You may not know this, but I’m a pretty damn good cook. Not necessarily in the vein of a Gordon Ramsey or an Emeril Lagasse, but when it comes to good old southern cuisine, you won’t find much better.
A lot of times, the simpler the recipe, the more it’s enjoyed, and that’s pretty much the story with my green Christmas punch. Now I can’t take credit for creating it. Hell, I remember my mama making this punch every year when I was young. But since I make a big deal out of it and put on a full presentation unveiling it each year, the locals around here identify this stuff with me.
Regardless of any presentation or how much I hype it up, this stuff stands on it’s own. Just one taste and you’ll know what all the fuss is about. It’s like green liquid crack. Green liquid crack with creamy sherbet floating in it.
It’s quick and easy to make, and I cannot suggest strongly enough that you make it this year for your Christmas. But if punch isn’t your thing, you can also try my recipe for quick and easy egg nog.
Over at The Retro Network, I do a video series on YouTube called Wax Pack Flashback where I open old packs of trading cards and let folks like you watch along. It’s a fun series to do as I love old cards of all kinds and opening them really takes me back a few years.
I’m going to start posting the videos here on Retro Ramblings too when I do them so they’re easy for you to find. Plus, I’m going to be posting some of the videos from the last year for you to watch as well.
The first one I’m going to share with you guys is the one I did on Christmas last year. It was a pack of Santa Around the World cards from 1994. It was a set that featured Santa Claus on every card in his various forms from through the years and around the world. Give it a watch, and hey, subscribe to The Retro Network YouTube channel while you’re at it!
For this post, we’re going back to 1990 to look at an ad featuring a Nintendo game I found under the tree that year. That’s all the reason I need to consider this a Christmas-themed post.
Now as for the ad itself, it’s pretty swank. It does its best to make the game sound exciting by throwing out those blurbs about what you’ll face in the game. Unfortunately, some of those things just don’t sound exciting. The Karate Creeps and Combat Copters sound great, but when you have to start naming off things like Open Manholes and Vicious Dogs, it could be an indicator that your game isn’t exactly Contra.
But it does highlight some screenshots, and the shots they chose to show make the game look really good. The broken highway in particular makes it look like a game you’d want to play.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not knocking the game. I really liked it. The fighting aspect was fun in its own way, and the skating aspect added a degree of difficulty not often seen in side-scrolling games. Like, after you landed a jump you had to instantly react because your player would just keep going. While that doesn’t sound all that bad, think about all the spots in games where you have to make numerous consecutive jumps and land on little spots between them.
The problem this game suffered from was false advertising. I mean, if you were watching Rollergames on television, you were expecting a roller derby on a figure-eight track with the massive wall of death and alligators potentially on the track. But what you go was a side-scrolling fighting game. It’s like they had a game designed that they felt they needed to attach a brand to, and Rollergames was it.
They did keep the teams from Rollergames intact, as you had your choice of three playable characters. A girl from the Hot Flash, a guy from The Rockers, or “The IceBox” Robert Smith from the world-famous L.A. T-Birds. The managers of the heel teams were also represented, as they were featured as level bosses throughout the game.
The Rollergames TV show didn’t have a large following. I mean, it only lasted 13 episodes. So Konami was already drawing from a limited pool and the fact that the video game wasn’t like what was seen on TV further limited its appeal. But none of that stopped me from enjoying it. I liked the game for what it was and spent many hours on it. Especially on Christmas day in 1990. There…that last sentence reinforces that this is a post for Christmas.
For this edition of Retro Ramblings, we’re gonna talk about what I refer to as the greatest holiday special of all time. You know, the one with the talking mice, ducks, and crickets. I’m talking about Mickey’s Christmas Carol, and the special place it holds in my memories.
Mickey’s Christmas Carol debuted on December 10, 1984, as a prime-time special on NBC. Maybe I actually watched it that year, but I can’t really say. I do know that if that wasn’t my first viewing, then it would have been the 1985 showing or 1986 at the latest. Checking the Google machine, I see that day was a Monday. I kind of distinctly remember watching it on a Sunday night. But maybe that’s just the eggnog talking.
None of those facts are really important to the story though. Let’s just all agree that I watched this near its infancy, and have watched it most years since then. It may be the oldest Christmas tradition I have. I’d have to think about that actually to confirm.
But let’s get into the meat and potatoes of why I love this special so darn much. The short answer is nostalgia. I have vivid and colorful memories of my whole family sitting down to watch this together. Most likely because I would have been in the 6-8-year-old range when I first saw it, so I’d say I was vocal about wanting to see it.
That nostalgia encompasses more than just the special though. It’s the whole experience. A fire going in the fireplace in the living room…me in my pajamas…my Dad cracking pecans and walnuts for us to snack on, followed by those Andes Toffee Thins that only come out at Christmas…maybe some snow falling outside…and Christmas themed commercials. All of it together is why I love Mickey’s Christmas Carol so much.
Besides all the warm fuzzy feelings I associate with it, the actual special itself is stupendous. And I’m talking about the entire special, not just the actual Mickey’s Christmas Carol feature. You’ve got to see the whole thing and breathe it all in. Donald’s Snow Fight, Pluto’s Christmas Tree, The Art of Skiing, and Mickey’s Christmas Carol. In later years, Disney and/or the networks would bastardize it by removing Goofy’s skiing feature and replacing it with looks at whatever new movie they had in the works. That was a horrible decision in my opinion. Give me Goofy falling off the ski lift any day over behind-the-scenes photos from The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
To me, they were all heartwarming tales. Donald and his nephews waging all-out war in their snowball fight, Chip & Dale causing havoc with Pluto by hiding in the Christmas tree, Goofy being his silly self on the ski slopes, and then the main event of Disney’s re-telling of the quintessential Christmas fictional classic.
I’ll give you the fact that the extremely shortened version of A Christmas Carol left out a lot of parts, but damn, the art and the rich colors kinda make you forget those details. And at the end when Scrooge finds the Christmas spirit and is bouncing all around town…it just gets me right in the feels.
And I mentioned earlier the commercials…so much Christmas goodness just oozes from those commercials. They came across as necessary additions to the whole thing. Especially that McDonald’s one with the kid who gets left behind while everyone else is skating on the pond. A night of watching Mickey’s Christmas Carol just isn’t complete if that commercial isn’t in there somewhere.
So I put Mickey’s Christmas Carol right at the top of my list when it comes to Christmas viewing. Hell, I put it in my top ten of all-time things I’ve ever watched on TV. And I saw the twin referee angle in the Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the Giant match. That shit was crazy at the time. This is above THAT!
Unfortunately, you’ll no longer find a version of the entire thing like it was originally presented. And it’s usually the Art of Skiing skit that continues to get dropped every time a new release drops. I was really hoping that Disney+ would somehow piece the whole original concept together and air it, but no luck so far. Actually, I can’t even find Donald’s Snow Fight on the service yet either.
But if you look around the ‘net enough, you’ll find all the pieces and can watch it kind of how it was originally intended. Hell, you can even find that McDonald’s commercial to throw in there too.
And for you trivia buffs out there, check out this little tidbit: Mickey’s Christmas Carol was adapted as a daily comic strip and ran daily in November and December leading up to the special. If you look below, you can check out the first part of it. Enjoy!
Man, what better way to keep getting pumped up for Christmas than watching some old Christmas commercials! No? You’re not a fan of commercials, are you? Well, once upon a time I didn’t use to be. But that was back in the days before Tivo, Netflix, and other streaming services that allow you to skip all the advertising.
These days, I find myself kind of missing commercials. Not every commercial break, but some old commercials in particular. It was rare, but sometimes commercials could actually enhance the show you were viewing. Hang on…hear me out! I can remember watching Mickey’s Christmas Carol Special that aired on NBC every year in the mid-late ’80s, and when the commercials that aired were Christmas in nature, it kept the cool Christmas vibe going for my young self. So these commercials we’re viewing here today get a pass. That seems like enough of an opening…let’s get to five of my favorite classic Christmas commercials.
Folgers Coffee – Peter Comes Home for Christmas
I’m not sure why this commercial ever touched me as a kid. It probably had something to do with the fact that my old man traveled a lot, and there were times he would come in early in the morning like this. Never at Christmas though. He was always in town for that. But whatever the reason, this commercial has continued to resonate with me for all these years since I first saw it air.
I think it really embodies the spirit of Christmas in the form I like to think of it. Families being together, and enjoying simple things in life like a fresh cup of coffee is endearing to me. I actually keep this commercial on my Christmas playlist on YouTube to make sure I see every season.
Polaroid Cameras
One of the great frustrations for me growing up was trying to prove or disprove that Santa Claus was real. I tried my own ways of getting to the bottom of things, but trying to snap a picture with a Polaroid camera was never one of them. I give these two kids an A for effort here, as their plan kinda worked. They just didn’t anticipate Santa being a petty thief and sneaking away with their snapshot.
Budweiser Clydesdales
There’s something about those old Budweiser commercials featuring their famous Clydesdale horses that I just love. Now, there was never any drinking in our family, but that didn’t stop us from enjoying these commercials. And this one, in particular, is really good. Just seeing those horses tromp through the snow with the Christmas music in the background is enough to take me way back in time to maybe a Friday night in front of the fireplace while the folks watched the latest episode of Dallas. It makes me think of all those good old days in the ’80s.
Fruity Pebbles Cereal
Ok, so here is another product I identify with Christmas, based pretty much on just this commercial. Now I’ve always loved me a big bowl of delicious Fruity Pebbles, and it doesn’t have to be Christmas for me to enjoy them. But I always make sure I have some on hand for the holiday season. When it gets to be about October, I start keeping my eyes out in the stores for the special Christmas edition of the cereal with the red and green pebbles.
This commercial embodies the Christmas spirit as well as Fred finally lets Barney have a bowl of his Pebbles that he’s always after. Maybe those kids should have paid attention to this lesson and let the Trix rabbit have some for Christmas.
McDonalds Ice Skating
Of all the commercials on this list and all the commercials that have ever aired with a Christmas theme, this one is my favorite. I’m not sure I can pinpoint exactly when I first saw it, but I CAN pinpoint when it first connected with me. It was on during the airing of Mickey’s Christmas Carol in 1985. For whatever reason, watching the sad tale of the little boy who was left behind while everyone was ice skating was something that I held on to. Nowadays, I include this commercial on every bootleg Christmas special I put together for my kids. I really don’t associate Ronald McDonald with Christmas in any other way, but for this 30 seconds, he’s as big a hero as Santa Claus.
Well, that’s it. Five classic Christmas commercials that I never minded seeing pop up in the middle of my favorite show. Do you have any old favorites? Share them in the comments if you do.
