Aside from the traditional fare that TV stations and cable show every year, such as Lifetime and Hallmark Channel's Totally Ridiculous Holiday Happy Endings Marathons, I review some of my old homemade DVDs or other Christmas specials.
Aside from the Grinch and Charlie Brown, I also have holiday specials from Billy and Mandy, My Life As A Teenage Robot, and Robot Chicken. I also have Little Drummer Boy and the Alistair Sim version of Christmas Carol, which don't seem to be on TV this year. I also have a ton of GSN reruns including Christmas shows from I've Got A Secret and What's My Line, but they can be seen anytime.
Anyway, I also started to look at which specials have the best stories. I saw Santa Claus Is Coming To Town, but I have to admit after Kris Kringle escaped from Burgermeister the story starts to fade out. We should have had Burgermeister tossed out of town by the kids who didn't have toys thanks to him, and their parents. For compelling stories, nothing beats the Grinch, Rudolph and Charlie Brown. That's why they're required viewing.
Cable TV , meanwhile, have their own ideas. It explains why Spike is running Bad Santa 24 hour a day, while TNT has A Christmas Story. It's too bad NBC is only allowed to show It's A Wonderful Life twice a year. Why not throw in a couple of cable showings on Lifetime, USA or even SyFy? It should really be in Turner Classic Movies.
Whedonistas, meanwhile, now swear that proper holiday fare are are both the "Amends" episode from Buffy and "Objects In Space" from Firefly, only because Jubal Early compares himself to Santa. Angel should have had a New Year's episode where some terrible thing was about to happen at the start of a New Year, only it gets defeated by too much vodka.
Afterwards, what happens on the 26th? Are holiday specials automatically obsolete? There's Boxing Day in the UK and Canada, and that's Leftover Christmas. I say you watch those specials through Sunday, especially in those areas where their NFL teams are not going to the playoffs (cough49erscoughRaiders,dammitcough).
So, I will look over as much as I can from my Xmas DVD collection, even though Saturday. If I saw the MST3K version of "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians", I should see the Cinematic Titanic version.
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