A Spoopy Month: Happy Halloween from Mysterious Mose!

Here it is -- my ultimate Halloween post for 2015!

If you've ever spent more than ten minutes with me in person during the month of October, I've probably made you watch this. If so, I implore you to watch it again. This is a 1998 film based around a 1930 novelty record, and I'd love this song even if the accompanying visuals weren't so great.

Sidebar: Why didn't the Bonzo Dog (Doo Dah) band ever record this song? I love their Monster Mash, and even considering the low budget, their visual presentation of the song is ambitious and fun. I would love at least one more spooky, atmospheric song from them, and a cover of this would fit the bill and meet their early-years need for generations-old novelty songs.

I've always loved this film, since it uses puppetry and stop-motion animation and even some shadow animation to tell a weird, spooky, wacky story. There's a graveyard jamboree (you could almost call it a swingin' wake) and Mose has to round up (or dig up) all the musicians for the show.

Okay, so maybe it's light on plot, but each frame of this does something interesting, and it's obvious that each character and set was built by hand in the real world. In 1998, computer animation wasn't as advanced as it is now, but the love and hard work invested in this production clearly shine through as the textural opposite of that year's metallic, shiny CGI-fests Godzilla and Armageddon. In just a few years, CGI would've been an affordable method to remove all the visible rods from the puppets and special effects, but the directors don't care -- the handmade nature of this is an important part of the fun.

Appropriately, there are a few mysteries I don't get about this video: first off, do I know this guy from somewhere else? This weird green bird only has a few seconds of screen time, but he rang distant bells in my head I can't place. (Sure, he looks a LEEETLE like Jose Carioca, but not much.)

Secondly, the credits thank Don Sahlin. Everyone else in the thank you section (that a quick googly search will find, anyway) seems to have had something to do with the actual production, but Sahlin died twenty years before this film was made. He was, of course, enormously influential in the worlds of both stop-motion and puppetry, working with George Pal and Burr Tillstrom and designing/building most of your favorite Muppets in their first incarnations. At least one of the other credits appears to be a joke ("Costumes by Cesar Romero"), but this sticks with me.

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Looking back from the end of this month, I've certainly missed posting a few days, but I wrote more things than I did in December last year, and I consider that a win. I'm hoping to post more regularly (if less frequently) in the future, so watch this space! Thanks, all, for your kind attention. Have a great Halloween night!

A Spoopy Month: Happy Halloween from Betty Boop!

I've missed quite a few days this month, but I posted more times than in December, so I'll call that a victory. No matter what, I wanted to post on the day itself.

Betty Boop first appeared this same year, and she was less human and more dog in this, one of her very earliest cartoons. (Her best-known voice actor, Mae Questal, hadn't taken over the role yet.) In this cartoon, despite her high quota of screen time, Betty is nonetheless a second banana to the nominal star of this cartoon, Bimbo.

Betty is still not as grown-up sexy as she'd come to be shortly -- the joke about her shirt being literally scared off her is played entirely for laughs, and it doesn't feel particularly scandalous or titillating, which we always think coexists with the laughter in Betty's work.

So Betty's in bed late at night, and the wind is blowing, trees are rattling, animals are making spooky noises outside her window, and she's scared! It's so spooky that her hair goes white for a few seconds. Then, she meets a shadowy shape shifter, and he brings his bug and bat friends to serenade her with a strange, unearthly song.

This is more a weird romance cartoon (I'm trying not to think too hard of the creepy, Twilight-y implications of the girl falling in love with the guy who breaks into her house at night) than a straight-up scary picture. There are quite a few spookier Betty Boop cartoons, but the reason for my sharing this one will become clear later today, when I post my final Halloween thing.

Hard to believe, but I couldn't find a buy link for today's cartoon, so please just watch it on YouTube again...

A Spoopy Month #23: Grim Grinning Ghosts

Hi, and sorry again for the recent lack of posts. I had big plans for today, but no time to execute them. (Get it? Halloween? Murder pun? Never mind.)

So here is a link to my old post from 2008, wherein I talk a little about one of the catchiest ghost songs of all time, "Grim Grinning Ghosts" from Disney's Haunted Mansion.

The download link, like all the rest on that blog, is long-since dead, but I've once again made the songs available, for a limited time only. If you like what you hear, please go buy the songs from the copyright holders. And if you're reading this past, say, November 15th or so, don't be surprised if the link is down. Sorry.

Did you know that title comes from Shakespeare? In "Venus and Adonis," he wrote:

...Hateful divorce of love,'—thus chides she Death,—
'Grim-grinning ghost, earth's worm, what dost thou mean
To stifle beauty and to steal his breath,
Who when he liv'd, his breath and beauty set
Gloss on the rose, smell to the violet?''

And now that I've given you your culture for the day, get to listening! I've already got two posts in the pipeline for tomorrow, and one of them is, like, my favorite thing ever. See ya then!

A Spoopy Month #22: Keebler Pumpkin Spice Fudge Stripes

Holy cats, I'm waaaay behind. Here's a quick one for today - promise to make it up to you.

As usual, my own pictures didn't look very good, so here's a picture I stole from someone else (sorry, Margaret!):

Wow. These were a lot better than I expected. They have the same consistency of regular Fudge Stripes, with a thin cookie and nearly as much "fudge" on the bottom. I was expected a graham cracker-style cookie, but the cookie is more like a ginger snap. It's not sharp, but there's a huge amount of ginger there, just perfect to balance with the creamy fudge.

There are a LOT of cookies in this pack, and I don't think I want more than two or three in a setting. Unless I have a cold glass of milk.  ... I just realized I should probably buy some milk after work.

A Spoopy Month #21: Newsradio "Daydream"

So, two weeks after their official Halloween episode, Paul Simms and his silly friends did another spooky thing, and it's just one layer of one of the best Newsradios ever.

The office A/C is out of order (Joe's working on it!) and it's leading everyone to have some strange daydreams. Bill, of course, is having fantasy makeout sessions with all the ladies, and Lisa is trying desperately to craft a proper verbal comeback to Dave.

Sidebar: Of course Lisa won't match Dave's quickness -- she enjoys fast-talking verbal barbs, My Girl Friday-style, but after one quick exchange she's usually spent. Why oh why isn't Maura Tierney still working in comedy? I haven't seen her current show (though I made the mistake of trying both of Dave's last shows), but I don't imagine it gives her much opportunity to make with the yuk-yuks.

Dave just wants people to do something (work would be nice). Catherine is imagining more people of color in the office (including her future Treme husband), but only ends up with poor Joe Furey, fresh off his triumph as the mime who wouldn't shut up in our last episode.

Beth is more out of it than most, since she and Matthew stayed up all night watching horror movies, so she keeps seeing Matthew as every scary movie. (He's Chucky! He's Jason! He's Dracula! He's Alien!) We spend a large portion of this episode as Beth relives the most iconic horrors of recent times.

Meanwhile, the A/C's still out, and Joe's still working on it! And he can only dream of the day he's converted everyone else into robots to do his bidding.

This won't be the first time I've mentioned my love for audio commentaries, and the one recorded for this episode is a doozy. It's got creator Paul Simms, along with Dave and Vicki Lewis and Andy Dick. And Andy Dick, predictably, doesn't remember much about the episode. (My friend went to the recent stage reunion of the cast and tells me this is still the dynamic among the cast: We love Andy, and he's special, but...)

This is the first "weird" Newsradio episode, and the first they filmed without a live audience. The writing is incredibly tight, but still has room for things like the daydream of Howie, the little old man who runs the snack cart and is never heard from again. The nesting daydream of Matthew with red "Thriller" eyes perfectly mirrors the inescapable dreamlike horror of the ending of that video.

And speaking of iconic endings of things, let's spend a second on St. Elsewhere, shall we? I've only ever seen one episode, but I know the ending is a direct lift from that, theme music and all. It's weird, but I still get a little emotional at this episode's end. He doesn't say it much, but we know (or at least desperately need to believe) that Jimmy truly loves all the nutballs at his radio station, and the sweet chiming music (no matter where it's from) can make me mist up a little. I'm really grateful for the joy this show has brought me (and I believe most of the cast and crew truly felt like a family during the production), and the ten seconds of elegy for the show, midway through its run, is both ridiculous and touching. When this show's actual end came, it was messy and disheartening, not at all what I hoped it would or could be. So, I'll take what I can get.


As an episode of Newsradio, I rate this 10/10. I'm tempted to go higher -- this is a paradigm-setting part of this show, and led to even higher flights of fancy later, but remains grounded and in-universe.
As a Halloween episode, I rate this 4/10. We don't spend a large percentage of our time on scary things (though I count Joe's cyborg fantasy in that), but it is solid and fun.

A Spoopy Month #20: Newsradio "Halloween"

Let's lighten up a little bit, shall we? Here's a great Halloween episode, from one of my favorite TV shows of all time.

Newsradio was on the air for too short a time, just one of the many casualties of our country's dearth of mental health care. (Wow, sorry, I really WANTED to lighten things up.) And in season three, they made two great Halloweeny episodes. This first one is set on the most wonderful day of the year, and actually aired on Halloween Eve, 1996. I hope you've seen it, since we're, as always, spoilertasmic from here on out.

As a Newsradio superfan (no, really, I have the costume and everything), I'm no longer capable of being surprised by anything in this episode, or even remembering my first impressions. But, there are a lot of great, memorable moments in this episode.

Probably most notably, this is the episode that let Dave Foley wear a dress. At the time, he was still best known for KITH, and the audience cheers at his reveal. Of course, it happens because Dave and Lisa are scrapping over who's in charge, and they have to outdo each other to impress Mr. James. (Jimmy's line about zig-zagging is still one of my twenty most-quoted sayings from the show, and his completely dry delivery is just another example of his brilliant, unpredictable characterization.)

The rest of the staff are in costumes too, and they're all reflections of their personalities: Beth's ballerina, Catherine's queen, Joe's doctor (how in god's name did Jimmy correctly guess he's an alien autopsy coroner?), and Matthew is ...not pulling it off. 

Sidebar: This is the first time I've seen this episode out of context, without other episodes around it, and I was really struck by the gay jokes. Even considering Andy Dick's complex sexuality, I'm surprised how casually the writers threw around stereotypes for a quick and dirty laugh. (I expect Joe to say thoughtless things, but Jimmy's almost dismissive description of Matthew's costume feels out-of-place, both from his character and on this show.)

Oh, but Bill's not interested in costumes. He's doomed, y'see. In retrospective, one of the show's creepier moments is when the psychic predicts Bill's death. (I know, I know, I'm sorry! Lighter and funnier! I promise!) So he meets a woman who helps him put things in perspective and live one day at a time.

So the older lady (the actress is best-known from Donnie Darko) reminds Bill, and all of us, what Halloween's about -- death comes for us all, which is why "tonight, we dance!" And, fittingly, the episode ends with a quick moral lesson for Bill, and then a funny dance. (Why, it's like Matthew put himself into the mind of a robot.)

As an episode of Newsradio, I rate this 8/10. Everyone has something to do, and most of it's both in-character and funny.
As a Halloween episode, I rate this 6/10. Sure, it's a Halloween party, and everyone's in costume, but there's nothing scary and not even a spooky song (sorry, Jimmy, but The Hokey-Pokey will never be spooky).

A Spoopy Month #19: Apt Pupil (audiobook version)

The next novella in Stephen King's Different Seasons collection is Apt Pupil. This was only my second time reading this story (and, until last week, I'd never seen the movie, but more about that later). I remembered the basic bones of the plot, but none of the details.

This is deeply disturbing for me, and I'm used to being disturbed by fiction. I can easily imagine some people, who view King as a populist genre hack, looking down on his retelling of some of our worst atrocities as a species. I personally love Stephen King as a storyteller -- even when his plots are formulaic, his people almost always shine (no pun intended originally, but I kinda like that double meaning upon reflection). He is at his best writing people, and it's hard to take when the people I'm feeling for get eaten by monsters or tortured or evilly enabled by Nazis.

Apt Pupil isn't King's best work, but it includes some great characters (I love the characterizations of Monica and Rubber Ed) and some of his most grisly portrayals of cruelty. The narrator of my audiobook edition, Frank Muller, again does honor to the story and characters. In Muller's tones, Denker steers clear of stereotyped speech patterns. It would be tempting for a reader to soften the hard edges of this story, to add warmth and humanity, but Muller also avoids that temptation.

Tomorrow, I'll talk about the regrettable film of this book.

Once again, the CD version of this audiobook is much cheaper, so the link goes there.

A Spoopy Month #18: The Wasp Woman

It's my last Corman of this October. It's 1959's The Wasp Woman.

To be completely honest, this was a much better movie than I expected. Well, let me rephrase. The story, and implications, of this film were much better than I expected. The film shows all the hallmarks of early low-budget Corman productions, the science makes no sense at all, and the monster makeup at the end of the movie is truly laughable. But the meaning of the film shouldn't be laughed at, not at all.

First off, this is a unique type of mad-scientist-makes-monster movie. To start with, the scientist isn't mad at all. As this article points out, our Dr. Zinthrop is cautious and methodical. Unique among movie scientists, his experimental documentation is painstaking and complete. The monster only happens because Dr. Zinthrop is required, for plot purposes, to stagger into traffic before he can stop the abuse of his method.

And why is our heroine, Janice Starlin, abusing his method in the first place? Well, she's a woman who got ahead in business using the only tools available to her in 1940's and 50's America: her youth and beauty. Since she abdicated her role as spokesperson for her cosmetics company, sales have been dropping. And she only abdicated because -- horror of horrors -- she's starting to look like she's on the far side of 30! So when Dr. Zinthrop's youth restoration method isn't working fast enough for her, Janice goes behind his back to multiply her personal dosage of his untested drug, a drug he didn't want to give her in the first place.

Don't get me wrong -- Ms. Starlin is far, far more than just a pretty face. The movie goes out of its way to show us she has a keen business sense and a strong grasp on the whims of the market. But she's lost confidence in her physical appearance. The age-makeup worn by the actress is fairly good for a film of this era and budget, but the youth makeup, when Janice starts to feel 20 again, is only part of the bargain. When the treatment has finally taken hold, Janice feels 20, and that gives her a bounce in her step and a huge smile. More importantly, it makes her once again feel confident that she can not only run her company, but serve as the trusted public face. 

On the other hand, now she's some kind of monster who kills people, drinks their blood, and (thankfully offscreen) is probably eating every bit of their bodies. She's going through at least one a day by the end, and no amount of market share is worth that.

In the end, this monster is made not by the evils of science, toying with things man was not meant to know, but by internalized sexism. The female voices in this movie are strong, and mostly admirable (or at least relatable), but it's clear that AMERICAN INDUSTRY is still very much a man's man's man's world. 

We all see what we expect to see -- it's part of the human condition. When the male board members of Starlin Cosmetics see Janice Starlin showing doubt and weakness, it never occurs to them that they might play some part in her self-doubt. When Janice looks in the mirror near the end, and sees herself looking 20 years younger, it never occurs to her that her smile and wide-open eyes have so much to do with it. And when we look back on a movie with this title, made by Roger Corman in this era, with this budget, we don't expect to have to think much about it. It's so easy to write it off as another cheapy monster exploitation movie (it even quotes the previous year's The Fly, as Janice screams "Help meeee!"). But we're better off if we don't. 

This film is, again, in the public domain, so you can watch it (or download it) at archive.org, which includes the ten minutes of extra padding added to the film (the loooooong opening sequence, where Dr. Zinthrop walks through fields and gets fired from his previous job, and the looooong search scene, where police drive around and around, looking for him since he was foolish enough to wander into traffic without carrying ID). I can't find a release of the film with that stuff taken back out, but here's a buy link for you anyway, just in case:

A Spoopy Month #17: Rita Hayworth And The Shawshank Redemption

Uh-oh, missed a day there. I'll try to get an extra post in here sometime soon.

Starting this summer, I've been enjoying the audiobook versions of all of Stephen King's short fiction. I made it through all the short stories in about six weeks, and I've finally started the novella collections. The first one in his first collection is probably the best-known, and quite possibly just the flat-out best.

Of course I've seen, and of course I truly love, the film version of this story, and of all the King adaptations I've seen, it's not only the best but also the most faithful to the source material. If you've seen the film, 90% of what you saw on screen is from this novella (apart from the great PA classical music scene), and 90% of the important parts of the novella made it into the movie.

If you've watched the movie more than once, and will gladly watch it again, why not try the novella? You can get a paper copy for cheap, and this audio version, read by Frank Muller, is great. Muller doesn't spend too much time giving particularly unique voices to the characters (does it mean I'm 3 years old if I prefer that in my audiobooks?), but he acts each part to the fullest.

I've linked you to the CD version, as it's cheaper, but if you prefer the digital download on Audible, it's just a click away:

A Spoopy Month #16: Charms Candy Corn Super Blow Pop

I tried to take my own picture of this tasty piece of sugar, but it didn't come out well at all. So here's picture I stole from a quick Google Image search:

When you open a Candy Corn Blow Pop, the first thing you get is the smell. This sucker SMELLS like candy corn. If you opened two at once, your whole house would smell like Halloween for an hour.

And it tastes fantastic, like candy corn and a little bit of butterscotch. That might seem like a low bar to set, but after the disappointment of the Candy Corn Peeps, I'm really enjoying this sucker. This is a nice big lollipop, and as you can see from the picture up there, it looks good and candy-corn-ish. This is the third blogpost I've written while working on this Blow Pop, and I've just now gotten into the bubblegum center, which is... interesting. It's just standard bubblegum, which you wouldn't expect to work with the candy corn, but it's great for the few minutes the sugar sticks around.

Anyway, this cost me under a buck at a local gas station, and you can probably find them at any number of random places near you. OR, if you wanna go all in, why not buy 48 of them?

Charms Candy Corn Super Blow Pops - 48 Pack