Dear Friends,

We know that you are busy at this time of year and don’t want to overwhelm you. This week we have chosen a few offerings to provide you some laughs and good holiday cheer.

The new Star Wars movie seems to have taken over everywhere one looks and listens. We thought it was a good time to remember the very first spoof on the original Star Wars (before the subtitle A New Hope was added).  Ernie Fosselius’ Hardware Wars still delivers the laughs with its cast of characters: Fluke Starbucker, Oggie Ben Doggie, Ham Salad, Artie Deco, Chewchilla the Wookie Monster, Princess Anne-Droid and the Red Eye Knights. Eat My Shorts also features other spoofs, bloopers and even George Lucas’ student science-fiction short.

Diane Boate offers two delicious holiday recipes for your sweet tooth in her Baker’s Dozen column. Sugar Plums and Velma’s Mother’s Tennessee Refrigerator Rolls are winners and easy to make.

Vince Keenan combines his love for cocktails and movies by offering us two recipes for classic drinks, The Star and The Clara Bow along with some enlightening history in Down the Hatch.

You have seen the name Clyde Bruckman in the credits for Buster Keaton’s The General plus comedies starring Laurel and Hardy, Harold Lloyd, W.C. Fields and the Three Stooges. But who was he? Filmmaker, writer and archivist Roger Leatherwood finds out while reviewing the book The Gag Man.

We will see you next week with our Critics Corner writers battling over Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful 8, a review of the new satirical book The Game of Scones with selected recipes, how to make the not-as-innocent-as-it-sounds Long Island Iced Tea and a few surprises for the holidays.

Sincerely,

Gary