#1 - It's a Wonderful Life

December 22, 2000. I'm in my third grade class the last day before Christmas break. My teacher brought in a TV earlier in the day and had left it there while we did some work. After we were done he asks us "Have you ever wished you were never born?". Some of us say yes and begins to say "Well, I know a great Christmas movie about a man who wishes he was never born and we're gonna watch it right now." He puts on the TV and we begin to watch It's a Wonderful Life.

At the time, I recognized the ending clip of George Bailey running through Bedford Falls wishing everyone a "Merry Christmas!" from seeing it play on TV's in movies like Gremlins but the movie did strike a cord with most of us. For the rest of the year, we would occassionally use the "Hee-haw" greeting and "the George Bailey movie" stuck in my memory for years without actually watching It's a Wonderful Life.

Last year, I began to come into a severe depression which temporarily blocked me from the outside world. In hopes of a movie to light my spirits, I turned to It's a Wonderful Life. Watching the movie on Google Video, I nearly broke down sitting at my computer watching every scene, it's just that powerful a movie to get you back up on your feet. George Bailey is a man with a heart of gold and gives so much sacrifice but rarely gets thanks for it. In the end, he discovers how much the town really does love him for what he has done for them. Being one of the very few movies that can get me to cry, It's a Wonderful Life is a masterpiece and is not only the greatest Christmas movie of all-time, but one of the greatest movies of all-time.

Remember for the rest of the holiday season and all year round, as Clarence told George Bailey... "remember no man is a failure who has friends." Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

(and a very special thanks to my third grade teacher, Mr. Richard Friedman, for helping me discover this wonderful movie earlier than I would have otherwise. It's rare you find a man with as good a soul as George Bailey himself as you will in Mr. Friedman. Wherever you are, god bless you and thank you for being one of the very best teachers I ever had.)

#2 - The Muppet Christmas Carol

As children, we all have one of those Disney movies we adore and have down memorized. For my era, it was usally The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin or The Lion King. Another one for me was The Muppet Christmas Carol.

Being born in 1991, The Muppet Christmas Carol was one of the first forays the Muppets did to mainstream media after the death of their creator Jim Henson. I was obviously too young to see the movie in theaters but once it came out on home video, it became a big staple of the holidays in the BobThePizzaBoy household. Of all the adaptations of Dickens' A Christmas Carol out there, this is one of the very best. Not only do we get the original Dickens prowse, given to us by Gonzo, but we get direct text right from the novella making this one of the most very accurate versions of the book.

I finally read A Christmas Carol in 5th grade when my teacher had it in his classroom amoung other classic novels. I didn't actually get to finish it but I was left in awe of how accurate all the lines were, the movie was practically playing out in my head.

It's also one of the Muppets' finest hours and probably the very best thing they've done since Jim Henson's death. It's strange... it seems the farther they've gotten from 1990 the quality has greatly lowered in Muppet productions. With last year's Letters to Santa things seem to be getting better. But for me, The Muppet Christmas Carol is a dark, funny and all around entertaining masterpiece that should and will be embraced for years to come.

#3 - Christmas Eve on Sesame Street

I'll just flat-out say it. I LOVE Christmas Eve on Sesame Street. This was one of my favorite Christmas specials when I was a kid, the one you would watch constantly even when it wasn't Christmas. To me, it was just Big Bird trying to figure out how Santa Claus gets down the chimney. But as I've gotten older I began to see the true heart of it.

It is often said by those who worked on the show during Jon Stone's tenure that "if you want to see the heart of Jon Stone, you watch Christmas Eve on Sesame Street". This seems to be very much the truth. From the opening skating party sequence (which facinated me as a child) to the final post-credits scene of Cookie Monster eating Gordon and Susan's tree, this special only had one goal: to entertain everyone in the family as much as possible. It succeeds. Even in this pre-Elmo era, it's still a wonderful special. It's a crying shame PBS doesn't run it anymore, but with the advent of DVD, this underrated holiday classic still holds up as it did in 1978.

#4 - How the Grinch Stole Christmas

Let me just say right now, I made this top 12 list before I was in Seussical.

That said, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, even based on a book is another Christmas special with a good message and is hilarious as well. As one of Chuck Jones' most iconic animated films, it manages to combine the typical Looney Tunes humor we always associated with Jones with Dr. Seuss' classic tale. Even quoting the book word-for-word, he manages to hit the nail on the head.

While only a half-hour long, it manages to pack a lot of punch. Again, it's another iconic holiday classic that is maybe too-close-for-comfort to some of us during the holidays.

#5 - A Muppet Family Christmas

The Muppet Show Muppets. Sesame Street Muppets. Fraggle Rock Muppets. Muppet Babies in Muppet form. All in the same special. If that isn't any Henson fan's dream come true, I don't know what is. Truth is Muppet Family Christmas is short on plot but makes up for it with a lot of great music and laughs.

There are so many highlights in this special. From the Muppets, Sesame crew, Fraggles and all together. From Big Bird trying to be cooked by the Swedish Chef, Kermit and Robin meeting the Fraggles, the Sesame Street pagent of "Twas the Night Before Christmas" (and Sam the Eagle's reaction!), seeing the Muppet Babies in puppet form (and actually appealing!). It's a treat all-around.

It is a bit hard to come by uncut, but it's worth it. Here's hoping it comes out on DVD again soon.

#6 - The Simpsons: Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire

The first episode of what was to be a great, great series. Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire is a Charlie Brown Christmas for the 1980's. As a show like The Simpsons has been on for 20 years, they have done many Christmas episodes since that iconic first show but in my opinion none of them top this classic.

As this was from the first season, the animation is a bit more sketchy and the writing is a bit akward but it's pure gold. We can't deny that Homer Simpson does have great intentions, he just wants to give his family a good yet cost-effective Christmas. He goes through a living hell to get it but in the end he gets Santa's Little Helper which makes the family more than happy. It's not a huge commentary on the holidays, it's just a bit of a charmer, a.special with a heart of gold.

It's too bad FOX can't run this special due to syndication issues. If your local UHF station shows it, be sure to watch it. It's a modern holiday classic.

#7 - A Charlie Brown Christmas

There's something about those old Charlie Brown specials that just makes me like them a lot. I tend to avoid mid-60's television animation but A Charlie Brown Christmas is a bright gem. From that famous opening ice skating scene to the entire Peanuts gang humming "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" it's just something that brings you back every year.

Charlie Brown is quite a character, a cynic who doesn't get what the point of the holidays was. Snoopy is the only character who gets any out loud laughs but A Charlie Brown Christmas doesn't have to be laugh out loud funny. It's the characters and the way the animation is done that really lures people in. It's very subtle but it's a classic just to see all these iconic characters together.

A Charlie Brown Christmas has become a Christmas mainstay and it deserves to stay that way. It's one of the true classics of holiday animated specials.

#8 - Mystery Science Theater 3000: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians

Let's not deny it, MST3K is one of the greatest things to hit our televisions and the Santa Claus Conquers the Martians episode is one of the Bots' best moments.

Joel, Crow and Tom Servo always make movies easier to sit through and Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, a convolted mess of a turkey if there ever was one, is one of the ones that would make you want to hang yourself otherwise but makes up for it with Joel and the Bots hilarious commentary. They are on a roll in this episode. "Dial M for Mutant!"

The host segments are also perfect, the invention exchange which pays homage to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, the iconic "A Patrick Swayze Christmas" song, the Christmas additions onto the robots, it's clear the guys at Best Brains love Christmas and were more than happy to do a Christmas episode. So, for any MST3K fan... or any newbie: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is a must.

#9 - National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation

Arguably the most popular of the National Lampoon's Vacation movies, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation is the kind of film that gets better the more you watch it. In complete honesty, I haven't seen this movie since I was a kid and even then I rarely saw the entire movie. But it's just one of those things you associate with the holidays.

Clark Griswold and his family clearly represent some of the best comedy in the 1980's and Christmas Vacation uses the best concept: a dad who just wants to have the perfect Christmas, and takes it to the extremes. I remember the sledding scene very well from NBC's annual airings as well as the Griswolds' barely fitting their tree in the family house at the beginning of the movie. It just combines so many things associated with the holidays and takes them by the ears on a wild ride.

If you haven't seen Christmas Vacation, make sure you make a point of it this holiday season.

#10 - Seinfeld: The Strike

By the time Seinfeld ended in 1998, we can't deny that the show was running out of a little steam. But during that final Christmas season that the show was around for, they definitley saved the best for last.

This iconic episode brought us Festivus, the great holiday consisting of an aluminum "Festivus pole", practices such as the "Airing of Grievances" and the "Feats of Strength", and the labeling of easily explainable events as "Festivus miracles". The end result is hilarious.

The main plot about "two-faced" people is fairly amusing but the Festivus stuff takes the cake. Try not to be in stitches during many of the Festivus references even if "The Strike" in question might not make you smile". This episode also includes George Constanza's "The Human Fund," which has also become a well-known part of the show.

Basically, every Seinfeld fan should watch this episode. It's one of the defining moments of the series, even though it was near the end of it's run, it still shows what was so great about Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer.

#11 - VeggieTales: The Toy That Saved Christmas

Ok, so I do grill on Bob and Larry quite a bit on this blog, but the honest truth is I do have a soft spot for VeggieTales. It wasn't a huge part of my life for very long but in a way it embodies what I grew to like about cartoons. VeggieTales lacked the disgusting humor of SpongeBob SquarePants and the inane action of Pokemon, opting for dry humor. It became very risky when the videos kept coming on (I remember being in awe of but baffled by the more serious tone of the Veggie's take on the Biblical tale of Esther), but they manage to be entertaining without being in-your-face.

The Toy That Saved Christmas was the first VeggieTale I saw. I got the tape for Christmas in first grade, which was right around the peak of the franchise's popularity. It doesn't hold a candle to most holiday standards. The story is very rushed for one thing, but it's message is plain and clear and it's a damn good message: as Grandpa George says right in the special "Christmas isn't about getting, it's about giving!" While it's very short and very rushed and the humor is more low-key than in other VeggieTales installments, The Toy That Saved Christmas is still fairly entertaining and really warms your heart. Even if Buzz-Saw Louie was clearly Big Idea's attempt at trying to make their way up to Pixar standards (remember, this video showed up in Christian bookstores a year after Toy Story's release) and he's a bit on the bland side, Bob and Larry's always-great chemistry and the overall mood save this.

And of course, I'd be stupid to ignore the Silly Song with Larry. "Oh, Santa!". About 5 years ago, I was on a Boy Scout camping trip and a very dark-minded child named Mitchell kept playing that song on a tape recorder to annoy everybody. When we finally took the cassette player when he wasn't looking, we listened in complete confusion and then discovered the rest of the cassette (labeled "Songs with Larry") we discovered it was just Mitchell singing very dark songs about death and doom till the end of the earth. It was hilarious and that connection alone gets The Toy That Saved Christmas on the list.

Buy it from Amazon here: http://www.amazon.com/VeggieTales-Toy-That-Saved-Christmas/dp/B00006JDVN/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1260924430&sr=1-1

#12 - Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas

Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas seems like something Rankin/Bass would do in the 1960's but with Jim Henson in the director's chair, the sentimental tone of the special is taken to an all-time high. But that's okay, because Emmet Otter is a moving take of The Gift of the Magi.

I first became aware of this special as a youngster when the Hensons used a song from it on a Muppet Sing-Along video. I have memories of Nickelodeon running the special every year when they owned the rights to the Muppet specials, but that's very vauge and a bit before my time. My full-time exposure to Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas came when Disney finally released it in 1996 as one of the final Jim Henson Video titles. As an five-year old, the lack of Kermit the Frog even though he was prominantly featured on the VHS box and thus was rather bored by it. As I've gotten older however, I've realized what a moving special this is.

Serving as a test for many of the puppet special effects and sense of detail that would come to good use the following year for The Muppet Movie, Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas feels very theatrical and at the same time keeps a classic quality to it. Perhaps a comparison to Thorton Wilder's play Our Town is in order between that play's setting of Grover's Corners and the settings of Frogtown Hollow and Waterville. Our Town is for the most part a straightforward play with very, very subtle humor. Emmet Otter is the same way and that helps the special, the typical Muppet humor wouldn't have worked in this special. The always-excellent Paul Williams score also helps this special. It's impossible not to be moved by the song most associated with this special, "When the River Meets the Sea". It's easy to see why this show was adapted into a stage musical, playing yearly at the Goodspeed Opera House. Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas, check it out.

You can buy it here: http://www.amazon.com/Emmet-Otters-Jug-Band-Christmas-Goelz/dp/B002LII6D2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1260829937&sr=1-1

It's almost Christmas!

Unless you've been living under a rock, then you know that next Friday is Christmas! In conjunction with the supposed 12 days of Christmas, I am proud to announce that for the next 12 days we here on this blog will be counting down my personal top 12 favorite Christmas specials. I've tried to have a little variety and avoided many Christmas standards like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer for that reason. But we have a lot coming your way. We've got Muppets, a yellow-skinned family, a show about nothing, talking Christian vegetables and even a man named George Bailey. But only one can come out as #1. Who will it be? Keep stopping by every day till December 25 to see what Christmas special will be #1. See you tomorrow with #12!

Sesame Street Week - Day 5

I'd like to say that I was caught up in many of the kid fads of the late 1990's. I was there for Rugrats, Pokemon, Kenan and Kel, VeggieTales, the works. But with all of their successes came decline in popularity. Rugrats began to lose steam after the movie came out, we finally realized how ridiculous Pokemon was, Kenan and Kel grew up and began to embark on post-show careers, VeggieTales' production company went bankrupt. Why do I mention all these declines that made these shows go in 5 years or less? Because Sesame Street has managed to go strong for 40 years with no problems. The show has made to face competition from other children's TV and gimmicks have had to help the show, but it still manages to come out on top.

Even when I watched Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network and the Odyssey Network (yeah? Remember Odyssey?) more and more frequently, Sesame Street was still my favorite show. I always made a point of watching it before school and, when I couldn't watch it in the morning, made sure to watch it afterschool. Big Bird and the gang helped me get through the boredom of August after a July of day camp during the summer in my elementary years. Christmas just wasn't complete without at least one viewing each of Christmas Eve on Sesame Street and Elmo Saves Christmas. Of all the audio cassettes I had as a kid, the Sesame Street albums were the ones I listened to the most (then again, all my others were book-on-tape or soundtrack for The Lion King). The half-hour Sesame Street videos I had a kid got just as many plays in the family VCR as Aladdin and The Lion King did. I was just as excited for The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland to come out as I was Pokemon: The First Movie or Toy Story 2.

There's something about the show, especially that nostalgia I have for it, that I adore. Maybe it's that more welcoming feel the street has over the school Barney hangs out in or the city Arthur lives in. On Sesame Street, fantasy and reality seem to hit a fine line. The characters' colors were vibrant and more appealing than one purple dinosaur and Arthur's humor was less slapstick and more subtle, sort of a Simpsons for the kiddie set. It's lasted as long as it has for a reason: Kids and adults both love it. It's a show for adults without being too adult, it's a show for kids without being to kiddie. It doesn't make parents want to leave the room pulling their hair out and I think that's part of the reason I never stopped watching it. Even 40 years later, the humor, the imagination, the music, the Muppets and the fun has never left the show even with the format change or a disappointed season premiere I ranted about yesterday, someday some 3-year old now is going to look back on this stuff with the same nostalgia I look at the Around the Corner with or what a now-middle schooler looks at Elmo's World with or what a 70's-80's child looks at the Old School era as. It's a different show for everybody, that's why it lasted. Happy 40th Sesame Street and thanks for the memories you've given me. Here's to 40 more.

Sesame Street Week - Day 4

In case you haven't noticed, Sesame Street is still making new episodes. I honestly have really lost track of the show over the past 7 years or so. In 4th grade I became a bit bitter about how they dumbed-down the show with it's format change from "magazine" format to more consisting "programming blocks" of sort format and really only turned back for the season premieres. Season 40 was one I had to see. I'm going to go through my views on each part of the show one-by-one.

Street Story: I'm going to be honest, I hate having the street story thrown into one ten-minute clump at the very beginning of the show. For a show called Sesame Street, it seems like they are trying to distance the show away from the street too much. Thankfully, the street story of Big Bird contemplating leaving Sesame Street was good. It was the closest thing we got to labeling the show as 40. The guest star (whose name escapes me at the moment) was pretty entertaining to watch and Big Bird getting his name wrong constantly was a nice homage to Mr. Hooper. I also loved that Big Bird's suitcase had Hawaii, Puerto Rico, China and Montana stickers. Plus, we got the return of Barkley.

Murray Monster as our host: I'll admit it, I love Murray. He's such a great character. Joey Mazzarino has made the character his own. Though I find it surprising that Mazzarino doesn't like putting the character on the Street (which gets me wondering, if Sesame Street ever does a third theatrical movie would Murray be in it if he doesn't really exist on the street?), he does make a nice real world host for the rest of the show.

Abby's Flying Fairy School: Abby's cute. That's all I have to say about her. This segment is long, dull and isn't all that entertaining. The CG is nice but this eats up way too much of the show.

Traction Jackson: I don't get why the guys at Sesame Workshop love this character so much. Back in my day, Tarah was Sesame Street's resident wheelchair-bound child and she was a great character for two reasons: (1) she existed on the Street and interacted regularly with most of the main characters and (2) was just Tarah Schaeffer playing herself. With a CG character, it kind of loses a bit of that positive role model factor and there is just not much to his personality. Sorry, Traction. He's just not my cup of tea.

Bert and Ernie's Great Adventures: I'm a sucker for claymation, so I thought this segment was pretty cute. I honestly don't remember too much from it but the animation is nice and Bert and Ernie translate well to the claymation look. I would prefer the puppets but with Steve and Eric off working on Classic Muppet stuff at Disney, this is a great substitute.

Michelle Obama's insert: She plants a garden with Elmo and some kids. Not too much to it.

Elmo's World: Frogs! Normally, I fast-forward through Elmo's World but this time something too nearly everybody completely by surprise. For the first time since 2001, Kermit the Frog appeared in new material on Sesame Street on a piece on where frogs live. Very exciting stuff, but beyond that... nothing new to report. Elmo is still in his world.

Sesame Street has now been a mixed bag of various shows. The spark is still there but it's not used to it's full potential. It's here in bits and pieces throughout this episode. Barkley's back, Kermit's back, Big Bird's previous trips are aknowledged. But too many main Muppets are missing (Oscar, The Count, the puppet Bert and Ernie) or downplayed to ensemble roles (Cookie Monster and Grover). I'm sure this gets better as the season goes on but the show has become pretty unbalanced between the good and the bad.

One more thing, let me just say I love the subtle homages to the show's past in the street scenes. They are all great.

Tomorrow: I end the week with my own personal opinions on Sesame Street's 40 years as a whole.

Sesame Street Week - Day 3

As shocking as it might be, one thing I really lack is a lot of DVD's of Sesame Street's classic achievements such as specials. It's not that I don't want to have these guys in my DVD collection, I have a lot of Classic Muppets and Fraggle Rock DVD's, but as Sony Wonder was releasing most of the classic Sesame Street material fans of the early era would want, my mom began to develop a huge problem with me liking Sesame Street past the age I should. She tried to prevent me from watching the show, buying any merchandise that had any connection to the show, taking Sesame Street tapes and stuffed animals out of my room, she was relentless. Thankfully, she lightened up near the end of my middle school years, just in time for Old School, Vol. 1 to come out. But on the minus side, I missed out on the 80's specials Sony released on DVD and many of the direct-to-videos I remember from my childhood. 40 Years of Sunny Days is a compilation that fills that void very well.

It's at it's simpliest form nearly four hours of clips from every season of the show. Disc 1 is 1969 to 1989, disc 2 is 1990 to 2009. Everything from inserts to songs and street scenes are all seen throughout this set. Jerry Nelson has recorded new audio as The Count, setting him up to be the host of sorts for the program, but he isn't used very much. The clips range from the expected ("Rubber Duckie," "I Love Trash," "Bein' Green," a Super Grover skit, Sesame Street News skit, etc.), the unexpected ("If I Knew You Were Coming I'd've Baked a Cake," "Mad," Telly's first appearence as the Television Monster, many other treasures) to the head-scratching (does "Can't Say the Alphabet Enough" REALLY represent the very best of Sesame Street?).

One personal pet peeve that I have with this set is that they only show specific street scenes when they have to. I would have loved to see all the street scenes from the episodes represented, but it is nice that they are here.

Also of note is the fantastic behind-the-scenes footage they show on this set. Ranging from all eras of the show, this footage will blow you away. It's always great to see these guys at work doing what they do best. And more importantly, it looks like they were having a great time doing it. It doesn't get any better then that. Interviews are also present but the candid behind-the-scenes footage takes the cake.

This is one of the very best Sesame Street DVD's as it has something that'll appeal to everyone. So I say go buy it, just like all the other 40th anniverary troves coming out.

Tomorrow: The books and DVD's may be fine and dandy, but how is the actual show holding up?

Sesame Street Week - Day 2

Wow. That's the inital feeling after skimming through just several pages of Sesame Street: A Celebration - 40 Years of Life on the Street. Around January, I would have said that Street Gang was THE book on Sesame Street. Sorry, Michael Davis, this book tops Street Gang in every possible way. More like Of Muppets and Men, this is the Sesame Street book we've been waiting for. Compared to 1998's Sesame Street Unpaved, which suffered a strong amount of factual errors and head-scratching material despite some very comprehensive reading, A Celebration - 40 Years of Life on the Street is a better book.

One thing about it this that the book is HUGE. This is more than just a coffee table book, it's the size of a textbook with elements of a coffee table book. When I bought it at Barnes & Noble, walking around with it really tires you out. OK, it's not that bad, but it's still a really big book.

Once you really get into it, a lot of the information is repeated info with occasional insight into stuff we don't really know. But the mass amount of pictures we see in the book more than makes up for it. Lots of pictures ranging from 1969 to 2009, behind-the-scenes photos, merchandise, it's all here. I'd go into details but that would deter away from the main point I'm making: buy this book! There's something in here for everybody. There's even a bonus DVD with the first episode on it. If you own Old School, Vol. 1, it's sort of pointless, but makes a nice companion piece anyway. This book may be $40, but it's worth every penny. Go check it out.

Tomorrow: We didn't get Old School, Vol. 3, but a substitute like tomorrow's item repairs the damage.

Sesame Street Week - Day 1

Note: This review covers the original December 2008 hardcover edition of Street Gang, not the 2009 paperback or audio-CD version.

Released very late last year on those merriest of days December 26, Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street was the kick-off to the 40th anniversary marketing buzz. And what a way to begin. Street Gang is one of the best books I've ever read. While a bit on the long side, it reads like a work of fiction and provides a brutally honest look at Sesame Street's history.

Initially, I was fully immersed by Street Gang. The book offers an extensive look at what it's like to work on the show and how all these people came together. A lot of information is given that has never really been repeated elsewhere. A lot of people were interviewed and it all intertwines together perfectly. Being a child of the 1990s, I was happy to see how the development of the Around the Corner era of the show (1993-1998) came about and the creation of the character of Zoe. Also interesting is the info on Northern Calloway’s extensive illness. When you watch the footage of Calloway in the 1980’s, it’s amazing that you can barely tell Calloway was so ill. It’s pure tragedy his life ended up the way it did.

On the minus side, the book is not some much The Complete History of Sesame Street but more The Complete History of Children's Television. The first near-100 pages of the book are devoted to the likes of Kukla, Fran and Ollie and Captain Kangaroo. This section tends to drag and the book only picks up steam when the pilots of Sesame Street start filming, it goes off without a hitch into the eras of the show from the beginning to the new era as the show hits 40. Stories ranging from funny to depressing (much time is spend focusing on the deaths of Jim Henson, Richard Hunt, Jon Stone, Joe Raposo and Jeff Moss).

When you get right down to it, Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street is a great text companion to Jim Henson: The Works and Of Muppets and Men. More wordy than the two coffee table books, obviously, but it is still a book just as filled with loads of information as any Henson book is. Pick it up ASAP.

Tomorrow: An even better Sesame Street book!

Long time, no post.

Are you still here?! My apologies for having not posted on here in a long time. What with college apps, Seussical [and discovering that the actress who played Mayzie in this production really doesn't like Grover] and my own laziness on the side, this blog seems to have become abandoned. Not anymore. Here's a look at what's coming up...

Sesame Street week
Yes, Sesame Street hit 40 a few weeks ago with much fanfare. Everyday this week, I'll be posting something pertaining to this big anniversary. Here's what I have planned:
Monday: Street Gang book review
Tuesday: A Celebration of 40 Years of Life on the Street book review
Wednesday: 40 Years of Sunny Days DVD review
Thursday: Episode 4187 (season 40 premiere) review
Friday: What Does Sesame Street Mean to Me?

12 Days of Christmas Specials
Christmas is almost upon us. What better way for a 90's kid to ring in the holidays then to break out some classic holiday specials from his childhood? I've selected 12 specials and ranked them. Thus, everyday leading up to December 25 I'll make a post about a new Christmas special. More about that when we get more down the road.

Catch you on the flip side tomorrow with my review of Michael Davis' Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street.

Toy Story's still great in 3D

 

If you know me in real life, you know I love Pixar movies. I've been able to keep up a 14 year streak of seeing every Pixar film in theaters (though I did miss seeing Tokyo Mater before Bolt, too bad...). That said, for some reason in recent years, I've always seemed to slight the Toy Story movies. Don't get me wrong, they are both fantastic films. But I guess Pixar has taken themselves to new heights since 1995, the more recent films have been much more satisfying.

With Toy Story 3 coming out this June, Disney has decided to re-release both films in 3D. Originally supposed to come out in October and February as two separate releases, they were more recently merged into a double feature so a re-release of Beauty and the Beast could take Toy Story 2's release slot (only to be delayed to December 2011). It ended up being a pretty exciting experience.

Seeing these movies up on the big screen was quite amazing to see again. I won't talk too much about the movies themselves because everyone has seen them and there's not too much to talk about that hasn't already been said. But those three hours went by incredibly fast. I should also note that, well actually my friend noticed it first, how the majority of the theater was not filled with parents with pre-schoolers but rather middle and high school aged kids and younger adults. That's not to say they weren't any younger kids in the audience. I was particularly moved by a girl in the theater who couldn't have been older than 6 or 7 who clearly had never seen Toy Story before that night and she responded to it so well. She didn't make it through Toy Story 2 (it was pretty late after all), but I'm sure she'll have seen it soon enough.

I highly recommend seeing this double feature on the big screen before it closes on the 15th. You won't regret it, even you're paying $15 for two movies you've seen before.

Ten years already?

October 1, 2009 is kind of a bittersweet day in my eyes. A Surprise celebration and a realization that just doesn't seem to right. It was ten years ago that Jim Henson Pictures' third and final film The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland was released in theaters across this fine country of ours. I was seven years old; way too old for Sesame Street but it was still one of the movies I had to see in theaters. The neat thing is that whereas Muppets from Space had snuck up on my when it came out the summer before, I knew about The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland well in advance. I still remember the day I saw it so vividly. It was Columbus Day 1999 if I recall correctly, my mom took me to go see the first showing in the morning. My then 10-year old cousin who was visiting for the holiday weekend graciously came along as well. We were probably the only family in the theater who didn't have a child under age five but that didn't stop me from enjoying the movie.

But the big question is does the movie hold up in 2009? Well, for me: it's not perfect but it's addicting. The visual look of the film is perfect. This is coming from the same team that did the England sets for The Muppet Christmas Carol and Muppet Treasure Island. The sets are just as comparable to the two book adaptation Muppet movies. The puppets look great. Mandy Patakin is the highlight of the movie. The music is also a lot more Henson-like than Muppets from Space was. All in all, I would say it is better than Muppets from Space. None of the Jim Henson Pictures movies were really all that fantastic but it does have a lot of good stuff that outnumbers the bad stuff.

The more negative side of this is that as of today it has been 10 years since the Jim Henson Company released a film worth the fans' time and money. Good Boy! is a disgrace to Jim Henson's good name and is pitiful to see that movie get made while the Muppets stay in despair. MirrorMask, while that film does have an audience, has even more problems. I was infuriated more by the fact that the Hensons had completely ditched the Creature Shop puppets or bad VeggieTales level computer animation. I also found the characters not very likeable and bland and the film moved at an excessively slow pace. I hope with The Cheapest Muppet Movie Ever Made, Fraggle Rock: The Movie and The Power of the Dark Crystal we can get on our way with the long-awaited group of post-Jim classics we need.

A Muppet tale from yours truely

Well, I know that if a lot of Muppet fans actually knew my blog was out here, they'd read it. And I do know plenty of Muppet fans via the internet but I have the distinction and honor of possibly being one of the few Muppet fans to actually have the opportunity to stick their arm into a real, authentic, Muppet Workshop-built puppet.

Actually, I didn't get to perform the mouth but I did get to be on left-hand duty with the super-friendly Tyler Bunch. That picture you see at the top of this post is a then-13 year old BobThePizzaBoy exactly four years ago at the Museum of Television and Radio. It was a Henson Company-sponsored event celebrating the company's 50th anniversary. I still  look back on this whole day with extreme fondness. I had been to other Henson events beforehand but this was something that has just always stuck with me four years later.

In a nutshell, highlights of the day included a screening of the pilot episode of Henson's series Frances (which didn't even show up elsewhere until two and a half years later). After a few minutes, I had my wit's end and left the auditorium showing it (to this day, my family still uses the "bread and jam" bit in mocking Frances) and moved upstairs to a special screening of the second-to-last episode of Fraggle Rock and the 1987 behind-the-scenes documentary. Considering the first season of Fraggle Rock had come out a few weeks before, I was on a complete Fraggle kick and more than happy to see these guys highlighted so much. Then I met the lovely Cheryl Henson, someone who got a kick out of my self-deprecating Muppet fan humor (I always joke about how I seem to have nothing better to do than obsess about Muppets, calling myself a "Muppet freak" to Ms. Henson). She wrote in my book "To John - thanks for being a Muppet freak! (or fan) Best wishes, Cheryl" There was also a Gobo Fraggle walk-around character, which was a very well-done costume. It's too bad I haven't seen it elsewhere.

Then came the moment this story is really about, Tyler Bunch's puppeteer demonstration. I was right up front and as Tyler showed the audience how to perform a rod puppet via a Whatnot puppet the audience helped contribute to via color requests. He could tell I was getting into it when I pointed out the puppet looked like Roosevelt Franklin. I could tell he was surprised a kid my age knew who Roosevelt Franklin ever was. When he got to the live-arm puppet, he pointed at me calling me "Kermit" due to the shirt I had on. We introduced ourselves and I helped him perform the puppet you see the picture by pointing to it's body parts ("Now, John, I asked you to just point NOT POKE IT OUT!"). It was such an exciting experience to get to work alongside this guy with such a huge crowd.

I haven't seen Tyler since, even thought I have him as a Facebook friend, but really, it's rare you meet people as friendly as the Muppet performers are and I'm proud to say that being a small, small part of such an event was the opportunity of a lifetime.

I'm proud to play "the love child of Grover and Oscar the Grouch."

Quick little post for everyone. Yes, it's that wonderful time of year again where I get back into the swing of things in the wonderful world of high school theater. This year we're doing Seussical as the fall show and I have just been cast in the role of The Grinch and I'm excited as hell. Now before anyone inadvertently brings me down by saying The Grinch is a very small part... I'm well aware. But, dude, it's The Grinch! If there was a play of, say Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Bugs Bunny or Daffy Duck were in that play in very minor roles. Wouldn't it be a dream of any Looney Tunes fan to play those characters even if they only have a line or two? That's at least how I feel about the situation. So there you go.  The good news is that, unlike Little Shop of Horrors this past spring (don't ask about what happened there, I don't want to talk about it), Seussical wasn't a central part of my future puppetry career being determined (in fact, I just have a small gut instinct that it just might help with this show... maybe). The bad news is... well, it's a small role. But that's the last thing on my mind at the moment. I even bought a stuffed animal of The Grinch's dog at a church sale today for 50 cents and got all excited when I saw it. So to say I'm miserable about a small role is, quite frankly, not true.

Speaking of which, maybe someone can help me out. One of my favorite shows growing up was Jim Henson's The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss. I'm hoping to base my Grinch performance around Muppet performer Anthony Asbury's take on the character from that series. So no problems. Incorrect. Like pretty much all Henson Company-produced shows, The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss isn't airing anywhere on US television and has too many DVD releases for its own good. I've focused on The Muppet Show, Sesame Street, Fraggle Rock and the fantasy worlds (The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, The Storyteller) for so long, I've ignored stuff like The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss for years. If anyone could help me out and recommend DVD's of the show that have episodes where the Muppet Grinch is prominently featured or could upload episodes on YouTube that include the character, I would really appreciate it.

Why was 6 afraid of 7?

Okay, that's a really bad joke. I apologize. But I will say this, I walked into Shane Acker's 9 with high expectations. With Tim Burton's involvement, the PG-13 rating and Focus Features' previous animated film Coraline, I was sure this was going to be an excellant film. The trailers made the movie stick out and seem exciting enough on its own. But when you really get around to seeing 9, while it picks up and gets better as the movie goes on, it's a bit of a letdown.

The concept itself, the movie being a feature-length version of the 2005 short film of the same name which was nominated for Best Animated Short at the Oscars, is quite unique. But it also harms the film. The characters are rather hard to keep track of not by personality but by name or number in this case. It's hard to keep track of who lives and who dies and which number is which (besides 9) until the movie really begins to pick up and when it does, it's not intense at all. But it's certainly a movie that makes you jump and is very exciting without being too outlandish. The plot twist the film takes when you think it is about to end definitely comes as a surprise and helps bring the movie to a great climax.

Is 9 an animated feature we will all take notice of? Quite honetsly, no. Of the animated films of 2009, 9 falls way under Up, Coraline and Ponyo. I will say that 9 had a much better storyline and all-around better film than Monsters vs Aliens. There isn't really much else to say about 9 due to its short length of 79 minutes. It is worth seeing but you don't need to rush out and go see it. I believe a 2.5 out of 4 is a fair rating for 9.

2010 is The Year of the Muppet!

I hate to do two blog posts in one day, but this stuff is too amazing not to post! So, in case you didn't know, this weekend was Disney's first fan convention ever: D23. Sort of a Disney Comic Con. Except all the programs focused on Disney properties. Naturally, the Muppets ended up on the D23 line-up with their own program announcing all the upcoming projects and 2010 is going be insane!

First off, on Friday we got an official announcement on The Cheapest Muppet Movie Ever for a 2011 release (that's just my own estimate). The film as announced will be written by and will co-star Jason Segal of TV's How I Met Your Mother and the films Forgetting Sarah Marshall and I Love You, Man. Segal has cited being a huge Muppet fan, holding the utmost nostalgia for the characters and I can tell that he's really trying with this film and I wish him the best of luck. But Sunday was the huge day for Muppet news. Here's a list of what to expect:

• An online cooking show with the Muppets and starring Chef Cat Cora. I have no idea who Cat Cora is but this seems like a start.
• Muppet YouTube music videos for "Bohemian Rhapsody," "Dust in the Wind" and "Stand By Me" all coming online soon. These sound exciting, I can't wait for "Stand By Me" myself. The Timon and Pumbaa version is Muppet-y enough already, I wonder how they'll top that.
• Halloween special slated for October 2010. This was supposed to be filmed and aired this year but got delayed. I'm a little miffed, but hey, at least it's coming! COUGH-COUGH America's Next Muppet COUGH-COUGH
  
• The Muppets to appear on Andrea Buccelli's Christmas special this year. I knew about the album but a special? That's cool, too.
• Muppet*Vision "Remastered" coming soon. It's about time! They've been saying they'll switch to a digital projector for years, it took long enough.
• The Muppet Show: Season 4 for 2010, Gonzo makes the cover. Great news! We're almost there!
• Muppet iPhone apps. I don't have an iPhone, but this is a great thing to do.
• Statler & Waldorf book. If it's like Before You Leap, I'm sold. Well... I'm sold either way...
• Studio DC DVD. That took long enough.
• Muppet Whatnot Workshops in Disney parks with new Whatnots. YES! I haven't gotten a Whatnot yet, what a better time than when these new workshops go up?
• Mobile Electric Mayhem. Neat! I hope I get to see it when I go down to Disney World in February.
• Kermit's gonna be at the VMA's tonight. Hopefully Steve is there for the ride.
  

It's safe to say 2010 is going to be one of the best years for the Muppets in years. How fitting for the 55th anniversary of the franchise. I guess the countdown to New Year's begins now! 2010, the year of the Muppet. You heard it here!

Shalom Sesame is back in business!

When I was younger at the peak of my elementary school years, I had an intense interest in the international co-productions of Sesame Street. I tried to get my hands on as much international Sesame Street as I could. I still remember the odd look that Toys R Us employee gave my dad when we bought two Plaza Sesamo tapes. But still, out of that stage of discovering the world impact of the Street, I discovered one of the more underrated Sesame Street productions: Shalom Sesame. My exposure to Shalom Sesame is unfortunately minimal, I've only seen about 4 episodes (I'd buy the box set in a heartbeat if it weren't so goddamn expensive. Seriously, even used copies of the individual discs are impossible to find for less than $10!) but what I've seen is some really great stuff. It really makes me want to visit Israel and learn Hebrew. Besides, it has Moishe Oofnik: easily one of the best international Muppets... and probably the only Muppet to ever get drunk on camera.

But we cannot deny that Shalom Sesame in 2009 is a bit dated. The Rechov Sumsum it was adapted from has now been off Israeli airwaves for years and several other factors age it. When Rechov Sumsum was revived in 2006 with a new cast of Muppets (Moishe Oofnik being the only one to return between the two), I have long hoped that Shalom Sesame would come back with this new crew.

Now in 2009, wouldn't you know it? New Shalom Sesame installments are on the way! This is very exciting stuff. It's great to see the Israeli Rechov Sumsum crew willing to do this. It makes me even happier that there will be an American Muppet on the new set of Shalom Sesame full-time, namely Grover, who is my second favorite Sesame Muppet after Oscar (who also spent a little bit of time on Shalom Sesame! Small world.) I'll certainly be on hand to watch these come Hanukkah 2010 and I'm not even Jewish. I will miss Kippi and the totally awkward 80's cheapness of the whole thing but, hey, new Shalom Sesame in the 21st century. That's more than enough for me.

Inglourious Basterds is a slow but worthy journey

I'll admit, I was not completely intent on seeing Inglourious Basterds. Honestly, the only reason I'm here is to support The Weinstein Company. They were just going through some pretty bad financial problems and considering they are releasing the upcoming Fraggle Rock: The Movie and The Power of the Dark Crystal, they needed all the help they can get. Besides, Quentin Tarantino is a huge Jim Henson fan. That must amount for something.

But that said, Inglourious Basterds starts off exciting with it's "chapter 1" opening which sets up the character of Shosanna who is one of the most appealing characters in the movie aside from the Basterds. Ultimately, what makes this first hour and a half of the movie fall flat are the scenes where the Basterds are absent (which is the majority of the time), setting up Shosanna's side of things where she gets roped into having her theater be the spot of the premiere of a Nazi propaganda film, Stolz der Nation (A Nation's Pride). Realizing Hitler will be at the premiere, the film picks up momentum when she announces to the projectionist her plan for revenge on the Nazis to set the theater on fire with the Germans in it. The film begins to excite us with that but then loses a bit of momentum on long talking scenes. I have nothing against these scenes, but for a film advertising itself as so violent the violence is far and in-between during this first half.

A bar scene in particular, which sets up the Basterds' connection with the movie premiere having similar plans to Shosanna starts to pick up the movie once their connection is mentioned just goes on and on and on, picking up only at the end with the Basterds' entrance.

The film's final "chapter" (the final hour of the movie) is what saves the film. It is perfection and a chilling, cringe-worthy film sequence. Just what Tarantino wanted. Bear in mind, the movie is NOT for everyone but if you feel perfectly fine with blood and over the top violence that you can grin and bear, you'll adore this movie. But feel free to get some snacks or go to the bathroom anytime during the first hour and a half, you won't be missing much. If this movie doesn't get any Oscar noms, call me surprised. Inglourious Basterds gets a hesitant but well-deserved 3 out of 4 stars.

School's in session and the future is calling...

Yes, school starts for me on September 8. In the midst of this horrible economy, I've heard via Facebook that my school has been rapidly taking out clubs and activities that are too costly to keep going and are just not bringing anything to the school. Moreover, new clubs are not allowed anymore. Now, I can't really say this is official yet but I have had a very large feeling that the Puppetry Club (see my 5-part "The Rise and Fall of Puppetry Club" series) has indeed been cut.

And I couldn't be happier.

I won't go into the details of why I'm so happy because you can just read part 5 to see what a cumbersome task it was for me to continually write up budgets, try to group people together, and come up with promotional material. Had the beginning gone off to a much better start, I'm sure I could have over time taken the club into the sunlight but I was not ready. I overestimated the club's worth which promptly led to its downfall. I've taken the failure well since then and I don’t feel as bitter as others would in my position. I have since ported all my characters and ideas I created for the Puppetry Club into other projects. With this also, I'm going back to my original goal... to make a television show with puppets that people notice.

Ever since I started doing puppetry, I've always had that goal. In 2000 when I started doing puppetry and became fascinated by Arms-Length Productions puppets (www.armslength.com), I started planning out a sitcom in my head based around the puppets on that site who are the black family. Named after the puppets, the show was called The Afro Family (at age 8 I didn't really realize a sitcom about a black family with that title wouldn't be all-PC). The show revolved around the afro boy on the site, who I named Kyle (after my cousin's then 7-year old son), who was a klutzy but lovable pre-teen who was best friends with the Anglo boy Billy (named after the protagonist of Gremlins, my favorite movie at the time) and his sister Ally (named after a girl in my third grade class who I ironically was pretty annoyed by). Kyle also had a talking pet dinosaur who somehow survived the extinction (I actually planned out a whole episode that explained the dinosaur's origin story!). Other then that, there was not very much to The Afro Family besides surreal storylines that only an eight-year old kid could come up with.

But the thing that sticks out the most from my pipe dream was not so much the weirdness and political incorrectness of the whole thing but rather the format itself was unique. I wanted the show to be an hour long, the first and last 15 minutes would be the Afros' story while that half-hour in-between would be devoted to random puppet skits. I was really into Rocky & Bullwinkle at the time thanks to that R&B movie that came out that everyone seems to hate but me (OK, it's not that great movie but it's not as terrible as everyone makes it out to be), and I'm sure the format of that show had more than some influence. But there were two recurring sketches I came up with based on Arms-Length puppets: Ant Scouts, which was a bunch of Boy Scout-wannabe ants who can't really get much of anything done successfully, and Moonbeamies, which was about two alien cops.

Over time as I got older, I grew out of The Afro Family idea and began to focus more on just growing as a puppeteer which lead to the club and you know the rest... but over this summer, I have begun to have a new idea and restarted myself with the characters I created for the Puppetry Club and putting them into an idea for a new children's series.

It wouldn't be a show for very young children; the show would really be aimed at kids entering kindergarten about to outgrow Sesame Street. Whereas Sesame Street teaches children the alphabet and how to count, my show would have a huge emphasis on love, forgiveness and friendship (not that Sesame Street doesn't do that but we would emphasize it more). Using VeggieTales as model for the format, my two main characters Conrad the Otter and Milo A. Monster would serves as hosts for stories emphasizing these points. Unlike VeggieTales however, my show would seldom have direct references to God. I'd use Bible stories occasionally to make points but that's it. Everything else is parody or whatever works best for the message with enough pop culture references (mostly 80's and 90's jokes of course) and double entendres to keep their parents and older siblings entertained.

Yes, I'm going into life now with a new outlook anticipating to actually get somewhere with this show that could really be kind of entertaining and rewarding but still a lot of fun for everybody. So goodbye Puppetry Club; I'm back for good, television industry.

A correction that has to be made

Last night, obviously we saw the Muppets go on America's Got Talent and let's just leave it at that.

An anyomous guest to this blog commented on that post and accused me of blaming Disney for the appearence being so "blah". That was not my intention. For the most part, what Disney has done with the Muppets has been fairly good. We got a TV-movie, three television specials, season sets of The Muppet Show and many more appearences in the media... all within the last four years. Compare that to Henson's use of the Muppets during the last four years before the Disney sale. All we got was one TV-movie, a reasonable amount of merchandise (including the now bankrupt Palisades Toys' excellent Muppet action figure line) and the infrequent Hollywood Squares appearences... and that's it. Was this appearence last night the worst thing Disney has done with the Muppets? In my opinion, yes. But did Disney screw it up? No. I will blame someone from The Muppets Studio for turning what could have been a good appearence into a Big-Lipped Aligator Moment (but, hey, at least last night's appearence still had more consistancy than We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story).

On the subject of Kermit's voice, just as we all assumed it was not Steve Whitmire. Rather, it was Artie Esposito who, ironcally, I almost got a puppet built by a year ago. I'm sure Artie is a good guy and I feel a little bad for him right now after what he's probably been going through today but please don't perfrom the frog again.

And, oh yeah, Sharon Osbourne and Kermit had lunch. But that doesn't excuse Sharon's much-too-strong British accent.

America's Got Talent - except maybe Kermit

OK, so the America's Got Talent semi-finals just ended. I wasn't really paying much attention to it as I don't really watch it. But one thing stuck out: a performance by Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy.

Now, two years ago, I'm sure everyone remembers during the finals the amazingly talented Terry Fator got to duet with Kermit. It was, in my opinion, one of the best appearences the Muppets have done on TV in a long time. The Swedish Chef, Animal and Beaker filled in for the typical judges just for Fator and in turn he got a well-deserved win (Fator).

So I looked forward to this appearence tonight. But what I saw was awful. It was pre-established earlier in the show that Kermit had been doing God-know's-what with Sharon Osbourne (I've watched this scene at least 3 times since I taped it and can't understand for the life of me what Osbourne is saying). But this makes Piggy mad and prompts her to chase Kermit out of the dressing room when he shows up.

For the recond, Eric Jacobson is clearly having a ball performing this as Piggy. He really is loosening up to the character and really getting into Piggy's strong feminism that we haven't really seen in her since The Muppet Show. Jacobson saves it from being completely terrible but that doesn't mean it wasn't bad.

Kermit was the key problem in this. It clearly was not Steve Whitmire under the frog. The puppetry seemed to be on beginner level at points and his voice sounded more like Jimmy Stuart trying to do a Jim Henson impression. Because of this new performer, Kermit really doesn't do much. The frog and the pig accompanied by some Muppet chickens, sang the Elton John/Kiki Dee duet "Don't Go Breakin' My Heart".

Piggy briefly yells at Kermit at the very beginning for whatever he did with Sharon Osbourne and then gets right into the song. Piggy has no problems during the act. Kermit randomly runs offstage and gives host Nick Cannon a CD labled "CD for when Piggy has a fit".... why? She isn't having a fit but, OK... The act pretty much ends as you would expect with the pig forgiving the frog. FOR WHAT?! I THOUGHT SHE WAS OVER IT! It's not in-character for Piggy to go on with anything if someone messes with her frog. Period.

Overall, it was a nice try. But it failed miserably. Hopefully Disney will be able to wipe their hands clean of this with some better Muppet appearence. But, again, at least the Muppets were out there. I've said this about Studio DC, I'll say it about this appearence: it may be mediocre, but at least the Muppets are getting some exposure. And the audience did seem to like it. That must count for something but I was pretty disappointed.

(Wow, nearly all my posts on this blog thus far have been me spewing negativity. Rambling about money, a 5-part "rise and fall" tale and now this. Something postive better pop up soon! :D)

BobThePizzaBoy crosses over onto blogs

Just a quick post right now inviting you to stop by my pal Ryan Dosier's new blog The Muppet Mindset, which contains user-submitted reviews and opinion pieces on recent events in the wonderful world of The Jim Henson Company, Sesame Workshop and The Muppet Studios. I will stop by occasionally to contribute material to Ryan's blog. In fact, I already have stuff up! You can check out my review of the recent 25th Anniversary Collector's Edition of Sesame Street Presents: Follow that Bird here: http://themuppetmindset.blogspot.com/2009/08/follow-that-bird-special-edition-dvd.html

In other news, I hope to have a review of Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds up by Labor Day. Beyond that, I don't know what to tell you. Ciao!

The Rise and Fall of Puppetry Club (Part 5)

That's the story. I told everything that needed to be told. I suppose it's time to talk about what we learned today -

And so what we have learned applies to our lives today,
and God has a lot to say in His Book.

Oh, come on! It doesn't work like that! This is a blog!

You see, we know that God's Word is for everyone;
and now that our song is done, we'll take a look.

Sorry about that. But anyway, I learned a lot from those few weeks of being a club president of something that could have been big. I'll summarize these lessons each individually.

Leadership is not meant for some people. I'm one to come in on a strictly creative level. I'm a writer/performer but I never again want to be in a presidential position, a task I seldom enjoyed. I want to be equal with my colleagues. Everyone should be able to put something in. In terms of things like this, all for one and one for all is a very good way to define this. Someone will have to take on a different position depending on their qualifications and all are needed.

Starting bigger is not always better. Looking back, I had to be crazy to think I could put together the funds and planning for a big-budget variety show in two-and-a-half months. These things can't be rushed like that. Even with the school plays, planning begins at least six months in advance with preliminarily work. As an analogy, I'll use Pixar. It took Pixar six years between founding 1982 to get a motion picture deal with Disney in 1992 and another three years before Toy Story came out. Had Pixar jumped into feature animation right out of the gate, Toy Story could have made the earliest VeggieTales videos look like Up by comparison. It was a huge mistake to throw people into a huge project like the Puppetry Club variety show.

Being an individual is sometimes better. My original intent with the club was not to get another picture in the yearbook but rather to try to get people to follow in my long path of the art of puppetry, keep things going for even years after I've graduated. But the thing I realized is that people loved my work for years without having an apprentice of sorts or people following me. By the end of the school year, I realized I was much better off a solo act while still in public schooling. Being a one-of-a-kind is a lot better off than being in a leadership position like I had.

So there you have it. I have seen the enemy and he is me. I built the club on my strengths and my weaknesses killed it. My intentions were generally quite good but I had no experience or knowledge managing people or leading teams to accomplish goals. This experience will hopefully be the final time I will have to go through such an endeavor again. It's just not the thing for me.

There. I said it.

The Rise and Fall of Puppetry Club (Part 4)

I stayed off Facebook the rest of the day after I sent that e-mail and went to school the next day without any qualms. My day went pretty normally. After school I went home and did my daily Puppetry Club Facebook group check and noticed the group had one less member than yesterday. After looking through the group members, I realized that it was that same girl I singled out in the e-mail who left the group. It was then I realized what I had done. I was devastated, nearly cried myself to sleep that night and was excessively grumpy to everyone the rest of the week. I spent the rest of the week avoiding her, terrified of her. It didn't help we had two rehearsals that week where I would have to be around her. Since this was right before our President's Day week-long break, I figured I'd let it lie low, keep quiet and hope she forgets by the time we get back.

Perhaps it was my temper in that e-mail and the end result of it, but at those two rehearsals the reception toward the club was the same as it had been before: nobody cared. Not a single soul. I had pushed the boulder over the hill and was able to keep it up there with persistence up this was probably about the time it began to roll back down.

That week after when I was in Orlando, rather than spending a night in Mickey's part of town I sat out on the deck of my hotel room looking out at the on-property golf course and, farther back, the taller structures in Disney World you could see from the hotel. I was thinking over everything that had happened over that last month. I came to a final decision: we had to scale back. With that, the 2009 Puppetry Club variety show was officially canceled. With our big project in the can, for the first time I didn't have a solution.

When we came back from President's week break and I broke the news to the three people who had stood by me through thick and thin, they were not over-the-top surprised. I told them I had no idea what we were going to do and I'd keep them posted if anything were to come along. That was the last meeting. We never got together as a group again.

That wasn't completely my fault. My school's production of Little Shop of Horrors was the next week and the week after that (note to all: Hell Week will be the most time-consuming thing you'll ever encounter), the overtly-silly award ceremony wherein I was performing for the second year in a row was two weeks after the end of Little Shop, I got roped into other puppeteering gigs for weeks afterward, not to mention I had other school work to keep track of. The club periods went by without the Puppetry Club being brought up once, I crawled back to the TV Studio/AV Club instead. With the final club period of the school year having passed - it was all over. Puppetry Club would be a thing of the past.

But I realized something through all these performances. All the years I had been doing puppet shows and people loving them, I have always been a solo act. The thrill of having an accomplishment that you made the initiative with alone is so much rewarding in that you have to handle everything on your own. That doesn't go for everything, but with puppetry and for me at least, it goes very well. I didn't need a club or a show to show that, and I was much happier without the burden of having handle a group like that, something I'm clearly not the person to do that. I've taken everything I created for the club and now put under my new puppet troupe which emphasizes it's my troupe, this is entirely a BobThePizzaBoy project. I haven't really gotten off the ground with it just yet but, call it arrogance if you want, I have a very good feeling this future project could me a lot more happiness than the Puppetry Club could have ever brought.

The Rise and Fall of Puppetry Club (Part 3)

From my standpoint, things were looking pretty good. The Puppetry Club had taken off to a group of members pretty much equal to the number of students in the fall plays every year, I was working on a grant application to get money from the school board's education foundation, contacting puppet builders about getting professional Muppet-quality puppets built just for our show, looking through which puppetry techniques beyond hand puppets were worth encourage within the club, planning a "backstage" plot for the show as well as adapting the Oklahoma! sketch from Sesame Street to stage with new characters (never seen it? Here's a comic relief break for you then: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ9g62YE1N4). I was a race car well into the Daytona 500. But with ever car race, a crash is bound to happen. It was happening on the day of our first formal meeting.

I once again messaged the Facebook group about a meeting the next day after school. The next day came and only three people showed up. We had a very dedicated young woman who cared dearly about our work and two freshmen boys who were pretty interested and had the potential. Our seniors who seemed oh so interested, and took up a good percentage of the Facebook group, failed to show up. As one of the boys told me, none of those seniors were actually interested in the club. I sank a little inside but kept up my perkiness even though I was angry as hell.

I will say one thing though if I may: if anything good came from the Puppetry Club, a lot of great ideas and characters I refuse to let be put to waste came out of my brainstorming. I now have a stable of characters I want to acquire and hone up. There's Conrad the Otter, the quintessential "Kermit-in-an-otter's-body" who gets a bit more hot-tempered, who was our mascot and would be the MC of the variety show (in actuallity hosted by me). Conrad's closest buddy was Ollie (his name is actually now Milo), an incompetent and silly monster who was always going to be a live-hand puppet. At first he started as a Fozzie-type but now as Milo the attire and humor of Weird Al Yankovic, the voice of Daffy Duck, the "lovable goof" mindset of Larry the Cucumber and general personality traits of Fozzie. Next we have Lucy, who went through the most dramatic changes. At first she was a humanoid who looked like Muppet Janice and had a thing for Conrad. Now she's Belle, a Scarlett O'Hara-like white dog that Milo has a thing for. Then there's Snook the Skunk, an adolescent-in-behavior skunk who only had his name to Karl. I'd go on about the lesser characters, but those were always really my "Fab Four".

Here was the catch: I could tell early on that these weren't guys who could really portray those characters to their potential. None of them were really actors or had the kind of personality you really need for theater. But they did have potential to be great supporting players, especially considering I needed people to handle sketches while I wrote the backstage plot and picked out some of the music (I always envisioned a finale with all the club members with puppets, our guest performers to help round out the show and our school's music chairman all around a piano singing "The Rainbow Connection" for instance. I also wanted Conrad to sing "Bein' Green" in the midst of the backstage plot, but that's for another time). I tried to schedule a repeat meeting for those who missed it but were still interested... but no one responded to my request. At last, I finally said "Screw them. I can re-build a new group in no time!" Ha-ha, what a funny thought.

It was around that Friday that I went to a rehearsal of my school's spring production of Little Shop of Horrors. The director made the gracious decision to let me perform the first Audrey II puppet. If you know the show, this is the puppet that appears in the "Grow for Me" number when Seymour discovers Audrey II feeds off blood. This new casting choice seemed to be a green light to do something I really regret: I sent out an e-mail to the cast (some adults involved with the production also received the e-mail, but I never heard any complaining) trying to encourage people to join the club. While it seemed harmless enough, I should note that one of those unreliable seniors was an Urchin in this very production of Little Shop, someone I had a huge on-and-off off-and-on crush on all through our three years we were classmates and was already on thin ice with anyway. My anger toward her not showing up to meetings overshadowed my love for her for most of that week and I don't remember exactly what I wrote in that e-mail but it was something along the lines of "... aside from an unreliable group of juniors and seniors (including someone in the cast who I won't name here), but that just comes with making a group on Facebook..." I pretty much singled her out in the e-mail without even mentioning her name. I didn't even think that I clicked the "Send e-mail" button that I'd be kicking myself in ass for it later.

The Rise and Fall of Puppetry Club (Part 2)

I did some research. Plymouth-Canton Education Park, a three-high school complex in Michigan, has had a puppetry club going since 2005 which sparked near-immediate interest and performs a variety show each year. Then again, PCEP is a HUGE school compared to mine, something I did not think about. I began to mentally plan out a calendar in my head. In January we would start and gain interest quickly, February would be devoted to planning stages such as writing sketches, starting to build puppets and such, March would be a rehearsal month and April would be our big variety show. It seemed reasonable, pretty much 2 full months of prep work, just as long as the spring musical takes. My ambitious plan could be done. Proposal in hand, I went to our school's principal to pitch. He was supportive and said to get 15 signatures of people who would be interested.

A few weeks later, I got all the signatures I needed and we were given the green light. My Journalism teacher stepped in to be the club's adviser and we were on the fast track to being part of the school's extracurricular list. By now, I should have realized the one huge flaw: I was pinpointing on a January start date right at the end of the first semester. By now, most students have their clubs all selected and seldom have space for others. That was a definite strike. I hung up flyers all around the school advertising the club with the catchy slogan "All hands in," but the only people asking and were interested in what we were doing were teachers. On that day of our first meeting, nobody showed up without me bringing them. Only one person [as well as two others who joined through personal swaying] showed any interest and stood by me in this entire catastrophe. In a last-minute decision, I ran around the school with one of my puppets trying to encourage people to come to the classroom we were holding the meeting in. Two senior girls came up to me wanting to see the puppet and seemed legitimately interested in what we were doing. They were popular enough that word-of-mouth could easily spread from them and we could have a strong membership increase.

A few nights later, I made a group on Facebook to keep in touch with all the Puppetry Club members. I invited all the five people who I had succeeded in getting to join and sent out a message explaining our future and moreover encouraged our existing members to encourage their friends to join. One of these senior girls immediately invited a lot of people from her social circle to the group. I put it aside and went to go watch The Simpsons. When I came back a half-hour later, the group had increased from six to over twenty members. I was so happy I felt like crying. And dancing. My confidence boomed to new heights, the club had taken off the way I wanted it to... or so I thought. Filled with euphoria, I messaged all the members on Facebook telling them we'd have a second meeting the week after mid-terms ended. Little did I realize that things were about to unravel in ways I didn't expect.

The Rise and Fall of Puppetry Club (Part 1)

At the end of this past school year, my first thoughts were "Where did I go wrong?" I used eye-catching promotional tools, had ideas that most were supportive of and a steady schedule that we could make reasonable deadlines with. But nobody cared. Nobody ever stepped up and said "Hey, this sounds cool. I'll stick by this, it could be fun." The Puppetry Club was nothing short of a spectacular failure no matter what angle you look at it from.

So what killed the Puppetry Club? Pour yourself some tea and I'll tell you the real story with a nice prologue and all!

I've always been an advocate of the saying "Each and every one of us has a quality that's different, we can either embrace that quality or hide it and become a face in the crowd." (I very well should be, that's a quote of my own saying) As my friend Minesh responded to that quote with (toward me) "You love puppets and are not afraid to show the world regardless of what they think and I respect that a lot." I've always been like that.

I suppose it all started with Sesame Street as a youngster. It was always my favorite show even after all my classmates ditched PBS for Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network (Disney Channel was not yet the powerhouse it was today back in 1998); I couldn't help but slip back to Sesame Street. Even as a near-18 year old that spends more time listening to Weird Al Yankovic music and watching 30 Rock (I haven't watched the newer episodes of Sesame Street since 2002), there's something that still entrances me about the Street. Maybe it's the fact that characters are far more appealing than, say, Barney, or the way the show has a sensibility that makes it stick out like a sore thumb, but the fact of the matter is that in my 17 years on this planet it is the only show made for pre-school children that doesn't make me want to blow my brains out.

If you remember back to 1998, Children's Television Workshop was underway with a huge marketing push for Sesame Street's 30th season on public television. Of the many products that came out was the non-fiction coffee table book Sesame Street Unpaved, which I received for Christmas that year. The book includes a chapter on the different types of puppets used on the show, behind the scenes candids and other little knickknacks that made this 7-year old boy go nuts for puppets on an all-new level. I can't remember when the "eureka" moment was, maybe it was seeing Muppets from Space and The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland in theaters in 1999, but soon enough it led to me getting a professional puppet for Christmas in 2000. I still have that lamb puppet to this day, it's barely holding together but it certainly brings back memories.

In 2002, my puppet repertoire had built to four puppets from that same company (a lamp, a black boy, a green alien and a red "cartoon") and, inspired by watching re-runs of Jim Henson's early guest appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show (I'm probably the only kid in the 21st century who watched Ed Sullivan re-runs at 10), I did a puppet show in my elementary school's 4th/5th grade talent show. Then I returned as a 5th grader the next year and then did a puppet act in my middle school's 8th grade talent show, and then in 10th and 11th grade performed at my school's award ceremony (which always feels more like Monty Python's Flying Circus than the Oscars).

Through all of these performances I've been able to gain a small cult following at school. I'm known for being the puppet guy; it's what people associate with me the most. It was around this time I decided I was going to do something with it to create a legacy at school, something I could come back and see still functioning. A new generation of students would be able to keep the art of puppetry in good hands. I was going to start a club.

Poyno is a small delight

At the end of the day, Hayao Miyazaki's latest film Ponyo really is a children's film. It is not as complex in character development as Spirited Away and lacks the quirky tone and humor of Howl's Moving Castle. Comparing it to this year's animated films, it doesn't have the emotional depth of Up or the eye candy of Coraline but it's well ahead of Monsters vs. Aliens in quality. With these comparisons, you'd think that I hated Ponyo. That is far from the truth. It is an excellent film, but it's a tad on the simple side.

Chuck Jones once said that with great animation, you can turn to sound off and still know exactly what's going on. Ponyo is an incredibly good example of this. In that regard, it's an excellent visual movie. The scenes focusing on the human characters (Ponyo in human form, Sosuke, Lisa, the elders) are pretty much standard anime style humans, perhaps that is intentional on Miyazaki's part but it imparts the tone of the movie perfectly with this normality of life contrasting with the fantastical wonder of the fish characters. Poyno in her goldfish form really is one of the cutest characters in an animated film I've seen in a long time, in every picture I see of her she always puts a smile on my face and I also loved the design of Fujimoto, Ponyo's father. The animals and other fish managed to combine cartoon-like qualities with a degree of realism, Studio Ghibli has always been great with that.

In regards to the English dub cast, Ponyo has gone all out with bringing in talent from all levels of the entertainment industry. Noah Cyrus and Frankie Jonas, the younger siblings of Disney recording artists Miley Cyrus and the Jonas brothers, voice Ponyo and Sosuke respectively. It is clear that these two are only in the movie for the sake of bringing in the Disney Channel crowd but it really is good casting. Jonas brings in the perfect tone that a little boy his age should have to the character, Cyrus' lines are for the most part yelling of words Ponyo picks up being around Sosuke and Lisa. Ponyo could have easily been voiced by any little kid but Cyrus does bring a degree of innocence into the character that makes her adorable. Other cast members include Tina Fey of TV's 30 Rock as Sosuke's mom Lisa who, while very entertaining, seems to be channeling Liz Lemon a bit too closely most of the time. But Liam Neeson steals the show as Fujimoto. He strikes as a great comedic actor who is very subtle but brings out the humor in the character. I sat there having a hard time believing this was the man who 16 years earlier was playing Oskar Schindler in what is probably one of the most heartbreaking movies out there.

I can't stress enough that this movie is as simple as simple can get. It's a Miyazaki movie for the Sesame Street set, but the rest of us will be extremely entertained by the free-spirited tone the movie has. It's a small movie, yes, but it's a fun ride. I give Ponyo a good 3 out of 4 stars.