Friday, October 28, 2022

Laughing at Your Fears

Started the morning off with breakfast and the Disney Junior Muppet Babies. Fozzie's dressed in lederhosen for "Happy Hallo-Wacka," but all of the other babies wore scary costumes. He decorates the playground to look like a haunted house in order to scare them, but it takes Animal dressing as a ghost to be really scary! Kermit refuses to try Nanny's "boo-berry" pancakes in the shape of ghosts, so Summer tells him "The Teeth Chattering Tale of the Haunted Pancakes." A frog named Kermabod and his monster buddies can't stop ghostly pancakes from taking over their town unless he tries them.

Switched to Match Game '75 while I cleaned up and made my grocery list. I came in for a wild one. The girl who wins the main round is so excited, Gene claims her jumping around causes a crack in the floor of the set! Richard was even happier to flirt with a challenger with a radiant smile and a hilarious answer to a question about what prints the police take on Lola the Stripper.

Headed out for a small grocery run next. I work too late and too long tomorrow to do it then. Went to the Westmont Acme, since it's closer. Went with more of those fruit-topped granola bars and Kind protein breakfast bars on sale, cranberry-orange scones for breakfast, smaller bags of popcorn, and Simply Jiff peanut butter. I thought a Secret deodorant was on sale, but it turned out to have been in the wrong place. I had to wait while the manager took it off of self-checkout. (Which is the big disadvantage of self-checkout. You can't take off an item you don't want yourself, and the people in charge of the self-checkout lane may not always be able to do it right away.)

Rode to and from Westmont through Newton Lake Park. It's really starting to look like fall now. The leaves are finally morphing into glorious shades of gold, scarlet, lime green, and sun yellow. Canadian geese munch grass along the waterways, and dried reeds blew in the breeze as I passed. Other people were out, too, dog walkers and other bikers and a family with their two children out for a lunch-time stroll.

Got in and put everything away, then had lunch and popcorn while watching Young Frankenstein. Dr. Fredrick Frankenstein (Gene Wilder) travels to Transylvania to check out the castle he inherited from his grandfather. The previous Frankenstein did notorious experiments to reanimate the dead that frightened the local townspeople. Thanks to his housekeeper Frou Blucher (whinny) (Cloris Leachman), he finds his grandfather's notes and decides to attempt the experiments as well. Unfortunately, his assistant Igor (Marty Feldman) brings an abnormal brain for the giant man they dig up (Peter Boyle), turning his creation into a monster. With the help of his far more comely assistant Inga (Terri Garr), he has to figure out how to give his creation a real brain and fend off his snooty fiancee Elizabeth (Madeline Khan) when she arrives, not to mention deal with a suspicious inspector (Kenneth Mars) who knows something is going on in that castle!

One of my favorite Mel Brooks movies. This movie was as much fun for the cast to make as it is for people to watch. Apparently, they enjoyed making it so much, they added extra scenes, just to keep going! Moody black and white cinematography and the use of the real sets from the original 1932 Frankenstein adds greatly to the elegant atmosphere. 

Headed across the White Horse Pike to the other side of Oaklyn after the movie ended. I wanted to check out the last Final Friday Festival of the season....but I came too early. At 4:30 PM, they were still setting up tents, booths, and trucks. Bought a funnel cake at the Puddin' Palace for a treat instead. I never had a funnel cake before, not even on the boardwalk as a kid. Mom always said they were too fattening. Yum! Like eating a tubular doughnut...but it was also so huge, it came in a paper container. I only ate half of it. Picked up a "Manor Mixer," a fresh fruit drink with coconut milk, at Common Grounds Coffee House.

After I got home, I made the bed and went through paperwork that piled up on my printer while watching Pooh's Halloween Heffalump Movie. I'll go further into the final Pooh direct-to-home-media holiday film to date at my Musical Dreams Movie Reviews blog tomorrow.

Did a little work on my story next. Though Ross agrees that their boss can be humorless when it comes to their shows, there's nothing he can do about it. Brett goes too slow. Brett argues that the point should be matching the contestant with their answers, not with a mini-game.

Broke for dinner at 7 PM, just in time for the infamous Match Game '77 episode 1005. This one doesn't get out of control until the very end. Yes, this is the episode where the judge Ira Skutch won't match the contestant's "school" with Richard and Debralee Scott's "finishing school," or a terrified Patti Deustch's "night school" in response to the question about where Dumb Dora sent her cultured pearls to. To make things worse, he did match Brett and Ed Asner's "college" responses. Richard and Debralee protested, the contestant got the audience in on it, and Gene couldn't keep order. Charles and Brett tried to defuse the situation by having Charles lay on the steps as "the first victim of the School Riot," but the damage was done. The lower tier kept their answers up in protest for what little remained of the episode.

Finished the night online with more comic horror. The original Ghostbusters debuted in the summer of 1984 and was that year's instant sensation. Three former Columbia University professors go into business as professional ghost-catchers after they're fired from the school. Peter Venkman (Bill Murray) is delighted when their first client is an attractive classical musician named Dana (Signorney Weaver) who claims to have a monster in her refrigerator. Turns out that monster is the key to opening another dimension in the strange Art Deco high-rise where Dana and her nerdy neighbor Louis Tully (Rick Moranis) live. 

The Ghostbusters have other problems. They're so swamped with work in New York, they hire a fourth man (Ernie Hudson) to help them out. Their secretary Janice (Annie Potts) frets that something is going to go wrong...and she's right. When Walter Peck of the EPA (William Atherton) shuts down their containment grid, he sends every ghost into the city...and worse, lands the Ghostbusters in jail. Now they're the only ones who can stop a menace from beyond and the world's largest marshmallow man from turning New York City into one massive fried s'more. 

My sisters and I have been huge fans of this franchise since its debut. We used to spend afternoons running around our home in Cape May, wearing backpacks while looking for "ghosts." This has actually dated really well, with a hilarious screenplay and special effects that still look good to this day. I haven't seen Afterlife, don't think Ghostbusters II is that bad, and still believe the all-female remake from 2016 gets a bum rap, but this is really the only one you absolutely need. 

The Ghostbusters aren't the only ones trying to clear spooks out of Manhattan. In the fourth season Odd Couple episodes "The Exorcists," Felix is convinced the spirit of their apartment's previous owner is in their air conditioner. Oscar is convinced he's being ridiculous, and even teases him and his secretary Myrna (Penny Marshall) when they hold a seance. A professional exorcist finally sells them a book that supposedly allows them to do it themselves. 

If you enjoyed those, here's lots more vintage horror specials for your enjoyment this weekend!

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