Santa and his elves threatened by Martian robots from Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964)
At Christmas time, we all still sit around with our kids re-watching yet again, Charlie Brown and the Grinch, Rudolph and Frosty, classics that have lasted for generations and will still be loved 50 years from now. Separate from the classics though, there's a hodgepodge (love that term) of movies, specials, plays and cartoons dedicated to the season, some quite good, but that never hit the popularity, let alone the staying power of the "big 4". Let's take a look at a few of the more memorable ones.
The team of Arthur Rankin and Jules Bass were the absolute kings of Christmas cartoons during the 60's and 70's with their stylish, quality "Animagic", stop motion films, most famously Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer. One of the duo's best looking projects was 1968's, The Little Drummer Boy, a thoroughly horrifying story of a small boy who after witnessing his parents brutal murders, survives as a beggar drumming in the streets, while being ruthlessly exploited by his "uncle" who also happens to be one of the most egregious collections of negative Arab stereotypes ever to show up on national television. To make a long story short, the drummer kid's pet lamb is killed in an accident just as they are heading to meet the baby Jesus, and after offering the newborn messiah a ripping drum solo, Christ gives his power to raise the dead a test drive and resurrects the sheep, restoring faith in God and humanity.
The Little Drummer Boy is actually very well done with beautiful animation and what is actually a very strong and moving story, but one that is so marred by the racial stereotyping that it really is not likely to be aired very often these days, and probably deservedly so.
For real Christmas depression though, there's The Littlest Angel, a 1969 all-star, made for television musical about the tribulations of a small boy adjusting to heaven that terrified the seven year old me causing nightmares and the brand spanking new concept of the existential terror brought by the reality of death.
Merry Christmas!!!
E.G. Marshal as God and Johnny Whitaker as the Littlest Angel, freaking me out at age seven
The below scene where our young hero Michael, played by Family Affair'sJohnny Whitaker returns to his parents house to retrieve his prized collection of rocks and trinkets that he wants to enter into a contest for what's going to be used to create the star signalling the birth of Jesus, while his mother and father sit and worry where their child has gotten to, when we know his crushed and very dead body is at the bottom of a ravine just waiting for mom and dad to find the next morning when they go looking for him.
Watching Michael obliviously going about his business, knowing what his parents were going to discover truly upset young me. I'd seen plenty of adults die on television, it was the 60's after all, but I'd never really seen a dead kid before, let alone one who was just so darn jolly about it. On a more positive note though the special did have Fred Gwynne singing and nice bits from Tony Randall, Cab Calloway and E.G. Marshal, the prey of the sentient cockroaches from George Romero'sCreepshow, as God.
Let me tell you about a double feature I went to sometime around 1970 that starred old St Nick in two of his more surreal appearances.
The Devil "Pitch" from 1959's Mexican production of Santa Claus
Santa Claus (1959) is a great example of the kind of children's films to come out of Mexico during the 1950's and 60's. Brightly colored, without a touch of subtly, Santa Claus and his band of international children helpers face off against Pitch, a mostly evil devil determined to stop this Christmas nonsense once and for all. A very weird film, but totally a good time, filled with bizarre imagery and situations that somehow remind me in a way of the kind of stuff Jose Marins would bring of course in a much more adult manner, in his Coffin Joe films.
Long since slipping into the public domain, here's the complete, badly dubbed feature for your pleasure.
The second film, which is also not so coincidentally in the public domain is the much better know Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.
I'm not going to go too deeply into the plot (what there is of it), and I don't even really care that a young Pia Zadora is the cute as pie little girl. All I think that really needs to be said, is Martians trying to steal Christmas, and Santa not putting up with any crap from a bunch of green guys in space ships.
Both films should be watched by anyone who really loves Christmas.
I also wanted to mention two high quality animated adaptions of the Dickens classic, A Christmas Carol.
Created in 1971 by artist Richard Williams, his version of the classic won an academy award for best animated short. The style resemble the ink drawings of the original Victorian era and have a lovely creepiness that is perfect for the holiday ghost story. It is by no means a perfect version, but there are some wonderful images, and it was a very worthy attempt at the tale.
Surprisingly there's another version of the Dickens classic that manages to capture the spirit of the tale with both style and a sense of humor that most people might not expect, and yet Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol is a first rate adaptation of the story, with Magoo playing it straight as Scrooge.
Finally I wanted to post this version (at least the second filmed) of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, from the great Max Fleischer.
From all of us here at Studd, to each and every one of you...Merry Christmas.
Judeo-Christian Values, National Lampoon (December 1974)
Christmas is sometimes just a little too family friendly for my taste, which as most of you know is mostly a little questionable. So to keep the saccharine levels down and to prevent either diabetes or tooth decay, here's a little something to keep us old grumps happy...
Truly dark humor from Robert Smigel in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, just remember if you're a star it's all about you.
Frosty the Snowman is nothing compared to the Fleischer Brothers truly disturbing Snow Man.
I know it really isn't all that Christmassy, but it's too fun not to share.
It's the holiday season, a time for family and friends, a time to contemplate the tiny bits of happiness we have in this life, and to do what we can to share this simple joy of living. Such as making sure that everyone in the family from grandpa to the dog get's his share of good, wholesome American tobacco.
Here we are in the 70's when everything really is horrible and it really stinks. The mass media, everything on television everything everywhere is just rotten. You know it's just boring and really evil, ugly and worse.- Lester Bangs
Lester Bangs, despite being a world class grump, was right, the 1970's were a pretty weird and unhappy time for the United States, from the National Guard opening fire on students at both Kent State and Jackson University on one end, the loss in Vietnam and the debacle of Watergate in the middle, and a great big Iranian hostage crisis to round the whole mess out. The 70's was also a time when the idealism and hope of the young people of the 1960's turned into the cynicism and self-absorption of the yuppies. It was a boiling cauldron of a time.
Probably not the boiling cauldron I was referring too, but
I've been waiting for a chance to post this cover for months.
Besides, beats posting yet another still from Bewitched
But it was also a time when African Americans, Latino Americans and Gay Americans were getting their first taste of real political and economic power, it was the era when women were making giant leaps into the working world and it was a time when ALL of them began to demand to be treated equally.
People were angry, but dammed stylish
It was like Dickens said about another revolutionary era, "the best of times, the worst of times".
But I'm not looking to get too serious here, instead I just wanted to explain a little bit, about why it is that when you are talking about the 1970's, you get such a wide field of styles and subjects. How the same decade can produce both John Denver and Johnny Rotten, and have both of them work as equally valid symbols of their era.
Both John's are fully legitimate symbols of the 1970's, it was a complicated decade
Okay, enough preaching, let's have some fun....
Say what you will about the disgraced President Richard Nixon, but it is pretty undeniable that he truly was a cartoonists dream....
TV Guide, February 1972, Nixon goes to China
The nose, the 5 o'clock shadow, the beady little eyes, our 37th President, was a cartoon natural.
Balrog Nixon 1971
The 1970's was a great time for parody, both high..
Neal Adam's Son-O-God, National Lampoon
And low..
Charles's Girl's, Tunnel Vision, 1976
The 1970's gave us the awesome nature shows like the Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau, with narration by the great Rod Serling.
The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau
And then there was good ol Marlin Perkins and the ever endangered Jim Fowler in Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom.
Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom
Of course not all television in the 70's was nature shows.
Take the classic annual TV blow-out, Battle of the Network Stars for example.
Cheryl Tiegs vs Victoria Principal
Yes, Battle of the Network Stars, where stars from major networks television programs would go against each other in silly sporting competitions that a few of them took, just a little too seriously.
Robert Conrad loses his mind on national television
In the 1970's, both Planet of the Apes and Logan's Run were made into television series with the exact same plot.
Not quite Michael York or Jenny Agutter
Logan's Run was about three people in a post Apocalypse future, moving from society to society and having new adventures in a world they don't really understand.
Meanwhile, the Roddy McDowell series, Planet of the Apes, was about three people in a post Apocalypse future, moving from society to society and having new adventures in a world they don't really understand.
A young Jackie Earle Haley is stuck in the Planet of the Apes
While the nighttime series Planet of the Apes was pretty bad, they did manage to do a surprisingly decent job with the Saturday Morning cartoon series.
The animated Planet of the Apes 1976
It was the first time that Apes were shown with aircraft and tanks, television and other items from modern society, and it was the only version I have ever seen that actually made it look like an actual PLANET controlled by apes.
From the statement released by Neil Armstrong's family through NASA....“For those who may ask what they can do to honor Neil, we have a simple request. Honor his example of service, accomplishment and modesty, and the next time you walk outside on a clear night and see the moon smiling down at you, think of Neil Armstrong and give him a wink.”
Neil Armstrong was born in Ohio in 1930, served in the conflict in Korea, became a test pilot and then an astronaut, first on Gemini 8 and then Apollo 11, and on July 21st, 1969 he became the first human being to set foot on the moon.
Back on Earth Armstrong kept out of the public view dedicating himself to teaching and engineering, and setting a constant example of honor and dignity. Today, Neil Armstrong left this world, but all of us are better for his having been here. I mourn for our loss, but I also feel hope. Hope for our children and their children and for the entire human race, because men like Neil Armstrong took those first tentative steps into the universe.
From Filmations Teen Titans shorts, Speedy and Wonder Girl
Here's an interesting fact.
Long before classic heroes, Wonder Woman and Green Arrow ever made their first filmed appearances, their teenage sidekicks, Speedy and Wonder Girl were actively kicking butt every Saturday as part of the rotating cast of character on CBS's televisions Superman / Aquaman Hour.
With the huge success of televisions Batman, DC was anxious to get as many of their characters on the air as possible. So along with the exciting adventures of Superman, and his whole cast, along with Aquaman, Aqualad and Tusky the Walrus, the show also had shorts with numerous DC stars. The Atom, Flash, Hawkman and Green Lantern all got their adventures plus a few team-ups as the Justice League.
On top of that they also had several adventures with the Teen Titans.
With Robin not available because of licensing, sometime Titan and long time Green Arrow sidekick was picked as a substitute, and regular member Wonder Girl was part of the team, even though Wonder Woman was apparently not around because the producers of Batman were shopping a pilot around about the Avenging Amazon.
I know, how could something this wonderfully cheesy not get picked up for a full series, or even a pilot.
So there you were with the Titans, made up of Speedy, Wonder Girl, Aqualad and an badly miscolored Kid Flash having adventures years before their mentors ever made it to the television screen.
Of course when Wonder Woman did make her television premiere, it was in a most surprising place....
Yes, local librarian Diana Prince and her secret identity of Wonder Woman came to the aid of none other than the Brady Kids.
Of course a few years later when Green Arrow finally made an appearance on the Super Friends, they sort of got him confused with the Atom.
Filmations quality really varied from some very well done material to absolute dreck, but I think they hit a real high point late in the studios history when they made a straight forward adaptation of Captain Marvel featuring almost the entire Shazam cast.
First rate animation for the era, plus great tongue in cheek scripts taken from the original material made for a really fun cartoon.
I know it's getting off topic here but there is one other Filmation cartoon I wanted to mention even though it isn't really superhero based, but I was a huge fan of the late 1960's series, Fantastic Voyage, based on the Asimov film of the same name.
It was a nice looking series with a James Bond twist and well worth a look.
Mary Travers, Peter Yarrow and Noel "Paul" Stookey
I’m going to talk
about why I’m a big fan of the popular 1960’s folk group, Peter, Paul &
Mary, but first a bit of background.
When you are talking about folk music one of the most
important factors people tend to look for is authenticity.
Woody Guthrie (love the guitar sticker)
Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie along with great songwriting
talent exuded this deep authenticity, of dirt, poverty and desperation, where
you could easily see any of them (not just Woody), in some 1930’s work camp
singing about revolution around the campfire with Tom Joad at his side.
Pete Seeger
As fate would have it, in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s
folk music exploded in popularity on university campuses across the United
States. Keep in mind, by the late 1950’s
that original rush of rock n roll had ended. Elvis was in the Army, Pat Boone’s
Tutti Frutti had sold something like ten times the copies that Little Richard
had, and in those dark days after the death of Buddy Holly and before the
British invasion brought a new intelligence and creativity to rock music, if
you wanted to hear something challenging to your intelligence, something political
radical or music about important issues, it was folk music that you listened
to.
The Kingston Trio
The Kingston Trio from San Francisco and the Brothers Four out
of Seattle, were all nice white boys from middle class homes, who came out of
college singing songs about labor riots and civil rights, but with such clean
cut wholesomeness to their style that middle America embraced them.
The Brothers Four
Of course all that changed in 1962 when scruffy, middle
class Jewish kid Robert Zimmerman moved to New York from Minnesota, and
revolutionized music.
Bob Dylan
See the thing is that after a few decades of Dylan, the
Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the like, nice wholesome boys like the Kingston
Trio, no matter that they were singing music that at the time, was revolutionary,
are pretty much at best nostalgia acts these days.
I tend to think that in a way the same thing happened to
Peter, Paul & Mary
.
Put together in 1961 by a manager looking to create a
recording act out of the New York coffee house scene, Peter Yarrow, Noel Paul
Stookey and Mary Travers, enjoyed quick success with their excellent harmonies
and arrangements, making Peter, Paul & Mary one of the most successful, and
one of the most openly political acts of the 1960’s.
The thing about Peter, Paul & Mary is that unlike,
Seeger or Dylan, is that they had smoothness to their sound that in my opinion
just isn’t really embraced or understood by modern audiences. They just aren’t
really viewed by modern fans of folk music as being particularly “authentic” or
street level, and as such while not quite forgotten, Peter, Paul & Mary
they do tend to get ignored.
And that’s a shame because Peter, Paul & Mary were
excellent singers, who put out beautiful songs.
Let’s listen to a few…..
If I Had a Hammer
Written by Pete Seeger, If I Had a Hammer was a 1949 call to arms of American labor. This clip is of the trio singing their version of the song at the 1963 Civil Rights march on Washington DC, shortly before Martin Luther King would come out and give his immortal "I Have a Dream" speech.
In many ways it was because of Peter, Paul & Mary that these old labor songs seeped into the popular consciousness, to the point where these songs became wholesome enough for elementary schools.
Too Much of Nothing
The original version of Two Much of Nothing, by Dylan and the Band is one rough song, sounding like a bunch of miners singing in the dark. Under Travers, Stookey and Yarrow, the song becomes much more mainstream, and maybe that does cause the song to be lose something to some fans, but listen to that chorus and tell me that isn't just a beautiful hook.
Say Hello to Valerie
Say hello to Marian
Send them all my salary
On the waters of oblivion
Just lovely.
Don't Think Twice, It's All Right
This is another Dylan cover by the band that's just beautiful, and probably my favorite version of this classic.
Stookey's voice on the lead just carries the weight of the lyrics, while at the same time just singing in this clear and beautiful voice. It's a real treat.
Let me say that I know this kind of folk stuff is not normal Studd material, but I really like Peter, Paul and Mary and think that their music has worth and should be put out there for a new generation to appreciate.
Okay, since you've all put up with this salute to whitebread, lets finish with the one you all really wanted to hear...
Puff the Magic Dragon
One of the great songs about childhood.
Enjoy Yarrow's nice little introduction where he addresses certain rumors.
