Rich Footage

Yesterday I couldn't find half of the presents I bought. You can see that sad story one post back. Today on the other hand what I seem to have I lost is my little pocket video camera. This is really too bad because I had just caught some footage of the 1985 Lawrence Welk Christmas Reunion Show in which retired cast member Jo Ann Castle did a Ragtime version of Jingle Bells with a high airy confection of blonde hair that shook as she played like Santa’s famous bowlful of jelly-belly. I videotaped it right off the TV, the waltzers, the harmonizers, the smilers with their big teeth, all performing  like wind-up figures on top of a music box in their time capsule from 1985.Anyway this is how this ragtime/boogie-woogie pianist normally looked when she sat down at the piano. Go in past the gentler pace of the intro for the full workout:[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfpVCpZBHbw&feature=related]Now imagine her  head movements with that high-rise hairdo taking on a life of its own - this is what I caught on the camera I can't now find -  and she becomes Rowlf the piano-playing Muppet.  (Love those Muppet musicians!  Remember Animal the wildman on drums? Click here to see   him accompanying the Great Rita Moreno on a comical version of "Fever.")After getting such a boot out of  Miz Castle tickling the ivories 25 years ago I then went WAY back in my search and found this a clip from a show 20 years earlier in which cast numbers and their families are introduced by one of the hardest-working Santas ever.Forty seconds in one of the babies starts to howl. Catch that, then watch what the child’s father does just before the one-minute mark. THAT’s what we need more of in our holiday specials: real and unscripted human drama![youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gny3BNpBKTs]