Broadway Legend Joined: 10/18/04
Reg, absolutely. No wonder she ended up with Phillip.
You just know they end up hate-F*CKing in the chest of drawers.
Grey Lag Goooooooose!!!!!
Geraldine Page in Truman Capote's A Christmas Memory
http://youtu.be/G0vjTfVyZco
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/20/03
We used to watch The Homcecoming every year. We would howl with laughter every time Patricia Neal would go up to John Boy's room and say "Are you smoking cigarettes up here?" It was always such a funny line.
Oh my yes, PJ!
I am also ashamed and appalled that I missed "A Very Brady Christmas" this year. I was sure the request was in my dvr!!! Before we got Fios it was permanently on our dvr. It's good to watch during the holiday season, but even more fun in July!
It's already been shown a couple times this month but in case you missed it a couple years ago, Hallmark's A DOG NAMED CHRISTMAS is one of my new favorite holiday movies.
Broadway Legend Joined: 10/18/04
I like that one, too, Jordan. Dogs and Christmas. You can't mess that combination up!
My sister has been obsessed with the Susan Lucci Christmas movie "Ebbie" for years.
Isn't there a version of Xmas Carol starring Cicely Tyson (this one's for you Jordan) starring as unfortunately named Ebonita? With Katherine Helmond as her Marley?
"My sister has been obsessed with the Susan Lucci Christmas movie 'Ebbie' for years."
For me, it's not officially Christmas season until I've seen BOTH 'Ebbie' and 'A Diva Christmas Carol'.
I love "The Gathering" with Ed Asner. You can watch the whole thing on the tube named you
It's a real tearjerker but it's terrific. It's about a terminally ill man who wants the chance to see his entire family one last time. (He's separated from his wife and doesn't talk to his grown children, except one daughter.)It's beautiful, really. Maureen Stapleton plays the wife.
It's a Wonderful Life and White Christmas have the classic movie monopoly but The Miracle of Morgan's Creek and Christmas in Connecticut really should get more play in general let alone the holidays.
The Leprechaun's Christmas Gold. A Rankin Bass film that ABC Family shows about once a year - stars Ken Jennings of Sweeney Todd fame. It's admittedly not very good and few people I know have ever heard of it, but I do love it ever so much.
We have all of the Rankin/Bass Christmas specials with the exception of The Stingiest Man in Town & The Cricket on the Hearth. I would love to complete the collection.
One special that I would especially love to see re-aired is "Mr. Willoby's Christmas Tree". If you don't remember it it's a Henson production in the vein of "Christmas Toy" (ie Kermit works only to set up the story and then no other "regular" characters appear). It's the only Henson Christmas special that was never released on DVD or VHS that I am aware of.
Does anyone else miss TVGuide.com's Holiday Watch List? Every year right after Thanksgiving they would put together a list of all the specials that were airing on all the channels. NICK, DIS, ABC, etc. I was able to tape a lot of specials back in the day thanks to that list - even an animated version of "Life and Adventures of Santa Claus starring Hal Holbrook as the Great Ak
We just rewatched "The Littlest Angel," which I loved as a kid.
The production values are so crude, but the score is charming, and the cast is an embarrassment of riches: Johnny Whitaker, Fred Gwynne, Cab Calloway, Tony Randall, E.G. Marshall, James Coco, George Rose, and Connie Stevens.
It'll never happen since Disney owns the rights to Kermit and the Jim Henson Company owns the rest, but I would love for the full versions of "Emmett Otter's Jugband Christmas" and my personal favorite, "The Christmas Toy," to re-air on tv. I believe "Christmas Toy" did air on The Hub channel last year, but it was the cut version that does not feature Kermit at all.
I second the calls for "Muppet Family Christmas" and "Mr. Willowby's Christmas Tree." Eris, you'll be happy to know that the full Mr. Willowby special is now available online:
The Perfect Tree, The Perfect Tree...
Reg, I haven't seen "Littlest Angel" since I was a kid. I've been avoiding it because I thought it would spoil my memories of it, which are golden. I remember the crude "keying" of the angels in the sky. Not just bad blue lines around them, but wings and limbs would just disappear in the air. LOL They were pretty terrible even then. I didn't want to tarnish the fact that I loved it so much.
Now I'm tempted to give it a try ...
Besty, it occasionally looks like outtakes from "The Invisible Man."
But I watched it with two people who'd never seen it--who, in fact, weren't born till long after it was made--and we all loved it.
It was as moving as I'd remembered, and there were pleasures to be had (knowing who Cab Calloway, E. G. Marshall, and Connie Stevens were, for example) that I couldn't have appreciated when I was a child.
This isn't a re-broadcast, but I wouldn't mind a yearly nationwide broadcast of The Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular. I have it on DVD but it changes from year to year.
It is classic, beautiful, campy...and I LOVE it.
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/28/10
I have three different video versions of AMAHL AND THE NIGHT VISITORS, one of which is the original first broadcast with Chet Allen as Amahl. Odd that these three different versions (all kinescopes) are out there, but the one version that was actually preserved on videotape (the 1964 broadcast) has disappeared (apparently at the composer's request). Still, I would LOVE to see a new version of this (the movie version with Theresa Stratas is not very good). But, it might be too "religious" for today's Santa-world.
For those unaware of the wonderfulness of the Muppet Family Christmas. I wish I was in the cozy farmhouse on the snowy hill. How can you go wrong with the Muppets, Sesame Street, and Fraggle Rock crew?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBEaFjD4XOM
It's frustrating about the rights issues with parts of the Muppets Christmas and Emmett's Otter Band(I think with Otter it's gone back to the pre Disney days).
I second the love for the last Rankin/Bassstop motion feature--L Frank Baum's Life and Adventures of Santa Claus. It's a bit darker than the other ones, and was my fave as a kid. I know there's a poorly animated version that's come since, but...
Videos