The early Thanksgiving Day parades often had a circus orientation, and hence the animal elements. Actual lions, tigers, and bears were trucked down city streets, traumatizing them and causing the elicitation of roars and growls that frightened observing children. Wisely, the use of living animals was abandoned after a few years, with animal balloons and floats substituted, together with some great vintage cartoonish stuff that was rather surreal.
[Image and text found here; previous Thanksgiving posts here.]
Culinary Specialist 2nd Class Teresa Conde, from San Diego, sculpts a Halloween cake aboard the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz (CVN-68) on Oct. 26, 2020. US Navy Photo.
USS Nimitz (CVN-68) and the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group are currently stationed in the Central Persian Gulf.
[Image and caption found here. I posted this because it’s still not Thanksgiving yet.]
UPDATE: Also on the Nimitz – A Veteran’s Day Cake
Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class Sarah Freitas, left, and Aviation Ordnanceman Airman Erica Rodriguez cut a Veterans Day cake on the aft mess deck of the USS Nimitz (CVN-68) on Nov. 11, 2020. US Navy Photo
The sign on the front of the truck reads, “The Kaiser’s Funeral.”
26 September 1918
“We are in a camp near Auzeville and the big drive is to start. In fact the one that finished the ‘Boches’. Then the morning of the 26th dawned but dawn was preceded by a terrific barrage which was as loud as thunder and lighted up the whole skyline for miles. We were not flying ours but were held in reserve. Hundreds of “planes” were now flying over head. One bunch had over 150 in it.
Along about 8 a.m., along comes a boche plane and he burned three of the balloons all observers landed safe but one and his parachute burned and he fell to his death.
A fellow by the name of Barnett and I started out to see the fun. Put our guns on and started for the front line trenches which were about 5 miles north. After a short while we hit the trenches but of course our boys had advanced and were chasing the boche for a fare you well. We hit several mine craters where the boche had mined the roads but already our engineers had started to budge them. After another hour’s walk and dodging a few pieces of shrapnel we hit the town of Varennes and were keen for souvenirs. The boche were still in one side of the Varennes and we were in the other.
Machine guns were crackling with a steady roar and long streams of ambulances carrying away the wounded. Dead Boche were laying every where. The roads were filled with them. Long about then a Boche 77 took my ….. but never touched us. Then we started going through the dugouts and it was there that I got the general’s helmet. Also was almost lucky enough to capture a Jerry but a doughboy beat me to it. He was hiding in a dug out. Looked like he wasn’t as old as “Bugs” and he was scared almost to death.
After monkeying around a while we hopped an ambulance and rode back toward Auzeville. So that finished the day’s fun. But you ought to have seen the dead Huns. Some had legs blown off. Some had their heads and shoulders off and some were in pieces only. A great many had been burned by mustard gas and were burned to a crisp.”
First recorded in 1976, The Ramones‘ I Don’t Wanna Go Down To The Basement is sort of appropriate.
Sally Cruikshank‘s animations are Betty Boop on acid. Face like a Frog (1987) includes the Cab Calloway-esque song Don’t Go In The Basement (starts at 02:26 ). In 2017, Cruikshank herself added this to the YouTube comments:
“Danny Elfman composed the track for this film. Period. Copyright mine. Then a year or two later I gave his agents permission to include it on a compilation LP, I guess put out by [David] Geffen. Now they claim I got the music from the album or something. They’re wrong. My film came first. My husband’s going to get into it with Geffen.”
“I don’t always listen to Dead Man’s Party, but when I do so do the neighbors.” – YouTube comment
Oingo Boingo was a standout band of the 1980s, combining ska, punk, jazz & rock, and Dead Man’s Party became a Halloween party standard. According to Wikipedia:
The lyric, “I hear the chauffeur coming to my door / Says there’s room for maybe just one more,” is a reference to “The Bus-Conductor,” a short story by E. F. Benson about a hearse driver, first published in The Pall Mall Magazine in 1906.
Video is from the 1986 movie Back To School. Yeah, 34 years ago…
Happy Halloween, folks!
This year I’m gonna scare half the neighborhood by NOT wearing a mask. Hope you get all the tricks you deserve and all the treats that you don’t.
[Paranoia moons previously posted here. More Halloween-related posts in the archives.]
