Seasons Greetings!

Blake Edwards Trailers

Director Blake Edwards passed away earlier this week. He'd been making movies for a long time. He directed one of my all-time favorite films:


This was the first movie that I saw at the theatre with a friend and no adults when I was in the 8th grade. Blake Edwards also directed all the (non-Steve Martin) Pink Panther films. I'm a big fan of that series as well, including my favorite which is the only one to not mention The Pink Panther in the title, A Shot in the Dark:

That's Mel Blanc as the voice of the bullet.

Classic Commercial Sunday - Think Pink

Cooler Than Those Golf Pants

Here's a fun game to play on the weekend, take your kids to the neighborhood Dick's Sporting Goods store and see how long it takes you to get yelled at for letting your kids putt around a few golf balls on their little practice green. I know it's there for serious golfers to test out $500.00 golf clubs, but seriously, you can't put what is essentially a miniature golf course hole in the middle of a store and not expect kids to want to play on it! Gimme a Break!

Anywho...check out these sweet golf club covers featuring the likenesses of true honest-to-goodness classic cartoon characters. There was no Spongebob or South Park characters on display here...just old fashioned cartoon heroes like Popeye and Wimpy and even a one Mr. Rocket J. Squirrel! They also had Bullwinkle, Dudley Do Right, The Pink Panther, Snoopy and Sherman and Mr. Peabody. Very nice! Here's a link to a site that won't yell at your kids which features these and a few more toon golf club covers.

After being told to put down the golf clubs in the golf section, we like to mosey on over to Dick's footwear department and let the kids blow off their un-golfed steam on a half dozen laps around the running track they have painted on the floor!

Great Customer Service, Dicks!

Do You Like Your Burgers A Little Pink?

It's been a long time since a Grade A classic cartoon character has graced the oil soaked bag or box of a fast food chain kid's meal. (Except Snoopy, who's made the rounds at both Burger King and Wendy's.) Burger King is currently running a promotion for The Pink Panther 2 movie which is in theatres now. That's good news for people who like old cartoon characters and Happy Meal prizes! The new Pink Panther movie is not too much to get excited about. It's pretty much a watered down, dumbed down retread of the original film series which consisted of eight films between 1963 and 1983, plus an additional film in 1993. The problem with marketing a Pink Panther movie is that the character of The Pink Panther has very little to do with any of the films. In the film series, the Pink Panther is a jewel - a very large pink jewel to be exact. The cartoon character of the Pink Panther only appears in the opening credits and sometimes right before the final credits. Of course nowadays, The Pink Panther the cartoon character is far more well known that any of the details of the film series. However, Burger King has managed to work both the classic character and some aspects of the film into their Kids Meal toys.

On our recent "research trip" to Burger King we snagged a couple of the Car Crazy Clouseau toys. The cool thing is, this little car is similar to the one Inspector Clouseau drives in the new movie. What's odd, however, is the toy features the original cartoon version, of the Inspector - used in the older films and a cartoon series of his own. The Pink Panther 2 movie uses a new model of the Inspector to more closely resemble Steve Martin's appearance in the film. Either way, it's a cool little collectible that ties in with both the movie and the great cartoon star. If you even look closely above the bumper you can see the logo for the new movie!

As with any good Happy Meal, there's not just one toy but eight to collect. Burger King usually does a pretty good job and offering different kinds of prizes instead of just doing eight different figures or eight different cars. This insert from the Kid's Meal prize shows the other toys available in this promotion. (This is the best picture I could provide!) There's a pink bracelet and sunglasses, there's a couple of role playing toys, and there's even a Pink Panther figure with Kung-Fu grip! The one toy called Pink Panther Caper is a magic trick which comes with a plastic replica of the Pink Panther jewel that you can make disappear and then reappear. Well played, BK...well played!

Insert Your Own "Pink" Pun Here

Here's another great animation DVD that goes beyond the call of duty. It would have been easy for MGM to release the cozy 1978 television special A PINK CHRISTMAS on a DVD of it's own, much as they had done with the VHS release. But instead not only are we treated to the Pink One's Christmas outing, we also get 1981's PINK AT FIRST SIGHT (a romance themed half hour that aired near Valentine's Day) and the very obscure PINK-LYMPICS, which was produced in conjunction with the 1980 Winter Olympics. This last film is a real treat as it only aired once and never received home video treatment. It's so obscure that I myself only learned about it's existence last year.

But of course the centerpiece of this collection is A PINK CHRISTMAS, which besides for a choir of children singing, is a completely wordless half hour story adapted from O'Henry's "The Cop and the Anthem". (I was in a high school play of "The Cop and the Anthem" so I feel a little more connected to The Pink Panther. Isn't that lame!?) In this longer than usual adventure for the Pink Panther, Pink has trouble finding a meal on Christmas eve, so he decides to get himself arrested so that he can spend the night in jail with a hot meal. The film is a great little holiday special packed with heart and warm songs of the season.