Monday, December 8, 2008

Nice is nice

I simply love the style of the sixties. The narrow ties, the bouffant hairstyles, the elegant cocktail dresses, the entire world dressed as if about to step out of a 1964 Lincoln Continental.

Even the lowly sitcom had panache, to wit the Dick Van Dyke show with the lovely and talented Mary Tyler Moore. Both trained dancers, in case suburban living should suddenly cause one to burst into song. Which it often did.

And in their third season, the revered Christmas Special, called "Alan Brady Presents". All in all one of the best Christmas episodes of any sitcom (mental note: remember when sitcoms had Christmas episodes)?

The interplay between Rose Marie and Morey Amsterdam is charming, but I'm simply all about the hot Santa-On-Santa action at 1:45. An original song by Persky and Denoff, and Dick and Mary do an engaging dance number. Be sure to listen to Mary's cutesy catty comments at the end of each line, and watch their faces- they are having a great time.

What ever else you do, stop at 6:00 before the awful nails on a blackboard rendition of "Little Drummer Boy" by Larry Matthews. The most untalented child actor of all time, this rendition proves that not all children are cute. A reminder of how welcome Thenol was in the sixties. Enjoy:

5 comments:

Sebastian said...

Thanks for that clip. It was delightful and funny, at least until minute 6.

Birdie said...

I'm grateful for the warning. I've had enough of Richey for a lifetime. Thanks for the memories! (Remember the inflatable raft?)

Doralong said...

I wanna wear cocktail dresses in the middle of the day and wear hats jut for the hell of it. Oh yeah, I've been known to do both on a whim, haven't I? Never mind..

Willym said...

Where we ever that innocent and joyful? Yep guess we were. And as for Drummer Boy - sorry anybody but Grace Jones doing it on Peewee - that doesn't sound right but you know what I mean.

BigAssBelle said...

Both trained dancers, in case suburban living should suddenly cause one to burst into song. Which it often did.

I'm with Willym. Were we ever that innocent? It's hard to imagine. And then I go a little deeper into my memory banks and remember the ugly side of suburbia and how women were often carted off to insane asylums for expressing dissent, or when he was ready for a newer model. I miss much about the early '60s, growing up in a small town, but not everything, not at all. What I love about Mexico, though, is that it has the feel, in so many ways, of America before we attached our life support systems to technology and lost our minds.