Print

[Robb_K]

Q.Q: now that we've mentioned GONE WITH THE WIND, we get to talk about  people from Commonwealth countries doing better American accents then the Americans do. Leslie Howard did alright in GONE WITH THE WIND, but there is also your countryman, Simon Baker who played the lead in THE MENTALIST without anybody figuring out he was Australian. And fellow cast member Owain Yeoman, from Wales, really surprised everybody. he stayed in character even between shots to keep his accent going and amazed everybody when he finally dropped it. Hugh Laurie was the lead in HOUSE and my son didn't catch on to his being British until he saw him in another movie. Maybe the heavy weight champ is Peter Sellers in DR STRANGELOVE. Three different accents.
And WHAT was that accent that Cary Grant used? His own, really. Like George Carlin used to say when he talked about weathermen on TV with no accents; "Hello, I'm from nowhere."
By the way; Howard hated GONE WITH THE WIND and only did it for the money. Shows you how wrong people can be about their own work.

I don't recognise Owain Yeoman, but all the others have done good jobs of mimicking American accents,  However, I disagree with your choice of Peter Sellers being the champ of that group.  Hugh Laurie's American accent is absolutely flawless.  I can hear nothing of his native speech patterns in it.  While, although Sellers' American accents are passable, i can still hear something in them (under) that I haven't heard from any American native speaker, to where he sounded to me in those instances, as an immigrant whose native language is one I've never heard under a later-learned American dialect. I've seen many of Laurie's British films and TV productions (hundreds - and so, know his "normal" speech patterns).  And after growing up on both British and American films and TV shows, I can say that I've never heard anyone else from The UK mimic any American accent better.  I was absolutely gob-smacked by it.  In shock, as I had expected him to speak normally, and never heard a Brit do even remotely as well at it.  And I agree with you in that no American I've ever heard attempting to feign a British accent has done nearly as well.  Although I think Renée Zellweger's accent in "Bridget Jones' Diary" was ever-so-close to being spot on.  And she was born and raised in Texas, which is an incredibly unique and heavy accent, which for 999 out of every thousand Texans, would be impossible to do away with completely.  And yet, no trace of it can be heard in her normal "TV American". I'd love to get a tape of her after she spends 2 weeks with her family back in rural Texas.

In Cary Grant's 1940s-1970s American films where "he cut his English accent down", it sounded unlike any British OR any American accent I've ever heard.  When he tried to sound completely American, he failed.  There was still enough of upper/educated class southern English patterns for the educated ear to discern.  Same was true for Sellers in Dr. Strangelove, with a few traces of Englishisms, but also lots of Americanisms in combinations that are never heard together.  But in his defence, it was a comedy film (a farce), so having a way of speech that was mocking different US accents would have exaggerated them, or made them totally unrealistic, for the comedy (Parody) effect.

[Morgus]

'Panther, I think my fave performance of the names you mentioned was Robbie in ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD. Thought she nailed the Sharon Tate voice and mannerisms. (You know, as far as I could tell from watching the movies Sharon Tate made..)
As for the next James Bond, I always have to wait to see them on the big screen. I somehow can't see it until it's there in front of me. Over the years I choose the best Bond performances from each individual actor, instead of comparing them to each other. They all brought something unique to the role and how they saw the guy.
Robb, Yeoman played Rigsby on THE MENTALIST, the cop in CBI who falls for the redhead co-worker, which was against company policy. Baker was also in L.A. CONFIDENTIAL.
Glad somebody else liked Zellweger in BRIDGET JONES besides me. I remember some folks getting torqued over it and thinking there HAD to be bigger fish to fry than THAT in life.
Cary Grant was Cary Grant and just got away with it all. HIS GIRL FRIDAY and ARSENIC AND OLD LACE I just put on the other week. Still fantastic.

[The Australian Panther]

Morgus said,

As for the next James Bond, I always have to wait to see them on the big screen. I somehow can't see it until it's there in front of me. Over the years I choose the best Bond performances from each individual actor, instead of comparing them to each other. They all brought something unique to the role and how they saw the guy.   

No disagreement there.
To understand my opinion, Watch Anthony Starr in BANSHEE, which won him his current role.

Banshee Season 2: Episode 10 Clip - Carrie and Lucas Go See Fat Au
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ft64kiKi2Y

 

[Quirky Quokka]

Q.Q: now that we've mentioned GONE WITH THE WIND, we get to talk about  people from Commonwealth countries doing better American accents then the Americans do. Leslie Howard did alright in GONE WITH THE WIND, but there is also your countryman, Simon Baker who played the lead in THE MENTALIST without anybody figuring out he was Australian. And fellow cast member Owain Yeoman, from Wales, really surprised everybody. he stayed in character even between shots to keep his accent going and amazed everybody when he finally dropped it. Hugh Laurie was the lead in HOUSE and my son didn't catch on to his being British until he saw him in another movie. Maybe the heavy weight champ is Peter Sellers in DR STRANGELOVE. Three different accents.
And WHAT was that accent that Cary Grant used? His own, really. Like George Carlin used to say when he talked about weathermen on TV with no accents; "Hello, I'm from nowhere."
By the way; Howard hated GONE WITH THE WIND and only did it for the money. Shows you how wrong people can be about their own work.

Hey Morgus - I used to love watching 'The Mentalist'.  As Panther notes, we have a lot of Aussies who've done well in the US with their American accents. Even the Barbie Movie starred an Australian. Though on the other side, I've heard that the Aussie accent is one of the hardest to learn. Even Meryl Streep had trouble playing Lindy Chamberlain in 'Evil Angels' (by her own admission). Years ago, there was an Australian character on JAG played by 'Australian' actor Trevor Goddard. For some reason, I didn't like him, but couldn't put my finger on it. After the actor died at the age of 40, it was revealed that he had circulated a fake CV and was British, not Australian. Might explain why the accent didn't quite ring true. And Cary Grant's accent was manufactured, but he did do a great job. And speaking of Hugh Laurie, I listened to him on a funny audiobook that required all sorts of accents, including Indian, Italian, German, Irish. He did them all brilliantly. Hilarious. One of best voice jobs though is David Tennant's English accent on Dr Who. I had no idea he was Scottish until I heard him being interviewed years later. A very strong Scottish accent in real life. We subscribed to Disney-Plus for a month recently, just so we could watch his three new specials as the Doctor. He slipped straight back into that accent without a glitch.

Cheers

QQ

Cheers

QQ

[Quirky Quokka]

we get to talk about  people from Commonwealth countries doing better American accents then the Americans do. Leslie Howard did alright in GONE WITH THE WIND, but there is also your countryman, Simon Baker who played the lead in THE MENTALIST without anybody figuring out he was Australian.

Don't know why Aussies are so good at disguising their accents. Because of that, there are more than you think.
Females Margo Robbie [WA] Rose Byrne, Cate Blanchett, Rebel Wilson,  Anna Torv, Nicole Kidman - to name some females.  Chris Hemsworth, Sam Worthington, Richard Roxburgh, Heath Ledger, David Wenham, Guy Pearce,Alex O'Loughlin (nearly forgot him), Hugo Weaving, [ Red Skull] Eric Bana, Julian McMahon [son of an ex-prime minister.] and I could likely double those lists.
Then there's New Zealand.
Grant Bowler, Karl Urban, Sam Neill, Antony Starr, (My choice for the next James Bond,)

  In January 2018, it was announced that Starr was cast as The Homelander in The Boys, Amazon Studios's adaptation of the Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson comic book of the same name.[8] Season one was released in July 2019 and season two was released in September 2020. Season three was released in June 2022.[9] In the series he plays opposite Karl Urban who is also from New Zealand. "We've got an American show with a Kiwi playing an all-American hero psychopath and another Kiwi playing an Englishman. It's a pretty bizarre mix-up," said Starr.

Anna Paquin, Lucy Lawless.
And that's just the current generations.
Cheers!   

Lots of good Aussie and Kiwi actors there, Panther. We loved watching all three seasons of Lucy Lawless's 'My Life is Murder' recently on Acorn. I wonder if one reason Aussie actors are good at other accents is because of the volume of American TV shows and movies we get here (and more now with streaming). By the time the average Aussie reaches adulthood, they would have been exposed to a lot more American accents compared to the number of Aussie accents that the average American would have heard. But if there are any linguists among us, there may be a more scientific reason to do with which speech patterns are easier to reproduce. Not sure, but an interesting question.

Cheers

QQ

[crashryan]

All this talk about accents reminds me of a story told me by Pascal Morelli, a French animation director (he directed the French Arsene Lupin and Corto Maltese TV series). Pascal often drew feature storyboards. One job was Philip Kaufman's 1993 film Rising Sun, which co-starred Sean Connery and Wesley Snipes. Pascal attended the wrap party where he had--or attempted to have--a conversation with Connery. Pascal spoke English fairly fluently but with a strong accent. Connery, who was as they say "not so young as he once was" had a noticeable lisp mixed with a Scottish accent and possibly a little Scotch Whisky. Pascal described the two of them chatting pleasantly while each desperately tried to figure out what the heck the other was saying. I also remember Pascal mentioning that while he wanted to talk film, Connery was interested mostly in talking about golf.

[The Australian Panther]

Crash,
Reading Your posting I went looking for Corto Maltese videos and found this doco.

Hugo Pratt | Comics as Art, Corto Maltese as Legend
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyCjxYa-SWc

Enjoy!

[SuperScrounge]

One of best voice jobs though is David Tennant's English accent on Dr Who. I had no idea he was Scottish

There's a funny moment in , I think, Tooth and Claw where Rose (Billie Piper) tries to fake a Scottish accent and the Doctor says, "Don't do that."

A very strong Scottish accent in real life.

I wonder if that was what he used when he voiced Scrooge McDuck in the Ducktales remake?

[Quirky Quokka]

One of best voice jobs though is David Tennant's English accent on Dr Who. I had no idea he was Scottish

There's a funny moment in , I think, Tooth and Claw where Rose (Billie Piper) tries to fake a Scottish accent and the Doctor says, "Don't do that."

A very strong Scottish accent in real life.

I wonder if that was what he used when he voiced Scrooge McDuck in the Ducktales remake?

Well SuperScrounge, you told me something I didn't know (not surprising - LOL). I didn't know David Tennant did a voice on Duck Tales. That is closer to his real accent, but exaggerated. He's my favourite Doctor.

Cheers

QQ

[The Australian Panther]

Santa Claus Funnies 4C254 -   https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=26098

Dell always did a very high standard Christmas comic, compared to some of the other publishers.
Cover;- Is Santa sneaking a drink from a flask hidden in his sack?! Is that why his nose is so red?
What those artists got away with!
Santa's First Helper
The best thing about this story, for me, is that there are no cliches. One of the marks of a great comic creator, is how you create a recognizable character in only 12 pages. I enjoyed it!
The Land Without Christmas
"King Pepy got int the worst temper he had ever been in, and blew his head off, crown and all!'
That gave me quite a chuckle. 
The game is 'Snakes and Ladders' which is simple but for some reason, quite fun to play.
Santa Claus and Timothy's Horse
This is what, 1949, ( my birth year) and Santa has CCTV? Not sure there's not something sinister about that.
Nice Story. Almost made me tear up!
Albert and Pogo's Christmas
'Your mammy and pappy are trapeze artists with the Wingding brothers circus'
Now that I'd like to see.
Walt Kelly's Dialogue is as good as his drawings.
I wonder if he ever scripted for radio?
Not  to start a controversy but,
QQ said,
"However, some of the Southern humor didn’t translate well for this Aussie girl. For my American friends, has this humor dated or is it still funny? Interesting cartoon though."
and
Paw said, "But I still don't get Pogo.  Like QQ, the language made it difficult and slow going and, to me, it wasn't very funny or entertaining. "


I think many of us would have the same problem appreciating 'the Broons'
I've been reading 'Pogo' for several decades now and first read a 'Broons' collection roughly as long ago.
I enjoy both, but I definitely find 'The Broons' much harder going.
This Pogo story, unlike many, is basically verbal slapstick and has no deeper meanings to be found.
And I don't find it dated, but that's just me. I think a lot of Kelly's dialogue is invented for the strip and for the puns and verbal tricks.   
I'm a lover of language and clever dialogue and both strips have that characteristic.
When you get a Walt Kelly or a Carl Barks or an Alan Moore who are masters of both, that's a good as it gets for me.
I haven't mentioned the poems and songs, that would be gilding the lily.
Thank you Robb! 
Cheers!     

[The Australian Panther]

Jingle, Jangle #42 - https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=24598

Both the books Robb has chosen date from 1949! It was a very good year!
On the cover,
'Authorized A.C.M.P.' " Confirms to the comic code.'
There was a comic code in 1949?
Christmas Toys
No ID here and I checked all the earlier posts, so I can't identify the artist, but he (or she) is good.
Do Bats really hibernate?
Is the writer telling kids not to write letters to Santa, because they will get a present anyway?
Liked it tho.
Chauncey Chirp and Johnny Jay
Not being an apartment dweller, Santa's solution really doesn't appear to me.
The Steam-Heated Yule-Log and the Trusty Varlet (6 pages)
Lovely idiosyncratic piece of work.
I'm going to have to go through the Jingle jangle collection to find more of this artist.
PeeWee Pengin
You can stuff Sardines? Cute tho.
Hortense
Another attempt to explain how Santa gets down chimneys.
A lot of visual action and a great imagination displayed here.
X-Mas shopping
A gag on the same subject! How does Santa get down a chimney?
The Pie-Face Prince of Old Pretzleburg
Imaginative and Delightful.
Christmas TV - Eve. - 49
Celebrating Technology - Santa uses a jet plane, and the Kids sneak up to watch TV. Which is exactly what we did when first introduced to TV.
Well, lastly I see the card identifying the Creators, although there is no creator identified for 'Batty' [George Carlson]  or 'Christmas TV - EVE' 
For mine, High Quality art and clever non-traditional stories.

Thank you Robb for both of these.

[crashryan]

When the furor over American comics began, some comics publishers put together a half-hearted self-regulatory agency, the Association of Comics Magazine Publishers. They issued content guidelines hoping to head off government regulation. How tough they were can be measured by the fact that Lev Gleason and Bill Gaines were founding members. Here's a Wikipedia overview:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_Comics_Magazine_Publishers

[paw broon]

About language/local dialects, I have to say that The Broons, and Oor Wullie for that matter, can be difficult , especially nowadays when many younger people don't hear those words and phrases very often.  For such a small country, Scotland has a lot of local accents/dialects.  The Dundee patois can trip you up sometimes and I used to have difficulty with a customer who phoned from deepest Aberdeenshire.  His accent sounded lovely but picking up every word was hard.
I'm not sure what it as about Pogo that doesn't get to me, but then there are an awful lot of funny animal strips that I don't find amusing or pleasing.  However, some stand out like bright lights in the surrounding greyness of most of them.  The Ducks.  Simply wonderful. Rupert, the same. Tom Poes and Herr Bommel, the same.
The Perishers - how can you better Ole Boot? And of course Marlon and the rest?

[Robb_K]

Santa Claus Funnies - 4-Color #254
Cover drawn by Dan Gormley

(1) Christmas in the Heart - Poem - drawn by Arthur Jameson
An average poem illustrated by above average artwork, showing a pleasant atmosphere.  Such 1-page sentimental poems don't interest me much unless the poem, or, especially the artwork, is extraordinarily outstanding.  This is fairly routine fare for the late 1940s.

(2) Santa’s First Helper - Written and drawn by Walt Kelly
Great animal and fairy tale-style artwork by Walt Kelly, with very expressive characters.  I like the unexpected help for a naughty, cross, and unsociable girl, by Santa.  If she were a Dutch girl, she'd have gotten lumps of coal  from Sankt Niklaas (Sinterklaas), and a energetic spanking from his elf helper, Swarte Piet!  I like the interplay between the dog and Santa's helper, Puggy Pink.  Santa is a bit on the unfriendly side by making Puggy dress up as a girl, and pretend to be an unfriendly girl's new doll.  Reminds me of my younger sister's kindergarten teacher, who thought ALL boys were ill-behaved and nasty, and accordingly, when they the the slightest thing not to her liking, she placed them under her grand piano and banged down hard upon the keys (trying to bust their ear drums?) Then she'd make them sit inside the girls' oversized dollhouse playing area for 15 minutes, while the girls would laugh at them.
Interesting that even when Contrary Mary is being kind and generous, giving gifts to poor children, she is unfeeling and completely ignores Puggy's wishes to not be taken to the other girl's house, where Santa won't be able to find him.

(3) A Visit from Saint Nicholas - Drawn by Arthur Jameson
Clement Moore’s famous poem in comic book style.  The artwork is excellent, as is the colouring.  I like the contrast made by the solid black night sky, with shining stars.

(4) The Land Without Christmas - Written and drawn by Frank Jupo
The artwork is rather primitive and boring.  An unhappy land because the people there don't celebrate Christmas??? King Pepy?  Wasn't he one of the earliest ancient Pharaohs of Egypt?  The King's jealous subjects looked through powerful telescopes to gaze jealously at Christmas merrymakers receiving gifts.  Santa shoots gifts to the sad people of the unhappy planet, which makes their King even angrier than usual.
A strange story that's not interesting to me.

(5) Santa Claus and Timothy’s Horse - Artist Unknown
This is a common morality tale in which a naughty boy learns to share.  The artwork is decent (like a very poor-man's Walt Kelly.  The boy was sad because he didn’t have any friends and was lonely.  His only companion was an old broken hobby (rocking) horse.  The mean firemen that advertised that they fix broken toys for Christmas think the boy's rocker is too ruined to fix, so they toss it into a trashcan.  The boy's unselfishness (wanting to give the fixed toy to others with more need, made it come alive (and talk). And the little boy was never lonely again.

(5) Albert and Pogo’s Christmas - Written and drawn by Walt Kelly
Superb Walt Kelly art, and a slightly humourous scenario (rather than a "story").  I think Walt Kelly's Pogo, like wine, Haggis, and chili-peppers, is an acquired taste.  I think knowing something about the country folk in The US South and Appalachian Mountains from 100-150 years also helps to appreciate it.  Puns and skill in word manipulation is also an acquired taste.  Still and all, I enjoy Kelly's Albert and Pogo comic book stories more than his comic strip (which is probably more than 100 times more clever and tongue-in-cheek, and, thus that many times more loved and appreciated by the US public).

(6) Long, Long Ago - and (7) Christmas Carol 1 Pagers - Both Drawn by Arthur Jameson
Typical boring religious Christmas fare.  Routine artwork.  Not much meaning to a non-Christian.

Overall Assessment
All in all, a nice Dell holiday annual, with some high-quality artwork, and a couple lightly entertaining stories.

[Robb_K]

Jingle Jangle Comics 42

(1) Batty - Christmas Toys - I believe drawn by Howie Post
Nice artwork that looks a lot like Leon Jason's studio (JCA-Jason Comic Art).  It looks a bit like a cross between Ellis "Holly" Chambers' and Howie Post's work (both of whom worked for Jason during the late 1940s (per JCA's artist roster list). It looks to me more like Post's early work.  I like the bright hues in the colouring.
It's a typical children's Christmas story of Santa needing help.  And having aq bat do the flying help, instead of a large bird, is fairly novel.  I like the angle that Batty is doing his good deed because he needs to get his hibernation sleep.  Bats in cold country hibernate for the same reason as bears, as the snow covers much of everything, and fruits aren't growing, so they would starve to death from lack of food and having to shiver so much to keep up their body temperature.  Hibernation puts their metabolism at a very low rate, which burns only tiny amounts of calories, just enough to keep the heart beating and brain function.  So they can survive the cold winter without eating.  this was a one-off feature.  I don't remember it in any other "Jingle-Jangle" book.


(2) Chauncey Chirp and Johnny Jay - Drawn by Dave Tendlar
I like Santa's message at the story's end, telling the kids to set up birdhouses in the trees, and fill their food trays regularly, so the birds won't migrate, but stay in their neighbourhoods all winter long, as they don't fly south because of the cold weather, but rather because deep snow covers any seeds they might have found, and there's little accessible food available for them to eat.  So, they would starve to death if they'd remain there.  my uncle, who lived in a semi-rural area, had 4 acres of land with over 100 trees.  He fitted them with birdhouses, and refilled their trays with food regularly, and they stayed all winter, despite the bitter sub-arctic cold.  We kids used to help him do that when we visited.  I like the selfish, greedy villain, Humphrey Bohawk, getting his comeuppance.  The unnamed spider, who doesn't look much like one, is wasted in this story.  The girl in the ending splash panel looks a lot like Hortense, but with blonde, instead of orange, hair.  It's an okay children's Christmas tale, but nothing very special.

(3) Bingo and Glum - Drawn by Allen Ulmer and Ray Willner
This regular feature always has the boy, Bingo, being transported by magic, by his elf friend, Glum, to a different magical fairytale type land for his various adventures, encountering different legendary or magical characters.  This is a common children's Christmas tale in which the protagonist, through the magical help of Santa or a magical elf help him do the delivering of gifts to poor kids that Santa can't get done for various reasons.  The artwork and colouring is good, as it is for most of the stories in this book.  Ostensibly, poor Popper didn't get Christmas presents for several years because Santa couldn't handle all the deliveries to all the children Worldwide.  So Bingo and Glum are helping this Christmas.

(4) Jingle-Jangle Tales - The Steam-Heated Yule-Log and the Trusty Varlet - drawn by George Carlson
Yes, "varlet" and "valet" come from the same Old French root.  A varlet became the general term for a male of lower status, whereas a valet became the name for a knight's (later gentleman's) hand servant.  This story A bit silly, but entertaining. Yes, the piano-powered engine is an interesting invention.  I love the old-fashioned comic art style Carlson used.  And the bright colouring enhanced the effect.  It's very nostalgic for me, as many of the newspaper comic strips that had adopted that style in the early 1900s were still filling the newspaper comics sections when I was growing up.  It would have been nicer if Carlson had written this entire strip as well as "The Pie-Face Prince" in a semi-poetic Shakespearian English (with old fashioned spellings, grammatical forms and word order (other than just throwing in a couple old fashioned cliché words).  The Inky Snowman is an interesting, unusual villain.  As usual, Carlson's wild, disjointed stories are a pleasure to view, and entertaining to read.

(5) Pee Wee Penguin - Artist unknown
Decent half-page gag, with excellent funny-animal artwork.

(6) Hortense the Lovable Brat - Drawn by Ray Willner
Hortense (a regular feature of this publication) isn't nearly as bratty as in most of her stories.  I guess she was hoping to get some nice gifts from Santa for behaving better.  Yet another "It was all a dream", or "was it real" story caused by reading a fairytale or legends storybook.  And to top off the Christmas clichés, another 1949 Christmas story explaining how Santa fits in the chimney flues that are too narrow for his obese body.  I wonder if all the story writers compared notes or stole from one-another?  Carl Barks' story in 1949's Dell's Walt Disney's "Christmas Parade" also explained how that happened.  In this book, Santa's smallest elf helper, Pip (still fairly rotund) delivers through all the narrower-mouth chimney flues.

(7) Xmas Shopping - Drawn by Jack Farr - 1-Page Gag
Yet another version of the smaller Santa gag!  Even this tall, skinny Santa couldn't fit down the tiny narrow flue of THAT chimney, as drawn.

( The Pie-Face Prince of Old Pretzleburg - Drawn by George Carlson
Another regular feature, and George Carlson farcical gem.  Another rambling story, with very nice old-fashioned artwork and funny wordplay and character names. A nice spin on re-gifting an "unwanted" Christmas present.  Ha! Ha!  Schmaltz-Oil is an explosive, and blows up the Green Witch, and lights up Pretzelburg's Christmas Festival's giant Christmas tree, and everyone has a jolly old holiday celebration.

(9) Santa's Shadow - Drawn by Jack Farr - 1-Page Gag
Yet another "It was all a dream'" story, and also another story in which someone offers to help Santa with his overwork burden on Christmas Eve.  In this case, it's his shadow!  I wonder if his shadow is evil and greedy, and wants to sell all the toys and games and other gifts (after Christmas) to all the parents of their  disappointed kiddies?  Oh, it was all just a dream.  Too good of an idea to waste on a one-page gag.  Better to make it a horror-tinged epic whole book adventure story (with a "Twilight Zone" feel).

(10)The Old Swap Shop - Drawn by Ray Willner
Another regular feature of this title. 
Sorry to be pedantic, but it's unlikely that watercolours will work on bubblegum. Also, it wasn't entirely clear how Curly got inside the bubblegum. And why would he be stuck in the decoration until after Christmas? Are his friends just going to leave him there without mounting a rescue?
 
(11) Christmas TV Eve - Drawn by Jack Farr? - 1-Page Gag

His reindeer were on strike, so Santa had to deliver in a plane? TV was still fairly new in 1949, with no one in our neighbourhood in Winnipeg having one in their home until near the mid 1950s.  Although, my uncle and aunt in Chicago got their first in 1948.  But there were few regular programmes on back then, and the broadcast day was only a few hours.  There was an old joke that people who got them that early just sat around for hours staring at the picture-tooning test patterns.

Overall Assessment
All in all, a fun comic that very young kids probably would have enjoyed. Some good art and some interesting spins on Christmas stories.

[The Australian Panther]

There was an old joke that people who got them that early just sat around for hours staring at the picture and looking at the test patterns.

That was no joke. In Oz, at first, Broadcasting actual programs only occurred between about 4:00 pm to about 1100:PM, finishing with a Bible verse from a reverend or a Bishop and then the national anthem.
But if you switched on the Tele earlier, like about 12 mid-day, you got the test pattern accompanied by  music.
The music was classical and without ads, so better than the radio, and yes, people did turn it on and look at the test pattern and listen to the music. And in Australia, in some states, this was in the early 60's. I remember the music, much repeated every day, very well.
Also, people would take chairs and thermos flasks down the street to the TV shop and watch the programs sitting on the footpath and watching the set through the shop window.
Probably the last time, except for sporting events, than TV was a communal activity.       

[The Australian Panther]

I posted this down in WATCHA reading as part of a dialogue with ComicMike,
but I think it belongs here as well!

On:- The Awful German Language  [Essay by Mark Twain]

I had to learn it at high School and we had a teacher who was a native Deutsch speaker and who had no idea how to teach it, so the whole class was in rebellion against her.
I daresay that a German speaker could say pretty much about English. Over in the reading group we have been discussing the difficulty of understanding different English dialects, in particular the Scottish 'The Broons' comic strip and the US 'Pogo' strip. I'm fairly cynical about A.I.'s ability to cope with ever evolving languages.
the broons 1- dunbar street
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlKibwGbNyo&ab_channel=TaniaandPaulDonnachie
"Deck Us All With Boston Charlie " - Walt Kelly
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SL0lPcNwRqQ&ab_channel=ArnieGubins
Oh, Why didn't I post this for Christmas?!
Oh, and;-
I teach English as a second language, and some students think that their language is much more complex than English, so I always wanted to take the class to see a performance of Shakespeare.

Enjoy!

[Robb_K]

There was an old joke that people who got them that early just sat around for hours staring at the picture and looking at the test patterns.

That was no joke. In Oz, at first, Broadcasting actual programs only occurred between about 4:00 pm to about 1100:PM, finishing with a Bible verse from a reverend or a Bishop and then the national anthem.
But if you switched on the Tele earlier, like about 12 mid-day, you got the test pattern accompanied by  music.
The music was classical and without ads, so better than the radio, and yes, people did turn it on and look at the test pattern and listen to the music. And in Australia, in some states, this was in the early 60's. I remember the music, much repeated every day, very well.
Also, people would take chairs and thermos flasks down the street to the TV shop and watch the programs sitting on the footpath and watching the set through the shop window.
Probably the last time, except for sporting events, than TV was a communal activity.       

People can joke about true facts.  I know VERY well that when TV was both very new and later relatively new. people would sit and watch the test patterns and listen to the music.  i saw that myself when TV was new in peoples' homes, and even before, when they were first sold in shops, but only wealthy people and shop owners and pub/bar owners could afford them, and people would take folding chairs over to the local appliance stores and it in front of the display window and watch the TV screens.  I saw that same situation in Canada in the early 1950s, and in The Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, and Denmark a bit later.  And the earliest broadcast days were much shorter in those countries, at first than you describe about Australia.  For us, at first it was only 3 to 4 hours, with only regular newscasts, and very little other regularly scheduled programmes.  Most other shows were live broadcasts of events, like The Queen's Coronation, or special parades.  The first entertainment shows were all live broadcasts, like music from an orchestra in a ballroom or radio station, or live shooting of a stage play, or puppeteers children's shows.