My First Love

Lately I've been a reminiscing mood. I think I'll probably do a series of blogs about the weird shit I liked as a kid, after all it was crap like that that was the foundation for, um the Foundation.

My very first love - Mr. Rich Little. I told my parents I was going to marry him. I have a hazy memory of them asking me, in front of others, who I was gonna marry. Its not your average toe headed little girl who answers, Rich Little. I mean, was Don Adams busy? There is no explaining it, and yet here I am many years later thinking about how funny and weird my parents must have that thought that was. Who needs a key party in the late 70s when your daughter is this entertaining!

I think I can pinpoint my love affair to one moment in time, that moment - my first viewing of Rich Little's Christmas Carol. I think it used to air on HBO and my parents taped it - I probably watched that thing 50 times. I can't seem to find it on DVD, per his website it will be out soon - its currently going for $115.00 on vhs because its out of print. Mama ain't got that kind of scratch.

Since I can't seem to find a copy to relive how I first fell in love, I 'll have to use this great summary of the film I found on IMDB:

Rich Little plays everyone in this hour long Canadian-produced show, and he's perfect in every role. The story has been changed only in Scrooge's profession: He's the owner of the Boat and Bottle Works, where Scrooge empties the liquor bottles and Cratchit stuffs the boats in them. Rich does all his best impressions: Scrooge (W.C. Fields), Bob Cratchit (Paul Lynde), Nephew Fred (Johnny Carson), Mrs. Cratchit (Edith Bunker), Tiny Tim (Truman Capote, in one of the funniest impressions), Jacob Marley (Richard Nixon, whose "chains" are a mass of reel-to-reel tapes, representing the erased 18 1/2 minutes), the men of business who discuss Scrooge after he's dead (John Wayne (perfection itself) and George Burns), the boy Scrooge greets from his window Christmas morning (Jack Benny, playing his violin), and of course the 3 ghosts - Past (Humphrey Bogart, who shows up seated at his bar table with empty bottles strewn around), Present (Columbo) and Future (Inspector Clouseau, who sets fire to the bedcurtains with his candle). At the end, Scrooge reforms and pledges to go on the wagon. He's hired someone else to empty the bottles who shows real promise: Dean Martin!

A ha! That is the greatest thing ever!!! Reading that totally give me a flash back of the movie, mostly W.C Fields drinking and then they tried to put the ships in bottles but couldn't get it to work. I also remember him as Tiny Tim. I wish I could get in a time machine and go ask myself if I even knew who Truman Capote was. Certainly this was a situation where a lot of the humor went over my head, but I am pretty sure I understood that Rich Little played all the roles - (unlike my foolish thinking that on the Patty Duke show the identical cousins were played by twins - what an idiot - I mean why the hell did they call it the Patty Duke show, and furthermore how fucking old am I?) I am pretty sure I knew who John Wayne was, and W.C. Fields as well, and Edith Bunker as Mrs. Cratchet - "Oh Arrrrrrchie"....which is kind of odd for a little girl to know - which explains why I now have a foundation. Its the circle of life! Mrs. Rich Little, hmmm that does have a nice ring to it.