Roxy Music cover models

And here’s the Polaroid Christmas commercial featuring the Muppet gang.

Also in 1981, the Muppets joined Mariette Hartley for some Polaroid commercials. Here are four of them.

Some new Muppet ornaments from Sigma for Christmas 1981!

The story vividly describes the reporter’s month among Cambodian guerrillas fighting the Vietnamese. Less than a month later, Alexander Cockburn in The Village Voice notes that parts of the report were plagiarized from Andre Malroux’s novel The Royal Way and questions the story. By February, the New York Times conceded they were the victim of a hoax.

December 19: Spain adopts a new flag and a new national coat of arms.

Personal Canon: Cinderella

This Christmas season, Cinderella was the big Disney re-release. I think this movie has an unjustly poor reputation, particularly among animation scholars. I know Disney’s output is troubled in the 1950s, but I think this movie needs a re-examination by the historians. I certainly like it much better than the two films that followed it (Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan).

Commercial break: Atari 2600.