Author: DOuG pRATt

Santa Claus Conquers The Martians

A year ago at this link I talked about character actor Vince Beck, my late mother’s friend from her theatre days. Vince had the distinction of being in a movie that is generally regarded as being among the worst ever made, Santa Claus Conquers The Martians. But that’s OK, because Mark Evanier’s name is associated with a TV show that’s considered to be one of the worst ever, Pink Lady and Jeff.

How bad is Santa Claus Conquers The Martians? See for yourself. The entire movie is here. Can you last through all 80 minutes? Vince is Voldar, the Martian with a moustache! The guy was sitting in our living room around the time he was in this disaster!
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Christmas With Timmy And Lassie

Last month I had the pleasure of meeting Jon Provost of Lassie fame. Jon’s autobiography, Timmy’s In The Well is out, although I haven’t received my copy yet.

If you aren’t familiar with Lassie from the Provost years, here’s a complete show. “The Christmas Story,” from December 21, 1958. Great stuff. Note: I picked that preview frame because that car is the same Ford Country Squire wagon we had.
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A Spanking for Spangler

Spangler Candy Canes

Click to EnlargeSpangler Candy Company of Bryan, Ohio has been in business for just over 100 years. The company makes Dum-Dums and, for this time of year, candy canes. Carol bought a box of a dozen tall Spangler candy canes to hang on the tree. I love the clean, classic, old-fashioned packaging, but when I looked it over I saw the words, “Made in Mexico” (click picture to enlarge). Well, that’s disappointing, although I have to admit the box cost only $1, and online you can order a box of 500 little ones for only $15.76. But with Hershey’s now manufacturing in Mexico, I was hoping a nice family company like Spangler could have held out and kept production in the United States.

Memories of the Database Debacle

If you click here, you can see a tiny bit of one of the days that was lost in the database mess that happened last spring, captured by Archive.org.

I know exactly how the database attack happened, and how I could have dealt with it better than I did, but so it goes. The page on Archive.org is unformatted, and there are no pictures, but if you’re lucky the audio players will work.

Dog Rat Squeaks

I’m sure you recall that a couple of weeks ago I was on Stu’s Show, a feature on Shokus Internet Radio. I promised to post my five minutes on the program, and here they are.

[audio:https://s3.amazonaws.com/dogratcom/Audio/2011/Nov/ShokusRadio.mp3|titles=Stu Shokus with Monte Schulz]

I was pleased to have an opportunity not only to speak with Monte, but to provide a quote from the book attributed to him that he could directly refute. And Monte certainly does that.

I got wrapped up in listening to Monte and forgot to hang up! So I took advantage of that to add a comment. I end the audio clip with Monte answering a question I had asked here on the blog, about David Michaelis’ first draft of Schulz and Peanuts.

Wednesday, animation expert Jerry Beck will be the guest on Stu’s Show at 7 PM ET. Jerry is Webmaster on CartoonBrew.com, where much of the discussion about the Michaelis book has been taking place. Charles Schulz’s wife Jeannie has kept things interesting by adding a comment on Monday.