Now, I’m not gonna go on some rant on Tim Burton’s secular views here. I still enjoy those movies quite a lot. It’s just that it strikes me as strange that he should be so solidly entrenched in the off-white moralities of macabre indulgence and extravagance, unmoving, and paint such an uncertain and dimly-lit portrait of what happens to your soul when you die. He in fact seems to prefer to think that one’s cadaver simply gets up and walks away.

It seems to me that this vision is based on views held by religions and spiritualities that have a catch-all afterlife realm where every soul went no matter what, like the ancient Greeks and Egyptians. Sure, those religions had justice in the afterlife, but it was one place. There is also the popular secular view that is suggested by ghost stories and haunted house movies, especially those that involve séances, that being dead simply means living on a different existential plane… This view strikes me as vague, using terms like “contact”, “the other side”, and “the spirit world” that suggest that these dead are someplace else, rather than among us.

Tim Burton seems to want to define what that place is like, but I still don’t feel satisfied by it, somehow. His ideals strike me as strange sometimes. What seems to appeal to everyone is the idea that scary can be fun, but what lies deeper in his works is the idea that it is better to be a decaying body than it is to be alive. In Corpse Bride especially, he suggests that it is a wonderful feeling to be uninhibited by things like a heartbeat, breathing, and any mortal diseases. I don’t know about anyone else, but I rather like having physical sensations, and wouldn’t care much for numbness. Isn’t this a physical state that Dracula longed for? Still, I notice the dead in that movie still drink booze.

In particular, the last I watched Corpse Bride, I started feeling a little squeamish during the “Tears to Shed” sequence, because its lyrics put down said physical sensations and further emphasize the movie’s preference for the coldness and stillness of death which… quite frankly, is bordering on necrophilia. Making light of that sort of thing isn’t my cup of tea anymore. What of the heat and the surging of hormones that is sex?

Ultimately, I fall back on my perhaps nostalgia-colored fondness for The Nightmare Before Christmas. It emphasizes the fun there is to be had from getting scared, puts down doing actual physical harm, and sends a message that praises and encourages love in the end. There’s a warmth surrounding the chills, one that reminds me of the happy feelings I get when keeping warm during the winter, that in my opinion is a bit lacking in many of Tim Burton’s other films. I still stand by my feeling that Nightmare is Burton’s artistic peak.

I recall that Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island made a big deal out of the monsters being real, and in hindsight it was probably a pretty big step. The monsters were real in 13 Ghosts and all those movies from the ’80s, but Zombie Island made it clear that this was a shocker (or at least highly abnormal), and that the gang didn’t have to always unmask some yokel in a mask. Since then, it seems like the gang has been able to switch back and forth between fakes and genuine articles with ease. And why not? The whole unmasking was getting kinda jokey.

The direct-to-video and TV movies seemed to breathe some new life into the franchise, and so after so many years of messing with the formula and having to put up with Scrappy, we got the ’02 live-action film… which is basically a big wish fulfillment for long-time fans. This was an era of pretending that the gang had reunited after a dry spell (something that certainly appealed to me), and so the logical conclusion was to create a throwback series, which gave us What’s New, Scooby-Doo?.

The franchise seems more popular than ever now, even going so far as having alternate continuities and reboots. I notice that The Mystery Begins doesn’t mention anything about A Pup Named Scooby-Doo… It would seem that audiences have grown tired of pretending that the gang are continuing their adventures, and are more interested in them simply having new ones- so the universe has completely reinvented itself. Previously we had logical extensions of their base personalities, but now it seems as though WB wants to make them seem like they’re real teenagers “just like you”, de-emphasizing their outdated fashion sense and emphasizing romantic relationships.

I’m inclined to agree that starting with a clean slate is the best direction that Scooby-Doo can take, considering today’s audiences. It was perhaps not the best idea to treat the series like an old fossil that needed cleaning up- as much as that has a certain ironic, nostalgic appeal- and that rather WB should peek at the subconscious decisions made by the original creators that show underneath the surface and expand on them- that is, use the basic personalities of the gang more realistically. Pre-teen and teenage TV viewers like relationships, it would seem.

It seems that Mystery Incorporated, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, and soon Epic Mickey are heralding an era in animation built on reinvention- they’re reinventing themselves by looking to the past and revitalizing what was already there but strangely overlooked. I think perhaps what gave these franchises their edge in the first place is what is often forgotten, and what audiences always wanted!

I certainly hope I can say the same thing about The Looney Tunes Show.

See, the problem is that I associate spearmint with toothpaste and mouthwash, so when I have a Mint Julep or or chewing gum with that flavor, I don’t like it so much. An exception would be mint chocolate chip ice cream, but that stuff uses peppermint a lot too, so I don’t know what I’m usually tasting… and there are chocolate mint candies, and I have no idea what those are…
And usually peppermint doesn’t usually taste right to me except during Christmastime, so I generally avoid those round candies unless they’re offering it for free in a bowl, like in a restaurant. But I really things like Peppermint Patties and After Eights, so chocolate-covered peppermint is okay by me any time of year.
Things get stranger when you start talking about those modern chewing gum flavors with names like “Black Frost” and “Blue Mountain”, which I don’t think are natural mint flavors, and some of them are truly awful-tasting to me- like Arm & Hammer toothpaste on steroids.

Ultimately I prefer wintergreen over all of them. This is because my grandma always has wintergreen Life-Savers in her car, so I always have them when we visit her (and thus associate them with good feelings). Weirdly enough, it’s not a true mint! And it’s really irritating because they’re not as easily available as spearmint or peppermint- only recently have wintergreen Altoids been available in nearby stores where we live.

I’ve been to a couple of gardens with mint plants, and plucked some bits off to smell them. I remember being pleased with the scent of Catmint (aka Catnip), and blown away by a particular cultivar of peppermint called “Chocolate Mint”- it seriously smells like chocolate and mint! I wonder if it’s ever used for desserts…

Speaking of scents I associated with toiletries, my mom loves lavender-scented soap, so I always think of lavender as the generic soap smell. Because of this, any lavender-flavored candies I have is like putting soap in my mouth, so I find it extremely distasteful.

Not everyone is a big fan of HMH, and I can see their reasoning, but personally I love it. Blurring the line between Halloween and Christmas can create tremendous beauty somehow, and I think HMH epitomizes it. I see that the main difference between Nightmare and HMH is that the film expresses how the majority of the American population doesn’t care for scariness during Christmas, preferring the warm-and-fuzzies usually associated with it… while the ride expresses how when the right audience is targeted, a macabre Christmas can be a blast.

This is something that I think the so-called “Perky Goths” get right. Rather than dwell on doom and gloom or indulge one’s bloodlust, a macabre Christmas and its fans represent a holdover from the camp horror comedies of the 1960s, bringing to life the values of corpse-painted joy and togetherness embodied in characters like the Addams Family and the Munsters. I love macabre humor, and I get joy out of watching vintage horror movies, listening to old-school horror rock, wearing costumes, and donning a slightly more mischievous personality.

Things like Silent Night, Deadly Night gets it wrong.

Because Nightmare Before Christmas is both about Halloween and Christmas, we used to make a tradition of watching it in October and December. And really, why not? The hybridization of the two holidays really isn’t so much of a stretch when you think about it, and Tim Burton’s film isn’t the first time it was done.

There are a lot of Christmas traditions that border on the scary side of things. The most obvious example is A Christmas Carol, which centers around ghostly spirits and strange visions, not to mention a grim warning of impending death and eternal punishment. Ghost stories used to be a holiday tradition, and if this book is any indication, 19th century Christmases were a lot weirder than today’s. When we think of Christmas, we usually think of the saccharine holiday that the ’40s, ’50s, and ’60s brought about.
And there of course there’s Black Peter, who is supposed to bring bundles of twigs to the parents of naughty children for the purpose of spanking them with it, or simply spirit away the children in a big bag.

Besides the scary side of Christmas, I think there’s a good reason Halloween is the second most profitable holiday in America. First and foremost, Americans love any excuse to stuff themselves with junk food or comfort food: Halloween is all about hoarding a bunch of candy to eat, and Christmas has an extensive array of traditional sweets, as well as savory foods. The chilliness of autumn and winter also causes cravings for sweet spices and seasonal fruit for some reason, and things like cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and allspice often go into ciders, punches, coffees, hot chocolates, cakes, pies, and cookies during both holidays, while fruits like apples, pumpkins, and cranberries are in season.

The way the two are celebrated are also similar. Both holidays involve putting up decorations on your house, both simple and elaborate, both with bright lights to beckon visitors. You could compare Christmas caroling to trick-or-treating, because in both activities you go up to a person’s door, vocalize to grab the inhabitant’s attention, and possibly get something to eat (carolers are traditionally rewarded with things like eggnog or wassail, as can be seen in the lyrics to “Here We Come A-Caroling” and “We Wish You A Merry Christmas”). You can celebrate both holidays with themed parties.

There is also the theme of rewarding good behavior inherent in both holidays- children get a treat for not playing a trick, and Santa brings presents to good girls and boys. Oh sure, trick-or-treating isn’t really the veiled threat it used to be anymore- children don’t really intend to become little junior Mafia members these days and demand protection payments- but then there are bad children get Christmas presents anyway. They’re sort of like mirror images: on Halloween, you get candy so you won’t be bad, and on Christmas, you’re promised presents so you’ll be good.

Which brings me to my next point: the crossover between the two isn’t so new. Decades before Tim Burton stretched it to its limits, Charles Schulz quite possibly blurred the line before anyone else with his creation of the character the Great Pumpkin, who as we all know is probably a result of Linus thinking about how Halloween ought to have a mascot like all the other major holidays.
It goes without saying, really, that the Great Pumpkin has obvious and entirely intentional similarities to Santa Claus- he appears on a single night once every year, flies through the air, and rewards well-behaved children with toys. Many people have compared Santa to Christ, but I think the Great Pumpkin takes it a step further- the question of sincerity (of course) and faith come into it, and in Linus’ mind you can spoil everything by doubting him. Linus perhaps would be more accurate in saying “sincerity with oneself”, but that still doesn’t explain how a pumpkin patch can have such qualities. Also, it seems that the Great Pumpkin can be touchy.

Moving onto more familiar territory, the first full-fledged Halloween/Christmas crossover is perhaps Bobby “Boris” Pickett’s “Monster’s Holiday” from 1962, by the man most famous for “Monster Mash”. The song describes a Christmas party attended by all the famous monsters, and their plans to steal from Santa Claus, although not with good intentions. The monsters learn a lesson in forgiveness when Santa gives them the things they wanted.

Jumping ahead about a decade, the 1974 album Monster Christmas Mash tells the story of the Society of Monsters (or something like that) wanting to hold their own Christmas party for a change of pace, resulting in many a Christmas song parody (werewolves singing “We Wish You a Hairy Christmas”, anyone?) and generally making a racket.

In 1976, the album Christmas with Shirley and Squirrely and Melvin Too! was released, a fine example of a Alvin and the Chipmunks wannabe. One track was called “The Christmas Haunted House” which had squeaky sped-up impressions of Boris Karloff and The Wicked Witch of the West, no less, describing the macabre way they celebrate Christmas.

The most obscure example I’ve found is issue #54 of Marvel’s The Tomb of Dracula from 1972, which includes the story “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas”, in which Dracula’s son is born on Christmas eve. Besides the irony of this, there’s not much comparison beyond the use of a terrifying old-school monster’s antics during the normally un-gloomy holiday.

Perhaps just as obscure is Christmas Comes to Monster Mountain, a children’s book from ’81. We’re told that “all the monsters that ever lived” reside on this single mountain called Monster Mountain- a concept hardly believable, but okay. Count Dracula of all people wants to kidnap Santa Claus so he can get re-elected as leader of the monsters, and it’s up to Ted E. Bear to save Christmas! Okay, so maybe this is a poor example, but it’s still about creepy creatures wanting to take something from Christmas.

This all proves that the warm-and-fuzzies of Christmas aren’t so incompatible with the cheery chills of Halloween, I think. Heck, our family’s had a jack-o-lantern ornament on our tree for as long as I can remember.

But in the midst of all this, I can’t help but notice this year that Thanksgiving is pretty gleaned over during the holiday season. There isn’t much anticipation for it, and Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade makes it obvious that we treat it mostly as a herald for the Christmas season. Shouldn’t Thanksgiving get a piece of the crossover pumpkin pie?

I can think of several reasons for this neglect. First of all, only the United States celebrates Thanksgiving, because it’s a commemoration of when the pilgrims officially made peace with the local natives, and things were looking up for the first European settlers. This doesn’t exactly generate excitement in other countries (or, in fact, in America).
But I think the biggest reason for it is that there’s no mythology. Thanksgiving is about a confirmed historical event, where a bunch of Puritans thank the Native Americans they met for not letting them starve, instead of embodiments of abstract concepts like good and evil shaped by centuries of folklore and pop culture. There isn’t much fiction about Thanksgiving, and the only one really worth mentioning (that I know about) is The Thanksgiving That Almost Wasn’t.

But there are still comparisons between the three that can be drawn, I think. The first one that comes to mind is the food- both Christmas and Thanksgiving involve big family dinners filled with rich dishes, although Thanksgiving has a slightly more limited menu. Nevertheless, turkey, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie are all still acceptable dishes during Christmas festivities.
Also, Halloween and Thanksgiving are often joined together with Harvest Time festivities, so one can conceivably leave the pumpkins, gourds, Indian corn, scarecrows, hay bushels, and autumn leaves you put up as Halloween decorations where they are and keep them there until Thanksgiving.
Perhaps what is the most common among all three holidays is the pumpkin.

Another big problem is that you can’t really make Thanksgiving scary without seeming ridiculous. There have been attempts to make the idea of turkeys seeking revenge from their predators into a scary scenario, such as Midway’s 1984 arcade game Turkey Shoot (which is fun), in which a post-apocalyptic world is overrun with bloodthirsty turkeys with guns, and some slasher flick I heard about called ThanksKilling, which sounds really stupid and crude.

Ultimately I don’t think a cross between Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas will ever really catch on despite the traits they share, because ultimately there’s no room for Thanksgiving to expand, and even if you did emphasize the whole pumpkin and harvest thing, it’d still feel like Thanksgiving is merely a bridge that you briefly pass over to get from Halloween to Christmas. It still feels like a transition from one to the next, and I don’t think you could marry them and expect them to have a baby, like Haunted Mansion Holiday. Jack Skellington could have chosen to go through the turkey-shaped door, but the Christmas tree door was so much more tantalizing. (Of course, the movie briefly plays with the Easter Bunny meeting the residents of Halloween Town, but I don’t think even Tim Burton would want to go there.)

Tim Burton’s Thankscreaming! Nope… that’s not gonna happen.

The more I read about it, the more it amazes me that we demonize the drug at all. To paraphrase Paul McCartney (who I imagine still has a dealer) from his book Many Years From Now, pot makes you want to fall asleep rather than go out and commit acts of violence, like alcohol can do. It’s incredible that things like alcohol and cigarettes are legal, when they’re so effing dangerous! Heck, you know what drugs terrify me the most? Commercial medications! So many of them are obviously improperly tested, and they all seem to have wince-inducing side effects like stomach ulcers and having trouble breathing. I’ve seen several studies that show that pot doesn’t have any more danger potential than caffeine, while alcohol and cigarettes are more dangerous.

And the astonishing array of benefits the drug has just takes the cake. And that doesn’t just include inducing relaxation, a peaceful mood, and an increased appetite. I could probably sing its praises, but I really only know about things like that from some cannabis magazines I’ve read, and not from personal experience. That, and modesty forbids (they tend to be things I feel awkward talking about).

That’s why it really surprised me that Prop 19 didn’t pass here in California- we have enough of a casual attitude towards it already, so why not get it over with? I’m told that there were some problems with defining its taxation, but I have to wonder whether or not we just got cold feet.

Ice King!
…cold-hearted marauders…!
Lumpy space princess.
Piñata!

I don’t care much for the show. I get that it’s supposed to be a pastiche of old-school fantasy video games, but for the life of me, I can’t tell WHAT sort of fantasy video games they were trying to make fun of. You’d think after all these years of games based on the basic molds set down by Zelda, Final Fantasy, Dungeons & Dragons, and World of Warcraft, a parody of such things would be recognizable as such.

I find the art terribly unattractive- it’s like the scribbles of a teenage girl from high school who decided to experiment with marijuana and confused Zelda with the Care Bears or Candyland or something.

I watched an episode and didn’t really find it funny- it was more confusing than anything. Worse, the one part I was looking forward to, the scene with the Dream Fish wannabe owl, was a real let-down. I really thought it was going someplace clever, but then it didn’t!

I sure hope the episodes with the teenage vampire aren’t nearly as disappointing- I get the feeling that I’d like the character. I guess if I really want my fix of fantasy video game parodies, I should stick to webcomics.

“Sorry, no right-clicking allowed.” You might find out that nearly all of the images are hotlinked! (And that the coding is horrible.)

Luckily the songs in this act aren’t nearly so obscure as past ones.

“Ja-Da”, written by Bob Carleton in 1918.

“Darktown Strutters’ Ball”, written by Shelton Brooks in 1917. Shows up a fair number of times in early Mickey shorts.

“Singin’ in the Rain”, words by Arthur Freed and music by Nacio Herb Brown, approx. 1929. Best known as the title song of the ’52 Gene Kelly musical.

“A-Tisket A-Tasket”, based on a nursery rhyme dating back to at least 1879, and transformed into jazz by Ella Fitzgerald and Al Feldman in 1938.

“Boo-Hoo”, written by Edward Heyman, Carmen Lombardo and John Jacob Loeb, 1937 I think. (One reference seemed to point to Mal Hallett as its author.)

“Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar”, written by Don Raye, 1940. The archetypical boogie-woogie song.

“Hound Dog”, written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, 1952.

The version upon which Elvis based his own rendition:

“See You Later, Alligator”, written Robert Charles Guidry aka Bobby Charles, 1955.

“Shake Rattle & Roll”, written by Jesse Stone under the pseudonym Charles E. Calhoun, 1954. Billy Haley’s version features the more familiar lyrics.

One problem I have with the above three performances is that none of them are at all original in their arrangement or performance. It’s to be expected that they should use the “Elvis version” of “Hound Dog”, but the other two are so closely based on The Comets’ versions that they might well be taken from a sound-alike record. It doesn’t help that the other characters keep interjecting with random “hip” dialogue.

“Twistin’ USA”, written by Kal Mann, 1960.

The inclusion of this song is quite inexplicable. If they wanted to include a Twist song, “The Twist” or “Let’s Twist Again” would have sufficed. If they wanted a song about the US, “Back in the USA” or “Surfin’ USA” would have been much better. Chubby Checker did an endless amount of now-obscure Twist songs after making it big, and picking one of these to be sung by a biker stork and his Cloudcuckoolander girlfriend is plain bizarre. Add the fact that this is the only ’60s song in the show, from a time when the decade’s music hadn’t even found a unique sound yet, you get a recipe for a big honkin’ WHY?
While most of the ’60s was dominated by the British, there were plenty of candidates to choose from: The Beach Boys, the Motown label, bubblegum, Creedence… but nope, we’re leaping ahead over ten years to 1971!

“Joy to the World”, written by Hoyt Axton, made famous by Three Dog Night, and not to be confused with the Christmas song. Done up by Disney as a gospel song, which is oddly appropriate.

I’ve thought about it, and I think that if this last act were split apart into “The Jazz Era” and “Rock ‘n’ Roll”, we might have gotten a more coherent ending to the show. The problem is that the original Carousel of Progress building only consisted of four acts as well, and probably the Imagineers had to make do, although I’m not sure why the final “unloading” stage couldn’t have been used for the finale.
I have thought of coming up with new “setlists” for a fantasy America Sings reworking, but unfortunately my knowledge of jazz is limited, so I’ve only come up with the “Rock ‘n’ Roll” section. If I ever manage to do both, I’ll post them.

The third act begins with “She May Be Somebody’s Mother”, written by William C. Carleton, which is all that I could find out about it.

“The Bowery”, music by Percy Gaunt, words by Charles H. Hoyt, part of the Broadway play A Trip to Chinatown.

Don’t worry, it’s in there somewhere.

“After the Ball”, written by Charles K. Harris in 1891, and one of the first songs to become a million-seller.

“Down in the Licensed Saloon”, written by W.A. Williams in 1892, and apparently a take-off of the extremely similar “Where is My Wandering Boy Tonight?” by Rev. Robert Lowry. There is also “(Bring Back My) Wandering Boy” a folk song based off of “Somebody’s Boy is Homeless Tonight” by R.S. Hanna.
…I think. It’s all so confusing I’m not sure I’ll be able to find the one Disney used (W.A. Williams).
Lyrics: http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=5573
Alternate lyrics: http://www.mudcat.org/@displaysong.cfm?SongID=10336

“(Won’t You Come Home) Bill Bailey”, written by Hughie Cannon in 1902.

Notably adapted into “Bill Spacely” in the Jetsons episode “Miss Solar System”:

http://www.thewb.com/shows/the-jetsons/miss-solar-system/60f27632-1f04-4764-ad87-cf7469c4101e

“Sweet Adeline”, words by Richard H. Gerard, music by Harry Armstrong, 1903. Very popular with animators, and for some reason almost always performed drunk (or at least queerly). It’s unfortunately hard to find straight renditions…

“The Old Grey Mare”, a folk song that has become synonymous with horses in animation scores.

“A Bird in a Gilded Cage”, music by Harry von Tilzer, words by Arthur J. Lamb, 1900.

“Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay”, attributed to Henry J. Sayers, 1891, the next year given new words by Richard Morton. Also known as the melody for “It’s Howdy Doody Time”.

By the way, as an aside, if you’ve ever wondered if the Dilly Sisters ever did anything else… well:

Next up is “Modern Times”, which wasn’t a very descriptive name at all, as you’ll soon see…