Here’s a little side-poll to add to your Oscar ballot for Sunday’s show: who will garner the most applause during the ‘In Memoriam’ segment?

• Jennifer Jones (The Song of Bernadette, Love Is A Many Splendored Thing)
• Al Martino (The Godfather)
• Patrick Swayze (Dirty Dancing, Roadhouse, Ghost, Point Break, Red Dawn)
• Larry Gelbart (Tootsie,  Oh God!)
• John Hughes (Sixteen Candles, Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Pretty In Pink)
• Budd Schulberg (On The Waterfront)
• Karl Malden (On The Waterfront, A Streetcar Named Desire, Patton)
• Farrah Fawcett (The Apostle, Saturn 3)
• David Carradine (Kill Bill)
• Dom DeLuise (The Cannonball Run, History of the World, Pt. 1)
• Ron Silver (Ali, Silkwood)
• James Whitmore (Shawshank Redemption, Give ‘Em Hell Harry)
• Ricardo Montalban (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Escape From The Planet Of The Apes)
• Pat Hingle (Batman, Batman Returns, Batman Forever, Batman & Robin, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby)

Vote early, and vote often!

Way back in 1962 I was hunkered down in front of the black-and-white TV in the family ‘front room’ to get my very first exposure to Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’ at the hands of an adaptation featuring none other than Quincy Magoo himself.

I remembered it so clearly – that famous cartoon character Mr. Magoo, voiced by the fantastic Jim ‘Thurston Howell III’ Backus, fumbling his way into a Broadway theater to take up the role of Ebenezer Scrooge. I remembered the songs, the scenery, everything. And I’ve been longing to see it again ever since, some 47 years (yikes!) later.

Today, it showed up as a multi-part post on one of my favorite blogs, Classic Television Showbiz, which is always posting clips from the Golden Age Of Television (the post about Mitch Miller a year or so ago came from there). I was very enthused, but a little wary – what if Mr. Magoo wasn’t quite as good as I remembered?

There was nothing to fear – it’s still fantastic, and well worth your 45 minutes or so to watch. Just click on the picture and hop on the Way Back Machine!

Today marks the 70th anniversary of the opening of America’s favorite movie, The Wizard Of Oz. I remember it like it was yesterday. No, wait, I don’t remember it at all, as it would be another 18 years before I would be born.

But it seems like I’ve seen it at least once a year for my entire life, and every time I watch it I see something new. I think the most memorable viewing was on a Christmas night back in the ’80s with Rosemary Storm from my old madrigal group (where are you, Rosemary?) at the Stanford Theater in downtown Palo Alto CA. Not only was it the first time I’d seen it on the big screen, but there was a huge Wurlitzer organ in the orchestra pit, and the organist was playing songs from the soundtrack.  When it was time for the film to unreel, he threw a switch on his console, and he and the organ began to descend into the pit, and all the while he was playing ‘Off To See The Wizard’ – magic!

The Wizard of Oz (1939)

Now THIS is pretty cool! Disney has created a website where you can listen to the soundtrack of nearly 50 Disney classic films online – and I’m not talking about just the songs, but the entire soundtrack – dialog and all. In fact, I’m listening to Peter Pan right now, and listening without the visual aspect changes the whole experience.

http://www.tubedisney.com

Sometimes a family portrait can turn out a little unexpectedly, and sometimes it can be downright awkward:

Feast your eyes on this gallery of awkward family photos.

I always thought there were way too few marshmallow bits in a typical box of Lucky Charms.

Enter www.cerealmarshmallows.com, where you can buy the sweet morsels with nary an oat in sight. $15 will get you three eight-ounce bags, but really, what price could anyone put on a mouthful of yellow moons, green clovers and blue horseshoes?

Put ‘em in your bran flakes and really give your colon a twist!

Mitch Miller HATED rock and roll music. During his career as an executive and producer at Columbia Records he supported the signing of Bob Dylan because folk music was sweeping the country at the time, but that’s as close as he got to a electric guitar and drum kit. He eventually lost his job at Columbia due to his refusal to sign acts that teenagers were buying.

Instead he released his own series of records, ‘Sing Along With Mitch’ – LPs in gatefold covers into which were stapled several copies of the lyrics to the songs on the album that could be torn out and passed around at home so everyone could, well, sing along. The ‘Mitch Miller’ sound was instantly identifiable – a very masculine male chorus, harmonica, all soaked in heavy reverb for a spacious sound. They sold in the millions, and even spawned a couple of hits, notable the ‘Colonel Bogey March’ from the movie Bridge On The River Kwai.

His highly-rated television show was a built-in marketing tool for his record sales. Featuring lipsynching by the ‘Sing-Along Gang’ and soloists including Leslie Uggams and Bob McGrath (who went on to much greater fame among the ankle-biters as the friendly singing guy named, strangely enough, ‘Bob’ on Sesame Street), Mitch would stand before the camera and pseudo-conduct America as the song lyrics appeared at the bottom of the TV screen. Generally the songs were old American standards that the older members of his audience (the majority, really) already knew by heart. The show was canceled after four years despite its high ratings because its demographics skewed a little too far into the blue-haired set.

Here’s a link to a fantastic complete show on YouTube, including commercials for orange juice (in black and white – yum!), for a rerelease of Mary Poppins, as well as promos for Flipper, I Dream Of Jeannie, Get Smart and Saturday Night At The Movies. Great stuff!

Classic Television Showbiz

I was fooling around with Google Maps today and I discovered that their Street View service had driven around in the old neighborhood in west Merced:

View Larger Map

Looks like whoever is living there is taking real good care of the place – the lawn is the greenest one on the block.

The grocery store is still a block away and the vacant lot at 8th & S next to the Armory is still vacant. Sheehy looks different and the same at the same time – Mrs. Stout’s kindergarten classroom is still standing. I have weird dreams about Sheehy every once in a while. It’s interesting to ‘drive around’ and see how things have changed in our old stomping grounds.

Judging from what was playing at the downtown cinema, these  pictures probably were taken in August of 2007.

Here’s the link to register for a free visit to a Disney Resort on your birthday! Go ahead – even if you don’t think you’d be able to take advantage of the offer, miracles do happen….