Saturday, February 07, 2026

Olympic Winds

The wind woke me up around 8:30 AM. It was fierce, shaking the pine trees outside and rattling the house to its core. My knee was still pretty sore, too. Between the wind, the extreme cold, my knee, and the snow on the street, there was no way I was going to work. I rang up the Acme and called out, then went back to sleep.

The wind continued to blow hard when I did finally roll out of bed. It must have blown the snow off the street, because Johnson was clear by noon. I hurried downstairs to move the recycling canister closer to the house and empty that...and it was so biting cold, that was the only time I even remotely went outside today.

Warmed up while eating breakfast and watching She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. Three members of the Horde, Kyle, Lonnie, and lizard kid Rogelio, have been sent to pick up supplies by Catra. When their transport is damaged by an acid spore shower, they have to breach "Protocol" and figure out who should be the one to repair it. The same spore shower has also damaged Light Hope and the Crystal Castle while Adora is training there. Light Hope is far sweeter when she's rebooting, showing Adora how much she cared about the previous She-Ra, Mara, before Mara went rogue.

Switched to winter and winter-sports themed specials next. I go further into Frosty's Winter Wonderland, the sequel to the original Rankin-Bass Frosty the Snowman, at my Musical Dreams Movie Reviews blog.


Did the winter sports-themed specials next in honor of the Winter Olympics, which began yesterday. Peppermint Patty is hoping to become the next figure skating diva in She's a Good Skate, Charlie Brown. Snoopy is her relentless manager. Peppermint Patty has to fight local hockey players to get ice time and is convinced Marcie will make her a costume. Marcie can't sew, and Snoopy ends up doing that, too. We learn what Snoopy can't do when the tape for her music gets tangled, and Woodstock ends up bailing her out.

The Pink Panther is off to Lake Placid for the Olym-Pinks in this 1980 special. He's the star of the ski team, to the frustration and resentment of his long-nosed rival with the mustache. His rival constantly attempts to one-up Pink and only ends up with a cold and second place for his troubles. Meanwhile, Pink has his own problems dodging a piano that is determined to follow him everywhere, even onto a live wire.

Put up the Valentine's Day decorations as well as I could with my knee next. I put off putting them up because of my knee, but I really wanted to get them up before the actual holiday. I have two thick red and white tinsel garlands, one of which went in front of the TV on the media center. There were also two heart-shaped candy boxes that were too pretty to throw away, a pink bear-shaped tin, two vintage cut-outs from the 70's and 80's depicting a bear holding a heart and a Holly Hobbie-type pioneer girl whose puppy is giving her kittens, a giant cut-out cardboard heart, and three stuffed animals. Valentina the Love Penguin and Amoura the Love Frog are leftover from the WebKinz fad of the 2000's and early 2010's. Valentino is a Valentine's Beanie Bear. 

Switched to Superheroes: A Never-Ending Battle at YouTube next. Drawing the WENN superhero artwork with the kids got me thinking of my ideas for my (hopefully) upcoming WENN superhero story Captain Victor, Man of Power. This three-part PBS documentary covers the origins of superheroes during the Great Depression, how they flourished during World War II, then vanished in the 50's once the threat was over and all comics became suspect to high-minded intellectuals. They made a comeback in the pop-art 60's when the Batman TV show became a sensation, and superhero comics began to embrace stronger themes and more diverse characters.

Finished the night at YouTube with the Match Game marathon. Match Game is also celebrating sports this weekend with the first of two sports-themed marathons. This one revolves around questions on Olympic sports like skating, track and field, and gymnastics. The vast majority of these questions occurred in 1976, when the Montreal Olympics were running, or in 1980 during the Lake Placid Winter Olympics. There were jokes about what Pinocchio used his nose for, about a warden who lamented that he shouldn't have let his prisoners do Olympic sports that involved jumping over walls, and involving the things gymnasts do. We heard sports questions during the week in late 1975 where Richard Dawson's then-girlfriend Jodie Donovan appeared, when Fannie sat in for Brett during the last week of 1977, when Brett Somers came in wearing a West Hollywood Olympics shirt, prompting jokes from her best female friend Marcia Wallace about what she actually won at said Olympics.

Celebrate the Winter Olympics with this hilarious Wide World of Game Show Sports!

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