Fred Wolfie's Journal

Today, Brockton Rox mascot K-O the Kangaroo visited the local Wal-Mart for a very special occasion, where leukemia patient Brooke of the Boston Children's Hospital was given a special ceremony to help aid her recovery. She seemed like a nice girl!
K-O helped at presenting her a special ticket voucher for a luxury suite to one of our games, also good for inviting up to 20 of her friends!

(Brooke is the girl to the left of K-O.)
K-O also saw the opportunity to caper around Wal-Mart a bit after the ceremony. The manager didn't seem to mind! :)

So I don the 'roo again Thursday for the Huntington Elementary School annual memorial parade (he was in last year's parade as well.)

Found a video on YouTube of the Massasoit 2009 Halloween party that I attended. I can mostly be seen in the back...
(I wasn't aware I was being filmed, but I kept my costume on the whole time!)


For reference, here are a couple photos of me from said party...

Here are a couple of more pictures of when K-O appeared at that dog rabies' clinic at the vet this past Wednesday...


K-O petting J.M. Pet Resort's friendly (and beautiful) husky.


Something is fishy here...


Here is when K-O met up with his old friend Buttons, mascot for Carousel Family Fun Center, at the summer expo event at Arnone Elementary School later that evening...

There was also one kid that was somewhat of a rough-houser, and at one point he began fooling around with Buttons. K-O hurried over to the rescue, except there wasn't much for him to do in this case...


Here's a couple of pics of K-O with the buses yesterday that prepared to take the Brockton area ARC people (including my brother) to a convention in Boston relating to disabilities (K-O didn't accompany them)...


("Hope they'll allow me on board, mates!")

Today, K-O did another appearance with the J.M. Pet Resort and Blue Dog Shelter, this time at the Easton sheep pasture where they did a big dog walk...

It was especially fun when near the end, K-O came in to help a bit with the kids that were involved with a music program of sorts. He actually joined in on the fun, shaking around simple musical instruments and joining the kids in the circle. It reminded me of the Children's Drama Workshops I did back in early 2009 as part of my college courses.

After that, they were having a big reptile expo at the Shaw's Center adjacent to Campanelli Stadium, and so K-O popped in to visit. They even let him hold a rather large boa constrictor!

I wasn't the least bit nervous, as I was in the reptile club at my high school during my senior year, and have handled snakes and lizards before. The constrictor snakes like these I am cool with (as our reptile club had corn snakes, which were similar but smaller.) The snake here didn't even seem to mind a kangaroo holding him!

This is also going to be a rather busy week for both me AND K-O, so stay tuned!

Today, our favorite boxing kangaroo mascot did an appearance at an event for the Brockton area ARC company. My brother and a few of his friends were in attendance, and were pleased by my performance! It was held at the Shaw's Conference Center located adjacent to the Campanelli Stadium.

K-O's got some more work tomorrow too!

Fun photo I found on FlickR that has been circulating for some time; I just never bothered to show it here. The Big Bad Wolf living up to his name!

(If it was an accident, then sometimes it's good to take advantage of it, like that time K-O lost his shoe during that first base race in August! ;) )

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago when I got a 1965 Disney read-along book/audio adaptation of Disney's "Three Little Pigs." Well, now I have the 1978 version as well!

This is one of the later "Walt Disney Storyteller"-series book/audio sets. Beginning in 1977, Disney began offering many of them on both vinyl and compact cassette (this particular version I have is on vinyl, one of those small 7-inch LPs.)
Unlike the 1965 version, this 1978 re-release incorporates the song into the story on the record. However, it reuses that same strange early 1960s re-recording of "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf" and associated dialogue (with the girlish Practical Pig and the eerie menacing wolf voice), like on the 1965 version and the earlier "Stories and Songs of Disney's Three Little Pigs" LP.
Also don't be fooled by the cover; like the 1965 version, it also reuses the same illustrations from that 1940s Little Golden Book adaptation, complete with the freakish drooling black-furred wolf design!

Now, like I said, Disneyland Records was one of the major players in the read-along book-and-audio market since the 1960s, and still is today (though their catalog is more limited now compared to the 1960s - 1990s offerings). Other popular companies included Peter Pan Records, Wonderland Records, Kid Stuff Records and Magic Media Talking Stories (the latter is still around, offering their 1970s read-along book/audio sets on compact disc now!) They all had versions of the Three Little Pigs, obviously non-Disney (Magic Media's version seems suspiciously similar to Disney's version though, complete with the wolf trying to disguise as a sheep!)

For May 27th, the 80th anniversary of the original Disney "Three Little Pigs" cartoon's theatrical release, I will be doing another review/commentary video as the Big Bad Wolf on the 1978 read-along adaptation of the cartoon. But until then, here's another fun picture I was able to do...

"Here's some music for the party! I hope you don't mind the records I brought!"
(Yep, those are the three LPs in my record library relating to Disney's "Three Little Pigs!")

Busy day today! And I topped it off with two K-O the Kangaroo appearances this afternoon/evening! The first one was at a dog-themed event at the veterinarian's office on the north side of town...


After that, it was the Summer Fun in the City Resource Fair (as the Brockton Rox is one thing the city kids can enjoy in the summer!) held at the Arnone Elementary School downtown...

Many of the kids here were lots of fun and enjoyed my company. They also had Buttons, the teddy bear mascot of the Carousel Family Fun Center there as well, whom K-O has met before of course...

Next week will also be the Huntington Elementary Memorial Day Parade (there was a boy from that school there who couldn't wait to see me there), as well as K-O appearing at a mascot night for the New England Revolution soccer team, held at Gillette Stadium (home of the New England Patriots!) This soccer team has a fox for a mascot named Slyde...

Looks like K-O may be making ANOTHER new friend!

When I was window-shopping at the local mall today, they were doing testing on the fire alarms there. One store had them sounding REALLY LOUD and OBNOXIOUS (this is also the same kind Massasoit College has in their Fine Arts building), but the other stores I heard weren't as bad...

At least they notified the store personnel and customers in advance so they wouldn't have a recap of that hilarious fire drill at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant!

I found an interesting picture book at my local library...


Of course, a handsome-looking well-clad wolf was enough to grab my attention!
It involves the same wolf being involved in the five stories of "The Three Little Pigs," "The Boy Who Cried Wolf," "Little Red Riding Hood," "The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing" and "The Wolf and the Seven Goslings."


Though he is evil, the wolf can be charming and polite!
I do enjoy how they made Little Red Riding Hood have a thing for fashion here...

An interesting bit I'd like to add...

After that story and then the "Wolf in Sheep's Clothing" story is ending...

My aunt in Rhode Island still has a collection of some old 78-RPM records (you know, the thick, heavy and easily-breakable kind). At least one of them has this on the back of the sleeve:

I initially wasn't sure how this was feasible, a record player in the 1940s that could play both sides of a record without turning them over? And I was sure that it may have been an experiment that never took off. But after a quick Google search, I learned the Magic Brain RCA Victrola did indeed exist!
Now when people usually think of Victrolas, we think of those really old hand-cranked gramophones with the giant horn-shaped speaker seen in many old Looney Tunes cartoons. But electrically-powered phonographs were beginning to show up by this time, and so were those automatic record changers. The outside didn't look super-fancy or anything, more like your typical cabinet-stored record player...

For its time, it was very sophisticated though, and also set the standards for many modern record players, such as the use of a diamond/sapphire stylus point instead of the old-fashioned steel needle, and a more smooth operation for automatic record player. As for playing both sides, it had a special tonearm with a stylus under the top arm, and a second arm underneath with another stylus pointing up. When Side One would finish, the tonearm would move off the record, and the motor for the small-diameter turntable would begin turning the record player in the opposite direction, and the bottom stylus would touch the grooves of the record and begin playing the second side.
This was also before Columbia Records invented the LP, so those 78s could usually only fit one or two songs on each side. An "album" would have three or more records in a binder of sorts. It wasn't until RCA Victor came out with their own format to compete with Columbia: the 45-RPM records! But then they both called truce, and all companies that made records began making both LPs and 45s, eventually phasing out those 78s.

I don't know any other modern record players that can play both sides like the Magic Brain record changer could, but at least this was still pretty innovative for the home music market!