Hump Day Movie: Will Vinton's Claymation Christmas Special

© Henstooth Video

For me, a child growing up in the 1980s, the Claymation Christmas Special made far more of an impact than the 1960s stop motion Rudolph and Frosty movies did. The Raisins and their friends were funny, they were unusual, and they were "modern."

Watching them today, the only thing that seems really dated to me is the sophistication of the claymation work. The California Raisins commercials were HUGE when I was little. Of course, I lived in California, but they made TOYS out of them. Those were some of the first toys *I* could ever remember being made from commercials. And they were raisins!  The Will Vinton Christmas Special took that stop-motion technique even further, using unusual characters to share a wide variety of carols.  The hosts are dinosaurs. The Carol of the Bells is done with goofy bells hitting themselves. It's silly, innocent, and still one of my favorite memories of the holidays as a child.

You can still find it on DVD, but I have yet to see this show in-store anywhere. Amazon has it for $20.

There are clips available on Youtube. I love We Three Kings . The shoes and mustaches on the camels kill me.

What's your favorite childhood holiday movie? Have you seen this one?

TBR Challenge Review: Motorcycle Man by Kristen Ashley

Format: ebook
Pub Date: December 2012
Publisher: Forever (Hachette)
FTC: purchased myself
Length: 136,000 words
Why it was in the TBR: Comparisons to crack. Not sure why that influenced me, except I wanted a massive reading glom.

This month's TBR Challenge theme is All About the Hype and this book really qualifies. Everyone is in love with Kristen Ashley's books.

Everyone, it seems, but me.

Review: The Secret Life of Miss Anna Marsh by Ella Quinn

Format: ebook
Publisher: Kensington
Pub Date: November 7, 2013
FTC: Review copy courtesy of the publisher via Netgalley

This wouldn't have been half bad if every plot device ever used in a historical romance wasn't crammed in here. I liked the characters a lot, but the writing itself was riddled with cliches and tired scenarios.

You have the not-so-secret-crush. The woman-dressed-as-a-man smuggler. The spies. The amnesiac. The trouble on the road home. Your token strumpet. It's like the author threw every possible twist into a Bingo tumbler and wrote what she pulled out at random. Any one of those would have been fine, but to this experienced reader, it was all a bit over the top. I'll suspend my disbelief for one of them. But altogether? Nope. (Please click on the review title to continue reading.)