Began the day with apple pie for breakfast and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Plus. Daisy takes the others mini golfing, but she finds more holes than there should be on the course. She and the others have to figure out who made those holes, and how to help them and still let Daisy get her hole in one.
Rushed off to work the moment the cartoon ended. Work was busier than I thought it would be for the day after Thanksgiving, especially early-on. It did slow down later in the morning as more people focused on other types of shopping. It being a cold day probably didn't help. It was sunny, yes, but still very windy and bitterly cold, barely in the 40's. The wind didn't make gathering carts easy! They all tried to blow away from me.
And I got my schedule next week. In good news, three days off the Acme in a row, including Sunday. I'll be having my annual pre-Christmas get-together with my friend Amanda that day. In bad news, fewer hours, and working next Wednesday and Friday means I'll have two days next week where I have to rush between jobs.
Did this week's grocery shopping after I finished my shift. Mainly needed to restock apples, yogurt, soda, and granola bars. Found the Acme's generic organic chocolate chunk-coconut granola on clearance. I've never seen Fresca at the Audubon Acme, but they did have Orange Vanilla Coke Zero. Got something small for Amanda, along with cards and candy canes for the Christmas tree (which I'll be putting up this weekend).
Went home and put everything away, then watched two episodes of What's New, Scooby Doo? while eating leftovers for lunch. "Gold Paw" is a gold-covered spook running around Fort Knox, turning military officers into gold statues. Mystery Inc is there to visit Scooby's old friends the Secret Six puppies, who have been tired and going to bed with dirty paws. Turns out they and the Gold-ade Factory next door are at the heart of a mystery revolving around mysteries military explosions that are damaging the factory.
"Reef Grief!" has one of the most unique monsters in the entire franchise, and may be one of the very few times the monster in question wasn't really the villain. Scooby, Shaggy, and the others are in Australia for a major sand castle building contest. The entrants have just begun to disappear under the sand when an enormous coral creature appears, attacking everyone. When Shaggy and Scooby vanish too, the others have to figure out why the creature has left the Great Barrier Reef, and who's the one who is really behind the disappearances.
Headed back out after Scooby ended. After a brief check around Target for one last Christmas present, I finished my grocery shopping at Sprouts. Picked up coconut milk, soda, and peanut butter cookies. They still had plenty of the apple fritter-flavored cranberries left, so I grabbed some of those, too.
Spent the next hour after I got in and put everything away taking down the Thanksgiving and fall decorations. I'll be putting the Christmas decorations starting tomorrow afternoon. After I got everything down, I vacuumed and Swiftered everything.
Listened to two more True Value Happy Holidays records as I worked. Volume 13 from 1978 is the oldest True Value collection I currently own. 13 and 16 have pretty similar line-ups, probably due to both being from RCA. Both feature Julie Andrews, who sings "Deck the Halls" in 16 and "Jingle Bells" in 13. Perry Como kicks 13 off with "There's No Christmas Like a Home Christmas" and gets "Christ Is Born" in 16. Both feature at least one country singer. Charlie Pride performs "Christmas and Love" in 13, while Dottie West gets the sweet "You are My Christmas, Carol" in 16. Eugene Armandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra perform "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear" in 13 and "Angels We Have Heard On High" in 16. Henry Mancini and His Orchestra have "The Christmas Song" in 13 and a medley of traditional carols in 16.
Volume 13 also tosses in Danny Davis and the Nashville Brass with a livelier "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town." Lorne Greene recites The Night Before Christmas on Volume 16. Also on 16, we have Roger Whittaker performing "Christmas Is Here Again," and Ella Fitzgerald's rollicking "Sleigh Ride."
Had dinner and watched Match Game '76 and '78 while eating dinner. We started out with the smoky-voiced older contestant Evelyn finishing her long run. For some reason, they skipped way ahead after that to early 1978, before the set changed and Richard left. Joe Gargiola's only week on the show coincided with the introduction of a new camera angle that showed the backs of the panelists and what they were doing. Betty White and Debralee Scott had more fun flirting with the camera and flouting the new angle.
Watched Nutcracker: The Motion Picture on Tubi next. This exquisite version of the beloved ballet was filmed in 1986, with genuinely creepy sets and costumes designed by Maurice Sendak, of Little Critter and Where the Wild Things Are fame. Certainly, the squat, big-toothed Nutcracker looks like his work. Though the first half is pretty consistent with other retellings, it's the second half where this differs. The Spanish dancers are Arabian, and the Arabian Dance is performed by a woman in a peacock costume. The Chinese dancers perform with a huge gnome. Even Drosselmeyer goes Arabian in the second half, where he directly competes with the Nutcracker Prince for a decidedly adult Clara. This is also another version where Clara and the Nutcracker Prince take over the Sugar Plum Fairy's dances. The unique sets and costumes alone make this worth seeing for fans of The Nutcracker or ballet in general.
Finished the night at YouTube for something else that's truly unique. Kevin Perjurer of Defunctland created a four and a half hour documentary on the Walt Disney Company's attempt to create "Living Characters," aka Audio-Anamatronics that can talk and interact with theme park guests. They were apparently really gung-ho on this in the 2000's and early 2010's, but mobile figures like Bunsen and Beaker in their own Muppet Lab or a dinosaur that moved and pulled a cart proved too expensive, too difficult to maintain, and too prone to breakdowns.
Animated puppet shows like Talk With Crush at the Living Seas With Nemo that gave audiences a chance to talk (and flirt) with versions of a beloved character were cheaper and went over slightly better with Imagineeers and audiences. There were supposed to have been droids and more "living characters" in Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge, but cost-cutting and the difficulty with their maintenance ended that idea. I didn't know anyone could do a four and a half hour documentary on the history of Disney's attempt to make robots that interact with guests, but Kevin knows how to make even the driest bit of theme park history vastly entertaining and even hilarious. If you have any interest in the history of robots and Disney's involvement with them, you owe it to yourself to check this out, even if you have to break it down into a couple of days' viewing like I did.
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