Christmas Tonight

Great scene from "The Jerk"

Had to get something new up here after all this time. A great scene with Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters from "The Jerk."

The Quebe Sisters

Just heard of this group that is playing with Asleep at the Wheel on some of their dates -- the Quebe (kway-bee) Sisters Band. They play Texas fiddle and sing in three-part harmony. Great stuff.

Junior Brown: Sugar Foot Rag

Junior Brown deconstructing the old classic, Sugar Foot Rag. Not sure exactly what kind of guitar he's playing, or what planet it is from. Sounds good, though!

Ukulele Boy

"Weird Al" Yankovic's Really True Home Movies

Ukuleles Live at Lewisville Estates

Some low-fi videos of ukulele performamces by the Dallas Ukulele Headquarters group at Lewisville Estates on Feb. 20, 2010. First, Don Aspromonte performing Frankie and Johnny. Weird as it is, I want to be able to do stuff like this some day.



Next, a group rendition of "Ain't She Sweet."

Super Bowl commercials

Getting ready for the Super Bowl this weekend, here's a few classic ads from past Super Bowls to warm us up.

Boilerplate

A video about Boilerplate, a fictional robotic man put into real-life historical scenes by his two creative authors. I just got this book and am enjoying it a lot. Great vision and ideas.

The Boilerplate page is here.

Hitler on the Massachusetts Massacre

This seems to be the clip that can be modified for any breaking news story. Here is Hitler reacting to the latest blow to the Democrats in Massachusetts with the election of Republican Scott Brown as senator.

I must see the original movie that this was taken from sometime, so I can learn what Hitler was actually having a meltdown about.

Law and Order Chickens

This is so right on -- it's the plot of virtually every "Law and Order" episode on TV, done by chickens. Could someone do a version of "House" next -- maybe with sheep?

Rejected Valentines

I missed this one yesterday. Here's a few Valentine's Day cards that didn't quite make the cut. I don't know -- I wouldn't have sent any of these, but I know a few of them would probably sell quite well. (PG content rating)

How to Hula While You Make Moolah

I think it was that eminent philosopher Fonzie who said, "Sit on it and spin!" That might be a good slogan for something called "The Hawaii Chair," which I discovered on a blog somewhere. Check out this YouTube video of what has to be one of the goofiest products ever invented. If you want the sensation of working at your desk during an 8.4 earthquake, then I guess this is for you.



And just what, pray tell, is a "2800 RPM Hula Motor?"

Never Go to Work

One of my favorite musical groups is They Might Be Giants. The group is two guys who do all sorts of nerdy, intelligent, sometime weird and downright goofy songs that only a complete dweeb like me can relate to. Their only big hit, I believe, was "Birdhouse in Your Soul" a number of years back.

Anyway, I was excited to learn that TMBG is coming out with their first CD of songs written just for kids. They have also done a number of video podcasts to promote the songs. I'd like to share the video they did for their song called "Never Go to Work," teaching kids about the days of the week. It's a catchy tune, and the video is neat. It might take awhile to load, but it's worth the wait.

Thingmaker: Make Toys or Grilled Cheese Sandwiches!

This is the third in a series of trips down memory lane featuring Muley's favorite childhood Christmas toys.

This toy was a big favorite with me and my brothers. The foundation of the toy was Thingmaker, basically a heated metal plate that would take metal molds filled with liquid plastic and cook the plastic until the resulting shapes became hard and rubbery. But the product is commonly referred to as "Creepy Crawlers," which was the name given to the products of one of the most popular series of themed molds you could buy to work with Thingmaker.



If you go into a toy store nowadays, I believe they sell something under the Creepy Crawlers name. The idea is the same, but from what I have seen it is a pale imitation of the original Thingmaker system. The new one looks like a modified Easy Bake oven, with plastic parts and using the equivalent of a light bulb to bake the plastic. The original Thingmaker, by contrast, was like a little metal foundry in your home. The molds were made of thick metal, and the Thingmaker was able to heat that metal up so hot that you would burn the dickens out of your tiny, tender hands if you didn't remove the molds just right.

I would guess that Creepy Crawlers were probably the most popular things you could make with Thingmaker, but as you can see from the clipped advertisement here, you could also make other stuff like scary makeup items. I also remember that at our house we had molds that allowed us to create toy soldiers. One mold would make the front part of the soldier's body, a second mold would make the back half, and I guess you were supposed to fit the two halves together while the thing was still warm and sticky so that they'd dry into one figure. A third mold let you make rifles and grenades and such. The idea was that you could eventually create enough of the little guys to form your own army. But, unlike G.I. Joes, Thingmaker soldiers were as rubbery as the fake snakes and vampire teeth it also cooked up. It's as though some alien from space swooped down and removed all of the bones from a U.S. Army battalion.

Besides providing me hours of enjoyment being my own Dr. Frankenstein, I loved the sheer utilitarianism of the names Mattel gave to this toy and its components. The thing you made stuff in was called...the thing maker. The liquid goop you poured into the molds was called...goop.

When it comes to summing up Thingmaker, I believe radarmagazine does it best: "Nothing says safety like an open hot plate. And nothing says fun like using that open hot plate to create molten, rubbery insects you can throw at your sister while narrowly avoiding setting the house ablaze."

Major Matt Mason: Muy Molded Machismo!

In Part Two of what I guess is now a series of looks back at my favorite toys from childhood 1960s Christmases, I want to introduce you to Major Matt Mason (surprisingly, not a product of the 3M Corporation).



I think it was a bit unusual, even back in the groovy Sixties, to have television ad copy read in rhyme. I believe this poem, titled "The Misbegotten Moon of Major Matt Mason," was actually one of the lesser-known works of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Robert Penn Warren, based on a short story by Chekhov.

My little brother and I spent many hours of pleasure taking Major Matt and Sergeant Storm (as an enlisted man, he didn't rate a first name) on adventures across the floor in our dad's study. We would have been green with envy, though, if we'd seen the swanky fantasy play area the boys in the TV commercial have their space station set up in. Not many parents would let their children bring in beach sand and move boulders into the living room, even if they did look like those cardboard imitation boulders used on the original Star Trek episodes.

I don't remember the Captain Laser character at all. Being a battery operated giant, he probably had a giant price tag, which might explain why my parents never saw fit to bring him home to join our crew. Besides, being raised on Mars and all, could you really trust him? Would Major Matt wake up one day in the space station to find one of his rubberized legs chewed off up to his hips, with Captain Laser just licking his lips, his red eyes pulsing rapidly?

It Wasn't Called "Vrroom!" for Nothing

If you were a red-blooded American boy in the 1960s, not old enough to drive and forced to settle for riding a bicycle or tricycle, this was something you wanted from Santa. I finally got one as a Christmas gift, and I can still remember our neighborhood in the days following, with me and other boys riding their bikes down the street, sounding like an invading army of locusts ready for a motocross race.



You just knew this was the coolest because you had your own special key to start the engine. It weren't no toy, you understand.

I love the commercial! Am I wrong, or can no kid have that many huge freckles on his nose? Do you think they painted them on with some sort of dye? And why do all little boys in 1960s commercials look as though their fathers cut their hair with a pair of pruning shears while drunk? Probably because, in many cases, they did.