'Mr. Blutarsky. Zero point zero.'

As one who usually stays in around New Year’s Eve, I’ve found over the years it’s easy to become a television-watching couch potato because a lot of my personal favorite movies and shows are aired.
This year, I was tickled by an all-day and all-night Three Stooges marathon; an all-day Sherlock Holmes film festival; a Humphrey Bogart-Lauren Bacall film run; a couple of episodes of “Hawaii 5-0”; and the movies “Animal House,” “Caddyshack,” “Goodfellas” and “Field of Dreams.”
Of course, not even the most devoted Stooges fan can endure hour after hour of those shenanigans without a break, so that’s why it’s good to have other options. I’ve always been a fan of the Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce version of “Sherlock Holmes,” filmed mostly in the 1940s. (I have yet to see the current “Sherlock Holmes” now in theaters.) I also liked the “Charlie Chan” series from that same era.
And what else can be said about Bogie and Bacall at this point? The first time I saw “To Have and Have Not” I fell in love with a then 19-year-old Lauren Bacall and have been enamored with her ever since. It was their first film together and the beginning of what would turn into a great love story.
As for “Hawaii 5-0”, it was one of my favorite shows as a kid and I spent many a night ditching the books in college so I could watch reruns of the show on late-night TV, primarily just so I could hear Steve McGarrett say “Book ’em, Dano!” at the end of each episode.
All of which may help explain my fondness for the aforementioned films, especially “Animal House.” It was released the year I started college, so not only was “Hawaii 5-0” interrupting my studies to some extent, I spent a good portion of that first year in college attending toga parties, where I quickly learned to study beer and women.
To this day, when I see “Animal House,” I laugh at the line, “Mr. Blutarsky. Zero point zero.”
I can certainly relate.