To Infinity, Fables, Sexy Sirens, and Beyond!

I slept in this morning and didn't get a whole lot done. I did manage to do a few things online and ran through more public domain cartoons. Saw lots of Betty Boop (Pudgy this time helps her get rid of a flock of crows who are destroying her vegetables; Grampy helps her fend off an obnoxious practical joker; a cat keeps making Pudgy take the blame for his messes), Foxy Fables (Brixton the Rabbit nearly loses his home to Fox; Francine the Goose teaches Fox about "an eye for an eye"), and The Mighty Heroes (they fought two horror-oriented villains, one of whom was turning the heads of the town into monsters).

The long-running Aesop's Fables are genuine pieces of film history. Paul Terry started this silent series of animal stories in the 20s. When he left during the early sound era to create his own studio, the Van Beuren Studio took them over and kept them going until 1933. They look fairly primitive today. It's pretty much Farmer Alfalfa dealing with animal antics. There's also the occasional melodramatic plot, like the gypsies kidnapping the little boy, who is eventually rescued from a waterfall by his beloved puppy.

I'm not even sure what it was that showed up later on the disc. They didn't have an opening sequence. All I could tell is that they are a series of colorful space opera-oriented shorts with round-headed Colonel Bleep and his two odd sidekicks (one is a caveman) rounding up intergalactic criminals, including an ongoing one. The limited animation reminded me of the 50s space-age patterns on my counter; I'm guessing they're from that time period.

A friend of Andrew's was nice enough to bring two packages upstairs while I was working online. One was Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas, one of the last films I had on video that I'd been trying to replace on DVD. I finally found it for a decent price on Amazon. The other, the Baryshnikov The Nutcracker, was expensive on DVD to begin with and will probably take much longer to find.

Speaking of things I've been trying to find forever, I finally got Sailor Pluto on eBay last week. It was pure luck. I put in a bid, not expecting much to come out of it; there was another one after me, but it was redrawn at the last moment, leaving me the winner. I'm absolutely thrilled. She's the last of the 11.5-inch Sailor Moon dolls Irwin did in 2000 that I needed to complete my collection. (Sailor Saturn is much harder to find and usually very expensive when she does show up; I think she may have only been available in Asia.) I almost bought her in 2001, when I picked up Uranus and Neptune, but I didn't and have regretted it ever since. She cost me almost $40 for a Barbie-sized doll who came with none of her accessories but her boots, but she's worth it.

She's a real beauty. She was packaged bent-over in a small but well-padded box. She has very long, forest-green hair that looks like it was barely touched; it even has the waves from where it was held to the box. There's a few small stains on her sailor uniform, her torso's a bit loose, and she's missing her Time Staff and box, which is probably how I managed to get her for almost $40. I've seen Sailor Pluto go for anywhere from $65 to over $100 on eBay. She has the larger, darker, better drawn eyes of the later dolls.

I ran more cartoons while clearing out leftovers for lunch, then headed to work. Work was similar to yesterday - busy through rush hour, quieter but not that bad thereafter. I think people are starting to prepare for Martin Luther King Jr. Day Weekend, the first major holiday weekend of the year.

There were a few annoying customers. Two ladies kicked up a fuss when they thought a bag of breaded chicken tenders were a certain price...and wouldn't listen to reason, even when the head of the frozen food and cold food explained what the sale covered. They walked out with nothing. I don't know why they had a fit. Breaded chicken that isn't even good for you is nothing to cause trouble over.

Oh, and I picked up more extra hours. This time, a cashier wanted to attend a funeral that had come up suddenly and asked if I wanted to work on Saturday evening. Sure! She asked nicely and ahead of time, and it's only four hours, which will still give me time to do everything I wanted to do on Saturday. I do still need to make up for the hours lost last week and after Thanksgiving.