Top 10 Christmas Specials

It’s that time of year when TV stations start airing their annual selection of Christmas specials. Well, OK, technically that “time of year” started the day after Thanksgiving; I notice some of the cable stations such as ABC Family are going into absolute glut mode already. The production of Christmas specials seems to have taken a minor nosedive from the 1990s onward, though there have been a few produced in recent years (often as an easy way to get further use out of 3D models from animated movies). But there is no shortage of Christmas specials when we turn our eyes to the past. There are dozens, possibly even hundreds of specials — and I’m only counting actual TV specials, not episodes of TV series, not movies, and not even TV movies (for the record, I’m drawing the line at one hour.)

I haven’t seen every Christmas special made, of course. And I hope to be able to watch some more this season and in seasons to come. But I’m comfortable enough with what I’ve seen to pick my top ten.

My Movie Alphabet

Mettel Ray has started an interesting blog-a-thon at her site: “My Movie Alphabet”. The concept is pretty simple and straightforward: for each letter of the alphabet, plus one for numbers and symbols, choose something movie-related that fits that letter and represents some corner of your movie viewing. It sounded like fun, so I’ve decided to take a crack at it. It proved challenging in places, and I know a lot of this is subject to constant flux, but here’s my list.

Nostalgiathon: Follow That Bird

Andy Watches Movies and Cinema Schminema are hosting a Nostalgiathon Blogathon, the idea of which is to examine things from our youth through our now-adult eyes. Since that’s a large part of what I wind up doing here anyway, it’s a natural blogathon for me to want to join in, but I wanted to do something a bit special for it. Most of the time when I review a movie from my childhood here, it’s one that I don’t remember much at all; I usually don’t even remember whether I liked it, perhaps because I missed out on it, or wasn’t paying attention, or perhaps it’s just faded that much from my memory. Contrariwise, if I do remember it, and how I felt, I probably feel much the same way now as I did then; I’m actually fairly constant when it comes to liking things.

So I wanted to watch a film that would occupy a rare niche for me: something that I knew for certain that I had seen and liked, but yet remembered virtually nothing about. This would give me the best chance of seeing whether my enjoyment for it was out of genuine regard for the film, or if it was, indeed, just pure nostalgia.

Fortunately, a day spent at the flea market a few days after the Nostalgiathon introductory post provided me with the perfect subject for my review: Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird. The film was released in 1985, and of course stars the usual Muppet performers under Jim Henson and Frank Oz, and the human actors from Sesame Street. I remember watching it at home, and I know I watched it more than once. But I didn’t remember any details from it since I hadn’t seen it in a few decades and had been relatively young when I did see it — and it’s not exactly the sort of film that even 80s nostalgia fans go out of their way to remind each other about.

Weekly Weblinks: Rummaging and Wrecking

I’m out hitting a 52-mile stretch of garage sales today, and a community garage sale tomorrow, so I may not be right here on the site for a bit. But that doesn’t stop the Weekly Weblinks from going up right on schedule! This week’s blog posts include a review of a film coming out today, a couple films debuting at a film festival, and some retro classics.

In the news there’s some info on Michael Bay’s fourth Transformers picture, the latest on the Bay-produced Ninja Turtles, and some more puppets coming to the big screen that, as far as I know, have nothing at all to do with Michael Bay. This week’s selection of posts and news is also surprisingly heavy on Disney, but there’s more to the Weekly Weblinks than Bay or Disney, so whatever you’re interested in, read on!

Favorite Films: The Muppet Movie

“Why are there so many songs about rainbows,
and what’s on the other side?”

In 1979, the Muppets were at the peak of their popularity. The Muppet Show had been running since 1976, and children and adults both regularly tuned in to watch the silly, surreal antics of Kermit the Frog and his cast of performers attempt to put on a show every week. The time was ripe for Jim Henson, Frank Oz, and the rest of the Muppet performers to take the characters to the next level, to produce a movie: The Muppet Movie. The feature-length format allowed them to tell a complete story, the story of how the Muppets first came together. “Well, it’s sort of approximately how it happened,” as Kermit tells his nephew Robin. The movie starts out with the Muppets attending the private screening of their own film, and that subversive meta-humor peppers the entirety of the movie. The movie is filled with lots of other kinds of humor as well, from character humor, pop culture references, situational irony, running gags and hilariously bad puns. It also throws in some sentimentality, some excitement, some music, and a whole herd of guest stars.