Less than usual — it was much easier to watch every day when I got up and watched an hour of something while I exercised. Wisp has deep-sixed that as she’s with me every morning and takes exercise as a sign I want to snuggle. Still, I’ve watched a little and there’s more to review in later posts.
12 DATES OF CHRISTMAS (2011) was another one that had to function as a talking lamp while I worked on some stuff. That’s not a reflection on the film, which is probably the best of the Christmas time-loop films. When Amy Smart discovers she’s living Christmas Eve over and over, her first thought is that it’s so she can win her recently engaged ex back. Certainly it can’t have anything to do with blind date Mark-Paul Gosselaur … can it? Sweet and fun. “My life is a parking garage!”
WKRP IN CINCINNATI‘s “Bah Humbug” episode is every bit as much fun as their Thanksgiving episode. Carlson (Gordon Jump) has decided to stiff the staff on their Christmas bonuses only to have three familiar faces show up and force him into “one of those Charles Dickens things.” A great episode of an excellent sitcom. “I’m alone again — and in bad lighting!”
THE REAL GHOSTBUSTERS is another show that holds up well and “Xmas Marks the Spot” is another of my Christmas perennials. Somehow winding up in Victorian England, the guys save a crotchety old miser from three strange ghosts, return to the present and discover that by helping Ebenezer Scrooge defeat the Ghosts of Past, Present and Future, they’ve destroyed Christmas spirit for all time! Can they get history back on track? “Free us, young man, or you and all the Christmases to come will pay the price!”
TWILIGHT ZONE: Night of the Meek stars Art Carney as a sad, pathetic drunk who’s just been fired from his job as department-store Santa. Then he discovers a sack that seems able to give everyone the present of their dreams … While I found myself wondering about the underlying mythos (what happened to Santa? Did he simply pass on the title to Carney, as in Tim Allen’s Santa Clause?) this is still a moving one. “Just for one Christmas I’d like to see the meek inherit the Earth — and that’s why I drink.”
Rewatching RUDOLPH THE RED-NOSED REINDEER I found myself thinking how remarkably much plot Rankin-Bass squeeze into an hour of running time: Rudolph’s arc going from outcast to hero, Hermie’s dentistry, battles with the Bomble, the plight of the Misfit Toys, plus of course some singing. “He knew where he had to go—the cave of the Abominable Snow Monster!”
MR. MAGOO’S CHRISTMAS CAROL also squeezes a lot into one hour, covering a surprising amount of Dickens’ story in the framework of Magoo starring in A Christmas Carol on Broadway. Fun, and the songs are remarkably good. “Sixpence and threepence and guineas and bob!/Give them away and nobody can rob/you.”
I hope everyone’s having a wonderful Christmas today. if you’re having so much fun you’re not even checking this blog, I’m down with that.
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