Constructing Christmas. OR: Where the %%$^& is the little brown fencepost?

"Maybe we should just put it together now, and have them out under the tree for her when she wakes up tomorrow morning."  I suggested to my wife after we put my daughter to bed on Christmas eve, as I looked at the box that contained the Playmobil Wildlife Play Station

Fiona had received the Playmobil Animal Nursery  the weekend before as an early christmas present from a family member,  and the insanity of IT'S assembly was still fresh in my head.

"No, she won't have as many to open then."  My wife answered.
"She loves opening them."

And she does.  And more specifically to the story, she did.   She loved opening everything Christmas morning.
What little kid doesn't?

The problem is, we ended up spending 10 minutes opening presents, and AT LEAST two hours putting them together.

The box states that the set comes with a bazillion pieces, and that sounds pretty impressive.   And it truly IS impressive, but not QUITE as cool as it sounds.

Because when  you open it, you  find out that the worlds smallest flashlight is two pieces; the worlds smallest jar is two pieces; every VEGETABLE is two pieces; a tree is at least five pieces, the little straps for the binoculars and camera are each their own piece, and the structure itself... yikes.
And yikes again.

It came with a sheet of stickers, so you could label the small pieces if you wanted, to make them look more "real".
Wonder if each sticker counted as a piece?


And while the end result is sturdy and looks great, was it really necessary to make the product so that every little piece of the structure is... a separate piece?

the instructions might as well have read:

"Here's a wall, the wall has space for a window and a door.   We could have made it so that the window and the door are framed already,  but... no.  Those are separate pieces.
So here's the wall with holes, now insert the frames into the holes, now insert the window into the window frame into the window hole, and NOW the door into the door frame into the door hole...."

And the packaging of the bazillion separate pieces left a bit to be desired, too.

"Honey, do you know which of the eight bags of randomly thrown together pieces holds that small dark brown fence post?  I can't finish the railing without it! No, not the bigger, lighter brown one, I already found IT - it was in the bag with the zebra, the rifle, one of the tree pieces, two of the carrot tops and the cage padlock...."

All while your child's standing there, with two cheetah cubs in her hand, asking you if she can play with it yet.

"Not yet, darlin'.   I have to snap the cot into the side wall into the front wall into the floor...."

Can I put the monkey in the cage?  The monkey really needs to go in the cage!

"Well as soon as I put the four pieces of cage together, and then attach it to the underside of the floor of the stilt house, and then connect the house to the top of the floor ...."

And the pieces don't just snap together.  Nope.  That would be crazy.

Instead, they provide you with bags of little, tiny connectors of various colors, and a little tool designed only to insert the connectors into their respective holes on each piece so that you can in turn connect that piece to another piece....  And of COURSE each color connector's specific to various pieces, because having all connections being the same size is, well.. just plain silly, I guess.

And yikes again.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter, as she loves the toys, and has played with them a lot over the last  couple of days.  

Three O'clock High, and notes on "Trying"

Buddy Revell: You know what Mitchell? You're the biggest #$#^%^& I've ever seen in my life. You didn't even try. How does that FEEL?


Watched a great, if tragically overlooked, film a few nights ago, On Demand.

Three O’Clock High.


A story about a pretty regular high school kid who manages to piss off the new-to-school bully before 9am, and spends the rest of the day going to ridiculous extremes to avoid having to fight him after school.


Pretty basic plot, but was done in a very entertaining manner. Great little nuances, like how the camera flashes to the clock with increasing frequency as 3pm draws near. Or the fact that Buddy may be a hyper-violent psychopath, but is also secretly a bright student. Add to this some minor characters that don’t quite fit into the John Hughes mold, and other creative camera work, and it was a pleasure to watch.


It ends up being not so much a story about a day in the life of a high school kid, as it is a story about how your life can change, when you decide to man up, so to speak, and simply… try.

From a movie pacing standpoint, the referenced quote’s the midpoint. The Main character was going in one (very bad) direction right up until this point. Then he switches gears / goals - the actual plot changes.

It didn’t strike a big chord with me, when I as 21 and probably not 100% sober and watched it one night at the dump I shared with three other guys at college. It was just a movie, y’know?

But watching it from my current perspective, it resonated.

All the important shit, the big stuff, the A-list things in my life that I value.., they were HARD.
It would have been much easier, at each turn, to not put myself out there, so to speak. Less scary, too.

But if I hadn’t have even tried, I’d probably not have my wife, nor my daughter (certainly not my daughter), nor the job I have.

As examples.

I wish I’d have been so wise, when I was 17, 19, 22….


Switching gears a bit, I’ve a class reunion coming up.

The end of this movie reminded me of something that happened 25, maybe 26 years ago.

There was a guy who showed up for one year. This was not unusual. Our school collected the odd guys; someone who needed a change of venue from wherever they had been going to school. Usually it was an issue of hoping that our school would provide more discipline for the person. Those people rarely stuck around.

Other times, like in the case of Eric, I’d guess someone had hoped that he’d be treated nicer in a smaller, more stable environment…..

He was a dork.
That’s my 17 year old brain memory of him. Goofy, didn’t dress very well, didn’t do particularly well academically, didn’t have very good social skills, bad skin…

My 43 year old brain can assume that by the time he got to us, he was used to playing a role, filling an un-desirable spot on the food chain. We were not his first rodeo.

He suffered through the year, not a lot of friends, probably getting picked on by those who enjoyed that sort of thing. And then it was the last day of school, and he was free of us.
You’d expect a quiet exit, maybe, a sigh of relief as he slides into his car and drives out of the parking lot for the last time.

Nope.

In the parking lot, after school, he gets into a fist fight with one of his biggest tormentors.
And even though he had to have known he was going to lose, he stepped up.
He… tried.

Of course he lost the fight. And he drove out of the parking lot for the last time sore and bloodied. I can only hope that he did so with some pride, having met the adversity head on.
Maybe it changed his life for the better, the notion that a bloody nose, real or metaphorical, stops hurting and bleeding after a bit, but the results of NOT trying can last you a lifetime.
Hiding from your problems can become a lifestyle…

I’m probably over-analyzing it, and over-romanticizing the event.
I’ll let you make up your own mind about that.

And to be honest, I’d not thought about it all for 25 years, until after watching the movie again.
I hope I’m right, though, and that Eric ended up doing well in his life.

Oh, and watch the movie already. It's worth 90 minutes of your life.

the girl who played with fire

Was briefly talking books with folks yesterday, and The Girl who played with Fire came up.
actually, the trilogy came up, and I likely confused titles with plots, but.... just continue reading.


I recalled that I forced myself to finish it, whilst one of the people I was talking to, admitted that she didn't finish it.

I know I frequently miss why a mediocre-at-best book is actually secretly a brilliant work of fiction; so it was good to know that at least one other person didn't get into this one, either.


Here's my review / plot synopsis for the book.

Some little tiny girl named Svenson, with a big tattoo and a brand new boob job, has a troubled past, and is treated poorly by men, all of which were named Svenson, or perhaps Sverngensen. She's framed for a crime against someone named Svenson (or perhaps Svergensen, a writer who was about to release an expose about someone named Svenson, and is pursued by the local police, all of which were named...Svenson. There was a dirty cop, however. His name might have been Svergensen.

The lead male protagonist, Svenson, does not believe that Svenson / Svergensen the tattoo'd girl committed the crime against Svenson, and does what he can to help prove this, whilst nailing his boss, Svergensen. He thinks she's troubled, and maladjusted, and maybe dangerous, but not a killer of anyone named Svenson. Oh, he nailed her, too, before he started nailing his boss. The bosses maiden name? Svenson, I believe. They work together at a newspaper or magazine, which I'm pretty sure was called Svenson Weekly.
Their office was located on Svergensen Blvd.

Oh, and the dwarvish tattoo'd chick with new boobs? all she has to do is put on a wig, and she's unrecognizable by the entire population of whatever country she lives in.

And there was lots of stopping off at 7-11 for random meals, and a trip to Ikea to furnish a big, shiny apartment, likely located on Svenson street. Noone knows she lives there.
We spend more time reading about the Ikea trip, than we would actually spend... in Ikea.

And then Svenson Svenson Svergemsen Svenson Svergensen Svenson Svenson......

The book was at it's best early on, before the plot moved back to whatever scandinvian country in which the main plot took place. Early on, there was action on a tropical island, populated by people with different, non-interchangable last names. I could keep track without graph paper.
And the author didn't feel it was necessary to mention that they all stopped off at the island's convenience store for food.

Of COURSE I exaggerate.

But only a little.

If you're going to translate a novel into a different language, spend more than 5 minutes @ babelfish.com to do it.
Having it properly edited up front would help a great deal as well.

The US equivalent would have been set in Atlanta. All the characters would have had the word "Peach" or "Peachtree" in their names, their addresses, etc.
At least one of them would have had the nickname "Peachy" or "Peaches". There would have been many random, non-plot related mentions of stopping off at the Piggly Wiggly for vaguely named food items.

And after it became huge, it would be translated into many different languages, and some snarky, lazy-minded reader will mock it.

And rightfully so.

Jeff Buckley - Hallelujah

Jeff Buckley – Hallelujah


Seems kinda random, doesn’t it? I mean, for a topic.

Heck, I have to explain it, before most will even understand what it means.

Jeff Buckley was a musician, who drowned in the Mississippi River in the mid 90’s, right around the time the first hint of future stardom surfaced.

He had released a critically acclaimed record (“Grace”), had a single that received air play, and was poised to break huge, probably with the release of his follow up record.
My memory’s not clear on it, because I didn’t know much about him at the time, but he might have drowned in Memphis, perhaps while taking a break in recording or rehearsing.

Add to the story the fact that he was the son of Tim Buckley, who was himself a critically acclaimed musician that died tragically young.

Hallelujah – A great song by Leonard Cohen.
“Who’s Leonard Cohen?”
Oh, please. That’s another entry.
Suffice to say he’s a guy who’s been writing great songs for 40+ years; songs that are best known as hits for other artists.

Which brings this narrative back around to Jeff Buckley - Hallelujah.

Buckley recorded Cohen’s “Hallelujah”. I’d actually read about the version, but hadn’t heard it. And since the one single that was released before Buckley’s death, Last Goodbye (there’s some irony, right there) didn’t resonate with me, I gave little attention to those who heaped such praise upon the recording.

Then one day not too long ago, I’m driving in the car with my wife and daughter, and this song came on.
And it was achingly beautiful. So much so that tears were welling up in my eyes, just listening to it. And when I realized what I was listening to, the tears started flowing a little harder.
“My god. His voice…" I thought to myself.

“What are we listening to?” my wife asked, in a slightly hushed tone it seemed.
“Jeff Buckley doing a Leonard Cohen song.” I choke out in reply.
“It’s…”
“Yeah.”

So there you go. A heartbreakingly beautiful rendition of a superbly written song, performed by an artist I never cared for when he was actually walking the earth.

Did it make me re-think my musical tastes?
Of course not.
Do I want to seek out a copy of a 15 year old CD for which I had no interest at the time, based solely on one song? No, not really. Thought it may prompt me to buy my first musical download, ever.

Do I, sadly, listen to the live recording of Cohen performing his own song, and while appreciating it find myself saying “Buckley got more out of it”? yep,I must confess that I do.

Sports Movies - Tin Cup

Tin Cup.

Why is Kevin Costner so damn effective in the role of likeable underdog? I can’t think of anyone who’s had more success playing this role.
(Doesn’t mean there aren’t a bunch of guys who’ve done it, just means I’m not thinking of one at the moment)

Maybe it’s his laconic delivery, or that half smile / smirk thing he does.

Anyhow, Tin Cup is movie about a great golfer whose accumulated life choices has resulted in him managing a driving range, and living in a Winnebago. He falls for a neurotic therapist, who happens to be dating his old golf rival. The rival, played by Don Johnson, is a successful PGA tour golfer, a bit smarmy, and very condescending toward Costner.

So of course, Costner gets his head together, qualifies for the PGA tour, and ends up competing against Johnson for both the girl, and for the honor of being tournament champion.

Does he win the tournament? Nope. He actually loses it in a spectacular fashion, by refusing to be un-true to himself and to the game of golf as he loves it. But he gets the girl, shows he can hang with the big dogs until the last hole of the tournament, and automatically qualifies for next season’s tour. And as Russo puts it, no one’s going to remember who won the tournament a week from now, but everyone’s going to remember Costner’s performance on the 18th hole……

So there’s the Rocky-like “redemption and winning while still losing” you expect from a good sports movie.


Great performances by Costner, and by Cheech Marin as his best friend and caddy. Renee Russo’s as dependably appealing as always. Johnson’s role is not huge, and does not ask him to stretch as an actor, so he also does fine.
Plot’s fairly linear, dialog’s realistic, and there’s lots to enjoy. Good primary and 2ndary conflicts, all resolved tidily.
Movie works ok on it's own merits, but at the same time benefits greatly from Costner's performance.

It’s like Happy Gilmore, but for grown ups.

Sports Movies - Mystery Alaska

Mystery Alaska

Unfortunately marketed with the tagline “The Rocky of Hockey”

Russell Crowe, Burt Reynolds and Hank Azaria star in a movie about a small Alaskan town’s local hockey team, a bunch of amazing hockey players who get together every week for a game of pond hockey. The team is comprised of guys chosen by the town council. They can bump you whenever they feel like it, and in this small town, the hockey team is ALL.

Russell Crowe plays the town Sheriff, and the guy who just got bumped from Saturday’s game, because it was time to “bring up the Weeks kid” (give a much younger guy his chance).
Reynolds plays the stick-up-the-ass town Judge, ex-hockey player, and father to one of the current hockey players.
Azaria is a town outcast (apparently can’t play hockey) who left town and became a writer for Sports Illustrated.

Long and at times convoluted story short – An article he writes about the town hockey team results in the NY Rangers coming to Alaska to play them in a game of hockey. Do they accept the challenge, and risk being humiliated and disillusioned, or do they refuse the challenge, and continue to live safely within their own illusion of greatness? Well, it would be a pretty damn short movie, if they didn’t accept the challenge, wouldn’t it?

Crowe gets his shot at redemption when the town council asks him back to the team, Reynolds redeems himself in the eyes of his son, Azaria gets a little redemption in the eyes of the town.
And there were some decent hockey scenes.
Does it matter who wins the game?
Of course not.

Redemption, baby!!!!

With a fair amount of laughs, and some realistically human subplots.

Sports Movies - The Replacements

Good sports movies have simple plots, too.
They’re aimed at simple creatures.
Namely – me.

This movie stars Keanu Reeves and Gene Hackman.
Basic plot: NFL goes on strike, team owners hire scabs to cross the picket line and play ball.
That’s the broadstroke.

The guys that are hired of course make the movie.
Reeves is a once-fantastic college quarterback who crashed and burned spectactularly in a bowl game, and is scraping barnacles off of boats for a living. his team includes:
A deaf wide receiver, A violent cop, a couple of criminals, a Scottish soccer player, and twin brothers who are professional bodyguards.
And Gene Hackman’s their coach.
He does “coach” really well.
There’s mayhem, violence, and bonding scenes, including the obligatory bar brawl.
There’s a great antagonist, namely the overpaid, lazy, fan-shunning striking quarterback.
Of course you hate him. He’s an overpaid, lazy, fan-shunning money grubber.
The cheerleaders are scabs, too.
Their day job? Strippers.
Oh, and there’s some good football.

“Pain Heals, Chicks dig scars, glory lasts forever.”

Words to live by. I get a little choked up, every time I think about it.

Does it matter if they win their final game or not with mere seconds left on the clock?
Not really. They’ve already redeemed themselves in their own eyes; the eyes of their coach and each other; and the eyes of everyone watching the games from….everywhere.
And the hero gets the girl. Of course.

When you can’t think of something original to write about……. Review something.

I’d been thinking about sports movies this morning, which is odd, cuz I’m not a huge sports or sports movie guy. While sitting through an 80 minute pep rally at work, I started writing out a list of my favorite sports movies.
Note I said “My favorite” not “The best” or “most critically acclaimed”.

Keep in mind, my tastes are pretty pedestrian.

A good sports movie isn’t actually about sports. I like to opine that a sports movie that truly works, from a viewer standpoint, is actually about…. Redemption.

Was Rocky actually about boxing?
God no.
(And if you watch boxing, you’ll realize that the fight scenes in Rocky are possibly the worst part of the movie..)

I rest my case, by the way.

And remember, Rocky didn’t win the fight at the end of the movie. He lost, but still won. He REDEEMED himself, proving he wasn’t a loser to himself, his girl, and the world.


I expect that the “Rocky-ing” of various sports in movie form pre-dated Rocky, but I’m not a thorough enough student of the history of popular film to speak on movies that pre-date…me.

So my list only goes back 30 years or so.
I'll review one per entry, and probably get bored with this by the time I'm done with the 2nd review

five christmas cartoons of note.

#1 Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown.

not a huge fan of the dialog, liked the general plot idea ok. Loved the music, of course.
The thing about this, and some of the other peanut cartoons, that I really liked?
The quiet.

This was a slow, peaceful cartoon, with emphasis put on what was being said. screen time actually given to the characters simply walking from point A to point B.
For want of a better term, this cartoon is..... relaxing.


#2 The Tick vs. Santa Clause (AKA: The Tick Loves Santa)

A petty thief dressed as Santa gets electrocuted, and finds he can reproduce himself. He creates an army of criminal santas and goes on a crime spree in The City.
Only the Tick can stop his nefarious plans, but can't bring himself to hurt Santa Clause...
He discovers that a static electric shock causes the replicants to dissolve, when he rubs one of them on the head.

Yep. Noogies save christmas.

Hey, it's the Tick, for christ's sake. If you've never seen this animated series from the early 90's, you need to. It was brilliant.
The Tick - huge, strong, nearly indestructible, a little dim and child like.
Arthur - His doughy, accountant-turned-moth-man sidekick. Throw in some crazy supervillains with equally odd nefarious plans, and some secondary superhero characters, and it was entertaining as hell.

The Tick: Lowly wretch! This is the last time you make epic naughty in Santa threads!
The Tick: Like a great blue salmon of justice, the mighty Tick courses upstream to the very spawning grounds of Evil!


#3 How The Grinch Stole Christmas

duh. great direction, courtesy of Chuck Jones, and truly inspired casting of Boris Karloff as the voice of the Grinch, and the narrator.

A great adaptation of a teriffic book by Dr. Seuss. There are many good cartoon adaptations of his books, and not a single good live action adaptation.

Christmas day IS in your grasp, as long as you have hands to clasp.

# 4: Pinky and the Brain's Christmas special.

Pinky and the brain. One's a genius, the other's insane.

And that's the brilliance of this cartoon series. You get to decide who's which.

The christmas episode won an Emmy, by the way.

Pinky and the Brain travel to the north pole. Pinky wants to meet Santa, the Brain's created a toy that hypnotizes people, and wants Santa to (unknowningly) distribute the toy worldwide, so The Brain can hypnotize everyone, and finally achieve his goal of World Domination.

#5 is a combo, cuz you put 'em both together and you almost have one good cartoon.
Year without a Santa Claus
Ok. This was actually crap. As were all the Rankin Bass Stop-Action animation cartoons (Rudolph, Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July) It's probably un-american to say so, but - crap.
Visually interesting, as you don't see stop-action animation anymore. Storylines, etc.... dodgy. And big on sentimental.
The adult me doesn't like gooey sentimentalism in my entertainment choices.
And why was Mickey Rooney always doing one of the voices? There had to be a lot of actors looking for an easy paycheck when these were made. Did he own stock?

While they were all largely crap, a couple of them were partially redeemed by fun characters, or at least a fun song.

Heat Miser and Cold Miser were whiny, mama's boys. But I liked their songs.
Like 'em? They stick in my head like a deer tick on a camping trip.

You can take the rest of the cartoon: the two dim elves, the sickly baby reindeer, the whiny sniffly santa clause, the doe-eyed, buck toothed boy and stuff them in a stocking or something else suitably tied in with the holiday theme of this post.


Santa Clause is Coming To Town

See above rant about Rankin Bass cartoons. What saves this one? Burgermeister Meisterburger, of course.
and the catchy "Put one foot in front of the other".

It's a story about the origin of Santa, how a young Kris Kringle built toys as an act of civil disobedience, corrupting the town's children, in direct violation of the law, grew a beard to disguise his face, and then got old and fat.

Oh, and an evil winter warlock finds a few kernels of magic corn in his pockets, after a gift of a toy makes him the goodhearted winter warlock, feeds them to some deer, who in turn bust everyone out of jail.
Now you know the origin of the eight flying reindeer. They ate some "magic" corn, and then became accessories to several felonies.

Mrs Clause is explained as well. She's the hot, single, good hearted school teacher of course.
She has a thing for bad boys, apparently, and is smitten with the rebellious, toy-making rabble rouser. She quits her job, leaves her home, and goes off to live with him and his midget friends in the woods. And then got old and fat.
The End.
And damn if Mickey Rooney's not the voice of Santa Clause again.


Hey, I know 40 year old me is not the audience at which the Rankin / Bass cartoons were aimed.
I mock because I can.

Kids still love 'em, my daughter will doubtless enjoy them when she's a little older, and my wife still loves 'em; even though she'll joke along with me the whole time about their relative cheesiness.

And that's why they made my list, really.

five christmas movies

Was watching Elf over the weekend.
Will Farrell, like Jim Carrey, is a limited exposure kind of actor for me.
He plays arrogant and dumb at the same time, very well.
But the joke gets old.

When he tries his hand at something different, like he did in Stranger Than Fiction and Elf, however, he impresses the crap outta me.

As it's that time of year, I'll try to come up with my $0.02 worth of five best holiday movies in the whole world, ever.
In no particular order.

Keep in mind I'm not a very sentimental guy, and my humour runs dark. Also keep in mind that when I refer to them as the best holiday movies in the whole world, ever, it's possible I'm less than 100% serious.


Long Kiss Goodnight - Geena Davis, Samuel Jackson.
A heartwarming tale of an amnesiac professional killer, living the life of suburban housewife until. She has no idea who she was before she work up on a beach, three months pregnant, many years earlier.
Until she hits a deer, driving a drunk home from her christmas party. She gradually regains her memory and job skills, just in time to save (WAY) upstate New York from a fake terrorist attack.
The attack is orchestrated by a government agency looking to increase how much money it gets from the fed government, in the coming fiscal year. In the 2nd or third (but final) thrilling climax of this movie ( too many endings, a'la Speed), she flies through the air on a string of christmas lights, and kills the father of her daughter, then is saved by a ridiculously battered Sam Jackson, and they drive away as the tanker explodes behind them....
Nothing says Merry Christmas like an over-the-top violent amnesiac assassin movie.

The Ref - Denis Leary, Kevin Spacey, Judy Davis.

A cat burglar botches a job, and hi-jacks a car driven by a fighting couple on their way home from marriage counseling. The town goes on lock-down because of the botched job, so he hides out at the warring couples' house until the heat dies down, pretending to be their marriage counselor, as their dysfunctional family arrives for christmas eve dinner.

Mean, mean, mean movie. Laughed my ass off the first time I watched it. Leary's great as Gus, a down and out kinda guy who is constantly surprised by the level of animosity and venom on display within the family he's holding hostage. Kevin Spacey does snide well, Judy Davis does pretentious artsy-type well, and the in-laws are so over-the-top obnoxious...
A little too warm and fuzzy at the end, but starts so far away from warm and fuzzy that you know it's gotta end on a cuddly note.

Gus: Do you know what this family needs? A mute.


Scrooged - Bill Murray.
Any version of this story, where Karol Kane and David Johansen are two of the ghosts - gold, baby. Pure gold. And the scene at the end, with the big speech, is riveting. And pre-ghost scrooge as a heartless TV exec was a refreshing update to the old old money lender scrooge. As was a black, female Cratchett character.

ELF - Will Farrell.
Damn, he was fun to watch in this movie. Great supporting cast as well. And Zooey Daschnel (Sp?) is dreamy. Scenes where he confronts a dept. store Santa ("You sit on a throne of lies!!!!"), where he comes in contact with a midget children's' book author ("he's an angry elf"), and where he finds out who his father is, and that he's on the "naughty list" are particular standouts in a movie with no real weak scenes. Farrell's a fearless actor, and this movie worked only because he took the role seriously.

Scrooge - Albert Finney stars in this musical version of A Christmas Carol, released in 1970.
I can honestly say I'd never seen or even heard of this version, until my wife introduced me to it not too long into our relationship. And I was none to excited about watching it the first time, given that
a) it was yet ANOTHER adaptation of an overly adapted book.
b) it was a musical.

I'm a guy. I don't really enjoy musicals all that much. Something about my characters breaking into spontaneous song and complex dance routines makes it difficult for me to suspend disbelief and let myself be caught up in a story.

But Albert Finney's performance as both a young and old Scrooge is amazing. You can see how he became a truly miserly and loathsome creature over time. And while some of the songs make the narrative drag, "I Like Life" and "Thank You Very Much" are great fun.
The scene in Hell is suitably unpleasant, and a bit...psychedelic in nature. Almost.
Hey, it WAS released in 1970. And The Ghost of Christmas Present is a guy I'd really like to party with, ESPECIALLY if he's bringing the wine.


So, there you go. I'll probably think of three better ones the moment i post this.

Next up - five best christmas themed cartoons. exciting, isn't it?