Tis the season for season finales in TV land. Rather than suffer low ratings while your attention is diverted by parties, or footballs, or knife fighting for this year's top toy, most of the regular television drivel has already (or soon will) departed for the sunny fields of 2011. In their place we're left with the detritus of more or less vaguely seasonal films, and the accumulated cruft that is forty years of animated Christmas specials.
Gather round me children, and hear a tale of Christmas long past. In those bygone days, crude glass tubes looked in on only three (3) networks. More oddly still, there was no way in which the flickering images around which primitives gathered could be recorded. If one of these ancients wanted to watch a particular program, they had little choice but to wait until one of the three networks chose to show it to them, a situation that lead to the popularity of that most widespread of mystical tomes, the TV Guide.
These days the arrival of Karloff spouting rhymes or Linus tossing off a good bit of Luke from memory is not looked on with the kind of anticipation these annual visitations once generated. After all, adult viewers are free to own copies and watch whenever they please. Adults who own these productions and are in turn themselves owned by children, are likely to have watched them all a good deal more often than they would please. But anyone who catches a glimpse and has a momentary memory of the feel of footie pajamas, has their favorite.
The oldest of the ink on celluloid affairs that gets trotted out at this time of the year (though with less regularity than many others) is Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol from 1962. This short, which mixes a nearly static Magoo into the flesh & blood cast of a play was the last outing for the character voiced by Jim Backus (who was soon to be lost on a three hour tour). There's a new issue of this on blue ray, which only gives you a better chance to see how rarely Magoo moves as much as an inked eyebrow. There are some original songs here (some decidedly odd ones) but in the panoply of Christmas distractions, this is rarely at the top of anyone's sentimental list. Still, I'll watch it, because it's December, and that's what we do.
When it comes to musical versions of Dicken's ghost story, I much prefer the 1970 version Scrooge with Albert Finney in the titular role. With a dozen (if not a hundred) other versions of the story competing for a spot on your 500 channel tuner, this very British turn is often overlooked. However, this is the one irresistible marker of season at my house. And at any time of year, my curmudgeonly heart is warmed by a verse of "I hate Christmas," which I think of as the secret Republican theme song (when I see the indolent classes, sitting on their indolent asses, drinking ale from indolent glasses, I hate people). who can really get into the spirit of Christmas without the lifting yet ghoulish "Thank You Very Much." Not me.
Admit it. If held at gunpoint you could sing a full verse of "Welcome Christmas" (Fah who for-aze! Fah who for-aze! / Dah who dor-aze! Dah who dor-aze!). You might even recall what goes on toadstool sandwich or the alternative to a seasick crocodile. Dr. Suess's Grinch, like Dickens' Scrooge, is the perfect harbinger of the season for the very same reason -- both are completely secular creations whose redemption is more akin to what we've come to expect from the season than any religious tale. In fact, for many this is the Christmas story -- hard-hearted heel learns that there is more to life than material goods. Plus Cindy Lou Who remains the definition of cute, and that rare roast beast looks tasty.
These are the specials that will play at my house this year. We will not worry about putting our eye out with a Red Ryder BB gun (that one was always my dad's favorite, and it doesn't seem right to watch it without him). We will not be watching that abomination in someone pretends to be Grinchly. We have, however, already seen that roundheaded kid and his pitiful tree. That one gets watched right after Thanksgiving, as it should.
What will you be seeing at your house?
[update] forgot to mention that next week is book club, where we'll be talking about Anathem by Neal Stephenson.