Mainlining Christmas

I originally saw and "reviewed"  Black Christmas back in 2010 , and if you're wondering why "review" is in quotation marks, go ahead and click on the link. For what it's worth, we weren't exactly trying to write actual reviews in those days - this all started out as sort of a novelty Christmas blog where the gag was we were binging as much holiday stuff as possible and writing about the experience. Sharing our discomfort as we sat through genres we didn't enjoy was all part of the fun. Or so we hoped. But over the years this site has evolved, as have my taste in movies and my knowledge of the history of Christmas media. Even back then, we knew Black Christmas was important (which is why we included it that first year). And as I've encountered various think pieces exploring the film , it became clear I really needed to revisit it. Having rewatched it, I still wouldn't say I enjoyed the experience, but it's far more nuanced and interesting ...

While looking for background on the 1939 movie of the same name, I saw a Wikipedia article about this. I clicked through expecting to find a remake but discovered the two movies were completely unconnected. Much to my surprise, this coincidentally is also a Christmas movie (more so, in fact). The 1970s are probably the decade we've explored the least, so I was excited to find a movie I never knew existed from the era. Or at least I was until I started watching it. To be fair, I'm not at all certain that this is actually bad or if the style of humor is simply so grounded in the era it was made that it feels alien to someone watching fifty years later. I suppose the distinction is largely academic: either way, this isn't something virtually anyone is going to be interested in sitting through today. The movie is written by its two costars, Renée Taylor and Joseph Bologna, a married couple whose prior screenplay was nominated for an Academy Award. That one was based on a play t...

All right. I *think* this is the last stop-motion Rankin/Bass Christmas special we haven't covered. There are a few reasons this took so long, starting with it being hard to track down. We actually tried to watch it last year, but the only service supposedly streaming it for a while had the wrong video connected. The other reason this one eluded us is that this really didn't make much of a cultural impact, and therefore didn't show up on our radar. With that out of the way, let's talk about what this is. And the short answer to that is... Well... It's weird. This is very weird. The long answer is it's a Christmas story set in an abbey in the mid-19th century. At the beginning, the nuns are making Christmas cards to distribute to the locals. The cards feature snowy scenes, because the area never gets snow and they want to remind everyone that it snowed on the first Christmas. In Bethlehem. Okay, am I missing a reference here? I mean, I know the idea it snowed in ...

I kind of wish I could claim I just randomly stumbled across this gem, but the truth is I found this - along with a handful of other movies - on this list of great European Christmas films last year. Three Wishes for Cinderella (we'll stick with the English title, though apparently, "Three Chestnuts for Cinderella" would have been a more accurate translation) is an adaptation of the classic fairytale. Or, more precisely, an adaptation of a specific version of said fairytale written by Božena Němcová a century earlier (thanks, Wikipedia!). The movie is set during the holidays and is apparently a tradition in some areas of Europe the way Rudolph or Frosty is here. I'll circle back to the holidays, but first I want to dig into why this is - in my opinion, of course - the best live-action version of Cinderella I've ever seen. Maybe the best version, period (the Disney classic is probably my least favorite of their films from that era). And if you're tempted to ob...

Buckle in, everyone, because even explaining what this movie is might get a little complicated. Here's the first issue: I fundamentally disagree with every synopsis I've seen of "Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?" on the internet. I'm not talking about whether the movie's good or not (though my opinion is significantly more favorable than the consensus). I mean, on a quintessential level I disagree with descriptions of what the movie's about, who we're supposed to sympathize with, the subgenre it's in, and - hell - even the overall genre. I don't really think this is a horror. Okay, I might be overstating things a bit. This was clearly marketed - and to some extent made - as a psychological horror, but I think it's better understood now as a dark comedy. One of the primary complaints I'm seeing skimming the handful of reviews present on Rotten Tomatoes is that this really isn't scary. Frankly, I don't think it's supposed to be. It...

Notable for having perhaps the least creative title among scores of loose adaptations, An American Christmas Carol is a 1979 TV movie that's sort of a mix of a retelling and a sequel of Dickens's classic. Like the big-budget musical that kicked off the decade, the lead role is played by an actor in his 30s with makeup used to effectively double his age. In this case, the actor is Henry Winkler, best known as Fonzie from Happy Days. And, for what it's worth, I think he works a little better as an old man than Albert Finney in 1970's Scrooge, despite Finney's makeup being quite a bit better. Winkler's physicality sells his age, which makes for a more convincing illusion. Because this is set in New Hampshire in 1933, Winkler isn't technically playing Scrooge - his character is Benedict Slade, which isn't quite an anagram for Ebenezer Scrooge, but if you squint you can see the game they're playing. Same with the name of his underpaid assistant, Thatcher....

Through the first two acts of this 1978 crime thriller, I was convinced I'd come across something truly special. Yes, there were flaws, along with plenty of things that aged poorly, but overall the experience was tense, engaging, and extremely rewarding. Then, sadly, came the third act, in which the plot unraveled. This isn't even one of those cases where they'd written themselves into a corner: there were easy, obvious ways to end this on a satisfying note. This just wanted to go in a different direction. It didn't invalidate what worked up until that point, but it still left me disappointed. The movie's protagonist is Miles, played by Elliott Gould, a bank teller frustrated by his job and most of his coworkers. It's not entirely clear why  he's so discontent - he doesn't seem to approve of the infidelity around him (it's kind of a running theme in the movie), but I don't think it's meant to be more of an annoyance. If anything, it feels a l...

Part of me thinks it's odd this slipped through the cracks for so long. As far as I can tell, it's the first Looney Tunes TV Christmas special, and it features some huge names in animation (Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng, and Mel Blanc). On that level, it feels like this is something that should be important. Or at least it does until you watch it. It's not that this is bad - I'd describe two of the three segments as "fine" and the third as "pretty good" - but there's nothing in here that makes it feel bigger or more memorable than three random Looney Tunes shorts. And the one segment that might have left an impact, Bugs Bunny's Christmas Carol, was supplanted four years later by the far superior Disney film with a similar premise. After a brief (though maybe not brief enough) intro sequence with Looney Tunes characters caroling, the special moves on to its spin on A Christmas Carol. This does actually feel like a transition between Mr. Magoo'...

This is a bit unusual for us, in that the media in question is a record, rather than a special. There are, of course, countless audio recordings of A Christmas Carol - as a rule of thumb, we don't bother tracking those down, as they're rarely well-known or influential enough to justify a review. This one is a little more interesting. Despite its unassuming title, this adaptation, courtesy of Disney Records, was the source material later adapted into the 1983 animated film, Mickey's Christmas Carol , which in turn led to the creation of DuckTales. Like the movie, the album features Disney characters playing the cast of Dickens's story. The lead role, of course, is Scrooge, featuring Alan Young as Scrooge for the first time. Young co-wrote the album and would of course reprise that role in the '83 film, as well as Scrooge McDuck on DuckTales (the McDuck surname gets a brief callout on the album when Ebenezer Scrooge lists a couple debtors). Quite a bit of the story an...

Not to be confused with the overrated 1983 movie of the same name , this 30-minute Hanna-Barbera special from 1972 tells the story of a dog and mouse attempting to deliver a boy's letter to Santa Claus on Christmas Eve. Like most Hanna-Barbera specials from this era, this has been mostly forgotten, which feels right to me. That's not to say it's particularly bad; it's just not particularly anything . It's relatively early, as far as Christmas specials go, so I assume it was a welcome deviation from the ones already in rotation. But fifty years later, it's not quite old enough to be "one of the first," so it's hard to overlook its shortcomings and aspects that aged poorly. The one aspect I did find interesting was the voice cast. This features two voice actors from Disney's Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (Paul Winchell and Hal Smith), and the father's voice is instantly recognizable as Dr. Benton Quest (Don Messick). The whole cast is co...

We watched and reviewed this eleven years ago , but I'm revisiting it as part of my ongoing attempt to watch as many versions of A Christmas Carol as humanly possible. It'd be worth reevaluating this, anyway, since the context surrounding it has changed dramatically. This is a remake of a 1956 version starring Basil Rathbone broadcast live that was believed lost for decades before showing up in 2011. Technically, it was available when we ran our original review, but it wouldn't have been easy to find, nor were we anywhere near as thorough back then. Obviously things have changed. I actually just finished watching the 1956 version a few days before putting this on (in case it wasn't clear, these reviews aren't entirely being posted in the order I watched them in). Let's dig into how this special relates to its predecessor, adaptations of A Christmas Carol, and Christmas specials in general. First, I want to acknowledge Lindsay and I have very different background...

This 1971 British TV special was subsequently given a brief theatrical showing, making it eligible for the Academy Award for an Animated Short, which it rightly won. It's easy to see why - with all due respect to Mickey's Christmas Carol, I've got a new favorite animated adaptation. It's directed by Richard Williams, the genius who handled the animation side of Who Framed Roger Rabbit and spent decades working on The Thief and the Cobbler, a legendary animated production that was never properly finished. Ken Harris and Chuck Jones worked on this as well, in case being directed by one of the greatest animators in history wasn't enough. Stylistically, this is based on illustrations accompanying classic versions of Dickens's book. To put it another way, you will recognize these characters. In a similar vein, they got Alistair Sim to reprise his role as Scrooge from the 1951 production. This is, without a doubt, the most impressive half-hour version of A Christmas C...

Casper is the title character, but this half-hour special features Yogi, Boo Boo, Quick Draw McGraw, Huckleberry Hound, Snagglepuss, Augie Doggie, and Doggie Daddy, in addition to Hairy Scary. For those of you lucky enough to not know what any of that means, Hairy is a ghost who's friends with Casper (sort of), and the others are anthropomorphic Hanna-Barbera characters. The special opens with Casper and Hairy's house scheduled for demolition. It's Christmas Eve, so Casper wants to decorate. Hairy, not sharing his friend's interest in the holidays, wants to go looking for a new house to haunt. Casper isn't sure whether Santa Claus will come to a house as worn down as theirs, but he writes a letter and leaves it in a stocking, just in case. As this is going on, the Hanna-Barbera gang are lost on the way to a lodge where they're planning to spend the holidays. If you want to impose continuity on this mess, you could interpret that as the Jellystone Lodge from the ...