Murray’s commentary:

You are in love with a ghost? How did you meet? I’ve been trying to meet someone new for a while now, but these speed dating events are total crap. Every one of the women I’ve talked to seems to find me repulsive. A ghost, though, might be really into me.

I used to tell my wife she was so good at not paying attention that most times it seemed like she wasn’t even in the room. I’m thinking this is pretty much exactly how dating a ghost would feel. Except the ghost wouldn’t randomly jump back into the conversation to bitch and moan about how you refuse to take the recycling out.

A few more favorites after the jump.

This just seems pointless on every level, not to mention the insanely low quality of the image used. “I love love” is about as useful as writing, “I enjoy enjoyment” or “Fun is fun.” Nice handwriting, too. Perhaps instead of wasting time loving love, you should start trying to love penmanship.

Actually, of all the things about being a human, this is the one thing you never have to worry about. Your brain is amazingly adept at keeping you breathing, even after being stabbed, shot, or smashed to the head. It also keeps you breathing through long, boring office meetings, that romantic comedy your wife forced you to go to even though you would have rather seen District 9 and why does she always get to pick the movie anyway? I’m so tired of all these stupid Hugh Grant movies when we could be watching G.I. Joe or at least football or something. And don’t get me started on how annoying it is when her sister visits.

So yeah, if you’re feeling sarcastic today, here’s a whole bunch more.

1. Rudolph was created in 1939 when the department store Montgomery Ward asked one of their writers to come up with a character they could base coloring books around so they would have freebies to hand out to the kiddies who came to visit Mr. Claus. As you can probably tell, the character was a huge hit. Montgomery Ward gave out 2.4 million copies of the Rudolph booklet in the first year alone and Rudolph ended up going commercial.
2. Although the song has become synonymous with Christmas at this point, “Rudolph” is actually still copyrighted.
3. He could have been Rollo the red-nosed reindeer or Reginald the red-nosed reindeer. Those were two of the names considered before May settled on the name we know today. Rollo was rejected for sounding too sunny and happy; Reginald sounded too British.

4. If you grew up in Finland, you’re probably be more familiar with Petteri Punakuono than Rudolph. Peterri is Rudy’s Finnish counterpart. The Finnish legend of Santa Claus (AKA Joulupukki) doesn’t name his reindeer the same way we do – Dasher, Dancer Donner and so on – so the beginning of the song doesn’t start out the same way. Instead of running through the laundry list of reindeer the Finnish version translates to something like, “You remember Cinderella, Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding hood, and the grey wolf, but this reindeer is often forgotten.”

5. Apparently Rudolph hooked up with Clarice at some point, because he has a son named Robbie. At least, he does according to the BBC. They developed three cartoons based on Rudolph’s offspring, but the name of Robbie’s famous dad is never actually mentioned. The plotline tells us that the villain of the series, Blitzen, can’t stand to hear Rudolph’s name. In reality, it’s because the BBC couldn’t get permission to use it (or didn’t want to pay to use it). If you haven’t seen the British version but still remember Robbie, that’s because Fox Family ran the show for a few years in the early ’00s with redubbed voices, including Ben Stiller as Robbie, Hugh Grant as Blitzen, Britney Spears as Donner, Leah Remini as Vixen, and Brad Garrett as Prancer.

6. Although the character came out in 1939, the song wasn’t recorded until 1949. It was May’s brother-in-law who wrote the lyrics for it; Gene Autry recorded it. He actually almost passed on the song, but his wife urged him to go ahead and give it a shot. The song hit #1 on the charts during the week of Christmas, then plummeted right off them entirely. It’s the only song in history to ever hit #1 and then just disappear.

7. In addition to being named Reginald or Rollo, Rudolph almost guided Santa’s sleigh much differently. Instead of having a red, glowing nose that could cut through the fog, May considered giving Rudolph large, headlight-like eyes that would light the way. After much consideration, he decided that mean kids would be more likely to make fun of a red nose than huge eyes. Which is a good thing… that would have changed the song drastically! “Rollo, the bug-eyed reindeer, had very large protruding eyes.” No??

8. Speaking of the song, songwriter Johnny Marks specialized in Christmas songs. We have him to thank for Rudolph, obviously, but also “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day,” “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” “Run Rudolph Run” and “A Holly Jolly Christmas” (in addition to a bunch of lesser-known Christmas songs). The irony? Marks was Jewish.

9. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, the stop motion animated T.V. special, is the longest-runing Christmas T.V. special of all time.

10. The puppets used for that T.V. special disappeared for many years. When they resurfaced, they did so on Antiques Roadshow in 2006. Well, not all of them – just Santa and Rudolph. A woman who worked for Rankin-Bass, the company who made the show, had stored them in her attic since at least the ’70s. Prior to that, she let her kids play with them. Rudolph last his red nose and somehow Santa’s eyebrows disappeared. But they were fully restored after their trip to Antiques Roadshow and have been displayed at the Center for Puppetry Arts for visitors to see. The new owner hopes that the puppets can go on national tour so more people can enjoy them.

Will you try to catch a viewing of Rudolph this year, or do you have another must-see Christmas special? We’re a Grinch household, but if I happen to spot Rudolph on T.V. again, I won’t pass him up next time.

1. Jay Leno gets all of the apology scoops – Kanye, sure, but in 1995, Jay was also the one who got Hugh Grant to offer the world his strangely charming apology after being arrested for lewd conduct in a public place with Hollywood prostitute Divine Brown. “”I think you know in life what’s a good thing to do and what’s a bad thing, and I did a bad thing, and there you have it,” he said. It was one of the first times a celebrity decided to face an embarrassing episode head on instead of spin the issue or go into seclusion and pretend it didn’t happen, and it paid off: the public forgave him and he continues to have a booming career today (particularly if you’re a fan of romantic comedies). Here’s the Jay Leno interview, if you’re interested.

2. Bill Clinton, of course, had a lot of ‘splainin to do after the whole Monica Lewinsky scandal. In what was perhaps the most public apology of all time – a nationally televised address – Clinton said, “Indeed, I did have a relationship with Ms. Lewinsky that was not appropriate. In fact, it was wrong. It constituted a critical lapse in judgment and a personal failure on my part for which I am solely and completely responsible.”

3. Celebrity sex tape scandals are almost getting to be commonplace these days. In fact, some celebrities would probably die for that kind of publicity. A sex tape involving a minor? Now that’s bad news. Just ask Rob Lowe, whose sex tape involving two girls – one of them a 16-year-old – got him in big trouble in 1988. He apologized for his bad behavior, although he didn’t know the girl was only 16 (and it was later proven that they met at a bar she had lied about her age to get in to) and after a couple of years of being on the outs with Hollywood, he rebuilt his career.

4. John Lennon’s the-Beatles-are-more-popular-than-Jesus statement is one of the original P.R. snafus. After making an offhanded comment about how crazy Beatlemania was getting, the Vatican denounced the Fab Four, people all over the world burned Beatles records, and death threats even started to roll in. The Beatles held a press conference on August 11, 1966, in which Lennon explained that he was simply referring to the madness of their popularity, and that the statement was “never meant to be a lousy anti-religion thing.”

5. Probably the worst thing you can do when you’re pulled over by a cop is to assault him or her with ethnic slurs. Mel Gibson learned that the hard way. A totally tanked Gibson told the Jewish officer, “[expletive] Jews… The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world. Are you a Jew?” This among other things, apparently, that were not released to the public. Once sober, Gibson realized the error of his ways (read: wanted to save his career) and issued the following lengthy statement:

“After drinking alcohol on Thursday night, I did a number of things that were very wrong and for which I am ashamed. I drove a car when I should not have, and was stopped by the LA County Sheriffs. The arresting officer was just doing his job and I feel fortunate that I was apprehended before I caused injury to any other person. I acted like a person completely out of control when I was arrested, and said things that I do not believe to be true and which are despicable. I am deeply ashamed of everything I said. Also, I take this opportunity to apologize to the deputies involved for my belligerent behavior. They have always been there for me in my community and indeed probably saved me from myself. I disgraced myself and my family with my behavior and for that I am truly sorry. I have battled with the disease of alcoholism for all of my adult life and profoundly regret my horrific relapse. I apologize for any behavior unbecoming of me in my inebriated state and have already taken necessary steps to ensure my return to health.”

6. Christian Bale: the egotistical, f-bomb dropping tirade that was heard ‘round the world. I know you’ve already seen it, but in case you haven’t, here you go. And in case you haven’t seen it and you’re at work, here’s the summary: the director of photography disrupted Bale’s concentration by walking into his line of sight (twice) and Bale let him have it for nearly four minutes. He later called in to KROQ radio station in L.A. and said,

“It’s been a miserable week for me. I know I have a pottymouth, everybody knows that now. I have no confusion whatsoever. I was out of order beyond belief, I was way out of order. I acted like a punk, I regret that and there is nodbody that has heard that tape that has been hit harder by it [than me]. I make no excuses for it, it is inexcusable and I hope that is absolutely clear.”

7. Charlie Sheen has done a lot of things he should have probably apologized for over the years, but the most recent one is from 2008, when he publicly apologized for the names he called Denise Richards in a 2005 voicemail that was “leaked” to the public: the C-word and the N-word. Yes, that N-word. There was also an e-mail which told her to “Go cry to your bald mom” – Richards’ mother was going through chemotherapy at the time. He didn’t apologize for that, but he did apologize for his choice of insults. He told Us Weekly, “I deeply apologize by my choice of words to all I have obviously offended; especially to Tony Todd, an African-American, who was my best man at my first two weddings. Three and one-half years later, the reasons that caused the anger and frustration displayed on that voice mail continue to be manifested on a daily basis… my children did not show up today for a custodial visit without explanation.” Convenient time to name-drop, no?

8. Surprise: this isn’t Kanye’s first apology. Last summer, he apologized to fans after he kept them waiting for two hours at Bonnaroo. But if you ask me, it was a pretty half-hearted apology: “”This is the most offended I’ve ever been … This is the maddest I will ever be. It broke my heart that I couldn’t give these fans ‘Stronger’ in its finest form. I’m sorry to everyone that I didn’t have the ability to give the performance I wanted to. I’m sorry.”

9. Did you know Johnny Cash single-handedly depleted half of the world’s California Condor population at one point? He was driving in Los Padres National Forest in California oil from a cracked bearing dripped onto the wheel and caught the truck on fire – which also caught the grass on fire. The fire caught fast, but Johnny managed to save his fishing pole from the back, and then he pretended to be so engrossed in fishing in a nearby creek that he didn’t notice his truck had caught the forest on fire. He had to go through depositions and was quite biligerant during the line of questioning. Straight from his autobiography, here’s an excerpt:

“Did you start this fire?”
“No, my truck did, and it’s dead, so you can’t question it.”
“Do you feel bad about what you did?”
“Well, I feel pretty good right now.” (he was on amphetamines,for the record)
“But how about driving all of those condors out of the refuge?”
“You mean those big yellow buzzards?”
“Yes, Mr. Cash, those yellow buzzards.”
“I don’t give a damn about your yellow buzzards. Why should I care?”

Yikes. So he wasn’t very apologetic at the time, and it doesn’t really look like he necessarily apologized in his biography, either, and was more concerned with how much the government sued him for (he ended up paying them $125,000 in 1964 money) and said he was the only person the government had ever sued and successfully collected from for starting a forest fire (that was as of 1997).

10. In 1990, rapper and television personality Dee Barnes interviewed Ice Cube about leaving N.W.A. In 1991, Dr. Dre retaliated for her negative publicity by kicking the crap out of her. According to Rolling Stone, he ran into her at a record release party, where he kicked things off by slamming her face and the right side of her body into a wall over and over. His bodyguard held back the people who tried to come to her defense. Then Dre tried to throw her down the stairs, and when she resisted, he started kicking her in the ribs. She ran into the women’s bathroom, but he followed her and grabbed her by the hair and punched her in the back of the head. Seems like something to issue an apology for, wouldn’t you think? Hm. This was Dre’s take on the whole thing: “People talk all this shit, but you know, somebody [expletive] with me, I’m gonna [expletive] with them. I just did it, you know. Ain’t nothing you can do now by talking about it. Besides, it ain’t no big thing– I just threw her through a door.”

Of the ones who apologized – who was sincere and who did it because their publicists told them to? And what other public apologies stand out in your head?