Classic Christmas Commercials, Volume 15!
I’m not sure if there’s much point in writing about old Christmas commercials the day before Christmas Eve, when 95% of the people who’d be interested are too busy to look. Oh well. If you’re in the remaining 5%, this one’s for you!
A Christmas Story on WPIX! (1990)
Even before the 24-hour marathons, watching A Christmas Story was one of my major holiday traditions. As a kid, it was the only Christmas movie I had to see each year. I usually did that in our old living room, where the television was right next to the tree. Between Ralphie’s exploits and the glow of our mismatched light sets, those viewings were pure, concentrated Christmas.
This WPIX promo was for a 1990 broadcast. I was in the sixth grade by then, and surely opted to watch it in my bedroom instead. After all, in the tri-state area, WPIX was the official network of kids’ bedrooms, which usually lacked cable boxes.
The transition from elementary school into junior high was rough for me. You know those cautionary tales about not letting tamed animals into the wild, because they don’t know how to communicate with their own kind and will probably get eaten in a week? Starting junior high was my version. In the sixth grade, every day felt like war.
That year, I needed Christmas more than ever. I threw myself into the decorations, catalogs, movies and animated specials as much for the distraction as the attraction. To this day, I still look at the trivial joys of Christmastime as a failsafe to keep me from bottoming out. It probably started in 1990, when I watched Scut Farkus on WPIX and tried not to notice how similar he was to those ten assholes from school. Read More…
Purple Stuff Podcast: Christmas Songs, Part 5!
The Purple Stuff Podcast’s holiday tradition continues! (Hopefully just in time for us to accompany you on a weekend full of last-minute holiday errands!)
Get set for another batch of AWESOME CHRISTMAS TUNES. This is the fifth volume in the series, so now we’re really starting to dig deep. There aren’t too many traditional picks on this list, nor many that you’re likely to hear on the radio. (Though, for my money, we should be hearing the California Raisins’ Rudolph Rap on the radio. It’s a crime that we aren’t!)
Me and Jay from The Sexy Armpit are ready to add ten more songs to our ever-growing Purple Stuff holiday playlist. Check it out:
Click here to listen to this week’s show!
Sorry this one is so late, but hey, maybe you need a little Christmas now more than ever? As a reminder, the Purple Stuff Podcast is also on Patreon, where we’ll be ending the month with an exclusive bonus show.
Below are spoiler images for our song picks — don’t look if you wanna go in clean! Read More…
Dino Drac’s December Funpack is here!
Dino Drac’s December Funpack is here, and it’s full of holiday cheer! (Sorry, I was definitely someone who wrote lame catalog descriptions in a past life.)
LIMITED SUPPLY! UNITED STATES ONLY!
Consider the December 2019 Funpack a gift to yourself. I assembled this one with Christmas morning in mind, so even if Santa completely disappoints you this year, I hope *I* won’t.
You know the deal by now! Funpack subscriptions are $25 a month, and that price includes shipping. For as long as you remain subscribed, you’ll keep getting boxes and old-and-new nonsense every single month. (And of course, you can cancel at any time!)
These are in short supply, so if you wanna jump to the bottom for ordering info, go right ahead! Otherwise, keep reading to learn about everything you’ll receive in this month’s box! Read More…
Ancient Holiday Appetizers, Part 7!
For the seventh consecutive year, here’s a new edition of Ancient Holiday Appetizers. Let’s make some weird food, dudes!
If you’ve been with this series from the start, you know that I usually pull recipes from old cookbooks. This year, I thought I’d try something different. Y’all have seen The Christmas Toy, right?
The Christmas Toy — a Jim Henson production — premiered on December 6th, 1986. The made-for-ABC movie was sponsored by Kraft, which almost completely took over the ad breaks with long, awesome “recipe spots” that taught us how to prepare various dishes with just a few ingredients. (Most of those ingredients, of course, belonged to Kraft.)
Embedded above are all of Kraft’s spots that aired during The Christmas Toy. Since thousands of families taped the special back in ‘86, thousands of families were “stuck” with those Kraft commercials for years. Despite having aired only once, they’re pretty well-known!
The spots provided enough steps for amateur chefs to follow along, but the complete versions of the recipes were printed in that week’s TV Guide. My friend Anita pasted scans of the pertinent pages on her Sale into the 90s blog, and that was all the encouragement I needed to blow $150 and an entire Saturday on chicken wings and Velveeta cheese.
Tl;dr: I prepared five of the dishes seen in those old Kraft commercials. Below are the results!
Velveeta Gala Dip!
Click here for the recipe!
In this spin on the classic spinach dip bread bowl, you replace the usual sour cream and onion soup mix with a block of Velveeta cheese. Mix that with sautéed vegetables and a load of spinach, shove into a buttered bread bowl, and you’re pretty much done.
I was determined to follow Kraft’s recipes to the letter, but as good as this was, there’s room for improvement. Since Velveeta is so mild, I’d recommend spicing this up with hot chili powder or Tabasco sauce. I’d also suggest adding a bunch of salt, because while nobody would qualify a block of Velveeta as “low sodium,” the spinach and vegetables cut through it.
Still, this is a phenomenal treat and insanely easy to make. We’re instructed to serve it with bread cubes made from whatever you pulled out of the bowl, but unless you find a round loaf the size of a tire, there won’t be enough. Grab some extra bread for that purpose, otherwise you’ll be eating a leftover pound of Velveeta with a spoon.
SCORE: 9 out of 10. The key thing is to view Kraft’s recipe as the “starting point” and edit logically as you go along. Read More…