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Post by MarkInTexas on Nov 30, 2020 14:15:07 GMT -5
Welcome to the 7th annual A MarkInTexas Made-For-TV Christmas. This season, I have 12 shows lined up for review, some from the early days of TV others which, as of today, have yet to even premiere. We start it off with a classic British special. The Snowman (1982)Living snowmen is a rather common trope, so much so that it has its own TV Tropes page. The granddaddy of them all is Frosty, of course, but there's also Olaf, the kid from that Campbell Soup commercial, and Jack Frost. There are even evil living snowmen, such as the villains from Doctor Who's 2012 Christmas episode and, well, Jack Frost. Luckily, the snowman in the beloved British special The Snowman is a friendly one. He is the creation of a young boy named James, who builds him during a day of fun in the snow outside of his isolated house. At midnight, the boy creeps downstairs just in time to see the snowman come to life. The boy invites him into their house, where, unlike Frosty, he doesn't melt. Instead, the two of them creep through the house, exploring the kitchen, the living room, and the boy's parents' bedroom before they head back outside for a motorcycle joyride and then a very special trip across the ocean. This is based on a picture book by Raymond Briggs which was entirely pictures--there were no words at all in the book. The special honors that legacy, as, other than a very brief introduction (originally presented by Briggs himself, though subsequent showings replaced it with one by David Bowie) there is no spoken dialogue at all, just music and sound effects. The one time when words intrude on the story is during the song "Walking on the Air", about halfway through, sung as a solo by then-13-year-old choirboy Peter Auty (who has gone onto a distinguished career as an opera singer). The only reason we know the boy's name is because it is written on a label of a Christmas present. The animation is gorgeous, as it was drawn and colored with pastels and crayons. That helps the show's sweet-but-somewhat-melancholy feel, as the clock ticks down to morning and the adventure must end. It keeps it rather cagey if it is all a dream of the boy or really happened--there are suggestions, some subtle, others not--that it wasn't, but of course, that truly doesn't matter. The special was widely acclaimed upon its release, even picking up an Oscar nomination for Animated Short (since it hadn't been made for American television, it apparently was eligible). While distribution in the US has been limited, it is shown annually during the holidays in Great Britain. It is so popular that even nearly 40 years after its debut, the character has been used in advertising campaigns. There was also a sequel made in 2012, and the story has been adapted to the stage (which like the special, contains no dialogue or even singing, save for "Walking in the Air"). The Snowman is a delight, and I wish it had more of an American audience. Next time: The Puppet Show |
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Post by Nudeviking on Dec 1, 2020 6:24:11 GMT -5
Welcome to the 7th annual A MarkInTexas Made-For-TV Christmas. This season, I have 12 shows lined up for review, some from the early days of TV others which, as of today, have yet to even premiere. We start it off with a classic British special. The Snowman (1982)Living snowmen is a rather common trope, so much so that it has its own TV Tropes page. The granddaddy of them all is Frosty, of course, but there's also Olaf, the kid from that Campbell Soup commercial, and Jack Frost. There are even evil living snowmen, such as the villains from Doctor Who's 2012 Christmas episode and, well, Jack Frost. Luckily, the snowman in the beloved British special The Snowman is a friendly one. He is the creation of a young boy named James, who builds him during a day of fun in the snow outside of his isolated house. At midnight, the boy creeps downstairs just in time to see the snowman come to life. The boy invites him into their house, where, unlike Frosty, he doesn't melt. Instead, the two of them creep through the house, exploring the kitchen, the living room, and the boy's parents' bedroom before they head back outside for a motorcycle joyride and then a very special trip across the ocean. This is based on a picture book by Raymond Briggs which was entirely pictures--there were no words at all in the book. The special honors that legacy, as, other than a very brief introduction (originally presented by Briggs himself, though subsequent showings replaced it with one by David Bowie) there is no spoken dialogue at all, just music and sound effects. The one time when words intrude on the story is during the song "Walking on the Air", about halfway through, sung as a solo by then-13-year-old choirboy Peter Auty (who has gone onto a distinguished career as an opera singer). The only reason we know the boy's name is because it is written on a label of a Christmas present. The animation is gorgeous, as it was drawn and colored with pastels and crayons. That helps the show's sweet-but-somewhat-melancholy feel, as the clock ticks down to morning and the adventure must end. It keeps it rather cagey if it is all a dream of the boy or really happened--there are suggestions, some subtle, others not--that it wasn't, but of course, that truly doesn't matter. The special was widely acclaimed upon its release, even picking up an Oscar nomination for Animated Short (since it hadn't been made for American television, it apparently was eligible). While distribution in the US has been limited, it is shown annually during the holidays in Great Britain. It is so popular that even nearly 40 years after its debut, the character has been used in advertising campaigns. There was also a sequel made in 2012, and the story has been adapted to the stage (which like the special, contains no dialogue or even singing, save for "Walking in the Air"). The Snowman is a delight, and I wish it had more of an American audience. Next time: The Puppet Show My elementary school used to show it to us en masse in the auditorium on the last day of school before winter recess. I always assumed that was the thing we got to see because it was vaguely Christmasy without being Christmasy enough to piss of the parents of the sizable Jewish student body that made up my school district. I’ve not seen nor thought about it since Christmas 1991. In the Dave Bowie version is he creepin’ around in an unfinished attic while wearing an ugly sweater or is that just a faulty memory on my part? |
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Post by MarkInTexas on Dec 2, 2020 11:53:23 GMT -5
My elementary school used to show it to us en masse in the auditorium on the last day of school before winter recess. I always assumed that was the thing we got to see because it was vaguely Christmasy without being Christmasy enough to piss of the parents of the sizable Jewish student body that made up my school district. I’ve not seen nor thought about it since Christmas 1991. In the Dave Bowie version is he creepin’ around in an unfinished attic while wearing an ugly sweater or is that just a faulty memory on my part? Pretty much. www.youtube.com/watch?v=54MEWWIiIk8 |
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Post by MarkInTexas on Dec 2, 2020 11:55:51 GMT -5
The Spirit of Christmas (1953)
Puppetry has played an important part throughout the history of television. From the early days of Kukla, Fran, and Ollie to the later work by Jim Henson, to the work of British puppeteer Gerry Anderson to the modern day and Crank Yankers, puppets and marionettes have been a constant on television since the beginning.
Marionettes play an important role in an early surviving special, The Spirit of Christmas. Produced by the AT&T (which at the time had a monopoly on telephone service), and aired originally in Philadelphia, the half-hour special features two stories told by the marionettes, bridged by some live-action elements (the version I saw had a segment on how telephone employees helped bring braille books to blind children).
The first story, which gets a live-action intro by actors playing Clement C. Moore and his wife, was an adaption of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, which at the time hadn't had the numerous adaptions it would get. The segment even incorporated a bit of The Nutcracker after the "visions of sugarplums danced in their heads" line (the special took that quite literally). While the movement of the marionettes has a probably unavoidable jerky quality to them (particularly when the narrator was describing "away to the window I flew like a flash"), they were surprisingly expressive.
The second half was a retelling of the Nativity, from God telling Mary that she was going to have a baby, though the journey to Bethlehem, to the arrival of the shepherds, and the wise men visiting Herod before arriving at the stable as well. It is well done, even if it takes a few liberties with the Biblical account.
Throughout both parts, what struck me was both how expressive the marionettes' faces were, even if they didn't actually move, and how well decorated the sets were and how well costumed the puppets were. It's clear that the phone company put some money into the project, not least because it was filmed in color at a time when there were almost no color TVs, which allowed it to keep its rerun value once color TVs began to supplant black and white models.
The special would be shown annually on Philadelphia TV well into the sixties (though I don't know if it was ever syndicated to other cities) and still airs today on the city's PBS station, perhaps making it the oldest Christmas special to still be regularly broadcast today.
The Spirit of Christmas is old-fashioned, but effortlessly charming. While I could do without the live action segments, the marionette segments are fine additions to the canon of television puppetry.
Next time: A very groundhog Christmas
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Post by Nudeviking on Dec 2, 2020 19:34:09 GMT -5
I'd never heard of this one before but it seemed cool so I looked it up so I could watch it. Apparently according to "the internet," the version of "A Visit from Saint Nicholas (aka "'Twas the Night Before Christmas") present here is the first dramatization of that poem ever filmed which if true is pretty neat.
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Post by MarkInTexas on Dec 7, 2020 13:42:52 GMT -5
The Lego Star Wars Holiday Special (2020)
1978's The Star Wars Holiday Special remains one of the most perplexing 2 hours of television ever produced. Why in the world did its producers think that fans of the action-orientated space opera would want to see Bea Arthur singing, or Harvey Korman play not one, not two, but three different wacky aliens, or spend ten minutes listening to Wookies grunt at each other? George Lucas, who had very little involvement in the production, was so embarrassed that, after its single airing the week before Thanksgiving, had the show locked away, presumably to never see the light of day again.
But a funny thing happened on the way to oblivion. The Internet came into being, and suddenly the long-forgotten special, which had largely been passed around to a very tiny audience via bootleg recordings from the one airing, became a hot commodity. These days, its available to watch in all its glory on YouTube, and Disney and LucasFilm are in no rush to take it down.
Indeed, while there likely won't be a pristine print on Disney+ anytime soon, the studio is clearly fine with people watching it, to the point that they created an entirely new special whose title piggybacks onto that trainwreck.
To be fair, other than the title and the celebration of Life Day, the Christmas stand-in the 1978 special introduced, there's not much connection between it and The Lego Star Wars Holiday Special. Unlike its predecessor, which actually tried to tell a serious story when it wasn't indulging in 70s variety weirdness, Lego Star Wars is a comedy through and through.
Apparently taking place after the events of The Rise of Skywalker, Lego Star Wars opens on Life Day, which Rey, the scavenger-turned-Jedi who was the primary protagonist of the new trilogy, seems intent on ignoring in order to train Finn, the Stormtrooper-turned-rebel, in the ways of the Jedi. However, she quickly gets distracted by the discovery that there is an ancient Jedi artifact that only works on Life Day. She quickly takes off to find it, and soon discovers it allows her to visit pivotal moments from the first six movies via portal. Things get complicated when after visiting the Emperor's throne room during Return of the Jedi, Darth Vader follows her through the portal, intent on capturing it himself.
While Star Wars is not really known for having a much of a sense of humor, doing the special in Lego form allows for all sorts of jokes at the expense of the franchise, from a Phantom Menace-era Obi-Wan complaining about how boring settling a trade dispute was to a Force Awakens-era General Hux becoming tongue-tied at a shirtless Kylo Ren (the Lego version's abs aren't quite as spectacular as Adam Driver's, but they're still pretty impressive for an animated block). There's even a moment for cross-promotion as they briefly fall past The Madalorian and Baby Yoda, for which Vader and Ren have to pause their light-sabre battle to coo at little Grogu.
All this is pretty amusing, though its not super deep. Indeed, jokes rarely get more complicated than early-in-A New Hope Luke constantly ending up with a blue milk moustache. And for those worried about canon, given that all the characters are being played by Legos, the fact that New Hope Luke, Rey, and Kylo were all in the Emperor's throne room during the climax of Return of the Jedi probably won't affect the "official" history too much.
While the animation looks nice, don't expect much in the way of celebrity voices. While a few of the movie actors (Billy Dee Williams, Anthony Daniels, Kelly Marie Tran) show up, most of the characters are voiced by unknowns, though to be fair, most of them have voiced their characters in video games and other animated media before.
The Lego Star Wars Holiday Special is quite fun, and far better than The Star Wars Holiday Special. However, it's not particularly memorable. That might be the advantage of being a legendary train wreck. It's unlikely that, in 42 years, too many people will still be thinking about the Lego version.
Next time: Christmas in the Happiest Place on Earth
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Post by MarkInTexas on Dec 7, 2020 13:47:29 GMT -5
[Oops. This one should have been posted before The Lego Star Wars Holiday Special]
Jack Frost (1979)
Other than the fact that both holidays are during the winter, there's very little that Christmas and Groundhog Day have in common. One is the biggest, most important holiday on the calendar, with commercials and songs and specials devoted to it, days and even weeks off from school and work around it, and often-elaborate decorations in homes and public places that can go up months ahead of time. The other frequently comes and goes with hardly anyone noticing, nothing gets shut down for it, and no one ever decorates. Groundhog Day does have an very popular movie devoted to it, of course, but other than that, the day has almost no wider cultural impact.
So that's why it's a bit surprising that the narrator of the Christmas special Jack Frost is a groundhog, or actually the groundhog.. Instead of Punxsutawney Phil, we have Pardon-Me-Pete, who explains early in the special that he has a special deal with Jack Frost that Jack will supply a shadow that he can be scared by, no matter how overcast the day is. That way, Pete gets six more weeks of sleep and Jack gets six more weeks to play.
Of course, almost none of that has the first thing to do with the primary plot of the story, which takes place at least a couple hundred years earlier, in what I guess is supposed to be Russia. There, Jack falls in love with a human peasant girl named Elisa whom he thinks loves him back. So, he convinces Father Winter to allow him human form to woo the girl, only to not do any actual wooing when his wish is granted.
Jack Frost and his character design was introduced by Rankin/Bass three years earlier in Frosty's Winter Wonderland, where he played the easily reformed villain of the piece. He turned up again, also in 1979, in the feature-length Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July (which may or may not have gotten a brief theatrical release), before getting his own special at the end of the year. In his prior specials, he had been voiced by Rankin/Bass regular Paul Frees, but in this one, they went the celebrity route and got Robert Morse to voice Jack. Frees, however, was involved in this special as well, playing both Father Winter and the show's main villain, Kubla Kraus. Buddy Hackett sang and told the story as Pardon-Me-Pete.
Getting back to the story, Jack's non-existent attempts to woo Elisa runs into two snags. First, on Christmas Eve, she falls for the newly arrived knight Sir Ravenal, and then the next day she is kidnapped by Kubla, the local evil king who insists on a 100% tax rate and has built a robot horse and a robot servant and a robot army (given that this takes places several centuries ago, its clear his talents were being wasted as an evil king). Jack sacrifices his humanity to save the town from the robot forces of Kubla, who is essentially a retread of Burgermeister Meisterburger from Santa Claus is Comin' to Town. Frees, who also voiced that role, basically substitutes Meisterburger's vaguely German accent for a vaguely Russian one. The way Jack ultimately beats Kubla actually explains why the groundhog is in the story, though it's still a bit of a stretch to make him the narriator of the entire piece.
Jack Frost is kind of a weird special, but it's actually probably the best of the latter-day Rankin/Bass specials. While none of the original songs are especially memorable, most of them are quite catchy, and Jack is a fairly engaging character. Being voiced by Morse instead of Frees was probably a wise decision in that regard. This isn't an all-time classic, but it's cute and worth watching.
Next time: Not very long ago, on a streaming service close, close by.
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Post by MarkInTexas on Dec 9, 2020 11:13:14 GMT -5
Christmas in Disneyland (1976)Art Carney certainly seemed to like making Christmas specials. Between 1970 and 1984, he appeared in 8 of them. I've reviewed two of them in previous years, 1970's The Great Santa Claus Switch, an early Jim Henson production where he hammed it up in the duel role of Santa and a villain who wanted to use Santa's sleigh to rob the entire world, and 1978's The Star Wars Holiday Special, in which he, as a merchant on the Wookie homeworld who was a secret member of the rebellion, might have been the only cast member to emerge with his dignity intact. In between, he won an Oscar and starred in Christmas in Disneyland, in that order. While the special is, at its heart, an hour-long commercial for the Southern California theme park, it's surprisingly not quite the hard sell that the title implies. Indeed, the ABC sitcoms that sent their casts in recent years to frolic in the various Disney parks were much more intent on getting the kids watching to beg their parents for a magical vacation to Orlando or Anaheim. Carney played a grandfather who has taken his two grandchildren (played by busy 70s kid actors Brad Savage and Terri Lynn Wood) to the titular park during the holidays. But Carney, whose character is only known as "Gramps", is a very grinchy sort who proclaims how much he loves working and making money and how much he disdains what everyone else would consider fun. The trio had barely arrived on Main Street USA before Carney is insisting the day is over and its time to leave. Luckily, before they're able to make it to the parking lot, they're stopped by a tour guide, played by Sandy Duncan, who tells Carney that there's a cash prize for the biggest unbeliever in the park. The prospect of getting some money convinces Carney to stay. I was pretty sure this was just a ploy to keep Carney in the park, but no, the four of them descend into the bowels of Disneyland to meet a wizard (Carney again, this time with a ridiculous mustache) who promises the grinchy Carney a big prize if he retains his disbelief for the rest of the day. All he has to do is go around the park, while his day is magically livestreamed to the wizard Carney's big screen TV (presumably using technology that was virtually non-existent in 1976 but is commonplace today). Now, if this was a hard sell commercial for the park, you'd see Carney charmed by all the rides and attractions he could experience (as could you, if you'd just visit). Instead, the special is mostly an excuse for a series of musical numbers. Thanks to the magic of green screen, Duncan is able to shrink herself among the animatronic dolls on It's a Small World, and even have a dance number with a couple of unfortunate dancers wearing giant, doll-like heads over their actual heads. The special's other big guest star, Glen Campbell, gets to sing with the bears from Country Bear Jamboree (played by actors in costumes, not the animatronics) and also Christmas carols with the cast of the then-new, now long-gone America Sings (this time, the actual animatronics). Carney himself sings a song about a Christmas party hosted by the Three Little Pigs that gets interrupted by the Big Bad Wolf (played out by the walking characters in costumes). Indeed, the only ride anyone gets on, other than Small World, is the spinning tea cups of the Mad Tea Party. By presenting the special clearly as a fantasy(land), it still encourages people to visit the park without beating them over the head with it. That said, this is still a rather odd special. The producers (who, as the closing credits reveal, were an outside production team, and not Disney) didn't really need the wraparound story to present the musical numbers. And to be honest, as much as I generally like Carney, he's frankly not very good as the scroogey Gramps. He seems rather bored, even during the parts when his icy heart is supposed to be melting. In contrast, he's clearly having a ball playing the wizard, but after his first appearance, that character is usually limited to a few seconds and a couple lines at a time. Duncan (who also shows up in a Snow White costume at one point) and Campbell (who also plays Santa) were decent, though neither was particularly memorable. One especially weird aspect is that, even though the special was clearly filmed on location at Disneyland, there's still a laugh track and applause. Christmas in Disneyland concludes as it must, with Gramps finally giving in to the magic of the park and the season, complete with a snowstorm blanketing Main Street, Micky and Minnie skating, and a huge choir showing up to sing "Joy to the World" and "Silent Night". It's quite the strange special, but in an age when Disney seems to go out of its way to stuff itself down everyone's throat, the fact that Disney didn't do that here earns it a bit of respect. Next time: One of the most popular stars of the 50s does his annual show in the 70s.
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Post by Nudeviking on Dec 10, 2020 2:05:03 GMT -5
How do find half of these? Like I'm assuming a 2020 Lego Star Wars thing is a new offering that Disney+ hyped up but some of the stuff you've covered over the years has been pretty goddamn obscure.
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Post by MarkInTexas on Dec 10, 2020 11:04:17 GMT -5
How do find half of these? Like I'm assuming a 2020 Lego Star Wars thing is a new offering that Disney+ hyped up but some of the stuff you've covered over the years has been pretty goddamn obscure. Believe it or not, nearly everything old that I've covered (the stuff that's not still shown on TV or officially available on a streaming service) is on YouTube or DailyMotion. They're usually not particularly high quality, but as long as the audio and video are OK, and the special is mostly intact, I can run with it. As for how I find the obscure stuff, I have a variety of sources. Wikipedia has a long, but by no means complete, list of animated Christmas specials over the years. There are, believe it or not, a couple of blogs devoted to Christmas specials that post year round. While I try not to read entries of things I haven't written about too closely, I do take note of what they talk about and see if it's readily available. YouTube's algorithm will often list other Christmas specials they have available when I watch one. Also, I like watching old commercials (yes, I'm very weird), and ads that were taped off networks in December will often have ads for then-upcoming specials (that's how I learned about the existence of Christmas in Disneyland, for example). Finding animated specials online is usually not too difficult. Even after falling off the network's yearly schedule, the specials frequently migrated to local channels and then cable channels, for cheap December programming (I'll be posting Christmas week a write-up on an obscure animated special from the early 70s, and the YouTube copy I watched had a Cartoon Network bug in the corner). Variety specials are harder to come by, as they were usually only broadcast once, so I'm lucky when stuff like Christmas at Disneyland finds its way to a streaming service. There are so many of these specials I'd love to watch and talk about, but aren't readily available. And yep, the Star Wars Lego special is brand new to Disney+. |
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Post by MarkInTexas on Dec 11, 2020 10:08:31 GMT -5
Perry Como's Early American Christmas (1978)
It seems strange today, but in the 50s, Perry Como was gigantically popular, not just with adults, but with kids, too. In 1958, he beat out Elvis as the most popular singer among teenagers. Who knew they loved "Catch a Falling Star" that much? In addition to his popularity on the pop charts, Como was also a beloved presence on television, having a weekly variety show until 1963, then hosting a monthly one until 1967. After that, he cut back on his TV appearances, mostly concentrating on a series of specials, including an annual Christmas one. Those lasted until 1986, and from 1975 onward were always shot at some exotic locale.
In 1978, Como decided to do his Christmas special from Colonial Williamsburg. While I haven't watched other Como specials as comparison, Perry Como's Early American Christmas follows the typical 70s/80s Christmas variety specials template fairly closely, so I suspect it's pretty representative of his work overall.
Como sings a number of songs tailored the location. The specials opens with "The Twelve Days of Christmas" (all twelve verses!), with the gift selection altered to reflect the products that Williamsburg's craft people produce. He sings "The Little Drummer Boy" with an actual drummer boy, a member the the Fife and Drum Corps. Later on, he sings his own "(There's No Place Like) Home for the Holidays", with the lyrics changed to reflect the world as it would have been known in colonial times (no mentions of Tennessee or the Pacific).
The special's big guest star is John Wayne, in one of his last television appearances before his death the following June. He first appears about halfway through, doing a couple of light comedy bits with Williamsburg townspeople (actually, the same townsperson, as they hired one actor to play all the speaking parts not handled by the announced guest stars), then shows up again a bit later to banter with Como about American history and to dramatically read a letter (that he said he just happened to find) from an infantryman serving in the French and Indian War. He also sings, but luckily that's limited to just one quick verse of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" with Como and (I'm assuming) the male choral members from nearby College of William & Mary. Also appearing was singer and actress Diana Canova, then a regular on Soap, who got a solo and two duets with Perry, famed violinist Eugene Fodor, who also briefly played a young Thomas Jefferson, and then-reigning Miss America Kylene Barker, who explains popular games of the time to Como.
Weirdly, this special is much more of a hard sell for Williamsburg than Christmas in Disneyland was to that park. I'm sure some promotional consideration was required, but it was still rather surprising to see so much travelogue material.
Como's specials would continue for another 8 years, before he and ABC couldn't come to terms the 1987 edition. He would do one more Christmas special in 1994, from Ireland, before retiring. The presence of Wayne seems likely to make Perry Como's Early American Christmas one of his more popular specials in more recent years. It's a solid accomplishment, but not one that needs repeat viewing.
Next time: After a monster 2019, an American legend becomes an American hero, and also releases a Christmas album and special
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Post by MarkInTexas on Dec 15, 2020 11:41:13 GMT -5
A Holly Dolly Christmas (2020)
A year ago, when I wrote about 1984's Kenny and Dolly: A Christmas to Remember, I talked about what a busy year Dolly Parton had had. This year turned out to be just as busy, with a new Christmas album (her first since 1990), a Netflix movie, numerous promotional appearances for the album, and, of course, a new holiday special. Of course, all that pales in comparison to her most important action of the year, namely donating a million dollars to Vanderbilt University for Covid research, research that has led to the development of one of the very promising vaccines that will hopefully bring the pandemic to an end.
It is because of that pandemic that all of those promotional appearances, including a duet with Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show and a performance in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, were all filmed in Nashville, as was A Holly Dolly Christmas, the special, made to promote A Holly Dolly Christmas, the album.
The special is considerably stripped down from what a non-pandemic version might have been. The entire thing is shot on one stage, in fact at one place on the stage, a church pew surrounded by candles. There, Parton holds court, telling stories of her hardscrabble childhood in the Tennessee hills, with her huge family that had no money, but plenty of love. There are no costume changes, as she wears the same white sequin dress with fringe from beginning to end (though for the final number she does add a write wrap to the ensemble). Even though the album had several duets, with the likes of Willie Nelson, Michael Buble, and Cyruses Miley and Billy Ray joining Dolly, there are no guest stars on the special. As she said at the end, they made the filming as safe as possible, with only the crew, a few backup singers, and the band in attendance.
The special starts off with, as it must, "A Holly Jolly Christmas", one of only two secular covers that Parton would sing (the other being "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus"). The other songs are either religious covers (such as "Mary Did You Know") or her own originals ("Comin' Home For Christmas", "Coat of Many Colors"). Throughout, there's a surprising amount of emphasis on Parton's faith, as she discusses her preacher grandfather and his tiny church (the set was a tribute to him), and how she had been blessed by God. The final number, in fact, is called "I Still Believe", which she debuted on the special. It can be read as both a testament to her faith and a more secular message of hope that things will get back to normal soon.
I didn't enjoy this as much as her delightful 1990 special Home for Christmas, but I do prefer this to the somewhat overproduced A Christmas to Remember (on that note, I am a bit disappointed she didn't acknowledge the passing this year of Kenny Rogers). Parton, as always, is effortlessly charming, and while she has certainly mined the stories of her youth before, its always amazing to hear just how poor she and her family was (there were numerous old pictures of Parton as a child and a teenager shown, usually right before commercials). To that effect, while she didn't make mention of her Covid donation, she did talk excitedly about the book giving program she started for kids, inspired by her father, who was illiterate.
Parton, at 74, could kick back and retire, but she continues to produce new music and specials (indeed, this isn't even the first full-length special she did to promote the album, as she also performed a mini-concert and a Q&A last month on Amazon). I'm glad she didn't. A Holly Dolly Christmas may be a product of the pandemic, but even in future years, I suspect it will continue to be enjoyed every holiday season.
Next time: All Apple wants for Christmas is you to watch their new special
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Post by MarkInTexas on Dec 17, 2020 12:19:35 GMT -5
Mariah Carey's Magical Christmas Special (2020)
While new Christmas songs get churned out every year, the most popular ones tend to stay exactly the same from year to year. As of this writing, the top ten of Billboard's Christmas song chart contains the like of Burl Ives, The Ronettes, Nat King Cole, Andy Williams, and Brenda Lee. The one exception is the song that tops the chart, by far the most popular Christmas song of the last 30 years, Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas is You". Initially released in 1994, the song was well-received and popular, but didn't really become the ubiquitous holiday season force until the early teens. Given that Carey is one of the few original performers of a Christmas standard still actively making music, she has earned the nickname "Queen of Christmas"
In terms of filmed Christmas productions, she has done one previous special, Mariah Carey's Merriest Christmas, which premiered in 2015 on Hallmark, and was a tie-in with a movie she directed for the network. Two years later, she lent her voice and executive produced a Christmas animated film, called (of course) All I Want For Christmas Is You. But it's safe to say that none of these previous projects can come to topping her new special, Mariah Carey's Magical Christmas Special. Unlike A Holly Dolly Christmas, which was very stripped down, Mariah's show is very, very, very, very big--big guest stars, big sets, multiple costume changes, and a storyline that has Carey literally saving Christmas.
The Tiffany Haddish-narrated special starts with Santa's elves lamenting that, after a very tough year, there is no Christmas spirit to be found (while the special never directly refers to the pandemic, it's pretty obvious why no one is in the mood to celebrate). With Christmas on the verge of being cancelled, the head elf (Billy Eichner) calls Mariah, who agrees to fly to the North Pole (in a sleigh hidden behind her fireplace) to put on a fabulous Christmas concert and save the day.
The rest of the special is Carey wandering around the North Pole, usually in a different outfit from the last scene, and performing a number, while Eichner tries to convince her to stay on task, an odd subplot, since she is Marah Carey, it's her special, and we all know she's going to do whatever she damn well pleases. And what pleases her is singing. She sings "Sleigh Ride" while flying in her sleigh, "Oh Santa" with no less than Jennifer Hudson and Ariana Grande on the floor of Santa's toy factory, and "O Holy Night" while in a forest. Plus, to promote the new corporate synergy that brought Peanuts specials to the streamer, she meets Woodstock. Meanwhile, Snoop Dogg and Jermaine Dupri show up to rap, ballet dancer Misti Copeland dances an excerpt from The Nutcracker, and Bette Midler and Heidi Klum show up for about 20 seconds each on a monitor to proclaim their lack of Christmas spirit. It's all so, so much.
I would say this is a throwback to specials from the 60s and 70s, which frequently tried to slap a plot between the performances, but I'm pretty sure no special from that time was anything like this...or any special from our current time, either. Old specials weren't this lavish, weren't this star-studded, weren't this big.
In case you were wondering, of course, Mariah saves Christmas, and the special ends as it must, with her belting out "All I Want For Christmas Is You", in what has to be at least her tenth outfit of the night. Mariah fans will be in heaven. That said, I don't want to shortchange this for potential viewers who aren't as enamored with Mariah. It really is a sight to behold.
I can't really say Mariah Carey's Magical Christmas Special is good, but its very much watchable. It can be cheesy and silly and weird, but its heart is in the right place. I personally prefer Parton's special, but Mariah's is well worth a watch--maybe even more than Parton's. While Parton's special represents the reality of 2020, Carey represents the ideal version of the year. And maybe that's the version we need this year.
Next time: Another all-star Christmas special, from up north (not that far north)
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Post by MarkInTexas on Dec 18, 2020 10:35:40 GMT -5
Dave Foley's The True Meaning of Christmas Specials (2002)
As I've written before, Christmas specials are, far more often than not, ephemeral. If they're lucky, they'll get repeated for a couple of years. If they're really lucky, they'll get released on home media. Only a tiny fraction becomes popular enough to rerun every year, even decades after their debuts.
Under normal circumstance, it's likely that Dave Foley's The True Meaning of Christmas Specials would have eventually succumbed to the same fate, despite the well-known host, the truly impressive list of guest stars, and a clever premise. But this special was truly snakebit. Produced in Canada (with numerous famous Canadian comedy stars) this was supposed to premiere on ABC Family in the US and CBC in Canada. However, the Americans ended up pulling out, and no other American network picked it up. Then, after its single showing in 2002 on the CBC, music rights prevented it from being shown again in subsequent years. All this gave the special a bit of a "lost gem" reputation.
As the title implies, Dave Foley, a few years removed from the end of NewsRadio, hosted, as well as writing and directing. Dave doesn't want to learn what Christmas is all about (dismissing a priest, played by Andy Richter, after pointing out the Bible verses he was quoting came directly from A Charlie Brown Christmas). Rather, he wants to craft the perfect heartwarming Christmas special, the best location of which was not on a sunny beach with swimsuit-clad revelers, but rather a snowy country lodge in Canada. But even there, something seems off.
As stated Foley recruited numerous superstars of Canadian comedy, including two SCTV vets (Dave Thomas and Joe Flaherty), a fellow Kid in the Hall (Kevin McDonald), Tom Green, and Mike Myers. He also brings in Jason Priestly (also Canadian) to play Santa, renowned Canadian singer Jann Arden, Canadian figure skater Elvis Stojko, and a few American ringers (in addition to Richter, the special also boasted renowned rock guitarist Dick Dale and musician Robert "El Vez" Lopez).
Unfortunately, while there are numerous amusing moments (including Stojko rather obviously doubling for Foley during a figure skating routine, while Stojko is supposedly watching on the edge of the ice), the special never really gels into a collective whole. Foley can't seem to decide if he wants to be a naïve innocent or a generic asshole, and while some of the guest stars are quite funny (Priestly, Thomas, Flaherty, surprisingly both Stojko and Arden), others (namely Myers and Green) fall rather flat.
Foley's post-NewsRadio career has been notoriously checkered, and its unfortunate that the fate of this special seemed to reflect that streak of bad luck. While Dave Foley's The True Meaning of Christmas Specials is not a lost classic, I am glad it has re-emerged. It may not be great, but it deserves to be seen.
Next time: Weihnachten in Deutschland
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Post by MyNameIsNoneOfYourGoddamnBusin on Dec 21, 2020 7:56:09 GMT -5
Mariah Carey's Magical Christmas Special (2020)While new Christmas songs get churned out every year, the most popular ones tend to stay exactly the same from year to year. As of this writing, the top ten of Billboard's Christmas song chart contains the like of Burl Ives, The Ronettes, Nat King Cole, Andy Williams, and Brenda Lee. The one exception is the song that tops the chart, by far the most popular Christmas song of the last 30 years, Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas is You". Initially released in 1994, the song was well-received and popular, but didn't really become the ubiquitous holiday season force until the early teens. Given that Carey is one of the few original performers of a Christmas standard still actively making music, she has earned the nickname "Queen of Christmas" I mostly stream old TV shows on Crackle and ads for this special have been ubiquitous for the past few weeks. Every time I see one I wonder how close we are to the day Mariah Carey is to a more modern-day Brenda Lee: someone who had a very successful career a long time ago who is now known for nothing other than a massive inescapable holiday novelty hit. We're probably not quite there yet, but it's coming. I guess doing this special means she's willing to embrace it rather than rum from it. |
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Post by MarkInTexas on Dec 21, 2020 12:05:10 GMT -5
A Christmas Calendar (1987)
Travelogues have a proud tradition on PBS. These shows whisk us away to exotic locals with a charming host (sometimes a celebrity, sometimes not) to spend 60 minutes or so experiencing the local culture without having to leave the comfort of your couch.
Actress Loretta Swit, best known for her work on the sitcom M*A*S*H, but also for her starring role in the unfortunately neglected 1983 adaption of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, was our host for German holiday travelogue A Christmas Calendar. Swit proclaims herself excited to be heading to Germany (or at least West Germany, as the Cold War was still going on when this was shot) to explore some of the many special traditions the country has, many of which are older than the United States.
After introducing us to her host family (a dad, mom, and two kids--whether they're really a family who are friends of hers or merely actors, who knows) and setting up the special's gimmick (that every time she opens a door on an Advent calendar, they head to a new locale), it's off to the first lesson, about Advent wreaths.
In succession, we learn, among other things, about how marzipan is made, the tradition of dressing people as essentially haystacks to scare away evil spirits, the arrival of Saint Nicholas on the evening of December 6, the making of famous spice cookies in the city of Aachen and gingerbread from Nuremburg, that city's Kris Kringle mart and fair, the Nativity scene market in Munich, nutcrackers from Rottenburg, hurly gurly men in Berlin, the celebration of "Silent Night", just across the border in Austria, and (my favorite) the Christmas Eve gunfire in the far southern town of Berchtesgarden.
If all this sounds like it could be interesting, then this is the special for you. If not, well, it won't be. But then, that's the risk with travelogues. If you don't care about the place the show is traveling to, you're probably not going to much care about the show.
While the special is uneven, and a tad dull in places, I do admit I learned about some fairly interesting German Christmas traditions from A Christmas Calendar. While this column has focuses primarily on American specials over the years, which means mostly American traditions, I do find it fascinating to see how other cultures and other countries celebrate the Christmas season. And, since it's highly likely that each and every one of these traditions is still going strong (even if they have to take 2020 off), the special will likely remain surprisingly current for many years to come.
Next time: Not the one with Ralphie.
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Post by Nudeviking on Dec 22, 2020 21:53:17 GMT -5
A Christmas Calendar (1987)Travelogues have a proud tradition on PBS. These shows whisk us away to exotic locals with a charming host (sometimes a celebrity, sometimes not) to spend 60 minutes or so experiencing the local culture without having to leave the comfort of your couch. Actress Loretta Swit, best known for her work on the sitcom M*A*S*H, but also for her starring role in the unfortunately neglected 1983 adaption of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, was our host for German holiday travelogue A Christmas Calendar. Swit proclaims herself excited to be heading to Germany (or at least West Germany, as the Cold War was still going on when this was shot) to explore some of the many special traditions the country has, many of which are older than the United States. After introducing us to her host family (a dad, mom, and two kids--whether they're really a family who are friends of hers or merely actors, who knows) and setting up the special's gimmick (that every time she opens a door on an Advent calendar, they head to a new locale), it's off to the first lesson, about Advent wreaths. In succession, we learn, among other things, about how marzipan is made, the tradition of dressing people as essentially haystacks to scare away evil spirits, the arrival of Saint Nicholas on the evening of December 6, the making of famous spice cookies in the city of Aachen and gingerbread from Nuremburg, that city's Kris Kringle mart and fair, the Nativity scene market in Munich, nutcrackers from Rottenburg, hurly gurly men in Berlin, the celebration of "Silent Night", just across the border in Austria, and (my favorite) the Christmas Eve gunfire in the far southern town of Berchtesgarden. If all this sounds like it could be interesting, then this is the special for you. If not, well, it won't be. But then, that's the risk with travelogues. If you don't care about the place the show is traveling to, you're probably not going to much care about the show. While the special is uneven, and a tad dull in places, I do admit I learned about some fairly interesting German Christmas traditions from A Christmas Calendar. While this column has focuses primarily on American specials over the years, which means mostly American traditions, I do find it fascinating to see how other cultures and other countries celebrate the Christmas season. And, since it's highly likely that each and every one of these traditions is still going strong (even if they have to take 2020 off), the special will likely remain surprisingly current for many years to come. Next time: Not the one with Ralphie. I'd had no idea that they ever did an adaptation of The Best Christ Pageant Ever (let alone one with "Hotlips" from M.A.S.H.) but the book was long a Christmas Eve tradition in my household with my mother reading it aloud to us after supper. This continued at least up to the point that I moved overseas and was no longer at my parents' house for the holidays. |
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Post by MarkInTexas on Dec 23, 2020 14:16:18 GMT -5
I'd had no idea that they ever did an adaptation of The Best Christ Pageant Ever (let alone one with "Hotlips" from M.A.S.H.) but the book was long a Christmas Eve tradition in my household with my mother reading it aloud to us after supper. This continued at least up to the point that I moved overseas and was no longer at my parents' house for the holidays. Yep, in 1983. It co-starred a nine-year-old Fairuza Balk, in her first credited acting role (she's the only member of the large cast of kids that ever went on to do anything else notable). As I said, it's pretty delightful. www.youtube.com/watch?v=icZwm6Aact8 |
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Post by MarkInTexas on Dec 23, 2020 14:21:01 GMT -5
A Christmas Story (1972)
A Christmas Story, the 1983 movie about young Ralphie and his ardent desire for an official Red Ryder, carbine action, 200-shot, range model air rife with a compass in the stock and this thing that tells time, has become such a part of the holiday movie canon that its easy to forget just how generic the title actually is. Yes, A Christmas Story is a Christmas story, but so is A Charlie Brown Christmas, as well as How the Grinch Stole Christmas, as is Die Hard.
It's such a generic title that it had already been used 11 years before the film came out, for a special from Hanna-Barbara, the kings of TV animation at the time. Not content with making a huge chunk of the networks' Saturday morning schedules, the two animators decided to move into holiday specials in 1972, making The Thanksgiving That Almost Wasn't, and the original A Christmas Story (not the original Christmas story).
While Thanksgiving, which I reviewed last month, took its formula from Rankin-Bass, Christmas did something different, namely (I think) serve as a potential pilot for the continuing wacky adventures of its two lead animals and their various friends and enemies.
The animals in question are Gumdrop, a mouse voiced by Daws Butler using his Elroy Jetson voice, and Goober, a basset voiced by Paul Winchell using his Tigger voice. The two live together with little Timmy, who looked to be around 5 or so, and his parents, in a nice house in a small town sometime during the early years of the 20th century.
The plot kicks off when Gumdrop realizes that Timmy's letter to Santa somehow landed on the floor under a table rather than in the mail to the North Pole. Since it's already closing in on midnight on Christmas Eve, the two decide the best course of action is to just give the letter to Santa personally.
If that seems like a rather thin premise to hang a half-hour special on, the writers seemed to agree with you, because there are a lot of songs in this thing, none of which really advance the plot (many of which were recycled five years later for A Flintstone Christmas. The opening number also bears more than a slight resemblance to the opening number in Thanksgiving). There's also an extended scene with some menacing cats threaten to make Gumdrop their Christmas dinner, another sequence in which the dog and mouse are trapped in a runaway old-fashioned mail truck, and a sequence that completely rips off the Twilight Bark segment from One Hundred and One Dalmatians (which was only 11 years old itself at this point).
Unfortunately, both of the lead characters are also rather light on characterization. They both love Timmy, they both want to do the right thing, and that's about it. Gumdrop is a bit more gung-ho and braver, but really, these are two bland animals.
Apparently, Hanna and Barbara agreed, because if there were plans for future specials, or even a series, with those two, they were dropped after this premiered. Indeed, less than a year later, the name Goober was recycled for the title character of Goober and the Ghost Chasers, yet another one of Hanna-Barbara's official rip-offs of their own Scooby-Doo. That Goober looked nothing like Christmas Story Goober, and while Winchell voiced him, this time he seemed to be ripping off Butler's Snagglepuss voice.
Had A Christmas Story been better, the 1983 movie might have been named something else. If you must watch only one Christmas Story this year, it should definitely not be this cartoon.
Next time: Twas the final entry of A MarkInTexas Made-For-TV Christmas for 2020
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Post by MarkInTexas on Dec 24, 2020 12:37:48 GMT -5
The Night Before Christmas (1968)
Thanks to its status as arguably the most famous poem in the English language, there have been a lot of adaptions over the years of A Visit From St. Nicholas, aka The Night Before Christmas. This despite the fact that the poem itself is relatively short, running only 56 lines. That's enough time to fill, say, a short that runs under 10 minutes, but any longer adaption will need a lot of filler.
In addition to the marionette adaption in 1952's The Spirit of Christmas, which was discussed earlier this month, the poem served as the basis of two mid-70s specials, an animated one from Rankin-Bass, which would run on CBS for the better part of the next decade, and a live action one starring Paul Lynde, which quickly vanished after its one showing. Before those two, and after Spirit, came 1968's The Night Before Christmas, which not only adapted the poem, but presented a (highly fictionalized) look at its writing.
The special is about Clement C. Moore, a professor who, at least in this special, has three young children. As he's leaving for a speaking tour at the beginning, his oldest daughter, Charity gives an ominous cough. In short time, she is deathly ill with pneumonia, with Clement and his wife, Catherine, standing vigil at her bedside and Clement regretting he was unable to find the book about Santa Claus she had so specifically asked for. Of course, he is immediately inspired to write the poem.
The poem is presented as basically a special within the special, taking up about nine minutes, with the poem being sung by the Norman Luboff Choir, a choral group that was prominent in its day, but has now been largely forgotten. This segment contains a more cartoony animation style than the more realistic animation of the rest of the special. The odd thing is, in a biopic of the poet of The Night Before Christmas, the sung version alters the lyrics several times.
The special is not historically accurate. The poem was first published in 1823, when Charity would have been 7, much younger than she seems here. She is also presented as the oldest, but in real life, she had an older sister, and there's no indication that she had pneumonia around Christmas, or that the poem was written to cheer her up. In reality, Charity would die in 1830 at the age of 14, the same year that Catharine Moore also died. Indeed, of Moore's nine children, three would die before him. The special also doesn't touch on how Moore became quite wealthy, not from the poem, but from selling off his family estate on the island of Manhattan as New York City spread northward. Today, the neighborhood of Chelsea occupies what was his land. It also doesn't even hint at the controversary that surrounds Moore's purported authorship, and the theories that someone else is the true author of the poem
Charity might have eventually died in real life, but of course she doesn't in the special, as she makes a miraculous recovery just in time for Christmas. The special itself is pretty standard stuff, with so-so animation and, other than the poem, a few forgettable songs.
On this night before Christmas, Moore's poem will be read in millions of households worldwide. Very few will watch The Night Before Christmas. It's not awful, but its not one of the better specials out there.
Next time: As it is Christmas Eve, this is a wrap for A MarkInTexas Made-For-TV Christmas for 2020. We'll be back next November for the next installment. Meanwhile, coming in June, and lasting all summer is another series I'm quite excited about. MarkInTexas Is Watching All Of Your Specials, Charlie Brown debuts Sunday, June 6 with A Charlie Brown Christmas and will continue every Sunday through August watching the Peanuts gang's made-for-TV specials in chronological order. See you then, and Merry Christmas!
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