rock albums tend to be expensive, but I was wary of them after the mix-up with the Rolling Stones album a few months ago. I did pick up gifts for Lauren, but I didn't see anything for me until I looked under the main record racks. Apparently, they're so strapped for space in there, that was the only place the owner could fit the soundtracks and cast albums! I dug through the piles and came up with some doozies:
The soundtracks for The Pink Panther and A View to a Kill
The original cast albums for the flop early 60's musicals The Happiest Girl In the World, High Spirits, and Tenderloin. Happiest Girl and High Spirits feature star turns by Cyril Ritchard and Beatrice Lille and Tammy Grimes respectively, while Tenderloin has some of the earliest work by later Fiddler On the Roof songwriters Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock. All three are fairly rare, making it ironic that they came to $5 each.
My last stop was at Market Links for one of their tasty smoothies. I went with the PBC, the peanut butter and cocoa with almond milk, oats, and honey. Not bad. Not very sweet, and kind of chewy with the oats, but not bad. Cold and wet, which is what I needed after my ride. They weren't busy. Doc's hadn't been, either. And no wonder. By this point, it was past 4:30, and the traffic was getting worse. I headed home down the back roads just as the sun started sinking slowly on the horizon.
Went straight into The Monkees when I got home and put everything away. The Monkees don't know what to think when a pretty young reporter chooses them as Typical Young People of the Year and wants to write about them for a prestigious fashion magazine. They're "Monkees a La Mode" when it turns out that the the head of the magazine (Patrice Wymore) and her photographer is so unimpressed by their antics and turn in a fictional article on them. After their friends are insulted, the guys turn the tables.
Micky Dolenz gets quite a surprise when the LAPD reveals he is identical to incarcerated gangster Babyface Morales and they want him to contact his boys and find their loot. It's "Alias Micky Dolenz" when Micky first gets into a brawl, then is corralled by the gangsters to retrieve their money. It gets even scarier when Peter and Mike are forced into the theft, too.
Spent the next hour or so working on the inventory. Added everything I found today, plus You Only Live Twice from earlier in the week. I've been looking for those three cast albums for a while now, especially Tenderloin. (There are times when I'm really glad that most of the people buying records around here seem to be more interested in classic rock and jazz than show tunes. It's likely why I've been able to find some cast albums for mere pennies at some yard sales.)
I also got my schedule at this point. Surprisingly, I got not only Veteran's Day off, but Sunday as well. I guess they figured they'd have plenty of college students around to help them those days. I do work Friday this time, though I'm off Thursday for a doctor's appointment. I was also disappointed to note that a lot of the week between Christmas and New Year's had been blocked off (though not the actual holidays). I may end up taking those days off and using up my vacation time from New Year's through the end of that week.
Broke for dinner and Match Game Syndicated. Charlene Tilton spent her week fending off a drooling Gene Rayburn and Bill Daily. Jon "Bowser" Bauman was more interested in playing his own songs on a toy piano and showing off the plastic chains on his leather jacket. Poor Patty Duke complained about feeling more like Thelma Ritter with Charlene on the other side of the tier!
Finished the night with more classic wartime shorts featuring beloved cartoon characters. Superman wasn't the only Famous Studios character who fought in World War II. Popeye was drafted before the US even entered the war in "The Mighty Navy." Most of his wartime shorts had him either fighting the Japanese, as in "Fleets of Strength" and "Blunder Below." or fighting Bluto for Olive's hand, as in "Kicking the Conga Around" and "Olive Oyl and Water Don't Mix." Swee'Pea isn't content with the toy boat Popeye gives him. "Baby Wants a Battleship" and will wander all over said ship until Popeye uses spinach to retrieve him. He's not saying "Many Tanks" when Bluto dumps him in the Army before a date with Olive and steals a tank to get him back to her. "Spinach Fer Britain" is his only go-around with the Nazis as he dodges their submarines and takes food to England.
The Looney Tunes threw themselves even harder into World War II propaganda. Their wartime shorts fell into three categories. There were the ones featuring regular characters like Bugs ("Herr Meets Hare") and Daffy ("Daffy the Commando"). A subset of these were shorts with one-off characters, like the "Gremlins from the Kremlin" in "Russian Rhapsody" who sabotage Hitler's plane and "The Draft Horse" who desperately wants to do his part on the front.
The second types were allegories on how we'd gotten into the war ("The Duckinators") and how we intended to get out ("Third Column Mouse"). The third were sketch comedies about life in the barracks. "The Weakly Reporter," on life at the home front, is my favorite of these. I love how one woman fixes an entire factory with her bobby pin. "Hollywood Canine Canteen" parodies the real-life Hollywood Canteen and other serviceman hang-outs staffed by stars with dog parodies of popular 40's celebrities. We even get Warner Bros' first major cartoon star Bosko honoring World War I as "Bosko the Doughboy."
My favorite wartime shorts were the utterly insane trio directed by Bob Clampett that are among the best to feature Daffy and Bugs. "Super Rabbit" has Bugs eating a carrot that gives him superpowers. He makes use of these powers to stop a rabbit-hating cowboy and his horse from attacking local animals. When push comes to shove and they finally gain powers, Bugs dons the uniform of a real hero...a Marines officer.
"Draftee Daffy" goes into panic mode when he gets a visit from the annoying "little man from the draft board." He does every single thing he can to get rid of the guy, but he's remarkably persistent. Daffy thinks he's finally gotten rid of the guy in the end, but it turns out this little fellow can go many places, including down below.
Bugs is a "Falling Hare" when he catches another gremlin sabotaging an Allied plane. He tries to get rid of him, but for once, one of his antagonists can give as good as they get and isn't so easy to fool. The rabbit really goes crazy when they end up in a free fall...but they may not have enough ration coupons left to make the trip.
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