Judy + Mickey

I stayed home sick from work today and finally got the chance to look through the Judy Garland & Mickey Rooney boxed set I got for Christmas. It includes 4 movies—Babes in Arms, Strike Up the Band, Babes on Broadway, and Girl Crazy— plus a while disc of bonus material, PLUS these fancy little behind-the-scenes photos. I'm not sure what one would ever do with them, but they're still great!

Today I watched Babes on Broadway which is my favorite Judy/Mickey movie. Then I moved onto the bonus disc, which turned out to be awesome for one reason: The Judy Garland Songbook, "A Chronological Cavalcade of Musical Numbers." Yeah, it's basically like Judy Garland music videos which is kind of a dream come true for me considering I generally just fast forward straight to the songs in most Judy movies. I'd say the entire set is worth it for this feature alone, especially when it's only like $30 on Amazon.com.

The curious thing about this Judy Garland Songbook is that they failed to include "Over the Rainbow," the most famous Judy song EVER, but chose to include "Friendly Star" which I believe to be one of the worst songs in the history of the world. I mean really, if they're going to include a lame song from Summer Stock, there's no doubt it should be "Howdy Neighbor, Happy Harvest." But apart from that one strange oversight, all the other songs are quality and they range her very first short film at MGM to "Born in a Trunk" from A Star Is Born which opens and closes the entire set of songs.

The bonus disc also includes the TCM's Private Screening interviews with Mickey Rooney which I have yet to watch, but I'm sure are everything one would expect from a crazy old Mickey Rooney. I'm looking forward to checking that out!