King Family Revisited

Last night I met Cam Clarke, son of the great Alyce King. Here's a rerun of a post from Easter 2009.When I was a kid I was obsessed with The King Family.The King Family was this humongous group of clean-cut, mostly-blond, well-dressed white folk who sang cover versions of songs made famous by other people. These were mostly showtunes, spirituals and patriotic songs like Climb Every Mountain, He's Got the Whole in His Hands and America the Beautiful. Sometimes they all dressed alike and sometimes they even dressed like royalty!

The King Sisters (Donna, Yvonne, Louise and Alyce) and their extended musical family had their own ABC prime-time variety series from 1965-66. It was sort of like THE LAWRENCE WELK SHOW if Lawrence had fathered everyone.

In all, some thirty-seven members of the King family, ranging in age from seven months to 79 years, were featured on the show. I wanted to be one.

A short-lived 1969 revival, also on ABC, focused on the younger, hipper King Cousins. Don't they look cool? Back in 1969, channel 11 in LA ran a special Thanksgiving themed hour featuring the King Family - right after an hour of THE BARBARA McNAIR SHOW! Man, sometimes I wish I had a time machine. Actually, I do - it's called PBS.
After this blog post original ran in April 2009 I received several emails and comments from people who also grew up watching the King Family. additionally, a producer of a King Family Christmas special for PBS contacted me.  Visit their officiall website here for more info about the talented clan. Also the DVDs of the shows and specials are available through Cam Clarke, son of Alyce King. Visit his website for more info.

Happy Thanks!

Hooray for Holidays!

The Hollywood Christmas Parade kicks off the holiday season in tinsel town with a annual star-studded extravaganza. It used to occur on the evening before Thanksgiving and was telecast throughout the season.The very first parade, in 1928, was highlighted by the appearance of only one actress, Jeanette Loff, and Santa Claus. Since the main attraction seemed to be Santa, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce named it The Santa Claus Lane Parade.
The parade was created to attract shoppers and their families to Hollywood Boulevard during the holiday season. Hollywood Boulevard was decorated with live Christmas trees and a live reindeer pulled sleigh carrying Santa Claus and Ms. Loff down the Boulevard. Miss Loff died in 1942 under mysterious circumstances. (The above photo is from the 1950 parade, © Toyo Miyatake.)In later years bigger stars would participate - like the late David Carradine, who died last year, also under mysterious circumstances.In 1946, the parade inspired Gene Autry to write Here Comes Santa Claus, (Right Down Santa Clause Lane). Autry died at the ripe old age of 91. Whew - I was beginning to think this parade was cursed!
The parade was in Los Angeles on KTTV Channel 11, and syndicated to stations across the country - including WNEW, channel 5 in New York. Santa wears glasses? Looks more like the late Steve Allen.
Other LA stations also carried the live broadcast. Interesting how Channel 13's ad highlighted the shows whose stars were appearing in the parade. Hosted by Hobo Kelly? The event was renamed The Hollywood Christmas Parade in 1978 and the coverage switched over to KTLA Channel 5. In 2004, NBC aired an hour-long Blockbuster Hollywood Christmas Spectacular.
In 2010, the 79th annual parade will take place on Sunday, November 28, 2009 at 6 p.m. It will air nationally on local stations and on The Hallmark MOVIE Channel (It's a movie? Who knew?) on Dec. 15. The Grand Marshall for the 2010 parade is Larry King. Here's the official website.

Bob Eubanks and Lee Meriwether have been replaced by Erik Estrada and Laura McKensie. WHO???

The Day After Thanks...

When I was a kid, something I always looked forward to on the day after Thanksgiving was when ABC (and later CBS also) filled their Friday schedule with episodes of all their Saturday morning cartoon favorites.
Yeah, they were the same old crappy mix of badly animated shows you could see on any given Saturday, but somehow having them air on a Friday made them seem really special. The local ABC station also added to the fun by show two of my favorite animated features over the holiday weekend...HEY THERE IT'S YOGI BEAR (1964), which featured Yogi's Southern belle girlfriend Cindy Bear.and THE MAN CALLED FLINTSTONE which features some great music, including a fun James Bond-like theme song. These two feature-length Hanna-Barbara took our Saturday-morning TV favorites and and gave them some big screen exposure. This tradition seems to have flourished as Nickekodeon, Cartoon Network and Disney Channel favorites now regularly appear in straight-to-dvd features in this mold. In fact this morning, I awoke to TWEETY'S HIGH-FLYING ADVENTURE, a cute all-star Warner Bros. musical farce featuring cameos by about two dozen Looney Tunes characters. It's pretty fun to see Sylvester interact with Pepé LePew and Penelope Pussycat, especially when it seems that Pepé is suggesting a three-way with the puddy tats! Boy, times have changed!

Happy Thanksvegan!

Here's two vintage ads that make me smile on this day of Thanks.