ghost stories under the Christmas tree

 

Jean Stapleton, Sally Struthers on  All In The Family

Watching episodes from Seasons 1 and 2 of All In The Family on Amazon Prime - one where it's Christmas, Edith sighs and Archie asks her why:

EDITH

I guess I sighed because somehow it just doesn't seem like Christmas.

MIKE

Yeah, I know what you mean, Ma!

ARCHIE

What do you mean, you know what she means?

MIKE

Well - I was just gonna say that we're all kowtowing to Madison Avenue and the almighty cash register!  Yeah!  She means that Christmas has been exploited by big business.  It's a victim of crass commercialism!

EDITH

Oh, my!  Did I mean all that?

GLORIA

You know, Michael's right.  Christmas is never like what you read about.  Nobody ever sits around the fire, roasting chestnuts and telling ghost stories.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now, that last line baffled me.

Ghost stories?

I played it back again to make sure I heard it right.

Yes.  She said ghost stories.

Wouldn't that be more like for Halloween, rather than Christmas?

Is the telling of ghost stories a Christmas tradition in some families?

Or did the actress Sallly Struthers, who played Gloria, slip and say the line wrong and nobody noticed?

        Or they noticed but didn't have time to re-shoot?

That show was always filmed before a live audience.

Then, there's another head-scratcher just a little later in the episode:  Mike says, in that fond-memory tone of voice that people get:

"I remember when I was a kid, my whole family used to sit under the Christmas tree and sing carols."

        Sit under a Christmas tree?  The ones I've seen had branches low on the trunk and they would be in the way of anyone trying to sit under the tree.  That's crazy.  People would not - fit, under a Christmas tree.

Did the actors and director of this show have Christmas eggnog before shooting this episode?

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...a day without sunshine...

 

Anita Bryant

I was thinking about the fact that whenever a group of people gets "beat up on" verbally, by someone famous in America, they usually come out stronger and with more influence and rights than they had before the attacks against them.

In the 1970s and / or '80s, it was Anita Bryant attacking gay people; in recent years, it's been donald trump, bitching that Hispanic people - exist.

Anita Bryant.  Who was that?

She was a brunette winner of miscellaneous beauty pageants.

She could sing.

And she  did commercials for orange juice.  She would come on camera and say, "A day without orange juice is like a day without sunshine" ... or -,,. something like that. ...

And then in the late 1970s or early 1980s she started yelling that gay people should not exist, and then gay men (and probably some lesbian women) stepped up and said,"No, and - Excuse me! - and No, I don't think so...."

And now they have the right to marry, which they did not have, then.

It's kind of similar to now, after Trump whined that Hispanic people exist, they are totally speaking up about how they are contributing to this country.

In 2020 when Jennifer Lopez was in the Halftime Show, she said we're speaking out against putting children in cages at the border.  

        She spoke out about that because a famous politician was attacking the Spanish-speaking people in America.

Anita Bryant and - Donald trump - attack, and then people stand up for themselves, and - it goes the other way....

Jennifer Lopez

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Betsy Ross got it all sewed up...

 

One other theme song for a situation comedy in the 1970s that I wanted to bring forward was for the show, Maude:

...Isadora was the first bra-burner,

And you're glad she showed up,

(Oh, yeah!)

And when the country was fallin' apart,

Betsy Ross got it all sewed up...

And then there's Maude -

...

On You Tube, go to the video titled,

Maude theme: and then there's Maude

uploader / channel:  MIsterBouncyBounce

...and Play!

At the end of the theme song it says, "Right on, Maude!"  

"Right on" is such a 1970 to 1973 expression.

On the TV show "Maude" her neighbor was "Vivian" who was portrayed by actress Rue McClanahan.

Next, in the 1980s, there was a television situation comedy called The Golden Girls that starred Beatrice Arthur (Maude) and Rue McClanahan (Vivian).

They both came into the public consciousness with the weekly TV show "All In The Family" - Beatrice Arthur starred in an episode where she was Edith's cousin, and she came to take care of everybody when they were sick.

And Rue McClanahan was in an episode where Edith wrote to some people who advertised in a magazine, and they wanted to "wife-swap."  And she didn't know...

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"movin' on up"

Sherman Hemsley and Isabel Sanford:  "The Jeffersons"


 

On the subject of theme songs for situation comedies in the 1970s:

We're movin' on up,

To the East Side;

To a deluxe apartment - 

In the sky --

We're movin' on up,

To the East SIde, 

We finally got a piece of the -

pie -

Fish don't fry in the kitchen,

Beans don't burn on the grill,

Took a whole lotta tryin'

Just to get up that hill;

Now we're up in the big leagues,

Gettin' our turn at bat,

Long as we live,

It's you and me, baby,

There ain't nothin' wrong with that --

We're movin' on up,

To the East Side...

Go on You Tube and type in 

The Jeffersons - Theme Song

if you would like to listen to it.

        The part where they say,

"Fish don't fry in the kitchen,

Beans don't burn on the grill..."

etc.

really gets into a fantastic funky groove....

"The Jeffersons" was a show that lasted quite a few years. 

It was good.

Isabel Sanford, the actress who portrayed Louise Jefferson (aka "Weezie") was in the 1967 feature film, Guess Who's Coming To Dinner, along with 1940s and '50s movie stars Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn.

        (...Katharine Hepburn belonging to that same club with actor John Amos, requiring a specific zip code for her cheekbones... 

        Faces constructed for telling stories on-screen....)

Katharine Hepburn in Guess Who's Coming To Dinner 

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"from Television City, in Hollywood!"

 

John Amos, Ed Asner on The Mary Tyler Moore Show

In the 1970s, there were some excellent theme songs written for weekly-broadcast situation comedies on TV.

Good times!

        Any time you meet a payment,

Good times!

         Any time you meet a friend,

Good times!

        Any time you're out from under,

Not gettin' hassled,

Not gettin' hustled.

Keepin' your head above water,

Makin' a wave when you can!

        Temporary lay-offs,

Good times!

Easy credit rip-offs,

Good times...

Scratchin' and survivin' -

Good times!

Hangin' in and jivin' -

Good times!

Ain't we lucky we got 'em,

Good Times!!

That song had the spiritual energy of gospel music and the soul of R & B:  I loved it.  

(To hear it, go on You Tube and type in, "Good Times theme song.")

Not gettin' hassled,

not gettin' hustled...

Genius songwriting?

Keepin' your head above water,

Makin' a wave when you can...

        Oh, - yeah...

"Good Times" was a quality situation comedy, but it went away - I heard somewhere the set got to be a toxic work environment.  

The stars, Esther Rolle and John Amos - terrific.  

Before "Good Times" I was familiar with the actor John Amos from "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" where he played Gordy the weatherman at WJM where Mary Richards worked.

        He has a great face for film and television:  the camera loves him.  His cheekbones kind of need to have their own zip code.

        He recently had a cameo role in an Adam Sandler movie, Uncut Gems.

        (Not your typical Adam Sandler movie.)

Born in Newark, Amos got his Bachelor of Arts degree from Colorado State University.

And Esther Rolle - what an actress!  What a smile!  Years later after "Good Times," she showed up in the feature film Driving Miss Daisy.

        (I had thought I remembered that movie from the '90s, but Google says it came out in 1989.

        Okay.)

And earlier, before "Good Times," Esther Rolle was in the sitcom "Maude" starring Beatrice Arthur, later of "The Golden Girls."

Beatrice Arthur; Esther Rolle

-30-

photo cube

 

Paul McCartney and his wife

During my "Summer Girl" summer, there were other songs on the radio that I liked, besides "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" - "Shop Around" by the Captain and Tenille; "Let 'Em In" by Paul McCartney and Wings; and anything by Fleetwood Mac.

A moment when the children's mother smiled and got happy was when there was a Fleetwood Mac song on and I said I liked it and she said, with enthusiasm, "I love Fleetwood Mac!"

She spoke about her and her husband's anniversary coming up, that summer - and on my day off when she dropped me at the mall (there's, like, no place else to go, in the suburbs) I bought an anniversary present for them:  a photo cube.  A square plastic thing where you slide in photographs.

To say it's a "plastic thing" might not sound very good, but it was pretty nice:  once you put the pictures in, all you see when you look at it is the pictures.  

        I thought she would like it because she sometimes took pictures of her daughters, with a little camera.

Fleetwood Mac

-30-

saved my life; is my life

 

I was writing about my "Summer Girl" summer, when one of the few bright spots was when the song "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" would come on the radio:  contemplating this made me remember that the family I baby-sat for had no stereo or records, and no piano.

It was weird.

        There was radio.

The children's mother would bring the radio out by the pool.      

And I had a clock-radio in the bedroom where I slept.

        But - radio?  Radio was all we had, in the 1970s... ??

(It was as if we were poverty-stricken sharecroppers in the 1930s, or something....)

And these people had a swimming pool - in Minnesota - so it seemed like they must be wealthy....

..."Wealthy" enough to have a - stereo - or at least a record player....

But - regardless of how much or little money you have, you don't buy it if it isn't important to you....

        In the film American Hustle (currently on Netflix) there's a scene near the beginning when a man meets a woman at his friend's pool party in Long Island - during the '70s - and they bond over the music of Duke Ellington.  The man says no one cares about Duke Ellington's music anymore, and the woman answers, "Well I care about him.  He saved my life many times."

        And recently at work a woman who is usually playing music from her phone, during breaks, told me, "Music is my life."

Coincidence.

Amy Adams in  American Hustle

-30-

        

right from the start, I gave you my heart

 

Julie Andrews in "The Sound Of Music"

The summer between my junior and senior years of high school, I had a job as a "summer girl," where you baby-sit, and help the mom clean, and stuff.

When I applied for it,  I thought maybe I would be like Julie Andrews in The Sound Of Music but I wasn't - and they weren't.

Perhaps that was not "realistic."

...

The best times in that job were Saturday nights, when the wife (mom) went to the restaurant her husband owned and I was left with the little girls, one, three years old, and the other, one and a half.

I don't really remember what we did, but it was peaceful, with no impatient demands.

I would ask the three-year-old, Kimberly, Would you like to have a little orange juice and then go to bed? Or - have orange juice and read a story together, and then go to bed?

She would always choose juice and then the story, because then she could stay up later.

(The only books these people had in the house were children's books.)

And - juice - was a very big part of the daily routine. ...

--------------------------------------------------

        The best time during that summer was when the family I worked for went on vacation for a week and during that same week I got picked up by my mom and dad and we went on vacation to Ohio where we used to live and visited with my mother's relatives.  

        When I went back to the job in Minnetonka, I went by train and it got behind because of - something - and I had to stay an extra night in Chicago at the Ritz Carleton because the train was late and they "put us up" - I saw the comedian Pat Paulsen in the gift shop....

Getting off the train in Minneapolis, I took a taxi-cab to the address in Minnetonka, and, riding out there, the taxi driver spoke to me and said, "Why do you work all the way out here? - You could have a nice job in the city!"'

(It was as if he was reading my mind.  I liked the little kids so much, but was completely put off by the parents.  I would have liked to be doing something else - somewhere else....)

        On the radio, that summer, the song "Don't Go Breakin' My Heart" would come on, and with those opening notes, I knew - OK, something good is here at least for a few minutes...

-30-

don't go breakin' my heart

 

Kiki Dee; Elton John

Mmmh, don't go breakin' my heart,

I couldn't if I tried,

Oh honey if I get restless,

Baby you're not that kind -

Don't go breakin' my heart,

You take the weight off of me --

Oh honey, when you knocked on my door,

Ooh I gave you my key

Ooh  ooh,

Nobody knows it,

When I was down,

I was your clown,

Ooh - ooh,

Nobody knows it,

Nobody knows -

Right from the start

I gave you my heart ...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That song, sung by Elton John with Kiki Dee, was a bright spot in the summer between my junior and senior years in high school when I had a (tedious) summer job as a summer girl, in the suburbs.

Yickety-yikes.  These people never talked about anything, or read anything.  They just existed.  Barely.

        Lots of kids today probably would have quit such a job, but I didn't.  I thought I had to - "stick it out."  

Why did I think this?

I do not know, exactly.

(You're not allowed to be a "quitter" - !

Really? ... Maybe - I - am - ...)

-------------------------------------------

On You Tube, go to the video titled:

Elton John, Kiki Dee - Don't Go Breaking My Heart (with Kiki Dee)

uploader / channel:  Elton John

       ... and - Play!

comments:

~  I literally found this masterpiece by searching "Woohooo nobody knows it"

~  A pre-school teacher and a used car salesman walk into a karaoke bar...

-30-

there's a reason

 

a mountain stream, painted by John Singer Sargent

On You Tube, find the video titled,

Let Your Love Flow - Bellamy Brothers Lyrics

uploader / channel:  Nelsky IntheSky

        ...and play.

There's a reason - 

For the sunshinin' sky

And there's a reason

Why I'm feeln' so high

Must be the season

When that love light shines,

All around us

So let that feelin'

Grab you deep inside

And send you reelin'

Where your love can't hide,

And then go stealin' - 

Through the moonlit night,

With your lover

Just let your love Flow,

Like a mountain stream,

And let your love grow,

With the smallest of dreams

And let your love show

And you'll know what I mean,

It's the season

Let your love fly,

Like a bird on the wing

And let your love bind you

To all living things

And let your love shine

And you'll know what I mean,

That's the reason

There's a reason,

For the warm sweet nights

And there's a reason

For the candle lights

Must be the season

When those love rites shine

All around us

So let that wonder

Take you into space,

And lay you under

Its loving embrace

Just feel the thunder,

As it warms your face

You can't hold back

Just let your love Flow,

Like a mountain stream

And let your love grow

WIth the smallest of dreams,

And let your love show

And you'll know what I  mean, 

It's the season

Let your love fly

Like a bird on the wing

And let your love bind you

To all living things,

And let your love shine,

And you'll know what I mean,

That's the reason

Just let your love Flow,

Like a mountain stream,

And let your love grow,

With the smallest of dreams,

And let your love show

And you'll know what I mean, it's the season

Let your love fly,

Like a bird on the wing

And let your love bind you

To all living things,

And let your love shine

Ane you'll know what I mean,

That's the reason...

[fades out] ...

------------------------------------------------

This song was a hit in 1976, sung by the Bellamy Brothers, and written by a roadie in Neil Diamond's crew.

        It's so sweet and melodic and kind of spiritual. ...

Neil Diamond

-30-