2024 Comics Fun Advent Calendar, Day 24: And, unto us, a Superman is born!

Yeah, he has super vision but not in the back of his head!

We all know that Superman is Jesus, right? So much has already been written about the parallels between the Lamb of God and the Man of Steel that I don't really have to rehash it all for you here. Suffice it to say, many people have seen the Superman mythos as a Christian allegory, even though the character's creators (Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster) were Jewish. I've gotta admit, the theory makes sense. John and Martha Kent, for instance, make pretty plausible stand-ins for Joseph and Mary. Superman even died and came back to life, just like Whatshisname.

Anyway, I couldn't think of a better way of ending this 2024 Comics Fun Advent Calendar than a whole bunch of Superman parodies, again mostly drawn from Comics Outta Context. Enjoy and have a lovely holiday season!

2024 Comics Fun Advent Calendar, Day 20: The biggest traffic ticket I ever got

"I hope nobody notices my missing door!" is a weird thing to say out loud.

Let me tell you about the most expensive traffic ticket I ever received. 

It was the early 2000s and my sister Catherine had just moved to a small town outside Ft. Wayne, Indiana. I live a few hours away in Illinois, and I decided to make the journey to her house for Christmas by car even though I hate to drive and have zero sense of direction. Sure enough, I got badly lost several times on the way but finally arrived in Indiana, shaken but intact. I stayed (in a motel) for a couple days and tried to enjoy the holiday festivities, but I was dreading the trip back.

My fears were justified. When I got back on the highway and had been driving for maybe 30 or 40 minutes, I suddenly realized that it had been a while since I'd seen a posted speed limit sign. I had no idea what the speed limit was, so I just tried to keep pace with traffic. Well, around that time, I noticed a police car nearby and decided to slow down to 55 just to be on the safe side. The officer who ticketed me later said this was my big mistake, the thing that told him I was up to no good. He tailed me for several miles but then pulled off to the side of the highway. I thought he'd given up on me and was relieved. I should not have been.

I kept driving, still going about 55. A few minutes later, this cop came roaring back into traffic with his lights flashing and (to my memory) siren wailing. In my rearview mirror, I could see he was weaving through the cars trying to catch up to somebody. I assumed there was an emergency somewhere. Turns out, the emergency was me. When I pulled over, the police officer stepped out of his vehicle and approached my car, citation book in hand. He seemed to be in a bad mood. I knew I couldn't have been speeding, so what was my big crime? Expired tags.

Now, here is where my version of the story diverges from the cop's version of the story. According to the cop, I knew perfectly well that my tags were expired, and I had sneakily tried to avoid him so he wouldn't notice. He'd known from the start that I was doing something underhanded, but it had taken him a few minutes to figure out exactly what. That's why he'd pulled over the first time. Eventually, he cracked the case: I was a fiendish criminal mastermind who had knowingly tried to drive though the great state of Indiana with Illinois tags that had expired a few weeks previously.

My version of the story was that I'd recently changed apartments and had forgotten to forward my mail to my new place. Therefore, I hadn't gotten a reminder from the state of Illinois that my tags had expired at the end of November. Besides, it's not like I was hurting the state of Indiana. The officer did not believe my story at all and wrote me a substantial ticket, the largest I'd ever received. I was really strapped for cash in those days, so it stung. For the next decade and a half, I vowed never to drive in the state of Indiana again. When I wanted to visit my sister, I did so by Amtrak.

But that's a whole other story.

Podcast Tuesday: "'Twas a Fight Before Christmas..."

Richard Paul and Tom Bosley on Happy Days.

How does your family get along? Well? Not well? Somewhere in between?

My sister and I fought a lot as kids, the way most siblings do, but my immediate family generally got along pretty well. My extended family was a different story, though. There were people on my father's side of the family who hadn't spoken to each other in years. Every time there was a wedding or funeral or family reunion, there would be speculation as to who would dare to show up. I never understood it. What could you say or do to a relative that would make them stop talking to you for the rest of your life?

This week on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast, we're talking about the episode "All I Want for Christmas," which deals with rivalries within families. Howard Cunningham (Tom Bosley) is reuniting with his overbearing older brother Dick (Richard Paul) for the first time in years. Will they be able to get through even a single day without fighting? This is a sitcom, so I think you can guess the answer to that one. Meanwhile, Fonzie (Henry Winkler) pressures his girlfriend Ashley (Linda Purl) to contact her estranged parents at Christmas. This plot goes in a direction I did not foresee.

You can hear exactly what we thought of "All I Want for Christmas" by clicking the play button down below. It's right there. Couldn't be easier.

The 2022 Ed-Vent Calendar, Day 25: Seinfeld, "The Postponement" (1995)

Jerry Seinfeld, Michael Richards, and an unknown extra on Seinfeld.

Some advent calendars last 24 days, others 25. Technically, the season of advent ends on Christmas Eve, so my obligation to this verkakte series ended yesterday. However, as it happens, the weather this Christmas weekend has stranded me in my apartment with little to do, so you're getting a 25th day of Ed-Vent. Lucky you.

On the third day of this series, I reviewed "The Chinese Restaurant," a 1991 episode of NBC's Seinfeld in which the characters attempt to attend a one-night-only showing of Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957) but do not succeed. Unfolding in real time in one location, this highly unusual episode proved to be a turning point in the sitcom's history. It also gave Ed's most famous film some of its most mainstream exposure ever. That Seinfeld has been seen by millions of people for over 30 years. Surely, at least some of those viewers must have been curious enough to track down Plan 9.

Running gags and callbacks were the lifeblood of Seinfeld, so it's not surprising that the show eventually returned to Plan 9 in an episode called "The Postponement." It took four and a half years, though, and those were four and a half eventful years. When "The Chinese Restaurant" debuted, Seinfeld was struggling through its second season, barely avoiding cancellation. By the time "The Postponement" aired on September 28, 1995, Seinfeld was in its seventh season and one of the most popular shows on television, airing as part of NBC's powerhouse Thursday night lineup alongside other smash hits like Friends and E/R.

In some ways, "The Postponement" shows how Seinfeld had evolved from its primitive early days. The iconic wraparound segments with Jerry (Jerry Seinfeld) performing standup comedy had mostly been jettisoned, for instance. Starting with the 1994 episode "The Big Salad," the show started filming more outdoor scenes on the famed New York Street set at CBS Studio Center in Los Angeles. Now, instead of showing Jerry doing standup, Seinfeld preferred to show its characters walking down that gloriously fake New York street, chatting about trivial matters. "The Postponement" has numerous little moments like that. In fact, it's one of those New York walk-and-talk scenes that leads to the Ed Wood/Plan 9 content in "The Postponement." 

Jerry and Kramer spot a Plan 9 flyer on a lamppost.

Throughout the episode, Jerry and his neighbor Kramer (Michael Richards) squabble over a couple of very silly issues. First, Jerry is shocked when Kramer says he'd turn Jerry in to the police if he committed a murder. ("Who's to say I wouldn't be next?" Kramer reasons.) Secondly, Jerry is annoyed that Kramer has been drinking so many café lattes recently. They're walking down the street one day, debating that second issue, when Jerry spies a flyer for another one-night-only showing of Plan 9. Kramer agrees to go with him, but when they get to the theater, Kramer tries to sneak in a café latte—a direct violation of the venue's strictly-enforced "no outside drinks" rule. When Kramer spills his latte and is caught by an usher, Jerry is only too happy to rat him out. In classic Seinfeld fashion, Jerry and Kramer's two seemingly unrelated problems have intersected.

I had a strong memory of the Plan 9 references in "The Chinese Restaurant," but I had no recollection of the Plan 9 material in "The Postponement." Revisiting the latter, I understand why. The Jerry/Kramer story, while quite funny, is a minor subplot. The main plot has a panicked George (Jason Alexander) using emotional manipulation to delay his upcoming marriage to his sensible girlfriend Susan (Heidi Swedberg). There's also a related story in which Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) confesses her romantic problems to the seemingly friendly Rabbi Glickman (Bruce Mahler), only to be mortified when he blabs Elaine's secrets to everyone he knows. (To make matters worse, Rabbi Glickman has a cable TV show where he embarrasses both Elaine and George.)

While screening "The Postponement," written by Larry David and directed by Andy Ackerman, I realized how serialized and insular Seinfeld had become by its seventh season, almost like a soap opera. Most obviously, George and Susan's rocky romantic relationship is a sprawling, tragicomic saga that spans several seasons. This "postponement" kerfuffle is just one of many, many problems they had over the years. Meanwhile, the café latte incident at the movie theater sets up a Kramer story in a future episode. And Elaine and Kramer discuss the events of a previous Seinfeld in which they team up to kill an annoying dog. While "The Postponement" pretty much works as a standalone story, it's more enjoyable to viewers who are very familiar with Seinfeld's characters and ongoing plotlines. It's like the middle movie in a trilogy.

Arguably, "The Postponement" features as much or even more Plan 9 content than "The Chinese Restaurant." First, there is the flyer that Jerry spies on a lamp post while talking about lattes with Kramer. It leads to this dialogue:

JERRY: Hey, look at this! Plan 9 from Outer Space is playing tomorrow night! One show only!

KRAMER: I've always wanted to see this.

JERRY: Y'know, I was supposed to see this five years ago. I was in a Chinese restaurant with George and Elaine, and we got all screwed up trying to get a table, and we missed it.

KRAMER: Yeah, well, let's do it, huh?

JERRY: All right.

The flyer itself is kind of neat. Plan 9 is said to be playing at the Paragon Theater for "one evening only" on September 22, 1995. (That would have been a Friday, which makes sense.) The title of the movie is printed in what appears to be Hobby Headline font in a pinkish-purplish hue with a picture of the planet Saturn in the background. We see at least three copies of the flyer in the episode, so presumably there must be more copies in the vast Seinfeld archives somewhere.

A few scenes later, Kramer and Jerry are waiting in line outside the Paragon Theater, still debating the café latte matter, and we get to see the iconic Plan 9 from Outer Space poster on the wall behind them. This particular Paragon must be a repertory house, since the other posters we can see are all for classic movies, including Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) and The Long, Long Trailer (1953). I suppose the other extras waiting in line are all there to see Plan 9, which is nice. The movie has garnered a decent turnout, probably due to the interest stirred in Ed by the Oscar-winning biopic Ed Wood (1994), which had only been released on VHS a few months before this episode.

These newly-converted Ed Wood fans are a sedate-looking bunch. The only potential weirdo among them is an intense-looking guy who wears his shoulder-length blonde hair combed straight back and carries a paperback book in the pocket of his sport coat. I've definitely seen guys like this at Ed Wood marathons. Good thing the Paragon doesn't have a policy against bringing in outside literature.

An intense extra (far right) attends Plan 9 on Seinfeld.

The 2022 Ed-Vent Calendar, Day 24: With every Christmas card I write...

One of Ed Wood's Christmas cards, with Ed himself as Jesus.

Thanks in large part to Rudolph Grey's Nightmare of Ecstasy (1992), Ed Wood's homemade Christmas cards from the early '50s have taken on something of a mythical status among his fans. On page 34 of the book, Grey includes three vintage photographs: two glamour shots of actress Dolores Fuller in an angora sweater and one picture of Ed himself, incongruously dressed as Jesus Christ, complete with a long-haired wig and a glued-on beard. The caption is equally intriguing: "Ed Wood's 3-D Christmas Card, featuring Ed as the Jewish carpenter."

It turns out that this amazing image is part of a series of Christmas cards that Ed had printed when he was dating Dolores, circa Glen or Glenda (1953) and Jail Bait (1954). The actress talks about those cards on page 33: "We made up a 3-D Christmas card where I was the Virgin Mary. We had some children around. Ed wanted to recreate the nativity scene. We sent those Christmas cards out with 3-D glasses. Ed played Jesus Christ."

Philip Chamberlin, who eventually married Dolores Fuller, adds this: "In a way, the Christmas cards are kind of a parable. He was, no doubt, a martyr for his art."

A few pages later, actor John Andrews—the source of many of Nightmare's most colorful (and disputed) anecdotes—talks about how Eddie was sharing an apartment with his early creative partner, Alex Gordon. "I think they were the original odd couple," Andrews muses. Anyway, Alex got scared off by the wild drag parties Eddie was always throwing and moved out. Here, I'll just let John tell the story from there:

John Andrews talks about Ed Wood selling Christmas cards.

Bob Hope shills for Stereo Realist.

Pretty wild stuff, huh? First off, the fact that this anecdote is taking place in December brings to mind that dreadful December in 1978 when Ed and his wife Kathy were evicted from their Yucca Flats apartment. That was often a rough month for him, which may be why there are so few Christmas references in Ed's work.

I've always assumed that the cards Eddie was selling were the same ones he'd made with Dolores Fuller, so maybe he made them for commercial rather than strictly personal reasons. Also, if John Andrews can be believed, this is how Ed Wood supposedly met actor Tom Tyler, who appeared in Eddie's Crossroad Avenger (1953) near the very end of his life. 

In her 2009 autobiography A Fuller Life: Hollywood, Ed Wood and Me, Dolores Fuller gives us some more details about the history of those cards:

There are those who scoff at the idea that Eddie was in any sense a creative artist, but during my years with him, I was surprised almost daily by his creativity. One example that comes to mind is the series of five 1954 Christmas cards he created. I had been a 3-D enthusiast for many years and had my own "Stereo Realist" camera, made by Kodak, but discontinued in the early 1960's. It was a time when 3-D was enjoying one of its periodic fads, so we decided to go all out and make a series of tableau-like 3-D cards. 

The shoot was done at my two-bedroom Burbank home where Eddie and I lived with my father. The series of 3-D shots for the cards utilized our entire "family" and ranged thematically from a naughty shot of me in an abbreviated Santa costume for a card inscribed "... the night before Christmas," through a card with my father as "Santa Claus" toting a big toy-stuffed sack and son Darrell reaching excitedly for one of them, to a nativity scene in the stable with friends as the three wise men, Eddie as Joseph and myself as the Holy Mother, to a stunning shot of Eddie as a mature, bearded Jesus, arms outstretched in supplication and the inscription "...lo, I am with you always..."

That passage gives us a lot of details about when, where, and how those cards were made. The Stereo Realist was the most popular stereo camera of its era, but it was actually made by the David White Company and lasted until 1971. If Dolores is correct that these cards were made in 1954, that shoots my theory to hell because Tom Tyler died of a heart attack in May of that year. Could it be that this story actually happened in 1953?

And what about the other cards that Dolores mentioned, like the one with her as Mary or the one with her as a sexy Santa? Blessedly, some of these did survive into the 21st century. Circa 2002, an Ebay user named Toddhackett sold a set of the cards for an undisclosed price. Thanks to that auction, we have some some images of what the cards looked like. 

Ed and Dolores pose for Christmas cards circa 1954.

Back in 2015, Ed Wood scholar Philip R. Fry, the man behind this very useful website, posted to Facebook a list of the cards in this series and what each one contained.

• 3D Card Co., No. 501: "...lo, I am with you always..." This is the one with Ed Wood as Jesus with his arms outstretched.

• 3D Card Co., No. 502: "...come to the stable..." This one is the nativity scene with the three wise men in the upper left corner.

• 3D Card Co., No. 503: "...blessed is she..." This is the one with Dolores as Mary and Ed Wood as Joseph.

• 3D Card Co., No. 504: This still-missing card is presumably the one with Dolores' father as Santa Claus. No images of it have surfaced yet.

• 3D Card Co., No. 505: "...the night before Christmas..." This is the one with Dolores in her "abbreviated" Santa costume.

Perhaps the 3D Card Co. was the company that manufactured these five cards. Or it was some short-lived venture that Ed Wood launched specifically for this project. Either way, I can find no other reference to such a firm existing in the 1950s. What we've been looking at so far, by the way, have been the interiors of the cards. The exteriors are pretty generic: the words "Season's Greetings" printed in green on a plain white background. I'm guessing that the printer would allow you to customize the insides of the cards, but the outsides were standard. I'm just glad that Ed Wood got to work his beloved ellipses into these cards at the beginning and end of every caption.

One last question: do any of the 3D effects actually work? Well, yes. Sort of. I have some red-blue glasses lying around, so I decided to give it a whirl. Card 501, the one of Ed as Jesus, works best. Those hands genuinely look like they're reaching out. I suppose Card 503, with Ed as Joseph and Dolores as Mary, works okay, too, since Joseph does look like he's closer to us than his wife. There's not much to say about Cards 502 and 505. Perhaps there's a bit of depth to these images... if you squint. 

And that's the story of Ed Wood's legendary 3D Christmas cards featuring himself as Jesus Christ. Before we leave this topic, I'd like to remind you that Ed's idol, friend, and star Bela Lugosi was himself cast as Christ in a 1909 passion play.  Thanks to that production, we have numerous incredible images of Count Dracula as the Lamb of God, some of them quite similar to Eddie's Christmas card.

Yes, that's Bela Lugosi as Jesus Christ.

Isn't the internet wonderful sometimes? Merry Christmas to one and all.

The 2022 Ed-vent Calendar, Day 1: The Basketballers (1973)

Mockup poster for an Ed Wood/Steve Apostolof film that never was.

It seems like every year, there are more and more of those specialized advent calendars based on different brands or franchises. You know the ones I mean. There's a Disney one, a Marvel one, a Mario one, etc. But there's never been an official Ed Wood advent calendar! It's an outrage! Isn't the director of Glen or Glenda (1953) as worthy of his own advent calendar as Harry Potter, Lego, or Pokemon? And yet, we Woodologists have been denied!

Well, this year, I'm setting out to change that with a series I call The 2022 Ed-vent Calendar. Each day in December until Christmas, I'll post a bite-sized article about some little aspect of Ed Wood's life or career. Nothing too serious, just a little Wood to get you through the hectic holiday season. Sound good? Then let's continue.

For Day 1, I'm choosing The Basketballers, an unproduced script Eddie wrote for his frequent collaborator, director Stephen C. Apostolof, in 1973. In Nightmare of Ecstasy (1992), Rudolph Grey describes the film thusly: "Unfilmed screenplay by Ed Wood and Stephen Apostolof involves sports, sex and drugs on a small town college campus." I wonder if the tone would have been similar to Apostolof's previous film, College Girls (1968)?

The Basketballers is one of several Wood/Apostolof projects that never went before the cameras, but this one must've gotten fairly far along in preproduction. In the Apostolof archives, now in the possession of the director's youngest son Chris, there exist at least two drafts of the screenplay: one from 1973, another from 1974. For the record, Ed Wood is the sole credited screenwriter on both drafts. Intriguingly, the second one carries the legend: "Property of Valentine Enterprises Inc., Hollywood, Calif." Was Valentine some production company that either Steve or Ed was trying to start?

Two drafts of The Basketballers.

Despite co-authoring an entire book about Stephen C. Apostolof—and have I mentioned that it makes a swell Christmas present?— I have never actually seen or read the screenplay for The Basketballers. Those pictures up there were taken by Bob Blackburn when he visited Chris Apostolof in Las Vegas a couple of years ago. Apparently, Steve's archives include a fair amount of Basketballers ephemera, including the contract Eddie signed with Apostolof Film Productions, Inc. to write the script on October 10, 1973. Coincidentally, that would have been Eddie's 49th birthday.

Ed Wood signed a contract to write The Basketballers on October 10, 1973.

Perhaps most intriguing of all is this mockup of a poster for The Basketballers. To me, it's clear that Steve fully intended to go into production on this script. Like all of the Apostolof films of this era, The Basketballers would have been released under the familiar SCA banner. Note that the poster also proclaims that the film will be in Eastman color. Up until the late 1960s, many low budget sex films (including a few of Apostolof's) were still in B&W. Meanwhile, those scantily-clad cheerleaders are highly suggestive of College Girls and may even have been modeled on Steve's leading lady, Marsha Jordan.

A rough draft for a Basketballers poster.

As further evidence of how serious Steve Apostolof was about The Basketballers, here's a trade paper ad for another Wood/Apostolof joint, Fugitive Girls (1974). This one proudly proclaims that The Basketballers, which now even has its own logo, is being prepared for a "June release." Since Fugitive Girls itself didn't come out until July 1974, Steve must have been looking forward to June 1975. As we now know, that didn't happen. But Steve and Ed weren't done yet! Their next collaboration, The Beach Bunnies, would come out in 1976.

This trade ad for Fugitive Girls mentions The Basketballers.

And that's it. That's Day 1 of The 2022 Ed-vent Calendar. I don't think the subsequent articles will be this long, but I wanted to kick off this series with something special. Hope you enjoyed it.

Podcast Tuesday: "The Ghost of Richies Past"

Anson Williams on Happy Days

In his later years, Happy Days creator Garry Marshall maintained in interviews that Ron Howard's departure from the series in 1980 was not such a big deal because, by that point, Scott Baio's character, Chachi, had largely replaced him. And it's true that Chachi does serve as an eager protegee to Fonzie (Henry Winkler) in the middle and later seasons, just as Ron's character, Richie Cunningham, had done in the early seasons of Happy Days.

But Marshall must've been in denial, because Ron's departure had a seismic impact on the show. One need only look at the episodes from Happy Days' eighth season to see that. For the first few post-Richie shows, it seems like all the other characters are reminiscing about Richie and worrying about him and speculating about what he's doing now that he's in the army and stationed in Greenland thousands of miles away. He's like a ghost haunting the show, invisible yet omnipresent. As for Chachi, he starts wearing some of Richie's old outfits, including his iconic Jefferson High letter sweater. He even plays on the Jefferson High basketball team, just like Richie did. He's essentially had to make himself over in Richie's image.

This obsession with Richie reaches a peak with the December 1980 episode "White Christmas," in which Richie's mother, Marion (Marion Ross), is experiencing severe seasonal depression because of her son's sudden absence. All she wants is a phone call from her beloved red-headed child. Does she receive it?

There are other Christmas crises afoot in this traumatic episode. Can Fonzie make it through the snow to deliver toys to the Pfister Orphanage? Can Potsie (Anson Williams) forgive his father for making him wear a Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer mask? And what about the Christmas Lunatic? Will he strike again?

You can find out the answers to all these questions when we review "White Christmas" on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast. Join us!

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 126: Is this Ed Wood's only Christmas novel?

Santa curls up with a copy of Ed Wood's 1968 novel Nighttime Lez.

We know Ed Wood celebrated Christmas. In the '50s, when he was still living with actress Dolores Fuller, he famously produced some 3D cards featuring himself dressed as Jesus. Those cards remain prized collectibles among Ed's fans even today. Later, according to Nightmare of Ecstasy, Eddie proudly gave out copies of his own paperbacks as Christmas presents. I like to think of him offering The Oralists (1969) or Purple Thighs (1968) to his bewildered landlord in lieu of rent.

The Yuletide season does not figure all that prominently in Ed's creative output, however. Offhand, I can't remember even a mention of the holiday in any of his movies, pornographic or otherwise. But what about his written work? Eddie churned out so many novels, nonfiction books, short stories, and magazine articles that the topic of Christmas must've come up at least a few times, right? Recently, I immersed myself in Eddie's literary work from the 1960s and '70s, mainlining one book after another. Since the holidays were approaching, I naturally started looking for mentions of Christmas in any of these sex-and-violence-drenched classics.

A later edition of the book.

Eventually, I hit pay dirt. Nighttime Lez (sometimes printed as Night Time Lez) is yet another of Ed Wood's many salacious, adults-only novels. It was published in 1968 by a company called Columbia, which had previously released Eddie's debut novel Black Lace Drag. For whatever reason (authorial pride?), Eddie used his real name on this tale of Sapphic intrigue, eschewing any of his usual pseudonyms. 

Thematically and stylistically, Nighttime Lez is very standard Wood stuff. I'm sure he wrote it quickly and without a great deal of thought. The plot revolves around a beautiful young woman in Los Angeles named Paula Thomas. Dissatisfied with her heterosexual experiences, she tentatively visits a lesbian bar called The Iris Inn. There, she almost immediately becomes physically involved with two monstrously butch older women: owner Tommy and barfly Sam. But these two grotesques initiate her into the lesbian lifestyle, and soon Paula encounters some younger, more attractive women, including Jeni, Sin, Loretta, and Doris (who is Tommy's current paramour). All of these women, butch and femme alike, form a close community of friends with benefits. They spend their time drinking, partying, and hooking up. The only male member of the group is Henry/Henrietta, a cross-dressing bartender with an odd sense of humor.

The title vaguely suggests that Paula may be living a double life, and indeed she is. By day, she's a well-paid corporate secretary at the Tishman building on Wilshire Boulevard and is unapologetic about sleeping her way up the corporate ladder. This plot point allows Ed Wood to include a few heterosexual love scenes along with the many, many lesbian ones in Nighttime Lez. Paula's latest boss is mild-mannered Ralph Henderson, a married man so enamored of Paula that he wants to take her with him whenever he travels overseas. Some of the other female employees at the Tishman building are jealous of Paula, but it doesn't seem to bother her much.

To keep things interesting, Ed Wood throws a few soap opera-type plot complications at his characters. Sam contracts pneumonia. Tommy and Doris almost break up. Henry/Henrietta dates a troublemaking straight guy who tries to sexually assault Paula. And Paula? Well, let's say that our favorite secretary is not as careful about birth control as she should be. (In this book, Ed Wood opines that birth control should be a woman's responsibility, since men hate wearing those uncomfortable condoms.)

Podcast Tuesday: "The Soiled Kimono"

Henry Winkler and Eddie Fontaine on Happy Days.

For whatever reason, Happy Days went in a dark direction with two of its most famous Christmas episodes. In Season 2's excellent "Guess Who's Coming to Christmas," the Cunninghams discover that tough mechanic Fonzie (Henry Winkler) is spending the holidays all alone in his sad little apartment. Always the epitome of cool, Fonzie has to set aside his pride and accept the family's kind invitation to spend Christmas with them. This was a milestone episode for the series; Fonzie became an honorary member of the Cunningham clan the next season. This cozy relationship lasted for the rest of the series.

This week on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast, we're covering Season 6's even heavier holiday episode, "Christmas Time." The plot has Fonzie's deadbeat dad Vito (played by disgraced '50s rocker Eddie Fontaine) sending him a mysterious package on Christmas Eve. It's the first contact between Vito and Fonzie in decades. This brief incident causes Fonzie intense stress and grief. Vito abandoned him when he was only three, and Fonzie has always felt guilty about this. Again, he turns to the Cunninghams for support. Again, they provide it. Specifically Howard (Tom Bosley) shares his thoughts on fatherhood.

I suppose, when you think about it, most of our most famous Christmas stories—from A Christmas Carol to It's a Wonderful Life—are about characters having stressful and difficult holidays. The common thread in these stories is redemption. The main characters (Scrooge, George Bailey, The Grinch, Charlie Brown) are brought down to a low level, only to be brought back up again. Often, this is achieved through the kindness of other characters. Sometimes, it takes supernatural interference.

But what did we think of "Christmas Time"? Is the episode worth your time? Find out by listening to the latest installment of These Days Are Ours.

This living nativity scene was a bad idea, Sharon.

We may not have thought this thing through.

Ed Wood Wednesdays, The Wood Loop Orbit, Part 14 by Greg Dziawer

'Tis the season... for smut!

"Come and trim my Christmas tree with some decorations bought at Tiffany." 

-"Santa Baby" (1953) by Eartha Kitt

Revisiting a (mostly bad) Christmas album from my childhood

This album was somehow part of my family's Christmas tradition.

Built for comfort, not for speed.

The Winston Singers. They sound famous, right? You're pretty sure you've heard of them. They had that one song. Or was it an album? Or maybe it was a TV special with Jim Nabors and the Marine Corps Band. Whatever. They did something.

Didn't they?

The truth is that The Winston Singers were a bunch of uncredited session musicians who made two quickie cash-in Christmas albums for a low-budget record label in Pennsylvania called Wyncote in the mid-1960s. For the most part, their albums weren't even sold in real record stores. Instead, middlemen called "rack jobbers" would rent space in drug stores and department stores to hawk these inexpensive albums to people who were buying sweaters or talcum powder or lawnmowers.

One of those LPs, simply titled Christmas Carols (aka 14 Christmas Carols and released in 1964), found its way into my family's music collection, along with my dad's Joan Baez albums and the Sound of Music soundtrack. We used to bring it out every December, though the only thing we had to play it on was a Fisher-Price portable turntable that was designed to be sturdy rather than acoustically pleasing. Eleven months out of the year, this album was collecting dust in some hall closet.

In retrospect, that was probably for the best. I recently revisited The Winston Singers' album and found it to be mostly terrible. The jacket does not include any sort of credits or liner notes, just plugs for other holiday-themed Wyncote LPs like Organs and Chimes and Silent Night. No legitimate singers, musicians, or producers would want their names on an album like Christmas Carols. Wyncote may not have been at the absolute bottom of the American record industry, but it was in the lower third. The nicest thing I can say about the LP is that it's pressed on good quality, durable vinyl, much better than some of the flimsy compilation albums I've found from the '70s and '80s that are so wobbly they're almost like flexi-discs. (Even the sleeves on those are thin and cheap.)

The short-lived, low-budget Wyncote Records.

As its title suggests, Christmas Carols—which was available in both stereo and mono (our family splurged for the stereo)—consists of chintzy, rinky-dink choral renditions of Yuletide songs like "Jingle Bells," "I Saw Three Ships," and "Joy to the World." The stuff everyone knows, in other words. Of the 14 selections, there were only two titles I didn't immediately recognize: "Hail to Christmas" (from the Babes in Toyland operetta) and a somber number called "Christmas Hymn," which closes the album.

The music is best described as loud and shouty, with very little subtlety or nuance. Dynamics are not in evidence here. I can't quite tell how many Winston Singers there are. It sounds like maybe five to ten, both men and women. They are accompanied by an organist, whose shrill tones occasionally threaten to drown out the vocals. The mixing seems noticeably "off" somehow. I'm not sure if the singers could hear the organ at all, since they're never quite on pitch. Musically, Christmas Carols is just not of professional caliber. It's more like what you'd hear at a smallish church or school with limited resources.

The one track I remembered most vividly from my youth was "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen." That's a carol I've always liked anyway because it has an eerie, spooky vibe to it. Plus it name checks Satan—rare for a holiday tune. And, sure enough, "God Rest Ye" is probably the strongest part of the entire Christmas Carols experience. The tinny organ and curdled vocals actually kind of work to the song's advantage.

"Go Tell It on the Mountain," on the other hand, is a disaster. I don't know why the very Caucasian Winston Singers thought they could tackle a spiritual, but they were misinformed. At least this rendition is brief. In fact, all 14 songs on this album are brief. I doubt anything goes past three minutes. A wise decision. Christ is merciful; albums recorded in his name should be, too.

Overall, despite its many technical shortcomings, Christmas Carols fulfills its destiny, which is to be generic, instantly recognizable holiday music. On that count, it succeeds where the bombastic Mannheim Steamroller and Trans-Siberian Orchestra so often fail. The Winston Singers' LP is something (mostly) unobtrusive to have on in the background at a holiday party, for instance. My folks used to have big Christmas parties at our house every year, inviting mostly work friends, and I'm sure this record got some playtime there. You could also listen to the album while wrapping presents or trimming a tree. Maybe we used it for that, too.

The sophomore (and farewell) LP.

And so, this obscure, indifferently made Christmas album from 1964—probably the result of an afternoon's work by people who did not care how it turned out—became an integral part of my family's holiday traditions. It served in that capacity for at least a decade, maybe more. Because I associated this record with vacations and presents, I was even excited to see the ugly LP cover, which depicts some creepy, dead-eyed Dickensian caroler figurines in an unflattering close-up.

I'd say we got our $1.99's worth out of this LP.

No other Christmas album ever had quite the same importance in our household as the Wyncote budget record, but there were a few pretenders to the throne. My mother bought a copy of A Very Special Christmas in 1987, for instance, only to be horrified that it contained a newfangled rap song, "Christmas in Hollis" by Run-D.M.C. Even the offerings by Bon Jovi, Bryan Adams, and Bruce Springsteen were too noisy for her liking. About the only track that met with her approval was "The Coventry Carol" by Alison Moyet.

Maybe The Winston Singers were on to something. Or maybe not. They released a second album, Little Drummer Boy, in 1966. The title track was the only new recording on it; the other nine songs were borrowed directly from Christmas Carols. Neither "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" nor "Go Tell It on the Mountain" made the cut. Wyncote Records went under the next year.

Sexually Confused Disco: The Liner Notes Of John Waters, Vol. 2

School is in session again. Your music teacher is John Waters.

I recently promised that, if my first article about John Waters' liner notes received a positive response, I would compile a second one. Well, it did, and I have, so here it is: Volume 2, ready for your perusal. Be gentle. The notes below come from the soundtrack album for Waters' 1998 feature film Pecker as well as two compilation albums he did for New Line Records in the 2000s: A John Waters Christmas and A Date With John Waters. These notes contain all the twisted wit and demented scholarship one would expect from Baltimore's notorious Pope of Trash. These are obviously songs he loves, and he wants you  to love them, too.

And, yes, to the best of my ability, I have once again attempted to preserve all of the spelling, punctuation, and grammar from the notes exactly as they appeared originally. My spellchecker may not like it, but it's important to present history as it truly was. Along the way, see if you can spot any lines that have also appeared in Waters' screenplays. If you know his movies backwards and forwards, some of what you're about to read should seem eerily familiar. You'll also learn a few interesting tidbits about Waters' own life and films.

UPDATE: I have now added Waters' liner notes to Invasion Of The B-Girls, a 2007 album by Texas-born new wave singer Josie Cotton. It's a concept album, consisting of cover versions of cult movie theme songs, including those of Russ Meyer and Herschell Gordon Lewis.

Enjoy.

And so that was Christmas, and what did I do?

Remember that quote from Fight Club comparing Christmas trees to sex crime victims?

This song is judging me.

"Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" by John Lennon and Yoko Ono is one of those songs that has always gotten on my bad side. When I was a kid, I was just annoyed by the fact that it was draggy and sanctimonious and not in that bouncy, upbeat Frosty/Rudolph sweet spot I preferred. I tend not to like slow, serious, or sad songs about Christmas. Not now, not then.

In  my younger days, I wasn't even that keen on "Silent Night," a song I associated with the temporary and unwanted cessation of Yuletide cheer. "Silent Night" was something I had to sing in church, looking serious while pretending I wasn't thinking about what Transformers and Masters of the Universe toys I was (hopefully) going to get. (And let's be honest: the "round yon virgin" part is uncomfortable, right?) Though it wasn't actually a hymn, "Happy Xmas" had that same effect on me. That song is basically a radio station's way of saying, "Okay, stop having fun for the next few minutes and start thinking about poverty and injustice instead of gingerbread."

Nowadays, the John Lennon song bothers me for another reason. It's those goddamned judgmental opening lines: "And so this is Christmas/And what have you done?/Another year over/And a new one just begun." At a certain point in your life, you hear those lines and think, "Oh, jesus, what have I actually done this year? Pretty much two things: jack and shit. That song hates me." I mean, I went to work and paid my bills and wrote many, many, many paragraphs about Ed Wood on this blog. That was pretty much it. Sorry, starving children of pretty much everywhere. Better luck next year, downtrodden and oppressed peoples of the world. If you were counting on Joe Blevins to come to your rescue this year... well, he didn't do it. Dang me, dang me, they oughta take a rope and hang me.

And John Lennon and his preachy little song are looking down on me right now, tsk-tsking my laziness and overall indifference. Pretty much the only fun I can have with "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" is substituting the lyrics from "On Top of Spaghetti." They fit perfectly with the melody. Try it yourself sometime.

Anyway, some other notes about the Christmas that was:

• Christmas may be over, but the holiday experience definitely is not. I've got another whole day with the fam, then the wondrous gauntlet of travel awaits me. One train, then another, then a cab. (And that's if everything goes according to plan.) It's a whole thing. I'm writing this post from a cheap, crummy motel somewhere in Indiana, far from anyplace I've ever called home. My furniture misses me.

• Yes, it is wonderful to see my father, my sister, my niece, and my nephews. I love them dearly. But it is also wonderful not to see these people for a few months at a time. I love my privacy and solitude dearly as well. Sometimes, I actually get caught up in the spirit of the holidays and think, "You know, I should've gotten married or something. Maybe had kids. Gotten a real job, bought a real house, and lived a real life, like a grown up instead of an eternal adolescent." It passes, usually around the middle of the second day with the aforementioned "fam." Then I realize that the life I'm living now is the life I was meant to live. This is the best I can do.

• What's there to do in this part of the world? Not much, my friends. Not much. My dad and I took in a movie, and it was exactly the film I wanted to see today: Big Eyes. I may write a review of it. Then again, I may not. I'm capricious. For now, let me say that I liked it and would recommend it. This is a story I've been waiting years to see on the big screen, and I'm pleased with the way it was handled. If you're worried that it might be too "Tim Burton-y," let me put your mind at ease. Even Danny Elfman's score -- lighter and jazzier than usual -- is not typical of the Burton canon.

• I checked in with the Christmas Story marathon a few times, catching a few minutes here and a few minutes there. My goal each year is to see the whole movie, just not in order. The timing didn't work out this year, though. I saw Ralphie go down the slide at Higbee's twice and beat up Scut Farkus at least once, but I never saw Flick stick his tongue to that flagpole. At least not this year.

• How was your Christmas? Good? That's super. Me, I'm just kind of relieved it's over. Aren't you? We survived, people. We made it out.

Sorry, but we need to go back to eating geese.

Street vendors are peddling their boiled goose.

Geese are dicks. Sorry, but it's true. They're the absolute worst -- the asshats of the avian kingdom. Compared to geese, pigeons are like cuddly, adorable puppies. Geese have no redeeming qualities. They honk incessantly. They shit everywhere. They terrify pedestrians. And they have little to no respect for motorists. They just flat out suck. And the worst of it is that they travel in packs and waddle around my neighborhood like some demented, feathery street gang. They're like the Crips.

Now, I have heard of people being attacked by wild turkeys, but that has never even come close to happening to me. In fact, chickens and turkeys don't generally bother the citizenry where I live. You know why? Because we eat them! A chicken in suburban Chicago is likely to wind up in either Parmesan or McNugget form. And that's good, because then there's not chickenshit all over the place. And turkeys? They only show up here around November, and that's in the freezer case at the supermarket. But geese? Geese are every damned where.

My solution is simple: we need to go back to eating geese. A lot. I'm talking geeseburgers, geese soup, geese ravioli, the works. Restaurants should be serving spaghetti and geeseballs. Now, you might be thinking, "Gross! I don't wanna eat geese!" Well, get over it, junior! You're officially part of the problem. Geese know that we don't eat them anymore. That's why they're not afraid of us. But once the foie gras starts flowing like tap water, then we'll see!

You need inspiration? Watch any of the seven bajillion movies of A Christmas Carol. The characters not only eat geese constantly, they love it! They look forward to it! It's the highlight of their day! I say, it's time to get Dickensian on the goose population.

See ya after Christmas, folks!

Let's remember the reason for the season.

I'll be out of town visiting relatives for the next couple of days. So that means you'll just have to go somewhere else for reviews of East Side Kids movies and perversely-detailed articles about Edward D. Wood, Jr. But just so you won't feel that I've abandoned you, I'm posting this clip which reminds us what the holiday season is all about: fighting the frizzies. At eleven. And with that, I'll wave goodbye saying, "Don't you cry. I'll be back again some day. Probably Friday. Saturday at the latest." Frosty didn't offer that kind of specificity. Thumpity-thump-thump. Look at that blogger go.

And if you get really bored over the next two days, here's some reading material. Have you read them all yet?

The Nativity: A Sheep Remembers

"You think I get any royalties on this stuff? HA! Don't I wish?"

 
by Larry the Sheep (as told to Joe Blevins)

  
Well, the whole thing was a huge nuisance if you ask me.

If I'm being totally honest, that's my first thought when someone brings up the subject of that particular evening. I had to laugh when I heard that song of yours, "O Holy Night." "Yeah, right," I thought. "Wholly inconvenient."

Before you churchgoers out there start judging me, try and look at this from my perspective. There I was, enjoying a nice supper out of the manger (which is just a fancy word for "trough") when all of a sudden, I'm pushed aside so that this mewling infant can have a place to sleep. I said to them, "Excuse me! Someone was already using this manger, thank you!" But apparently, they didn't speak sheep. And to top it off, the little brat was glowing like Chernobyl. How are you supposed to go about your daily business of being a sheep with something like that going on?

"It was a garage, really."

It's funny. When you humans say that someone was "born in a barn," you mean that he has no manners. And yet, the guy you all seem to like best really was born in a barn! I never understood why that was such an insult. I mean, among my kind, it's a point of pride to have been born in a barn. It's a sign of class and sophistication. When I see a really suave, well-mannered sheep, I always say to myself, "He must have been born in a barn."

Actually, to be blunt, the place was more like what you'd call a garage nowadays. People didn't have cars back then, so they'd travel around by camel if they were rich or by donkey if they weren't. The guests of the inn used the barn out back to park their vehicles, so to speak.

A few of us animals lived there on a more or less permanent basis. I say "more or less" because your time there was definitely limited. The innkeeper and his wife were raising us, to be sure, but not as pets. We sheep provided wool for clothes and the cows gave milk, naturally, but we all shared a common destiny: the dinner table. Don't get me wrong, though. I don't blame the humans. Look, it's a rough world. You do what you have to do to survive. If sheep could raise people for food, we would.

The innkeeper gets a bad rap out of this. I feel sorry for him, really, in spite of the fact that he wound up eating me. He's portrayed quite badly in the Nativity story, and it's just not fair. No, he didn't have any free rooms at the inn. But it was a goddamned census weekend! I mean, what did Mary and Joseph expect? If they'd wanted a room so badly, they could have easily made a reservation in advance like everyone else! Honestly, Joe should have known better. Bethlehem was his hometown, for Christ's sake! It's not like today, where there's a Holiday Inn every fifteen feet.

You'd think that, since he was from Bethlehem, Joseph might have had some relatives who could have put him up for the night. An uncle, a cousin... somebody! Maybe he didn't get along with this relatives. That's really none of my business.

My point is that the innkeeper wasn't the bad guy you all think he is. I mean, I knew the guy -- Irv, we called him. Maybe not a saint, but not a monster either. He was being awfully nice to let Joseph and Mary stay in his garage. It was better than being out in the cold, and he charged them exactly nothing for it. Zero. Nada. Zilch. Free lodgings for the night. Irv could have told them to hit the bricks -- I would have, if I'd been him -- but he didn't. He couldn't very well evict one of his paying customers, so he did what he could under the circumstances. And look at the thanks he gets!

The Magi: three very posh blokes.

Meanwhile, there's another one of your songs,"Silent Night," that completely and utterly misrepresents the events of that evening. It was anything but silent. And I don't just mean the baby either, though he cried like he was being paid by the decibel. No, the real commotion was caused by all those visitors. It was like Grand Central Station that night, I swear to you! It seemed like uninvited guests were falling from the sky.

First it was the shepherds. Now, I didn't have too much personal experience with shepherds, having been raised by Irv and his wife. But I've talked to sheep who'd been in flocks, and let me tell you, the word of mouth was not good. I don't want to get too graphic here, but let's just say that shepherds get lonely sometimes and look for affection wherever they can find it. So I was a little edgy when a few of those guys started showing up. I thought they might be looking for love in all the wrong places, so to speak.

And if that wasn't bad enough, then the goddamned Magi dropped by. Now those three were -- there's no delicate way to put this -- high as kites when they arrived. I don't know what they'd been smoking, but you should have heard some of the garbage they said that night. I honestly think they carried that frankincense around with them to cover up that tell-tale smell, sort of like how hippies use patchouli. But you could tell these guys were well off, just by the way they were dressed. I figured them to be the idle rich with nothing better to do than follow stars around and barge into people's garages without being asked.

Between the baby, the shepherds, and the Magi, you could barely get a bleat in edgewise that night. And to top it all off, this total psycho named Gabriel staggered in, claiming to be an angel with a message directly from God. I'd heard enough by that point, so I just found a corner, curled up, and tried to get some sleep. When I woke up, Mary, Joseph, and the baby were gone, but a few of the shepherds were still there, having passed out during the night. And I think that two of the Magi had left the third one behind. His camel was missing, so the last time I saw him he was trying to hitchhike back home. I don't know if he ever made it. Frankly, I didn't much care.

I know it sounds like I'm being very blasé about all of this, but I honestly had no idea what was going on that night. In retrospect, I wish I'd paid more attention. Lord knows I've been asked about it enough bloody times. But we sheep are a practical bunch and don't go in much for this mysticism of yours. I didn't have what you'd call a "spiritual" experience that night. I just thought of it as a perfectly good meal wasted and a night's sleep interrupted. 

I do have a bit of a chuckle every year when I see myself depicted on calendars, Christmas cards, figurines, posters, pop-up books, and every crappy piece of merchandise you can imagine. Not that I'm resentful, mind you. It's my one claim to fame in an otherwise unremarkable life. Sometimes it's a hassle, but I've actually come to enjoy the fame over the years. Still in all, I wouldn't mind getting a cut of the royalties. Fat chance of that happening.

But a sheep can dream, can't he?