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Wednesday, December 9th, 2009

A (revisionist) stroll through the history of the Christmas Television Special

It's the holidays... and nothing says HOLIDAYS to me quite like a Christmas TV Special. I grew up on them.

Ah yes... those annual holiday television specials that are usually filmed in August. You can just see the strained sense of forced holiday joy plastered over everyone's face. Wondrous television filled with fake snow, fake merriment, fake presents under fake trees, and...

Wait. Am I seeming cynical? I don't mean to. I really did, and still do love these cardboard and plastic representations of Christmas. I dig the glitter. They're like little holiday training films entitled "How To Be Joyful During The Holiday Season". They're national experiments in the power of positive thinking. Act merry and eventually you will be merry.

You know those shows... where a non-threatening daytime TV personality, or a non-threatening soft rock personality, or some non-threatening comedian would host a Christmas Special filled with bad writing, bad new holiday songs, overblown takes on good old holiday songs, a lot of wince-inducing banter and occasionally, a genuine moment?

I'm sure when the idea of a smatltzy Christmas special first came to that blessed TV guy, he probably had no idea that he was spawning an entire sub-genre that would mutate and metastasize to embarrassing proportions.

Here's an early Christmas Special from 1950. We were at war in Korea... it's awfully film noire:

WWII came along and crowned Bing Crosby the King of Christmas... he owned that shit, and still does, really.

The TV guys eventually realized that folks didn't really need MORE sad, dark Christmas images... they had enough of those at home, right? Also, happy people shop more. So they cranked up the goofy holiday energy and made it more like a party. Dig this 1963 gem from the Lawrence Welk show:

Then agents and publicists started talking to each other... the crossover marketing potential was too good to pass up. Bing's image needed some freshening... and the younger guys wanted to get some of that Bing holiday stardust on them... Here's the Heart-warming Old Hip / Middle Aged Hip Crossover (Crosby and Sintra - "Two Lonely But Hip Bachelors"):

Elvis put his sweaty stamp on the holidays with "Blue Christmas". Here he is in his oddly tribal, King-In-The-Round Comeback show from 1968... (By the way, this same performance has just been co-opted by Martina McBride where they actually CGI'ed her INTO the video... Yay! It's like cultural necrophilia!)

By 1977 Bing was really starting to get old. But he was still TV special gold. So he starred in one of the most genuinely weird TV moments I've ever seen, to this day. They were going for an international, cross-generational crossover: Heart-warming Grandfather of Christmas Hangs With Hip Young Pop Rock PolySexual. I SO WISH I could have been at the crafts service table when they filmed this sucker. (Crosby and Bowie - "I'm Crashing Your Piano"):

Of course, the Osmonds brought it for a while too. Here's "Donny and Marie and Their Afterthought Osmond Brothers and Sisters" hosting one of their holiday nuggets from 1978. (Think it was tense back stage?) Oh and notice the Star Wars intro:

Of course, the biggest crossover attempt of them all was 1984's Band-Aid -- a Star-Studded ClusterFuck (SSCF) to end all SSCF's:

I could go on... There is so much more arm chair cultural psychology... so many more connections to be drawn. But that's another coffee table book. Suffice to say it's a sub-genre worth thinking about.

And because 1) I'm a dork and 2) I always secretly wanted to appear on one of those holiday specials, here is a little video I made with my friend and bandmate Jess to pay homage to this strange and dear television tradition. Yes, it's goofy:

Posted By John Common at: 11:12 pm 1 Comment

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Wednesday, December 9th, 2009

A (revisionist) stroll through the history of the Christmas Television Special

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