The Timeless Allure of the Grinch

The classic holiday special "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" will air at 8:00 p.m. on ABC on Christmas night. The program first aired just over 45 years ago on
Dec. 18, 1966, exactly 34 years before the "Seinfeld" episode "The Strike" which introduced the world to Festivus.

The tv version of the Dr. Seuss children's book of the same name was directed by two legendary "Looney Tunes" directors Chuck Jones and Ben Washam_ who was credited with giving Daffy Duck the catch phrase: "Thanks for the sour persimmons, cousin."

The cartoon features Boris Karloff, the great horror film actor who would die three years later in 1969 at age 81, as both the narrator and the voice of the Grinch. Thurl Ravenscroft, who would later be known as the voice of Tony the Tiger in cereal commercials, provided the voice for the theme song.

Dr. Seuss actually feared the use of Karloff because he thought the actor who first brought Frankenstein to life on the silver screen might scare away children.

But, the show has endured after all these years, even though it was made into a surprisingly awful feature film version with Jim Carrey in 2000.

SIDEBAR ONE: Anyone interested in helping starving children this Christmas might want to contemplate donating to CARE's Somalia famine relief fund. As of July 20, 2011, two regions of southern Somalia were declared famine zones. CARE estimates that some 3.7 million people are starving and in need of medical assistance in the famine, which has also struck parts of Ethiopia and Kenya. For more information go to www.care.org or google the term 'Somalia famine.'

SIDEBAR TWO: On a lighter note, I was going to make the following joking posting on Facebook, but I thought it could be misunderstood, so I am posting it here on this blog, which we sometimes wonder that no one is reading, except for die-hard followers in El Salvador, of all places:

"Got a Tea Partier a Jesus Christ bobblehead doll and an Occupy Wall Street protester a Che Guevara bobblehead doll for Christmas. I sure hope I don't get the packages mixed up."

As I said earlier, this is a joke, but there are actually bobblehead dolls for both Jesus Christ and Che Guevara!

Beers Around the World (#48)- Saku Beer (Estonia)

We are on the verge of closing out our Beers Around the World series, and today we choose one of the smallest and newest members of the European Union, the former Soviet Republic of Estonia, which is one of the three Baltic Sea nations, including Latvia and Lithunia.

Estonia has a population of 1.34 million, and the capital city there is Tallinn. But, Saku Beer is brewed in the city of Saku, Estonia.

The Saku Brewery is as old as Estonia itself (politically speaking) as it formed in 1991 when the old USSR fell apart. Saku Beer is now listed on the Tallinn Stock Exchange, and it has 40 percent of the domestic market.

Saku Beer is also the sponsor of Tartu Ulikol, a pro basketball team in Estonia.

As for the country, Andrus Ansip is the current prime minister. And, Estonia is the wealthiest of the former Soviet republics. It was also a place where the new Jim Carrey film "I Love You, Phillip Morris" which only opened in a small number of cinemas here is America was a big hit for reasons that no one is quite sure of.