Let's Watch "Eyewitness: Dinosaur" on Turkey Day!

Thanksgiving!  I wish you all a wonderful one this year even though, of course, this Thanksgiving is going to be different.  But the important parts of Thanksgiving should survive 2020.   And as we learned about five years ago, Thanksgiving is about family!  And food.  And eating a turkey!  

Turkeys are birds!  Prehistoric-ish birds, even!  Therefore, they are dinosaurs!  So we should celebrate Thanksgiving with dinosaurs!  I have definitely made this joke before!

Everyone of a certain generation remembers the Eyewitness books, which I covered a long time ago.  The documentary series is a little more obscure, but the couple of episodes I've watched are quite nice.  They manage to feel like thumbing through one of the books, and I love the opening credits sequence!  That imaginary museum is basically what my "Mind Palace" feels like.  I really like how they use film clips where the books would use still pictures and art; a Good Book-To-TV Adaptation.  

"Eyewitness: Dinosaur" even goes so far as to animate stop-motion versions of the signature dinosaur models from it's book equivalent.  We also get a cute Aardman-ish mascot character who looks like an ancestor of Henry from "Amazing Animals", which was kind of a spinoff series.  And we get a little bit of Phil Tippett's "Prehistoric Beast" to boot!

We also get the strangest variation of the 90's "little theropods are in one clade, big theropods are in a different one" Great Theropod Classification Mess-Up I've ever seen, and it's right there in the preview of the video.  So basically, for a long time, little theropods like Compsognathus and Coelophysis and the smaller Maniraptors were all thought to be related and placed in the Coelurosaur clade.  Meanwhile Allosaurus, Dilophosaurus, Spinosaurus and good old T. rex, since they were all large, were "Carnosaurs".  In hindsight, this is obviously wrong as hell and kind of like saying "Foxes, housecats, otters, and terriers are all in one family group; wolves, lions, wolverines, and Great Danes are in another, different family group."

Well according to "Eyewitness: Dinosaur", little theropods/Coelurosaurs are in the same family group as birds and large theropods/Carnosaurs are in the same group as... crocodiles.  Which is like saying, "Foxes, housecats, otters, and terriers are all in one family group which also includes pinnipeds (I guess?  Look, we have a distinct lack of an entire clade of diverse flying carnivores, so stay with me.)  Meanwhile, wolves, lions, wolverines, and Great Danes are in another, different family group which also includes... Dimetrodon." That is, at least, a new one.

Have a lovely Thanksgiving, everyone!  I am, as always, truly thankful for all of you. 💖

-----

Art of the Day!  A nice little landscape for your holiday weekend.

Draw Dinovember Day 21 and "Jim Henson's Turkey Hollow"

Three out of four hawks like being in this painting.



We'll round out our look at Thanksgiving specials with the very freshly premiered Lifetime Original Movie "Jim Henson's Turkey Hollow". Here's the trailer:



Based (in the sense that the setting is called Turkey Hollow and involves Creature Shop creatures and literally no other way at all) upon Henson's recently rediscovered "Musical Monsters of Turkey Hollow" story, this sure is a Lifetime movie in which Creature Shop creatures show up, with all that implies.  As usual, my transcribed notes, for your amusement:

* - "Why am I even here?" - Ludacris
* - There have been a lot of insufferable kids in the specials we've seen this week but *daaaaaamn*...  I want to see both of these brats get messily eviscerated by turkeys or monsters or both.
* - I would like a Ghillie Suit for Christmas, though.  Oh, the fun I'd have...
* - "Hey, kids!  We know what the Internet is!" - Whoever wrote this
* - It takes 40 minutes for the monsters to show up and... I don't know if it's worth it.
* - Hey, take a photo of the monsters, you stupid kids!  The walking barfed-up hairballs are right in freaking front of you!
* - Take pictures of the Uncanny Valley pumpkins while you're at it!
* - Oh, FML, is this turning into a "science vs. just believing" thing?
* -The stupid kids find a "Pikmin 2" tunnel that might lead to a Magical Land, and not only do they not take a picture of it, they don't show any interest in it at all.  I really hate these insufferable idiot kids.
* - Take a photo of the villain-guy's illegal turkey operation (Jiminy Cricket, look at what I just wrote; this f-ing movie) you stupid, stupid..... Oh, hey, they're actually taking pictures now.  Huh.
* - And then their one phone that the stupid kids brought with them in the ancient, sprawling, monster-infested forest overnight is stolen by the bad guys and stomped upon.
* - The bad guys have locked the kids in their illegal turkey pen overnight, it's now the next morning, and JUST NOW they remember the sister is allergic to feathers.  (Screams and screams...)
* - Take a photo of the monsters roughing up the bad guys, you stupid kids!
* - "Auntie, you discovered a new species?  Why did you keep them a secret?  You could have been rich and famous!" - stupid kids

Yeah, like all those many and varied super-rich and famous biologists out there!  Household names living in solid gold mansions, the lot of them!  You know, like... I'll think of one, just give me a minute...
* - "Well, I kept them a secret because I wanted to keep some *Magic* in the world!" - Auntie

Auntie, if somebody runs over or shoots one of your monster friends because you never let anybody know that the forest really does have a unique species in it that the locals should be familiar with and whose forest home should be protected, I want you to know that it's going to be your fault.  Specifically your fault because of your "screw science; magic and mystery for life" bull.
(Damn, I just came up with a more interesting plot.  When does NaNoWriMo start?  Oh.  Well, maybe next year.)
* - Oh, and these Musical Monsters of Turkey Hollow sing exactly one song in this 90-odd minutes of, to borrow a phrase, "Hashtag Boring".  And it's right before the end credits.

So overall, from these Thanksgiving specials, I have learned that Thanksgiving is super weird and often involves annoying furry creatures and insufferable stupid children.  Also something about Pilgrims, Indians, Turkeys, and food, I guess.  Seriously, though, I hope your holiday was and is awesome.  Will we be exploring weird Christmas specials next month?  We shall see...

Draw Dinovember Day 20 and "The Thanksgiving That Almost Wasn't (But Then Was)"

I hope people find Woodpeckers as cute as I do.
...
I hope everyone on my holiday gift list likes birds...



This is the least-bad of the Thanksgiving specials I watched this week, so it gets to be posted about on the big day itself.  It's still not very good.



* - This opening sequence.  Ahaha,*damn*.  Kids, memorize these lyrics and sing them to your family for hours of fun.
* - That one little dance those folks were doing is... something.
* - Yup, this sure is a Hanna-Barbera cartoon about Thanksgiving.
* - The Native Americans make out a *little* bit better in this special than in the others we've watched so far, but, eh, don't get your hopes up.
* - We learn that the first Thanksgiving was almost cancelled because of two annoying kids.
* - The squirrel has to save the two annoying kids from being chased around by a wolf.  Why didn't he stop the two annoying kids from chasing the wolf pups around in the beginning?  After all, that's what started this whole mess.
* - What the hell sound was that bat making?
* - What the hell sound was *everything* making?

Seriously, though, I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving.  I am thankful for all of you.  I mean that.

Draw Dinovember Day 19 and "The Great Turkey Caper"

More cute birds!



It is time for us to deal with Buttons and Rusty.  I narrowly avoided having to tackle their Halloween episode earlier, but theirs is one of the only Thanksgiving specials available on YouTube, so here we are.



* - You'd be forgiven if you assumed most of this special was based on the obvious conflict inherent in "Hey, let's invite our turkey friends to Thanksgiving!"  It's not.  It's a lot less interesting, but then, turns out most plots for Thanksgiving specials would be.
* - Holy Mary Mother of God, the first Thanksgiving dream Buttons and Rusty have...
* - Specifically, I can't even with Kitu and his family.  (Screams internally.)
* - But I do need to call out this line of dialogue: "Look!  People with feathers!!!"  (Screams internally forever.)
* - So here's your actual, non-that-awkward-moment-when-you-invite-turkeys-to-Thanksgiving plot: it looks like the wild turkeys of P*ckerwood Clusterf*ck Chucklewood Park are being captured by poachers.  But then the poachers say they are really from the "Wildlife Conservation Society".  And they're taking the turkeys away from their home to another place with more food.  

Wildlife Conservation Society feels pretty Sus...

Draw Dinovember Day 18 - And It's Thanksgiving Specials Week!

You may have noticed that Thanksgiving specials aren't really a thing as much as Christmas specials, Halloween specials, or even Easter specials are.  It's hard to say specifically why that is, but it feels like making a good Thanksgiving special is hard.  I mean, it says something when even the first Thanksgiving-themed episode of "The Simpsons" was a bummer that I almost never saw in reruns.  Maybe watching what few Thanksgiving specials I can find on YouTube will help explain some of this.

To start, let's watch "The Mouse On the Mayflower"!



On second thought, let's not.  Because I just watched it for the first time in ages and it's the *specific* kind of awful holiday special that could ruin the holiday in question.

But if you do decide to watch it, here are things to look for:
* - I really should not have watched this special in the immediate wake of watching this.
* - That opening song...
* - Scratch that.  ALL the songs...
* - The only reason I know this 1968 Rankin-Bass oddity exists is because of the one time my aunt confused it's box at the video store for that of "An American Tail".  See if you can guess where "Mouse on the Mayflower" lost us.
* - I also had "Mouse on the Mayflower" confused with "Night Before Christmas" for years.   It doesn't have the distinctive Paul Coker Jr. character designs of the latter special, but the mice look similar enough.
* - If you watched "American Tail" as a kid and thought, "They really are not paying enough attention to the humans on this boat," boy have I ever got a movie for you.
* - If you watched "American Tail" or "Night Before Christmas" or anything really as a kid and thought, "This needs more staggeringly clueless and offensive depictions of Native Americans," boy have I EVER got a movie for you.
* - This romantic subplot...
* - They just won't stop *singing*!
* - Even ignoring the talking animals, this account of the first Thanksgiving doesn't strike me as very accurate.  (This will, needless to say, be true for all the specials we watch this year.  Because when you are spending the amount of time you have to in order to make an animated short, it is way hard to carve out a few hours in pre-production to do the research you guys.  Even for more recent specials.  Especially for more recent specials.)

-----

Draw Paint Dinovember!  I like owls...

Let's Give "Nickelodeon's Thanksgiving Fest" More Love!

Last year, on America's Annual Ritualistic Gorging on Hideously Human-Altered Theropods Day, I attempted to Live-Blog the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and... it didn't go over that well, so I ain't doin' it again. Ever. Maybe.

But I also shared this very strange and almost-totally-forgotten Holiday special appropriate for today: "Nickelodeon's Thanksgiving Fest/Extravaganza!" I think it needs it's own post, don't you?



If my foggy memory is correct, this was aired in 1989 and ran several times during Thanksgiving Day (making it seem like it went on for hours and hours). This special seems a little rushed in parts, especially in the beginning of "Thanksgiving Dream", but it showcases a nice variety of animation directors who made those wonderful Mtv networks bumpers.

I rather like the shorts by Joe Ahlbum more than the longer stories. Kevin Altieri's "Thanksgiving Nightmare" is kinda fun, but gives me a nasty "Capitol Critters" flashback, and Joe Pearson's aforementioned "Dream" is just... strange. It feels too much like one of those "sappy" episodes of "Animaniacs", like "A Gift of Gold". Highlights are the narrator acting like it is an unimaginable horror that the story takes place in a pre-Atari world (really) and a bad guy who inadvertently made Oogie Boogie and Clayface my crack pairing.

I hope we all have a lovely Thanksgiving and a wonderful holiday season. And since it is something of a tradition around here:

Thanksgiving! Also, I Attempt to Live-Blog the 2010 Macy's Parade

Which probably is a logistical nightmare that will not work. We'll see.

Heck, I may not even be awake in real life yet. I did have the foresight to set the DVR and my alarm, so we shall see what happens.

I recommend reading all the parade recaps at X-Entertainment (conveniently collected in this blog post), this Onion AV Club post from a few years back (very good but why the "Foster's Home" hate?), and this recent follow-up. And this terrific Homestarrunner.com cartoon (what the heck happened to those guys anyway?) They deftly summarize why I cannot get enough of this stupid parade every year. It is deeply strange, shamelessly commercial, and at times you almost feel ashamed for everyone involved. However, it also acts as a very odd yet accurate pop-culture barometer, and that is what makes it fascinating.

With that in mind, here is a (coffee!) Drinking Game I invented last year. Excellent examples of all these instances can be seen in the above-mentioned X-E articles. Take a sip...
* - Every awkward and/or off-model character float or costume.
* - Every time the hosts mispronounce someone's name.
* - Every time the hosts misidentify someone.
* - Every weird juxtaposition between the performers on a float and the theme of the float. (On that note, this year Kanye West is the equivalent of a "free space" in Bingo.)
* - Drink deeply when you notice how much bigger and more elaborate the Barney and Barbie floats are compared to the Sesame Street float.
* - Here's the big one. Take a shot every time it is blatantly obvious that the hosts only have a small notecard explaining (or not) who the fictional character, band, or other entity now visible in the parade is. (In other words, for you Tropers, Cowboy Beebop At His Computer = You Taking A Drink. The "Snoop Doggie-Dogg" incident still wins.)

What odd things shall we see this year?

----

JUST in case this is a total failure, I have for you a very strange and almost-totally-forgotten Holiday special appropriate for today: Nick's Thanksgiving Extravaganza!



If my foggy memory is correct, this was aired in 1989 and ran several times during Thanksgiving Day (making it seem like it went on for hours and hours). This special seems a little rushed in parts (especially the beginning of "Thanksgiving Dream"), but it showcases a nice variety of animation directors who made those wonderful Mtv networks bumpers. I rather like the shorts by Joe Ahlbum more than the longer stories. Kevin Altieri's "Thanksgiving Nightmare" is kinda fun, but gives me a nasty "Capitol Critters" flashback, and Joe Pearson's aforementioned "Dream" is just... strange. It feels too much like one of those "sappy" episodes of "Animaniacs", like "A Gift of Gold". Highlights are the narrator acting like it is an unimaginable horror that the story takes place in a pre-Atari world (really) and a bad guy who inadvertently made Oogie Boogie and Clayface my crack pairing. The special was uploaded by Youtube user Bbahalt, and her(?) Channel is making me gleefully rub my hands for Christmas...

----

Macy's Parade Live-Blog!

9:10 - I'm awake! I didn't forget! I was in the kitchen getting breakfast and they cut the ribbon and I put too much sugar in my coffee cause I got surprised and... nobody's actually reading this live, are they?
(Ahem) Good morning and Happy Thanksgiving everyone! So there's a squirrel who is stubbornly trying to attack my (squirrel-proof) feeder, and in Parade action, we have learned that for some people "Cotton Eye Joe" will never stop being funny.

9:17 - OK, the people who made that creepy rocket-baby photo commercial have *never* paid attention to the lyrics in "Brand New Rollerskates" have they? (At least they are more subtle than, say, "Ride My Pony".)
Also, DO NOT LEAVE BABY UNATTENDED IN THING THAT CAN ROLL AWAY GOD DAMMIT!!! (I almost died when I got to watch a family take a picture of their baby -in a carriage- on the f***ing edge of a T platform *as the train was approaching*. )

9:20 - There are lots and lots of "F*** it, let's just write a musical around our favorite band's popular songs" musicals out there, so this was only a matter of time. But... Green Day has one of these musicals now. I am old.
Also, the title of the song is "Good Riddance". Take a sip.

9:26 - So according to Coca-Cola, Santa Claus is... God. Also, we all live in the Tommy Westphall Universe.

9:29 - Could something like "Rent" even survive if it had debuted in this "Let's just write a musical around popular songs"/"Let's just turn a move into a musical" Broadway environment?

9:40 - "PLEASE watch 'Outsourced'! And we PROMISE that 'The Cape' is different from all those shows by Glen Larson in the 80's!"

9:45 - Yeah... "Elf: The Musical"... yeah...

9:50 - Jeez, American Girl dolls still exist? Except it looks like now, instead of having to pick from three girls from three different historical periods (later to be joined by at least two more "ethnic" dolls: an escaped slave and a pre-Columbian Native American. Yeah...), you get to create your own modern girl.

9:55 - Ooh, the Rockettes! That means the actual parade part of the Parade is about to start!
Ad thanks to a quirk of Spellcheck, I JUST got the Rockettes/Rockets pun.

10:00 - So there is a new Peanuts special coming soon? Also, horribly off-model Peanuts costumes! (Characters with heads bigger than their bodies tend not to translate well at all.)

10:02 - On the other hand, those old big-head pilgrim things have got to scare children.

10:05 - I take it Arlo isn't going to get to sing the later verses of this song (as with "Born in the USA", it was a protest song misconstrued as a fist-pumping patriotic anthem). Also, the sight of a giant turkey serving a Thanksgiving feast as on that float is... unsettling.

10:08 - I still don't know what to think of the new "Muppet" movie.

10:11 - D'aww, Sesame Street. And they didn't say anything in the spiel, but is Wimpy Kid the first literary character balloon?

10:13 - It strikes me as very odd that the whole selling point of the X-Box KINECT is, "Aren't Wii-motes soooooooo hard to figure out?"

10:16 - RE: "Hop!" I... I don't even know.
Actually, I do: they're asking us to get excited about an Easter movie on Thanksgiving. I've lately had the existentially horrific perception that time is speeding up as I grow older, and this isn't helping.

10:18 - I hope people are aware that The Roots predate Jimmy Fallon's show by a good... however long it's been since my freshman year in college.
By the way, anyone who hates on "Do They Know it's Christmas" can go right to hell. (I have seen a surprising amount of dissent for it in the past few years. Jeez, it's a charity single, who'd complain about something so well-meaning? [The recent remake of "We are the World" is up for mockery, however. I'll take Bob Dylan over Autotuning any damn day.])

10:22 - This is what the group of humans behind "Mannheim Steamroller" looks like. Huh.

10:24 - A McDonald's commercial where a mother lies to her adorable daughter about where her food comes from. THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS!!!
On a happier note, the Chickadees are loving something in the bird feeder. Can't quite tell what though. I have experimented with Safflower this year, so...

10:26 - So... you announcers never watched "Despicable Me".
Also, the minions on the Statue of Liberty float. Take a sip.

10:29 - I know they want to remind us that the Disney Dream ship is setting sail soon, but wouldn't you love to have seen an "Epic Mickey"-style balloon?

10:30 - I have nothing at all to add to the pizza-twirling team.

10:34 - Pink and lime green = timeless.

10:40 - Oh God oh God! (No, I hadn't seen the "Yogi Bear" trailer yet. Yes, the dead-eyed characters are doubly horrifying in motion.)


10:47 - Kylie Minogue on a float made of creepy giant pull-toy ducks = Take a sip.

10:50 - Munchkins with bits of sausage inside. Dunkin' Donuts, what happened to you?

10:54 - That Shrek balloon is bound to frighten children. That grimacing face!
Also, the "Imagination!" song from "Fantasmic" in the Disney parks is "a patriotic march" according to the announcers.

10:57 - You know what, Takashe Murukami woke up in the morning, put that costume on, looked in the mirror, and liked what he saw. So, preemptively, shut up.

10:58 - You know what I just said about the Shrek balloon? Yeah. That goes double for whatever the heck that blue-haired thing is on the Princess Academy float.
Ah, the five minute long Barbie retrospective commercial is back! I can use the ladie's room and get more coffee.

11:07 - OK, I hope I didn't miss anything interesting. Here is yet another band I have never heard of. And they are singing the least convincing song about being a hard-partying rock star since that excremental Nickelback song.

11:09 - Listening to the announcers tackle the pronunciation of Reshiram and Zeckrom = Sublime. Bonus: "Po-kee-mans".

11:15 - A-a-a-a-n-d begin the "Turn Off The Dark" jokes!

11:17 - And so, Kanye rides on the Big Apple float. I was secretly hoping it really would be the Barbie float.

11:22 - The Horton balloon looks... odd to me. And what I sad about big-headed characters definitely applies to Dora. She looks like the infamously terrifying Rainbow Brite costume.

11:29 - This Dance Troupe: "Well, we have a great medly of holiday classics and a dance routine all set. Now, you want us to wear WHAT?!?"

11:30 - The Build-A-Bear float unleashes a hurricane of bear puns from the announcers. Oh, God, I feel like I'm stuck in a Xanth novel!
Also, ADD is a fun thing to sing about.

11:45 - I know the Macy's floats and balloons are going to go down to Universal Studios Florida but... why?

11:48 - Aww, it's good to see the Smurfs back in the parade.

11:51 - Ooh, the Snow Queen float is pwetty.

11:57 - SANTAAAA!!!
By the way, why the heck aren't they just singing "I Still Believe in Santa Claus"?
And is it me or did they slip something funny in Santa's coffee?

12:00 - Welp, this was fun, and probably would have been even more fun if I wasn't such a terrible typist. I'm off to enjoy delicious orange goo and T. rex-sized drumsticks. Everyone have a happy Thanksgiving and I'll post again on Tuesday!

----

Oh, hey, guess what?

Feederwatch Thursday!

Rock Pigeon 1
Downy Woodpecker 1
Black-capped Chickadee 2
Northern Cardinal 2
House Sparrow 25

Speaking of birds, here's a nifty Dinosaur Tracking post about things to pause and think about before you fight over who gets to crack apart the wishbone.

Let us not forget the true meaning of Thanksgiving.

---- 
It's funny how food-centric this holiday season really is.  I stopped at CVS on the way home and was delighted to find that Archway Gingerbread Men are back! For some reason, I remember these little gingermans were a favorite Christmastime snack and I hadn't seen them in a long time. I also seem to recall that they used to have about as much icing on them as that paragon of mass-marketed cookie, the Iced Animal Cracker. Oh well. Something finally something occurred to me while I was eating one of these cookies. Maybe you've wondered this too. They're always Gingerbread *Men*. You hardly ever see gingerbread cookies baked in any other shapes. So who in the world decided to anthropomorphise gingerbread?
Well, anyway, it's just nice to have them to accompany a mug of cocoa with a wonderful Christmas Tree Peep floating within (I am to understand that the Christmas Peeps that are flavored as stuff are the real finds but these are good too [note: this is before I knew about Cocoa Cats]) and the customary airing of Charlie Brown.----
As a fun Black Friday bonus, here's a "Q-Bert" Thanksgiving special. The 1980's was a magical time when you could make a cartoon about anything, but I had no idea that there was a "Q-Bert" Thanksgiving special. Here is an abridged version, care of The Retroist:

And speaking of YouTube joy, I can't believe I failed to link to this earlier:

----
Feederwatch Friday!
I am thankful for having a lot of biodiversity in my backyard.
Rock Pigeon - 9
Downy Woodpecker - 2
Blue Jay - 1
American Crow - 4
Black-capped Chickadee - 3
White-breasted Nuthatch - 1
House Finch - 3 (Haven't seen these guys in a while.)
House Sparrow - 25

In addition, I had a flock of about thirty Starlings descend upon my lawn for about as long as it took to count them, a pair of Blue Jays, and a male Cardinal who quickly established himself as King of the backyard. All on non-count-days.
----