Episode 31 - Classic Christmas Songs We Love and Hate

We take a holly, jolly trip through classic Christmas recordings from favorites like Bing Crosby, Andy Williams, Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, and more!

Episode Transcript

(00:04):
It's The Dearly Departed podcast, featuringyour host, historians Scott Michaels and filmmaker
Mike Dorsey. All Right, welcome. It is a episode thirty one of
The Dearly Departed Podcast, and I'mMike Dorsey and I'm Scott Michaels, and

(00:29):
today we're going to talk about Christmasclassic songs and the people who sang them,
and then at the end we're gonnago over some of the ones we
hate. Oh my god, Ican't wait. You have an AX to
grind. Oh my god, Ihave a list like the size of my
arm. That amazing. Well,I'm I'm excited. I'm excited you gonna

(00:52):
do it. Before we get intothat, though, I wanted to ask
you, did you watch The Beingthe Ricardos? I did? Yeah?
Did you? Yeah? I watchedit to day. I mean I guess
it came out yesterday. We're recordingthis on the twenty seconds, So yeah,
I loved it. Yeah, Imean I only had a few reservations
about it. I can't wait towatch it again. How did you feel
about it? I liked it.I it took me a good well,

(01:15):
it took me a good half hourto be convinced of the act thing,
you know, because you have suchsuch good you know, we know who
these people were very well. Soit was difficult for me to get into
the portrayals. But I did ultimately, and it took me a good hour
to get in. Maybe it didn'treally grip me until like the last hour.
The last hour really got me.I was hooked, and but the

(01:38):
rest of it I kind of wouldjust you know, sat through and it
was just this, all right,this is interesting. I love seeing the
sets. That was really cool anduh and uh. And they did throw
a lot of information into that oneweek. You know. I loved how
they showed so much of the creativeprocess, you know, the writer's rooms
and how involved uh you know Balland DESI were in, Yeah, in

(02:01):
that process and her process. Iliked how they would um, they would
kind of go into Lucio Ball's mindas she's being pitched scenes and she's imagining
how how she would play them.Yeah, it's real. I thought it
was really really fascinating. Yeah,I was nice. I'm glad that they
portrayed it in such a way thatyou know, she was she always said,

(02:21):
I'm not funny, I'm funny.On paper or I'm sorry, I'm
funny in person, I'm funny.You can do prap falls and uh and
you know someone else could be reallyfunny naturally, I'm not. I'm funny
on paper and I like that anduh yeah yeah, and she you know
wouldn't. Yeah. No, Ithought she was pretty good Nicole Kidman.
I still can't get over her facebecause you know, I can't, but

(02:45):
she's such a beautiful woman. Idon't understand why people need to do that
to themselves. But but anyway,that's that's unost She nailed the voice really
well, she did. I guessI was reading today that she smoked a
lot during really production to get yeah, which makes sense. I know there
were a lot of people that weremad that that that Deborah Messing wasn't cast

(03:07):
as Lucio Ball because Deborah A.Messing did um. I think it was
an episode of Will and Grace.She did a really great like sind up
of I Love Lucy. They itwas like black and white and she played
you know, Lucy in it,and she was great as it at it.
But I think maybe people weren't takinginto account was this was not Lucy.
This was Lucille Ball and they're notlooking for someone who can do a

(03:30):
cool impression of Lucy from the show. The character they want. It's a
you know, it's a serious,dramatic role. Um. And I'm not
saying that Debor Messing couldn't do that, but it wasn't about doing a Lucy
impression. So yeah, yeah,no, that's a that's a really good
point. I didn't think about itthat way. But yeah, I remember
the hubbub when when it first cameout who they were casting. And I
guess Aaron Sorkin had it in hismind that's who he wanted from the start,

(03:53):
I guess. And uh, butyeah, it wasn't It wasn't an
impersonation, You're right, And DeborahMessing probably would have been fine, but
Nicole Kimmin was fine, and sheI thought she she's a good actress.
I like her as an actress.And I've never seen Debra Messing do anything
serious. So um. And itwasn't a funny movie, you know,
there was. There wasn't a comedy. It was a drama. So it's

(04:15):
good. Um. I thought itwas interesting. It covered some of the
same ground that we covered in ourepisode about it when you know, obviously
their marriage issues, which we talkedabout, and a lot did a lot
dealt a lot with the rivalry betweenBall and Vivian Vance, Yeah, and
how they kind of had a falland ended up having a falling out over
the way Vivian, you know,was her over how the actress, you

(04:35):
know, had to wear these frontbey outfits and you know, married to
a guy old enough to be yourdad or grandfather even you know. Yeah,
and she makes the line about howyou know, and the running gag
is that she's not attractive enough tobe his wife. It's like, you
know, yeah, um, andI loved I loved J. K.

(04:56):
Simmons as Frawley, and I lovedI think it's pronounced Nina arianda Um as
Vivian advanced. She's so. Iwas a big fan of hers from Goliath,
that show she did with Billy BobThorn. That just um. So,
I was super excited that she wascast. She's so good, She's
a Tony winner, she's a legit. Okay, well, you know that

(05:17):
was good. And I was surprisedat the portrayal of William Frawley. You
know, I didn't expect them tobe you know, as likable as they
made him in this in this soI like to think he was really that
way, you know, because theyhe yeah, you hate him in the
first scene. He's being a jerkin the table read scene, and then

(05:38):
they kind of he softens up abit as it goes on. I thought
it was. Yeah, it waspretty sympathetic based. Only it was cool
when they walked over to Boardners,wasn't it when they you know, they
were shooting at the the Desilu studios, which was actually on m is that
Las Palmus or Sycamore and right atHollywood Boulevard. So they left the studio
and walked across the street and theywere drinking in Boardners. We shot are

(06:00):
Departed. I didn't even notice.Yeah, man, see, I'm already
planning on watching it again because Iknow I missed stuff like that. Yeah,
it was cool. Um and didyou see where I think it was?
Um, I want to say itwas vintage. La pointed out that
the the establishing shot of Ciro's nightclubappeared to have been the same one used

(06:23):
for I think the movie Bugsy.I think so too. I think yeah,
stock footage that they're selling now ituh Yeah, it's funny because they
recreated the inside great, I think, um, but I guess for the
exterior they were just like, let'ssave a few hundred grand. Yeah,
why not. It was a nondescriptshot. Yeah, so uh but there's

(06:44):
so much of that, you know, after after Tarantino did Once upon a
Time in Hollywood, you know,they did that other movie called Liquorice Pizza
that's outright yeah yeah, and they'reputting La back again. And there was
another show for Netflix. I forgotwhat is called to put the Viper Room
back as Philthy mcnasties. They justshot that and uh recently and then I

(07:05):
was I saw that movie recently lastnight in Soho, which I loved,
And they did the same thing thatTarantino did in Hollywood in London and Soho,
which is insane because it's always it'ssuch a small place and it's never
it's never quiet there. I reallyenjoyed what they do when they put actual
physical places back. That's that's prettythat's pretty cool. So um, I

(07:30):
recommend everybody run out and see Beingin the Ricardos. It's on Amazon Prime
if you're a subscriber, you canwatch it now. Yeah, so what
so what do you got going onfor Christmas? Mike? Um, well,
there was just a COVID diagnosis inmy family, So I am going
to apply to a drive by Christmas. Just the presents out the window way

(07:54):
even just kind of toss them likea night in the newspaper and keep going.
Guys, how about you? I'msorry, that sucks, that's yeah.
How about you? What are youdoing well? Do you well?
Do you have any like personal trade? I see all those decorations around your
house, Um, just ducked outto the night. You have anything?

(08:15):
Yeah? I put up a midcentury tencil tree in my living looks really
nice. And I have all vintageornaments from by the forties, fifties,
sixties that I decorated with because I'min the mid century modern design and furniture.
So um yeah, I put atree up. That's the full effort.
Yeah, we put her. Well, we got everything up in and

(08:35):
and we have a Santa had onthose altar I do. Oh yeah,
well actually he's not. It justlooks that way, but that's his feather
um lights. Yeah, it's likeit actually does. He's festive year round
round. My Christmas tree or Troyand Ice. Christmas tree has uh two
shipwrecks, the Titanic, the EvanFitzgerald. We have a piece to Jane

(09:00):
Mansfield's car. We have a pieceof Sharon Tade's house, we have all
in ornaments, we have what elsedo we do? Well? I put
up the murder. Yeah, that'shere, Sharon Tade, thing Maywest's dental
work and it's all hanging on ourtree. And Kentucky Fried chicken barrels and
buckets and yeah, and we havethe del Ruvio triplets head heads. I

(09:24):
don't know if you saw that onmy Facebook page, but we we have
the wigs that they wore in thePewee's Christmas Special, along with the hats
that they wore when they say inWinter Wonderland. So there's a drag queen
in Vegas called James Mansfield who redeswigs, and I contacted him and I
said, you know, do youwant to mess with these wigs? And
he took him and he reconstructed themand rejudged them to be the del Ribo

(09:46):
Triplets. And I printed out theirheads their faces and put them on wig
forms. And it's really creepy becausethey do look like severed heads. And
it wasn't intentional. I thought itwas gonna be you know, cute and
lighthearted, and it looks a bitsinister, but still so yeah, that's
we have we have done it up. And also my favorite tradition is I

(10:07):
thumbed through with my my nineteen sixtynine Sears Christmas wish book. When I
was a kid, I used tolive for these Christmas catalogs from department stores
and just yeah, and you justflick through them and put make your list
up, and you make a newone the next day, and a new
one the next day. This onehas guns in it and the real animal
pelts for sale. This is sixtynine. Oh my god. Yeah,

(10:31):
you could buy real real cheetah skin, leopard skin for seven hundred dollars,
which in sixty nine is a lotof money. Um Leopard. I mean
these are genuine albums, our genuineuh skins of animals that they saw through
the department store. All that stuff. It's so bad, but it's actually
I actually have my grandfather's Sears andRoebuck twenty two rifle. Oh nice,

(10:56):
from like probably the twenties or thirties. That's so cool. Do you ever.
Do you ever take it out shootingwhen I was when I was young.
I did when we lived in Coloradoin the nineties. I we went
out and shot on our ranch alot with it. I mean, it's
just like a little squirrel rifle.It doesn't it's not gonna do a whole
lot of damage. Um, butit was fun to shoot. I'd not
anymore. I wouldn't trust it nowto shoot, but yeah, you definitely

(11:18):
need to have it looked at ifyou're gonna if you're gonna, don't like
your gun to blow up in yourhand. That would be bad. Yeah,
So now it's just nice to lookat, right, That's cool.
Um the um do you want?Well? I mean we're talking about holiday
songs. Did you? Um?Do you remember doing like the Christmas Concert
as a kid for school? Didyou? Yeah? Yeah, it was

(11:41):
fun going through these songs again becauseI noticed a few that I remember singing
as a kid, and I'm like, oh, this must be why they
were on the program, like Rudolphthe Red Nose Reindeer. Of course,
is when the secular songs, youknow, we need a little Christmas and
up on the rooftop click click click, which is kind of a forgotten song.
I feel like, other than Ithink it's only in kids programming.

(12:05):
I don't even know if they stilldo Christmas they Steven do still holiday shows.
I don't even know. In elementaryschools, I don't know. I
mean, I didn't even have amind. People don't even go to school
anymore, so I don't. Let'sdo a Christmas zoom concert. But that
was a big deal. I wasin band. I was an orchestra and
I was I was singing, soI was like all, you know,

(12:28):
running around during those concerts doing allthat stuff. But what I love?
Did you play in band? It'sclarinet. I still talked about this.
I feel like, yeah, Iplayed out those sacks. Yeah. I
love being in band. It wasa lot of fun. I was.
That's something I'm always grateful for mymom and dad let me do that,
and learning how to read music andbeing able to interpret it. I love

(12:48):
that being able to do that ascool? Right? Absolutely? Um,
so do you want to do doyou have any hate mail? You know?
No, right, we'll see himthe hate for the Christmas songs at
the end. Yeah, let's doYeah? No, I actually you know
why because we decided to do thisso quickly. I didn't. I've only

(13:09):
researched the subjects. I know thatthere's a little bit of a cluster somewhere
Troy saves him, but most ofthe stuff is pretty pointless. Um,
you know, it's the season forgiving, so we won't. We'll hold
back on the hate mail and keepit mostly positive. Okay, the well,
except for the Christmas songs, we'regonna be bashing and we're gonna bass

(13:31):
the hell out of opinion. Um. All right, well, let's well,
we'll start with the ones that thatwe like, and we're gonna we're
gonna do the main feature. Wayne. Feature is what I'm trying to say
exactly. It's time for the mainfeature. So, uh, I guess

(13:54):
we we So you and I havekind of picked our favorite classic Chris Miss
singers. Yeah, um, oneswith the big famous hits, and so
that's what we're gonna go. We'regonna talk about them and their songs and
uh and of course you know they'rethe ends of their lives. Um,
and I guess kick off with kindof the King of Christmas. I think

(14:15):
Bing Crosby. Yeah, yeah,I mean he's certainly I know for decades.
I don't know if it's still thesame anymore. That his White Christmas
was the number one song in theworld, like ever, Guinness Book of
World Records would always publish that.I looked it up again. It is
to this day. It is thebiggest selling um UH single worldwide in history.

(14:37):
It's fifty million sold, fifty fiftybillion, fifty million units. Really
that doesn't sing like very much.I mean it all out, of course,
but for like sixty years. Thenext highest one is Elton John's re
re recording of Kendall in a Winfor when Princess Diana died in ninety seven.

(14:58):
That's sold like thirty three That singlesould like thirty three million. That's
a pretty big gap between them.Yeah, but it's actually hard for them
to count because White Christmas came out, you know, in the forties,
and it was before there were reallypop charts, and so the record keeping
isn't as thorough as you know whenBillboard came around and and the other charts

(15:20):
showed up later. So they've kindof given it. I think Guinness is
kind of to please fans of everyoneof kind of made it a tie between
Elton John and bing Crosby. Butbut they're basically saying it's still being well,
you know what, It's funny becauseI was just doing research recently on
it's related Michael Nesmith, who passedaway very recently. The Monkeys, and

(15:43):
Michael Nesmith was quite interesting in theseinnovations. You know, he put he
basically started them TV and the musicvideos. But he was also an integral
part of getting upc labels put onrecords to keep track of stock because up
until that point, nobody was doingthat. So the artists were getting these
checks saying you had this amount ofthis amount sold and there was no real

(16:06):
account that there have to accept it. Yeah. Yeah, So so he
was an interesting part of all thatbecause he was like, now we have
to do so, you know,we have to figure out what's going on
exactly. And I thought that wasinteresting. So yeah, it's interesting to
think how many records may have soldben sold that are just not accounted for
publicly. They just they have toresearch and kind of make estimated guesses.

(16:29):
Yeah, over how much. ButI tell you, fifty million doesn't sound
like as many. I thought itwould have been more than that for some
reason. Yeah, so being uh, he just a quick overview of him.
He had forty one number one hitsat least up in addition to being
Um supposedly the third most popular actorin history as far as ticket sales go,

(16:49):
behind only Clark Gable and John Wayneinteresting Um. But his White Christmas
was written by Irving Berlin for themusical holiday and not as some people may
think, for White Christmas, themusical that came a decade later holiday and
came out in nineteen forty two withBeing and Fred Astaire, and it won
the Academy Award for Best Original Song. And it was first recorded before that,

(17:15):
before that film came out on ChristmasDay in nineteen forty one, just
eighteen days after the Pearl Harbor Attack, being performed on the radio for the
first time. And I think fora while they sold copies of that radio
recording until he could do a properstudio recording of it a few months later,
and it was the number one songfor eleven weeks. Wow, that's

(17:38):
really something. I didn't know thatabout Pearl Harbor, but that you know,
it's certainly well, it's much likethe Diana song. You know,
it really tugged at people's heart strings. They needed it at that time,
a little bit different circumstances when you'retalking about a war, you're talking about
a princess that got fired from ourjob basically, but beloved, but beloved

(18:00):
and uh and so yeah, it'sinteresting. It's like a not a knee
jerk reaction, but an emotional comfort. I think it was the right time
in place for the for that song. They hit right, and Irvan Berlin
said he reportedly called his secretary,you know, after he wrote the song
at a hotel. Um and heover the over a weekend, and he
reportedly called his secretary on like Mondayand told her to write the song down

(18:22):
and said something along the lines of, um, not only is it you
know, it's the best song I'veever written, it's the best song ever
written, or something like that.Like he instantly knew when he wrote it,
like this is a huge hit.Um. And being kind of didn't
see it that way. Just whenhe recorded he saught out it's another song,
I think, and then it wenton to me this smash um,

(18:42):
well, well he is he wasan emotionally vacant individual, so right,
So what else is interesting is thatwhen he being did that nineteen forty two
studio recording after doing the radio recording, and then but then in nineteen forty
seven he rerecorded it um and theytried to you know, match up the

(19:03):
orchestration everything as faithfully as possible.But the forty seven recording is actually the
one that most people have probably actuallyheard the most, not the not the
original forty two studio recording. Andthe way you can tell the difference,
the easiest well way is um inthe intro with like the flutes playing before
you start singing, there is aninstrument called a celeste, which looks like

(19:25):
a piano, but it plays likechimes, and you hear that tinkle a
few kind the kind of bell soundsright before you start singing. That's how
you know you're hearing the nineteen fortyseven version and not the older forty two.
Plus I think the forty seven versionjust the quality of the recording,
it's a little bit better. MWow, that's fascinating. I didn't know
any of that stuff so um sowhen they when they made did they you

(19:48):
think they made the movie White Christmas, Um wrote it around the song that
was such a success at I guessthat was That's what I was thinking,
yeah, it's such a massive hit. Almost a decade later, they're like,
we're making a whole movie out ofthis irving Berlin music. You know,
because yeah, because if you say, if you ask anyone, they
would say, oh, yeah,that was featured in you know, White
Christmas, of course, but itwas actually, yeah, like almost ten

(20:12):
years earlier. Interesting, I rememberthat song. Well it's still I mean,
it struck a big churt. Iremember my grandma, my granny who
was she was born in eighteen eightynine. My god, to think,
you know, to know that youhave a grandparents born in the eighteen hundreds,
both my yeah, eighteen eighty andnine and eighteen eighty eight were my

(20:32):
grandfather and my grandmother. Yeah,so and that makes me wish I would
have, you know, if Ihad a thought to talk to him more
about it, because they died inthe seventies, you know what I mean.
I was around. I remember themvery well. But but my granny
her, that was her song,and Troy's too. In fact, yeah,
Troy saw to it that White Christmasjust played at his grandmother's funeral because
it's her favorite song. And itwas like in the middle of June or

(20:55):
something that you know, but itwas like, no, we're playing this,
you know, because that was hersong. Uh so so as really
sweet. But yeah, I meantI meant a lot to a lot of
people. So being was a hugelysuccessful businessman, probably one of the great
most successful businessmen in history of youknow, Hollywood actors. Um, I
didn't know this. He was aprincipal stockholder and Minute made orange juice.

(21:17):
Yeah that will figure. Was manymany huge business adventures that he was a
part of. He also had anumerous mob associations. Um unlike Sinatra,
wasn't very open about it, buthe was. But he was a bit
of a gambling addict and there wereseveral times I guess when he wrote thousands
and gambling debts to some bad peoplethat wanted that would have killed him if
he didn't pay it back and hadto borrow money in order to do it.

(21:41):
Um, so he really put hislife in risk. But he was
he was just he was an avidgambler and an avid golfer. That was
kind. Those were like his twohobbies, I think, and a womanizer.
And you know, I mean hewas a Yeah, he was a
piece of work. He was.But we want to talk. You want
to go into all that, well, I mean, yeah, but also
I found interesting I just did.I did a quick I looked at his

(22:03):
Wikipedia page. I didn't realize hewas pro pot. You know, he
was. He was trying to legalizemarijuana, which I think is really interesting.
Of all people, you know,he's probably you know, hippies,
and they hate hippies. Yeah,he was, you know, a pot
smoker. Really, as far ashe was very anti alcohol. I think
he blamed alcohol for the death ofhis first wife and told his kids stay

(22:26):
away from it and was basically like, smoke pot instead. That was I
think that's why he was pro marijuana, because alcohol was so damaging. Interesting.
Wow. But his son Gary wrotean infamous book about being in nineteen
eighty three called Going My Own Way, which really I think set set in

(22:47):
stone the negative perception a lot ofpeople have of being basically child abuse.
That it was alleged against all hiskids. Yeah, well, how many
children? Two of four committed sue? Did you know two of his sons
used to perform with him. Theyshotgun wounds to the head self inflicted,

(23:10):
And uh, I don't know.I mean, I've never heard anything good
about him personally. He was agreat performer, a great entertainer. He
was part of that Bob Hope brigade, who was another one who famously treated
people like hell uh, they usedto swap girlfriends, they say, and
uh um, you know, treatedwomen like garbage and well, like pieces
of meats basically, you know,ha ha ha and uh. And and

(23:33):
also you know, his his abuse, the stuff that they say he did,
I can't dismiss it, you know, I mean, because it's not
like the Christina Crawford thing, whicha lot of people just thought was b
asked from the start. And butthis there's a lot of information in there
that I don't know. I wasn'tthere, but I can see being I

(23:53):
can see that happening. I didn'tknow the people. So yeah, it
seems to depend on which sibling youtalked to, because a daughter and one
of his other sons came out.Well, a daughter came out and said
that Gary, who wrote the book, had admitted to her that he had
exaggerated things because the publisher pushed himto do it because they would sell more
books if it was more salacious.And another one of his sons really didn't

(24:15):
like Gary, called him a whining, bitching, cry baby, But then
other ones seemed to be more likeeither wouldn't say one way or the other,
or we're kind of like, yeah, there were bad times, but
we choose to remember the good times. You know, it wasn't all bad
being around him, Yeah, butbeing even kind of blamed himself in an
interview for not being a good dadand for maybe being too strict with his

(24:38):
kids. I mean, it wasa different time. My grandparents were very
strict. I mean they were veryThere wasn't a lot of joy, you
know, and around them. Imean it's not saying they weren't happy people,
but they were very strict, youknow, Catholic people, and you
rule by the I don't want tosay rule by the fist, it doesn't
make sense. But we weren't strangersto getting hit when we were kids,

(25:00):
getting punished, not not humiliated likelike they say that, you know,
Bing did to his kids, whippingthem with belts until they bled, calling
him bad ass and lard ass andintroducing him that way to like his professional
associates. Yeah, yeah, yeah, humiliating. I mean they said that,

(25:21):
well, Gary, you think inhis book said they used to um,
they said they leave a pair ofunderwear laying around being would make them
tied around her neck and wear itfor the whole day shoes or something.
Yeah, humiliating, and so thatthat's more. That is certainly. I
mean there's something to be said aboutpunishment and it's like, oh, I
won't do that again. But thenthere's humiliation, and that's that's a totally

(25:45):
different ball game. I think it'slike teachers when they used to make you
sit in the corner, or standin a waste basket or or do whatever,
sit there with chewing gum on yournose. I mean, it was
just like humiliating, and maybe thatwas the point, but that was the
point. It just it just wasa borderline abusive and as I said,
well it was. It wasn't borderline, It was abusive. And you know,

(26:06):
as I said, two out offour of his kids committed suicide.
And also he when he when hedied, he put in his will that
they can't inherit anything until he's they'resixty sixty five years old, Yeah,
they get no inheritance. Like atleast two or three of his kids didn't
even live to be that age.Like three of his kids died before then,
you know, so it's like it'slike a final fu. I don't

(26:26):
know, I don't know. Ijust have not heard very many nice things
about him. I would get theinheritance thing if it was not sixty five,
but like say forty or something likebasically saying, look, you can't
just turn twenty one and coast therest of your life on the family money.
You got to go do something withyour life and not be a jurse,
you know. But sixty five,like, come on, man,

(26:47):
um, Yeah, it's a bit, especially when you grow up in the
lap of luxury and then you're justtossed out. Yeah, you know what
I mean. I think one ofthe sons killed himself. They said one
of the reasons was that his hediscovered that his inheritance was gone or something
thing like that, you know,and that was it. He was already
distraught and whatever. Um but beingdied on a golf course in Spain on

(27:11):
October fourteenth, nineteen seventy seven,of a massive heart attack while walking back
to the clubhouse after playing eighteen holes. His last words were, supposedly,
that was a great game of golf, fellows, Let's go have a coca
Cola and then he dropped dead infront of him with the proverbial nineteenth hole

(27:33):
on the way to the clubhouse andhe uh yeah, they shipped him back
here, and you know, hisbody was handled by that mortuary on on
Fountain and Western. It's now likea called Covenant Houses for kids, runaway
kids. But that's the same onethey handled Divine and handled the Shalomar.

(27:56):
It was Shalomar who was Eddie Murphy'sprostitute that that committed suicide absolutely five story
building. Yeah yeah, and shethey handled her. But the guy who
was playing there was a kid thatwas working at the mortuay at the time
snuck a photograph of Bing Crosby inhis casket and sold it to the Inquirer.

(28:17):
And now you know, there's apicture of Bing Crosby and his casket
all over the world because of thiskid who did nothing at that point except
lose his job. But nowadays,you know, they'd be raked over the
coals and sued and etcetera, etcetera. But but yeah, so there is
a picture of Bing Crosby in hiscasket floating around the internet because of this
kid. It seems to be therewas a dispute over how old being was

(28:41):
when he died. Oh yeah,because the wikipedius is he's seventy four,
and that seems to be in themost commonly accepted age. But if you
go back and read the original newsreports from seventy seven, they said he
was seventy three, and his gravemarker says he was born in nineteen oh
four, which would make him seventythree in supposedly he was actually born in
nineteen oh three. Well, letme look at his um, let me

(29:06):
look at his death certificate and seewhat that says, because that would well
that's the most you know, quoteunquote official document. But in a second,
the La Times and the New YorkTimes said he was seventy three,
but they were probably both citing thesame source, you know, so who
knows? Yeah, yeah, andsince he was actually since he died in
Spain, I don't have his Spanishdeath certificate, so right, so unfortunately,

(29:30):
but um but yeah, so soit's interesting. I don't know,
it wouldn't be difficult to find outwhen he was born because that those records
are kept here and uh, butas far as his death goes, uh,
well that would that would be itI mean, we know when he
was born, so we could figureit out, right. It would be
interesting though, if his grave markerhas the wrong birth year M and and

(29:52):
he's buried in Holy Cross over inCulver City, just a few steps from
Belle Lagosi, m and Sharon Tateand Rita Hayworth and the tin man Jack
Haley. In fact, he's Ithink he's like right next to Jack Haley.
Are very close to him anyway.But but yeah, Holy Cross Catholic
Cemetery, a lot of great peoplein that cemetery and bang, and then

(30:15):
there's being in him being. Apparentlythe last song he ever performed for an
audience was Strangers in the Night.He performed it for construction workers that were
doing construction near the golf course theday he died, and they recognized him
and asked for a song, andhe sang Strangers in the Night, and

(30:37):
interesting died, you know, anhour later or whatever. Yeah, huh.
I also didn't realized this. Ididn't know. His granddaughter is Denise
Crosby, who was Tasha Yar onStar Trek Next Generation. Okay, that
one sounded out my yard early earlyseasons of Star Trek. And then she
asked to be killed off. Shedo want to do? Killed her?

(31:00):
Kill me? Now? Wow?She does the she produces the Trecky's documentaries.
Okay, all right, yeah,you're a bit of a you're you're
a treky NERD aren't. Yeah,I'm not, I but I I I
don't know, I might know.I wouldn't exering myself like a treky.
No, okay, you watch Imean I watched the shows, but I'm

(31:22):
not like a hardcore I haven't seenall of them. Yeah, I went
back to Lucy, and I meanLucy produced it. So that's if it
wasn't for Lucy, we probably wouldn'thave star Trek, at least not in
the incarnation we know it so absolutelyyep. So look he was he a
jerk? Wasn't he a jerk?Either way? Rest in peace? Spin
Crosbie, Well wait, wait,wait, wait, oh you've got to

(31:45):
bring up the most the most notI don't want to say it's being as
a human being is is you know, it's up to the gods, I
guess to figure that out or todeal with all of that. But bang,
as the man who sang Little DrummerBoy with David Bowie, do forgive

(32:07):
the one of the worst Christmas songs, in my opinion ever recorded. First
of all, A Little Drummer Boy, I think is one of the worst
songs ever because I can't as soonas I hear done and it's like done,
No, I can't, I can't. I despise every single version of
that song. But him and DavidBowie's just agony, agony to sit through

(32:28):
it. It's such a bizarre pairing. Yeah, but really, I'm sure
bang he had no time for Bowie. It was just a grab for you
know, viewers or whatever the network. But it was just a It was
a bad a weird pairing and aweird recording. And I just despise that
song and I hate that version morethan any there I said it fight me.

(32:54):
Do you know that's a tough songto sit through soon because it's agony.
It goes on forever or and everand anyway, Oh, you got
your tab? Have you still haveyour supplies? I am just they're they're
precious to me. They're precious.I only got a few left. Um,
all right, I was gonna gointo Andy Williams next. Um.

(33:20):
I like Andy Williams. You likeAndy Williams. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
you know, I feel like himbeing are kind of the voice of
Christmas there. I don't know,there's something about their voices that just instantly
and I guess probably because you know, they kind of That's how their career
kind of shook out. Two.Um, because Andy went on. Not
only did he record Um, It'sthe Most Wonderful Time of the Year of

(33:43):
course, which is kind of writtenfor him and part of his Christmas album,
but then he did those TV specialsin the seventies, eighties and nineties.
They were all Christmas Team, soI think they I saw his nickname
was mister Christmas. Yeah, hehad a few connections to being He and
and his brothers sang with Being innineteen forty four on Bing's record Swinging on

(34:05):
a Star. Um. I likethat song. One of Andy's main homes,
at least later in his life wasin Laquita, California, which is
largely believed where Irving Brilliant wrote WhiteChristmas, although I think there's a resort
in Phoenix that also claims it happenedthere. Um. And then, of
course, then they were both avidgolfers, which is like a running theme

(34:27):
for a lot of these guys.I like Andy Williams so much. I
didn't There's not much about him thatI've ever heard that was that was negative,
you know, and I enjoyed hisspecials. He be more or less
responsible for the Osman Brothers being knownbecause he featured them on his show all
the time. And of course moonRiver from Breakfast at Tiffany was a classic.

(34:51):
I mean, he has some greatmusic, he really did, and
uh, I know, I likehim very much with the music to Watch
the Girls Go By. I lovethat song very But you know when when
that song um most wonderful time ofthe year, I never really got it.
There's that verse when there'll be somethingsomething and scary ghost stories and you
know, lots of good cheer andit's like, well, wait, wait

(35:13):
what knack out back the truck upghost stories? I guess maybe, well
that's what. Yeah, it tookme years to figure it out, but
it was a Christmas carol, butit was yeah, it was yeah,
but it was like for you,I was like scary ghost stories. It
was just thrown in there, likewhat something else? There's a there's a
song that they consider a Christmas songthat I don't. Is my favorite things

(35:37):
by Julie Andrews. You know,these are a few of my favorite They
say that's a Christmas song, andI can't when the dog bites, when
the Beast things, and you know, I've never I don't think i've They
do say it is. Yeah,it's like die Hard being a Christmas movie.
That'll be argued forever. But yeah, what's mine? I don't.

(36:00):
I saw one, so I can'tsay I embraced it as such. I
mean it's hard. It's hard becauseit takes place at Christmas, during Christmas,
you know, Christmas season, andthere is I think Christmas music plays
at the end or whatever. Imean. But does this because the setting
is Christmas time, does that makeit a Christmas movie? Open interpretation?

(36:21):
It's not like Home Alone? HomeAlone is a Christmas movie. Yeah,
that's the whole point if it isto get home by Christmas or go yet.
Right, So I don't. Yeah, I don't know that I would.
I I don't know how I'm onthe fence on the die Hard Christmas
movie debate. Yeah, I don't. Really, I don't have a I
don't have a any stake in thatargument. I really don't. Oh,

(36:44):
I thought this was interesting So hisChristmas album, the Andy Williams Christmas album
what it was called, the onethat came out in the sixties. Um,
you know it's the most Wonderful Timeof the Year, which was like
his track, his song, andhe kind of originated it. I think,
Um, you would think that's theone and they would lead with,
But they actually led with his versionof White Christmas. That's the first single
that they released to promote it.And I almost wondered, that's just that

(37:08):
kind of show. I mean,that's two decades after that song was first
came out. Um, that's Ithink it almost shows like how big White
Christmas was that that was that that'swhat they would lead with, not the
original song that Andy became known for. Yeah, you know, I guess
you know whoever, you know,whoever he worked for, whoever his studio

(37:30):
was, they were just like youknow, I remember I was. I
was talking to Annie Lennox one time. We were talking, Yes, okay,
it was when they were before theeuroth Mix. They were in a
group called the Tourists, and sheand Dave Stewart and there were another two
people. And I love the Tourists. I mean, they're they're kind of
a psychedelic band, and the firsttime I ever saw them was in a

(37:50):
music video where Annie was saying theysaying I Only want to be with you
that that dusty Springfield song. Sowhen I had the opportunity to meet Annie
Lennox, I wanted to ask hersome thing that wasn't like, I really
love your work. I wanted totalk about something in particular, So I
want to ask about the tourists.And I said, well, you know
I first heard you when when youdid I only want to be with you.
She because when I heard that song, I cried because I didn't want

(38:13):
to do it. My record companyinsisted I do it. They made us
do a cover tune on the record, and they pushed that as our first
single. So that's probably what theydid. The record company is just like,
we're going to use that single.We own it already, maybe it'll
be, you know, become something. Yeah. They were probably like,
look, it's a tried and trueChristmas standard. Yeah, everybody knows,
well why Christmas is. Nobody knowswhat this new song is that you just

(38:36):
recorded, So let's lead with thestandard. You know, your your cover
of a standard and not you know, yeah, yeah, it gets point
when a water from a turnip orwhatever that expression is, you know,
get it, you know, useit, use it up right totally.
Um. He went on to recordeight Christmas albums and did multiple TV Christmas
specials. I think he did everyyear through the seventies and then kind of

(38:58):
intermittently in the eighties and nineties.Um. I thought it was interesting,
you know he um seems like hewas a pretty good guy, but he
had several weird tragedies around him.First, he was good friends with RFK
and was apparently there at the Ambassadorwhen the assassination happened. Really yep,

(39:19):
and then went on to sing itat Kennedy's funeral Bobby Kennedy's funeral. I've
never heard that one. That's interesting, yep. And then it's crazy right
yeah. And then uh and thenalso weirdly, his ex wife after they
divorced, she killed her boyfriend thatshe was living with in nineteen seventy six,

(39:40):
the pro skier Spider Savage. Yeah, she killed him in Aspen,
shot him. I guess. Uh. Andy Williams was you know, was
still close with her and was acharacter witness at her trial and everything,
and she basically got thirty days,yeah, for killing this guy. She
claimed it was an accident. Therewas, I mean, it was a

(40:02):
big deal back then. I rememberthat really vividly when that was all going
on, and because they were youknow, they're both like young and good
looking people, Spider Savage and uhand Claudine Lange and uh and yeah,
and Andy Williams certainly up the Ifit wasn't for his association, it probably
wouldn't have had the attention that itdid. There was I remember this really

(40:22):
vividly. There was a on SaturdayNight Live while the trial was going on,
there was a they would they weredoing, you know, they showed
like like the slope skiing down theslopes, and and they would have people
they had the agony of defeat.When they had the Sunday Morning or the
Sunday Sports whatever was, they alwaysshowed the Olympic skier falling or you know,

(40:43):
spinning out of control and hitting somekind of snow bank. So on
Saturday Night Live they had somebody doinga blow by blow of somebody skiing down
a hill and then when as soonas they took off, you know,
they lost their their whatever path andflew into the woods. They'd say,
oh, another skier accidentally shot byClaudine Lange, and there'd be another one
coming down and you hear this,wow, oh another singer accidentally show ski

(41:08):
or sung that's hilarious. Well,she claimed that the um that he was
trying to show her how to usethe gun, but he was shot in
the bathroom and was apparently like gettingready to take a shower. So yeah,
she just got something of reckless endangermentor some some lesser charge is what

(41:28):
they ended up convicting her of.It's entry. I mean you've handled weapons
before, yeah, and we likeif you have a gun, I mean
sometimes you just touched the trigger andboom, it's gone, you know,
And I mean it happens. Imeant, so if it was accidental,
I can kind of see it happeningbecause they are so guns could be so

(41:50):
sensitive. Sometimes guns have very sensitivehair triggers. And yeah, um,
yeah it happened to me once.I was at a shooting range and it
was like a competitive shooting gun.We were shooting with and they you want
to talk about light triggers and luckily, I mean I always keep the barrel
pointed down range and it but itdid go off when I wasn't ready to
um, and I was like,holy cod, I've never had that kind

(42:12):
of experience before, So it canhappen, but I don't know, man.
It just in recent Maneves there wasthat other shooting on set, and
you know, I can kind ofultimately it's you have the weapon in your
hands and you had your finger inthe trigger. So ultimately, yeah,
it's it's down to you. Butthen again, those people aren't aren't marksman.
They don't you know, they probablydon't spend much time at a shooting

(42:34):
range. They don't realize that,you know, you know, we're pointed
at somebody. I know on themovie set is different, but it's just
yeah, I mean the rule ofthumb is don't ever point your gun at
someone you don't want to shoot,and don't shoot someone you don't want to
kill. Yeah, so it goesdown to don't even They call it flagging.
You know, when your barrel pointsat a person, you just you
flag. You just flag them withyour gun. It's bad. You never

(42:54):
want to even accidentally, just inpassing, if you're moving the gun from
one place another, accidentally point inany one's direction. But yeah, with
movies. Obviously, if you're pointingthe gun of the camera, there's gonna
be a person there holding the camp. Yeah, so you can't get around
it. But yeah, I don'tknow. You know, she got off
with a license. And I thinkshe only had to do the thirty days,
like on weekends, um, becausethey were sensitive to her like being

(43:15):
able to spend time with her kids. So isn't it nice? Yeah?
There you are? Um. So. Andy Williams died on September twenty fifth,
twenty twelve, from bladder cancer.He was eighty four. Um and
I think is he the one thatowned the place in um or is it

(43:37):
someone else that's a place in?Right? Theater? Yeah, he owned
the Moon River Theater in Branston anduh and that's what they say. That's
where they say. He's scattered inthe river aton in the actual Moon River
in front of his theater. Right. So yeah, that's nice if they

(44:00):
ever tear it down. There's there'sthat. You know, all those people
they'd like get their ashes, youknow, put in fountains and things like
that. It's like, well,something's gonna happen too. It's just gonna
have been some drains somewhere but symbolically, it's just it's symbol Yeah, yeah,
yeah, But but I liked DandyWilliams and I love his Christmas album.
I just alwas album. I thinkhe did the best version of Windy.

(44:21):
I shouldn't say that I love thatsong. I love everyone who's done
that. But uh, but yeah, I do like I do like him.
So rest in peace, Andy Williams, Rest in peace, Andy Williams.
Um Perry Como, were you afan? I mean, I like
his I like his have yourself amerry little Christmas m Outside of that,

(44:43):
I don't know, you know,let's skip it then, Oh, I
don't want to talk about it.No, it's the one I hoped you
had something on because all I haveis I just really liked yourself a merry
little Christmas. Yeah, I likelike, I like Perry. Perry Como
is one of those people to methat I could skip, you know.

(45:04):
I mean, I'm not saying rightnow, I'm just saying. He sounds
like a whole lot of other singers. There's nothing about his voice that was
distinctive to me. Every time Ihear him on the radio, I'm like,
who is that? I would neversay Perry Como because I don't know
who's sound that well, this isturning into a Perry Como bashing episode.
No, not at all. Ilike what I hear. I just don't.
It's just not juster Eric. Yeah, I guess yeah. He Um.

(45:29):
I just thought it was interesting thatmuch like Andy Williams, he hosted
Christmas TV specials regularly. He didit for forty years, going back to
nineteen forty eight, like the earlyearly days of television. He was doing
the Christmas specials. Um, andI'll just say quickly. He died on
May twelve, two thousand and one, in his sleep, possibly from Alzheimer's.
He was eighty eight, eighty eighty. Yeah, his career was like

(45:52):
like fifty years. He's been workingin radio and television and recording. I
mean he's yeah, he's certainly gotlike five Emmies I think is what he
had in his career. So wecertainly a significant performer. He just never
never spoke to me personally. Andthat's not nothing against the dude. Um,

(46:12):
all right, you let's talk aboutum. Let's let's get a girl
into the into the show here.Um. Ella Fitzgerald Ella, who recorded
two Christmas albums nineteen sixties Ella WishesYou're a Swinging Christmas and sixty seven's Ella
Fitzgerald's Christmas, the Swinging one.The first one was more secular songs,
and then in sixth the second albumwas more religious themes and carols and stuff.

(46:38):
Yeah, I wasn't too I wasn'ttoo familiar with her Christmas stuff until
until you mentioned it the other day, and I listened to her albums and
they were really I mean, shecan't. She doesn't record poorly at all,
you know, I mean, she'sshe's she's amazing, and I thought
she did. I liked her Christmasmusic a lot. Um, Yeah,
I like her a lot though.She's she was, She's a fascinating lady.

(47:00):
Her have Yourself a Merry Little Christmasrecording from the nineteen sixty album UM
is really popular. You hear thatall the time. In fact, I
was just watching them conclusion of theHawkeye series, the Marble series on Disney
Plus UM and that at the endof the Find of the Season finale,
Uh like, toward the end,that's the song they play as elphitz geralds

(47:22):
have Yourself Mary La Christy. It'sjust one of those standards that's that says
what time of year it is?You know what I mean? Yeah,
yeah, I thought that, Yeah, that's I love that. It's a
there's a weird part of that songthat really kind of gets me choked up.
It was something she said, uhuh, if the fates allow,
and I was like, oh huh, that was you know, and sometimes

(47:44):
if you're down, you're really youknow, or something happened, you know,
in your life, and and duringthat it just sort of it strikes
an emotional chord. I always thoughtthat that was kind of a little,
you know, a little emotional momentin that song. It's a sweet song.
So she did this really famous adand I think it was in the
late seventies or early eighties for Memorexcassette tapes, and it was is it

(48:08):
real or is it Memorex? Andshe would do you know scatch, which
was means means something to some people, but scott is a form of jazz
where you just kind of off thecup and off the cuff, you just
you know, scooby doo bop bop, that kind of stuff up. Yeah,
yeah, scat singer. Yes,Yes, and so and Ella did

(48:29):
this and she did this and shein this commercial, she's singing into a
microphone and then she hits a noteat the end of a dubie like that,
and then the glass in front ofher breaks and then then they play
the recording on a Memorex tape withnext to the glass and it breaks during
the tape too. It pops apart. Yeah, so the ad campaign was
is it real or is it Memorex? And that's yeah, it was a

(48:52):
cool ad. It's probably on YouTube, but it's a cool ad. There's
somebody that had health issues, isn'tshe. I mean she, you know,
she lived next to Jackie Still Loan. Really her last home. She
lived next door to Jackie Stallone.I mean, there's a bananas. Jackie
Stallone is another piece of work.But but yeah, so she she had
diabetes and she had been Her lastrecording was in nineteen ninety one. Her

(49:17):
last performance was in nineteen ninety threeSlow Decline. She ultimately had to have
both of her legs amputated below theknee. I remember because she was this
was on I was passing her houseevery day back back then on tours,
and I would see her get,you know, loaded into a van every
once in a while at in frontof her house, and ultimately she died

(49:39):
in that house. Now, therewas a guy that I used to work
with at Starline Tours and he wasa musician, and he told me the
story and it was like one ofthe greatest stories I've ever heard. And
I can't imagine this guy made itup because it's such a good story.
And this guy was not a grandstander, you know, he wasn't somebody that

(49:59):
needed a bread about stuff. Buthe was a part of a band,
like a quartet, a jazz quartetthat would that would play. And they
were hired to play at a privatehome in Beverly Hills and they were told
to sit up in a living room, sat up their equipment in a living
room and they sat and they playedfor an hour. Nobody was there.
They were just playing for nobody andUH. And after their hour was finished,

(50:21):
they were leaving and they asked himto come back the next day.
And they said, this is actuallyElvis Gerald's house and she's upstairs and she's
not expected to last long. Sothey had her come back. They had
them come back the next day.And according to this guy who I worked
with, UH, he said,while they were playing. He says,
when they found out who they wereplaying, they found Ellaphitzgerald's songs, you

(50:43):
know, they they were They rehearsedthem during the day and they went back
and they performed that night, andthey say, you know, there's a
there's a storybook ending that she passedaway during that hour that they were playing
that night. But it's a it'sjust an awesome story that that, you
know, they didn't even know.They were just playing to an empty room
and the first night, so thatwas kind of a sweet story. Yeah,

(51:07):
she passed away on June fifteenth,nineteen ninety six, and technically it
was a stroke, but it wasyou know, I think, I'm sure
related to the diabetes issues. Andshe was seventy nine. And she is
buried in Inglewood Park Cemetery, whichis where my grandparents are buried. Oh
really, I didn't know. Yeah, they're buried. I'm they're actually buried,
veried. They're buried at like thesouth, very south end of the

(51:29):
cemetery. I'm right across street fromthe forum. Basically. Okay. Yeah,
so whenever I go to RAMS games, I drive by my grandparents and
it's nice. Yeah, it's nice. Well, well, piece Yeah,
I think that's Ella Rest in peace, Ella Fitzgerald. Um. Okay,
so we have one of your favoritesubjects ever to talk about, The Carpenters.

(51:52):
Yeah, Karen and Mary. ChristmasDarling was their nineteen seventy single and
then Christmas Portrait was their Christmas albumfrom nineteen seventy eight. Hmm, I
love that album. That was.That was such a great album. Man.
I liked the Carpenters yet so soI'm not gonna hate the album at
all. But uh, but yeah, I did. It was it was.

(52:13):
It was just one of those comforts. They were a comfort group.
You know, there were seventy easy, easy listening and that was an era
that I that I that I enjoyedbeing in very much. And uh and
they did my one of my favoritesongs, Happy Holiday, that another Irving
Berlin song. They start off theiralbum with that, and uh, and
I liked that song a lot.They're They're just awesome there. They were

(52:35):
such a great interesting people. Andand Richards was really another one is quite
innovative, innovative with the recording processand they got the overdubbing, et cetera.
And the Carpenters had they I thinkthey were only in operation until Karen's
death in eighty three. And butyeah, they've released several albums since then

(52:55):
of Carpenter's music that have been remasteredand done by an orchestra, et cetera,
et ce. So, so Richardis um, you know, still
doing quite well with new Carpenter's recordings. But they did. Now one of
the one of the songs I don'tlike from Christmas at all was called Little
Altar Boy that Karen did and thatbecame I hear it occasionally on the radio

(53:17):
on the Christmas stations too. Thesong was actually recorded in seventy eight for
that Christmas album, but they didn'trelease it until like a year after Karen
died, so just kind of it'sa promotion for it. It didn't make
the cut. No, I thinkthey were re releasing the Christmas album remastered
after Karen's death, and uh,and they used it to promote that.

(53:37):
But they released a lot of Karenstuff after she died. It's um,
you know, even her album,her own solo album that she did when
when Richard was in the hospital,she decided to cut an album without him,
and that was a really bad thing. And Richard listened to it and
said it was a piece of garbage, and she shelved it and and because
she was too humiliated by what hehad to say about it. That's my

(54:00):
interpretation, but the facts are sherecorded the solo album and she shelved it.
So it wasn't until after she wasdead that Richard finally released the solo
album, which isn't bad at all, and said in the liner notes basically,
oh, well, I didn't likeit done, I didn't like it
now, but here for what it'sworth, this is what she wanted you
to hear. And uh and releasedthe album. So it's kind of kind

(54:21):
of a kind of a you know, crappy thing to do. But anyway,
we have it and it's out thereand poor Karen, so m we
love Karen. Yeah, yeah,I just said, you know, we
I missed doing that tour. Weevery year on the anniversary or the weekend
closest to the anniversary, we didthe Karen Carpent Tour and uh, and
we would visit all. Yeah,and we will have the house because the

(54:45):
house is still there and the apartmentsthat they owned the apartments of their house
where they moved afterwards. The peoplethat handled uh, you know the band
where the school they were in banduh. You know the Carpenter Center down
in Long Beach as her drums seton display. You know, they have
the Richard and Karen Carpenter Enter Entertainment. But it's it's it's in Long Beach.

(55:08):
It's you know, they do properconcerts and stuff. But if you
walk in, they have like theKaren's drums and her lead sister shirt and
uh and and a lot of theiryou know, Richard's piano and the sheet
music to only Just Begun, anda lot of their Grammys and stuff like.
It's really it's really cool that theythat they have that stuff that you
can see. So we used tohit that on the tour too, and

(55:29):
then ultimately end up at her gravesite which had you know, she was
moved. She was in forests onCyprus, originally in a beautiful grave at
the end of a hallway and itwas a wonderful looking, you know,
beautiful grave at the end of thehall and her parents were buried there too,
and then Richard left Downy and movedtwo thousand oaks i think it is,
and had Karen exhoomed and her parentsand took him up that way.

(55:52):
So now she's in the valley atanother cemetery, and Richard has space for
himself and his family. So thatwas kind of a weird, a weird,
a weird thing. But her gravestonedoes say a star on Earth and
a star in Heaven, which Ithink is quite sweet. Yeah. So,
yeah, she died on February fourth, nineteen eighty three. She was

(56:13):
thirty two. She apparently basically diedin her bedroom closet at her at her
childhood home was where she was foundcollapsed. Anyways, I think cause of
death was ruled as being related toher anorexia. Yeah, it was hard
failure due to her her eating disorder. It's very um And that movie they

(56:34):
did, the Karen Carpenter Story,did we talk about did we ever talk
about I don't know if we've talkedabout that, And we talked about it
on them because their first Dearly Departeddocumentary, we did a whole Carpenter's section.
Oh that's right, we did.Yeah, we went down there and
showed all those places. Yeah,but I don't know that we I don't
know that we've talked about it onthis show. Well, they you know,
they did the Karen Carpenter's story thatwas addressing anorexia nervosa for the very

(56:59):
first time, and it was aTV movie and it was really Richard is
the one who produced it, andit was it was quite raw in that
regard where he showed his parents being, you know, kind of emotionally vacant
and uh and him being you know, he went into a reab for a
drug addiction for quailudes and Karen's insecuritieswith her weight. And it was odd

(57:22):
because they actually filmed it in theCarpenter's home. They the woman who played
Cynthia Gibson, I think it washer name, who played Karen, wore
all of Karen's real clothes. Whenthe ambulance came to the house, they
used the real ambulance and the realambulance drivers to go to the house.

(57:42):
And you know, it was justand they filmed her body being taken down
the stairs and taken out into theambulance in the house that it actually took
place in its bizarre Louise Fletcher playsthe mother in the movie. And they
filmed on the A and M Recordslot in the in the sound in the
studio where they actually recorded on LaBreawhere you used to work, and because

(58:06):
it's pretty, it's pretty, itwas pretty good, pretty wild historically movie.
So I believe the one the recordingstudio that they recorded in there on
LaBrea. I believe that studio isstill there and it's kind of known as
the Carpenter's Studio. Obviously, thousandsof acts have recorded in their sinse um,
but I believe that's the one thatis said to be haunted. It

(58:27):
was somebody that you knew that toldthat story, wasn't it. Yeah,
because I worked I worked on theJim Henson lot for about a year and
a half cashed by fifteen years ago. It was originally probably one second,
I just want to interrupt you.We're just second to set. The stage
that was A and M Records isnow the Jim Henson Studio originally built by
Charlie Chaplin. So it's just beenaround since, you know, like the

(58:50):
twenties when when there was nothing butorange groves around there. So it's still
the original studio there, and Chaplainbuilt it for his own film productions.
Yeah, and if you've were seeingthe Chaplain film, you know with the
biography with Robert Downey Jr. Towardsthe end, when he's an old man
and he's coming back for the oscarsuh and he's in the limo or whatever,
or the Rolls Royce or whatever he'sin. They pull up in front

(59:12):
of his old studio for seconds sohe can see it one more time.
That is the actual Chaplain studio lot, but now it has a kermit the
frog dressed as the tramp on theroof, which is nice. It's a
good hipping his hat to the CrazyGirl's Strip club across the street. It
was a Chaplain's footprints or in thecement in there. They're still in the

(59:35):
concrete. If you know where tolook, they're near there between the restrooms.
It's kind of an old out there'slike a building in the middle of
the courtyard which is where the restroomsare, and there's um if you know
where to look from the sidewalk leadingfrom there toward the entrance to the recording
studio. It was very very faint. This is fifteen years ago, so
who even knows. Now you couldstill see the footprints that he worrieded the
tramp walk down the sidewalk, andthat's what inspired supposedly inspired send sid Graman

(01:00:00):
to do the Um Gramin's Chinese theaterhandprint and footprints because he saw that cool
one had done that. Yeah,that's really cool. So what about the
ghost story? So suppose I believethat it was in the carpenter's studio,
but someone who worked there I remember, was telling me this one time that
you know, it's a twenty fourhour a day operation. There's bands there

(01:00:22):
and all the time. Basically they'llbe recording at three o'clock in the morning.
And I think it was the carpenterswhen they said like two to two
thirty in the morning, the whateverlocal you know employee was working with them
said, okay, um, takea lunch break. We got to shut
down for like thirty minutes. Andthe producer whoever with the band was like,

(01:00:42):
whoa you know, I say,when that happens kind of deal.
And they said, we can't record, you know, between like two thirty
and three am or something because therecording is always getting messed up. And
they're like, yeah, yeah,nonsense, and they said everybody says that.
So we've kept one of the recordingsthat got messed up, and they
played the recording back and they saidit sounds like a room full of people,
just voices on top of voices ontop of voices, and even though

(01:01:06):
you know, it wasn't like there'sa party going on, but nobody was
in there. Um. And sothat that is what was told to me
while I worked there, was thatthat studio was haunted. So did you
I think you told me that beforeanyone does a recording session there, they
play I believe that that is theother thing that that's all to kind of
appease the ghosts. Yes, theyplay a Carpenter song before every recording in

(01:01:27):
that studio. Yep, that's cool. I love that. And if anything
else to acknowledge probably the most famousartist from A and M, aside from
her Melbert, but you know,the the the Carpenters were, you know,
a huge star for A and M. So it's nice that they get
acknowledgement there. And Chaplain gets theshout out with the muppet with the Kerman,
you know Kerman with the Kermit thefrog at the at the front with

(01:01:50):
the with the with the hat andthe cane. So it's it's nice that
the history is being acknowledged there.I hope that's still the case. Um.
Also, I believe that George Harrisonfounded his dark Horse Records on that
same lot. Oh interest seventies.Cool. Um, that's that's also something
I heard while I worked there.We saw Paul McCartney there one time,
Wow, said see every we sawChris Cornell, we saw Rod Stewart.

(01:02:13):
Uh, Ashley Simpson. Really youhad me. I wasn't interested until you
said, Ashley Simpson. M PaulMcCartney. Paul McCartney was totally cool.
A couple of people I worked withwent over and talked to him and had
like a nice conversation with them,and yeah, yeah, that was a
wild place to work for sure.They were always doing weird and then plus
the Muppets were there. Um.I think the main Muppet factory like where

(01:02:37):
they make where they the workshop isin New York. Um, but they
also have what they call them upat barn at the Hanson lot there where
they are working on other stuff.Um, because they'll do They use that
sound stage there to film Muppet relatedthings too. So have you I saw
that show they're called Muppet Up Haveyou ever seen that? No? Sorry,
I met it was Rare. Imet Jim Henson Junior there and he

(01:03:00):
and he talks like Kermit. It'sthe most bizarre thing. But yeah,
when I worked at the lot hewas still he's still on in office there.
It's a really nice guy. Butthis muppet up is improv and it's
all you know. They have likea cast of six people and it's in
a slew of props and puppets,and somebody throws out an idea and they
do the Muppets, but not thefamous Muppets because it's filthy. I mean

(01:03:22):
it's really filthy. It's really edgyand very very funny, but it is.
It is a proper Muppet production withoutany of their big names. And
say Jim Junior was there, soum but it's fascinating. I don't know
if they've ever done in a documentaryon that. Probably wouldn't let them,
but because we could be upset,it's good. It's good stuff. Yeah,

(01:03:43):
So rest in peace, Karen Carpenter. Next up Nat King Cole,
who recorded an album in nineteen sixty, same as Ella Fitzgerald's first album.
His album was called The Magic ofChristmas uh and it is the only Christmas
album that that Cole ever released.What's interesting is his most famous Christmas song

(01:04:08):
which is now like one of themost famous song Christmas songs ever called the
Christmas Song, was not on thatalbum. Uh. They did not record
it until a year later, andended up being such a huge hit that
when they reissued The Magic of Christmasalbum in sixty three a few years later,
UM, they renamed it the ChristmasSong and added that track to it.

(01:04:29):
UM because it becomes such a hugesmash hit by that point. It
is. Yeah, it's a definitiveversion most certainly, and a lot of
people don't even know it's called theChristmas Song, but they would say,
you know, the chestnuts roasting onup and fire that one, right,
and it's just it's it's funny.But yeah, that certainly had has the
most recognized version of that song,which is also interesting because is written by

(01:04:51):
Meltor May, not even written byyou know, I didn't know that.
Yeah, Meltor May wrote it,made a fortune on it. But but
the definitive recording was Nat King Cole'srecording UM and if being owned the forties
and fifties. When it came toChristmas music, Nat King Cole owned the
sixties. It was the biggest sellingChristmas album of the decade. I believe

(01:05:13):
it was his and its nice theyfeature him on that big mural on the
side of Capitol Records. Right.I love that. I think house the
NAT built, you know, yeah, right, yeah, so it's neat.
And he was he was born inAlabama and always into music, came
to Los Angeles and of course,we know, became very successful, very

(01:05:34):
successful in a very short period oftime because he died really young. But
he had he had very famously purchasedat home on June Street in Hancock Park,
and uh, Hancock Park had youknow for the old people, the
old family people in Hancock Park,you know, people that had old money,

(01:05:56):
people that have inherited them, housesthat have been in the same families
for eighty years. Um still havethe documentation that when you bought a house
in Hancock Park there were you know, no Jews and no blacks. Was
literally in the paperwork for the HomeworkAssociation or whatever. Yeah. Yeah,
and that you know, was thefirst first black person to move in.

(01:06:16):
And there's the story about you know, somebody burning across on his lawn.
I don't know if that's true,but he certainly had am an issue with
Yeah, they wanted him out andwere very vocal about it. Yeah.
Yeah, there's that famous there's thatfamous story about them. They came and
knocked on his door and said,we don't want any undesirables in this neighborhood,

(01:06:38):
and he said I don't either,and you know I see anything.
Yeah, yeah, I love thatstory. So um so yeah. He
certainly anyone that you know of ofcolor, anyone you know, back in
that period of time, had youknow, a lot of other issues aside
from just trying to break into theindustry, which is hard enough to do.

(01:07:00):
To make that, you know,that kind of successful where everyone was
buying their records and having him intheir record collection was a bigger accomplishment than
a lot of other people would couldclaim. You know. Yeah, my
grandfather, who grew up in Glendale, he he told me that. He

(01:07:23):
told me when I shot my Oilerhousedocumentary, which was about him and the
architect Richard Neutra. He told mewhen we were filming that that he growing
up in Glendale, being in laHe and my grandma when they were kind
of first together, they would gosee Nat King Cole play at a club.
He said it was on Normandy andI believe he specifically said in the
Hollywood area, So I haven't donethe research to find out where that would

(01:07:45):
have been, but yeah, mygrandpa was really proud of the fact that
he saw Nat King Cole play beforehe was super famous. Probably would have
been the forties, would be myguess. Yeah, yeah, Normandy,
that would be probably around will Shirkbecause I don't think there were any clubs
around Norman Dean Hollywood at that point, but there were because it was so
close to the Ambassador Hotel. Uh, and that's there were a lot of

(01:08:05):
nightclubs around that area, I think. So that's that's fascinating. Uh.
That would have been a real thatwould have been a real accomplishment. That
would have been something to see.Yeah, for sure, a memorable.
Yeah. I mean, I lovebefore they were famous type of stories,
you know, and what a greatone to have, ye. Yeah.

(01:08:26):
My grandmother when she the last fewyears of her life, she had really
bad dementia. She had Alzheimer's andsundowners I think, um, which is
it's the horrible combination and so youknow, at the end she didn't really
remember much obviously, but she wassuch a big jazz music fan when she
was younger, she still knew allthe jazz songs. And I remember she
sang Stardust for us one time,which was a huge Snack King Cole hit.
And you know, even if shedidn't know who was in the room

(01:08:49):
with her, even though they wereyou know, lifelong family members, she
still remembered every single word of Stardust. Isn't that funny? Music is so
powerful, the power of music.What is sundowners? I've never heard of
that. Sundowners is I believe aform of dementia that impacts you more late
in the day, which is whyit's called sundowners. So people's sundowners might

(01:09:11):
be great in the morning, inthe middle of the day, and then
you know, getting toward the endof the day, they start to get
foggy. That's how I understand it. And I think Alzheimer's kind of affects
you all the time, so tohave both at the same time, it
was a bad combination. So well, yeah, of course it was a
big time smoker, big time smoker, cigarette smoker and h and ultimately they

(01:09:33):
claimed him and he died in Februaryfifteenth, nineteen sixty five. He was
only forty five years old. Insixty five, it says so sad.
And you know, very famously hada daughter, Natal Natalie Cole, who
actually passed away a couple of yearsago. And he had a son who
passed away of HIV, etc.They're buried and NAT's buried in Forest Lawn,

(01:09:57):
Hollywood Hills, down the same hallwayas um Clara Bow and George Burns
and Gracie Allen and Alan Ladd.And he's got one of those cool UH
signature markers. It's his signature onthis big on the big wall in the
mausoleum. That's his autograph. I'vesince looked at it and it is his
autographs, so that I like whenpeople do that, when they put their

(01:10:20):
autographs on their graves. That's kindof neat. But yeah, yeah,
that's so he's at UH and theFreedom Ausoleum at Forest Lawn, Glendale.
UM. So rest in peace,Nat King Cole and um, we wanted
to next talk about burrel lives.Interesting guy, I think, yes,

(01:10:41):
I mean an Academy Academy Award winningactor and singer um who just kind of
did a little bit of everything.It seems like them was very successful at
it too. Yeah he um,yeah, of course I mean, he's
been in those classic movies. Hewas in Eased to Be In with m
with James Dean, he was inkatadahat tim Roof, he was in um

(01:11:03):
Well, he won the Oscar fora movie called The Big Country. I've
not I've never seen that, soI don't one supporting actor. I haven't
seen it either. Yeah. Yeah, but but to baby boomers it would
be the the narrator of the Rankand Bass Show, Rudolph the Red Nose
Reindeer. Uh, it was ums, it's a I mean it was classic

(01:11:25):
growing up. It was just aliteral classic. And yeah, I mean
it's it's his classic. I meanI think it's as classic as It's a
Wonderful Life or or you know,or or The Christmas Story or whatever what.
You'd wait a year to see thattwenty five minute little piece of film,
you know, that stop action animationand which was really fascinatingly kind of

(01:11:53):
I don't want to say ripped off. But the the the Elf movie,
you know, they they I waswatching. I think we talked about us
in another episode. Yeah, Ithink we talked about this. Yeah,
how they Yeah, the movies thatmade us on Netflix, I mean they
almost fascinated. They almost didn't getto finish the movie because they didn't without

(01:12:13):
permission, right, I think theythought they had the okay and they didn't.
And then it was and Buddy's outfitwas basically like a replica of you
know, the same color and everything. They're they're trying to figure out if
there was a way that they couldlike digitally change the color of his outfit
that make it less. I mean, yeah, it's pretty wild. I
don't think they actually did get permission, but they made it different enough.

(01:12:36):
But I don't know if Frank andBash ever signed on. I can't remember.
I think they worked something out becauseI don't think the studio would have
let them finish. And that washorrible because John, that was John Favros,
I think, first directing film andhe um. I mean, it
would have looked at the career he'shad since then. It would have just
stalled him out so bad. Ifand they look at what a huge hit

(01:13:00):
that became, and ye Will Farrellwasn't really seen as much of a movie
star at that point either, andthat it launched him as a movie star,
like it launched these crazy careers thatwould have never happened if if they
had had the production canceled halfway inbecause they didn't get the rights. It's
I mean, it's it's wild tosee a movie that's come out in you
know, in the last fifteen twentyyears, it's considered a Christmas classic,

(01:13:20):
you know, like that one is. Yeah, like that's Elf is one
where the minute I saw it waslike, this is a classic. You
knew, you knew right away.Yeah, so so and so um Verlive's
narrated Rudolph the Redno's Ranger as theas the Snowman that uh and um and

(01:13:41):
and that was made in sixty four, that that special. And now Troy
was just telling me they redid itrecently digitally, like frame by frame.
And I don't know where he sawthat, but they actually redid it again.
I don't know why. Why wouldyou they redid it. I don't
know. They had something to dowith the process. I have to ask

(01:14:01):
Troy about that later. In fact, we should probably, you know,
I don't know the point of it, but it was to add another scene
that wasn't there or that they originallyinto. I don't know. I just
leave it, just leave it,you know. The Island of Misfit Toys
was awesome. I loved I lovedit, loved it. It is a
going to the Elf thing. Itis always a question of when does an

(01:14:23):
homage become just ripping off? Yeah, you know, and like Community did
a whole episode that was in thatstyle, that stop motion Rudolph the Red
Nosed Reindeer style. They did awhole episode like that. But that was
a comedy show, so it couldhave it was parody. Yeah, I
guess elf, you couldn't say it'sparody. It was just straight up taking

(01:14:44):
taking the look. I see.Someone seeing Elf for the first time that
wasn't around at sixty four would thinkthat Elf came up with it and they
watched the special and going wow,you know that's really you know, that's
really something. But what a coincidence. So burlives his recordings of Holly Jolly

(01:15:05):
Christmas and Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeercame out of that special and those recordings
now have become on their own crapclassic Christmas song recordings. And he passed
away on April fourteenth, nineteen ninetyfive, from oral cancer. Um he

(01:15:25):
was I guess he smoked a lotof smoked pipes a lot throughout his life.
And he was eighty five. Hewas eighty five. I go,
there's a couple of things I wantedto point out about him. He towards
the end of his life, hedid a movie called The Man Who Wanted
to Live Forever, And this isabout a man who literally wanted to live
forever and he was buying he washarvesting organs from people who weren't dead yet,

(01:15:47):
like like arranging for their deaths sohe could have their organs so he
could live together, which is reallyfascinating idea. But he was the voice
of something there was. There wasan attraction at Disneyland called America Sings and
it was narrated by an eagle calledSam and it was narrated by burl Ives

(01:16:11):
and it was called the Theater whereit was in You probably you grew up
here, So you remember like theCarousel of Progress that round theater that was
by Autopia. Yeah, yeah,So America Sings was this was this production
within that that theater which spun whichliterally turns around is the Carousel of Progress.
And two weeks after it opened,um there was a woman named Deborah

(01:16:36):
Stone. She was a Disneyland employee. She was crushed to death. She
was the first Disneyland employee to everbe killed on the job in that theater
a week or two weeks after thatshow opened in Disneyland. Her name was
Carousel. Yeah, she got shegot stuck between a wall and the moving
wall that was coming up to it. So so she's standing here and this

(01:16:59):
thing is moving and boom she youknow, right when it's supposed to pass
by. So she was. Therehad been people killed at Disneyland before that,
but never an employee. That wasthe first time an employee was killed
in Disneyland. And they shut downthe ride for two days. I think,
well, I would hope. Andit wasn't no Disney It was not
a tribute. I mean, theywere just trying to scramble iron and how

(01:17:20):
to get that thing opened up again, you know. But the way it
was described, there was somebody thatwas in the audience and he said he
said he looked to the right andsaw what he thought was a child being
pulled between the platform and the walland heard a scream, which is fascinating.
That was in the newspaper reporting thatdeath. But but yeah, there's

(01:17:43):
a weird burl ives trivia question foryou. So he was alive too when
that happened. He lived for anothertwenty five years after that, So burl
ives, go figure burl ives.Um all right, So I wanted to
throw a little herball in here forour last one, and that is uh,

(01:18:04):
that is Alvin and the Chipmunks,Um and the Chipmunks song Christmas Don't
Be Late. Um. So theChipmunks, you know that that song was
recorded of this same era that we'retalking about. It was actually recorded in
nineteen fifty eight. I thought Iwas gonna say mid sixties. Wow,

(01:18:27):
you would think, but no,it was recorded before there was any cartoon
Chipmunks or anything like that. Soit basically launched Alvin and the Chipmunks,
which I didn't realize. I thoughtthey were already established by the time the
song got made. But um uhross Bagdasarian who was the guy that created
the Chipmunks, And his stage namewas Dave Saville, who is you know

(01:18:47):
They're they're like Dad or whatever onthe show, David Saville. And so
he was a singer, songwriter andan actor. Um he um had done
previously done. He'd like to donovelty songs, and so he had figured
out he'd done a novelty song Ithink earlier that year, the year before,

(01:19:08):
called I Think the Witch Doctor,about a guy who a guy who
can't about a guy who can't findlove, and so he goes to see
a witch doctor. And that wasthe first time that ross Um figured out
a way his technique of speeding upthe recording to make the voice sound higher
pitched, which is of course howthe chipmunks how they do those voices.
I didn't know that a witch doctor. That was a big tang tang,

(01:19:30):
wattle bing bang that was that wasa big song. Yeah, so I
didn't know that was Dave Seville aswell. It's wild And so he figured
out that recording technique. He didthat song. It was a big hit.
They wanted more, you know,the the record label wanted more of
him. And supposedly he was drivingthrough Sequoia National Forest and he almost hit
a chipmunk with his car and thatgave him the idea of the chipmunks,

(01:19:53):
and he was like that. Iguess he thought, oh, that sped
up voice could sound like a chipmunktalking, So let's do something U.
So he released the song in nineteenfifty eight, and I mean there was
no Chipmunk animated idea of this happening. That didn't come around for a few
more years. I think sixty orsixty one is when the Chipmunk animated series,
like the first attempt at it cameout. But it sold four million

(01:20:15):
copies in the first two months.It was number one on Billboard. It
knocked off the Phil Spector song toKnow Him Is to Love Him by the
Teddy Bears, And yeah, itwas. It wasn't a couple of years.
I think it was the sixty onethat they started doing the thing.
But here's what's interesting. So Bagdasarianwas Armenian American. His earliest one of

(01:20:36):
his earliest songwriting credits was come Onto My House, which Rosemary Clooney made
famous. He wrote that from WhiteChristmas. Interesting he also had he had
been an actor and had bit parts. He had a small part in Stalock
seventeen, for example. And thisis my favorite one, my favorite film
of all time is Rear Window byHitchcock. Bagdasarian is the piano player neighbor

(01:21:00):
struggling to write his next hit song, and he writes the song Lisa and
there's a bunch of scenes with him. He's one where he comes home drunk
and collapses and he has a partynext door and eventually ends up with miss
Lonely hearts at the end. Well, yeah, that is that is basically
Dave Seville. Wow, that's socool. I had no idea. Does
he get screen credit for that?I mean he had lines. I would

(01:21:24):
think he did. And that's.Um, you know how Hitchcock would always
put himself into his movies. That'syeah, that that's where Hitchcock put himself.
In the rear window. Hitchcock isin his apartment with Ross Bagdasarian,
and Hitchcock is winding a clock onthe mantel. I've got to see that
again. I was just looking atlike a Hitchcock collection to h to watch
over. I haven't seen that moviein probably twenty years. I have to,

(01:21:45):
really, I have to check thatout. And I think I think
I have it. I think theyjust came out with the four K discussion
too. Um, yeah, that'sgreat. So unfortunately, uh, he
Bagdasarian. Bagdasarian died from a heartattack in nineteen seventy two. He was
only fifty two years old. Wow, so he didn't. I mean,

(01:22:06):
we're still talking about it, youknow, fifty years later. Fifty years
later. Now, what happened washis son, Ross Baghdasarian Junior I think
is his name. His son tookover the franchise. Basically, his son
got a law degree and kind oftook over the family business and ended up
buying the rights off from his siblingsin the nineties. So all the Chipmunk

(01:22:28):
stuff that happened in the eighties ninetiesup till today, the more recent movies
they've done that's all been the Sunhas kept that business going basically. M
Yeah, that was a big TVshow. I remember watching that cartoon when
I was a kid too. Thatwas so popular. Yeah, yep,
it's great. How then and thenthis is like a funny little piece of

(01:22:51):
film trivia. I love it.In Rocky four, when they get to
that cabin in Russia to do hislike final training before the big fight with
the Rush, Polly is listening tothat song the Chipmunks Songpones while they're hanging
out and chilling in this like livingroom area this cabin. Yeah. I
always thought that was funny that Paully'slistening to that song. Um, so

(01:23:14):
yeah, there you go, thechipmunks and Dave Seville. That's interesting.
I didn't know that about Seville.That's do you know where he's buried?
I wonder where he's buried? Doyou know? Oh wait, I do?
I looked at up pulled on accordingto find a grave, he is
buried at Chapel of the Pines Crematoryin Los Angeles. So he was I
mean Chapel the Pines is mostly storage. Uh. They it's right on Wilshire

(01:23:38):
by by Angelus Rosedale, and theydo tons of cremations and they have storage
rooms beneath just stack from floor toceiling with people's creamines. But they have
a really small cemetery itself for actuallyyou know display quote unquote, but there's
a ton of people underneath underneath that. We actually got in there once and

(01:24:00):
the door was open, and uh, and we took some pictures down there,
and I wish I would have hadmore nerve because I would have gone
up and down with the names andshow, you know, trying to figure
out who was down there, becausethat's sort of the final disposition on their
desk ertif they could say Chapel ofthe Pines. But like Stephen Stucker,
the guy from Airplane had played Johnnyis was Chapel of the Pines. But

(01:24:23):
you to get somebody out of thereand buried somewhere else, you have to
go through this whole legal process.And it wasn't that where the isn't that
where the Frankenstein actor was we talkedabout them? Oh yeah, yeah,
we sure did. Yeah, itwas that the same place because it was
a similar situation. He laid unclaimedfor like twenty years or something. Yeah.
Yeah, so so that you know, chapel Inglewood has one of those

(01:24:44):
too, though Inglewood has But whenyou first drive into Inglewood in the main
entrance on the left, there's there'sthe chapel and then but underneath that chapel
is another slew of storage rooms andpeople that aren't even buried, just just
there because I know the paying thestorage fee, but but they're not they're
not out in the world. Likeseeing on display. Um, it's kind

(01:25:06):
of interesting but fascinating, fascinating.So Davesonville is there, but we don't
know if he's on display, hemight be just being stored there in Yeah,
it would be weird though that ifhis family is still around and they
still have obviously still making it,you know, quite a bit of money
off of the franchise. Why wouldn'tthey have taken care of his remains?

(01:25:28):
He would think, I don't thinkthere was any I don't think there was
any bad blood or anything like that. Some people just don't give a care
that. Some people just don't care. That's true. It's it's not high
on there. And also some peoplejust have them like like well Larry Tate,
you know, the guy that playedDavid White. You know, he
died and it wasn't it's only twentyfive years later. He ended up at
Hollywood Cemetery in a in a youknow, in a niche that's you know,

(01:25:50):
visible with with that's decorated with allof his artifacts. So, you
know, sometimes people keep them athome until they die and then they want
to be with doing that app thatI do, that Death of Day app.
Every day I'm finding somebody and it'salways like cremated to residents? What
happened? You know? I wantto know where they are, and it
just says it's always says cremated toresidents or so it's sitting on someone's mantle

(01:26:15):
somewhere. Yeah, yeah, right, All right, do you want to
get into worst Christmas songs? Oh? You know you've been waiting, you've
aired up. I'll go into somegood ones first, though, I'll go
into some of my favorite ones.I just wanted to say upfront that I
think the problem I have a mostChristmas songs, especially ones recorded posts like
nineteen seventy, is that they're doneso cynically. It's the it's in cash.

(01:26:41):
It feel always feels like a cashgrab a lot of these pop groups
to put albums. It's kind oflike the it's almost like the record label
made them do it kind of adeal because it makes money, you know.
Um, it's kind of like whatBill Nye's character makes fun of and
I love. Actually he's playing likea rock star that's put out this same
thing. He's reworked one of hisclassic hits to be a Christmas song,
and he's telling people it sucks,it's terrible, but they did it because

(01:27:05):
it's you know, they need becausethey'll make money. So that's how I
feel about a lot of these songs, and I'll probably how I'm gonna feel
about a lot of ones you're gonnatalk about, Well, they I mean,
they did to that album in theeighties called A Very Special Christmas where
those people covered you know, theArithmetics for Springsteen, the Pointer Sisters,
I mean they I think it wasdone for a cause. Is that where
Springstein came up with the Santa Clausescoming to Town? Was that which is

(01:27:28):
up there and one of the onesI hate the most because it sounds like
he's taken a dump the whole time. You know. But Annie Lennox or
the Arithmetics did uh Winter wonder Land, which is one of my favorite songs
Christmas songs. I think, Uhso he did Marry Christmas Baby, That's
what it is. Bruce Springsteen did, Whitney Houston did do you Do you

(01:27:50):
Hear What I Hear? Which Ithink is a really good version of it.
I like that a lot. Sothere are some good songs in it,
I really some of them. Really. There were some pretty There's a
lot of clinkers in there too.Yeah, but uh but yeah, I
know what you're saying. We gotto create a christmash one in there,
um and then they become accidental.I think super hits like Troy when he

(01:28:12):
when he hears that Mariah Carey song, he wants to murder. I mean,
he just wants to murder. Yes, that is near at the top
of my list. And that's inspeaking of love. Actually, that's in
love. Actually that was it.Really. They perform it as the um
as the the kids perform it aspart of the school show at the end.
Yeah, it's like kind of thefinale. Basically, is that song.
I don't see. I don't mindit. I think it's a cute
song, but it's just it's butit sets people off. It's been it's

(01:28:36):
been so overplayed, I think isthe problem. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
well this isn't. A couple ofyears ago, she was on the
Macy's parade and that's so I don'tand that's the I don't want a lot
for Christmas song. All I wantedto do that song. Yeah. All
I want for Christmas is you.Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they
had her singing on the Macy's Thanksgivinga parade a pull of years ago,

(01:29:00):
on a float on that on aloop and she was lip sick and she
just gave up during it. She'sjust like stopped. It's on YouTube.
It's kind of funny, but shejust like screw. She's hilarious. She
really is. She was on ashow once and I knew somebody that worked
on the show, and she wasa guest on this talk show and she

(01:29:20):
would just sit there in her chairand she would go like this, and
the assistant would come running up witha tray with like three different drinks on
it, and she hadn't even lifther eyes. She would just you know,
like like drink out of one ofthese drinks that she wanted. She
would just tilt her hat and youknow, does the assistant come running at

(01:29:41):
the drink. It's kind of Ilove that story, but uh yeah.
So that's one of those ones thatpeople really like or don't like big time.
I like personally, I love hI love the Rynet when they the
Phil Spector Christmas album I think isa fantastic album, and they did a
Winter Wonderland I think and sleigh Ride. I think sleigh Ride is my number

(01:30:04):
one Christmas favorite song. There's nevera version. I don't like that with
you know, let's hear the sleighbells ringling jing jing. I love that
song. I'm a sucker for likeinstrumentals and big orchestrations, so I do.
I do love the sleigh Ride.Song, and I think the Ronetts
do a really fun version of that. I think it's up there too.

(01:30:25):
And speaking of Phil Spector that oneof my favorite songs kind of of that
era in that genre is the DarlingLove Christmas Baby Please Come Home recording.
Oh yeah, yeah, if youever. One of my favorite documentaries ever
is Twenty Feet from Stardom when theydo an excellent job of covering that whole
story and how Letterman you know,I started bringing her on the show every

(01:30:46):
year as a as a tradition.I think that's so cool. Um,
okay, so stuff you don't like, let's hear it, unload Scott.
I like Santa Baby kind of byEartha Kit. I think that's a fun
song, fun novelty song really,and I don't like Madonna's version of it.
I think she I think that shedid a substandard version of Santa Baby.

(01:31:12):
Personally, I really really do notlike Blue Christmas Blue Christmas Feeling.
Elvis never really liked it. Ifound a few other people that feel that
way too. It's just not onethat not one that I enjoy. Because
Dean Martin did a cover of italso that but it was very it was
very similar style though, I mean, yeah, basically just Dino singing,

(01:31:33):
you know, yeah, yeah,you know why I talked to you,
And he said, Rudolph the rednehe goes Rudy Lrodino's ringer. I talked
to Angie Dickinson the other day,as it were, she was doing a
one woman night with Angie and therewas a little meet and greed afterwards,
and I got an opportunity to talkto her for a minute about Dean Martin.

(01:31:53):
And something it always bugged me abouther about Dean Martin is that the
drunk thing is really good. Youknow, it's really difficult to act drunk
usually because when you're when you're drunk, you're the whole thing is you're trying
to act sober. So it's reallydifficult to act drunk. And I never
believe for a second because he alsodied of like liver and kidney failure.

(01:32:14):
I mean he's been he also diedin Christmas Day, so it's relevant yea.
And but I asked her, Isaid, you know, the Dean
Martin thing, because she was friendswith him. I said, was it?
You know, wasn't How can youact that drunk? It had to
be real? She goes, No, it wasn't. And I'll tell you
that when I first met him thefirst time, he said, I had
stomach ulster. The whole thing isan act. I'm not. This is

(01:32:35):
not verbatim, but she said thathe was that. He told her straight
off that he acts drunk and thewhole thing is an act. I don't.
I'm not on board because ulster isa temporary and I think that during
those Dean Martin celebrity roasts, youcouldn't even move well. And speaking of
those, you know, the fameby the most famous drunk act was Foster
Brooks, who is great drunk act. But you could see him turn it

(01:32:58):
on and off. Yeah, hekind of when he was done doing it,
and you can see him turn itoff. It was kind of like
an un scene moment and he wouldbe and then he would walk. He
would He was con kinded to saythat was an act. I just my
performances ended, you know what Imean. I don't think Dean did no.
And if you watch what occasion pointis the Jerry Lewis telethon where they
had the big reunion between Martin andLewis, and Snatra kind of maneuvered it

(01:33:20):
in surprise. If you go back, I remember when it first happened.
I was like, oh, itwas really sentimental, emotional thing. If
you go back and watch it again, it's on YouTube. It's like Demartin
can barely stand. He is slurringso poorly that Jerry Lewis just walks away
and stands on the podium and watchesbecause de Martin is just cannot even.

(01:33:43):
He has to be led away bySinatra, literally standing couldn't see the stand
he I think he had a cigarettehis hand and he burned his coat with
it. This is all, like, you know, I'm not It's not
as all lovely and wonderful as everyoneremembers it to be, because some things
are not supposed to be memorialized everysecond of now we can analyze them and
can't leave it. It's just anice memory, but it is very interesting.

(01:34:04):
I don't believe she told me pointplaying her mouth to my ears,
that that it was an act,but I'm not sure it was so um
anyway. Another song that I willflip the switch as soon as it comes
on is The Little Saint Nick bythe Beach Boys Cannot Cannot. I'm not

(01:34:25):
a big fan of of falsetto anyway. But but the Beach Boys, I
can forgive a lot of because Ithink they're brilliant. But but Little Saint
Nick was like, yeah, Idon't I don't like that song. Um
last Christmas, you know that wasGeorge Michael step into Christmas, Elton John
Wonderful Christmas Time Paul McCartney again,Yeah, that's the top of my hate

(01:34:49):
Listy, I hate it. Sowhich one Wonderful Time Paul McCartney. Yes,
number one on my list. It'sone. It's for to me,
it's the epitome of the cynical we'redoing a Christmas song to make money type
of songs. Yeah, you knowwhat I mean. And it's Paul McCartney,
like his worst instincts, I thinkas it's kind of a cynical songwriter.

(01:35:09):
It's just it's great bow. Yeah. It's interesting because they have a
in Britain, like a tradition,whatever's the Christmas number one single? That's
like every year, that's what thepeople look forward to, the Christmas number
one. So these are like,that's what I think Bill Nie is trying
to go for his characters. Loveactually is making number one. Yeah.

(01:35:30):
Yeah, so every Christmas. It'sgot to be a tradition that they have
a Christmas number one song. SoI think people were just kicking them out.
Yeah. I think it was contrivedand and they're pretty, they're pretty.
Yeah, it's pretty chewy, bubblegummy kind of kind of stuff,
throwaway stuff that didn't expect the lastforty years. Yeah, it's not the
great compositions from the forties, fiftiesand sixties that we've been talking about.

(01:35:55):
Yeah, you know, yeah,so not a fan. The second worst
song for me is the Charlie BrownChristmas Everest Scream. When that comes on,
I hate that Christmas time which thatis? That is, Um,
that is a polarizing song. I'vecome to like it more. It is

(01:36:15):
kind of a sad, almost kindof warped sounding song, and when it
starts, it's like, this isgonna last twenty minutes, you know what
I mean. It's so slow andit's just no, I don't, I
don't, no, no, Idon't. I don't think that should be
a Christmas classic. I don't thinkso personally. Um, So that was

(01:36:39):
you know. Vince Garralti. Garraltywas the great jazz musician who did all
the Peanuts music. Um, andhe was speaking of people who died young
unexpectedly. He had a massive heartattack when he was forty seven in nineteen
seventy six and almost died on thestage. He had just played a set

(01:37:00):
at a nightclub in California, andum, he went back to his hotel
room and basically collapsed, started feelingsick to his stomach and went to the
restroom and collapsed in the bathroom andhad died from a massive heart attack.
And I think he was another onethat just had kind of had an unhealthy
lifestyle with you know, the smokingand eating and everything else, and just

(01:37:25):
and didn't take didn't kind of takeit seriously enough from his doctors about what
was you know, how serious thesituation was. But yeah, now band
Aid did they know it's Christmas?That was That's kind of an interesting one.
I'm out on board either way withit big time. But I remember
when it came out and it wasa big deal because it was live Aid
was you know, came from thatbasically that concept with a it was like

(01:37:47):
it was like the weird of theworld of Christmas songs, the people stay
alive. That one's near the topof my list also because it's just that
pretentious rock star. Yes, youknow, now let's have st have the
line where bitter Sting comes out.It'll be great, you know. But

(01:38:08):
but it's not as bad as feedthe world that the when they filmed that,
they did A and M. Thatis to me so contrived. I
mean that's the point. It iscontrived. But but it's so it's just
agony. It's just like, youknow, all those people together, could
could you know, get donate halftheir fortunes. Why should I have to
pay five bucks? You know,you know, it's self world, hunger

(01:38:33):
yourself the money. I love allthe footage, though. Have you seen
the footage from the We Are theWorld recording sessions where they show like Michael
Jackson is especially hilarious on that becausehis facial expressions reacting now some of the
people are singing. He's just likethat was the height of Michael Jackson dumb

(01:38:53):
to I mean, that was likeright at the Thriller album time, and
I think they shot it right afterthe Grammy, so everyone was already exhausted
anyway, and they ended up startingthis session at like midnight or something.
Yeah, see Bob Dylan in there, you know, singing b though,
and he's um uh and Quincy Jonestrying to you know, probably the only

(01:39:15):
person who could have brought all thosehuge egos together and made that work,
right. Yeah, yeah, Imean it's it's it's a legendary gathering of
people, that's for sure. Thefact that all those people were in one
room together, it's pretty pretty amazingspectacular. So the last song on my
list, the number one song Idespise the most, the one that makes

(01:39:39):
me dive for the volume button orthe off button on the radio, is
called The Christmas Shoes. Uh huhdo you know it? I've heard of
it. I can't think of that. I can't think of how it goes
right now that it is the mostagonizing. It's just so awful. It's
about a little boy that goes throughthe department store to buy his shoe,

(01:40:00):
buy a pair of shoes, umand and it's just oh, Mike,
I can't even tell you how badthis song is because it's I don't want
to spoil it for people because it'llbe a spoiler because if anyone hasn't heard
it before, they're gonna listen tothe song and they're gonna see exactly,
but I think it's been out longenough. You can nobody can. Well.
He basically is buying his pair ofshoes for his dead mother, and

(01:40:21):
and you go through the whole songnot knowing that this mother is dead,
and it is. It is justit is so hard to sit through.
It is slow, it is awful, it's contrived, it is so it
just makes me insane, and peoplelike, really, my sister first show
played it for me and she goes, oh, you're gonna love this song.
As Peter was like, no,it is so. It is to

(01:40:45):
see the expression on your face thefirst time you heard it with your sister,
I couldn't know it was really waitingfor you to hear it. It
was it was something that I gaveit. I gave it a moment and
I just thought, this is contrivedpiece. It's somebody a group called New
Shoes. I didn't even know whosang it because I never even cared enough.

(01:41:05):
But they named they basically named theirgroup for the song I'm sorry.
It's a Christian vocal group called NewSong and it was released in two thousand
and it is about this little boywho it's it's it's well goodness. The
song has appeared on various Worst ChristmasSong list and song was named the worst

(01:41:26):
Christmas song ever by jezebel dot com. And uh and it's just it is
so so awful. Little boy wantsto buy a pair of shoes for his
terminally ill mother, and the boytells the cashier he wants to appear beautiful.
It wants her to appear beautiful whenshe meets Jesus. It is so
I can't even tell you you got, but he wants you to appear beautiful,

(01:41:48):
like in the casket when she meetsJesus. Since he is short o
money, he ends up. Thenarrator ends up paying for the shoes,
which reminds him of the true meaningof Christmas. It is just hate,
which is meaning of Christmas is buyingthings at a department store. By it
for buying shoes for a little boywho wants his mother to look beautiful,

(01:42:10):
who when she meets Jesus because she'sterminally ill. When yeah, right,
it's gonna have the sassy ass shoesJesus. Click click click click click,
Oh man, that's where up onthe rooftop click click click. How embarrassed
would you be if he if hedidn't mention him, he didn't even notice

(01:42:31):
my shoes. I challenge anyone todo that whole song, and there's probably
people just gonna go in, oh, how can you? How dare you
say that it's the most beautiful songever and ever there's always people that do
say that, obviously, people thatdisagree with with with with things, but
absolute agony. I can't even believeit. Somebody okayed that to record it,
and I can't believe it. Peopleare even talking about it, like

(01:42:54):
me, but it is so awfulthat I just that's this my number one
I despise a song ever is inlife, I think, and now in
life, not just a Christmas song. I think it is like one of
the worst songs ever in my life. That's funny because you know, white
Christmas is the biggest selling song inhistory, not even just Christmas songs,

(01:43:16):
just you have any song, andaccording to you, the Christmas Shoes is
the worst song in history. Sowe've run the full spectrum, contrived,
sappy pulling, you know, sopulling at the heart strings. My little
mom my mother is going to dieand she needs shoes and I can't afford
to pay for them. I mean, it's like the Hallmark Christmas movies of

(01:43:40):
Christmas songs and that is the lastthing that you know, buy morphine,
you know, with your money,don't go over the will one more time.
Like I know, I'm just saying, plan just saying, but that's
it for my my Well, theycouldn't do a song called the Christmas Morphine.

(01:44:02):
That would be weird, so theymade it about it, But a
lot of people would really enjoy that. I think Christmas the Christmas clonic pin.
Well, I'm sure there are peoplewho agree and disagree with our list,
but I will say that one ofthe ways that we are manipulated by
you know, TV channels and UHand media outlets was with the lists.

(01:44:26):
Whenever they put out a top tenlist, whether it's what they call list
shows on TV, you know,top ten vacation destinations, top ten beaches,
whatever, or you know, anyarticle comes up with a top ten
or whatever, they put that outand knowing people will disagree and debate it
and then talk about it and itwill get traffic. Well, I'm not
doing it for traffic. I'm justdoing it to get it out there that

(01:44:47):
I hate it so much. Youhave pure intentions. So I would sit
in a room by myself and justsay it to myself, I hate that
song. Oh my god. Umall right, oh you know, before
we go, I just want tosay, by your recommendation, I finally

(01:45:09):
watched for the first time The BishopsPlight Bishops, Yes, with Carrie Grants
and David Niven. Yes, yeah, I really, I really enjoyed it.
Was another one that was quite sappyand you know, but that was
the time. It was very capraesque. Yes, I was surprised that
it was known, like right offthe bat that Carry Grant was an angel,
so it's not a spoiler at all. And uh, and it was.

(01:45:30):
It was. It was a cute. It was a nice Christmas movie.
I enjoyed it. I enjoyed itvery much. Yeah. That was
my mom's favorite, so I alwayswatched it every year in her honor.
And apparently it was somewhat controversial becauseCarrie Grant playing an angel was like kind
of against type. He tended toplay a kind of darker or gray area
characters. Um, and I thinkthat that was somewhat controversial to have him

(01:45:55):
play an angel. Um in thatera. This is what I think it
was like nineteen forty nine or somethinglike that. They shot that movie on
the lot, the lot over byFormosa Cafe. Oh really that's where they
filmed it. Yeah, you shouldlook up. The trailer for it is
really wild because you know, trailer'sback then were so weird. They're not
like they are now. It wasso about star power that it was literally

(01:46:16):
the trailer for it is there.They're honest, they're on the back lot
or they're on the lot together,like outside the sound stages, and it's
Carrie Grant and Loretta Young and DavidNiven. And they've realized they forgot to
shoot the trailer. So the traileris then remembering, oh, we forgot
to shoot the trailer. So thenthey run over to get on one of
the sound stages and there's a securityguard there that stops them, as if

(01:46:39):
that would ever happen, and theyhave to explain to the security guard what
the movie is about, and that'sbasically the trailer, and then at the
end they just show a quick clipreel with music of some of the big
moments from the film with titles overit, and that's the whole trailer.
It's really wild. It's very,very strange, but I wanted to mention
that one also because it ties intoour our Universal Monsters um because the maid,

(01:47:03):
the housekeeper in their home is ElsaLanchester, bride of Frankenstein. Yes,
yes, who played a servant asusual rights yeah yeah, yeah,
yeah. But there's also another onetoo, and I correct me if I'm
wrong, but Carolyn Grimes plays ZooZoo in It's a Wonderful Life, and

(01:47:24):
she plays a daughter in this showin this movie. Really think connection,
dude, Let's look that up becauseI'm pretty sure. Um, let me
look Bishop's Wife that's her. Yeah, wow, that is really wild.
So yeah, that's it's it's anotherthat that is the one of our podcasts

(01:47:44):
is It's a Wonderful Life that wedid and uh and so there's an association
with that and the Universal Monsters withAlsa Lanchester. So it's interesting that she
that little girl played you know thoseuh two iconic Christmas movies. Right.
Yeah. If you go to theIMDb page for The Bishop's Wife, the
trailer is at the top, soanybody watching this can watch this wild trailer

(01:48:06):
with Kerry Grant and David Niven andLaurett A. Young. I thought another
interesting bit about this was there weretwo screenwriters credited on it, and it
plus it was I think it wasbased on a novel. But this one
screenwriter's name was Leonardo Berkovici and heended up getting blacklisted in the fifties.

(01:48:27):
Just a few years later, hewas blacklisted by the House on American Activities
Committee because he was called in totestify. He'd been named by Edward Demitric
and another person, and so innineteen fifty one he had to go and
testify and he swore he was nota member of the Communist Party, but
then invoked his Fifth Amendment rights whenthey asked if he had ever been in

(01:48:49):
the past, and he got blacklistAs the result, he had to move
to Europe for years and try tomake a living there. I think he
was there for like six or sevenyears before he finally came back to work
with on a Tyrone Power film thatit ended up not getting made because Power
died. Um. But yeah,And it's interesting when you watch the movie

(01:49:10):
from it's every time there's like layers. It's it's a little bit more complex
than you realize at first. BecauseI've seen it probably thirty times now and
I watched it again a couple weeksago, and I still catch little things
that I've never caught before, likelittle lines of dialogue that tie into There's
some interesting layers there. But thewhen he does the line about the you
know, and he's looking at thepainting of the cathedral and Carry Grant says,

(01:49:32):
you know that big roof could makeso many little roofs. That is,
you know, And then you realizethe guy that wrote that got blacklisted
for you know, being a communisticIt is there's an interest. It's just
interesting the whole sure, you knowwhat I mean. It's very uh because
the the I don't want to giveaway the movie anybody hasn't seen it yet,
but the setup is that Niven playsa bishop and he's trying to build

(01:49:54):
this huge cathedral and he's trying towoo this rich woman who widow, who's
going to give him the money tomake the cathedral, but she want to
make it all about her dead husbandand he wants to basically being a monument.
So David Niven asked for help.He prays for help, and Carry
Grant comes down as an angel tohelp him, but of course not in
the way that he expects and that'swhat the movie is all about. So
yeah, yeah, that's cute.I enjoyed the movie. I did very

(01:50:15):
much, so well, good didwe do it? Did we do Christmas?
I'm gonna go watch Peewee's Christmas specialnow a Palate Cleanser, another one
of our podcasts. Yes, Ilove it like our Christmas, don't we?
So thanks again. We always haveto do a shout out to our

(01:50:38):
Patreon supporters. We keep adding newones and we're going to do another exclusive
show for them, probably next week, so look out for that. But
we wanted to get this out intime for Christmas. So again, thanks
to all our Patreon supporters, andthanks to everyone else. Thanks to all
of you for listening to our showevery week or every month. Yeah,
thank you very much, and Ihope you have a wonderful Christmas or whatever

(01:51:00):
you're happy Hollows every New Year,everything else like that. Put on those
those Christmas shoes and on that.We'll see you on the next one.
Thanks for watching you guys. Thanks. This has been an episode of the

(01:51:23):
Dearly Departed podcast. Dig up moreepisodes at Dearly Departed pod dot com and
on iTunes and Google Play. Seeyou next time,