Christmas Eve on Sesame Street

The handmade charm of Sesame Street in the 1970s is on full display in Christmas Eve on Sesame Street. The sets and the acting might be a little rough around the edges, but the special is still endearing despite these flaws. The main storyline involves Big Bird trying to figure out just how Santa Claus manages to get down people's chimneys to deliver presents on Christmas. There's also a section where Ernie and Bert essentially re-enact the Gift of the Magi. And there's a fun series of segments where Cookie Monster tries to write a letter to Santa, only to get hungry and devour the various things he was using to write his letter. But perhaps best of all, there's no Elmo.

Rating: Christmas Cookies%

(Image from Amazon)

It's a Wonderful Life

There's nothing new I could tell you about It's a Wonderful Life. It has been praised and parodied for decades. And it has been dissected and discussed to the nth degree. What I can tell you is that, if you like old movies, it's definitely worth a watch. It's a movie brimming with post-war optimism. It's a tribute to the honest, hard working, salt of the earth, American everyman. And they couldn't have cast a better lead. It's one of the quintessential Jimmy Stewart movies. His performance practically carries the entire film. Donna Reed and Thomas Mitchell are also very good in the movie. It may be too earnest or melodramatic for some, but that's probably part of the reason why the movie has endured. It's a very uncynical movie.

Rating: 74%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Christmas with the Joker

On Christmas Eve, the Joker breaks out of Arkham Asylum on a rocket powered Christmas tree. He takes over Gotham's airwaves in order to deliver his own twisted take on the Christmas special, "Christmas with the Joker." With the lives of hostages hanging in the balance, Batman and Robin race against time to stop the Joker's fiendish scheme. This episode is pretty fun but it is definitely not one of the better episodes of Batman: The Animated Series. That said, even a mediocre episode featuring Mark Hamill's Joker is still worth a watch. Also, I've always loved when Batman tells Robin that he's never seen It's a Wonderful Life. "I could never get past the title," he says. Classic.

Rating: Toy Soldiers%

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus

In 1897, a young girl named Virginia O'Hanlon sent a letter to the editor of the New York Sun asking whether or not Santa Claus existed. The resulting response has since become one of the most reprinted newspaper editorials in the English language. The story of Virginia and her letter to the editor has also been adapted several times over the years, perhaps most notably in the 1974 Emmy Award-winning animated television special. The style of the special will be immediately recognizable to anyone familiar with the Peanuts canon of holiday specials as it was directed by Bill Melendez, who also directed A Charlie Brown Christmas. And despite some depictions of people of color which have not aged well, it is still a very charming special.

Rating: Stereoscopic Slides%

Yule Better Watch Out

They managed to pack a lot into Home Improvement's first Christmas episode. There's a Tool Time segment at the top where a motorized Christmas tree goes haywire. Brad and Randy get crappy parts in a Christmas pageant. Tim and Jill debate whether or not they should tell Mark the truth about Santa. Wilson dispenses some sage advice while roasting chestnuts on an open fire. And plenty of hijinks ensue as Tim tries to outdo Doc Johnson and win the neighborhood Christmas Lighting contest. Most shows might have only taken on one or two of those festive plotlines, while Home Improvement managed to power through all of them rather efficiently. (Grunting Noises)

Rating: Remote Control Dinosaur%

A Chipmunk Christmas

The whole Chipmunks phenomenon started with the novelty track "The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late)" A slew of albums and a TV series followed. Then, the Chipmunks went away for nearly a decade. A Chipmunk Christmas was their return to television. The special featured updated character designs from Chuck Jones. His contributions to the style of the special are unmistakable. It's practically a companion piece to his work on things like The Phantom Tollbooth and How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Two years after the special, the Chipmunks would return to TV with a regular series that lasted eight seasons. And the popularity of the Chipmunks has continued to wax and wane ever since.

Rating: Harmonica%

Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toy Maker

There was an uproar when the original Silent Night, Deadly Night movie came out. People got upset. Mickey Rooney called the filmmakers "scum" who should be "run out of town." There was no uproar when Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toy Maker came out. No one noticed. And Mickey Rooney quietly cashed the check he got for playing Joe Petto in the movie. The Toy Maker doesn't have anything to do with any of the other Silent Night, Deadly Night movies. The story focuses on a young boy terrorized by killer toys. It's an odd movie. It's definitely more on brand than the last sequel. Mickey Rooney does a good job with the material. He's clearly slumming it, but he doesn't phone in his performance. Best sequel in the series?

Rating: 45%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Fun Fact: In one scene, an episode of Rambo: The Force of Freedom is playing on the TV in Derek's house.

Visions of Deadly Nights Past:

Part One - Part Two - Part Three - Part Four

A Christmas Quacker

It's Christmastime in Transylvania. As the residents of Castle Duckula wait for the arrival of Santa Claus, their adversaries draw ever closer. The Crow Brothers, a quartet of dimwitted thieves, are once again attempting to scale the castle walls. While Dr. Von Goosewing, the bumbling vampire hunter, stumbles through the castle eager to use his latest invention against Count Duckula. The Count needn't worry though, his enemies (much like his staff) are not very good at what they do. "A Christmas Quacker" starts and ends very Christmas oriented, but there's a chunk in the middle where Duckula gets lost in a pulpy comic book. It's a bit disjointed, much like the series in general.

Rating: Books%

Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July

I gave up trying to understand the logic of Rankin/Bass specials a long time ago. Now, when I watch them, I just let the madness wash over me. It's so much easier that way. That said, I still had a hard time with Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July. It's a feature length special, which is way too long. Also, it takes two of the heaviest hitters from Rankin/Bass' roster of Christmas characters and puts them in a circus in the summertime. I did actually like that they retconned Rudolph's backstory. He now has a convoluted origin for his shiny nose. Unfortunately, turning Frosty into a stop motion animated character did nothing to elevate him in my opinion. He still sucks. They did a good job setting up the villain, the evil King Winterbolt. And there were snow dragons and a creepy ice genie and even a corrupt reindeer named Scratcher. So, I guess I'm saying, it wasn't very good but it had some good elements. Not recommended, unless you are a Rankin/Bass completist.

Rating: Toy Boat%

Have Yourself a Merry Winslow Christmas

Family Matters, a spin-off of Perfect Strangers, went through a lot of changes over the course of its nine seasons. Steve Urkel, perhaps the biggest breakout character of the 90s, was barely in the show's first season. He was added to the main cast the following year and became a big part of most episodes. By the time of this Christmas episode in season two, there were nine people featured in the opening credits. Not all of them would last the show's entire run. Kid sister Judy would be written out of the show after season four. Ditto for Aunt Rachel. Little Richie started getting phased out of the show after season seven. Mother Winslow left the main cast after season eight. And Harriet Winslow, the character that actually crossed over from Perfect Strangers, left the show midway through the last season. But in "Have Yourself a Merry Winslow Christmas" they're all together. Singing Christmas songs, decorating the house and eating Christmas treats. Carl tries to help Rachel get a Freddy Teddy for Richie. Laura yells at Urkel after he accidentally breaks her favorite ornament. Later, she feels bad and reluctantly invites Steve to spend Christmas with the Winslows. And, after a little Christmas magic, the episode ends with the whole cast singing around the tree. Something not even Urkel could ruin.

Rating: CD Player%

Fun Fact: Reginald VelJohnson, who played Carl Winslow, played Sgt. Al Powell in Die Hard and Die Hard 2.

Grumpy Cat's Worst Christmas Ever

Here's something that few people can say or would admit: I bought Grumpy Cat's Worst Christmas Ever on DVD. Don't judge me. Now, did I buy it because I thought it would be good? No. Did I buy it ironically? No. I bought it because, as someone who loves Christmas specials and also once received a Grumpy Cat shirt as a gift, I felt it was my duty. And I'm honestly glad I watched it on DVD. Because, before the special played, there were trailers for other Lifetime movies and something called Gummibär: The Yummy Gummy Search for Santa, which looked like garbage. I was left thinking that there was no way the Grumpy Cat special could be as bad as what I saw in the trailers. And it wasn't. It was fine. It had a few laughs. Aubrey Plaza was perfectly cast as the voice of Grumpy Cat. I didn't hate it.

Rating: A Grumpy Cat Mug%

(Image from Amazon)

A Terminal Christmas

Wings ran for eight seasons, over 170 episodes, and yet it has virtually no cultural footprint these days. I place some of the blame on the theme song. Instead of going with something upbeat or catchy, they used a classical piano sonata. It didn't exactly set the mood for a workplace sitcom. In "A Terminal Christmas," everyone's Christmas plans get cancelled at the last minute. In an effort to salvage the holiday, they decide to crash a co-workers Christmas party. Only to find her alone, mourning her late husband. To cheer her up, they take her out to sea to spread her late husband's ashes. Hijinks ensue.

Rating: Golf Bag%

Christmas in Tattertown

It amazes me that Ralph Bakshi, the man behind the X-Rated Fritz the Cat film, was ever involved in children's animation. Not that his forays into family friendly cartoons weren't without their own controversies. Christmas in Tattertown started out as a pilot for an ongoing series, a series that was abruptly cancelled after some moral watchdog groups raised a stink over Bakshi's Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures. Both that series and Christmas in Tattertown were aggressively weird, but ultimately harmless. In the Christmas Special, a young girl and her dolls are transported to Tattertown, the place where discarded things come to life. While searching for one of her dolls, the young girl decides to teach the residents of Tattertown all about Christmas. The special tries to cram in way too many characters and world building details, which makes sense given its origins as a pilot. I can't imagine that a Tattertown series would have lit the world on fire, but the special does make for an interesting artifact.

Rating: Dolls%

Ernest Saves Christmas

I get that Ernest isn't everyone's cup of tea. The movies look cheap and they're clearly made for children. The humor is big, broad and basic. I can't deny any of those criticisms. However, I know I will always have a soft spot in my heart for Ernest Saves Christmas. It's probably the first movie I ever saw in theatres twice. It's the first thing I think of whenever I see something else with "Saves Christmas" in the title. And while it's not a movie I go back to often, whenever I do, I still enjoy it. Case in point, not even the ancient DVD I watched for this review, which showed the movie in widescreen but was not formatted for a widescreen TV, could hinder my enjoyment of the movie. Know what I mean?

Rating: 69%

(Image from Wikipedia)

Fun Fact: Robert Lesser, who played Marty, played the businessman in Die Hard who told McClane that he should take off his shoes and walk around barefoot.

Deck the Halls

It's Christmas break and Will is disappointed in the lack of Christmas Spirit, both within the Banks' household and in Bel-Air in general. After seeing the understated decorations Aunt Viv has picked out, Will decides to decorate the Banks' home in his own way. He ends up going way over the top. His garish decorations wind up upsetting most of the neighbors, including special guest star Evander Holyfield. But the lights also inspire some carolers to stop by, sparking the Christmas Spirit in young Ashley. It's only after (a poor facsimile of) Ronald Reagan drops by to compliment the family that everyone comes together to enjoy the holidays.

Rating: Chocolate Covered Pretzels%

A Cup o' Tea an' a Slice o' Cake

A few years after he finished his run as The Third Doctor, Jon Pertwee played a scarecrow in the popular children's series Worzel Gummidge. Since I had just finished watching Pertwee's stint on Doctor Who earlier this year, I thought it would be fitting to watch the Worzel Gummidge Christmas Special "A Cup o' Tea an' a Slice o' Cake." And now, having just watched it, I can tell you that it is almost incomprehensibly British. Also, the scarecrows in the special look and move like zombies, which is a little unsettling. In the special, as far as I can tell, Worzel sets out to ask Aunt Sally to accompany him to the Scarecrow's Ball. He winds up getting into some skirmishes with the various people and scarecrows he meets along the way. I might have gotten more out of it had I watched it with subtitles and a British person who could provide some cultural context.

Rating: Mince Pie%

(Image from Amazon)

Xmas Marks the Spot

On their way back from a job upstate, the Ghostbusters pass through a time slip and end up in Victorian England. Without realizing it, they wind up busting the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future. After they return home, they notice that no one is celebrating Christmas and everyone is acting very Scrooge-like. To set things right and save Christmas, Egon goes into the containment unit to recover the Christmas Spirits while the rest of the guys go back through the time slip to teach Scrooge the lessons he was meant to learn. Along the way, Peter confronts his own issues with Christmas and comes to terms with some of the resentment he has towards his father. In the end, Christmas is saved and everyone raises a glass of some mysterious blue liquid that probably should have been painted another color to indicate that it was either punch or eggnog.

Rating: A Valuable Lesson%

Fun Fact: Lorenzo Music, who did the voice for Peter Venkman, also did the voice for Garfield for many years.

Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer

Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer, based on the novelty song of the same name, has real first draft vibes. It takes place in Cityville, the bad guy is the CEO of a company called the Own-All Corporation and there's an evil lawyer named I.M. Slime. It's not exactly sophisticated material. In the special, Grandma does in fact get run over by a reindeer. She survives but gets amnesia as a result of the accident. Santa then takes her to the North Pole for medical treatment. Meanwhile, back in Cityville, greedy Cousin Mel uses Grandma's disappearance as an opportunity to trick Grandpa into signing over power of attorney. Cousin Mel then kidnaps Grandma, tries to sell the family store to Austin Bucks and has Santa arrested. Because what kid in the early 2000s wouldn't want to watch their favorite late-70s novelty Christmas song get turned into an animated legal dramedy?

Rating: Fruit Cake%

A Christmas Story

The premise of Perfect Strangers was always a little bit hacky. It was basically The Odd Couple, except that one of the roommates was Yakov Smirnoff. But, to the show's credit, the two lead actors had great chemistry and their physical humor was on point. In their first Christmas episode, Larry tries to cheer up Balki, who's a little sad about spending Christmas away from his family on Mypos. They're all set to go to Wisconsin for the holidays when a blizzard rears its ugly head, forcing them to cancel their plans. This sends Larry into a deep depression and then it becomes Balki's turn to cheer up his cousin. The jokes and references in the show are all very dated now but the final product was still pretty sweet and funny.

Rating: Christmas Turtle%

Cricket on the Hearth

I've never really been a fan of Charles Dickens. It's probably because I hated reading Great Expectations in high school. He comes up a lot at Christmas though. I actually have to go out of my way each year to avoid reviewing too many adaptations of A Christmas Carol. So it came as both a surprise and a disappointment when I learned that Dickens had actually written a number of books centered around Christmas. And one of them was the basis of the Rankin/Bass special Cricket on the Hearth. The special, which differs somewhat from the novella, is the dour tale of a widowed toymaker, his daughter and the cricket they invite into their home for some reason. When the daughter's fiancée is lost a sea, she goes blind and the family falls on hard times. They end up working for a heartless miser who wants to marry the blind daughter. There's also a bunch of talking animals in the special and some toys that come to life for a few minutes. It's weird. Not as weird as some of Rankin/Bass' other animated specials, but weird nonetheless.

Rating: Toy Elephant%

Santa Jaws

This past October, I went searching through Amazon Prime Video for Bruno Mattei's notorious Jaws rip-off Cruel Jaws. It wasn't available at the time but, in my efforts to find that movie, I discovered the streaming service had a movie called Santa Jaws in its library. Which I ended up watching based, almost exclusively, on the teaser image. Knowing full well that Santa Jaws couldn't possibly be very good, I went in with low expectations. It ended up being even worse than I thought it could be. In the movie, a teen receives a magical pen that brings his comic book creation, a killer shark named Santa Jaws, to life. Santa Jaws then begins picking off the teen's family and friends one by one. Does the magical pen hold the key to defeating Santa Jaws or has it all just been a nightmare? I'm not even sure the filmmakers could tell you because the ending seems to play it both ways.

Rating: 41%

(Image from Amazon)

A Bionic Christmas Carol

After a devastating crash, astronaut Colonel Steve Austin's body is rebuilt with bionic appendages. He then reluctantly goes to work for OSI, the Office of Scientific Intelligence. His new boss at OSI, Oscar Goldman, sends Steve out on various covert missions. Recovering hostages, stopping terrorists, fighting Bigfoot. You know, boring government stuff. "A Bionic Christmas Carol" finds Steve investigating possible sabotage at a government contractor's facility. Instead of sabotage, Steve finds only the miserly Mr. Budge. While it turns out that Mr. Budge is not doing anything illegal, he is guilty of being a real prick. Forcing his employees to work through Christmas and treating his nephew, Bob Crandall, like shit. When Mr. Budge accidentally overdoses, Steve uses it as an opportunity to teach Mr. Budge the error of his ways. Come for the heartwarming story, stay for the sequence where Steve carves a tombstone from a slab using only karate chops.

Rating: Forgiveness%

Sonic: Christmas Blast

I typed "Christmas" into Amazon Prime Video and it came back with Sonic: Christmas Blast. While I knew there had been Sonic the Hedgehog cartoons, I had never considered that there might also be a Sonic the Hedgehog Christmas Special. And, I must tell you, it left me asking some difficult questions. Has any adaptation of a video game ever been good? Was the terrible animation in the special because of a rush job or did the show's regular episodes look just as bad? Were all the things I liked from my youth actually crappy? Was my decision to double up on Christmas reviews this year a mistake? It was a lot to process.

Rating: Rings%

Christmas Show

I used to have trouble sleeping on Christmas Eve when I was a kid. I would be so excited for Christmas morning that I would toss and turn all night. I would check the alarm clock over and over again, counting down the hours until I was allowed to get up. One year, in an effort to alleviate my yuletide insomnia, I decided to sneak in some late night TV. But because it was either the late eighties or early nineties, my options were limited. I ended up watching a few episodes of I Love Lucy that night. I hated it. It was worse than the insomnia. It never really stood a chance though. I was a kid, all jacked up on Christmas, and it was a black and white TV show that was already very old at the time. And, up until I watched "The I Love Lucy Christmas Special" DVD, that was the last time I intentionally watched the show. Seeing it this time around, as a middle aged man, proved to be much more enjoyable. The special, which originally aired in 1956, featured Lucy, Ricky, Fred and Ethel reminiscing about the good times while trimming the tree on Christmas Eve. Those good times being, of course, flashbacks to earlier episodes. Despite thinking I would hate it, just like I did when I was a kid, I actually found it charming and wholesome. The theatricality of the show and goofy, slapstick humor really worked for me this time around. Go figure.

Rating: Train Set%