The Un-Thanksgiving

This year my partner Jerry and I were too exhausted to do anything for Thanksgiving, even cook. He had major surgery five weeks ago and is just now getting back to his old self. Plus I seemed to have more than the usual amount of stuff to do at work such as interviewing the stars of The King's Speech, putting together a panel of casting directors for Back Stage and the SAG Foundation, and covering a lot of shows. (There were more than usual for this time of year.) Jerry had spent that time recuperating, and we haven't even thought about the usual holiday stuff like what kind of turkey to get or should we invite anyone over. We finally decided to come up to our country place in upstate NY and do nothing for the whole weekend. We drove up on Tues. night.

The only work involved doing a phone interview with Guy Pearce to complete the King's Speech article (see previous blog on the interviews with Helena Bonham Carter and Colin Firth; I had spoken to Geoffrey Rush on the phone from Australia already). It was difficult to arrange, but the only time he could give me was the day before Thanksgiving. Pearce called my cellphone from Serbia where he is filming a sci-fi action picture with an international crew.

On Thanksgiving Day itself, our plan was to eat out and see a movie. We didn't even have the energy to cook our own meal. The day was overcast, we just relaxed and watched the Macy's Parade which was interesting because this year they seemed to consciously include more multicultural entertainment including an Indian dance troupe doing a salute to Bollywood and a Latino troupe doing a wild extravangza. The rest of the day I put in the storm windows for our enclosed porch and sealed the air conditioner so the back room wouldn't be drafty, then read Supergirl comics and playscripts--I'm on a committee to chose the best new play produced outside of NYC. It was strange not to be smelling cranberries or stuffing, but it was also nice to just be and not have to make an effort for the holiday.

The plan was to eat at the local Chinese restaurant and go to Unstoppable with Denzel Washington which had received good reviews for an action picture. We figured they would be open--but no, they were closed along with every other eatery around. If he had stayed in the city, we would have found something open, but up here there was nothing. I wasn't so much worried about not having a nice dinner in a restaraunt, but not getting any dinner at all. Finally, we settled on buying some sandwiches at Walmart. Yes, Walmart, the only establishment open. It was kinda weird being in the deli section of the half-empty super Walmart with employees there away from their families and a handful of customers getting a head start on their Christmas shopping. I had a ham and cheese sandwich with potato salad while Jerry had a turkey wrap. BTW, I ate a frozen turkey dinner for lunch so it wasn't totally untraditional. We eat our makeshift dinner along with potato chips and diet coke in the car and then drove to the movie. I wasn't upset or depressed we had such a non-holiday meal, it was fine. The important thing was we were together. We both were just so tired it was easier not to observe the holiday and regard it as a nice day off from all responsibilities.

Thanksgiving Friday with George of the Jungle

It's the end of the Thanksgiving weekend. This Sunday brings to mind four-day vacations from school. It also meant more cartoons--I don't recall if it also meant more Broadway musicals, because I don't think Macy's parade did numbers from Main Stem tuners back then. Anyway, one Thanksgiving we were visiting relatives in Massachusetts and the Friday after Thanksgiving, ABC was showing its entire Saturday morning line-up. They even had a commercial promoting it with an animated turkey playing a rock guitar. I recall watching it with my brother in the basement of a cousin's house. I had to be 1968 and the shows included the Hanna-Barbera version of The Fantastic Four, which was pretty sophisticated for a kid's cartoon, Spider-Man, also sophisticated, and George of the Jungle, a very funny parody of Tarzan made by the same people who did Rocky and Bullwinkle, Hoppity Hooper, the Quisp and Quake and Cap'n Crunch commercials.

When I recently visited my parents in Philly, a Blockbuster video store was going out of business and I found a DVD of George of the Jungle episodes (all 17) for $10. I had earlier not bought a Jonny Quest DVD for $10 which I had regretted ever since. So I snapped it up. Very funny, grown-up humor. George is a clumsy, hunky apeman who perpetually crashes into trees while swinging to the rescue and is so dumb he thinks his elephant Shemp is a big, long nosed doggie. As an example of the sophiticated humor, in one episode, an evil witch doctor is aiming darts at a board which reads "Medicare." In another George is exhibits his skill in animal calling. He calls for hippos and a tribe of long-haired weirdos shows up. "George, you called for the hippies, not the hippos," explains his assistant. an Ape named Ape who speaks with a Ronald Coleman accent. The George cartoons are not as funny as the supporting features which appeared weekly--Super Chicken and Tom Slick.

Super Chicken is a riotous send-up of superheroes with millionaire playchicken Henry Cabot Henhouse III who is in reality the super-powered fowl battling for truth and justice against such villains as the Zipper, the Oyster, the Noodle, the Fat Man, Salivador Rag Dolly, Merlin Brando (who lives on the Isle of Lucy), and the Laundry Man (an incredibly racist stereotype of a Chinese villain). In one episode, a mad scientist creates a giant raging toupee which Super Chicken subdoes by causing it to worry thus making its gigantic hair fall out. He is assisted by a lion named Fred who appears to be his butler, but is dressed in a red sweater with a backwards F and sneakers. (I found the above illustration with Super Chicken and Fred which is a panel from a George of the Jungle comic book which I had as a kid.)

Tom Slick is a race car driver whose overwhelming goodsportsmanship is a source of annoyance for his main nemesis Baron Otto Matic. Every week Tom would convert his car the Thunderbolt Grease-Slapper into a balloon, drag racer, locomotive, snowmobile, submarine, skateboard, etc. for a big race. He was accompanied by Marigold, a lovely young lady, and Gertie Growler, a caustic old lady (with the same voice as Super Chicken). owner of a garage and presumably his mechanic. My favorite villain on Tom Slick was Sonia Nar and her Aqua-Nuts who lived in Drown Town (a metropolis beneath the waves) and who supplied the dirty tricks to stop Slick during a submarine race. June Foray gave her the same voice as Natasha Fatale on Rocky and Bullwinkle.

This Thanksgiving in between cleaning out the gutters and putting up the fake Christmas tree, I watched a few George of the Jungle episodes and they made me feel nine again. Other cartoons of the era I remember enjoying are Frankenstein Junior and the Impossibles, Birdman and the Galaxy Trio, the Super Six, Underdog ( I recently met George S. Irving who was the narrator on that show at a reading of a George Bernard Shaw play), and the Superman-Batman Adventure Hour. You can tell I spent entirely too much time in front of the TV just like now.