1. A Claymation Christmas Celebration – It’s finally the proper season to share this. This Christmas special premiered in 1987 and loudly touted the then-ubiquitous California Raisins’ involvement, although the Raisins don’t really show up until the final number.
Hosted by what appear to be a dinosaur version of Siskel and Ebert, the half-hour special takes you through a handful of holiday regulars like “We Three Kings” and “Carol of the Bells”. “Carol of the Bells” features a bunch of bells hitting themselves in the head with mallets to perform the song. That’s kind of funny, right?
Toward the end the Raisins show up to bring the house down with “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” and then the entire cast from all of the songs gather ’round for “Here We Come A’Wassailing”, punctuating a joke that ran through the whole special. All in all, it’s pretty entertaining – some parts shine more than others but at the end of the day watching claymation’s usually better than not watching claymation.
See for yourself!
California Raisins – Claymation Christmas by theperminator
2. 1990 Console Wars – 1990 was an interesting holiday for video game competition; Nintendo was firmly established as the king of home gaming but this was the year SEGA’s 16-bit Genesis entered the US market, beating the Super NES by a whole year. Here’s a Good Morning America segment on it, a hard-hitting exposé indeed.
Here are some of the commercials featured in the story. First, SEGA’s attack on Nintendo:
3. Lunar Space Suits – A fascinating NASA documentary from 1966 detailing the suits the astronauts used on the Apollo mission? Yes, please! The cartoon bit is pretty great, as well. Andy the Astronaut’s been through some stuff…
4. The Pearl Postcard – Stumbled across this beautiful postcard from the 1940s for The Pearl Restaurant in New Orleans. I wish I had somewhere I could credit this source – can anyone help? Regardless, it’s gorgeous.
5. Pamela the Living Doll – From Worlds of Wonder, they who brought us Teddy Ruxpin and would have us purchase Grubby as well, comes Pamela the Living Doll. Living enough to fool some aliens who apparently came to kidnap babies!
-ds