A Christmas Ramble

I just finished watching the annual showing of Rankin and Bass’ “Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer” with the Grandkids the other night. They love their Rudolph and I’ve got to say, after watching it for 50+ years, I still do, too.

When you’re a kid it seemed like that show went on forever. If you took out the commercials for Norelco shavers with Santa gliding down a snowy slope on a triple-header, the show lasted only 15 minutes.

Over the years I have quoted lines from Rudolph during conversations. For example when my grandson Stevie realizes he did something wrong I’ll call him a “humble Bumble” or when things aren’t going well at work I’ll shout out, “I want to be a dentist!” (It’s better than the alternative, a lumberjack, but then I’d have to break out in song.)

There is one quote I quickly learned to never say again. When something had to be done around the house like painting or mowing the yard and my family wanted to help I’d (jokingly) say, “NO! This is man’s work!” to which I would be summarily sent off to sleep in the shed for the night. It really was just a joke!

There is one thing that has bugged me over the years about Rudolph, though. On the Island of Misfit Toys there is a toy bird that can’t fly. During the closing credits we see an elf attaching umbrellas to toys so that they can float happily down to children waiting below. He does that for all of the toys except the bird that can’t fly! He drops the bird over the side!! Oh, the humanity!

I didn’t watch a lot of television when I was a kid. The bulk of my viewing was on wintery Saturday mornings when cartoons would run from 7am to noon and the only way you knew that it was time to go outside and play was when Johnny Quest came on. But it was different during the Christmas holiday. There were some amazing shows to watch.

As I mentioned before in another post our family was big into variety shows. The Andy Williams Christmas Special was a particular favorite of my Mom who loved that man in a sweater. I had a chance to interview Andy during my radio career and we talked maybe a minute about his new record and the next 20 minutes about his Christmas shows.

We would watch Bing Crosby religiously every year all the way up to 1977 when he recorded his last show with that amazing rendition of “Little Drummer Boy” featuring David Bowie. And Bob Hope was a regular draw when his special would showcase his USO tours at military bases in Vietnam.

But it wasn’t all variety shows. I loved all of the prime time kids shows, too. The thing about it, and you youngsters just won’t understand this, you only had one shot to catch your favorite show. There were no VCRs, DVRs, or Netflix. If you missed it, too bad. You’d have to wait until it came around the following year. That is IF it came around the following year.

A real favorite of mine was Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol with Mr. Magoo played by Thurston Howell III who was played by Jim Backus with that sad song that was sung when Scrooge was all by himself at school during the holidays, “I’m All Alone in the World.” Ugh. Teary eyed. And the beautiful song, “The Lord’s Bright Blessing” with Razzelberry Dressing. Razzelberry?

Of course there were all of those other Rankin and Bass productions – “A Year without a Santa Claus”, “Santa Claus is coming to Town”. But looking back on it now, was it the shows or the commercials I was into? Now those were fantastic and each year they armed me a 100,000 word Christmas list and a prayer that the Christmas tree would be overwhelmed by a bajillion “some assembly required” toys scattered around it.

Santa was usually kind to me and I’d always have a handful of neat toys. First thing on Christmas morning I’d run down and check my stocking that was thumb tacked to a cardboard fireplace with faux flames produced by red flickering lightbulbs inside. The stocking usually had the staples in it: an orange, apple, and maybe some nuts tossed in for good measure from the bowls of goodies that my Mom always adorned the living room coffee table with. It also had a small toy in it like the classic metal Slinky. Ugh, that thing frustrated me. We had carpeted stairs leading to the second floor of the house we were renting and the thing would always get caught on it. The commercial was right when it asked, “What walks down stairs…?” I had no idea. It sure wasn’t my Slinky.

The gang would gather up at around noon on Christmas Day to show off what Santa brought to the others. Maybe you remember some of these:

Mr. Machine: A red robot that looked like it was made of steel beams with gears. It didn’t do anything except walk aimlessly from one side of the room to the other with its mouth silently moving up and down.

Ideal’s Robot Commando: Now that was a hoot. A giant robot with swirly eyes that you could use to fling marbles at your sister with or shoot missiles from its head at people passing by. 

The Robot Commando was not to be confused with The Great Garloo: A hideous green giant of a remote controlled, albeit via cables, monster that could gingerly bring you a glass of Bosco.

Major Matt Mason, Mattell’s Man in Space: A rubbery doll for boys so they could dream of exploring the outer reaches of our galaxy. Comes complete with helmet. Space station and crawler vehicle sold separately.

I remember one year I got a Creepy Crawler set. This thing was one of the reasons they established safety regulations for kids toys. The kit came with solid metal plates that had the imprints of different bugs stamped in them. You would put a plate into the Creepy Crawler gadget that closely resembled a hot plate, fill the impression with Plastic Goop, then plug it in to the wall. Seriously! The plates would get ridiculously hot and turn the goop into a rubbery toy bug. Touch the plate while it was plugged in and your finger would turn more than rubbery.

Ah, those were the days back when playing with toys was an adventure.

But that's only the short list. There were plenty more: Mystery Date, Easy Bake Ovens, the ORIGINAL Troll Dolls, Satellite Jumping Shoes, and the list goes on and on.

How about you? Did you watch these commercials and dream of having these toys under your tree Christmas morning? Did you circle everything in the Sears Wish Book to let your folks and Santa know exactly what you wanted? 

I’d like to hear what your favorite toys from the past were. 

Next time, we'll crack open a few pages of the Sears Christmas Wish Books.