If you don't have any positive feelings toward "A Charlie Brown Christmas," I'm relatively certain that your heart is made out of wood—or you don't celebrate Christmas. Either or.

The fact that it has been as successful as it's been over the past 57 years wasn't a slam-dunk, however. Even the men responsible for it, Bill Melendez and Lee Mendelson, were afraid that it was going to be a complete failure after its first screening. In fact, according to Mendelson, it seemed like the entire room watching that screening felt the same way.

Except for one animator.

What the roomful of executives saw upon the first screening was a shock—a slow and quiet semireligious, jazz-filled 25 minutes, voiced by a cast of inexperienced children, and, perhaps most unforgivably, without a laugh track. “They said, ‘We’ll play it once and that will be all. Good try,’ ” remembers Mendelson. “Bill and I thought we had ruined Charlie Brown forever when it was done. We kind of agreed with the network. One of the animators stood up in the back of the room—he had had a couple of drinks—and he said, ‘It’s going to run for a hundred years,’ and then fell down. We all thought he was crazy, but he was more right than we were.”

PopMatters has a spectacular article on the history of "A Charlie Brown Christmas," written all the way back in 2006, but like the movie that is its focus, it's near timeless. Give it a read at PopMatters.

First Twinkies, now this? From the New York Times:

Now, in what the brand is calling a reimagined Bazooka, it has overhauled its logo and packaging.

Gone is the red, white and blue color scheme and geometric design of the brand, replaced with more saturated hues like fuchsia and yellow, and with the splattered-paint look of graffiti.

...

“What we’re trying to do with the relaunch is to make the brand relevant again to today’s kids,” said Anthony Trani, vice president of marketing at Bazooka Candy Brands, a division of the Topps Company.

Ken Carbone, a founder of the Carbone Smolan Agency, a Manhattan branding and design firm, reviewed the new Bazooka design, and said it “takes visual cues from comic books and skateboard culture and graffiti” and that it “feels right for today.”

If I told you that I was heavily emotionally invested in Bazooka gum, I'd be lying to you (I'm a Spearmint Trident man through and through, for one), but this seems like an effort at rebranding that's completely off the mark—one that even the branding firm the Times consulted for the story questions.

“I wonder if they couldn’t have taken more from what they had and re-energized it to make it look cool, like the Juicy Fruit model and Hershey’s model,” said Mr. Carbone, referring to the gum brand and chocolate bar that have tweaked their looks over the years but not metamorphosed. “I think this is a little bit of an overreach,” he said, “because they had some equity and authenticity” in their original design.

And the big news, of course, has to do with Bazooka Joe taking a reduced role.

Bazooka Joe and his sidekick, Mort, who wears his turtleneck up over his mouth, will appear only occasionally as illustrations in the new inserts, but without the antics and corny jokes of the three-panel strips.

Only 7 percent of children age 6 to 12 are aware of the Bazooka Joe character, according to E-Poll Market Research, a brand and celebrity research firm that last collected data about the character in 2007. In contrast , an average 30 percent of children are aware of food product mascots, the firm said. Among children who are aware of Bazooka Joe, 41 percent liked the character, below the average likability for food characters, which is 54 percent.

This doesn't have the emotional cache of Twinkies going by the wayside, sure. While all good things (and even mediocre things, such as a gum mascot) have to go eventually, this leaves me with one nagging question: who's next to go? Chester Cheetah, of Cheetos? The anthropomorphic M&Ms? Dig 'Em, the Sugar Smacks Frog?

If Bazooka Joe and Twinkie the Kid have gone, no one is safe, friends.

If you missed the debut of Tucson writer and filmmaker Daniel Buckley's Tucson’s Heart and Soul: El Casino Ballroom, thank the Tucson gawds you've been given a chance to redeem yourself.

The documentary on the life, times, destruction and rebuilding of Tucson iconic performance and celebration venue first premiered to a full-house at the Fox Tucson Theatre in August. While Buckley was a bit disappointed the documentary was still a work-in-progress when it screened as a part of the Cine Plaza series, this time its done and the "redebut" takes place appropriately at El Casino Ballroom during Fiesta El Casino, Saturday, Dec. 8, 6 p.m. Doors open at 5 p.m. so you can get your El Casino on.

The Ballroom, and I shouldn't have to tell you this, but I have to, is located at 436 E. 26th St. $5 admission at the door goes to the El Casino Restoration Fund.

From Buckley's press release:

As a nerdy man-child (read: blogger) my heart breaks at the thought that I could have spent part of my childhood being encouraged to use computers by the creators of both Kermit the Frog and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

"Jim Henson's Red Book," a project by The Jim Henson Company Archives that curates and selects entries from Henson's daily log, has the details on the meetings of two of popular culture's finest minds.

When Jim Henson had dinner with Douglas Adams, creator of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy, they must have had much to discuss. The idea of working together on a project was intriguing and in 1985, Adams got involved with some Henson projects. Their shared interest in technology brought the two men together, particularly as Jim explored the possibilities for computer animation (for the Labyrinth opening and Starboppers) and various computing tools.

. . .

Adams had been working with the Henson team that year on the Muppet Institute of Technology project. Collaborating with Digital Productions (the computer animation people), Chris Cerf, Jon Stone, Joe Bailey, Mark Salzman and Douglas Adams, Jim’s goal was to raise awareness about the potential for personal computer use and dispel fears about their complexity. In a one-hour television special, the familiar Muppets would (according to the pitch material), “spark the public’s interest in computing,” in an entertaining fashion, highlighting all sorts of hardware and software being used in special effects, digital animation, and robotics. Viewers would get a tour of the fictional institute — a series of computer-generated rooms manipulated by the dean, Dr. Bunsen Honeydew, and stumble on various characters taking advantage of computers’ capabilities. Fozzie, for example, would be hard at work in the “Department of Artificial Stupidity,” proving that computers are only as funny as the bears that program them. Hinting at what would come in The Jim Henson Hour, viewers, “…might even see Jim Henson himself using an input device called a ‘Waldo’ to manipulate a digitally-controlled puppet.”

For more, including concept art of the proposed Muppet Institute of Technology project, head to "Jim Henson's Red Book."

In honor of tomorrow being the 46th anniversary of the very first Star Trek episode, Google has boldly made a short, interactive adventure doodle to celebrate. It's not much, for sure, but it's a fun diversion that stays (mostly) true to the series. Check it out on Google's home page.

Oh, and for what it's worth: Captain Kirk has nothing on Captain Picard.

There. I said it. I'm not taking it back.

Forty years ago, The Godfather was packing them in at theaters; Neil Young released Harvest; and gas cost 35 cents a gallon.

You can relive more of the good things from 1972 through KXCI 91.3 FM’s concert celebration of that year at the Rialto Theatre on Saturday, Aug. 25.

When KXCI celebrated the 40th anniversary of Woodstock with a similar concert in 2009, it was followed by tributes to the music of 1970 and 1971. This year’s concert is expected to continue the success of the previous three, with nine local bands and solo artists covering cuts from nine of the best albums of 1972. The featured albums range from Al Green’s Let’s Stay Together to Stevie Wonder’s Talking Book to Randy Newman’s Sail Away.

“It’s a lot of fun, really,” said Amanda Shauger, community engagement director at KXCI. “It’s a little bit kitschy, and people get into the ’70s gear. It’s just a great way for people who love downtown, who love Tucson, who love KXCI and who love local music to get together and celebrate.

“I would also say it’s a way to think about the time period. I mean when you look at ’72, it was an election year, and it was the Olympics (in Munich, where terrorists killed members of the Israeli Olympic team). It’s kind of a way to reflect on that history. It’s a fun celebration of music and culture, but it’s an awareness of those times.”

Although the concert is mainly a social event, it’s also a fundraiser for the nonprofit radio station. Proceeds will help keep KXCI on the air and presenting an eclectic music mix that Tucsonans won’t find on most radio stations. Past KXCI Celebrates concerts have drawn more than 500 music fans.

Several food trucks will be on hand outside the Rialto to provide nourishment for concertgoers.

Admission is $10. Children 12 and younger admitted free. Get your tickets here.

Thanks to Arizona Theatre Company for pointing out this YouTube clip from the LG Wolf Company showing the groundbreaking and some of the construction of the Temple of Music and Art in 1927. Be sure to turn the sound off however, since it's it's the sound of the film spooling which gets really irritating after a minute or so.

Happy 53rd birthday to the Disneyland Monorail, which was the first daily operating monorail system in the Western Hemisphere and the launch of the primary transportation for Americans today
a future punchline on The Simpsons. I blame Nixon, who was on hand as vice president to dedicate the monorail, as seen in the video above.

I have generally pleasant memories of my senior prom, although those moments are likely to be erased from my brain by a combination of old age and newly gathered information about singing-based reality shows. However, while my date and I did share a limo with two other couples, I guess my kids will be forced to rent their own modern streetcar or something to keep up with their peers at this point. Thanks for nothing, MTV's My Super Sweet 16.

Prom goers have been calling Designer Limousine in Port Washington, N.Y., since February to book its three 48-foot double-decker party buses. All are now reserved through June, says Joyell Friedman, a transportation administrator for the company. “It’s cutthroat, seeing who can get here first,” she says.

For each bus, about 60 teens pay $120 apiece for a 10-hour “prom package” that includes pickup at one or more pre-prom parties and rides to and from the prom and post-prom parties.

The buses have a nonalcoholic bar and a separate sound system on each level, a small dance floor, plus two attendants to oversee safety.

“It’s like a nightclub on wheels,” Ms. Friedman says.

Teens and their parents are spending 34% more on prom expenses this year, or $1,078 on average, compared with $807 in 2011, based on a phone survey of 1,000 households for Visa Inc. by the market-research company GfK Custom Research North America, of New York.

Sure, no sexism is okay. But if we're going to give anything a pass, it may as well be something that we've decided is absolutely ridiculous at this point, right?

But Retronaut's selection of absurdly sexist advertisements is, well, absurdly hilarious. Take this ad for Tipalet cigarettes, for instance:

• retronaut.co
• Oh, the layers of subtext.

Really, it's an amazing look at the evolution of society through the lens of advertising media. If you've got some time (and we both know that you do,) give it a look.

Fair warning: There are a number of references to douches and douching, so try not to laugh too loudly at them if you're at work and have the mentality of a teenage boy.

[Retronaut]