People of a certain age understand the widespread sense of loss and sadness brought about by the death yesterday of forever Mouseketeer Annette Funicello.
Annette became a teenage TV idol in the ’50’s, at a time when the idea of a TV idol was still new. Today it is considerably more common for an attractive young person to have her or his real persona distributed to a global audience for profit and entertainment. Back when the Disney Corporation did this with Annette Funicello, maintaining the aura of innocence in the midst of a marketing campaign was still possible. To her credit, she was able to maintain that image in spite of the usual pressures of fame.
I was a few years too young to catch the full blast of Annette-mania among ’50’s and ’60’s youth, but when I think of her it’s not the Mouseketeers theme song that comes to mind as readily as this one – a Beach Boys classic written and performed here by one of the least-famous Beach Boys, Bruce Johnston. It comes from a BBC2 program called “The Old Grey Whistle Test.”
What kind of fantasy world would you like to live in?
Trail Baboon 
I will show my age a bit and admit that I was introduced to “Disney Girls” by Captain and Tennille (though perhaps that’s not as far away from the Beach Boys as it might seem since the Captain half of that team played with the Beach Boys for awhile). Even as a cover, I loved the song. When I heard the original later, it was still great. But that doesn’t answer the question…
If I lived in a fantasy world, I could survive on cheese, dark chocolate, red wine and good bread. I could spend all day Thinking Profound Thoughts about Things and not have to worry whether or not that paid the bills (heck in my fantasy world there would be no bills). Also in my fantasy world, I would still be in bed right now…(though I’m up and out of the house with good reason, I’d still rather be in bed – my fantasy world allows me to sleep until 9am on any and all days).
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Thank you for identifying those singers! I could not come up with them. Was thinking Barry Manilow, but that did not seem right.
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Barry Manilow never seems right.
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Except to those of us who are admitting right out loud that they love him. Sorry if this tarnishes my image here on the trail…..
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As long as it’s not Daniel O’Donnell. Please don’t anyone admit to being a fan! 🙂
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In my fantasy Daniel O’Donnell is mute…
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Made me snort tea out my nose.
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I believe a continuing love of Barry Manilow is an acquired malady, I mean taste.
I had a student one semester who adored the man (even though she was really far too young to even know about him IMO) and made it her stated goal to feature him in every single paper/project she did for my Intro to Theatre class.
And a very nice job she did of it too. It got so I looked forward to how she was going to work him in.
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i was not familiar with daniel o donnell do you meet him by watching public television. i have never heard anyone with zero vibrato before. it is actually quite remarkable. i think anyone could sing the right note but sound wrong by using the technique of singing dead flat notes. i have not heard that and have a hard tme trying to copy it.
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Good morning. The fantasy world I would like to live is my vision of a utopian world. The great problems of the world would be much reduced or absent. No war or big environmental problems. There would be problems to deal with which would be handled by a well informed and engaged public. I would have a good place to live with plenty of room for gardening that would also be near a body of water, woodlands, and prairie. In addition, my home would not be too far from a community with a full range of all the social activities that I like and a large assortment of interesting people.
Regarding Annette Funicello, I am old enough to remember seeing her on the Mickey Mouse Club. Annette certainly was an early version of a teenage idol even though the Mickey Mouse Club was more or less a young kids show. Young boys, like myself, found her extremely attractive doing her Mouseketeer routine. Although she is also well know for her movies, in my mind she is best know for her work as Mouseketeer.
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When I was a really small child this song was EVERYWHERE. Makes me smile.
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Written by Harry McLintock, also known as Haywire Mac. It was one of several hobo songs he wrote. His version is the one used in the soundtrack of “Oh Brother Where Art Thou.”
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cool tidbit
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Cliffy.
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Rise and Shine Baboons!
My favorite fantasy world would allow me to eat everything I want without regard to calories. And I would never gain an ounce.
Oh, Annette. I used to watch her on Micky Mouse Club. She was adorably cute and made my little girl heart thump with the possibilities of being a Big Girl. Her life on the Disney set looked very exciting to me.
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my fantasy land would be to let people do the things they enjoy rather than need to slave away at jobs they tolerate for the bill paying end of the life equation. the differences between the haves and have nots would be tweaked by some omnipotent overseer who could put together a way of measuring how to divvey up the wealth of the world. the oil companies would be paid a fee like migrant workers for helping us to harvest the gifts our planet provides for us all to partake in. the use of water , oil, minerals, natural resources and the responsibility for keeping the air water and earth in good shape for the grand kids and great grand kids. the whole idea of doing our best and using our capabilities to their fullest is the thing we need to aim for. in the fantasy land i dream of we all understand the deal. we grade ourselves daily on how we did and collect accordingly rather than trying to get all that we can for the least we can put out. concerts carnivals arts and adventures would be parts of everyones lives but they would be based on a reward based system for doing your best. til youre dead.
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Rewards are okay. Good examples work better than rewards to motivate me.
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tim – I’m guessing Donald Trump wouldn’t be allowed in your fantasy land??? Or would he just be magically transformed?
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he would be the perfect example of what we all need to strive to avoid. let him do what he does and put a matrix up that shows the result for the world for donald for humanity and balance it out so we all like it. i get the feeling donald would try to figure the angle on how to appear exemplary. i have a feeling it would take him a while to get the hang of it
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when i looked it up i recoginized it . the bbc version was halfway there. thanks dale for nudge and the recall of the innocent days. annette and thatcher joined at the hip for all time. who woulda thunk? i had such a crush on annette. the older woman. forbidden fruit in a 60’s kinda way
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tim’s
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Yeah— that would be fun.
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Really, a pain-free one.
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you appreciate health when its gone.
hope there a break clyde
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I have posted before about my teenage Annette fantasy. She and I were born the same year. I remember her as a cute little kid. Then she was cuter and not so little. Then she was even cuter and not little at all, and I made her one of my fantasy heartthrobs. Did I have inappropriate fantasies about Annette? God, yes! Every day.
In my most full-blown fantasies, Annette and I would be in a tiny float plane flying over the Canadian wilderness when the plane developed trouble and crashed. Although Annette and I would be uninjured, all the adults would perish (there go the inconvenient chaperones!). I would have unlimited time to find out if Annette was maybe a little frisky if you caught her without her mouse ears. And if not, my fantasy had a backup dream, for I would be able to enjoy world-class fishing for wilderness pike and lake trout.
My current fantasies would be totally different. I now would fantasize about a world where people lived in harmony with the natural world and with each other, Oddly, although I am not religious, in my fantasy I and everyone else has a rich spiritual life. Make of that what you will.
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spiritual vs religious
=
healthy vs weight lifter
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I like it that your fantasy had a back-up fantasy!
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Top of the list… my fantasy world involves no cleaning. Laundry would do itself, snow would shovel itself, floors would remain clean. The rest of my fantasy world involves no going to work, having the library be open 24/7, oodles and oodles of pasta and chocolate without the oodles and oodles of hip expanditure. Oh… and dragons.
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like dragons
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Love it, VS.
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I just spoke to my sister. She has been told she will go home from the hospital today.
That’s good news, but of course there is reason for continued concern.
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About the best seizure clinic in the world is in the Cities. Sandy and I spent four days there to prove she did not have a seizure.
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glad to hear shes out. hope all goes well. sending those positive vibes…..
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Good news! Hope she recovers quickly.
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Annette was diagnosed with MS about the same time as my next door neighbor. He is now 74 with only a slight tremor. So I have followed private adult life as much as I could more than her star life. They both lived a long time, but then that disease does that.
I wonder if I have seen her in any movie. Saw the Club only rarely. It was on at chore time.
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its amazing how today the ability for kids to adjust their world to fit their desired schedule vs the old days when choices had to be made. frainkie avalon was her partner in the beach movies and he was on tv this morning. he looked pretty good for a 70 year old heart throb. so did iannette.
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There were a couple of the Beach movies on over the weekend… I stopped by briefly as I was flipping to something else. Teenager commented that the dancing on the beach scene was “weird”.
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different from mosh pits
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1OBn0HuC50
Has always looked good to me….
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It’s a sure bet that some denizen of the trail will post an interesting video on any given day, today’s no exception. Nice, vs.
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should I worry that I knew immediately what that clip was going to be? Frankie looked pretty good for an old guy back then.
Loved that movie. So wanted to look like Olivia Newton John at the end of it, but really, not my style.
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I didn’t grow up with a TV in the house, so my childhood was depraved on account of being deprived. Never knew the Annette with mouse ears, but saw her in a couple of the Beach Blanket movies, although I have to admit the bigger draw for me was Frankie Avalon.
My fantasy world would combine any number of the ideas above. No cleaning, for sure, and no weight gain and no pain, would be great. I’d add to that, no weeds in the garden. And how about this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGYgj82Wkis
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like
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Had a girlfriend once that used to say, “I don’t want a perfect world…I just want it the way I want it.”
Same woman used to say, “I don’t have ‘issues,’ I have ‘quirks’…’quirks’ are cuter.”
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I’ve actually given this some thought–it’s the sort of thing people might discuss late at night at a convention. The DC and Marvel comic-book universes are both out: way too violent. Middle-Earth would be fine in certain eras and horrible in others.The world of “Fullmetal Alchemist”, or at least the nation where most of the action takes place, is a military dictatorship, plus it turns out that souls from our world are needed to power their magic, which is Not Cool. Earthsea’s not too bad, except for the prejudice against women’s magic, so I’d have to start a feminist movement if I moved there. All in all, I think the world I’d prefer to inhabit would be Harry Potter’s…after Voldemort’s final defeat, of course. I like that I wouldn’t have to give up this world in order to live in a magical world–I’d still be able to see my friends and go to all the Marvel Avengers films. I’d love to be a wandmaker like Ollivander; for some reason that really appeals to me (though all of my wands would be vegetarian, no dragon heartstrings!).
I’m afraid Annette Funicello was a fair bit before my time, so I don’t have any memories of her or the Mickey Mouse Club. Now, “The Electric Company,” that’s different…
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Easy Reader, Fargo North – Decoder…yeah, totally with you on Electric Company. A key part of forming who I am now (is that good or bad, I wonder?).
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and ZOOM. Loved that-the version that was on when the s&h was great too. The “new” version of Electric Company? not so much.
Faster than a rolling O, more powerful than silent E, able to leap capital T in a single bound. it’s a word, it’s a plan, it’s ________
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Letterman!!!!
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Late at night at a comic convention??? Want to volunteer for SpringCon at the Grandstand on May 18-19th?
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No question – my all-the-world’s-a-musical: groups of people would often break into song and dance, knowing all the steps and words.
Of course, other people’s suggestions for unlimited, no-consequence eating, good health, no pain, no war would also have to be in effect.
Oh, and all the children (AND adults) would be above average!
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Any world in which I would spontaneously burst into song is not a fantasy except in the most twisted, grotesque sense of the word.
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We all lived through Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan in Mama Mia — I think we’d survive you as well!
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But, Steve, in my singing world, you’d sound like Frankie Avalon (or Daniel O’Donnell). I had never heard of Daniel O’Donnell but when I found a youtube clip, he seemed fine. Why do certain parties (PJ and Anna) put him in the oft-reviled category with Barry M?
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Oh, Lisa, I don’t put Daniel O’Donnell in the same category as Barry Manilow, that would not be fair to the much reviled Barry M. Daniel O’Donnell is trotted out repeatedly on every tpt pledge week, he apparently he has huge appeal to some people who apparently donate to tpt, but his charm completely escapes me. Saccharine and smarmy are the only two words I can think of that begin to describe how awful I think he is. I should probably stop there and not dig my hole any deeper, but I’ll continue to turn off the TV the moment he appears on it.
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That’s the benefit of watching hardly any TV; I don’t see the pledge weeks.
I can see that having him on endless pledge promos might get old.
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Nora Batty is my Annette.
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Like!
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:D!
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Interesting how much fantasy there is in many of the reality shows.
I just reread the Narnia books. That’s an interesting fantasy world.
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Brigadoon.
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In myultra fantasy world I am a great modern classical composer, sort of a combination of Bartok, Ravel, and Leonard Berstein. I would never let Daniel ODonnell sing my music, and would only composevocal music for baritones.
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can you hum the first couple of bars?
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OT – We are getting rid of our old, round, solid oak pedastal dining table. I bought it back in 1972, and it was probably 50 years old at that time. It has a leaf that expands it to an oval table that will seat six. It’s free for the taking. Any takers?
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Lovely, Linda.
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