I have an absurd collection of Christmas special DVDs. “Alvin and the Chipmunks Christmas”? Absolutely. “A Shari Lewis and Lamb Chop Christmas”? Hell yes! But I do have my favorites. This list will not include “Charlie Brown”, “Rudolph”, “Grinch” or any of the other beloved perennials that any God-fearing American watches without fail every year.
No, these are the sleepers…stuff that I can’t get through the season without. Your mileage may vary, and as always: if you don’t like my selections put yours on your blog! (Or in the comments section!)
1. Father Knows Best: Home For Christmas. This TV-movie won my heart in many ways, two of them being:
-a shout-out to Glens Falls, NY
-a scene in a toy store where the Andersons pass a huge table of 1976 Fisher-Price Kermits. I took my Kermit with me wherever I went…I had it X-rayed at two different airports. My Dad had to drive 10 or 15 miles to retrieve him from a Holiday Inn. (I think lots of families have that kind of story.)
Mostly it’s just a nice family drama about the possibility of none of the children coming home for Christmas–and…shock of shocks…they ALL end up coming home. (Note: This show has not been commercially released. My DVD copy is a bootleg.)
2. Holiday Greetings From The Ed Sullivan Show. Two hours of clips from Ed’s show plus new performances from Della Reese, Paul Anka, Johnny Mathis, and more, all hosted by Bob Newhart.
So funny thing about this…when this special aired on CBS in 1991 I remember watching it in my little room at College Court Apartments. A few years later it was released on DVD but on viewing it I had an idea it wasn’t quite the same show. Some things had been edited (which happens a lot for music rights or other legal entanglements). And some of the segments seemed longer than I remembered them being.
Two years ago there was a huge deal on like 20 “Ed Sullivan Show” DVDs for $30. One of them was a re-issued “Holiday Greetings From The Ed Sullivan Show.” And when I put it in to watch I realized this was the genuine article. All of the “new stuff” was back. A lot of the vintage Christmas material was cut down to brief clips as I’d remembered from my original viewing. And! Tons of rock and roll music clips from the 50’s and 60’s!
See, I think it’s brilliant to use non-Christmas music sometimes on a Christmas show. People hear a LOT of Christmas music this time of year. (The lack of Christmas songs is one of the reasons I so adore “White Christmas” the movie…lots of wonderful songs…only one of them is a genuine Christmas song.)
3. SCTV Christmas.
There are some things I just don’t expect people to get hip to. If you grew up in the 70’s or 80’s “SCTV” is an unbelievably funny series. If you’re younger than that you’re just not going to get a lot out of it.
The Christmas shows are wonderful, with incredible genre parodies on cheesy variety shows, movies-of-the-week, holiday commercials and so much more. Watching Liberace get hit in the head by a soccer ball launched by Elton John is a great holiday tradition.
4. Perry Como Specials. Lumping all these together. They’ve put three of them out on DVD–one of them is a “best-of” clip show. My favorite is “Perry Como’s Christmas Show” which features this beautiful medley with The Carpenters (again–you can do a one-hour Christmas show and not have every song be Christmassy).
5. “Yogi’s First Christmas.” Two-hour special featuring Yogi, Huck, Boo Boo, Auggie Doggie and his Doggie Daddy, the always effervescent Snagglepuss and lots of cheesy animation. Nostalgia is when you love something purely for the memory it brings, not for any redeeming value it has. I watched “Yogi’s First Christmas” with my Grandma when I was 8, and it was on every year for quite a while. It was even the first thing I saw on my very own personal just-for-my-bedroom 13” black-and-white TV.
6. “The Best Of The Andy Williams Christmas Specials.” I’ve mentioned a couple of times how nice it is to have Christmas specials that aren’t so heavy on Christmas music.
But if you wanna have Christmas cheer pumped directly into your veins, well here’s your guy right here. It’s non-stop Christmas music but you don’t mind, because it’s Andy Williams and he’s one of about three guys that you can sit and watch do this for 90 minutes. Also, there are little Osmonds in their natural habitat.
7. “The Honeymooners Holiday Special”. This is a DVD that contains two of the “lost episodes”, sketches from Jackie Gleason’s variety show done before they decided to do a half-hour Honeymooners sitcom. The first story is a Christmas tale light on plot and heavy on costume changes, as Gleason keeps going in and out of the Kramden apartment as each of his variety show characters: Rudy The Repairman, Reggie Van Gleason, Joe The Bartender, and the Poor Soul, Gleason’s pantomime character who does a tear-jerking scene with Alice Kramden and the Nortons. The second story is a more pure Honeymooners sketch as Ralph tries to weasel out of work to see the Dorsey Brothers on New Years Eve.
8. Muppet Specials. Doing some lumping here again, and honestly I think at least one of these is pretty well-known. The collection includes “Emmett Otter’s Jugband Christmas”, “Christmas Eve On Sesame Street” and what I think might be one of the best Christmas specials ever, “A Muppet Family Christmas.” Worlds unite as Muppets from three different series take over poor old Ma Bear’s house. It’s funny and heartwarming and Jim Henson does the dishes:
9. “A Very Brady Christmas”. I really hesitate to include this, but it is getting harder to find on TV (and easier to find on stand-alone DVD). Mike and Carol and Alice and all the Bradys and all their families gather up for the holidays. And then Mike gets crushed under a building. Spoiler alert: The Brady patriarch does not kick the polyester bucket.
This TV-movie is not brilliant by any means…but no single epsiode of “The Brady Bunch” was either. It’s comfort food…which, on a holiday when many will be eating turkey and mashed potatoes, seems an ideal fit.
10. The Rest! How can I possibly narrow this down to 10?!? What about “The Danny Kaye Show Christmas Special”? What of “The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour Christmas Specials”? What of “Pee-Wee’s Playhouse Christmas”!?!? (“Magic Screen is my cousin!”)