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Perhaps you’ve already heard this little bit of trivia, but in case you haven’t, let me the one to tell you: many people in Japan associate Christmas with things that we’d expect, such as decorations and gifts, but also with things that we wouldn’t expect, such as romantic getaways to love hotels and a Kentucky Fried Chicken dinner.

Joi Ito has written that he knows the origin of the Japanese Christmas/KFC tradition: it’s all due to his friend, Shin Okawara. Shin was responsible for bringing KFC to Japan, and during its introduction, spun what I like to call “the dirty bird” or “greasy buzzard” as the sort of food eaten by rich people in America, in a manner similar to the way those old Grey Poupon ads made it seem like the mustard of the upper classes. He ran an ad campaign that showed wealthy American

families all eating KFC for their yuletide feast. The Japanese, being led to believe that “dirty bird” was an American Christmas tradition, simply adopted it.

Lest you think that I am poking fun at our Japanese friends for adopting a Christmas tradition learned from TV, I will now make a confession — we deVillas have done it as well. In an episode of the late 1970s television series Eight is Enough, the Bradford family had a tradition of drinking orange juice before opening their presents. Dad thought this was a good idea, and borrowed this tradition. Almost thirty years later, it’s still OJ first, then the presents. And it’s all Dick van Patten’s fault.

I’d love to give you a KFC-related downloadable as today’s Advent Calendar goodie, but I don’t have any. However, I’ve got the next best thing: McDonald’s-related downloadable goodies. These are ads from 1962 that feature early appearances of McDonald’s then-new mascot, Ronald McDonald, who was played by Willard Scott, long before he was a fixture on the Today show.

Ronald’s costume was a much rougher version of the Ronald we know today. Note the use of a McDonald’s cup for a nose and tray with burger, fries and shake for a hat. Also notable is the quaint 1960’s “Ronald McDonald” theme music.

Those of you who have a bit of clown phobia may not want to watch these videos — many people I know find the old Ronald much creepier than thew current one.

• McDonald’s Ad #1 [1MB, MPEG video]
• McDonald’s Ad #2 [1MB, MPEG video]

For

a long time, adapting Charles Dickens’ classic tale A Christmas Carol

was a tried-true cliche for television shows. The setup was always the

same: some character who was behaving badly (it wasn’t necessarily

greed) would get visited by three ghosts who would show him the error

of his or her ways. I remember some of the more successful attempts

such as Blackadder’s Christmas Carol and the WKRP in Cincinatti

episode in which Mr. Carlson doesn’t hand out Christmas bonuses, eats

one of Johnny’s brownies and has a dream in which he gets visited by

the ghosts (the Marley in this case being Bob

Marley).

I also remember sillier adaptations, such as the Six Million

Dollar Man episode title A Bionic Christmas Carol, which is

summarized as follows:

Oscar

makes Steve give up his Christmas holiday to investigate a major systems supplier

for the space projects.  Oscar fears that sabotage in the life support systems

may affect a Mars landing.  Horton Budge is a cynical industrialist and is

so tight that his nephew, Bob Crandall, who is employed at Budge’s plant,

isn’t paid enough to support his family.  The sabotage that Oscar fears is

the result of the low morale at the plant caused by Budge’s miserly ways. 

Steve utilizes his bionics to bring some cheer and a change of heart to Budge

and his family

I was nine years old when the episode was aired (December 1976), and for some reason, it’s permanently burned into my memory.

There’ve also been many movie adaptations that have modernized the

tale, from the excellent Scrooged,

starring Bill Murray as a cynical

and selfish TV producer (and Bobcat Goldthwait playing the

Cratchit-like character) to the rather painful Skinflint: A Country

Christmas Carol, which was a made-for-TV musical that I think starred a

lot of the cast from Hee Haw.

I’m not as big a TV watcher as I used to be in my childhood and teen

years, so I don’t know if A Christmas Carol is still inspiring

television show plots. I thought that in the spirit of the cliche, I’d

present the original version in eBook form [412K, PDF] as

today’s Advent Calendar goodie.

Recommended Reading

Here’s a web page that covers a number of television and movie adaptations of A Christmas Carol.

Can you read Japanese? If so, could you please take a look at this site

(from which the pictures below were taken) and let me know if that

bum-clenched-from-being-creeped-out feeling I’m having is justified?

Thanks.

The cloth over the sleeping person’s face is soaked in

ether, which allows Santa to leave behind his present: a box that

blocks the light from the person’s anti-Seasonal Affective Disorder lamp.

Put that other arm where we can see it, Claus!

Santa is either improving on the Tooth Fairy’s methods or prepearing to smother this poor young woman.

We’re not quite clear on the concept of “stocking stuffing” here.

It’s been a bit quiet around the office lately, and that’s because Boss Ross has had some downtime due to some skull-crushing migraines. Get well soon, dude!

If you’re looking for new background images for your computer desktop,

need to spice up your dorm room or cubicle with wacky posters or are

looking for off-the-wall Christmas or Chanukah gift wrapping paper, the

Universe People website is a gold mine waiting to be tapped!

The Universe People site opens with something that I’ve heard only at

the Apple Store and that International House of Pancakes in San

Francisco’s SOMA district with the overly-cheeful staff: “WE LOVE YOU

AND HELP YOU OUT”. They warn you that “They” — meaning governments and

big business — “want to replace your spiritual heart by calculator!”

As far as I can tell, the Universe People are a wacky UFO-meets-Jesus

cult based in the Czech Republic. The text of the site, a mishmash of

Heaven’s Gate-ish sci-fi religion written in poorly-translated English,

makes hours for unintentionally hilarious reading. However, the site’s

true gem is its collection of images, of which there are thousands. For

example, take a gander at this image of Jesus in a style approaching

that of Maragret Keane’s “sad-eyed children” paintings:

Better still is this diagram of “Transcendental Action of Helpful

Energies from Heaven and Hell on the Planet Earth”, shown below. You

can click the image to see it at full size.

Click the image to see it at full size.

I really love that “Informatic-Analyst” bit at the bottom

(“informatics” is a term often used outside North America to refer to

what we call “computer science”). Let’s take a closer look:

Click the image to see it at full size.

You know, that looks like a lot of dot-com business models.

Thousands of other equally-strange images are available for

download from their images site. Be sure to browse this freaky gallery

where you can find this painting, which makes me want to go buy a van

right now so I can have it airbrushed just like so:

Damn, I wish I could’ve used that image for our wedding invitations!

Being a UFO-Jesus cult, they have no shortage of pictures of flying saucers:

or ships that look just like the “whalesong” vessel from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home:

The Universe People’s site should give you lots of fun browsing during

the downtime of the Christmas season. Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah,

and KLAATU BARATO NIKTO!

Today is the last day to vote for “Best Blog” in the 2005 Canadian Blog Awards — at midnight tonight, the polls will close. Please cast your vote for Accordion Guy!

From Lesson X — “Races of Man” — of Mrs. M.B. Moore’s book, The Geographical Reader for the Dixie Children:

The men who inhabit the globe, are not all alike. Those in Europe and

America are mostly white and are called the Caucasian race. This race is civilized, and

is far above the others. They have schools and churches and live in fine style. They

also generally have wise and good men for rulers, and a regular form of government. The

women are treated with respect and tenderness, and in many cases their wish is law among

their male friends.

There is a class of people who inhabit most of Asia which is of a yellow color. They

are a quiet, plodding race, but when educated are sensible and shrewd. They

have some books, and a regular form of government, but they are heathen; I mean

by this that they worship images made of wood and stone. They do not know about

Jesus. And yet they pray to those idols much oftener than we christians do to our

Savior. This race is called the Mongolion. Missionaries have

been sent to teach them

about Jesus. When they every become converted, they hold fast their profession, and

are not fickle like some races.

The African or negro race is found in Africa. They are slothful and vicious, but

possess little cunning. They are very cruel to each other, and when they have want they

sell their prisoners to the white people for slaves. They know nothing of Jesus, and the

climate in Africa is so unhealthy that white men can scarcely go there to preach to them.

The slaves who are found in America are in much better condition. They are better fed,

better clothed, and better instructed than in their native country.

I must say, it reads rather like Steve Sailer’s site in places.