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Post by MarkInTexas on Nov 29, 2021 11:51:58 GMT -5
Welcome, one and all, to the 8th annual A MarkInTexas Made-For-TV Christmas. Join me three times a week for the next month as I once again explore TV specials tied to the holiday, both old and new.
Christmas in Washington (1985/1991/1996/2001/2011)
George Stevens, Jr., a prolific producer/writer/director on films and TV, had an idea an all-star, holiday season televised event to be filmed in Washington D.C. and shown later on network television, with no less than the President of the United States and the First Lady in attendance. That event would become The Kennedy Center Honors, which, other than the fact that the ceremony is generally held in early December and broadcast usually between Christmas and New Year's, has nothing to do with Christmas. The success of that led Stevens to decide on a second December special originating from the nation's capital, this one also with the President and First Lady in attendance and this one explicitly tied into celebrating the holidays.
The first Christmas in Washington premiered in 1982, and would become an annual tradition, first on NBC and then on TNT, until 2014. That long run encompassed five presidential administrations, and I decided to sample one special from each of those terms, to see how the changing face of pop music affected the concert.
A few things remained consistent from special to special. The three NBC shows I watched started with the same, specially written theme song, sung by the Navel Academy Glee Club (who were also part of the two TNT shows I watched). That would usually be followed by an opening medley of all the big name musical performers, before each one got to perform a solo or two. A second melody would conclude the show, right before the President gave his closing remarks and wished America a Merry Christmas, followed by everyone singing "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing" as the closing credits rolled. Each show also originated from the Great Hall of the National Building Museum. Many of the same songs were sung from show to show as well. Expect to hear numerous versions of "The Christmas Song", "Do You Hear What I Hear", "This Christmas", and others. And all the hosts of the shows I watched were all there because of corporate synergy.
That said, each edition had its own style that, to some extent, reflected both the time and the then-current occupant of the Oval Office. The 1985 show, during the administration of Ronald Reagan, seemed designed to appeal to a 74-year-old man who was alive when the Titanic sank, and not to what music people were then listening to. I don't think anyone expected Prince or Madonna to be the headliner, but maybe they could have found someone a bit more relevant than Pat Boone. His big solo number was a truly dreadful song about how Santa worships Jesus, which he sang surrounded by little kids. Oddly, of the five specials I watched, this one seemed the most explicitly Christian, even though by most reports, the Reagans were less religious than their next four successors. Contributing to that vibe was fellow performer, Amy Grant, who at the time was still exclusively known as a contemporary Christian singer. Joining them and third headliner Natalie Cole was young Russian violinist Viktoria Mullova, who was forced to awkwardly banter with host Tom Brokaw, and Kenneth Mack, Jr., a 13-year-old gospel singer who was really quite dazzling (unfortunately, Google doesn't have any info on him after 1986). This would be the only special that would show footage outside of the concert, as First Lady Nancy Reagan showed footage of a White House Christmas party for children of the military, with Emmanuel Lewis and Willard Scott (dressed as Santa) in attendance.
By 1991, George H.W. Bush was president. This year, headliner Anita Baker may not have been topping the charts, but was considerably more relevant to the music industry of that era than Pat Boone. She would be joined by Johnny Mathis, Anne Murray, and Vince Gill (who would marry Amy Grant in 2000). This would be the only special without a formal host, which meant that First Lady Barbara Bush gave the opening welcome and the musicians introduced each other. This edition was perfectly pleasant, and much better than the 1985 show, but also not anywhere near as memorable.
Bill Clinton was President in 1996, and for the hosts of that year's show, NBC went the corporate synergy route and brought in the cast of their then-new sitcom 3rd Rock From the Sun--John Lithgow, Jane Curtin, Kristen Johnston, French Stewart, and then-15-year-old Joseph Gordon-Levitt--to host. Flying five famous actors cross-country for the gig meant that they quintet would get far more screentime than hosts before and after. Their lengthy opening monologue included jokes comparing their show, about a group of goofy aliens posing as human to learn about Planet Earth, and that summer's biggest hit, Independence Day, whose primary set piece involved evil aliens blowing up the White House. There was also a skit (apparently written by 3rd Rock's creators) where the cast in character send a message back to their home planet about the bizarre tradition of Christmas. Unfortunately, this had the effect of overshadowing the music, including headliner Luther Vandross, Faith Hill, CeCe Winans, and opera singer Ruth Ann Swenson.
By 2001, George W. Bush was in the White House, and the special had moved from NBC to TNT. Coming three months after 9/11, this show was filled with references to the tragedy, including the NBC-era theme song being dropped in favor of the Navel Academy Glee Club singing "I'll Be Home for Christmas". That year, the festivities were emceed by Reba McEntire, whose new sitcom had just premiered two months earlier on TNT's sister broadcast network The WB. Brokaw and the 3rd Rock cast had been polite to the presidents without giving anything away of their personal politics. McEntire, on the other hand, wore her politics on her sleeve, praising Bush's job performance several times during her various remarks and leaving no doubt about who she had voted for the previous fall. McEntire was also the only host of the ones I saw who was also a musician herself, so she got her own solo numbers. While Tony Bennett (who didn't appear until nearly halfway through the show) was the headliner, the show was mostly notable for having an unusually young lineup of 23-year-old Usher (who scored his second career #1 hit the week the special aired), 17-year-old Mandy Moore, and 15-year-old Charlotte Church.
Ten years later, Barack Obama was President, and the special, other than a short "Carol of the Bells" from the Glee Club over highlights of previous editions, opened with Cee Lo Green. Host Conan O'Brien, as opposed to his predecessors, didn't play a large part in the proceedings, delivering an opening monologue, introducing each of the performers, and then disappearing until the finale. Other than Green, the headliner was Justin Bieber, still in the bowl cut, innocent teen idol phase of his career. He also was the only performer in any of the specials watched that had his own personal backup singers. The other performers were Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson, The Band Perry, and Victoria Justice. If the lineup wasn't quite as impressive as the 2001 lineup had been, it was still a long way from the days of Pat Boone.
After the 2014 special, TNT declined to renew it for 2015, and Stevens, unable to find another broadcast partner, chose to fold it. While it was sad that the tradition came to an end, it might have been for the best, because it's hard to see it surviving the Trump years, anyway (he declined to attend any of the three Kennedy Center Honors held during his administration, though the president's participation in that one is largely peripheral, unlike this show). That said, this is a format prime for revival. It would not surprise me if, in some future December, the National Building Museum will be aglow once again with Christmas in Washington.
Next time: At Christmas, ya gotta have Hope
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Post by MarkInTexas on Nov 30, 2021 21:19:06 GMT -5
The Bob Hope Christmas Show (1985)
The length and breadth of Bob Hope's career is rather staggering. He got his start in vaudeville and then transitioned to radio and the movies. He was one of the first big stars to embrace television, appearing in his first special in 1950, and his final one in 1996, as the reign of the broadcast networks dominating the industry was drawing to a close. He died in 2003, just as broadband Internet began to move into the mainstream, and a rapidly growing DVD-rental-by-mail company was beginning to explore how to bypass the "mail" part of delivering content to customers.
Hope also was, arguably, one of the first modern stand-up comics. While some variation of stand-up had existed all the way back to before the Civil War, he was one of the pioneers of how comics generally perform today, with a comic telling jokes by themselves, as "themselves", without the use of props. Some sources even credit him with pioneering topical humor in comedy acts, as he would offer his wry take on current events, a form that still survives in the late night talk show monologue.
The problem with relying heavily on topical humor is that the jokes don't age well. What audiences in, say, December 1985, might find hysterical would be met with confusion and silence 36 years later. That might be an issue if the episode was expected to endure. But, like many variety Christmas specials, The Bob Hope Christmas Show was designed to be viewed once, on the night it aired, and then never seen again.
Of course, even audiences in 1985 might not have been too amused by Hope's style of comedy, which seemed greatly out-of-date even then. His opening monologue consisted of rather gentle jabs at President Reagan, Bruce Springsteen, Dynasty, and Charlton Heston, who was starring in the then-new Dynasty spin-off (and eventually notorious flop) The Colbys. That was followed by a song-and-dance number with pint-sized Webster star Emmanuel Lewis (who was actually 14 at the time) and banter with 20-year-old Brooke Shields. He also did two comedy sketches with the two of them, one a parody of Miami Vice, and the other a proto-Toy Story in which the trio play unsold dolls in a store on Christmas Eve.
The second half featured I Dream of Jeannie star Barbara Eden, who proved to have a nice singing voice when she dueted with Hope on "Silver Bells", Chicago Bear rookie William "The Refrigerator" Perry, and the teenage Rose Queen, who, like everyone else, made jokes about Hope's age. The show also featured Hope's annual introduction of the AP's All-American College Football Team, 8 solid minutes of players running onto stage, introducing themselves, and Hope cracking a joke before the next player ran on and repeated the process.
Hope's 1985 special was his 32nd with the word "Christmas" in the title, though in an unusual quirk, many of them originally aired in January, mainly because they were travelogues of him visiting overseas military bases during the holiday season. This show, however, originated entirely from soundstages in the United States, and aired on December 15, leading into that year's Christmas in Washington (it was not my intention to essentially review NBC's lineup for that evening to start off the feature for this year, but that's how things ended up working out. I have no plans on covering the episodes of Amazing Stories and Alfred Hitchcock Presents that preceded Hope that night, even if Amazing Stories, at least, aired a Christmas episode).
Even though I found nearly all of the humor on the show creaky and antiquated, Hope could still bring audiences in, as the show finished fourth in the ratings for the week (indeed, people turned off their sets in droves as Christmas in Washington, which also briefly featured Lewis, came in 33rd). Indeed, Hope continued to churn out specials for NBC for another decade. I still think Hope was a supremely talented entertainer, though latter day specials like The Bob Hope Christmas Show, sadly, did not capture him in his prime.
Next time: The Dean of Christmas specials
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Post by MarkInTexas on Dec 5, 2021 21:12:08 GMT -5
The Dean Martin Christmas Special (1980)
Dean Martin had what could only be described as a fascinating career. Born Dino Paul Crocetti, he spoke only Italian until he started school, eventually dropped out, worked as a bootlegger during Prohibition, started boxing, and eventually became a singer, upon which he changed his name to the most WASPy sounding one this side of Tony Curtis. He eventually became part of a massively successful act with Jerry Lewis, until the two of them broke up on bad terms, then became part of Frank Sinatra's Rat Pack. He starred in movies, had his own variety show during the 1960s, hosted his own series of celebrity roasts, and, in the late 70s and early 80s, churned out Christmas specials.
His 1980 special was a rather loose affair, with a truly eclectic collection of guests--pop star Andy Gibb, country crooner Mel Tillis, opera singer Beverly Sills, and Erik Estrada, who happened to star in one of NBC's few hits of that era, CHiPs.
This is one of those Christmas specials that, pretty much outside of the poinsettias all over the set and a brief rendition of "Marshmallow World" at the beginning, it's easy to forget this is a Christmas show. Instead of singing Christmas songs, the performers sang their own songs (including Gibb singing his then-new single "Time is Time" and Tillis singing his then-new single "Southern Rains"), sing recent pop hits of others (Gibb, Tillis, and Estrada singing "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)" together), and an entire lengthy section where the quintet performed impersonations of other singers. Unusual for a lot of variety specials, which largely segregate the guest performers from each other, except for maybe a concluding melody, the five interacted frequently throughout.
In terms of comedy, it was largely limited to one-liners during banter. The only two comedy sketches was a brief, musical one in which Sills, Martin, an unnamed actress, and Estrada formed a love circle, and a longer one where Martin and Tillis realize, to their horror, that their computer dating service had paired them with each other (to be fair, that sketch wasn't anywhere near as homophobic as it could have been, though it was still rather hoary). There was also an extensive montage of Martin and horses, apparently a tradition on his Christmas specials, over his own rendition of "Raindrops Keep Fallen' on My Head".
The special didn't work completely, but it worked a lot better than I was expecting. The singers played off and complemented each other surprisingly well (even Estrada), suggesting that some thought had gone into casting, and it wasn't simply a cash grab. I do like my Christmas specials to involve more Christmas, but The Dean Martin Christmas Special was pretty fun for what it was.
Next time: A contractually obligated special.
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Post by Nudeviking on Dec 6, 2021 2:00:57 GMT -5
I am constantly in awe that this many years into doing this you're still able to find stuff from years past that you haven't already written up.
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Post by MarkInTexas on Dec 6, 2021 11:20:49 GMT -5
I am constantly in awe that this many years into doing this you're still able to find stuff from years past that you haven't already written up. To be honest, so am I. Limiting my output to only 12 things a year helps (though I can cheat on that number. One later this week will be covering three things in one article). |
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Post by MarkInTexas on Dec 6, 2021 11:26:41 GMT -5
A Very Retail Christmas (1990)
In the fall of 1986, among NBC's new shows was a kid-friendly sitcom called ALF. The show revolved around a furry, wisecracking, but good-hearted alien who crash lands into the garage of a typical suburban family, and ends up moving in with them. Critics were largely dismissive of the show, and players in proto versions of the Cancellation League confidently predicted it would be one of the first casualties of the new season. Instead, ALF proved to be a moderate hit, before becoming a monster hit in Season 2, ending up in the year's Top 10.Only two years later, however, ratings, while still respectable, had fallen off dramatically. Paul Fusco, the show's creator/showrunner/lead puppeteer/voice of ALF, assumed that the show would be renewed for a fifth season, and ended the fourth with a dramatic cliffhanger. However, NBC surprisingly pulled the plug, leaving said cliffhanger unresolved. That proved rather awkward, because NBC had already signed Fusco to use his puppetry skills to create a new ALF-free Christmas special to air that holiday season.
Unlike ALF, which for the most part had only one puppet, A Very Retail Christmas would have multiple puppets, playing Santa's elves. There would also be human actors, with the role of the lead villain going to Ed O'Neill, starring at the time on Fox's raunchy hit sitcom Married...With Children. O'Neill played Max Crandell, a toymaker proud of his wantonly unsafe toys (as he brags to an underling, "Kids want something even more if their parents say they can't have it"). He has a scheme to take over Christmas, by using a troll who has infiltrated the elf ranks to convince the actual elves that Santa is considering layoffs, but Crandell is hiring. Of course, Santa, once he figures out what's going on, comes in to save the day, with the help of another character from another Christmas story (played by Christopher Hewitt, whose own long-running sitcom, Mr. Belvedere, had also ended the previous spring), who even Santa (played by Chuck McCann, best known for his voice-over work in animation) was surprised to see show up. Fusco voiced two of the puppet elves, the evil traitor troll, and another troll nervous about his job security. Meanwhile, veteran voice-over performer June Foray played a female elf, and Simpsons composer Alf Clausen contributed the special's very nice score.
Early publicity for the special, including some guides to holiday programming that were printed in late November, pegged the premiere date for the special to be Saturday, December 8, in a timeslot between Amen and The Golden Girls. Instead, when that day rolled around, the slot was filled by its usual occupant, the short-lived sitcom The Fanelli Boys, and the special didn't make its debut until the night of Christmas Eve.
By 1990, the networks had figured out that Christmas Eve was one of the least-watched nights of the year, and subsequently, all the other programming that night was reruns. The special was placed between an old Fresh Prince of Bel Air and a repeat of a 1986 TV movie, appropriately named Christmas Eve. Despite being the only new show that night, it still finished as the lowest-rated program of the evening. Needless to say, NBC didn't bring it back in 1991.So what happened to cause NBC to give the special such a lousy time slot? I don't know, as no contemporary source explains the reasoning. One of the reviews of the special (there were some, and most of them were mildly to very positive) speculated that it was put on Christmas Eve to keep advertisers happy, as its message that Christmas is about love and giving, not presents, wouldn't be delivered until virtually all Christmas shopping was over. Maybe, but Crandell (and O'Neill's performance of him) is such a cartoon that I don't think anyone could take him seriously. Besides, How the Grinch Stole Christmas and A Charlie Brown Christmas both had more potent anti-commercialism messages, and those had aired for years in the middle of December.
Whatever the reason, it didn't seem to damage Fusco's relationship with the network too badly, as the following fall, he had a hybrid animation/puppetry Saturday morning series, Space Cats, for the network. After that ended after one season, he has largely spent the next thirty years reviving ALF in various forms. A 1996 TV movie (which aired on ABC) resolved the cliffhanger (albeit with none of the show's human cast), and ALF would go on to appear in commercials, on guest starring roles, at NBC's 75th anniversary special in 2002, and even get his own short-lived talk show at one point. More recently, ALF popped up on an episode of Young Sheldon and on the animated Duncanville.
A Very Retail Christmas is rather undeniably an oddball of a special, and it's anti-commercialism satire is pretty soft (and, I should point out, the mild jabs at various aspects of pop culture circa 1990 aren't very funny). Still, it probably deserved better than its one isolated showing.
Next time: Beary Christmas!
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Post by ganews on Dec 9, 2021 12:28:21 GMT -5
A Very Retail Christmas (1990)In the fall of 1986, among NBC's new shows was a kid-friendly sitcom called ALF. The show revolved around a furry, wisecracking, but good-hearted alien who crash lands into the garage of a typical suburban family, and ends up moving in with them. Critics were largely dismissive of the show, and players in proto versions of the Cancellation League confidently predicted it would be one of the first casualties of the new season. Instead, ALF proved to be a moderate hit, before becoming a monster hit in Season 2, ending up in the year's Top 10.Only two years later, however, ratings, while still respectable, had fallen off dramatically. Paul Fusco, the show's creator/showrunner/lead puppeteer/voice of ALF, assumed that the show would be renewed for a fifth season, and ended the fourth with a dramatic cliffhanger. However, NBC surprisingly pulled the plug, leaving said cliffhanger unresolved. That proved rather awkward, because NBC had already signed Fusco to use his puppetry skills to create a new ALF-free Christmas special to air that holiday season. Finally inspired to check eBay for prices on that ALF lunchbox I've had for thirty years, and...there's a lot of hopefuls out there selling for tens of dollars and one realistic person who will give it to you for a buck plus shipping. |
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Post by MarkInTexas on Dec 9, 2021 12:33:08 GMT -5
The Bear Who Slept Through Christmas (1973)/Why the Bears Dance on Christmas Eve (1977)/The Bears Who Saved Christmas (1994)
By all accounts, bears, or at least the ones found in North America, are incredibly dangerous creatures. While bear attacks are relatively rare, it is rare the human who is unlucky enough to be attacked survives. So why, in so much children's literature and media, are bears presented as friendly, happy creatures? I'm not completely certain, but I suspect it has something to do with how arguably the quintessential toy happens to be a stuffed bear.
There have been several specials produced over the years all about friendly bears. So many, in fact, that I decided to see what, if any, three of these specials had in common. While The Bear Who Slept Through Christmas, Why the Bears Dance on Christmas Eve, and The Bears Who Saved Christmas all took place in different continuities and involved very different situations (even as two of them had very similar titles), each one did have, as its protagonist, a cute, small, cuddly, talking bear (or in the case of The Bears Who Saved Christmas, bears) that bears no resemblance to bears found in the wild.
The Bear Who Slept Through Christmas is the oldest, and arguably the most well-known of the three specials. Its hero is Theodore Edward Bear, who goes by Ted (think about it), who is obsessed with the human holiday of Christmas. The problem for him is that by late December, all bears are hibernating, so Christmas is but a vague rumor to his fellow bruins. Determined to discover exactly what Christmas is, he ignores his biology and travels to the human city, where he...ends up as a gift for a little girl? So, was Ted a toy this entire time? Or is this girl getting an actual bear for Christmas, one who promptly falls asleep? And what of his old life back home?
It's an odd ending, but all around, it's kind of an odd special. To be honest, I found myself much more interested in the ins and outs of the bear society. Ted lives in an apartment with electricity and running water and works at a mechanical factory. There are cars and TV and bear-produced TV shows and even bear airlines and bear airports. So this entire society just shuts down for three months? Do some bear doctors and bear nurses at bear hospitals stay awake? What about bear cops and bear firefighters? What is the school year like? It's probably not a good sign I was pondering these questions more than I was paying attention to the special.
My personal confusion as to the special aside, it clearly did well for NBC, which reran it every year for several years. It also was well produced, with direction from Looney Tunes vet Gerry Chiniquy, and voice work for Ted from Tom Smothers, with other voices being provided by Get Smart vet Barbara Feldon, Laugh-In alum Arte Johnson, and Casey Kasem. It would even get a Halloween sequel a decade later (whose plot suggests that Ted moved back home).
Unlike the relatively big-budgeted The Bear Who Slept Through Christmas, Why the Bears Dance on Christmas Eve was clearly made on a shoestring, as the animation is rather crude and raggedy. It also doesn't boast anyone famous in the voice cast--indeed, the credits don't even list the voice cast, and I suspect it's entirely possible that only a few actors provided all the voices. There are a lot of songs, but most of them are rather repetitive and mediocre, and I can't tell if the rather poor sound quality is a result of being a YouTube transfer of what was then a 35-year-old videotape or it sounded just as poorly when it was originally broadcast. But there is some charm in its story, about a young cub named Bashful who gets himself stuck inside a mountain and discovers a nefarious plot by four environmental villains--personifications of fire, garbage, oil slicks, and energy waste called, I think, the Snirfs (though it sure sounded like Smurfs)--to stop Santa from making his rounds (Why? Because they're evil!). They capture Bashful, who is able to escape when his dancing amuses them so much that they collapse into laughter, allowing him to rally the other forest creatures to dance with him to stop their plot.
Rumor has it that the special aired exactly once before disappearing after the bankruptcy of the production company. I'm not sure that's strictly true (there were newspaper listings for it in 1978 and 1979, and it was apparently shown in Australia as late as the mid-80s), but until it was posted on YouTube by someone who had supposedly worked on it, it has fallen completely off the map. It's hard to tell if the rather poor sound mix is a result of the Internet, a poor quality tape, or if it was broadcast like that. This one is not at all a great special, but it has its moments, and I'm glad it has resurfaced.
Unlike Ted, who may or may not be a toy, and Bashful, who definitely is not, the bears of The Bears Who Saved Christmas certainly are. Their names are Christopher and Holly, and they, along with the kids who own them and their parents, find themselves stuck after a blizzard makes the roads impassable on Christmas Eve. The family takes refuge in an old cabin that luckily was still airtight and had at least one bed with clean linens (meaning they probably broke into someone's house), but it looks like Christmas will be cancelled. That's when Christopher and Holly come to life and, with the help of a talking flashlight and a talking compass, set out to find a Christmas tree somewhere in the woods. Given the special's title, there's not much suspense in whether they will succeed.
The voice cast is a mixture of professional voice-over artists and B-level celebs who were good for marketing and probably worked for cheap. Charlie Adler (using a variation of his Buster Bunny voice) and the late Mary Kay Bergman voiced the bears, while the mom was voiced by Pam Dawber, the flashlight by Henry Gibson, the compass by Jonathan Winters, and a real bear who seems like a bad guy until it turns out that he has a heart of gold was voiced by Brad Garrett a couple of years before Everybody Loves Raymond. The animation, overseen by TV animation legend Phil Roman, is bright, clear, and colorful. It's a shame the whole thing is rather boring.
The special was heavily promoted by Toys R Us, which sponsored its premiere in syndication the day after Thanksgiving, and also sold both the teddy bears and the special's video in stores throughout the holiday season. Clearly, they were hoping for a franchise. It didn't seem to pay off, as there were no further adventures of Christopher and Holly. The special did get syndicated for the next couple of years, though.
Ultimately, other than being about small bears who save the day, there wasn't too much these three specials had in common. Indeed, it was a bit disappointing that The Bear Who Slept Through Christmas and The Bears Who Saved Christmas the two (relatively) big-budgeted specials weren't that great. While Why the Bears Dance on Christmas Eve isn't any great shakes either, I kind of appreciate the low-budget vibe more than the corporate specials.
Next time: Say hi hi hi to a brand new special
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Post by MarkInTexas on Dec 12, 2021 9:49:16 GMT -5
A Very Boy Band Holiday (2021)
As much as they seem like a recent phenomenon, boy bands have been around since even before the dawn of pop music, thanks to barbershop quartets. Indeed, The Beatles could be considered by some to have been a boy band (after all, Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison were all still high-school-aged when they began performing together), though they don't fit the modern definition of one, namely a group of male singers who generally dance during their performances but don't play instruments. The modern day incarnation of boy bands can be traced through the family bands of the 70s (The Jackson 5 and their white alternative, the Osmonds), to bands of childhood friends of the 80s (New Edition and their white alternative, New Kids on the Block), to the manufactured groups of the 90s (Backstreet Boys and their equally white alternative, 'N Sync). After the heyday of "I Want It That Way" and "Bye Bye Bye", the genre faded from popularity, at least in the US, though it remained popular overseas. Indeed, the two most successful boy bands of the last decade, One Direction and BTS, hail from Great Britain and South Korea, respectively.
ABC's A Very Boy Band Holiday is not aimed at the 12-year-olds currently swooning over BTS, or the 20-year-olds who used to swoon over One Direction. Instead, it's aimed at the 30-through-50somethings who came of age during the 80s and 90s. And while there were plenty of boy band alumni on stage, fans were probably disappointed that the hinted-at reunions didn't exactly happen.
To be fair, it was probably too much to hope that Justin Timberlake would show up, but 'N Sync fans would have to be disappointed that only Joey Fatone (who acted as a de facto host) and Chris Kirkpatrick showed up (Lance Bass did appear, but only as a 5-second, 3-word cameo via Facetime at the very end of the special). Bobby Brown, arguably the second-most successful boy band alumni of that era, did show up for a couple of segments, but the only other New Edition member to show was Michael Bivins. No members of Backstreet Boys appeared, and only one New Kid, Joey McIntyre, came, though it seems obvious that he agreed to do the special only if his teenage son could get a solo number himself (to be fair, the kid wasn't bad at all). Rounding out the lineup were Wanya Morris and Shawn Stockman of Boyz II Men, even though that group wasn't really considered a boy band during their heyday (a running joke throughout the special), Erik-Michael Estrada of O-Town, and Drew Lachey, Jeff Timmons and Justin Jeffre of 98 Degrees (that group's most famous member, Nick Lachey, also appeared, but like Bass, just via a brief Facetime cameo).
The singing was actually pretty solid in the special. The various singers mostly stuck to various group's own Christmas songs (98 Degrees's "This Gift", 'N Sync's "Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays", New Kids's "This One's For the Children", Boyz II Men's "Let It Snow"), or songs popularized by other boy bands (The Jackson 5's "Give Love on Christmas Day). What I also liked was that it took the format of variety specials of old, which tried to claim that the special was coming from the home of the host (in this case, Joey Fatone's), and the various guests acted like they had no idea there was a special going on (adding to the humor was that the director made no attempt to hide the fact that Fatone's "house" was merely a set in a studio). I could have done with less in-between song banter, but that's something that is true of nearly all variety special hosted by musicians.
All in all, I was pretty pleasantly surprised by A Very Boy Band Holiday. It's not an all-timer or anything, but it was a smooth and entertaining hour, and not nearly as cheesy as it could have been. Hopefully, if they do it again in a future year, they can actually get some more participation from the no-shows. No, I'm not expecting Timberlake, but surely A.J. McLean isn't too busy.
Next time: The History Channel of Christmas
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Post by MarkInTexas on Dec 13, 2021 11:26:47 GMT -5
Christmas Unwrapped: The History of Christmas (1997)/The Real Story of Christmas (2010)
Many holiday specials contain some elements of educational content, especially those aimed at kids. A lot of times, the message is that Christmas means more than just a bunch of new toys. The various adaptions and variations on A Christmas Carol aim that message squarely at adults. Some specials are explicitly religious, explaining that Jesus is the reason for the season. But of course, most specials aren't concerned with the trappings of Christmas. What, exactly, does an evergreen tree have to do with the birth of the Christ child, in a part of the world where pines and firs aren't exactly common? How exactly did a jolly fat man with a bunch of reindeer come to supplant Jesus as the icon of the season in many people's minds?
In 1997 and again in 2010, The History Channel (which is now known as simply History, though I'm pretty sure most people still use the word "Channel" when discussing it) took a break from its programs about Hitler and aliens building the pyramids to present documentaries answering those questions and many more about the season. While written, produced, directed, and hosted by different production teams, Christmas Unwrapped: The History of Christmas and The Real Story of Christmas both follow similar scripts in explaining just how the holiday has evolved into its current state. While both are interesting, I did wonder as to why there needed to be a second documentary covering almost the exact same material. After all, it's not like much changed in the history in the 13 years between the two specials' creations.
Both specials discuss how the organs of Christmas lie in ancient European celebrations involving the winter solstice, as well as in celebrations involving Rome. Both discuss how Christmas, at least in England, had become such a bacchanal that Puritans ended up banning the entire celebration for a time. Both discussed the holiday's more prim revival during the Victorian era, including showing how the same woodcut of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert gathered around a Christmas tree (a tradition he had brought from Germany) helped popularize trees in both England and the United States. Both delved into the concept of Santa, discussing how Clement Moore's "A Visit From Saint Nicolas" had helped define many of the Santa traditions, and how cartoonist Thomas Nast created the modern look of Santa, as well as how, almost from the beginning, Santa has been co-opted by big business to be a spokesman for them. They both also cover the creation of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer by a copywriter for Montgomery Ward. They also both ultimately come to the conclusion that the idea that Christmas should be either all secular or all religious to be a false notion, as both embrace the idea that the holiday should be a mix of the sacred and profane.
There were a few differences between the two. Christmas Unwrapped was hosted and narrated by Harry Smith, then of CBS News, while Real Story was narrated offscreen by Phil Crowley, who, even if you don't recognize his name, you would undoubtedly recognize his voice. While both specials have talking head segments, Christmas Unwrapped talks mostly to professors, while Real Story talks mostly with authors of books about Christmas. Unwrapped also talks to Jean Shepard, of A Christmas Story fame, while Real Story has a conversation with Lee Mendelson, the executive producer of numerous Peanuts specials, including A Charlie Brown Christmas, as well as Peter Robbins, the original voice of Charlie Brown. Indeed, the major difference between the two is that Real Story explores the pop culture aspects of the holiday in far more detail, discussing the rise of Christmas carols and (a topic near and dear to my heart) the creation of the Christmas special.
I found both specials to be quite interesting, even if they ended up covering mostly the same ground. I'm still not certain why both exist, but if you're looking for a solid one-hour look at the reasons behind many of our cherished holiday traditions, you can't go wrong with either Christmas Unwrapped: The History of Christmas or The Real Story of Christmas.
Next time: For her, Christmas is a very good thing.
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Post by MarkInTexas on Dec 15, 2021 11:09:36 GMT -5
Martha Stewart's Home for the Holidays (1995)
I have never been a fan of arts and crafts. Even as a kid, I felt that time spent trying to craft do-dads out of popsicle sticks or pipe cleaners or gluing macaroni on stuff was a boring waste. So I have never been the audience for homemaking queen Martha Stewart, whose entire career has been devoted to essentially recreating arts and crafts time for adults.
I simplify, of course, as Stewart's truly impressive career is a result of her grit and determination. While she hardly pulled herself up from the bootstraps (she came from a rich family, worked for a while as a stockbroker before becoming a caterer, and her ex-husband just happened to be a prominent New York-based publisher), it was certainly not a given that she would be able to spin her talent for decorating and entertaining into a massive media empire, which by 1995 included numerous books, a monthly magazine, a weekly syndicated TV show, and regular appearances on Today.
While she had made prior specials for PBS, Martha Stewart's Home for the Holidays would be her first network prime-time special, and to be blunt, it's complete and utter DIY porn. The hour-long show has her casually giving instructions for numerous Christmas-themed projects, all of which she assures us are incredibly easy, and most of which looks like they'd require tons of specialized equipment and hours on end of free time.
The special starts with Stewart supposedly welcoming us to her actual home, before whisking us to the kitchen, where we briefly meet her mom and sister, who are busy whipping up traditional plum puddings. "It requires a lot of chopping and mixing, so it's the perfect project to do with your family and friends" she coos, giving the distinct impression that, when you visit her, participation in projects like this are not optional. Next, we're off to her "Christmas workshop" where numerous people are hard at work creating wreaths using fresh leaves and berries. Stewart merrily gives instructions to make our own, as her friends? Employees? Slaves? work hard behind her.
We see her make her own silvery foil tree ornaments, and then use wooden cookie molds to make clay ornaments. Then, she makes some complicated-looking gingerbread cookies, before making a gingerbread house with her first special guest, Miss Piggy (voiced by Frank Oz), who was there to promote her new cookbook. Piggy nicely cut through Stewart's pomposity ("I like those plastic flowers back there", and after Stewart proclaims how easy her intricate designs are "Sure, if you have a degree in engineering"), and shamelessly flirting with the "friend" who comes out to help finish the house. It's a shame that the segment is all too short.
Afterwards, the aspirational porn continues, as Martha encourages her audience to make their own wrapping paper, then joins her sister (sprung from plum pudding-making duties) to fill bottles and wrap baking goods. Then, she does various crafts involving fresh fruit that looks great, but seems to take longer to put together than it is designed to last. She then takes her one field trip, to the White House to meet with then-First Lady Hillary Clinton for a very brief segment where they discuss wreaths.
Her final segment, and her final guest, actually seems to dazzle Stewart, as she makes pate a choux (small French pastries) with Julia Child herself. While Child doesn't pierce Stewart the way that Miss Piggy did, she does seem impressed with Stewart's sugar-stringing method. To be clear, if your cooking technique impresses Julia Child, you should probably drop the pretention that it's oh so simple.
I was definitely not the target audience for Martha Stewart's Home for the Holidays, as I do not make crafts nor do I wish I had the talent to do any of her creations. Indeed, this reminded me most of an adult version of one of those Christmas craft books I'd occasionally receive as a kid. That said, despite it all, I actually kind of enjoyed it. I admire Stewart for managing to turn her talents into a renowned career, which a quarter-century after this special is still thriving. And you know, sometimes its nice to kick back with some aspirational porn. My house will never look like Martha Stewart's, nor would I want it to, but visiting on occasion can be a nice treat.
Next time: Taped! With a polarizing talk show host/singer
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Post by MarkInTexas on Dec 18, 2021 23:56:31 GMT -5
Kathie Lee: We Need a Little Christmas (1997)
For years, Kathie Lee Gifford held down one of the most sought-after jobs in television: morning talk show host. She has spent a quarter-century of her life as one: three years on The Morning Show, local to New York, 12 years when that show went national as Live With Regis and Kathie Lee, and ten years co-hosting Today's fourth hour. This has brought Gifford a huge amount of fame and money, but it also brought her the opportunity to do her heart's desire: to sing professionally. She's released albums, sang in commercials, even co-wrote a Broadway musical (which she didn't star in, but don't think she didn't want to). However, I'm sure to her chagrin, all of that is overshadowed by her talk show work.
One of the opportunities that hosting Live brought her in the 90s was a series of Christmas specials in which she could show off her pipes. There was no Regis, no Gelman, just her, her voice, and her special guests, who, at least in 1997's Kathie Lee: We Need a Little Christmas, she would proceed to interview, just like if she was a talk show host.
It opens with her belting the title song with a bunch of moppets (billed as The Broadway Kids, though the cast list of this from IMDB doesn't identify anyone who has actually gone on to fame). After the credits, she brings out her first guest, Kenny Rogers, for a brief interview before Kenny gets to sing one Kathie Lee-free song. After she sings "White Christmas", she introduces Christian singer Michael W. Smith, who sings "Emmanuel" (which Amy Grant had sang on Christmas in Washington in 1985), and gospel singer CeCe Winans, who also gets a brief interview before she sings "O Holy Night"
This being Gifford's special, of course she's going to sing a lot, including a duet with Rogers on "Mary Did You Know?" and a couple of solo numbers backed up by the Broadway Kids. The fact it's her special is why there is a lot more time devoted to her song stylings than to those of her three professional musician guests (including one of the greatest country stars ever) combined. While Winans gets another solo number, and Smith gets to perform a lengthy instrumental, Rogers's second number has to be a duet with Gifford on "Mary Did You Know?" Indeed, for a network special, there's a great amount of emphasis on Gifford's Christian faith. No "Happy Holidays" here!
Watching the special, it's easy to understand why her singing career has never really taken off. She does have a solid voice, but she's also relentlessly bombastic, like a less subtle Celine Dion. If she toned it down, maybe she'd be fine, but she is constantly singing like she wants to make sure the people in the building across the street can hear her. It grows tiresome.
Watching Kathie Lee: We Need a Little Christmas, I have to wonder how her annual specials attracted enough fans for CBS to keep bringing her back for several years straight. I'm certainly not the audience, but obviously there were enough Kathie Lee superfans out there to make these worthwhile. There just weren't enough of them to allow her to have a full-time musical career.
Next time: 2 sleeps till we discuss a brand new special
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Post by MarkInTexas on Dec 20, 2021 11:30:04 GMT -5
5 More Sleeps 'Til Christmas (2021)
NBC clearly loves Jimmy Fallon. He grew famous thanks to his six years on Saturday Night Live, and then, after his brief attempt at movie stardom fizzled out, returned to the NBC fold, first taking over Late Night from Conan O'Brien, and then, five years later, moving up an hour to take over The Tonight Show from Jay Leno, where he remains ensconced to this day. So it's not too surprising that the network decided to give him a half-hour special based on the picture book he wrote.
I haven't seen a physical copy of 5 More Sleeps 'Til Christmas, but it is read in full in at least two YouTube videos, one by Fallon himself and the other by what sounds like a child. The story is rather cute, if generic, as a young boy and his little sister counts down the days and wonders why he can't go to sleep at night. The story is in verse, and most pages are dominated by the pictures and not so much by text. The kid-read version runs three minutes, while the one read by Fallon runs 7 minutes. In other words, there's not much there to fill a 22-minute special.
So the adaption (which, it should be noted, was not written by Fallon, and, as the credits say, was merely "inspired" by his book) changes the story around considerably. The little (biological) sister is gone, and the boy (who remains nameless) now has a single mother (who also remains nameless). The kid has the week leading up to Christmas planned down to the minute, but mom upsets his plans when she reveals she's invited her boyfriend to spend the week with them, along with his young daughter, Evie.
From here on, the special is fairly generic, as Evie's presence spoils all of the boy's plans for the week, sometimes for the better (the plans to build a gingerbread house is replaced by baking "surprise cookies"), sometimes for the worse (the parents let her choose a tree rather than him). Of course, it climaxes as it must--with him finally yelling at Evie for ruining everything, only to immediately feel guilty and let her know that no, Christmas wasn't ruined at all.
I'm ok with the special being generic, as it is aimed at young kids, but what I found hard to get past was Fallon's narration. I guess he had to be a part of it, but his voiceover was generally redundant or unnecessary. If he had to be a voice, have him voice the kid (who is instead voiced by a boy named James Larson, who, if his IMDB credits are accurate, has popped up in various choirs in various movies and TV shows over the past couple of years, including A Very Boy Band Holiday), or have the kid be silent and just have Fallon's thoughts speak for him.
There were aspects of the special I liked, such as the rather bold decision to essentially have the adults be shacking up together in a kid's special (though, of course, exactly where the boyfriend was sleeping was left unsaid), as well as the decision to have the boyfriend and Evie be Black, while the kid and his mom is white (as I pointed out a few years ago in a review of the sadly awful A Cool Like That Christmas, Christmas specials, especially animated Christmas specials, still have overwhelmingly white casts). The animation was also nice.
It remains to be seen whether 5 More Sleeps 'Til Christmas will become a holiday staple on NBC or, like most animated specials, get repeated a couple of times in increasingly undesirable timeslots before disappearing off the airwaves entirely. It doesn't really deserve to stick around, but I suspect as long as Fallon remains important to NBC, this special will get an annual run.
Next time: The hottest toys of 1983 led to a special--but surprisingly not a series--in 1984.
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Post by MarkInTexas on Dec 22, 2021 9:02:10 GMT -5
The Cabbage Patch Kids First Christmas (1984)
The 1980s were the golden age of animated shows based on toy lines. Transformers, G.I. Joe, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Care Bears, Pound Puppies, Go-Bots--all ended up with daily or weekly animated series at one point or another. Some of them even made the jump to movie theaters, allowing parents the opportunity to pay for themselves and their kids to watch a 75-minute commercial. Oddly enough, however, arguably the quintessential toy of the 80s, The Cabbage Patch Kids, didn't get a series, even though all the elements were in place for them to become TV stars themselves.
The doll line, which has quite the sordid history behind it that I'm not going to go into here, became the must-have toy for Christmas 1983, to the point that riots actually broke out in stores between desperate parents fighting over the last remaining dolls in stock. Any toy line that hot was going to get spin-off media, and in 1984, a ten-song record was released, giving the Kids' backstory, introducing individual Kids, and revealing that, yes, the Kids are actually grown in the patch, emerging from actual cabbages (thanks to, I kid you not, flying bunnybees, which are exactly what you think they are). That holiday season, the Kids' first TV special, The Cabbage Patch Kids First Christmas, would debut, taking much of its backstory from the record.
The kids are apparently raising themselves, with their only two friends being a talking stork named Colonel Casey and a pre-teen named Xavier (based on the doll's supposed designer, Xavier Roberts). When Xavier tells the Kids about Christmas, they decide to take off for the big city (revealed eventually to be Atlanta, marking a relatively rare occasion in which a real-world city is the setting for an animated special) in search of the Christmas Spirit, which they believe to be a real, actual being.
There, they meet up with a young orphan, Jenny, who wants a family, but has a bad leg, so believes no one wants to adopt her, a couple that can't stop talking about how desperately they want kids, and a gang of thieves who go to ungodly lengths to steal a wallet that belongs to the man that the Kids find after he dropped it, not to mention press Jenny and the Kids into working for them (apparently not thinking through that the consequences of kidnapping are a lot more harsh than for pickpocketing).What I found most interesting about the special was not the relatively predictable (and somewhat creepy) storyline (in which the kids try to track down the couple so they can present a ready-made kid for them to adopt, while avoiding the gang of thieves, and discovering exactly what the Christmas Spirit is), but how the special was clearly intended to be a pilot for a Cabbage Patch Kids series. From the fact that the special introduced 7 of the Kids (plus babies), to the fact that there was a completely different set of villains at the beginning also wanting to capture the Kids to force them to mine gold (yes, seriously) who, after getting a big introduction, promptly disappear for the rest of the special, this was clearly setting up the characters for further adventures. If it was intended to be a one-off, I suspect we might have met only three or four Kids, since seven is a whole lot to introduce for a half-hour special, plus the first set of bad guys, who also came from the record and were clearly meant to be the recurring villains for the series, wouldn't have been featured at all.
So why wasn't this followed by a series? It wasn't because of ratings, as this was ABC's highest-rated show of the night. Indeed, ABC already had plans for a 13 episode series to be shown on Saturday mornings starting the fall of 1985. Apparently, those plans ended up being nixed by Roberts, and that first Christmas ended up being the last TV adaption for over a decade, until a few stop-motion animated specials (including another Christmas special) were made from 1996 to 1999.The world probably didn't lose much by not having a Cabbage Patch Kids TV series. Saturday morning animation wasn't exactly top-quality during the mid-1980s, and the other shows based on toys, while holding a lot of nostalgia for the now-adults who watched those shows as kids, were simply not very good. It's highly unlikely that the Kids show would have been any better. So, we're left with The Cabbage Patch Kids First Christmas, a mildly cute, if predictable, special that serves as a reminder of a time when these dolls were the hottest thing out there.
Next time: We come full circle with a look at a special starring someone who appeared in this year's first two entries.
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Post by MarkInTexas on Dec 24, 2021 15:20:11 GMT -5
A Christmas Dream (1984)
When ABC premiered the sitcom Webster in 1983, it was widely seen as a ripoff of NBC's long-running Diff'rent Strokes, as it also resolved around a wealthy white family that took in an orphaned Black child, played by a young actor who looked several years younger than he was. While critics might not have liked the show much, they were in agreement that the young lead actor, 12-year-old Emmanuel Lewis, was great. Like Diff'rent Strokes's Gary Coleman before him, he quickly had multiple opportunities to branch out. One such opportunity came only a year into his run on Webster, and ironically, it came for NBC, the network that was employing Coleman at the time, with another NBC star who had already appeared on an episode of Strokes.
A Christmas Dream pared Lewis with Mr. T, who had jumped to fame both because of his penchant for a mohawk haircut and numerous gold necklaces, and his work in the movie Rocky III and the hit action series The A-Team. Dream would be a change-of-pace role for T, who would play a charity Santa in the one-hour special.
This show, which doubled as a travelogue for New York City (complete with a cameo from then-mayor Ed Koch), has a storyline that had to be considered dodgy in 1984 and seems downright insane today. T's charity Santa, working outside Rockefeller Center, is approached by Lewis (who was 13 when the special was shot, but, like on Webster, is playing a child considerably younger) who is a Christmas cynical elementary school kid, wandering around the big city all by himself. "I don't have any family, just my parents", he sadly informs Santa T. T promptly invites this tiny little boy, again wandering around New York City all by himself, to join him on a trip to toy store FAO Schwartz, and then to a party at Radio City Music Hall to meet his friends. Why yes, this does sound like the start of a movie about the desperate search for Lewis by the police, but nope, this is all supposed to be heartwarming.
Most of the special consists of Lewis meeting T's friends, all of whom are played by famous names. Famed illusionist David Copperfield pops up at the toy store, to do an illusion involving a lit cigarette and a quarter, a trick that would be unthinkable today in a family special, and even in 1984 had to be accompanied by Lewis adamantly saying "No way!" when Copperfield asked if he smoked (Copperfield said he didn't either, right before he takes a couple of puffs). Ventriloquist Willie Tyler popped up a bit later as a Radio City Music Hall security guard, along with his dummy Lester, as well as a Mr. T dummy. Maureen McGovern, best known for singing Oscar-winning ballads in 70s disaster movies, comes the closest to playing herself, as the Music Hall's headliner attraction. Lewis, while watching the Rockettes rehearse, falls asleep and has the special's one literal dream, in which he is participating in the dancers' famed toy soldier routine. In addition, there's a skating performance by former Olympians Randy Gardner and Tai Babilonia on the Rockefeller Center ice.
The plot, such as it is, has T and his friends trying to convince the reluctant Lewis that Christmas is worth celebrating while T is making secret phone calls and the like (it shouldn't come as too much a surprise at the end when it's revealed who he was calling). The action culminates at the aforementioned Christmas party, where Lewis, while not a great singer, does performing a charming song-and-dance to "Santa Claus is Coming to Town". T then tells the Christmas story while the American Boys Choir performs several solos behind him, with McGovern singing "O Holy Night" and Lewis singing "Silent Night" before the obligatory happy ending.
Lewis would continue to pop up in various specials for the next few years (including the following year's Bob Hope special and Christmas in Washington, which were our first two entries this year), but his career would largely fizzle out after the end of Webster. These days, he lives in Georgia and works as a music producer while doing the occasional cameo as himself. T's career also declined after The A-Team, but he still continues to pop up fairly frequently in entertainment and currently serves as the spokesman for a rent-to-own appliance and furniture chain. While their days of headlining Christmas specials may be over, we will always have the time capsule of A Christmas Dream, which manages to be surprisingly charming in spite of its cheesiness.
Next time: That's a wrap for Christmas 2021. We'll be back the week after Thanksgiving next year for 12 new entries of Christmas specials, old and new. Until then, have a very Merry Christmas.
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