A Fool's Utopia 12.18.08: Five By Five -- The Christmas Edition

Posted by Ron Martin on 12.18.2008

This week in one man's utopia we take a look at five different top five lists dealing with all things Christmas from the best Christmas villains to the scariest things about Christmas. Also, in a pop culture moment, we check out a unique Christmas ornament and scratch off some lottery tickets. As a bonus -- three reasons you need to see Clue.

I don't know if you've noticed are not, but it seems that the Christmas season is upon us. It is Christmastime everywhere – even Hollis, Queens. In celebration, I thought maybe we would bring back the gimmick that has made no one famous, but is fun to fall back on from time to time. A little something I like to call five by five.



FIVE BEST CHRISTMAS CAROLS

1. "The Christmas Song," by Nat King Cole
2. "I'll be Home for Christmas" by Bing Crosby
3. "Blue Christmas" by Elvis Presley
4. "Do You Hear What I Hear?" by Bing Crosby
5. "Carol of the Bells."

As you can see, I'm more or a traditionalist when it comes to my holiday offerings. While a ton of songs deserved to be on the list, I think I can make a pretty good argument that nothing can get you in a Christmas mood faster than hearing Cole croon "Chestnuts roasting by an open fire." It should be noted here that I, nor Ashish or 411mania condone having an open fire. That's just dangerous. Continuing down the list, Bing Crosby may be known as The Grandpappy of Christmas Carols for all I know. I should have made a list of the top five just Bing Crosby Christmas Carols. "I'll Be Home," may be his signature tune, but I've always like the quiet peace of "Do You Hear?" What would Christmas be without a little bluesy rock from the King? You could hear that grunting of "Havahavahava" from across the room and know what was about to happen. There's just something about the song that makes you smile – even if you're not gay. As for "Carol of the Bells," I've just always liked it. It's a little creepy. Like someone making noise to cover up the screams of the victim. I dig it.



TOP FIVE CHRISTMAS TRADITIONS

1. Lights
2. Black Friday
3. 24 Hour A Christmas Story Marathon
4. Christmas Specials
5. Mistletoe

I loves me some Christmas lights. Even the most Scroogiest of Scrooges will have to admit that when they are basking in the multi-colored flashes of Christmas lights, their heart grows 1.5 times. I know it's not much, but we take what we can get with these grouches. I can think of nothing better than taking a mid-evening nap and waking up in the warm lights of my Christmas Tree. It brings a tear to my eye. Enough of that sentimental stuff, let's get to the true meaning of Christmas – commercialism. Black Friday is my friend. I have never sat in a line in the freezing cold at three in the morning. I, instead, choose to do my Black Friday shopping late at night when everyone has left the stores to soak their sore feet. Me and my fresh feet waltz right in and take advantage of the sale with no one else around – mostly the $3 DVDs. I like cheap stuff. The 24 hour Christmas Eve marathon of A Christmas Story never fails to get me into the proper Christmas mood for the big day. A Christmas Story 12 times in a row? Brilliant! I'm a night owl. It's nice to have something worth watching on TV at 3 AM. The same goes for Christmas specials. I like having the option of watching some B-actor scratch his way through A Christmas Carol instead of the boring every day stuff. Options, people, options. Then there's the mistletoe. Let's be honest, this thing is the only way you're getting the cute girl from the office to ever lay her lips on you. It will probably be on the cheek, but take what you can get.



TOP FIVE CHRISTMAS BADDIES

1. The Grinch
2. Ebenezer Scrooge
3. Scut Farkus
4. Gremlins
5. The Bumble


Was there ever any doubt? How could I not give the number one position to a little green man who comes up with a Wile E Coyote type plan to steal away an entire town's Christmas all in one night? Not only does he come up with the plan, but unlike Wile E, he doesn't blow himself up in the process – he actually pulls it off. I know the Whos still had their Christmas, but that was due to no fault on the Grinch's part. A one man pillage and plunder party will get my vote every time. There may not have been doubt, but it wasn't a runaway victory for the Grinch. Ebenezer Scrooge has been played by everyone from George C Scott to Mickey Mouse. He belongs on this list because well, he's just an asshole. I'm not saying he should sway away from his so far successful business plan, but he could have a nicer tone when he makes Bob Cratchett work on Christmas Eve. It's all about the perks nowadays. Further down the list is Scut Farkus – mostly because he had yellow eyes. Yellow Eyes! I know he got his ass handed to him by Ralphie, but the dude also got killed by Fred Krueger twenty years later so he deserves to be on the list. Some people may think the Gremlins do not deserve to be on the list because of the fact that Gremlins was more of a horror than a Christmas movie. I present you with the facts. The town was in full on Christmas mode. A gremlin attacked Billy's mom with a Christmas tree. That's good enough for me. Rounding out the top five is the Bumble. You could probably make a case for the Bumble being higher on the list, but five is a pretty respectable number for a guy who ended up switching sides in the end. I realize that Scrooge and the Grinch kind of did as well, but I don't think they meant it as much as The Bumble did.


TOP FIVE CHRISTMAS CANDIES

1. Candy Canes
2. Old Fashioned Hard Candies
3. Gingerbread anything
4. Snicker Santas
5. Holiday M&Ms

If I had to rank my favorite flavors, peppermint would be somewhere in the low 30s. It's an old fogie thing to do to rank candy canes at the top of the Christmas candy list, but let's not forget one thing – I'm an old fogie, damnit! I'm so old, I'm not even sure if that's how you spell the word fogie. Candy canes are iconic only to Christmas, so they deserve to top the list. They come in any flavor you want these days, so you don't have to stick with peppermint. Hell, I'm sure you could find a SPAM flavored candy cane if you wanted to. Let's move on. Old fashioned hard candies are those candies your grandparents are always eating this time of the year. Nothing fancy about them, just something to munch on in various flavors. I different type of candy will probably be labeled old fashioned hard candies depending upon which store you buy them from, but regardless of which candy it is, it will be the first marked down to $.50 on December 26. Here's a little known fact for you; I don't think I've ever eaten anything gingerbread outside of the month of December. It's not that I don't like the flavor, because I can mow on the stuff, it's just that I never have because I guess I've always associated it with Christmas. And yes, I do eat the heads off first. Further down the list you have Snickers Santas. On the one hand you have Snickers; in the other you have Santa. What's to think about? Take two great things, mix them together and you get something greater. Snickers Santas are proof of that. At the bottom of the top five are Holiday M&Ms. Holiday M&Ms are nothing special. They are regular M&Ms with every color except red and green taken out. If you're lucky, they may have little scratch off ticket-like drawings on them of vaguely Christmas items. Here's the thing about holiday M&Ms – they make everything they touch more Christmas-like. If you have no other Christmas decoration in your house/apartment other than a bowl of Holiday M&Ms, then you're doing okay by me.



FIVE SCARIEST THINGS ABOUT CHRISTMAS

1. Ghosts
2. Christmas Shopping
3. Christmas Tree Silhouette
4. Frosty the Snowman
5. Mistletoe

Ghosts. What's not to be afraid of when it comes to ghosts? I don't care if it is the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future – have you seen some of these guys? Not exactly the type you'd want to meet in a dark alley in the middle of the day. I don't know how Scrooge put up with it. Moving on to Christmas shopping, let me explain that it's different than my low stress Black Friday shopping. It's different because each store you walk into has approximately 2.5 employees working per customer so they can trounce on you immediately. No joke, I was Christmas shopping in the mall and counted ten "floor employees' at a cell phone store no bigger than my tiny apartment. Of the ten, eight were standing in a line just daring someone to cross the threshold. I ran away. I added the silhouette of my Christmas tree to the list because every night when I get up in the middle of the night (or morning) to use the restroom, I see the silhouette of my tree in the living room and it scared the Holy Bejesus out of me. I always think some well decorated person has broken into my house, so it's #3. I know a lot of you are wondering why I added the lovable Frosty the Snowman to my lists of scary Christmas things. It's a walking, talking snowman. We have taken an inanimate object and given him the ability to kill us all should he find and figure out how to work a machine gun. Does that not frighten you? If not, then you are a better man than I. Lastly, I added the mistletoe for the very reason it's one of the greatest things about Christmas. Take the above example of you sneaking a kiss from a desired person in the office and then reverse it with the gorilla of a woman who doesn't bathe or shave from across the room. That could be you. Be careful.

This concludes the 2008 version of my Christmas five by five. I hope you learned something. At the very least I hope that you now respect the weapon that is the mistletoe.

A Moment in Pop Culture
Kind of. Definitely pop culture…from 1983. Whilst finding the best deals known to man last Friday night, I came across this little gem.



I have never been parted from $18 quicker. Okay, once – in Vegas. As we know, what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. If you only take advantage of a service for under five minutes, should you be charged full price? I don't think so, but that's beside the point. Let's not get too far off topic – especially when the topic is this badass miniature copy of a stand up Pac-Man arcade game. I am sure I need not tell you that this rules all. In fact, I have to take it off my tree from time to time lest the others attempt suicide by jumping off the tree. I know it's enough to gaze into the awesomeness that is Pac-Man, but this particular Pac-Man does not rest on its beauty. It has skills.



Don't be jealous.

While preparing this column, earlier today I found myself at the gas station down the block from my apartment, where another pop culture item stared at me through dirty plastic begging to be bought.



Not one to make anything beg, I of course plopped down the $10 for the Hoosier Lottery "Chilly Cash" that promises six games for the price of one. It didn't disappoint.



The gimmick is they've wrapped up 6 $2 lottery tickets like a Christmas package. Of course, the lottery tickets do not exist outside the wrapper, so we will never know if $2 is their true street value were they to hit the open market without the safety of numbers. I guess you have to take their word for it. Hell, I just paid the $10 to open up a gift a week before Christmas. I don't really care what it was. That's a good thing because after scratching them off, I can only hypothesize that they just wrapped up a bunch of losing lottery tickets and banked on the fact that I would get off on unwrapping something a week before Christmas. The Hoosier lottery is so sneaky.

Do you ever have dreams of Nintendos and Popples dancing in your head? Maybe you still wear your Superman underoos? Possibly you're still trying to figure out just what the hell that Micro-Machines guy is saying. If any of this is true, then you are probably ready for a little RETRO.

I'd like to start off the RETRO today with another episode from the Holiday Treat DVD I picked up a few weeks ago. This week let's look at what was probably the first Christmas episode for



I've watched my fair share of Wings so I think I am justified in my assertion that it is like the ugly cousin of Cheers who has to tag along if you want to go out. At its best, it was palatable and cookie cutter, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. For what I assume was their first Christmas episode, the show wasn't either of those things.

The gang all has big Christmas plans and like any sitcom all the plans fall though. That's okay because they'll all just crash Kay's big holiday bash. The problem with that is that Kay isn't having a Christmas bash; she is just sitting in her robe in the dark grieving the loss of whatever number husband she was on from the previous year. Yadda, yadda, yadda and they're on a plan dumping a dust buster that contains the ashes of Kay's former husband into the ocean. Nothing about this episode was very funny nor did it have any of the sentiments that Christmas specials sometimes have. I haven't watched all the Christmas episodes on this DVD yet, but I feel like I am pretty safe in assuming this is the worst one.

Speaking of bad things, this week's bad Christmas gift may have some sentimental value to some of you out there. You may think I'm crazy and maybe I am because I have to say one of the worst gifts I got as a child was none other than



Yep, Domino Rally. Let me begin by saying I understand why this gift was given to me and that I probably even reacted positively to it when it was opened. In theory, this is one of the good presents. In practice – not so much. First, setting the thing up was tougher than your mamma. It took approximately 65 hours to set up. An active brainwave was strong enough to knock one of the dominoes down. If one goes down – they're dominoes – they all go down! Then you have to start over. If you did manage to get the 65 hours in and was ready to see your hard work rewarded, the little toys that came with the dominoes wouldn't work. The domino on the stairs wouldn't fall or the domino wouldn't shoot across the hoop or something to that extent. Then you're stuck with the moral dilemma of having to knock the domino over yourself to get the full satisfaction. That's the main issue with the entire Domino set up, it's 65 hours of work for about 5 minutes of reward. While the thought was nice, after a couple of weeks, it was put up high on the shelf in my closet to go wherever it is that those kinds of toys eventually disappear to.

23 Years Ago Today

December 18, 1985

#1 Song



"Broken Wings" by Mr. Mister

#1 Album



Miami Vice Soundtrack

Notables: "Miami Vice (Instrumental)" by Jan Hammer, "In the Air Tonight" by Phil Collins and "You Belong to the City" by Glenn Frey

#1 Movie



Rocky IV

Notable Openings: The Jewel of the Nile, Clue

THREE REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD SEE CLUE

Ensemble Cast


It takes a special cast to pull off a movie like this one. Between the physical comedy and the timing, it's a Noises Off like performance for these guys and they pull it off magnificently. Sure, Tim Curry stands out quite a bit, but he couldn't have done any of it without the support of every other cast member. This crew is vastly underrated from the top to the bottom.

So You Think You Know Who Did It?


Just like the board game, this movie can have one of three different endings. On the DVD version of the movie, viewers are given the option of watching all the endings or getting one at random. It's a different experience every time! Well, it's one of three different experiences every time and that's better than we usually get.

Oui, Oui, Mademoiselle


This picture does not do Colleen Camp and her mighty, mighty chest (which I have a nickname for – it's not hard people, it involves a famous novel and the French Revolution. Change a couple of letters around….) justice. Looking for the ultimate French Maid fantasy? Look no further. Probably better known as Tackleberry's main squeeze in the Police Academy flicks, Ms. Camp's uh…"screen presence" is dominating at times. Has there ever been a porn parody of Clue? Come on, there has to have been.

I must leave you now.

Next week is Christmas. You got one week to get into the spirit. Enjoy it.