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Christmas is coming up in a few days so I thought I would for this weeks Tuesday TV Touchbase take a look at three of my favorite holiday TV specials
A Charlie Brown Christmas
Let's face it: Christmas can be depressing. And this Peanuts special puts that seasonal depression front and center.
Christmas is supposed to be filled with joy but Charlie Brown just ain't feeling it. The season's propensity for garish decorative displays and super charged commercialism mean shit to ol' Chuck. His plaintive cry of "Can anyone tell me what Christmas is all about?" resonates with anyone who has Christmas thrust upon them and told to "enjoy the hoilidays, dammit, or else".
Linus calm and subdued recitation of the birth of Jesus Christ is a bold move, an extended sequence with no jokes, no commentary, no music. Just Linus standing alone on a stage reciting a passage from the Bible. It is a fervent and potent reminder that Christmas can be, indeed has to be more than glitz and spectacle, more than just how much stuff we can get.
The soundtrack for A Charlie Brown Christmas is noteworthy for it's use of jazz with now iconic contributions by the Vince Guaraldi Trio. I've imbedded my favorite song, "Linus and Lucy".
How the Grinch Stole Christmas
Many efforts have been made to bring the wonder of the Dr. Suess classic to life in movies and on stage. Most of those efforts have not been well received. Mostly because the original half hour animated special directed by Chuck Jones is just about perfect.
Chuck Jones is in my opinion the absolute best of the Warner Brother stable of animators during the heydey of Looney Toons. The expressiveness of characters in the cartoons of Chuck Jones was a wonder to behold and that expressiveness works wonders in How the Grinch Stole Christmas as well.
The narration of Boris Karloff is inspired, in turns droll and sinister and warm. The distinctiveness of Karloff's voice elevates the proceedings from a mere children's cartoon.
While side stepping the overt Christian themes of the Peanuts special, How the Grinch Stole Christmas also embraces of theme that Christmas is something more than spectacle and commercialism.
A Garfield Christmas Special
This 1987 animated television special based on the Garfield comic strip is not a perennial favorite like the Charlie Brown and Grinch specials but it is one that I fondly recall.
Garfield, being the self absorbed glutton that he his, is focused on getting as much stuff as possible while enjoying the creature comforts of home.
So naturally. Jon Arbuckle drags a very grump Garfield to the family farm for Christmas.
There's a great musical number that goes:
"It's a good old-fashioned Christmas down on the farm!
A little over-eatin' never did you no harm!"
That snippet of music has been stuck in my head for years.
And there's this great bit. The Arbuckle family have gone to bed on Christmas Eve. 15 minutes after midnight, the very much adult Jon and his also adult brother Doc Boy go into their parents room, proclaiming that it's Christmas morning and it's time to open presents. Their very irritated father tells them to go back to bed and wait until morning.
Jon and Doc Boy begrudgingly return to their rooms still debating the point.
Doc Boy: "Technically it is Christmas morning you know!"
Jon: "Well, I know that and you know that...."
This is the same logic that my daughter Randie has been pulling on her mother and I for years.
There is a particularly poignant arc as Garfield winds up developing a special bond with Jon's Grandma. Grandma tells Garfield about her beloved and deceased husband, whom she especially misses at Christmas.
Garfield's discovery of long lost letters from Grandma's husband is a very sweet moment.
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Next week is the last Tuesday TV Touchbase for 2020. With the end of the year, I will take a look at the end of two seasons, the 2nd season finale of The Mandolorian and the end of the 4th season of The Crown.
Until next time, remember to be good to one another and try to keep it down, will ya? I'm trying to watch TV here!
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For this week's Christmas themed posts, I'm bringing sexy back to the yuletide season.
Sending us off on our way is Bewitched star Elizabeth Montgomery.
'Bye!
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