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Let's go Out and About once again with Jiminy Glick, this time with his guest, the legendary Tom Hank. (And no, that's not a typo...) The fun here is that Hanks really dives deep into the spirit of all this and throws storyline ad-libs at Martin Short as heavily as Short always does to his guests. In fact, at one point Hanks goes so far (and it will be clear when) that for one of the very rare times he stops Martin Short in his tracks.
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Apparently Jimmy Fallon has been on Sesame Street a few times. And apparently he's had Elmo on as a guest several times. But it turns out that for all that, you can still go too far when making a joke at the expense of a Muppet, and Elmo is just a hoot here taking Fallon to task.
This is a wonderful, short video sent to me by a friend this morning. The fellow doing it is Stewart Reynolds, who tends to work under the name Brittlestar. He's Canadian and a jack of all trades sort, with an online morning show that he does with his wife, and a lecturer, has done podcast, TV programs and even some brand marketing. He also has posted a lot of charming, amusing videos -- several that I've seen have been pretty funny, though this (thus far) is the best. Most of the videos I've seen have been him talking to the camera as himself, but this stands out for playing a character. In this case, tech support for God. A couple years back, I was trying to think of a New Year song, and I'm sure there's one out there or several, but none quickly came to mind. The best I could come up with for a new year is this song from British songwriter/entertainers Michael Flanders and Donald Swann -- who I've often noted here I dearly love -- in their stage revue (or as they called it, an after-dinner farrago...) At the Drop of a Hat. This is "A Song of the Weather." That's the bearded Michael Flanders who's the lyricist and lead singer, with composer Donald Swann at the piano and singing backup. We haven't go Out and About with Jiminy Glick for far, far too long, so let's rectify that with another interview with Steve Martin. By this point, it's clear what good friend he and Martin Short are -- indeed, they just starred in the limited series, Only Murders in the Building, which has been renewed for a second year. So, their rapport is always wonderful. Okay, there's no music here, but it's a lot of fun about the holidays and therefore officially qualifies as part of a Holiday Fest. These are two videos showing the annual holiday pranks that Jimmy Kimmel alternates each year with John Krasinski and Emily Blunt against one another. This first is from Kimmel's 2014 broadcast and includes several earlier efforts. And we'll follow that with what took place the next year, in 2015. We have another long version of the Fest today. Bear with me a bit and let me explain. I've posted this all before and I find it a fun story of sorts to repeat. When the movie musical Scrooge was released in 1970, I remember reading an article about the film's composer-lyricist-screenwriter (and executive producer) Leslie Briscusse saying that they'd done research and discovered that among all the Christmas carols written, there had never been one actually titled, "A Christmas Carol." So, he wrote one, which begins the film over the wonderful opening credits by the great artist, Ronald Searle (who also did the credits for, among other films, Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines.) Here's that song, and those wonderful opening credits. I mention all this, though, for another reason. It's that as good a film as Scrooge is, Bricusse's research staff was lousy. Because 14 years before, in 1956, there was a live TV musical version of A Christmas Carol that was called The Stingiest Man in Town and starred the legendary film actor, best known as playing Sherlock Holmes, Basil Rathbone as Scrooge. And the very first song in the show was called -- yes, you guessed it -- "A Christmas Carol." The music for the show was written by Fred Spielman, with lyrics by Janice Torre. It's not remotely distinguished or memorable, but has quite a few very nice things in it. And there, right at the top, first thing, is a song, "A Christmas Carol." A live musical adaptation of A Christmas Carol on American television doesn't seem like a terribly challenging thing to track down for a research staff working on a movie musical adaptation of A Christmas Carol. So, continuing our holiday theme of unknown Christmas songs from musicals, here is the earlier song, "A Christmas Carol," sung by The Four Lads -- leading into "An Old-Fashioned Christmas" (sung by Vic Damone), from The Stingiest Man in Town. That the researchers couldn't find. But we think you fine folks deserve better... Which is why this isn't the end of the post here. But here's that other song first -- And yes, there's more... In 1959, which is only 11 years before the movie musical Scrooge was made (and three years after the TV musical above), the wonderful Tom Lehrer released his classic comedy album, An Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer -- which included a song titled...yes, you guessed it -- "A Christmas Carol." And again, Tom Lehrer was not remotely an unknown entertainer and songwriter. It fact, as popular as An Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer was when it was released, he was probably around the height of his popularity in 1970 when the film Scrooge reached the theaters. His huge hit album, That Was the Year That Was had been released in 1965, only five years before Scrooge. So, how on earth those researchers missed these two songs -- and for all I know there are more, and even high-profile ones -- I have no idea. Happily, we have this song to enjoy, as well... Falling under the "Fest" part of the gala, this is a video I always enjoy for the season from the Conan show. It's about his effort to come up with a Secret Santa gift for one of his staff members. While "Hallelujah" isn't precisely a traditional Christmas song, it comes close enough and qualifies for our purposes. Especially since it's a hilarious rendition of the Leonard Cohen song as performed by James Corden and Kristen Wiig. Though he is no longer in the White House, that doesn't we can't recall the holiday cheer that the quite-wonderful folks at Bad Lip Reading brought with their Trump Christmas song, wonderful for the Holiday Music Fest. Their seasonal gift to everyone. As always, it's a hoot -- though this one is quite a bit different from all the others. And that makes it all the more loopy. But then, after all, "Christmas is Here!" Even without the blood-red killer Christmas trees from Hell. Happy Holidays. From their house to our house to yours... |
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting.    
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