Blockbusters returned to the episodes featuring that amazing mother-daughter team who won pretty much everything for weeks. Started the dishes as they defeated a young woman. The daughter only missed two questions in the Gold Run bonus round. They were half-way through their game with a male contestant when the show ended.
Switched to DVD for a couple of holiday and winter-themed Scooby Doo episodes as I made the bed. "A Nutcracker Scoob" is from the early 80's Daphne/Shaggy series. Fred joined the duo, Scooby, and Scrappy to save an orphanage from a cranky miser and stop The Ghost of Christmas from stealing a precious jewel. "That's Snow Ghost" is one of my favorite episodes from the original series. Mystery Inc has to solve the mystery of a strange ski lodge and the spectral Yeti who appears there to scare off customers.
Moved to Match Game as I scrubbed the kitchen. After I finished that, I moved on to doing the floors. I swept the hardwood floors first, then vacuumed the floors, rug, and futon. Moved on to dusting the floors as the episodes ended.
Went to Tubi for An American Christmas Carol as I made lunch. Benedict Slade (Henry Winkler) is a grouchy old miser who owns a repossession business in a New England town during the Great Depression. He was once a bright young furniture apprentice with many ideas for the future, but first his boss refused to change, then a loan shark took him up on his new refinancing idea. Alas, in taking his idea, he turned down his boss' request for a loan to rebuild his chair-building business. The present is only a bit happier, as he sees that the son of his employee Thatcher, whom he just fired, is very sick. It may take a vision of a bleak future where neither he nor the boy survive to prove that we help ourselves when we help each other, and that the best charity is giving new ideas and new hope a chance.
Despite Winkler playing older Slade under a ton of makeup, he does well enough as the selfish skinflint who eventually learns to see the light. Though it's a low-budget production, it still reflects the holidays of long-ago nicely (other than a few misplaced hairstyles on the ladies). Not the most necessary Christmas movie, but worth a look if you love Winkler or Christmas Carol adaptations.
Moved to The Roku Channel for a winter episode of The Cat In the Hat Knows a Lot About That. Nick and Sally are having trouble finding her sled in the snow. The Cat takes them to Jingly Bell Forest, where Magnus the Reindeer teaches them how "Reindeer Games" and a great deal of digging with his antlers can help them find things lost in the snow. "Along Came a Spider" named Mabel who helped teach the Cat and the kids how to make webs, so the kids can fix their net.
Returned to Buzzr for Tattletales as I started dusting the living room and kitchen. I was a bit surprised to see one of my favorite childhood singers, Dionne Warwick, as a contestant today with her then-husband Bill Elliott. They were joined by Gary Burghoff and his then-wife Janet and the ultimate winners, Lynn Redgrave and her then-husband Jack Clark. At one point, Gary showed what he learned on MASH by actually dropping to the floor and demonstrating pushups for a question!
Press Your Luck went even better - no pushups required. The first half hit no Whammies...but that was mainly because they'd done terrible with the first-round questions and barely got any turns to begin with. They did much better in the second round. The ultimate winner avoided Whammies and picked up a motorcycle for his trouble.
Did some writing after that. To the horror of Brett, Charles, and Richard, Governor Goodson forces Gene onto the plank. He swears he'll come back to haunt him, but Goodson laughs at that. They eventually force him over the side as he stumbles into the choppy waters of the Atlantic.
The rain vanished sometime around 2 PM. It almost looked like the sun was trying to come out. It disappeared again around the time I started writing. By 5:30, we were in the middle of a torrential thunderstorm, complete with sheets of rain, wild winds, and noisy thunder and lightning. It was very loud and very crazy! I couldn't believe how dark it got. It looked like midnight when it was only 5 o'clock.
Jodie sent me a text earlier asking if I wanted any dishes. I said "sure." I tossed out all of my dishes but my Fiestaware set when I moved in July. Turns out she was giving me a very full set. Not only were there six dishes, but there were six saucers, six mugs, a serving plate, six bowls, a gravy boat, a creamer, a sugar bowl, and a larger rectangular bowl likely intended for roasts. It's a very pretty blue flower stoneware pattern...but I'm not sure I'll keep it. It's just too much. I don't need all of that, and Jodie mentioned she has Fiestaware she wants to get rid of, too.
(She also brought me the inner tubes I ordered on Amazon. I'll put them on tomorrow. This was no day for messing with the bike.)
Watched Match Game '75 as I organized the dishes and had leftover turkey soup for dinner. Handsome high school teacher Ron Valenti continued his run as champion, to the delight of a smitten Fannie Flagg and Betty White. The contestants simply didn't seem to get the idea on Match Game PM. It took them until the third round to really match anyone.
The contestants did far better on Sale of the Century. The two men dominated the game - I think the one woman answered a question in the Speed Round and that was it. The younger of the two bought two of the three Instant Bargains, dominated the Speed Round, and won a piano on the Match the Prizes board he said his wife would love.
Finished the night online after a shower with two rare Disney Christmas shows on YouTube. Disney's Christmas Fantasy On Ice was a popular figure skating special repeated annually on ABC from 1991 through 1994. A man (Bronson Pinchot) whose young niece drags him around Disneyland tells her a story to distract her while they rest. The story has the Disney characters searching for five points of a magic snowflake that'll make it snow in California. Yeah, it's that goofy. The "search" is really just a framework for some of the most famous figure skaters of the time to do their thing. The showing I watched was from '94, which replaced Brian Boittano's solo "Beast" routine with one from Kurt Browning (whom I had a bit of a crush on in the mid-90's).
The Magic of Christmas at Walt Disney World is a promotional video from 1992. It's what it says on the tin. A little girl writes Santa to tell him she'll be in Disney World for the holidays, and he tells her what it's like there. The real magic of this nowadays isn't so much the elaborate Christmas decorations, but seeing all the shows and rides that no longer exist, including the Maelstrom and parts of The Land in Epcot and several Christmas-themed stores in the Magic Kingdom and the Disney Village Marketplace (now Disney Springs) shopping area. There's a reference to the long-gone Pleasure Island and their "every night is New Year's Eve" party, too.
Here's both specials, so you can enjoy a little Disney magic of your own for the holidays!
Disney's Christmas Fantasy On Ice (1994 broadcast, despite being listed as 1991)
Oh, and the Eagles did a little better tonight...but they still couldn't get past the Seahawks and lost 23-17.
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