Q: What's cute?

A: Margaret Sullavan and a basket full of puppies.

A scene from my favorite holiday special

Alan partridge knowing me knowing yule. Part 1
Uploaded by CentralSouth. - Full seasons and entire episodes online.

PANTO!

What is this 'Panto'? you may ask. It's a strange British tradition of taking the kids to see a bad play at Christmastime. The play is usually based on one of a few Public Domain sources:

• Aladdin (oddly popular)
• A Christmas Carol
• Pinocchio
• Jack and the Beanstalk
• Dick Whittington and His Cat

Occasionally, some current, licensed product is Panto-ized, like 'Shrek' or Raymond Briggs' 'The Snowman'.

Here's some information stolen from Wikipedia:

The form has a number of conventions, some of which have changed or weakened a little over the years, and by no means all of which are obligatory.

• The leading male juvenile character (the 'principal boy') - is traditionally played by a young woman, and usually in tight-fitting male garments (such as breeches) that make her female charms evident.
• An older woman (the pantomime dame - often the hero's mother) is usually played by a man in drag.
• Risqué double entendre, often wringing innuendo out of perfectly innocent phrases. This is, in theory, over the heads of the children in the audience.
• Audience participation, including calls of "He's behind you!" (or "Look behind you!"), and "Oh, yes it is!" and "Oh, no it isn't!" The audience is always encouraged to boo the villain and "awwwww" the poor victims, such as the rejected dame, who usually fancies the prince.
• A song combining a well-known tune with re-written lyrics. The audience is encouraged to sing the song; often one half of the audience is challenged to sing 'their' chorus louder than the other half.
• The animal, played by an actor in 'animal skin' or animal costume. It is often a pantomime horse or cow, played by two actors in a single costume, one as the head and front legs, the other as the body and back legs.
• The good fairy always enters from stage right and the evil villain enters from stage left. In the medieval mystery plays the right side of the stage symbolised Heaven and the left side symbolised Hell.
• The members of the cast throw out sweets to the children in the audience (although in some cases this is not possible due to health and safety restrictions).
• Sometimes the story villain will squirt members of the audience with water guns or pretend to throw a bucket of 'water' at the audience that is actually full of streamers.
• A slapstick comedy routine may be performed, often a decorating or baking scene, with humour based on throwing messy substances. Until the 20th century, British pantomimes often concluded with a harlequinade, a free-standing entertainment of slapstick. Nowadays the slapstick is more or less incorporated into the main body of the show.
• In the 19th century, until the 1880s, pantomimes typically included a transformation scene in which a Fairy Queen magically transformed the pantomime characters into the characters of the harlequinade, who then performed the harlequinade.
• The Chorus, who can be considered 'Extras' on-stage, who usually appear in all scenes and who perform a variety of songs and dances throughout the show. They are a very important role in Pantomimes.

Sounds massively tiresome to me (except for the part about the young woman in tight-fitting breeches)! What do you think?

Oh, you wacky British thespian!

From the Daily Mail:

Brian Blessed is still hamming it up after all these years

From Shakespeare to musicals and panto, Brian Blessed has done it all. And all with his great booming voice.

But after more than 40 years in showbusiness, the actor is not tired of hamming it up for the cameras.

The 72-year-old, who is playing the villain in panto in Wimbledon, south-west London, pretended to stumble into a wall as photographers waylaid him on his way to the theatre.

Playing up: Brian Blessed pretends to fall into a wall near the New Wimbledon Theatre in London yesterday, where he is co-starring with Pamela Anderson

Teetotal Blessed is starring as Abanazar in Aladdin alongside Pamela Anderson as the Genie and was amused by the number of photographers waiting to get a picture of the former Baywatch star.

The burly actor, who was dressed down in jogging bottoms and a zip-up top and was carrying a Daily Mail in his carrier bag, fell against the wall as if drunk.

Onlookers reported that he let rip at his famous co-star for missing some rehearsals.

According to the Daily Mirror, he yelled: 'Pamela f***ing Anderson? I wouldn't touch her with yours.

'I've starred alongside Sophia Loren. What the f*** is all that about Pamela Anderson? What is all that about?'

But a spokesman for the veteran told the Mail Online today: 'He doesn't drink and hasn't done for a long time - more than 30 years.

'The paparazzi were outside the theatre waiting for Pamela and asking him about her and he pretended to fall into the wall as if drunk. He does it all the time.

'I know that he and Pamela Anderson have a good working relationship and that he is enjoying her performances.'

The respected actor co-starred with Loren in 1972 movie Man Of La Mancha. He has also appeared in Cats, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and I, Claudius [don't forget Flash Gordon!].

A spokesman for the actress said: 'Pamela is profoundly honoured to be working alongside a legendary actor of the reputation and stature of Brian Blessed.

'She has no response to any alleged comments he may or may not have made.'

Gotta love the old 'I'm pretending to be falling-down drunk' routine--very subtle! Maybe a little confusing, though, Brian, since you look like someone who would be drunk in the middle of the afternoon...

40th anniversary...

...of Foulard's first request for a Christmas Present, at age three. (I don't remember requesting it, but apparently I did, according to a reliable source)
Here's what I axed for!

Dig those accessories! He even has a coffee pot, coffee cup, and frying pan.
A couple of years later I got an action figure of a knight and his horse that had about 1,000 pieces of armor that my parents had to assemble.

Unmerry

20 years after we got a Robin Hood movie with the second-most humorless actor on the planet (Kevin Costner), the ante has been upped with the most humorless actor currently working, Russell Crowe:

Here's how you do it, morons!:

Or this:

Christmas present circa 1971

Nifty! Included actual weighted metal boots.