The HMO Christmas '06 Mix! Part Two!

Yep, time for the conclusion of this annual non-tradition. Yesterday I tackled my favorite religious songs and today I'll tackle my favorite secular Christmas songs, replete with smartass comments.

• I should probably start off with the unofficial family theme song "Merry Christmas from the Family," a tribute to those dysfunctional family gatherings. This song will forever bring back memories of Christmas 2004, aka Pukepalooza. For more reference, look for the "12 Days of Hell" post from January '05.
• "Deck the Halls." The Muppets had a helluva good version. For me, though, I'll forever remember it from the Chinese singers in A Christmas Story. Lest I come off as a Rosie O'Fatass ripoff, I'll refrain from posting the lyrics.
• "The Twelve Days of Christmas." There's a few variations of it that I like: The Muppets' version (my 29-year-old sister cracks up when Beaker "sings"), the Sesame Street version (where I snigger at the mere thought of Bert and "five argyle socks." And Cookie Monster...Eatin' Cookie. Aggh!), and Bob Rivers' "Twelve Pains" parody, which is an absolute riot.
• "The Night Santa Went Crazy" by Weird Al. Not for younger listeners, especially the extra gory version where a SWAT guy busts a cap in Santa.
• Another Weird Al songs, "Christmas at Ground Zero," which tells of the fun we'll have after Iran and North Korea nuke us and we blame Bush. Because, like everything is Bush's fault. (turns off "Liberal" switch)
• "Frosty the Snowman." Possibly my favorite Rankin/Bass special. As I've said before, I can do a helluva imitation of Jimmy Durante. The sequel with John Goodman was OK, but that ranks third. The first is obviously the R/B, second the recent special with Turd Ferguson as the narrator and Patrick from SpongeBob as Frosty.
• "Christmas, Baby (Please Come Home)" by Darlene Love. David Letterman has declared this "the best rock and roll Christmas song" in his opinion. Note to self: tape Friday's Letterman. Darlene sings the song each year, along with Jay Thomas knocking the meatball off the tree and Paul Shaffer's "O Holy Night" performance.
• "Holly Jolly Christmas" as performed by Burl Ives in that Rankin/Bass special about that reindeer with a red nose. On a side note, my dad hated Hermey the Elf with a passion. He did like Yukon Cornelius, though. VIVA BUNGLES!
• "Rusty Chevrolet" by Da Yoopers, a tale of living in the Upper Midwest during the winter. Good times.
• "Merry Fucking Christmas" from the South Park Christmas Album "Mr. Hankey's Christmas Classics." This song features Mr. Garrison spreading goodwill around the world as only Mr. Garrison could. If you'd play it now, certain minority groups will declare war and make a horrible fuss.
• "Auld Lang Syne" the first song of the New Year. Note to self: buy booze, Dew, Cheetos, Tylenol, and some batteries. Batteries? That's for me to know and you not to know.

OTHER FAVORITE THINGS:

• Film-wise, I love A Christmas Story and try to watch about four times during its traditional daylong Christmas marathon. There's so many good highlights in this film: there's The Old Man cursing up a storm; Ralphie cursing in front of The Old Man and blaming it on Schwartz; the leg lamp; the kid that sticks his tongue to the flagpole, and Ralphie beating the crap out of Scut Farkus.
• I'm not sure how this film became a Christmas tradition, but my sister and I are huge fans of The Sound of Music. She bought the CD not too long ago and we sang along to just about every song. Except for the one with the yodeling goats. Yeah, we're Norwegian, but we can't fucking yodel.
• And on that segue, I'm now in hysterics over the words "fucking yodel," so I'll just link you here. Suck on that, Von Trapps!
• If it's a Rankin/Bass Christmas special, by default it kicks ass. Unless it's the one with the Leprechaun and his Christmas gold. I still don't get that one.
• I just purchased the soundtrack to A Charlie Brown Christmas. It's good stuff, man.
• I still need to purchase Mr. Hankey's Christmas Classics. There's more than just Mr. Garrison's song, m'kay?
• And WGN in 2005 put out a special highlighting its three kids show. The most prominent was of course Bozo. Any Midwestern child growing up in the early '60s - late '90s will remember that Bozo always had three classic Christmas shorts: "Suzy Snowflake," "Frosty the Snowman," and the immortal "Hardrock, Coco and Joe." The latter is quite possibly the most ass-kickingest black-and-white animated clip EVER. It even has yodeling! (Fuck, you just can't get enough of it!!) And yep, more than a few Midwesterners have it on YouTube. I picked one at random which you can find here. Tell him BlanketyBlog sent you.

I should probably put the ribbon on this before I find anymore bizarro Christmas songs.

Speaking on behalf of the rest of The Family,

Have a very Merry Christmas and a blessed 2007.

The HMO Christmas '06 Mix!! Part One

It's that time of year again...the list of songs I can tolerate listening to for about a month (and up to Epiphany at Church). I decided to make this easier by doing two parts; today will be the religious songs.

In no particular order.....

• "Joy to the World." This has become a sort of running joke in our family. Every Christmas Eve we go to Mass, and tradition states that one of us has to say "the last song is 'Joy to the World.'" At which point one of us, who's browsing the missalette for the roughly eight songs to be sung that night will find out that the last song is indeed "Joy to the World" and start laughing. I can't imagine this year being any different.
• "O Come All Ye Faithful," which earns its infamy in the family for being the song I projectile-vomited to. I couldn't help it; I had the stomach bug but attendance was required at the Christmas program. Considering some people tape the program every year, I'm surprised as to why Bob Saget never introduced it on TV.

Speaking of the Christmas program, it was amusing seeing the mad rush to the kindergarten room after class to see the score of the Packers game. Since the program will end during roughly around the end of the third quarter, I can imagine there'll be a crowd.

• "Hark the Herald Angels Sing." A classic. Thank goodness Charles Schulz was able to keep the religious stuff in A Charlie Brown Christmas because the final scenes of the kids singing this is epic.
• "Little Drummer Boy." Rock-and-roll's earliest roots. Heh.
• "What Child is This?" which marks a rare occurence of kids swearing at Mass. Wait till the Palm Sunday reading when they hear what Jesus rode into Jerusalem.
• Anything "Emmanuel."
• "O Holy Night." Best version: Cher's. See Shaffer, Paul.
• "We Three Kings." You'd be surprised that religious kids make fun of this song.
• "Silent Night," one the faculty grew to hate. Namely, because when we got to "Sleep in heavenly peace," we stretched "peace" into something Mariah Carey would sing.

That wraps up part one. Tomorrow or Monday, Part Two, featuring the more secular stuff, as well as my personal all-time favorites that I can't stop listening to.

BlanketyBlog Retro: The Rankin-Bass/South Park Thread

In honor of the holiday specials that air non-stop until December 25, I thought I'd drag this out of storage. Being a huge South Park fan, and having watched enough Rankin/Bass specials to virtually imitate the Charlie in the Box or Jimmy Durante, I did some research and found out that Matt and Trey must be big on stop-motion too.

Let's go back, then...

I've almost made this a regular feature in my episode descriptions. For one thing, I've watched so many Rankin/Bass specials I could spot the gag in the episode.With the help of alt.tv.southpark via Google Groups, here's the list of R/B jokes in South Park:"Chef's Salty Chocolate Balls." The return appearance by Mr. Hankey. When our beloved talking poo suffers a shitty (rimshot) demise, we're treated to a solemn rendtion of the Mr. Hankey theme complete with montage. This bit was inspired by Frosty the Snowman; after Frosty melts we hear Jimmy Durante's sad version of the song, and the Frosty montage.

"Sexual Harassment Panda." After Sexual Harassment Panda is fired by the school as a result of the budget cuts resulting from the sexual harassment lawsuits, he ends up on the Island of Misfit Mascots. Of course, if you've watched Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer, you'll get the joke. If you don't, it's merely a play on "Island of Misfit Toys."

"Mr. Hankey's Christmas Classics." The mailman at the beginning is a clear rip of Fred Astaire's role in Santa Claus is Coming to Town.

"Wacky Molestation Adventure." Kyle writes to Castro in Cuba to change his ways, complete with picture of sad Kyle. This was inspired by the "Blue Christmas" scene in The Year Without a Santa Claus where a sad girl writes to Santa.

"A Very Crappy Christmas." I'll be damned if it isn't a complete spoof of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas. Both plots are the same: a plot centered on bringing Christmas spirit back to a town, a child questioning the holiday (Albert/Cornwallis), an important item breaking and being fixed by the questioning child (the film/clock), and even the immortal song "Even a Miracle Needs a Hand." Even Mr. Hankey's family is an homage to the Mice family (George Gobel's character as the mouse father helping Albert fix his mistake)

"The Death Camp of Tolerance." After Lemmiwinks is shoved into Mr. Slave, the music the plays when he's traveling is inspired by The Hobbit's theme music "The Greatest Adventure."

"Red Sleigh Down." The boys, after receiving their most-wanted present, develop the Rankin/Bass faces from 'Twas the Night Before Christmas. Watch and you'll get it.

UPDATE: Here's one I totally forgot about. In "Woodland Critter Christmas," the "Christmas Comes Once a Year" song is a spoof of a song from The Year Without a Santa Claus. No, not the Miser songs.

Hopefully, Trey and Matt will insert another Rankin/Bass homage into another episode. It's neat, funny, and it makes me feel a little smarter.

By the way, if there's any reference I've missed, please include them in the comments thread.

Happy Birthday to Meee!

And I'm eatin'....CUPCAKE! Ah ha ha ha ha!!

At 4:45 AM, your not-humble blogger turned 24 years of age. My birthday actually went very well. I got my winter haircut (I'm notorious in salon circles as having the thickest hair they've ever seen), and I did most of my Christmas shopping.

Present wise? 20 bucks, a $20 Bath and Body Works card, another pair of blue jeans, and the biggie, a 7" portable DVD player. We only have one DVD player in the house, so I'm limited if I want to pop in Blazing Saddles or Team America. Now with my new portable DVD player, I can watch movies in my room. Now I have to figure out what new DVDs I'd like to go with it.

Yes, I did have Mountain Dew. By my estimation, one 20 oz. bottle and a good portion of my sister's 2-liter. It goes well with pizza and cupcakes.

So now comes Christmas...I can hardly wait.

There may be some sarcasm in that.

B Minus 2...and Still Eatin' the Damn Cookie

Ahhh! Make it stop!!

In other news, it's still friggin' cold. And I get paid tomorrow. Plus, it's supposed to be 40 by Saturday. In other words, perfect birthday weather.

Look for the first batch of holiday blogging by tomorrow. I'm tempted to drag out an old Christmas post, plus I'm compiling the 2006 Song List.

If you'll excuse me, I'm going to get about four blankets and some hot chocolate.

B Minus 3...and Still Eatin' Cookie

Damn you, Cookie Monster!!

Yeah, I still can't get that song out of my head.

I just finished watching one of the funnier episodes of South Park's 10th season, titled "Miss Teacher Bangs a Boy." In it, your typical young blond teacher hits on an underage boy. In this case, it's Kyle's kindergarten-age brother Ike. Yeah. That's not even the best part of the episode; the episode is dominated by Cartman acting like Dog the Bounty Hunter. Good shit.

A quickie question to the readers; if it's your birthday, and you had your choice of where you wanted to eat, where would you go? That's the question I'm facing, and I'm drawing a blank.

Time to plug in the car; it's going to be cold as hell tonight.

B Minus 7....and Eatin' Cookie

Ahh, December. The last month of the year, and probably the busiest too. December happens to be the hot spot on my calendar too. You have Christmas, obviously, and New Years. Of course, before all that, I have December 9 to look forward too. Yep, the Dew Goddess has a birthday on the horizon. I can see the cake already....yeah.

At least when Birthday Number 24 comes, I'll be over my second major illness of the year. I've had a sore throat that's been a pain in the ass. After the throat began aching, the nose got stuffed and swallowing was a bitch. Fortunately, enough generic Nyquil and Dayquil will do the job. As of now, it's a runny nose and the pain while swallowing is only very little. How the hell I got sick, I don't know.

Meanwhile, I've overdosed on football. Too much college, and too much NFL. Having got DISH, the NFL Network has been on my 13-inch Daewoo more often than not.

And I must be hitting that age where kiddie stuff has now become old-school; I had it on Noggin one day before work and the show happened to be Play With Me Sesame. That happens to be a show with Bert, Ernie, Prairie Dawn, and Lovable Furry Blue God--er, Grover, encouraging kids to get off their asses, exercise, and draw stuff.

What made it appealing to me is the reliance of old Sesame Street clips along with the new stuff. In said episode, we got two classic Bert and Ernie sketches. When you're younger, you really don't appreciate just how talented Jim Henson was. Of course, back then you never knew Frank Oz was Bert...and Cookie Monster...and Grover...and Fozzie Bear....and Yoda. (I was quite shocked watching The Empire Strikes Back and realizing Yoda sounded a helluva lot like Fozzie)

Anyways, the first sketch saw Ernie performing "The Magic Chain Trick" to a skeptical Bert, with the satisfying punchline at the end (Bert jokes that Ernie should turn the chain into a sandwich, which Ernie promptly does). The second saw Bert wanting to play a game. Ernie, thinking that he means outside, drags out all sorts of winter stuff. In true fashion, when Bert tells Ernie he wanted to play checkers, Ernie gets upset and shifts the blame to Bert. Cue Trademark Bert Faint.

Another old clip featured The Honkers, those monsters with horns for noses. The sketch has dual meaning; not only is a baby Honker born, but we also learn Honkers are hatched.

The clip that had me laughing was Cookie Monster singing about "Eatin' Cookie" throughout the year. The music happened to be "Makin' Whoopee." Man, the Street was awesome back in the old days; the kids were amused by the Muppets, and there were clever adult references hidden among the show. I haven't seen any episodes recently, so I think that's going to be a special this month...I'll watch a week of the new shows and see how much things have changed. That, on top of the planned holiday posts.

So, with Eatin' Cookie in the brain, time to sign off in order to light that first purple candle.

B-day minus 7......