The Children's Television Workshop--of Horror!

No not really, but I did find some cool spooky-related material from two CTW series, Sesame Street and the original Electric Company (of which I just picked up the single disc collection this weekend). It's materal that eery and educational!











In the midst of putting this post together, I coincidentally came across this news item on Twitter.  Yikes! Talk about scary...

The Most Important Person

To anyone who's been reading my blog for a while now, it's obvious that I love classic (read: old) TV and cartoons. The Internet has allowed me to reconnect with a lot of great stuff I loved as a kid, and still love today. One series, however, had alluded me for a long time--until last year.

Part of the reason was that I couldn't remember the name of the program. All I could remember were the three main characters: a big green thing named Fumble (whatever he's supposed to be), a hairy green guy who descends from the sky on a rope, and a small pink bird with a red beak that has a slight attitude problem. Sounds weird, doesn't it? But exist it did, and finally, thanks to both my determination, and the fact that footage of the show finally appeared on the 'net, I finally know the name of the show.

It's called The Most Important Person, and it first aired as a series of segments on CBS's Captain Kangaroo show in 1972. These three-minute, partly animated, partly live-action vignettes were produced by a group called Sutherland Learning Associates. Later in the decade, these segments were syndicated to UHF stations to be shown as interstititial programming between half-hour children's shows. Their educational nature helped stations meet FCC-required standards. It is in this capacity that I remember them. They appeared here in Philadelphia on the late and lamented Channel 48, WKBS-TV (I could, and may, do a post just on that one station).

This station was part of the Kaiser Broadcasting Group, which later became part of Field Communications. These cartoons were carried throughout the station group, the biggest market being Chicago on WFLD-TV (Chicago readers, back me up here).

I looked for these cartoons forever, and had absolutely no luck until last year when, through sheer serendipity, something came up on YouTube (God bless it!). I used words such as Fumble, bird, Channel 48, anything that might lead to an answer, and now I've found them. In fact, just within the last month, I found a few more have been uploaded to the 'Tube courtesy of the same user who loaded my beloved McDonald's commercials.

So here, I proudly present, oodles of segments of The Most Important Person. Funny--even now that I know the correct title, it still doesn't sound familiar.

President's Day: Decision '08

On this President's Day in an election year, and with the herd of candidates thinned out over the last two months, I thought today would be a good time to provide the civic-minded of you out there a clearinghouse of Presidential candidate links to help you come to a decision in the upcoming year. I'll start with the obvious:

Democratic Party

Hillary Clinton: http://www.hillaryclinton.com/?splash=1

Mike Gravel (My personal choice; he's been all but mathematically eliminated, but his campaign is still active): http://www.gravel2008.us/

Barack Obama: http://www.barackobama.com/index.php

Republican Party

Mike Huckabee: http://www.mikehuckabee.com/

John McCain: http://www.johnmccain.com/

Ron Paul (although his Presidential campaign is still officially active, Paul is shifting his focus to his Congressional seat campaign): http://www.ronpaul2008.com/

For those sick of the two-party system, there are many third party candidates to investigate. Vote you conscience!

Constitution Party

The Constitution Party is a staunchly conservative party comprised primarily of dissatisfied former Republicans who are unhappy with compromise with the more moderate members of the GOP. If this describes you, give the Constitution Party a try.

Don Grundmann: http://www.truthusa.org/

Green Party

The Green Party is sort of the opposite of the Constitution Party. They are a left-leaning party consisting largely of voters dissatisfied with the more centrist direction the Democrats have taken the last few years.

Cynthia McKinney: http://www.runcynthiarun.org/

Kent Mesplay: http://www.mesplay.org/

Libertarian Party

The Libertarian Party is unique in that members believe that government should be out of as many affairs of the people as possible, be they financial or personal. Anti-gun control, pro-choice, anti-business regulation, pro-same-sex-marriage, anti-tax, and more.

There are numerous candidates for this party's Presidential nominee, so I'm merely providing the party's Web site here. They can direct you to the candidates: http://www.lp.org/

And Then There's...

...perennial third party/independent candidate Ralph Nader, longtime consumer advocate and left-leaning activist. Personally, I think he's worn out his welcome in this capacity, although I respect his lifetime body of work: http://www.naderexplore08.org/

I highly recommend the Web site Politics1.com, which is where I got this information. There you will find all this and much more. It's in my links section.

Finally, I can't let a topic like this go by without mentioning a candidate who truly is the most animated you'll find this year: http://www.digthewig08.com/.

Thanks!

Happy Kwanzaa!

I hope everyone had a great Christmas Day! The day after Christmas often feels like a downer compared to the big day beforehand, at least for me, but I perk up again as the week inches closer to New Year's Day. Until then, even though Christmas Day has passed, it's still the holiday season! Keep playing the Christmas music, keep watching Rudolph and Frosty on TV, and keep wearing handmade sweaters with gaudy Santas on them! Have at it!

And to prove it's still the holidays, below is a primer for a holiday that begins today--Kwanzaa.

Happy Hanukkah!

To usher in the Festival of Lights, beginning at sundown tonight, I have two celebratory clips. The first is a brief description of the holiday's origins.



Second, an energetic rendition of "Light One Candle" by Peter, Paul, and Mary.



Happy Hanukkah!