Medium Cool is a weekly series related to popular culture, mostly film, TV, and books, with some music and games thrown in. We hope it’s a welcome break from the anger, hate, and idiocy we see almost daily from the other side in the political sphere.
Arguments welcomed, opinions respected, fools un-suffered. We’re here every Sunday at 7 pm.
Tonight can we talk about songs and movies that are holiday-related?
When I say holiday-related, I mean that in the loosest possible way. I mean, even 6-degrees of separation from holidays works. Heard this song or saw this movie on your birthday one year? This movie you saw on an airplane 5 years ago had a scene that reminded you of a Christmas party you went to 10 years ago? That counts, too.
The holidays don’t even have to be anything anyone else celebrates. If your grandparents were from Germany and their family tradition was to have a picnic on the 3rd Sunday in June every year, that counts. That kid you gave a paper valentine to in 2nd grade turned out to be a roadie for some band we’ve never heard of? That works.
You watched the movie Harvey with your dad one year, Harvey is a bunny, and bunnies make you think of Easter, close enough for me!
Just tell us your stories! Bonus point if you share how you are connecting that thing with a holiday.
In case you are new to Medium Cool, these are not open threads.
UncleEbeneezer
Watching the Sound of Music was a bit of an Easter tradition when I was growing up. Not exactly sure why, but it seems like it was always on broadcast tv on Easter weekend.
Baud
@UncleEbeneezer:
I used to love watching The Ten Commandments every year. Epic movie. And Yul Brenner!
Melancholy Jaques
So, Donnie Darko is in.
Another Scott
Groundhog Day. Apparently, like so much of the calendar, it’s from a pagan holiday halfway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox.
The holiday is a cartoon (at least in the US), but the movie is one of my favorites.
Best wishes,
Scott.
UncleEbeneezer
We love seasonal/holiday viewing. We don’t have anything regular for Easter (though I think Sound of Music may become a tradition) but come July 4th we always watch Jaws. At Halloween we watch It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, Halloween and several other horror movies set in the Fall. For Thanksgiving we watch Charlie Brown. At Christmas we watch multiple versions of The Nutcracker, at least one version of A Christmas Carol, one or more versions of Little Women and listen to a lot of jazz versions of classic carols. We aren’t usually with family on holidays and aren’t church-goers so tv and music are our ways of feeling connected to the holidays.
dexwood
@Melancholy Jaques: When my son was in high school, I attended a midnight showing of Darko with him. It was fun and I was the oldest person there in a small arts theater. No holiday connection, though, sorry.
WaterGirl
@Melancholy Jaques: Everything is in, just tell us how it connects to a holiday, with as many degrees of separation as they have. :-)
UncleEbeneezer
@Baud: Yes! That was always on at the same time.
rosalind
Just got home from seeing “Jesus Christ Superstar” on the big screen for the first time at our local indie. Audience was half older folk and half college students from the local uni. The college kids could not deal with how stylized the look and film editing was, laughed through the whole thing, though maybe they celebrated 4/20 in a different way before hand. I enjoyed seeing the hippie time capsule, and the music.
dexwood
@UncleEbeneezer: The Wizard of Oz Was broadcast around Easter for many years. The movie always reminded me of Easter and Easter always reminded me of the movie.
Splitting Image
Monty Python and the Holy Grail is an Easter movie because the Grail is, according to legend, the cup that Jesus used during the Last Supper (or the cup used to collect Jesus’ blood when he was on the cross).
There is also a bunny in the movie, so that counts too.
Obviously, The Life of Brian refers to the crucifixion directly, so the two movies would make a great seasonal double bill.
BellaPea
We watch Harvey every New Year’s Eve, and crack up every time. Jimmy Stewart was a comedic genius in that part and won an Oscar. The rest of the cast is stellar as well. So many quotes, “And the evening wore on” and “I could be oh so smart or oh so kind. I chose to be oh so kind.”
Melancholy Jaques
@WaterGirl:
All about the bunny.
WTFGhost
A-HEM!
Harvey was a pookah, a trickster spirit that (in the movie) looked like a giant rabbit.
Do not be fooled. Harvey taught wisdom.
To the doctor who wanted nothing more than to drink beer, pour out his troubles, and have a kindly woman say “there, there,” to them, Jimmy Stewart gave the perfect answer, IMHO.
“Well, you know, a woman might have something more interesting to say than ‘there, there’,” he said, “and with all that beer, you might want to have some whiskey. But…”
Revealed wisdom for talk between the sexes; and the understanding of a need for boilermakers. It’s not quite like “your Savior is resurrected, so good triumphed over evil!” but it’s good. Let’s not let some mythical perfection (snrch) be the enemy of the good!
(See, even if you believe in God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and that every word in the bible is “true enough in context” (I heard it said “Job is fiction and everyone knew it, until the Fundies came in.”) It’s still mythology. But the ‘snrch’ was on “mythical perfection” meaning literally “mythical”, and not a cut on those who believe. Hence, my explanation that “mythology” isn’t a bad word, it’s just, a collection of stories, icons, etc., that make up parts of a religion.)
Um. ON topic, Job is, I believe, religious fiction, and closely related to the story of Easter, because true faith sustains Job through all the tribulations that were sent his way.
It just kinda sucks ass that Job demands and answer, and the answer is, “dude, I’m G_D, and the wonders I’ve seen, the feats I’ve done, you do them, then you have an answer!” except… in the story, G_D was being a total dick, just because Satan annoyed him, “Job would desert you, Job would desert you, ha haha haha ha!”
(Try to get the sing-song right – I counted the “ha”s out carefully!)
Um. One of my easter gifts was Totally Legal Herbal Remedy for pain. Oh, come on, quit acting like there’s some big joke, and everyone but me is in on it!
WaterGirl
@Melancholy Jaques: I don’t know what Donny Darko is. Please excuse my ignorance.
WTFGhost
@WaterGirl: How about the cartoon, one (chocolate) bunny saying “my butt hurts,” presumably due to the missing tail, and the other, with missing ears, saying “What?”
Splitting Image
I will die on the hill that Handel’s Messiah ought to be an Easter tradition, notswithstanding the fact that it got grafted onto Christmas somehow instead.
Also, Peter Gabriel, “It is Accomplished”
WTFGhost
@dexwood: It was midnight, the witching hour, most celebrated on Halloween, or, Christmas (because, haha, OCT 31 = DEC 24 – computer science/binary-decimal math joke)…
…which makes the holiday connection entirely obvious to me, which… means you probably shouldn’t talk about the connection to any doctors of psychiatry. Or neurology. In fact, probably best to keep our conversations entirely to yourself, so people don’t think you’re hallucinating.
Melancholy Jaques
@WaterGirl:
Sorry. Frank, a huge rabbit, figures in the film.
UncleEbeneezer
@rosalind: We watched it yesterday. I love the soundtrack and my wife had never seen it. Love how in the 70’s even a Rated G film had some serious sexiness. At one point my wife asked “wait, is there sex in this?” I told her, sadly, no but I’d bet they were all fucking offscreen, lol.
WaterGirl
@WTFGhost: LOL
(sad LOL at the thought of a real bunny losing ears or tail, of course)
WaterGirl
@Melancholy Jaques: Knowing that, it does seem a bit obvious. Never assume! :-)
*sorry, I am watching Reacher where the mantra is “assumptions kill”.
Matt McIrvin
In the 1960s, Americans got their Christmas records from tire companies. I think Firestone started it as a promotion–they’d give these records away to customers around Christmas time, and then their competitors got into the act.
My parents had a couple of the Firestone ones that they pulled out and played on the big console stereo in the dining room every Christmas. Fills me with nostalgia though in hindsight, these were the goofiest bits of pop cheese ever made. Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme doing “Sleigh Ride” with Eydie shouting “SLEIGH ride! SLEIGH ride! Ah ah ha ha haha!!” through the whole thing. Maurice Chevalier singing “Jolly Old St. Nicholas.” Stuff like that.
UncleEbeneezer
@WaterGirl: It’s a great mind-bending, sci-fi film starring Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal, Drew Barrymore, Mary MacDonald and Patrick Swayze. It takes place in the 80’s over Halloween weekend and it’s one of those films that will definitely leave you trying to put it all together afterwards. It also has a great soundtrack. Highly recommended. A modern cult classic.
Suzanne
SuzMom used to watch Ben-Hur every Easter; as such, I ended up watching it. I find it plodding and dull. I haven’t really substituted it with anything else, though. I’m not a big movie-watcher.
I did finish watching The Residence last week and I just loved it. Not especially Easter-y, but absolutely up my alley.
Melancholy Jaques
I try to watch 1776 every July 4th. Williams Daniels is great as John Adams. Howard DaSilva, blacklisted in the McCarthy era, does a lovable Franklin.I argue that it should be broadcast free, every year, without commercial interruptions.
Scout211
Not really holiday specifically but I had a moment this week. My daughter shared with me that she had a nostalgic moment with her youngest after they came back from Disneyland last month.
Her 7 year old daughter (her youngest) went on the Winnie the Pooh ride and then starting asked her mom about Winnie the Pooh. I guess with so many streaming choices and her watching every Bluey episode multiple times, Winnie the Pooh wasn’t in the mix.
My daughter shared with her that she loved The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977) when she was my granddaughter’s age. Back then, with no streaming, just VHS tapes and broadcast network shows, she watched that VHS tape over and over and over and over. She always did that when she was young, repeatedly watched a favorite movie until she found a new favorite one.
So when they got home, she found the movie on Disney+ and my granddaughter has watched it multiple times, just like her mom did back when she was young.
So my daughter and I had a shared moment of nostalgia and lots of feels over the memories of us watching that Winnie the Pooh movie together. Happy tears ensued.
The other movies that I can remember that she repeatedly watched when she was young, was Annie (1982) and The NeverEnding Story (1984)
There were others but those three come to mind.
rekoob
@dexwood: The Wizard of Oz was part of my upbringing, too. We made popcorn and assembled around the television when it came on. I believe CBS, which bought the rights from MGM, knew that the holidays were a time when families would be together and enjoy something familiar. I remember seeing it on the big screen for the first time at The Music Box when I lived in Chicago in the 1990s.
Craig
Heat Miser, and Snow Mizer’s songs from The Year without a Santa Claus are awesome.
Baud
@Suzanne:
Ben Hur is the other big Charlton Heston Bible epic, but I agree that it is dull compared to Ten Commands.
Ben Cisco
It was never a proper Christmas season untill we watched “Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown”, “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas” (no bloody remakes/live action re-imaginations of any kind, thank you very much!), and “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”
I’m willing to die on this hill, and I am definitely NOT a crank.
mrmoshpotato
Die Hard is a Christmas movie that totally slaps – totally slaps everyone in the ass with a large mouth bass.
mrmoshpotato
@Ben Cisco:
Yeah, Boris Karloff narrating!
rosalind
@UncleEbeneezer: LOL! Yeah, I kept thinking throughout “oh this cast is doing some serious hooking up.” as soon as I got home I verified that yes, those were real caves they used to shoot in. spectacular.
Phylllis
@Suzanne: We rewatch it every few years, up until the Jesus stuff at the end. Stephen Boyd, hubba hubba.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Baud: “so it is written, so it is done”. Yul is absolutely my favorite actor / character in the movie. Heston is a snooze.
mrmoshpotato
A Garfield Christmas Special is an annual favorite. Wonder if they still broadcast it in December.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@dexwood: yespecially!
My Christmas movie (besides Elf, and Miracle on 34th Street), is Die Hard LOL.
Matt McIrvin
@Ben Cisco: The original “Grinch” is the best TV holiday special ever by a huge margin. It’s not even close. Chuck Jones and Dr. Seuss somehow manage to make something whose visual style is 100% both of them, with masterpiece results.
“A Charlie Brown Christmas” is a distant second. I was always bothered as a kid by how the plot is propelled by preparations for a Christmas pageant, but then we never see them put it on–it cuts off at the miracle of the tree. I was left wanting more. But that’s a quibble.
Baud
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan):
Definitely. He stole the show.
Nancy
@Splitting Image: Always look on the bright side of life.
rekoob
Just finished one of my Sunday rituals — the last 15 minutes of BBC Radio 4 on Sounds. At 19:45 Eastern (00:45 BST), there’s Bells on Sunday, featuring a church and describing the bells, after which there’s a change-ringing snippet of a peal that lasts about 2 minutes. Then it’s the final Shipping Bulletin, famous for describing the various weather conditions around the UK and the North Atlantic. It ends with “God Save the King” before handing it over to the BBC World Service at 01:00 BST. A nice bit of nostalgia for this Anglophile.
Nancy
@WTFGhost: I always laugh. Even just now, reading it with no visual, I laughed. Good one.
Suzanne
@Matt McIrvin: One book that I loved as a kid is The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. I have enjoyed reading it to the Spawns.
oldgold
I recently saw the Ten Commandments. I certainly would not give this movie the high marks others here have, but in terms of an unintended comedic performance, Edgar G. Robinson’s portrayal of Dathan was hilarious.
Just look at that parking lot
One 4th of July back in the mid sixties when I was 7or 8, a nasty thunderstorm came thru knocking out the power. Since we couldn’t be outside or watch the television, to entertain us my mom started to play her piano. She only knew one song, Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, so she just kept playing that. At least a dozen times in a row. I’d be pressed to find a more incongruous match than Beethoven & July 4th, but whenever I hear that song, the 4th always comes to mind.
Scout211
@Just look at that parking lot: I love that story. What a nice memory.
Matt McIrvin
@oldgold: Conan O’Brien liked to make fun of that. “Where’s your God now, see???”
zhena gogolia
@Baud: It’s deadly dull. Especially when you’re taken to see it (first-run!) with your Sunday School class and you get lunch at intermission and you can’t stand PB&grape jelly on Wonder bread.
zhena gogolia
We had a tradition of watching Christmas in Connecticut every year, but as great as it is, we kind of OD’ed on it.
Same with Love Actually.
I’ve hated Wizard of Oz since I was a kid. Those flying monkeys, ick. Munchkins, ick.
Best scene in Ten Comm’s is “Moses, Moses!” Yes, Edward G. Robinson is hilarious.
NotMax
Quick mention of the Preston Sturges film Christmas in July. Not his best effort but there’s no such animule as bad Sturges.
currawong
Back in 1984, my wife and I were on our first long distance holiday, to visit my wife’s sister and her family in Canada. On the CP Air flight, in those days, you all had to watch the same movie and it was ‘Romancing the Stone’. I didn’t fancy watching a romance so I tried to get some sleep. An hour or so later I was half awake and opened one eye to see Michael Douglas wrestling a crocodile on the ramparts of a castle!
Obviously, not the romance I thought it was. I have seen it several times since and always think back to thatt flight.
On arriving at Pearson, there was no-one to meet us. They thought we were getting in the next day.
zhena gogolia
The John Waters Christmas album is great but my husband can’t stand it.
NotMax
@WaterGirl
Donnie Darko is a wild ride.
The sequel (yuck) fails in every possible respect.
Matt McIrvin
@Scout211: I was *obsessed* with Winnie-the-Pooh as a very small child. I know a lot of purists hate the Disney shorts collected as “Many Adventures”, but I think they get most of the spirit of the thing.
If your kid likes those, the 2011 feature “Winnie the Pooh” is a nice continuation, too. Disney’s TV unit had pumped out a bunch of relatively low-quality Pooh cartoons in the meantime, but that one was done by their main feature-animation unit, goes back to the A. A. Milne stories for source material and uses the “storybook” conceit. It was one of the last Disney features to use traditional 2D animation.
Chris
Not quite a holiday, but having been a history nerd since I was a kid, there are war movies I often like to watch on the anniversary of the battle in question. The Longest Day on June 6th, Gettysburg on July 1, 2, and/or 3, and Is Paris Burning on August 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, and/or 25 were the three big ones, but especially the first one.
Redshift
Most of the time we watch Get Crazy on New Year’s. It’s a fictional concert film about a NYE concert, by Alan Arkush (Rock & Roll High School, etc.) It’s loads of fun – Malcolm McDowell doing a parody of Much Jagger, Lou Reed doing a parody of himself, ridiculous plots and great music.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Baud: Charlton Heston was a big bore in everything except for Touch of Evil. Of course, him being the face of the NRA didn’t help. And although he is ridiculous in ToE, I read where Orson Wells said the movie wouldn’t have been made (i.e. financed) if he wasn’t it, so there’s one point in his favor.
I love Miracle on 34th Street, but I read the book first (as I was reading my way through my nother’s bookshelves) and loved it. It turns out the book is based on the movie LOL.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@mrmoshpotato: I agree 👍
Citizen Dave
I’m not going to be IGNORED, Dan!
The rabbit in Fatal Attraction did not have a name.
Google AI told me that a “bunny boiler” is an unstable, vengeful woman. (New to me)
Chris
Particular holidays;
For Easter, actually not The Ten Commandments but The Prince of Egypt. Saw it basically at random as a kid, basically just because Mulan was sold out, enjoyed it, then as a grown-up rediscovered it thanks to the fact that a lot of my close friends are Jewish and consider it a cultural experience they want to pass on to their kids.
For Independence Day, obviously Independence Day.
For Halloween, Hocus Pocus.
For Christmas, Home Alone. Honorable mention to the Christmas episode of The Librarians, just for the insane but delightful decision to cast Bruce Campbell as Santa Claus.
NotMax
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
Charlton Heston’s talent was limited to playing tall. IMHO.
:)
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@oldgold: I think it is one of those movies you need to see as a kid to really love. There are books like that too! And then there is Wizard of Oz, which I think transcends age at first viewing.
Chris
@Splitting Image:
I went a long time of my life having not seen The Life of Brian, and finally watched it with a friend the night before Easter a few years back.
Then spent church services the following day trying not to crack up as I remembered various parts of the movie.
Omnes Omnibus
X, Fourth of July.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ben Cisco: The original Grinch and the Alistair Sim version of A Christmas Carol.
Chris
@mrmoshpotato:
Lethal Weapon. Also a Christmas movie in the same vein.
funlady75
I love composer Ennio Morricone….haunting & inspiring music in the movie “The Mission” with Robert De Niro is wonderful for any holiday..
Chris
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan):
I enjoyed him as a big game
hunterpoacher in Alaska.One of those movies I liked as a kid, then watched again as a grown-up going “hey look, Charlton Heston’s getting his ass kicked by a polar bear!”
There go two miscreants
@Matt McIrvin: I had that one! After I digitized it (years ago) I fixed the dirge-like Jolly Old St. Nicholas by speeding it up without changing the pitch. As I recall those albums always had some versions that were hard to find otherwise.
Matt McIrvin
@UncleEbeneezer: The Sound of Music and The Wizard of Oz were both broadcast on TV as big-deal yearly events.
I couldn’t remember when they usually played The Wizard of Oz when I was a kid, but it looks like it was also usually sometime around Easter. The movie had failed to make a profit on its original release (not so much that it was unpopular; it was just an incredibly expensive movie to make so the bar was high). But it was really those TV airings in the second half of the 20th century that made the film universally known and beloved.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@zhena gogolia: Christmas in Connecticut is one of those movies set at Christmas where they have a tree and presents but never Christmas morning. Weird.
And I love The Holiday, but it has big logic flaws if you think about it. Again tree and presents but no Christmas morning.
NotMax
When it comes to holidays the Car 54, Where Are You? episode “The Biggest Day of the Year” is still as mirthful as when it first aired 62 years ago.
Link is to the entire episode, which runs 26 minutes from opening theme to end credits.
:)
Glidwrith
@WaterGirl: When I first started commenting I took it as a personal honor that I got Omnes to respond. The story was I left chocolate bunnies in the trunk of the car. They melted enough that the eyes disappeared. We have forever referred to the event as CHOCO BUNNY HEAT DEATH!!!!!!
Omnes said it was best not to ask what happened to the eyes.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@NotMax: yes, I was astonished when I learned he was considered a leading man hunk in his day. Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas, yes, but Heston hard no.
oldgold
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan): Actually, I did see it as a kid. Well, in truth, I saw half of it.
I went with my younger sister. We had never attended a movie that had an intermission. So, when the screen came down for the intermission, we thought it was over and left the theatre.
My sister and I have had a running joke for years that having missed Commandments 6 through 10 explains why at times our conduct has been less than above reproach.
Omnes Omnibus
@Glidwrith: I worry about you. I am not sure you should be let out unsupervised.
Splitting Image
@oldgold:
Nobody’s perfect. We all probably break commandments 11 through 15, whatever they were.
Sure Lurkalot
We try to catch Trading Places at Xmas time. There’s the Xmas party scene and Akroyd as Santa, the Duke Brothers are definitely Scroogey and the good guys get all the presents.
With Suzanne, also recommend The Residence, no holiday theme but a very well written, acted and produced comedy/mystery.
Old Dan and Little Ann
Easter and movie related. My wife was in Cleveland this weekend for a friend’s 50th bday celebration. One thing they did was tour the “A Christmas Story” house. Her and her friend paid extra to wear the pink bunny outfit. Too much evidence of them holding the red rider bb gun, eating soap, sitting under the sink, the leg lamp, sitting in bathroom with the decoder ring. All in the bunny costumes. Too much.
AM in NC
@UncleEbeneezer: Yes! Now that you say that, I remember watching it every spring, and it must have been Easter weekend, right? My mom, brother, sister and I would sing the songs in the car on road trips.
Percysowner
1776 and Yankee Doodle Dandy for 4th of July, practically every year.
A Christmas Story was an annual thing when TBS showed it 24/7. I should find it again this Christmas. Christmas in Connecticut is a favorite and helped to end my marriage. Note this was a good thing, eventually. My daughter and I were watching it on Christmas Eve while my ex was sleeping upstairs, suddenly he came down,screamed at us that we were laughing too hard and how dare we. He stormed out on Christmas day and didn’t come back until evening. My daughter and I couldn’t figure out what would be open on Christmas day. A few weeks later, after the outburst led me to ask for a divorce, he dropped the info that he was seeing someone else. I never even dreamed he was seeing someone. He swore she was a good, respectable woman and there was no hanky and definitely no panky, but knowing that I was NOT in fact the only person he could rely on let me cut him loose. Once we were divorced I realized it was the best decision I ever made. BTW Christmas in Connecticut is really funny movie and I still love it.
dm
We and another family had the tradition of movie-and-Chinese-restaurant on Christmas for many years.
I’m not sure, but it probably started with the Lord of the Rings movies being released around that time, and the kids were pretty much the right age for the films.
Then, later, the holidays were a time that one had sufficient free time to work one’s way through the director’s-cut DVDs, once those came out.
The only other movie I remember from when we ran out of Lord of the Rings movies was the Robert Downey, Jr., Sherlock Holmes, which introduced me to the “Dr. John Watson, veteran of Afghanistan” concept, as Basil Rathbone was my introduction to Holmes, never having read any Conan Doyle.
For New Years, the same pair of families would get together, I’d borrow a computer-projector from work, and we’d watch Alec Guinness’ comic ouvre (The man in the white suit, Kind hearts and coronets, The Lavender Hill Mob), or the Marx Brothers from laptop DVDs on a movie screen in the living room.
The medium was more the tradition. I don’t think we repeated any of the films. Maybe some Marx Brothers.
Spring Break, a local theater would stage an annual Bugs Bunny film festival.
Matt McIrvin
@Old Dan and Little Ann: I only saw A Christmas Story all the way through very recently… but I felt like I already had seen it, because I was familiar with essentially all of the Gene Shepherd material in it from other sources.
My seventh-grade English teacher had read us the story that served as the main plot line in English class during the wind-down to Christmas vacation, and had us all in stitches (I remember how he roared “YOU’LL SHOOT YOUR EYE OUT, KID! HO HO HO!!!!”) And some of the bits from other stories, particularly the Nehi lamp plot line, had already been adapted for TV on PBS’s “American Playhouse”.
Central Planning
Years ago, my wife and I went to NYC for her birthday in December. One of her friends, whom she acted with when they were young adults, had a leading role in a Broadway musical.
We got to the theatre, sat down, and proceeded to read Playbill. What else would you do while waiting for the show to start?
The first inside page mentioned the show first being staged at another theatre in the US, along with the Artistic Director.
I elbowed my wife. “Hey honey, that’s one of my friends from high school.”
For some unfathomable reason, she didn’t believe me. Now, I have been known to exaggerate a story or maybe make something up for comedic effect, but I wasn’t laughing or joking around. She rolled her eyes at me and I dropped it.
The show was great. We enjoyed every second. Our friend even worked our names into his lines.
After the show, we went to visit him in his dressing room. We had to leave the theatre and come back in at the stage door where people wait to get actors’ autographs. By the time we got outside, the door was mobbed with people. I felt like a penguin, slowly moving in and through the crowd, our arms at our sides, as we slowly worked our way towards the stage door.
We finally get there and the door is closed. I knock, and the door opens a crack and someone peers out at us with a look of consternation on their face. I feel like we’re trying to get in to a 1930’s speakeasy. I’m sure they’re thinking “Who the hell would knock on the door?” I say who we are and whom we are here to see. The door closes, and a minute later the door opens and we are ushered inside.
We get to the dressing room, have a cocktail, and are gushing about the show. I ask “So, do you know the AD at the other theatre?”
“Do I know him? He hired me for this role!”
“He’s one of my best friends from high school!”
We take a selfy and send it to my friend. I think he’s in another state at the other theatre. He responds back with “Holy shit! I’m having a party at my apartment in uptown Manhattan. You have to come!”
Of course we did. We had no kids with us and could stay out as late as we wanted. It was a great, quick, unexpected reunion.
jackmac
@zhena gogolia: PB&J on Wonder Bread! Fine dining for a kid!
rekoob
Another holiday tradition for me is listening to J.S. Bach’s St. Matthew’s Passion (BWV 244) on Good Friday. I studied it in college, and then sang the complete work with a community choir 40 years ago. I believe it helped me jump-start my learning of German when I moved to Europe the following year. When I lived in Europe, I joined choirs there, which helped to reinforce my knowledge of German. I’ve been fortunate to have that experience.
NotMax
@Matt McIrvin
Excuse the nitpick.
Jean Shepherd.
kalakal
Everything Thanksgiving at noon we listen to the live version of Alice’s Restaurant*. And at some point watch WKRP in Cincinatti absolutely nail it
*a longstanding tradition of Mrs kalakal’s that I have cheefully got into
zhena gogolia
@Percysowner: Great story.
Literata
My dad and I watched Fred Astaire movies and old musicals in general. I particularly enjoyed Silk Stockings, so now my husband and I watch it annually on May 1st. The plot features Astaire seducing Comrade Commissar Cyd Charisse, and lots of satire of the Soviets, so it seems an appropriate May Day celebration. It’s also Astaire’s last musical, with quite a few fun numbers, and of course gorgeous choreography from Hermes Pan.
Bonus: This is a musical update/remake of Ninotchka, which features a full-open-mouthed belly laugh from Greta Garbo.
NotMax
@jackmac
A brief watch: The Surprisingly Short History of the Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich.
;)
Timill
@rekoob: So now, when you bump into any passing god or dragon, you can address them in fluent idiomatic German?
SpaceUnit
Oingo Boingo’s Halloween farewell concert from 1995. Watching it is a Halloween tradition while waiting for the next batch of trick or treaters to come to the door.
chris green
I usually put this one on on new years eve
https://youtu.be/2rU8tq94bvI?si=fVH704Sxl0dE97SJ
kalakal
In the days before video and streaming British TV seemed to cycle through the same set of films every holiday weekend ( public holidays in Britain are nearly always on a monday ). Just about anyone in the UK over 45 could probably write out the scripts of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, The Great Escape, Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines, The Italian Job, and The Guns of Navarone
rekoob
@Timill: Mostly. I was in investment management as my day job, so I know most of the idioms in that world, at least. My repertoire expanded to Schubert Lieder and other works. I was a tenor who could sight-read, was (mostly) on-key and show up and be pleasant. I’m told that’s a rare combination.
hitchhiker
When I was a kid they played the Wizard of Oz exactly once a year, and that was on the Friday after Thanksgiving. We weren’t a particularly close family, but that night always felt special and cozy. My mom had a giant steel bowl that she would fill with popcorn; we could smell it in the living room, and the anticipation was wonderful.
We didn’t have a color TV until I was a teenager, and I remember my dad explaining, every year the same, that when Dorothy opened that door after landing on the witch in OZ, everything was in color.
Mai Naem mobile
NBC used to run the Sound of Music on Thanskgiving which is something we used to watch. Not sure if they still do it. I seem to remember the Sound of Music is one movie that is not on any of the streaming platforms. Not sure if that’s still true. I’ve always enjoyed movie. The music and uncomplicated plot line with good casting.
NotMax
@kalakal
Every day is a holiday with a Freddo.
//
Liminal Owl
My Christmas movie for years has been The Lion in Winter, but this past year my beloved put on DIe Hard, and that was fun in an entirely different way.
Today we saw Sinners, which was terrific. We might have a new favorite.
MaryRC
@Suzanne: Ben-Hur dull? The galley scenes, the sea battle, the leper colony, the chariot race? Did you by any chance watch some other Ben-Hur?
narya
@Sure Lurkalot: I saw the outside part of that scene being filmed.
For me, “Bull Durham” goes with “pitchers and catchers report.” Yes, that’s a holiday, even if I haven’t celebrated recently.
Matt McIrvin
My side of the family’s big yearly get-together is on Thanksgiving, and Mom really likes everyone to come down to Virginia for it. Sometimes we work in a visit to my wife’s Maryland relatives as well.
But the main associated TV viewing is the Macy’s parade, if we get in early enough to catch part of it, and the dog show that follows. I think they rebroadcast the parade later in the day.
Once we binge-watched Wednesday when we were down there, so now I associate that with Thanksgiving.
Shana
@Scout211: In our house if anyone says “tut tut” everyone else knows it means “looks like rain”
Literata
@narya: Bull Durham is definitely a summer holidays in general movie
JustRuss
If you haven’t seen it, you definitely need to watch the Thanksgiving scene in Addams Family Values.
Gravie
@rekoob: I had the pleasure of singing “Here Yet Awhile” from St. Matthew’s Passion with a friend’s church choir. I had never heard it before learning it with them, and it was a profoundly moving experience for me. I love Bach.
Kenneth J Fair
@Melancholy Jaques: I was going to say 1776 as well! Fantastic performances all around. Should be required viewing for all Americans to demystify the Founding Fathers.