Medium Large: "We Are Santa's Elves"

A "Sally Forth" Flashback

A recent comment on Rec.Art.Comics.Strips made me recall one of the few times I stepped back from a Sally Forth plot and said, "Y'know, I really like that one." (Let's dismiss the fact that I probably said such to my cats.) Anyway, please indulge me as we look back to a a time when Ted was fully-employed and Sally's mom was nowhere in sight:

Comic Strips Take "A Serious Turn"

Big thanks to Las Vegas Review-Journal Reporter John Przybys for not only penning two exceptionally insightful and informative columns about the recent bumper crop of serious plot lines in Funky Winkerbean, For Better or For Worse and Sally Forth, but also showing that there are indeed surnames even more difficult to pronounce than my own.

Main Article: A Serious Turn

Adjunct Article: Serious Issues Work When Staying True to Comic's Characters

Medium Large's "Toys from Christmases Past Make Their Case"

Deleted Scenes from 1965’s “A Charlie Brown Christmas”

Charlie Brown is visited by the ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present and that bookie he’ll shoot to death at age 18.

After ice skating on the pond, the kids take a break to enjoy the product of the show’s original sponsor, Parliament Cigarettes.

Linus’s “Glory to God in the highest, and on Earth peace, good will toward men” quote from Luke 2:8—14 segues into “and I shall strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger” quote from Ezekial 25:17.

Snoopy greets each kid by ramming his nose in their crotch.

Lucy is arrested for malpractice in mid-pageant due to her highly unorthodox psychiatric treatment of Beach Boy Brian Wilson.

Every single character mispronounces “Chanukah.”

Schroeder beat-boxes “Fur Elise” for a full 15 minutes.

On numerous occasions Shermy goes off on extended rants about “the domino theory,” “Red China” and “mutual assured destruction.”

A heretofore unknown Peppermint Patty makes her very first animated special appearance under the name “Steve.”

Pig Pen is removed from his neglectful parents and placed in a foster home.

The small wooden tree starts commanding Charlie Brown to “Feed me!”

"A Werewolf Christmas": The Official New Dehli Monkey Gang Christmas Single

The following future yultide favorite was written by the stellar mother/daughter lyricist duo of "Rainbird" and "Huntingbyrd" (and penned on their way home from school last week). Great thanks to Josh of Comics Curmudgeon fame for forwarding me their composition.

Sung to the tune of Joy to the World (click on title for accompanying instrumental track):

It's the Holidays
And the Werewolves go Rowr Rowr
Rowr rowr, rowr rowr, rowr rowr

The Vampires look for blood
And the Zombies look for brains
And the Werewolves go Rowr Rowr
And the Werewolves go Rowr Rowr
And the Werewolves, the Werewolves go Rowr Rowr

Dragons come down
And join the mob
As blood is sprayed around
And every vampire and every bat,
lap up the resulting blood, lap up the resulting blood,
lap up, lap up the resulting blood

Monsters rule the world with blood and guts
And every Ogre knows
That holidays are best for eating their victims
And the Werewolves go rowr rowr
and the Werewolves go rowr rowr
And the Werewolves, the Werewolves go rowr rowr

Your Favorite Childhood Holiday Present?

Well, it's Christmastime and once again my pop culture/nostalgia-addled mind turns to thoughts of the televised yule log, Santa tooling around the North Pole on a Norelco electric shaver, York Peppermint Patty commercials during A Charlie Brown Christmas, singing cries of "razzle berry dressing" and "woofle jelly cake" along with Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol and...well...let's just say I spent a good deal of my holidays (and childhood) in front of the TV during the 70's.

And speaking of the holidays, television and the Me Decade, I'd like to share with you my--and my brother's--favorite Christmas present of all time, delivered by St. Nick on December 25, 1977 at our grandparents' house on Staten Island:


The very first edition of the Atari VCS (prior to the 2600 name change). This was indeed Marcello's and my Red Ryder BB gun, our real estate, our, uh, zoo-zitta-car-zay (a rollerskate type of lacrosse or croquet). It also allowed for great hours of fun with our dad, especially when we realized that the tanks in Combat could drive off one side of the screen and reappear on the other.

Now, if the controllers were not in the way, keen students of the Atari VCS would note that the above console is indeed the original six-toggle big boy and not the four-switch version of later years. They would also remark that there is no way we received the VCS and all the above video game cartridges that one Christmas. Instead, we collected them over subsequent holidays and birthdays, each lovingly kept in their original packaging for I guess this very photo-op a full 30 YEARS LATER! AUGH!!!

Well, now I've gone and officially depressed myself. So excuse me while I partake of some holiday M&Ms, sing Christmas carols from the sheets provided by Vanderbilt Elelementary School in 1974 and get ready to watch Santa Claus Is Coming to Town tonight on ABC, 8:00 PM (EST), all the while awaiting your answer to the following seasonal question:

What was your favorite holiday present?