Memorial Day began as a way to honor the dead of the Civil War, which is likely why all of the material for the holiday revolves around that conflict. A young Union solider helps a Confederate mother with her chores and gains her utmost respect in return in "Light Bread and Apple Butter." We also get a lot of poetry on the Civil War, including "Barbara Frietchie," "Sheridan's Ride," and "The Blue and the Gray."
Watched All-Star Laff-a-Lympics while having breakfast and getting ready for work. To celebrate the holiday, I ran the second-season episode that had everyone in Morocco and Washington DC. The Blue Falcon knows something is up with Daisy Mayhem when she hitches a ride during the scooter race through Casablanca. The Rottens don't get away with cheating there, but the Baron does manage to win the desert chariot race. The Great Fondoo doesn't have nearly that much luck in Washington when his magic constantly backfires, turning Yacky Doodle into one big duckling! Octy Octopus does far better in the Marine Corps Obstacle Race...actually allowing the Rottens to win the whole show for a change.
Headed to work after that. It was just cloudy, cooler, and very windy at that point, so I opted to take the bike. Work was busy with holiday shoppers when I came in, but I did manage to gather all the carts this time. I was just about to go on lunch when I was told to do the sweeping. Turns out no one checked the schedule and realized there was someone coming in at noon who had already swept the store. I was not happy about that.
After all that, I was glad the floral department manager said she needed help watering plants and cleaning up her work area. Right now, the focus is on potted plants for barbecues and birthdays. After she left and I swept around the work area, I made two arrangements, a larger chop and drop with tight, ruffly white-green roses, and a smaller bud vase with an orange rose, a white rose, a single lilly, and a lot of greens.
There's another reason I was happy to help in the floral department. It started raining just minutes before she pulled me. It was still showering, though not as heavily, when I rode home. I arrived damp but not soaked. It would shower off and on, sometimes hard, until the clouds finally started breaking up som around 6 PM. (We never did get the advertised thunderstorms, though.)
Switched to The New Scooby Doo Mysteries as I changed into dry clothes and got organized. Velma joins in for "A Night Louse at the White House." She's invited Daphne, Shaggy, Scooby, and Scrappy to a big NASA banquet in honor of a top secret formula they're working on. When the ghosts of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln join the festivities and cause chaos, Mystery Inc is on the case to find out who these all-American spooks are and what they're really after.
Took the laundry downstairs, then rested while watching Caught In the Draft. Movie star Don Bolton (Bob Hope) is horrified when the peacetime draft is announced. He doesn't want to get anywhere near the military. He panics whenever he hears loud noises, even fake gunshots on the sets of his films.
His assistant Bert Sparks (Eddie Bracken) and agent Steve Riggs (Lynne Overman) try to get him married to general's daughter Toni Fairbanks (Dorothy Lamour) in order to avoid the draft. The scheme backfires, and they end up in the Army anyway. Don is determined to show Toni that he can be the brave soldier she wants, but whether working kitchen duty or losing his uniform, he's constantly in trouble. It takes a genuine act of bravery during a war game to prove that Don and his friends have what it takes to be real soldiers.
It's kind of easy to tell this pre-wartime comedy is from summer 1941, six months before the attack on Pearl Harbor. They never leave the US; an enemy is never mentioned. The focus here is on Hope and his wacky brand of cowardly comedy. Lamour also does well as the spirited and intelligent young woman who inspires Don to join the military to begin with. I'm less fond of Bracken and Riggs, who both come off as whiny, annoying, and a bit dumb. Not my favorite of Hope's comedies. This is mainly for big fans of him or war movies.
Moved the laundry to the dryer, then put on classic wartime animated shorts for the rest of the afternoon. Donald Duck turned up in a series of war-related shorts from 1942 through 1944. "Donald Gets Drafted," and like Hope, is lured by the promise of glamor and girls. Unlike Hope, all he gets is Sergeant Pete giving him extra drills on an ant hill. "Sky Trooper" has Pete finally send him in the air as a paratrooper. The last thing that Donald wants is to jump out of the plane, leading to an explosive confrontation between him and Pete. Donald is "The Vanishing Private" after he gets himself and a cannon covered in invisible paint. He leads Pete on a merry chase after "the little man you can't see" all around the base.
"Der Fuehrer's Face" dives further into World War II propaganda. Donald finds himself forced to make bombs in a surreal nightmare of a Nazi factory. "Fall Out, Fall In" is a lot less scary. Donald wants nothing more than a hot meal after a long trek, but first his tent won't cooperate, then his fellow soldiers' snoring keeps him awake. "Commando Duck" is sent into the heart of Japan, where he proceeds to wipe...no, wash...out the enemy.
Mickey Mouse didn't figure heavily into World War II shorts, but he did do a war-themed short during his first flush of popularity in the late 20's. "The Barnyard Battle" pits Mickey and his fellow farm animals against bloodthirsty hun cats. Mickey manages to come out on top, of course, thanks to a piano used as bullets and his own can-do spirit.
The Looney Tunes also found themselves in the middle of World War II. Bugs is a "Super Rabbit" who turns into a superhero when he eats a chemically-enhanced carrot. He dodges a rabbit-hating cowboy and his horse until, when push comes to shove, he turns into a real hero...a Marines officer. Like Don Bolton, "Draftee Daffy" would do anything to avoid that persistent Little Man From the Draft Board, even send them both into the underworld. "Falling Hare" is one of the rare shorts where Bugs deals with an antagonist who gives as good as they get, in this case a Gremlin he catches sabotaging planes. The Gremlin manages to dodge him until they both end up on a plane that's sent into a major free fall!
Watched Match Game Syndicated during dinner. I wasn't going to miss it. It was the infamous show where the very sweet contestant Ginger gave an incredibly odd answer to "Cuckoo __" on the Head-to-Head. Her partner Robert Walden was a bit embarrassed. Everyone else is literally falling over the stage laughing, including Gene. According to Bill Daily over 40 years later, everyone laughed so hard, they had to stop taping. Meanwhile, Joyce Bulifant sports a shiny black pageboy that she insisted made her look like Cher. Gene thought she looked more like Carolyn Jones (from The Addams Family), but I thought she looked like Didi Conn.
Finished the night after a shower with the Family Feud Armed Forces week from 1989. Every year from 1989 through 1991, the syndicated Feud did a week where all of the branches of the Armed Forces played each other in a week-long tournament. The biggest winners came back the following Monday to see who gets the big pot for their charity. Though the Army and Navy played very well, the Marines had the best answers, the most expert trash-talking, and were just too much fun to watch. I loved how they swung the lone female office off her feet at least twice; I don't think her feet ever touched the ground after the Fast Money in the last episode.
Honor the men and women who fought and died for our country with this week of Armed Forces Feuds!
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