Countdown to Christmas 4

Welcome to I’m So Glad My Suffering Amuses You, a tiny snowflake blog in a big ol' Winter Wonderland internet.

HO! HO! HO! It’s another installment of  COUNTDOWN TO CHRISTMAS!!!!!

Today’s movie is Scrooged!

As you know, there have a gazillion retellings of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol".  Versions set in the original Victorian setting of the novel, cartoons with anthropomorphic animals, TV episodes where the curmudgeon character is forced (FORCED, damn it!) to learn to true meaning of Christmas and so on and so.

Scrooged is set in the latter 20th century and the Scrooge in question is a TV network executive played by Bill Murray. He's determined that his network is going to air a star studded live performance of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" on Christmas Eve.

Which means a lot of actors, stage hands and more are not going to be with their families at Christmas what with all the prep work, rehearsing and the show itself. 

It is a fairly enjoyable twist on "A Christmas Carol". There's a point when Bill's character is visited by the first of the ghosts, played by John Forsythe. Bill pulls out a gun and shoots. With each bullet, Bill yells "ka-blam!" He's providing sound effects for the gun fire?

Also Carol Kane shows up as another ghost who talks ever so sweetly like a pixie and punches Bill like she's Mike Tyson.

Story about how I first saw this movie. It was Christmas Eve and I had gotten off work early. Which was a good thing too because I had not finished shopping for Andrea. It was our first Christmas together after we got married. 

OK, I should say in my defense I had bought her presents for Christmas. What I had not reckoned with was Andrea's propensity for getting a great quantity of presents. I had 3 or 4 presents of fairly large size and of what I thought was considerable quality. I felt very good that I gotten her some really good presents and way ahead of schedule. I wasn't going to be one of those schmucks scrambling to buy presents on Christmas Eve.

Meanwhile, the pile of presents Andrea was putting under the tree for me was outnumbering the ones I had for her. It was a battle of dueling present piles and I was losing!!!!

So there I was in Target, a schmuck scrambling to buy presents on Christmas Eve.

I got back home with my load of newly purchased gifts, spread out on the living room floor, bustling to wrap everything as quickly as possible before Andrea got home. Her job had not let their staff go home early yet for Christmas Eve.

I flipped on the TV for company and landed on Scrooged.

I would have to say that in my current frantic state, I was more in Bill Murray's corner at the first of the movie, cursing and grumbling as I struggled with tape and wrapping paper.

Seriously, why the hell is the first thing Scotch tape will stick to is itself?

One more thing:  one of those last minute gifts was a VHS copy of 9 Months, a romantic comedy starring Hugh Grant. Andrea and I had seen this movie in the theater the previous summer. She liked the movie a lot and she's a big fan of Hugh Grant. 

That VHS copy of 9 Months still rests on a shelf in our entertainment center, still (I kid you not!) in it's original shrink wrap.

Today’s Christmas song is one that debuted back in the 1950s but I managed to go through my whole childhood without hearing it. I didn’t discover this song until after my daughter was born. 

"I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas" was performed by Gayla Peevey who was 10 years old at the time in 1953.  

Despite being played often during the holiday season by Dr. Demento, this song escaped my notice until the start of the 21st century. 

“I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas” is an exercise in sheer absurdity but it's also educational. You might worry that a hippopotamus could eat you but a hippo is a vegetarian.

And now it’s DOCTOR WHO CHRISTMAS SPECIAL TIME. Today’s installment looks at  “The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe ”. 

This Christmas special as a lot of Christmas in it. 

It also features alien trees.  

It's Steven Moffat's 2nd Christmas special and I think it suffers a bit much from a lot of pressure to be ever so magical.  The special captures a Chronicles of Narnia vibe then hits you over the head with it.  

When the Doctor isn't trying too hard to be some kind of weird, frantic, hyper-caffeinated Christmas elf, there is a sweet and compelling story at the core of this special. 

A lot of that owes to the performance of Claire Skinner as Madge Skinner, a woman of profound innocence and imagination but also weighed down by grief. If Matt Smith's Doctor is being too silly, Claire Skinner is the anchor that holds this episode together.  

The episode ends with the Doctor reuniting with Amy and Rory for Christmas dinner.  

And before we go, here is today’s Christmas Comic Book Story!!!!

WAIT! 

It's over already? 

A ONE PAGE STORY? WHO DOES A COMIC BOOK STORY IN ONLY ONE PAGE?!?!

Angel and the Ape occupy an odd but beloved corner of the DC Universe going back to the 1960s. 

Here's a Bob Oskner cover from one of their earlier appearances, Angel and the Ape#2.  







It's always good to see Angel and the Ape in something.

But for only ONE page?!?! 

Well, that is that for today’s Countdown to Christmas.

The countdown continues tomorrow with another movie, another weird song, more Doctor Who and another comic book story!

Happy holidays and remember to be good to one another.