Past TV Gems Add Christmas Cheer
Burbank, California—With wrapped presents under the tree, packages on their way and plenty of wood on the fire, it's time to wish you, dear reader, a merry Christmas. I say this bearing a few joyful gems from television Christmases past—and it doesn't hurt that they're relatively cheap and easy to obtain.
The Homecoming
Pick through this batch of made for television favorites, starting with the movie that, for better or worse, started the long-running series The Waltons. The Homecoming, based on Earl Hamner's novel about Christmas in the Blue Ridge Mountains, first aired on CBS in 1971, and it was hugely popular. Starring Patricia Neal and featuring elements from Hamner's franchise that started with his novel, Spencer's Mountain—the basis for the 1963 Maureen O'Hara-Henry Fonda picture of the same name—it proved an enduring success.
Taking place during the Great Depression in 1933, when the government has outlawed alcohol, the economy is lousy, and most of the world is at war, the large family prepares for Christmas Eve. Though they haven't much money, the Waltons have a slice of heaven on earth up on a mountain, where Mary Ellen's starting to flower, John Boy's milking the cows and ready to fly the coup, and somebody's calling someone a "pissant" in an argument over decorating the Christmas tree.
As a blizzard sweeps over the range, jovial papa Walton (Andrew Duggan) is delayed—to the dismay of his Baptist wife (Neal in her finest drawl), who's grown worried over news of a bus crash. As she struggles to keep it together, without alarming the children, she asks eldest son John Boy (Richard Thomas) to set out and find his father in the storm.
Instead, John Boy ventures beyond the family boundaries, discovering scandalous neighbors and an all-black church. With familiar Christmas ingredients—grandparents, a house full of excited children and a dose of religious symbolism—The Homecoming is well crafted in every way, starting with the script by Hamner, who also wrote the 1973 adaptation of E.B. White's Charlotte's Web, at the author's request.
It's homespun happiness elevated above nostalgia thanks primarily to solid performances feeding off Hamner's sincerity. An excerpt from his novel—a memorable scene in the movie—when the Walton kids race to the local post office, where a Christian missionary is doling out gifts, evokes Christmas magic: "The grinding poverty of the Depression years had already stamped the older faces with a gaunt grey pallor, but the prospect of a gift, of some slight change from the ordinary, the elusive Christmas Spirit, had animated thin faces and brought hope to defeated eyes."
The House Without a Christmas Tree
Another CBS movie, The House Without a Christmas Tree, starred Jason Robards, Mildred Natwick and Lisa Lucas as a nerd named Addie, short for Adelaide. It's about a single father, his mother and an intelligent, independent child who wants a Christmas tree. Aired in 1972, it is available only on video (under eight dollars on the last check), and it is grainy. But it's deeper than the loudest, flashiest noise in today's theaters, with Lucas unleashing the unstoppable energy of a child with an active mind, Natwick as the grandmother—looking daggers at widower Robards for denying his daughter a childhood—and Robards in his crusty prime.
With rare honesty about single parenthood, it is an odd story. Addie's narrative introduces us to her life in Nebraska in 1946, with granny pulling a red wagon, a boy named Billy and the prettiest teacher in school who comes to her rescue with a lesson using Christopher Columbus. Like The Homecoming, it's a rural Christmas story told as a flashback, from the adult child's perspective. It is a memorable, moving tale.
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Another children's program, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, topped this year's television ratings again, decades after it first aired in 1964. Building on Robert L. May's story, which he created as promotional material for the Montgomery Ward department store, the story was made famous in the title song by Johnny Marks, recorded by Gene Autry, the singing cowboy.
The original DVD is a digitally remastered classic with extras. Among them: the original television promotional spot, capitalizing on singer Burl Ives—who voiced host Sam the Snowman—an interactive trivia game, scene selection, a deleted song, and a short feature with producer Arthur Rankin, half of the stop-motion team Rankin-Bass, which produced Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer among other family television classics.
A 1975 TV sequel, Rudolph's Shiny New Year, hosted by comedian Red Skelton, was similarly structured, featuring Frank Gorshin (the Riddler on TV's Batman) and Morey Amsterdam (Buddy on The Dick Van Dyke Show ) and, while it's neither as good in story or in music, it's fun. Only Rankin-Bass could combine Ben Franklin, a vulture and Happy, the baby new year, who faces mockery like Rudolph, replacing "that nose!" with "those ears!"
It's on a Warner Bros. DVD with other Rankin-Bass material—a snoozer called Nestor the Long-Eared Donkey, which belongs with the other Rankin-Bass snorefest, The Little Drummer Boy—including the title show The Year Without a Santa Claus which exists—despite Shirley Booth (Come Back, Little Sheba) as Mrs. Claus—for two reasons: stepbrothers Snow Miser and Heat Miser. In the realm of stop-motion subplots, this one lets these two duke it out over the weather in a campy song and dance duel that almost makes you forget the show's sappy Santa Claus. Anyway, it's silly stuff, worth a few laughs, especially around Christmas.
RELATED ARTICLES
• 12/8/05 - Remembering the Munich Massacre
• 12/3/05 - Columbus, Cowboys & Christmas
• 11/24/05 - Thank You, Ayn Rand
The Homecoming
Pick through this batch of made for television favorites, starting with the movie that, for better or worse, started the long-running series The Waltons. The Homecoming, based on Earl Hamner's novel about Christmas in the Blue Ridge Mountains, first aired on CBS in 1971, and it was hugely popular. Starring Patricia Neal and featuring elements from Hamner's franchise that started with his novel, Spencer's Mountain—the basis for the 1963 Maureen O'Hara-Henry Fonda picture of the same name—it proved an enduring success.
Taking place during the Great Depression in 1933, when the government has outlawed alcohol, the economy is lousy, and most of the world is at war, the large family prepares for Christmas Eve. Though they haven't much money, the Waltons have a slice of heaven on earth up on a mountain, where Mary Ellen's starting to flower, John Boy's milking the cows and ready to fly the coup, and somebody's calling someone a "pissant" in an argument over decorating the Christmas tree.
As a blizzard sweeps over the range, jovial papa Walton (Andrew Duggan) is delayed—to the dismay of his Baptist wife (Neal in her finest drawl), who's grown worried over news of a bus crash. As she struggles to keep it together, without alarming the children, she asks eldest son John Boy (Richard Thomas) to set out and find his father in the storm.
Instead, John Boy ventures beyond the family boundaries, discovering scandalous neighbors and an all-black church. With familiar Christmas ingredients—grandparents, a house full of excited children and a dose of religious symbolism—The Homecoming is well crafted in every way, starting with the script by Hamner, who also wrote the 1973 adaptation of E.B. White's Charlotte's Web, at the author's request.
It's homespun happiness elevated above nostalgia thanks primarily to solid performances feeding off Hamner's sincerity. An excerpt from his novel—a memorable scene in the movie—when the Walton kids race to the local post office, where a Christian missionary is doling out gifts, evokes Christmas magic: "The grinding poverty of the Depression years had already stamped the older faces with a gaunt grey pallor, but the prospect of a gift, of some slight change from the ordinary, the elusive Christmas Spirit, had animated thin faces and brought hope to defeated eyes."
The House Without a Christmas Tree
Another CBS movie, The House Without a Christmas Tree, starred Jason Robards, Mildred Natwick and Lisa Lucas as a nerd named Addie, short for Adelaide. It's about a single father, his mother and an intelligent, independent child who wants a Christmas tree. Aired in 1972, it is available only on video (under eight dollars on the last check), and it is grainy. But it's deeper than the loudest, flashiest noise in today's theaters, with Lucas unleashing the unstoppable energy of a child with an active mind, Natwick as the grandmother—looking daggers at widower Robards for denying his daughter a childhood—and Robards in his crusty prime.
With rare honesty about single parenthood, it is an odd story. Addie's narrative introduces us to her life in Nebraska in 1946, with granny pulling a red wagon, a boy named Billy and the prettiest teacher in school who comes to her rescue with a lesson using Christopher Columbus. Like The Homecoming, it's a rural Christmas story told as a flashback, from the adult child's perspective. It is a memorable, moving tale.
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Another children's program, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, topped this year's television ratings again, decades after it first aired in 1964. Building on Robert L. May's story, which he created as promotional material for the Montgomery Ward department store, the story was made famous in the title song by Johnny Marks, recorded by Gene Autry, the singing cowboy.
The original DVD is a digitally remastered classic with extras. Among them: the original television promotional spot, capitalizing on singer Burl Ives—who voiced host Sam the Snowman—an interactive trivia game, scene selection, a deleted song, and a short feature with producer Arthur Rankin, half of the stop-motion team Rankin-Bass, which produced Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer among other family television classics.
A 1975 TV sequel, Rudolph's Shiny New Year, hosted by comedian Red Skelton, was similarly structured, featuring Frank Gorshin (the Riddler on TV's Batman) and Morey Amsterdam (Buddy on The Dick Van Dyke Show ) and, while it's neither as good in story or in music, it's fun. Only Rankin-Bass could combine Ben Franklin, a vulture and Happy, the baby new year, who faces mockery like Rudolph, replacing "that nose!" with "those ears!"
It's on a Warner Bros. DVD with other Rankin-Bass material—a snoozer called Nestor the Long-Eared Donkey, which belongs with the other Rankin-Bass snorefest, The Little Drummer Boy—including the title show The Year Without a Santa Claus which exists—despite Shirley Booth (Come Back, Little Sheba) as Mrs. Claus—for two reasons: stepbrothers Snow Miser and Heat Miser. In the realm of stop-motion subplots, this one lets these two duke it out over the weather in a campy song and dance duel that almost makes you forget the show's sappy Santa Claus. Anyway, it's silly stuff, worth a few laughs, especially around Christmas.
RELATED ARTICLES
• 12/8/05 - Remembering the Munich Massacre
• 12/3/05 - Columbus, Cowboys & Christmas
• 11/24/05 - Thank You, Ayn Rand
