“Hello again…Peabody and Sherman here…”

I was an underachiever in my high school years. Mind you, I did all right scholastically...though admittedly, I didn’t always apply myself where studying was concerned. In retrospect, I don’t have too many regrets because most of what I was taught focused on memorizing facts and regurgitating them on command...as opposed to far-more-practical critical thinking…

“Winning doesn’t always mean being first. Winning means you’re doing better than you’ve ever done before.” — Bonnie Blair

I received a plethora (I learned this word from Cliff Weimer—it means “a lot”) of entries in the latest Thrilling Days of Yesteryear giveaway...oddly enough, I think we had more people participate in the previous “Full Details” contest.  But that’s just nitpicking on my part, and though I would dearly love to be able to…

From the DVR: The Wonderful World of Disney

The Starz/Encore people have managed to acquire some feature film titles from Walt Disney Pictures of late, because I was afforded an opportunity to catch up with two of the studio’s animation releases that had eluded me for a good while: The Princess and the Frog (2009; I liked this one) and Frozen (2013; not…

Book Review: Shooting the Breeze with Baby Boomer Stars

Edward “Torchy” Smith may be a familiar name/voice to those of you who make listening to IHeartRadio a routine activity.  He’s the host of Baby Boomers Talk Radio, a program that from its inception has made its mission to appeal to what Smith calls “the new Lawrence Welk generation minus the bubbles” by interviewing celebrities…

“The Movie Man/The Movie Man can…”

Back in October 2016, I reviewed a Grapevine Video collection of Lupino Lane shorts that brought a great deal of pleasure into my occasionally dismal existence.  Lane was an acrobatic film comedian (whose antics could rival those of Buster Keaton) who made a most entertaining series of two-reel comedies for Educational Pictures beginning in 1924; he…

I Lost it at the movies

Since 2012, the Library of Congress has hosted an annual workshop known to film fanatics as “Mostly Lost,” in which movie mavens from all walks of life—writers, scholars, activists, filmmakers...and really, just about anyone with a passion for film and its preservation—gather together 'round June at the LoC’s National Audio-Visual Conservation Center (in beautiful downtown…

Book Review: It’s Saturday Morning!

It’s hard to believe that there was a time in my life when Saturday mornings weren’t made for sleeping...but rather, getting up “at the crack of ice” (as my pal Maureen likes to call it) and blissing out in front of the set to watch the endless parade of TV animation.  Those fondly-remembered “days of…

Book Review: Where’s My Fortune Cookie?

In 1988, I journeyed to the wilds of Atlanta’s Emory University as a member of Armstrong State College’s (now Armstrong State University) college bowl team; while there, my fellow team members and I lunched at a now-defunct restaurant (Anybody’s Pizza) and on our way back to Emory stopped by a record store to spend the…

From the DVR: The Reluctant Dragon (1941)

The Greatest Cable Channel Known to Mankind™ has recently entered into a partnership with the Walt Disney Studios to showcase rarities from “the Disney vault” several times a year in the coming months…and TCM premiered this new collaboration this past December 21 with airings of live-action Disney classics like Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier (1955)…

Guilty Pleasures: It’s a Joke, Son! (1947)

In the 1921 D.W. Griffith classic Orphans of the Storm, the part of Joseph Schildkraut’s character as a child was played by a young actor born Kenneth Howard Delmar…who as “Kenny Delmar” would achieve great fame on radio, both as an announcer and thesp.  His earliest foray into the aural medium was working as an announcer…