Chilled Matches

First of all, here's my review for the Golden Films special Princess Castle, which I watched last night, at my Musical Dreams Movie Reviews blog.

Animation Celebration Saturday - Princess Castle

Got a quick start this morning with breakfast and the Silly Symphony short "The Goddess of Spring" at Disney Plus. This is a retelling of the Persephone and Hades myth that was intended as a practice run for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Some of the animation is gorgeous and the operatic music is stunning, but the story can get too cutesy, and Persephone moves like she's made of rubber.

I thought I was meeting Jessa later...and whether I was or wasn't, the weather was still bad. The rain had stopped by quarter after 10, but it remained cloudy, cool, and windy. I called Uber. The one going there came in 9 minutes. The one going home arrived in 6. No trouble getting there either way. I arrived just in time.

Started out sweeping and pushing carts. The head bagger was in the register the entire day. Moved to doing the carts after the afternoon bagger arrived and took over the sweeping and the trash. No trouble whatsoever. When the carts started vanishing, the afternoon bagger would come out and help. 

Unfortunately, Jessa canceled. She said we could meet on Monday. I still needed a few things anyway. Grabbed a card and gift card for Rose's birthday on Monday, more Spenddrift soda on sale, and the new PB&J Reeces Cup to try. 

Changed when I got home, then watched Here Comes Peter Cottontail. I went further into the first Rankin-Bass Easter special at my musical review blog in April 2019. 

Here Comes Peter Cottontail

Finished the night at YouTube for today's Match Game marathon. Comedienne Marcia Wallace was playing Bob Newhart's super-efficient secretary Carol on The Bob Newhart Show when she first appeared on Match Game early in 1974. She appeared relatively often during 1974 and 1975, then disappeared until 1977 (thanks to trouble with Goodson and Todman). She appeared more frequently during the syndicated run, when she was often seated next to her Bob Newhart co-star Bill Daily. 

It shouldn't come as a surprise that Marcia and Brett became best friends, given they shared the same salty sense of humor. Marcia could occasionally get a little too salty. Her answer to a question on where a guy lost a few inches on a 1977 PM episode was censored. There was also the time that year when she accidentally got marker on her bare shoulders, which Richard and Gene used to play tic tac toe. She had more luck back in 1975 when, after a year, she finally got her first right answer and a standing ovation. 

Marcia probably did some of her best work during the syndicated run. She was one of the three comediennes who replaced Brett when she was in St. Louis during that week that just ran on Buzzr a few days ago and even finally got to sit in Brett's character actress seat. She was also present for the insane answers to the Audience Match question "Denise __" and had to listen to a woman give a long, rambling, and rather gross description of the worms she kept in the refrigerator to feed her daughter's frogs. 

You can learn a lot from Bob Newhart's favorite secretary and Bart Simpson's favorite teacher in this wild marathon!

Match Game Saturday Classics - The Best of Marcia Wallace 1974 - 1981

Of Bats and Bunnies

Began the morning with breakfast and The First Easter Rabbit. I went further into this 1976 Rankin Bass special at my Musical Dreams Movie Reviews blog back in 2023.

The First Easter Rabbit

Switched to Press Your Luck while making my grocery list. The episode had the woman champ win money for a home viewer...only to lose hers minutes later to a Whammy. The one guy was the only one to avoid the Whammy and pick up a trip to Washington DC. 

Checked my schedule while the show was on. Mostly the same hours as last week, but an early day on Sunday, and this time, the 8 1/2 hour day is Saturday and Wednesday is back to four hours. The Sunday bagger and head bagger must have taken those days off. I badly need to find a better job, or at least something to do with myself at home or nearby.

Headed out to make a quick grocery run. I got white and brown sugar and dried apricots from the bulk bins, coconut milk, bananas and Waterloo sparkling water in 99 cent cans at Sprouts. Picked up blood oranges for a good price, yogurt on sale with an online coupon, coconut macaroons off the bakery clearance rack, new Spindrift soda on a good sale, pads, and butter for baking later. Neither store was busy, and I spent a little over 20 minutes in both. 

Cut through Newton Lake Park on the way home. It's really green now. The hills and banks of the lake are carpeted in bright green and sunny yellow buttercups. The trees burst with pink, lavender, and white and show the first signs of leaves. 

After I got up the hill and past the Haddon Township Environmental and Historical Center, I went to the A& Pretzel Shop for lunch. They weren't busy, either. I was able to get pretzels, a cheesesteak-stuffed pretzel, and a Diet Pepsi in peace. 

Put on It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown while having lunch after I got home. The Peanuts are excited about their spring festivities, even as Christmas decorations go up at the local department store. Peppermint Patty tries to teach Marcie how to color eggs, but Marcie can't seem to grasp the concept of hard-boiling. Snoopy buys Woodstock a birdhouse. Charlie Brown takes Sally shopping for shoes. Lucy pesters Schroeder for gifts and colors and hide her own eggs. Don't bother with all the fuss, says Linus. The Easter Beagle does all that. Sally's skeptical after the incident with the Great Pumpkin at Halloween, but Easter morning brings more than one surprise for the kids.

After I finished lunch, I brought the butter downstairs to do some baking. I had two very ripe bananas that were so soft, they were practically turning into pudding in their skin. There's a recipe in the Pillsbury cookie book Anny gave me years ago for banana cookies that only requires bananas, vanilla, brown sugar, flour, and salt. No eggs or baking powder or soda. The recipe came with a caramel frosting, but I thought the brown sugar and ripe bananas made the cookies plenty sweet enough without it. Yum. They came out tasting like perfect mini banana bread morsels and smelled amazing in the oven. 

Switched to Batman Forever in honor of Val Kilmer, who died earlier this week, while the cookies cooled. He's Batman here, fighting Two-Face (Tommy Lee Jones) in a somewhat more colorful Gotham. Nerdy Edward Nygma (Jim Carrey) wants Bruce Wayne to consider his new machine that can send TV signals into the brain. Bruce points out the possibility for it to manipulate minds and rejects it. Nygma continues to develop it anyway, eventually programming it drain minds and transfer the information to his. Nygma calls himself the Riddler and joins Two Face to get rid of Batman once and for all.

Bruce has his own problems. He's trying to deflect the interest of psychologist Chase Meridan (Nicole Kidman), who is very interested in his split personality. After a family of aerialists die trying to stop Two-Face from killing everyone watching a local circus, Bruce takes in the orphaned youngest member Dick Grayson (Chris O'Donnell). Dick wants to join him and avenge his family, but Bruce knows all too well that revenge is a dish best not served at all. However, he may need more help dealing with Nygma than he originally believed. The Riddler is slowly losing his grip on reality...and may be manipulating more than brains when he gets Bruce into his machine, too...

I know a lot of people find this to be too goofy, but I think it walks the right fine line between the camp of the TV show and Batman and Robin and the violence and darkness of the Tim Burton and Christopher Nolan films. Kilmer and Carrey put in career-best performance as the tortured costumed vigilante and the obsessed researcher-turned-supervillain. Not everything lands; Kidman is underused in a thankless love interest role, O'Donnell can be annoying, and Jones is really miscast as the other villain. 

Honestly, if you want to check out a Batman movie, the just-dark-and-weird-enough tone might make this the best place to start. You can go backwards or forwards from here, depending on how dark or campy you like your superhero films.

Switched to Match Game '73 during dinner. I really wish Pat Carroll had returned after her one week. She was hilarious and not a bad player. Robert Culp, on the other hand, didn't seem to get the humor and didn't have nearly as much fun. Nipsey Russell made his debut in the next week, complete with poetry, while Charles returned and Brett moved downstairs to the fourth ingenue seat to annoy Richard. 

Finished the night with Princess Castle at Tubi after a shower. I'll go further into this unique Golden Films fairy tale at my Musical Dreams Movie Reviews blog tomorrow. 

Dolls on Haddon Avenue

It had only just stopped raining when I finished today's chapters of The Master of Ballentrae and rolled out of bed. Had breakfast and kept one eye on the clouds while watching the first half of Man In Space on the Tomorrow Land Treasures set. Disney animation director Ward Kimball and three German scientists explain the history of rockets and space travel, how man may react to being in space, and a possible future of rocket travel. While I lost interest during the second half, when they were explaining how space travel may look in the future, I did admire the wonderful animation. The sequence involving space medicine and how man could react to weightlessness and space sickness was less lushly animated but much funnier.

Since the weather continued to be cloudy, warm, and humid but not rainy, I headed out to explore Collingswood. I've spent enough time inside lately. Started off at the Groove Ground Coffee Shop. I wanted a drink, but WaWa declared the Collingswood store to be too small to expand and closed it. Had a frozen hot chocolate there instead to wet my whistle. I'm glad I got there when I did. They were already busy at quarter of 1. By the time I left, there was a longer line for drinks and egg sandwiches.

My next stop was two blocks down and around the corner at Collingswood Music. They mainly sell instruments and lessons, but they do also have records. Came out with four, two rock, one a vocalist, one a jazz collection: 

Neil Diamond - Double Gold

Elton John - Rock of the Westies

Julie London - The Best of Julie

Maxwell Jazz II Sampler (Limited edition collection of classic jazz, for some reason marketed under the Maxwell cassette tape name despite being a record.) 

Peered around at the collectibles shops Time Lapse and Clutter next. Didn't see anything of interest at either place and headed another block down to The Pop Shop for lunch. It was past 2 by this point, way beyond lunch time. The Pop Shop was so quiet, the only people in the place besides me and the waiter was a mom and her utterly adorable toddler daughter. I enjoyed grilled cheese with apples, cheddar, and bacon, fries, and an iced tea in relative peace. 

Next up after a quick stop at Haddon Culinary for a Coke Zero was the lobby of the Collingswood Library. I almost always find something interesting on the book sale shelves there, and today was no exception. I've been trying not to buy more cookbooks...but I couldn't resist one featuring The Golden Girls! I really need to watch more of that show on Hulu. I'm not a fan of cheesecake, but there were other interesting recipes I wanted to try, including a banana cake from Sophia.

Since it's across the street and a block down from the library anyway, I went to Innergroove Records next. They surprisingly weren't busy either, despite it being almost 3 when I came in. I figured the high schoolers would already be there. I wanted to dodge the weather and didn't feel like spending an hour bent over the dollar bins, but I did dig out some good regular and two-dollar titles, including two kids' albums: 

Peter Cottontail (Disney release from 1972 with a rather odd cover depicting the title character. In addition to the title song, they also have "I'm Late" and songs about Thumper from Bambi and the White Rabbit from Alice In Wonderland, along with a vocal retelling of the Grandpa Bunny short story from the Storybookland anthology.)

Here Comes Huckleberry Hound (Listed as the original TV soundtrack, I presume these are condensed versions of shorts from the Huckleberry Hound TV show.)

George Winston - Ballads and Blues 1972

Herman's Hermits - The Best of Herman's Hermits 

Donna Summer - She Works Hard for the Money 

Jumped into Occasionette on my way back down Haddon Avenue. I was hoping to find a cool birthday card for Rose here. I saw every type of card but birthday cards! Though they do have some neat kitchen accessories, most of their wares are too expensive at regular prices. I moved on to the bike rack behind the Senior Center instead and went home.

Finished Man In Space when I got home, then put on the 1939 version of The Three Musketeers. I go further into this cute spoof of the classic Alexandre Dumas swashbuckler featuring Don Ameche and the Ritz Brothers at my Musical Dreams Movie Reviews blog.

The Three Musketeers (1939) 

Dressed the dolls for Easter and early spring while the movie was on. Samantha is in her lovely pink and magenta Flower Picking Dress. The long skirt and asymmetrical lace collar look so pretty and grown-up on her. Jess wears the purple fruit-print Birthday Jumper and t-shirt from 1998. It's too cold for the purple jellies that go with it, so she borrowed Kit's red strap shoes. Josefina celebrates her feast day last month in her Feast Day Outfit with the ruffly camisa and turquoise and white skirt. Felicity also gets to celebrate her birthday this month with her salmon-pink Birthday Dress and floral Apron. The soft southwestern colors in Julie's original Birthday Dress are perfect for Ariel. Kit may not appreciate the frills, but she does look cute in her Candy-Making Dress.

Barbara Jean, Molly, and Whitney all wear hand-made outfits. Whitney and Molly get to try on the smocked dresses I bought them from the seller at the church yard sale during the Collingswood Book Festival last October. Molly's is pink stripes with rows of little red flowers; Whitney's is lavender gingham. The smocking on both outfits is trimmed with three roses, Molly's red, Whitney's purple. They both look lovely, especially Whitney in that simple but pretty purple print. I got Barbara Jean's pink, magenta, and yellow geometric-print dress off eBay two years ago. It's sleeveless, so she has a white cardigan with satiny ruffle trim on over it. 

Switched to Match Game Syndicated while finishing up the dolls, and later while eating dinner. The celebrity coordinators got creative during the second week of Brett's absence and brought in three of the most popular semi-regular comediennes, Joyce Bulifant, Marcia Wallace, and Betty White, to rotate sitting in her seat. At one point, the ladies all end up sitting on the lower tier, with Charles joined by Bill Daily and Bart Braverman on the upper tier. Charles spent the rest of the episodes making jokes about what macho men they were.

Since for some reason they went back to Match Game '73 again for the last half-hour, I headed to YouTube. Today would have been the birthday of second Family Feud host Ray Combs. Someone posted the episode where they celebrated it on the air, complete with a cake, balloons, and his friends and family turning up in the last few minutes. The whole thing was really sweet, especially when they first brought the cake in.

Finished the night with more of my recent record and CD finds. Actually, the main reason I bought Here Comes Huckleberry Hound was for the Yogi story, "Rah Rah Bear"...and yeah, it's probably the best of the four episodes. Yogi hears that the Bears are playing the Giants and doesn't realize they're discussing football, so he heads to Chicago to help his fellow ursine creatures. 

As for the others, "Huck, the Giant Killer" has some mildly amusing fairy tale gags, but "The Pony Express Rider" features annoyingly dated Native American stereotypes chasing down his one letter. Jinks has to be nice to those "meeces," or he might not get up there, in "Heavens to Jinksy!" Pixie and Dixie don't understand why he won't chase them, and a local dog makes it hard for Jinks to keep his temper. 

Dave Brubeck took trips to "Eurasia" and New York in a pair of Jazz Impression albums from 1958 and 1964 respectively. Eurasia is slightly more interesting, featuring lilting pieces with exotic titles like "Nomad" and "Calcutta Blues." New York has two numbers from the short-lived TV show Mr. Broadway, plus more obvious titles like "Autumn In Washington Square" and "Something to Sing About." (And considering how much I liked these, I might have to look for the Brubeck's "Jazz Impressions" of Japan as well.) 

(Oh, and at press time, despite remaining cloudy and humid, it still hasn't rained.)

Winds of Spring

Got a quick start this morning with breakfast and the short "Beezy Bear." Humphrey the Bear keeps trying to get to Donald's honey boxes. First, he has trouble distracting the bees, then J. Audubon Woodlore the park ranger takes the board Humphrey used to hold up the wire fence. Donald intends to wash him out, but he doesn't want to be the one holding the hose when the water hits them!

It was late when I rushed out. I got there a little late too, which was the worst thing that happened during my entire 8 1/2 hour shift. It was dead when I came in. It did pick up considerably later in the day, to the point where I had a hard time keeping up with the carts after about 2:30-3. Had to put away a lot of cold items and mop the women's bathroom really fast, too. The weather was cold in the morning, and got cloudy and cold again after about 3-3:30, but it was sunny, windy, and relatively warm in between. 

Changed and put on Match Game Syndicated when I got home. By the time I got in, they were still on the week with Betty Kennedy in Brett's seat. Around when I started eating, they'd switched to the week where Jack Klugman sat in his ex-wife's usual seat so he wouldn't have to pay alimony. At one point, Gene and Jack had their backs turned to the camera while they "fished" in the "canal" behind the top risers. Gene and Charles got Jack a radio so he could hear the races, too. Brian Patrick Clarke of Eight Is Enough was the male ingenue that week who got to watch their shenanigans. 

Finished the night after a shower with specials and vintage TV episodes on Tubi. Scooby Doo! Ghastly Goals takes Mystery Inc to Rio De Janeiro, Brazil for the International Soccer Cup. Shaggy and Scooby run afoul of a red horned monster when they try to help a couple of kids retrieve their soccer ball. The kids want their ball back because it's signed by a major soccer star, but the monster has a much greater interest in it. Turns out he spilled a formula for a super-bouncy rubber on the ball. Scooby will have to hit the field to help get the ball back and keep this horned creep from wrecking more havoc.

Hugs and Tugs are having their own problems in "Care About Spring," a later episode of Care Bears Family. When they won't help each other out, Gram Bear tells them the story of Jack and Jill, who are given a magic ring that could help save Mother Nature from the Witch of Winter. The kids are upset when they use the ring to help Wee Willie Winkie and Jack Be Nimble instead of with their mission. They go to help Mother Nature anyway...and get some surprise help from the friends they helped out along the way.

No April Foolin'

Began the morning with breakfast and My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. The "Equestria Games" finally begin as Spike and the delegates from Ponyville take part in the festivities. Spike gets stage fright when called on to light the torch. Twilight uses her magic to do it for him, leading him to believe he can light it with his mind. He tries to help in other ways when he learns otherwise, but just ends up embarrassed. It takes a major calamity that only he can stop to make him see just how valuable a member of the team he is.

Threw on Press Your Luck while getting organized. I came in during the second half of the episode. The one lady accidentally passed her seven turns over to the guy next to her, forgetting he already had over $10,000. She thought she made a mistake...but a Whammy wiped him out. She would earn enough money to make it to the next show. She did well enough in the first round, but another guy did better and was leading when I left.

Started with a stroll to Dollar General. I mainly needed cough drops and tissues. I've used up a ton of both lately, thanks to my allergies. I got the only sugar-free bag of cough drops they had, along with two boxes of tissues, more Propel-type drink mixes, and a card for my nephew Khai's birthday later this month. 

Headed down the White Horse Pike to WaWa next. I was mainly there to use the ATM machine and get the rent. Treated myself to a pretzel and a strawberry cheesecake smoothie. Yum. The smoothie was really good. It didn't taste like cheesecake, but it sure tasted like strawberries. I suspect WaWa likely used real ones. 

The other reason I went for a walk was simply to enjoy the gorgeous weather. Though it was windy, it also wasn't that cold for early April, probably in the upper 50's-lower 60's, and sunny and bright as can be. Though most people haven't put up their Easter decorations yet, their gardens are bursting with new green grass, brilliant yellow and white daffodils, and deep purple violets. The trees are blossoming now too, wide carpets of pink, white, and purple.

Had lunch, then vacuumed and dusted my rooms while watching Night at the Opera. I go further into this classic Marx Brothers movie for April Fool's Day at my Musical Dreams Movie Reviews blog. 

Happy April Fool' Day! - A Night at the Opera

Switched to the Peanuts baseball specials in honor of the just-started season while I put up the Easter decorations. Charlie Brown's All-Stars are ready to quit, but Chuck manages to entice them with the promise of new uniforms. Unfortunately, the offer is withdrawn when the businessman discovers that the team features four girls and a dog. After Linus and Schroeder scold the girls for their nasty behavior towards Chuck, they find a way to show how much they appreciate him. 

It's Spring Training, Charlie Brown is an almost identical story, but this time, the kids just have to win a game to get their uniforms. Frieda's little brother Leland insists on joining the big kids, despite being far younger than them. He ends up being the hero of the game when he's too small for the pitcher to really aim at and literally stumbles around the bases.

Went downstairs after the cartoon ended to make muffins for work this week. I've made Orange-Chocolate Chip Muffins from The Hershey's 1934 Cookbook before. They're another recipe that hasn't failed me yet. I overcooked them slightly, but they still tasted wonderful. I added fresh-squeezed orange juice from the one I zested to give them even more flavor.

Watched Match Game Syndicated as I baked and ate dinner. The first two hours finished out the week with Fred Grandy, Gary Crosby, Marjorie Wallace, and a noisy audience full of college students. The last hour moved to the first week Brett was away appearing in a play. Bubbly Betty Kennedy took her place and Phyllis Diller took over her crusty wisecracks. McLean Stevenson demonstrated why he'd permanently take over the third seat in the next season.

Finished the night working on my review with more recent record and CD finds. I had no idea what Dr. Blizzard's Original Savannah Band was before I ran across this, but I loved the colorful cover depicting the big band era of the 1940's. Apparently, they were a disco group with a big-band sound, not unlike some of Donna Summer's earlier work. "Cherchez La Femme," "Hard Times," and "Sour and Sweet/Lemon In the Honey" in particular leaned on the big-band side of things.

 

I was a kid when The Kinks made their comeback in the late 70's-early 80's. "Come Dancing" was one of my favorite songs from my early childhood. I may not have known what a "palley" was, but I figured it was like the dance halls and soda shops I saw in movies set in the 40's and 50's and heard about in my parents' stories of their childhoods. Come Dancing With the Kinks features this and more songs from that comeback, including "A Rock and Roll Fantasy," "Low Budget," and "Father Christmas."