Work didn't start out too badly. It wasn't busy when I arrived at 9 AM, but it picked up by 11:30 as people came in from the lunch rush hour. They kept calling me to do stuff when I was trying to do something else, including calling me in the middle of my break to bring an old man an electric cart. Thankfully, it was starting to slow down by the time I finally finished. The weather helped, too. It was sunny and warm-ish, chilly but not overly so for this time of year, probably in the lower 50's. The clouds didn't start rolling in until I was going home.
Had lunch and set up the cookie boxes while watching the second half of Tattletales and the Rankin-Bass Frosty the Snowman. Frosty (Jackie Vernon) comes to life after the local kids give him the hat belonging to a phony magician Professor Hinkle (Billy De Wolfe). Hinkle wants the hat back now that it seems to have magic, so little Karen (Suzanne Davidson) and Hinkle's sympathetic rabbit Hocus Pocus (Paul Frees) take him up to the North Pole to dodge the clumsy and inept magician.
After lunch, I made my first batch of Christmas cookies. The Chocolate Yum-Yums from the Christmas Is Coming 1988 craft book became more festive Red Velvet Yum-Yums, replacing the devil's food cake mix with red velvet cake mix and pecans with white chocolate chips. I didn't try them, but they came out perfectly and smelled amazing in the oven.
Switched to Ernest Saves Christmas after I came back upstairs. Despite living in sunny Orlando, Florida, Ernest P. Worrell (Jim Varney) is a huge Christmas fan. He's as surprised as the next guy when a man claiming to be Santa Claus (Douglas Seale) turns up in his taxi. Seems Santa's been doing his job for too long and has chosen former local kids' host Joe Carruthers (Oliver Clark) as his replacement. Joe's sleazy agent Marty (Robert Lesser) is trying to talk him into doing a Z-grade Christmas horror movie, but Joe doesn't appreciate the violence and bad language in the script. Marty has Santa arrested for vagrancy, prompting Ernest to break him out. Ernest also has to deal with teen runaway Harmony Starr (Noelle Parker) who covers the pain from her parents' divorce with lying and acting older than her age and with driving the sleigh and getting it to the new Santa before midnight!
This is an old childhood guilty pleasure of mine. No wonder it would be far and away the biggest hit of the long-running Ernest series. Varney has a blast with Ernest's holiday fandom, especially when he and Harmony descend on poor Vern's Christmas party early-on. Douglas Seale made such a convincing holiday gift-giver, he was the actor I imagined when I thought of Santa well into the 2000's. Not a bad place to start if you want to introduce older kids to Ernest's world, or you're just looking for a good, goofy Christmas comedy.
Worked on the Seasonal inventory next. Added all of the A Winter's Solstice albums on CD along with the similar On a Winter's Night, Autumn Dreams by Danny Wright, George Benson's Autumn, the two Halloween CDs, and Blues, Blues Christmas, a collection of R&B and blues Christmas songs I picked up from the North Cape May Big Lots in December 2005, two months before I moved to Oaklyn. Most of the others don't go back nearly that far. On a Winter's Night is the second-oldest in this batch, having turned up in a yard sale in 2011.
Watched Match Game Syndicated during dinner. The first episode finished up the Marjorie Wallace/Bob Donner week. Gene mixes up Marjorie and Marcia, prompting the latter to point out how much they had in common. The second brought in Richard Paul and for the first time since the mid-70's, Jo Ann Pflug. An older woman contestant is more than happy to claim she can take Brett's place in Encino with Gene!
Did The Year Without a Santa Claus after I ate. I went further into my personal favorite Rankin-Bass special at my Musical Dreams Movie Reviews way back on Christmas Eve 2019.
Moved to chilly New York City in 1947 for my next movie on the existence of Santa, the original Miracle on 34th Street. Kris Kringle (Edmund Gwenn) is just about the most perfect Santa Macy's ever had. He's even gotten Macy's and their rival Gimbels to share ideas. There's just one problem. He keeps insisting that he really is Santa. This particularly disturbs store manager Doris Walker (Maureen O'Hara). She raised her precocious and intelligent daughter Susan (Natalie Wood) not to believe in fairy tales or fantasy of any type after she was burned by a bad divorce.
The other person at Macy's who isn't enamored with Kris is Mr. Sawyer (Porter Hall), Macy's psychologist who doesn't appreciate Kris' ability to see through his abrasive personality. After he starts telling employee Alfred (Alvin Greenman) he has a guilt complex, Kris finally attacks him. Fortunately, Kris is roommates with lawyer Fred Gailey (John Payne), who turns his insanity hearing into a media sensation. Most of the law officials in charge think there's no chance Kris will be acquitted...but it's Kris and the US Mail system who finally teach everyone a lesson in faith, trust, and the Christmas spirit.
One of the most beloved holiday film of all time. Gwenn made such a wonderful Santa, he won a supporting actor Oscar. The adapted screenplay won as well. O'Hara is lovely as the frazzled store manager, matter-of-fact Wood is charming and intelligent playing off of her, and John Payne is far more comfortable here than he ever was trilling with Fox blondes in their musicals. I also appreciate that the law officials aren't played as bad guys. Sawyer is the only real villain here. The lawyers and judge admit that they even like Kris and are just doing thankless jobs. I've heard the 1994 version with Richard Attenborough as Santa has its moments, but this one is still highly recommended as well.
Moved to YouTube for The Bernstein Bears' Christmas Tree. I went further into the first Bernstein Bears holiday special at my Musical Dreams blog in my big Christmas entry last year.
Finished the night with another YouTube production. Keven Perjurer of Defunctland created an almost two-hour documentary on the history of Disney's Audio-Animatronics. From the early "automatons" that were popular during the 19th century to Disney's own Mr. Lincoln and Carousel of Progress at the 1964 World's Fair, this teaches you everything you ever wanted to know about moving mechanics and robots, and does it in an informative and entertaining way.
(And if you haven't checked out the rest of Kevin's Defunctland channel and share my interest in theme park history, by all means, please do so. He discusses everything from the infamous Action Park in North Jersey to the aforementioned New York World's Fair to the history of Coney Island to why Disney was never able to pull off the Virginia-based park Disney's America. Each and every video is well-made, informative, and frequently some of the funniest stuff online. There's even excellent original music and amazing graphics that are often in line with the time period being depicted.)
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