Nice column in the Journal/Sentinel today about Christmas memories by TV/Radio columnist Tim Cuprisin:
TV commercials are sometimes more memorable than the shows that are programmed around them.
And, for me and my mother, one of them symbolized the very beginning of the Christmas season.
It was usually early in December, back when Christmas didn't really start on television until early December, that one of us would catch sight of a stop-action animated Santa Claus taking his first holiday ride over the snowy hills of Norelco's annual commercial. With the company's name transmogrified into "Noelco" at the end of the spot, the announcer would intone " . . . even our name says Merry Christmas."
There are other Christmas classics that still catch my eye, from the usual suspects - "A Charlie Brown Christmas," "It's a Wonderful Life" and "A Christmas Story - to smaller, lesser-known gems like "The Homecoming," the pilot for what would become "The Waltons."
But it's the Norelco Santa that stirs the memories from those long-gone Christmases of my childhood.
From black-and-white days and on into the color TV era, as I grew up and my mother grew older, we'd always be sure to tell each other the first time we saw the Norelco Santa floating across the countryside on those rotary heads.
I remember being away at college one year in the late 1970s and catching the Norelco spot. The first thing I did was call home to let my mom know that the season had officially begun.
The spot had been born back in 1961, just before my TV memories begin. It lasted until the mid-1980s, when the company retired it. In the early '90s, a higher-tech version was brought back. But the Norelco Santa just isn't the holiday standby it once was.
My mother has been gone for 20 years now, and I don't recall the last time the Norelco Santa has magically popped up on the screen while I was watching television. If it's still in the rotation, I'm likely to fast-forward over it, thanks to my DVR, which overcomes all sales pitches.
But thanks to the magic of YouTube, I can click my mouse on the screens. And, for a few seconds, I remember.
By TIM CUPRISIN
tcuprisin@journalsentinel.com
I have similar memories of my late father.
He absolutely loved an old Miller commercial (narrated by Gene “Burke’s Law” Barry) showing a horse-drawn sleigh accompanied by the music of, “I’ll be home for Christmas.”
Whenever it came on, he’d always say, “Boy, that’s a good one! I wish we could tape it!” (No VCR’s back then).
This one’s for you, Dad!
