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Post by solgroupie on Dec 12, 2010 18:50:03 GMT -5
there are many we saw as kids that still run each year today - rudolph the red-nosed reindeersanta claus is coming to townfrosty the snowmana charlie brown christmasthe year without a santa clauskyrie and i were talking about my avatar and how santa claus was kind of a grumpy guy in rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, which got me to thinking about the other special christmas shows that come on every year. i never missed them when i was a kid, and i try to catch them when i can now. i know these are not the only ones, there are lots of others that are favorites for many reasons. i like to try and watch a charlie brown christmas - for one thing, i love the music. and it is one of the only animated christmas specials that has a main character suffering from acute depression during the christmas holidays. maybe not the only one, but definitely one of the first. i also like how it (and others from that time) weren't so politically correct as they are today. santa claus is coming to town is another favorite - i love fred astaire's narration. and i totally loved the burgermeister meisterburger. this is my favorite rankin/bass image of santa. he isn't all judgey like the one in rudolph. what are your favorites? which ones do you kids love the most?
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Post by callipygias on Dec 12, 2010 20:42:18 GMT -5
When I was a kid I liked Rudolph, but The Grinch was my favorite. Easy. I don't watch any of them anymore. Just my new favorite:
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Post by solgroupie on Dec 12, 2010 21:06:26 GMT -5
^i saw that once or twice when i was a kid, i think - but i really want to see the RT version. and how could i forget the grinch? i try to catch that at least once every year.
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Post by The Mad Plumber on Dec 12, 2010 21:08:33 GMT -5
Damn! I KNEW there was another ALF Christmas special besides the one where he's discovered by Major Winchester!
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Post by angilasman on Dec 12, 2010 23:08:36 GMT -5
I love all the old Rankin Bass specials and Charlie Brown Christmas. I'm also partial to the Christmas offerings of our own MST3K, Cinematic Titanic and Rifftrax!
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Post by BJ on Dec 13, 2010 12:42:31 GMT -5
Like many, I adore the Rudolph special. I watch it every year, and basically make the same riffs/rants every time about how Santa is a bigoted jerk, Clarisse is the hero of the story, and so forth. I tend toward more offbeat XMas stuff though. I like to watch movies such as Christmas Vacation, Christmas Story, Beautiful Girls, Die Hard 2, Home Alone and Gremlins, but one thing I never miss is the X-Files episode How the Ghosts Stole Christmas. It's an XMas Eve haunted house story guest starring Lily Tomlin and Ed Asner, embodying a macabre XMas spirit in a manner only the X-Files could. I also make sure to watch the first Futurama Xmas episode, in which Santa is a killer robot, as well as the first Simpsons episode where they find Santa's Little Helper. There's also Night of the Meek, a Twilight Zone that unfortunately was made during their video tape era. For a little non-fiction drama, Band of Brothers is a good watch, particularly the Battle of the Bulge episodes in the snowy Ardennes forest during Xmas 1944. I also enjoy watching anything about Apollo 8, particularly From the Earth to the Moon, as they saw the first earthrise on XMas eve, 1968. Attachments:
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Post by solgroupie on Dec 13, 2010 15:28:29 GMT -5
i still can't get over that i forgot to mention the grinch in my opening post. dur.
after my family finishes our christmas eve dinner, we all watch a christmas story. my sister and i are giving our dad a copy of the famous leg lamp for christmas this year.
i also really like the movie scrooged. i caught it on tv a week or so ago and it was the first time i'd seen it in a few years - i had forgotten how much i liked it.
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Post by mrcleveland on Dec 13, 2010 19:20:21 GMT -5
Not mentioned..."A Garfield Christmas".... But here's my Top-13.... 1. It's a Wonderful Life2. A Charlie Brown Christmas3. A Christmas Story4. A Garfield Christmas5. Home Alone and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York(tie) 6. How the Grinch Stole Christmas7. A Christmas Carol(1938) 8. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer9. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation10. Mr. Hankey's Christmas Classics11. Miracle on 34th Street12. Frosty the Snowman13. Holiday Inn and White Christmas(tie...because of Bing Crosby) Honorable Mentions... Mickey's Christmas CarolBugs Bunny's Looney Christmas TalesA Claymation Christmas Celebration(with the California Rasisns).
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Post by angilasman on Dec 13, 2010 22:25:13 GMT -5
Bugs Bunny's Looney Christmas Tales That's a special feature on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection vol. 5 - which I just happen to be getting for Christmas! That special was another staple of my childhood.
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Post by mummifiedstalin on Dec 13, 2010 23:40:16 GMT -5
All the Rankin/Bass love and no one mentioned The Life & Adventures of Santa Claus? There's no (worthwhile) DVD of it out yet, so maybe that's one reason why. Plus, the networks usually don't advertise much when they show it because it's a "pagan" version of the Santa story. Rankin/Bass took flak for that when they made it decades ago, and I guess the taste of mini-controversy never went away. But it was written by Frank Baum of Oz fame, so it's not like it's completely obscure. The book is good, too.
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Torgo
Moderator Emeritus
-segment with Crow?
Posts: 15,420
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Post by Torgo on Dec 14, 2010 0:10:07 GMT -5
A Garfield Christmas trumps all. Its not the giuing, its not the getting, its the loving. there. I said it. Now get out of here.
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Post by The Mad Plumber on Dec 14, 2010 8:04:45 GMT -5
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Post by harrycanyon on Dec 15, 2010 10:06:25 GMT -5
Awesome choices everyone, i adore them all especially the underrated Scrooged which i loved since i saw that in theaters when i was 7 years old, fantastic movie and i also love Santa Claus The Movie with Dudly Moore and Black Christmas (1974).
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Post by crowschmo on Dec 15, 2010 13:30:37 GMT -5
Christmas seemed more special when I was a kid. Maybe it was BECAUSE I was a kid, but it just seemed back then, the specials on TV, the decorations, the Christmas songs, all seemed to be concentrated mostly in December - maybe, MAYBE, the day after Thanksgiving - and it made that time of year all warm and fuzzy and cheery. And there were only a few channels back then, too. So whenever specials and movies were on TV, it made it more exciting that Christmas was almost nigh, it was like a ritual, certain specials, certain times, certain channels.
Now it just seems like Christmas is smattered all over the place, you don't always catch the shows, 'cause they're on a gazillion different channels, and they start in like, October, they're broken up by thousands of commercials (which seem worse these days, too). Decorations go up then, too, and the Christmas songs - good GOD - are played ad nauseum the second Halloween is over. It's no longer "special" - it's just this monster that needs to be fed, as I think, comedian Lewis Black once said.
By the time Christmas is actually HERE, one is kind of sick of it and wishes it would go away and never rear it's three mutant ugly heads again. The true meaning of the holiday is lost in the shuffle (several meanings, depending on your religion, I guess). Decorations are falling apart and looking rather forlorn on people's lawns, and broken and dirty in the stores. Your head is ringing with 23 different versions of the SAME DAMN SONG!!!
Too cynical? Ah, adulthood. Uh...what was the question?
Perhaps I should have started a new thread for that - Christmas rantings and ravings.
Anyway:
I liked Rudolph, Frosty, The Grinch, Charlie Brown, Santa Claus is Coming to Town and, in later years A Christmas Story was always fun. The Year Without a Santa Claus I liked, I still catch that when it's on - usually just watch the part with Snow Miser and Heat Miser.
I watch MSTie version (and now CT version) of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians every year.
And for more obscure ones: Does anyone have memories of specials that they don't really see anymore?
Anyone remember the animated one, "A Cosmic Christmas"? It was about three aliens who come down to Earth to learn about the true meaning of Christmas. (They were kind of like the Three Magi). They run into a boy with a pet goose and his parents and grandma. A bully in town steals the goose, gets caught on some ice and falls through, the other boy tries to rescue him, then falls through, and the town comes to rescue THEM, eventually being helped by the aliens, and it turns out the bully kid just stole the goose because he was hungry and the other kid and his family invite him over for Christmas dinner.
How about, "A Verry Merry Cricket", a follow up to "A Cricket in Times Square"? People stop long enough in their Christmas rush (after a blackout) to listen to Chester Cricket play, I think, "Silent Night" on his wings. (I think these were made by Chuck Jones).
There was another Chuck Jones one that was Raggedy Ann and Andy, where a very Wile E. Coyote looking character tries to hijack Christmas for himself by making all the toys and selling them, or something, don't remember this one very well, it was just WEIRD.
I remember catching another Rankin/ Bass one: The Little Drummer Boy.
There was another cartoon, I think called 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, where there was a family of mice. The brainiac son writes a scathing letter to the paper, signed "All of Us" or something, saying how Santa is a bunch of bunk. Santa decides to skip that town, and the son is very sorry, realizing he's real, and he and his father fix the town church bells to play out a song to Santa. That one kind of sucked, but I watched it every year anyway. It was CHRISTMAS!
Maybe I'll think of some more.
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Post by mowub87 on Dec 15, 2010 15:31:58 GMT -5
I actually have Life and Adventures of Santa Claus on VHS, if you can't tell from my alternate username. They also made a newer version of it with traditional animation, and it aired on Cartoon Network a while back.
One gripe I have with the newly remastered version of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is that in some places, the soundtrack is more wobbly than it used to be. The music during the final verse and ending of "Silver and Gold" is off-key and the final note sounds dreadful. They should have left it alone!
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