A Year Without a Wookie for Christmas

Some last-minute Xmas fun...

My favorite clip out of all the stop-motion animation Christmas specials from the '60s and '70s:

The Year Without a Santa Claus - "The Snow Miser Song / The Heat Miser Song" [video from 1974 ABC TV special}:


I love that song. The dancing chorus dudes are brilliant!

Snow Miser is voiced by Dick Shawn, an actor and stand-up comedian best known for his role as Lorenzo St. DuBois/Adolf Hitler in "Springtime for Hitler" in the original The Producers in 1968. Random fact: he died onstage from a heart attack in the middle of a comedy routine in 1987, but the audience didn't realize it wasn't part of his act until the paramedics arrived.

Heat Miser is voiced by George S. Irving, a Broadway veteran who most notably (for me) replaced the original Major General in the 1981 production of The Pirates of Penzance (my favorite musical), starring Kevin Kline and Linda Ronstadt.

And, without a doubt my favorite non-traditional Christmas song:

The Star Wars Holiday Special - "What Can You Get a Wookie for Christmas?" [song from 11/17/78 TV special]

I'd like to post more about these specials, but must be off to family holiday fun now!

More on A Year Without a Santa Claus here.
More on The Star Wars Holiday Special here.

Santastic!

The Santastic! albums are absotively free "holiday" albums put out each of the last three years by a collective of DJs from around the world. The DJs are given free rein to do whatever they'd like with an existing holiday song or, most often, songs. The results are "mash-ups", where Frosty the Snowman overlaps and intertwines with Run DMC, Eartha Kitt with Janis Joplin, Rudolph with Black Sabbath, Adam Sandler and the Simpsons with the Dreidel Song, Jingle Bells with Led Zeppelin, John Lennon and the Jackson 5 with Santa Claus, etc.

The results are mixed. There are a few absolute standouts that have immediately become a few of our holiday favorites. Others are fun to listen to once or twice for the novelty of it, and some just aren't all that, by my reckoning. But, nonetheless, 'tis free and definitely worth a browse through, as they're sure to bring you a few good tidings!

Our favorite songs are below. The first two inspire madcap dance parties whenever played in this hizouse, and I predict you will be blown away by the awesomeness that is "Lonely Siberian Winter". Have fun trying to place all the bits of songs that are thrown in there!

Santastic II - "Lonely Siberian Winter" (by DJ John) [MP3]

Santastic II - "Donde Esta Santa Claus?" (by Lenlow) [MP3]

Santastic III - "Yuletide Zeppelin" (by mojochronic) [MP3]

Santastic I - "The Christmas Massacre of Charlie Brown" (by DJ John)

Links to the full albums:

Santastic I: Holiday Boots 4 Your Stockings (www.djbc.net/christmas)
- You can only download the entire album, not individual tracks. Click on the Santastic TORRENT 2005 link to download, and use a free software like uTorrent to un-encrypt it.

Santastic II: Clausome! (www.djbc.net/santastic)
- Our favorite album of the three. You can left-click on each individual song to listen to it or right-click to download it for free! You don't have to download the album as a whole.

Santastic III in 3-D (www.djbc.net/santastic3)
- Like the second album, you can left-click on each individual song to listen to it or right-click to download it for free! You don't have to download the album as a whole.

Random YouTube Find: festouverture

I happened across this chic when looking to watch an old Cat Stevens performance of "Moonshadow" (one of my favorite songs) a few months ago. Her voice is intense. I really dig these covers, and she has some quality new stuff she's working on as well. All I can glean from her YouTube page is that her first name is Joanna, and she's from San Gabriel, CA. So there you go. Check out all of her videos here.

Below: festouverture - "Moonshadow" by Cat Stevens [video]


Below: festouverture - "I Wanna New Drug" by Huey Lewis & the News [video]