James and I talked about it when he got home and he's taking me out for my birthday on Sunday. I really don't like staying out late midweek. Instead we went to Publix to use the last of the $5 off coupons, and we each got ourselves something to supper for when we got home.
Which explains why I was sitting watching Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer last night eating Wheat Thins spread with ricotta. (Well, it was my birthday, right? I could have anything I wanted. I like Wheat Thins with ricotta!)
Rudolph's another treat I usually leave for my birthday. This year was my...wait for it...fortieth viewing of the show. It premiered in 1964, on what the General Electric people used to call the GE Fantasy Hour, at 5:30 p.m. Eastern time on a Sunday. (It pre-empted College Bowl, one of my favorite shows even at age eight.)
Poor Dad suffered through all those years of viewing Rudolph, especially after we got a color television in 1972.
(Dad made a devil's bargain on that TV that I sometimes think he regretted. He only paid cash for things, and had only saved up $500 for a TV but the new XL-100s--solid state, which is why we finally bought one; my uncle Ralph's tube color set seemed to be constantly in the shop--were $600. I had $100 I had been ostensibly saving for the Italian class' trip to Italy in our senior year. I really didn't want to go away anywhere with a bunch of strangers anyway, and I decided $100 on a TV would be a longer-lasting deal than going to Italy for a week. So I offered him the $100 with the understanding that the TV was "one-sixth mine," a fact I'd remind him of when I wanted to watch Rudolph or Charlie Brown Christmas or The Homecoming and, of course, The Waltons. Dad preferred Westerns and cop shows and hated "sappy" family-type programming, but Mom took advantage of the situation. The only thing I couldn't watch in color was Little House on the Prairie. My dad hated Michael Landon because he had left his wife for a younger woman the minute he'd made it big.)
I love Rudolph no less now than I did when I was eight; a great, well-paced story, puns, engaging characters, and wonderful songs. "There's Always Tomorrow" is a particular favorite. The DVD even has the infamous "peppermint" scene restored (it was in the first showing, but not in subsequent broadcasts; the scene was replaced by Santa picking up the Misfit Toys, which was not in the original broadcast. The DVD has both), but unfortunately Rankin-Bass couldn't find a decent color copy of the original credits, in which the cast and crew members names were on packages dumped out Santa's sleigh at the end, and on which Billie Richards' name was spelt properly.
We also watched the Christmas episode of one of our favorite series, Good Neighbors. This funny, charming and warm BBC series started life as The Good Life, but when they syndicated it here in the States they didn't want the title to conflict with the flop Larry Hagman/Donna Mills series from 1968. Thankfully they were able to retain the pun in the title: the protagonists' surname is "Good."
This is a wonderful series--I see it chided online at times as being "funny, but old-fashioned." So be it. It's one of my favorite comedy series of all times. If you haven't been graced with a viewing, you've missed a treat. The premise: on his 40th birthday, feeling he's done nothing useful with his life, Tom Good convinces his wife Barbara to quit the rat race with him. They own their home, so they become self-sufficent to live, raising vegetables in their big back garden and on their allotment, and keeping two pigs and a goat and chickens. Their neighbors, and best friends, are Jerry and Margo Ledbetter. Jerry is an executive at the same company Tom left and Margo is his social-climbing wife. Margo, particularly, is a delightfully snobby character who is saved from two-dimensionality by wonderful writing--she has a warm heart; it's just all tucked up in her social aspirations and the Pony Club set--and her portrayal by Penelope Keith. The rest of the cast is perfect as well: Richard Briers (seen most recently in Monarch of the Glen and the adorable Felicity Kendal as the alternative-living Goods and Paul Eddington (Yes, Minister) as harried Jerry.
Every episode is funny, but the Christmas episode is particularly hilarious: persnickety Margo sends the Ledbetters' entire Christmas--tree, decorations, food, drink--back in the van it was delivered in on Christmas Eve because the tree is six and one-quarter inches too short! Of course the company will not redeliver by Christmas, so the Ledbetters, instead of exhausted themselves on the social scene for a week, spend a fun and happy day at the Goods, making do with a roast chicken, veggies from the garden, Tom's home-made "peapod burgundy" wine, and newspaper Christmas crackers and decorations. The Goods' 15p spent on Christmas is much more well spent than Margo's hundreds crammed in a delivery van, both for them and for us.
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