December 2009 Archives

YULE TUBE: More online noel

December 25, 2009 12:32 PM

One more posting pointing you toward holiday streams . . .

The Best Free Christmas Movies on the Web offers links to The Star Wars Holiday Special, Jimmy Durante in The Great Rupert, Mexican '50s film Santa Claus [pictured at right], Bing and Bowie's '70s duet, TV Christmas episodes, and much more . . .

And on XmasFLIX, Eartha Kitt coos Santa Baby, plus 1913 Russian animation The Insects Christmas, vintage cartoons, and much more . . .

But if you'd rather do your viewing the old-fashioned way, look here:

• TV Christmas Family Favorites (animated shows and more)
• TV Christmas Movies
• TV Christmas Episodes
• TV Christmas Specials (music, unscripted and more)

Merry Christmas!

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YULE TUBE: Holiday demento!

December 23, 2009 3:36 PM

And now we point you toward yuletide strangeness fit for our favorite Dr.

Our nominations for 2009's three kings of Christmas peculiarity --

1. A Juniper Creek Christmas

Here's a truly creative Christmas present from HBO. The big Big Love family sings about the season in their own particular way -- I Saw Three Hummers, Deck the Compound, and six other delightful, downloadable ditties. And who doesn't love a Harry Dean Stanton music video? (What a coincidence: Big Love Season 4 starts on HBO Jan. 10.)

2. Frosty the Inappropriate Snowman

Neil Patrick Harris' Barney from How I Met Your Mother morphs into the familiar Christmas cartoon character in this most adult mashup. If you don't want to hear about porn and bullwhips, don't go here. (Courageous clickers may also enjoy last year's Two and a Half Men naughtiness.)

3. A TVparty Christmas!

One of the web's coolest tube sites salutes the season with pages devoted to everything from Amos 'n Andy to The Yule Log. Wallow in sitcom holidays, classic animation, vintage music, lost shows, untold stories, and more. Be sure to check out old-time toy commercials. (Atari game systems! Instant movies from Polaroid!) And don't miss Amahl and the Night Visitors. (Yes, Virginia, there was a time when TV networks actually commissioned original operas.)

Finally, two non-tube stocking stuffers:

The worst Christmas album covers ever!

Jingle Bells goes Bhangra!:

Have a cool yule!

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YULE TUBE: Cool Christmas shows online!

December 22, 2009 9:19 AM

Haven't been able to find your favorite Christmas shows in the TV listings? Try online streams. You'd be surprised how many tube holidays can be watched somewhere on the web -- from Jack Benny to Lou Grant, from Donna Reed to Donny & Marie, from Liberace to ALF, from Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip to 3rd Rock From the Sun.

Video/audio quality isn't always primo, but hey -- it's free, it's anytime/anywhere, and it's there. Which is more than we can say for holiday shows that don't seem to be surfacing anyplace. (Alastair Sim's A Christmas Carol, where are you?)

Some prime sites for free seasonal streams:

HULU - Searching "Christmas episodes" hits nearly 100 titles in high quality streams -- comedy (Donna Reed, Father Knows Best, ALF, Newsradio, Hearts Afire), drama (Alfred Hitchcock, Adam-12, Lou Grant, Party of Five, Studio 60), family viewing (Muppets, Benji), specials (A Colbert Christmas). Many current shows, too -- 30 Rock, Modern Family, South Park, American Dad, Psych, Jennifer Hudson's holiday special.

TVS HOLIDAY - Here's a crazy mix of early TV sitcoms (Jack Benny, Burns & Allen), kid stuff (Howdy Doody, Annie Oakley), familiar faves (Beverly Hillbillies), merry music (Bing Crosby, Liberace, Donny & Marie), cool obscurities (Joe Santa Claus, Lux Video Theatre's Holiday Affair). Many shows are not listed individually in the homepage pulldown menu -- just click on Christmas TV, and peruse the list that scrolls next to the video window.

NOSTALGIA MERCHANT - The longtime distributor of vintage shows on VHS and DVD presents holiday streams including Date With the Angels, Highway Patrol, Dennis the Menace, Dragnet, Crossroads, The Gray Ghost.

INTERNET ARCHIVE - Technical quality at this grassroots site really varies. But here, you can not only watch old shows, you can download them, too. Titles tend toward the truly vintage (a feast for TV history buffs like me!) -- Jack Benny, Ozzie & Harriet, Love That Bob, Dragnet ('50s original), even seasonal soap from Search for Tomorrow.

CRACKLE - This Sony-owned site showcases the studio's seasonal episodes (some are full-length, some are well-edited 5-minute Minisode digests) -- The Addams Family, Bewitched, Barney Miller, SWAT, Jackie Chan Adventures, Married With Children, more.

CBS - Handy "Holiday Central" collection clicks you through to The Twilight Zone, Family Ties, Melrose Place, Beverly Hills 90210, more.

ABC FAMILY - Christmas-crazed cable channel offers online TV movies (Snow, Holiday in Handcuffs), animation (Cranberry Christmas, Holly and Hal Moose), more.

TV.COM - Hard-to-find holidays from shows like Cagney & Lacey and Square Pegs.

Obscurities abound! Some of my favorite strangeness:

The Dangerous Christmas of Red Riding Hood - ABC's 1966 musical staging doesn't actually have all that much to do with the holiday, other than a handy setting, but what bona fides! Liza Minnelli gets her first starring role, Cyril Ritchard plays the Wolf, Eric Burdon's group The Animals are his Wolf Pack, and the original songs come from Broadway legends Jule Styne and Bob Merrill (Funny Girl). Too bad this print is in nth-generation black-and-white. But again, we should be happy to have this pop culture nugget in any form. (Click the Christmas TV button.)

Jim and Tammy Christmas Show - Oy to the world. This one must be seen to be believed. Once seen, however, it's hard to watch. This is from those high-flying PTL '80s when the evangelist Bakkers had a TV network, an amusement park and, clearly, a too-big budget for wardrobe and makeup. Scary stuff. (Select show from homepage pulldown menu.)

Date With the Angels - It's not that this 1957 sitcom holiday episode is so wonderful, but it's great fun to see TV treasure Betty White in just her second series lead. (She'd already done Life With Elizabeth.) Today, 52 years later, she's still kicking butt and taking names! (Last year Boston Legal; this year The Bold and the Beautiful, et al.) Secondary thrill here: Another TV institution, Burt Mustin, who specialized in playing funny old men for decades.

Click directly to some of the all-time best holiday episodes:

The Jack Benny Program

Barney Miller

My So-Called Life

3rd Rock From the Sun

South Park

Holiday music videos are streaming, too, at VH1 CLASSIC, where you'll find seasonal songs of all sorts -- Bob Dylan, Mariah Carey, Snoop Dogg, Natalie Cole, No Doubt, Twisted Sister, Rick Springfield, Hall & Oates, New Kids on the Block, The Chipmunks, Ren & Stimpy.

To get you started with streams, here's one of TV's warmest music moments, from 1963's The Judy Garland Christmas Show, with the star's real-life kids Lorna and Joey. Happy holiday viewing!

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YULE TUBE: 'M*A*S*H' and more

December 22, 2009 3:04 AM

Yep, more additions to the Christmas listings, including airings of M*A*S*H and The Nightmare Before Christmas, plus series titles for TV Land's Christmas Eve "Merrython."

Also, marathon screenings of the vintage Bing Crosby-Danny Kaye-Rosemary Clooney musical White Christmas.

Hundreds of listings at these links:

• TV Christmas Family Favorites (animated shows and more)
• TV Christmas Movies
• TV Christmas Episodes
• TV Christmas Specials (music, unscripted and more)

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YULE TUBE: Everything you always wanted to know about Christmas TV (but didn't know who to ask)

December 21, 2009 1:14 PM

If Bianculli can toot his own authorial horn, so can I -- especially since 'tis the season for my book Christmas on Television.

Its 250 pages are the culmination of my lifelong love of holiday shows, which I've been taping like mad for decades, and now DVR-ing, DVD-ing and downloading, too. How great is 21st century technology? Today, yuleheads like me can wallow in seasonal sentiment and silliness 365 days a year. (When we were kids, we had to walk five miles in the snow to find a Christmas show!)

I hope you'll appreciate my affectionate exploration of hundreds of seasonal shows throughout network TV's 60-year history -- Jack Benny, Ozzie & Harriet, Amos 'n Andy, Amahl and the Night Visitors, The Addams Family, The Man From UNCLE, Green Acres, Judy Garland, Bing Crosby, Charlie Brown, Barney Miller, Married With Children, Pee-Wee's Christmas Special, thirtysomething, The West Wing, The Simpsons, Seinfeld, Everybody Loves Raymond, South Park, MADtv's "Raging Rudolph," even soaps and The Star Wars Holiday Special. (Be afraid. Be very afraid.)

Christmas on Television also looks back pre-TV, to holiday movies, radio shows, Dickens and more. The book's been out awhile, so you won't find House, The Big Bang Theory or Larry the Cable Guy. But you will find shows you'd forgotten, shows you never heard of, and all your vintage Christmas TV favorites. Amazon makes it easy to revisit them in either the instant-gratification Kindle edition or the discount-priced hardcover original. Thanks to Amazon's reliably quick shipping, it's a great last-minute holiday gift.

But I'm not the only one writing about holiday shows now. New this year is The Christmas TV Companion by Joanna Wilson, subtitled "A Guide to Cult Classics, Strange Specials & Outrageous Oddities." Joanna's my kind of gal, drooling over offbeat holiday happenings on everything from Hogfather to Mystery Science Theater 3000, with side trips past lunacy like the Solid Gold dancers. Her slimmer book may not be as comprehensive as mine, but it's got just as deep an appreciation of tube yules and a zesty personality all its own. Amazon sells the paperback here.

Don't forget to consult TV Worth Watching's handy listings of this year's Christmas TV airings. It's not too late to find Festivus, Mr. Hankey, The Grinch, The Jetsons, A Christmas Story or It's a Wonderful Life --

• TV Christmas Family Favorites (animated shows and more)
• TV Christmas Movies
• TV Christmas Episodes
• TV Christmas Specials (music, unscripted and more)

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YULE TUBE: 'Bewitched,' 'Becker,' 'Barney Miller' and more

December 21, 2009 10:27 AM

Updates by the dozens at our Christmas TV listings!

Look for memorable episodes from the '60s (Bewitched), '70s (Barney Miller), '80s (Matlock), '90s (Becker) and '00s (7th Heaven).

Britcoms, too -- Blackadder's Christmas Carol, Absolutely Fabulous, The Vicar of Dibley -- plus the action of Doctor Who: The Christmas Adventure and holiday talk from Graham Norton.

You'll find more Christmas Carols from The Flintstones and The Jetsons on Cartoon Network, plus holiday outings from Powerpuff Girls and Johnny Bravo.

Many merry movies have been added -- Vanessa Williams in A Diva's Christmas Carol, Dolly Parton's A Smoky Mountain Christmas, Whoopi Goldberg in Call Me Claus -- including wall-to-wall holiday flicks on Hallmark Channel, Lifetime Movie Network and ABC Family.

Ovation revisits the Band-Aid charity song event Do They Know It's Christmas? and goes nuts for The Nutcracker. (And the channel has just been added for many Comcast viewers.)

There's more to come! We're keeping track of added airings so you don't have to. Check out our listings here:

• TV Christmas Family Favorites (animated shows and more)
• TV Christmas Movies
• TV Christmas Episodes
• TV Christmas Specials (music, unscripted and more)

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DVD DEAL: 'Torchwood' discount

December 21, 2009 6:31 AM

Amazon is still promising 2-day delivery by Christmas Eve, and that's good news for great TV lovers since today's deal of the day involves that smart, sexy, thrilling adult adventure called Torchwood.

Monday's deal delivers either of the first two stunning seasons on DVD for $34, with the Blu-ray versions priced at $39 each -- and this is a show that deserves high-def.

Not included in today's special sale, but ever-so-highly recommended, is this year's miniseries Torchwood: Children of Earth, a deeply scary showdown between our human world and one overwhelmingly ominous alien. It's sly, humane, political, profound, heartbreaking and -- a devalued word in this "reality" show age -- terrifyingly real. This one is definitely worth Amazon's discounted price, in either format.

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FLICK PICKS: Epic films festival

December 17, 2009 7:19 PM

Big movies deserve a big documentary salute. Instead, they get one that's been compressed and contorted like a piece of origami. Disappointing -- but at least we have the blockbusters themselves to look forward on Turner Classic Movies this Sunday.

That's when TCM premieres not only its monthly genre clipfest -- A Night at the Movies: The Gigantic World of Epics (Sunday at 8 p.m. ET, TCM) -- but also 24 hours of the big-bigger-biggest movies that made Hollywood a global name. Westerns, easterns, ancients and sacreds -- they're all here.

TCM's Sunday night festival includes two versions of the Jesus biopic The King of Kings -- both sound (9 p.m. ET, from 1961, starring Jeffrey Hunter, later known as the guy William Shatner replaced on Star Trek) and silent (midnight ET, 1927, with H.B. Warner). There's also Charlton Heston in the 1959 spectacle Ben-Hur (Sunday at 4 p.m. ET). Hope you caught 1925's silent version last Sunday night, featuring the original (and, some argue, ultimate) version of the classic chariot race.

Earlier in the day, How the West Was Won (Sunday at 9:30 a.m. ET) can only approximate its 1962 theatrical impact in widescreen Cinerama, but it's still a sweeping panorama following four generations on the American frontier. Doctor Zhivago (Sunday at 12:30 p.m. ET) takes the action to Russia for revolutionary fervor in the snow (and Julie Christie). Raintree County (Sunday at 6 a.m. ET) is 1957's 70mm Civil War saga with Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift (during the filming of which Clift suffered his fateful, disfiguring car wreck).

TCM even throws in its weekly-showcased foreign film. Marcel Carne's 1943 Children of Paradise (Sunday night at 2:45 a.m. ET) is a backstage theater tale of 19th century romance and intrigue -- or is it a metaphorical portrayal of the then-current French resistance to Nazi occupiers?

Too bad that the festival's Night at the Movies hour tracing the history of epics feels so condensed, disjointed and, well, small. It's about big canvas films with sweep, yet uses more stills than clips in attempting to convey that. Crammed with talking heads offering choppy observations, the whole thing plays like it's on fast-forward. (At least there's no Martin Scorsese.) With a century of grandeur to encompass, this low-budget hour is far too tiny to do the job.

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WEIRD & WILD: Blaxploitation biker chicks

December 16, 2009 7:34 PM

Sleazy, cheesy, cheap and surreal -- gimme more TCM Underground!

Friday's late-night showcase for low-budget exploitation flicks gets some fresh meat from Turner Classic Movies with the delirious blaxploitation musical biker flick Darktown Strutters (Friday night at 2 a.m. ET, TCM).

I've never seen it, but Cinebeats has, and the rundown here has me drooling with antici-pation: Stylish Watts women take on the KKK and a clone king, while looking entirely too fab riding their multicolor machines. Rev up the DVR for a movie that "must be seen to be believed." (See some here.)

Following Darktown Strutters on the bill late Dec. 18/early Dec. 19 is Thank God It's Friday (3:45 a.m. ET, TCM), disco diva Donna Summer's 1978 showcase, co-starring such big names as Valerie Landsburg and Terri Nunn. (Look close for early work from Jeff Goldblum and Debra Winger, who I'm sure would rather not be reminded.)

TCM Underground takes a hiatus next week (pre-empted for a Sherlock Holmes festival), but January promises cheap thrills like the 1969 LSD saga The Big Cube (with Lana Turner!) and Jerzy Skolimowski's '70s double feature Deep End and The Shout. Also expect witchcraft, Satanism, female crime gangs and Blue Velvet. Be there or be square.

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YULE TUBE: 'Scrubs,' 'Frasier,' 'Honeymooners,' 'Home Improvement'

December 15, 2009 4:47 PM

More holiday shows?

You bet.

Just added to our mushrooming Christmas TV listings pages -- multiple episodes of Home Improvement and Frasier (including my personal favorite, "Merry Christmas, Mrs. Moskowitz," where Frasier pretends to be Jewish, Niles plays an allergic Jesus, and a farcical time is had by all).

Also -- Scrubs, The Honeymooners, Friends, and more.

Check out the latest here:

• TV Christmas Family Favorites (animated shows and more)
• TV Christmas Movies
• TV Christmas Episodes
• TV Christmas Specials (music, unscripted and more)

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YULE TUBE: 'Seinfeld,' 'Simpsons' and more!

December 14, 2009 3:55 PM

More merry Christmas episodes, specials and more have been added to our holiday listings pages!

Among them: The Simpsons, Frasier, Everybody Loves Raymond, My Name Is Earl, and that classic Seinfeld Festivus episode.

Also: the Radio City Christmas show, Little People Big World, and lights galore on Christmas to the Extreme.

And -- tada! -- the Yule Log.

(TV programmers who giveth also taketh away. ABC has scratched its Christmas Eve repeat of this year's Grey's Anatomy holiday hour.)

Check out the latest here:

• TV Christmas Family Favorites (animated shows and more)
• TV Christmas Movies
• TV Christmas Episodes
• TV Christmas Specials (music, unscripted and more)

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DVD DEAL: 'Band of Brothers'

December 14, 2009 10:38 AM

This one's been out for so long, we featured it in last year's holiday DVD gift guide.

But it's back today at a lower price. Monday only at Amazon, HBO's Band of Brothers can be had as the deal of the day for $32 on DVD and $40 on Blu-ray Disc.

List prices of this acclaimed World War II saga are still $80 and $100, respectively. So that's a nice 60 percent off here.

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WATCH THIS: 'Dexter' gets frickin' great

December 10, 2009 8:12 PM

Man, it's hard to type this. My fingernails are worn down to nubs! I've been biting like crazy, watching episodes of Dexter, getting psyched for this killer season's much-anticipated climax (Sunday at 9 p.m. ET, Showtime). Like Dexter's current quarry, the Trinity killer, I've been doing them in threes (and fours), skipping weekly airings in favor of monthly VOD marathons. I've been mainlining the tension till I just can't take it anymore!

Has any season of anything delivered as stunningly as this fourth one in Showtime's serial-killer-of-serial-killers saga? John Lithgow has been a truly harrowing (yet humorous!) match for Michael C. Hall's conflicted avenger -- and the hourly cliffhangers have been shout-out-loud shocking.

Episode 1, anyone? (Car crash.) Episode 4? (Key regular character gunned down.) Episode 9? (She's his daughter?! Are you frickin' kiddin' me?!)

The reveals have been breathtaking as an incognito Dexter has enmeshed himself deeper into the life of upright family man/heartless slaughterer Arthur Mitchell. First it was merely mano a mano between murderers. Then we met the terrorized wife and kids in Arthur's twisted household. Dexter started to see the scary parallels in his and Arthur's daddy issues, spouse deceptions, double lives and born-in-blood backgrounds. I know you're demented, but what am I?

And now Arthur knows who Dexter is. Last week's hour left the two finally face-to-face with all the knowledge they need to make that final smackdown reeeeally messy. The season has snowballed so satisfyingly that this was not only Dexter's highest rated episode ever, but also the most-watched Showtime program of any kind in 10 years (1999's Tyson vs. Norris heavyweight fight).

Last weekend's premiere airing of Dexter's fourth-season penultimate Episode 11 (9 p.m. Dec. 6) drew 2.1 million viewers. Which doesn't sound like much, until you realize Showtime reaches just 16 million households. And many of those, like ours, watch it on delay, either in encore airings (a dozen repeats each week) or via video-on-demand. My Comcast system offers it on VOD in HD (the whole superb season!), so we can watch at our leisure -- as if there is such a thing when Dexter gets going.

John Lithgow has always been a profoundly resourceful actor, and his measured work as monster Mitchell rates special merit for its restraint. Can't believe I'm using that word when the season literally started with him naked in a blood-filled bathtub slashing a woman to death. But with each insane thing Arthur's done, Lithgow's eerie composure has made it yet more chilling. I felt like I'd explode watching that deranged Thanksgiving dinner with Arthur's eggshell-walking family, where Dexter seemed the most "normal" person at the table. Back when Lithgow was rampaging through 3rd Rock from the Sun as an alien ego whose every experience in human form was a crazed revelation, I wrote that he was my comedy god, Now he's my black comedy/drama/thriller god, too.

But he'll have to share that billing with Michael C. Hall. Our ever impressive star turned it up a notch last week as Dexter further imploded with the realizations that he'd killed an innocent man, thrust his wife and kids into mortal danger, and could wind up just as destructive as Arthur to everyone close to him.

And the show's detractors say Dexter's serial killings have no consequences. Not true. They're just a little deeper-seated than the shows that make it all obvious by the end of the first season, if not first hour.

Hall is hitting us ever harder, four seasons in, as he plumbs the creeping maturity of conscience in Dexter, who began the series claiming he had no emotions, reflection or remorse. The character has lately become a basket case, heartbreakingly coiled and confounded. While creating maximum dramatic impact, he's delivered sharper comedic punch, too. Thanks to the running narration that effectively puts us inside Dexter's head, his ironic commentary and virtual thought-balloon punchlines provide much-needed comic "relief" -- never was the second word of that term so true. They also register the logic through which Dexter allows himself to walk through each day despite his deadly "dark passenger" ride-along.

So Dexter has intensified into not just one of TV's darkest and most delirious dramas but also its funniest. I'd say "one of its funniest," in deference to House, but Dexter now has the Fox drama's character study beat, thanks to Hall's disquieting complexity. House has head and humor appeal, but Dexter gets to your gut.

Disturbing, poignant, resonant, droll -- where does Dexter go from here? I'm feeling like Season 5 might find Dexter trying to go cold turkey from his death-machine addiction. But it could be Dex vs. Deb. Or even -- wait a minute, I'm getting ahead of myself. Sunday's Season 4 finale could put the show on any number of paths.

I'd follow Dexter down all of them.

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YULE TUBE: Martha and Snoop Dogg!

December 10, 2009 6:18 PM

That's the magic of the Christmas season. It brings together odd couples like Martha Stewart and Snoop Dogg, baking Christmas cookies on next Friday's Martha Stewart Show (Dec. 18).

This and many other programs have been added to our comprehensive Christmas TV calendars. You'll also find updates to Sunday's 24-hour TV Land Merrython (episode times have changed), Christine Baranski on Monday's Big Bang Theory, and lots more.

Click here:

• TV Christmas Family Favorites (animated shows and more)
• TV Christmas Movies
• TV Christmas Episodes
• TV Christmas Specials (music, unscripted and more)

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YULE TUBE: Dozens more listings!

December 8, 2009 2:03 PM

Wanna see some WKRP Christmas episodes? How about Jack Benny? South Park or Ozzie & Harriet? (I love both!) There's a repeat of ABC's premature mid-November holiday hour of Grey's Anatomy, too.

They're among the dozens of updates just added to our voluminous Christmas/holiday listings. Also included -- Invasion of the Christmas Lights, that '40s movie fave Holiday Inn, "Christmas in Yellowstone" on Nature, and for you Philadelphians, that local essential The Spirit of Christmas with its vintage marionettes.

Dig in here:

• TV Christmas Family Favorites (animated shows and more)
• TV Christmas Movies
• TV Christmas Episodes
• TV Christmas Specials (music, unscripted and more)

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DVD DEAL: Get 'Lost' (by the sea)

December 8, 2009 11:37 AM

Two big Tuesday deals on disc: ABC's confounding Lost and Discovery's soothing Sunrise Earth: Seaside Collection.

Amazon has all five seasons of Lost -- Season 5 comes out today -- for $73 on DVD (down from $240 list) and $109 on Blu-ray (down from $360 list). In other words, less than one-third of the (often discounted) studio list. Click here for info and ordering.

Discovery Store is also running daily sales this holiday season, and Tuesday's offers Sunrise Earth: Seaside Collection on Blu-ray for $30 (half the list price). Its 4 discs offer natural sights and sounds from the Great Barrier Reef, the Mediterranean, Alaska, Argentina and four other global shores.

Lost note: We have in hand the $134/list Blu-ray of Season 5's big corrugated box Dharma Initiative Orientation Kit. We'll post a review of this souped-up season set once we've had the chance to peruse all the goodies (Dharma videotape, worker manuals, etc.) and to play with the BD Live interactive-web features of Lost University.

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YULE TUBE: Yes, Charlie Brown, there is an encore

December 7, 2009 11:25 AM

I go away for a week, and look what happens -- President Obama pre-empts Charlie Brown's Christmas, and agreeable Adrian Monk suffers a disappointingly unpleasant series finale.

This is the holiday season?

Luckily, A Charlie Brown Christmas reappears Tuesday (Dec. 8 at 8 p.m. ET, ABC) in a pre-planned encore. [UPDATE: It also repeats Dec. 15 at 8 p.m. ET, in an ABC hour that also includes Charlie Brown Christmas Tales.] And we've got our Monk DVDs to keep us warm.

We've also got such Christmas treats as the new animated special Yes, Virginia (Friday at 8 p.m. ET, CBS), in which Neil Patrick Harris and
other voices tell the real-life story of a little girl whose letter-to-the-editor prompted the revered newspaper column confirming the existence of Santa Claus. And another airing of the '60s stop-motion fave Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (Saturday at 8 p.m. ET, CBS) takes us back to the land of misfit toys, pre-cell phones.

This week's other holiday highlights include Saturday's all-day Rankin-Bass animation marathon on ABC Family, that night's return of the movie classic It's a Wonderful Life, and full lineups of new Christmas comedy episodes from ABC Wednesday night and NBC Thursday night.

And then there's Sunday's annual TV Land Merry-thon, with Andy, Roseanne, the Bunkers, the Bundys, the Clampetts, and those 3rd Rock aliens.

I'm back on the case scouting for newly added Christmas/holiday episodes, movies and specials. So keep checking back here for more festive fun.

Follow these links to listings of:

• TV Christmas Family Favorites (animated shows and more)
• TV Christmas Movies
• TV Christmas Episodes
• TV Christmas Specials (music, unscripted and more)

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FLICK PICKS: Capra, not so corny

December 7, 2009 9:37 AM

We're as willing to quibble as the next guy (gal), so we'll salute the tougher side of legendary director Frank Capra, often cited for his sentimental Capra-corn in movies like It's a Wonderful Life.

When Turner Classic Movies starts showcasing him Monday night as its December director of the month, the four-star slate includes such hearttuggers as Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (Dec. 7 at 10 p.m. ET), where suddenly rich rube Gary Cooper and wisegal Jean Arthur learn lessons about honesty, decency, et al.

But there's social and political commentary underneath it all -- and under most of Capra's movies -- which wasn't exactly the norm in the escapist '30s and '40s. Though his approach may seem more emotional than cerebral, Capra delivered real meat from his Columbia base when most other studios' filmmakers were satisfied with sauce.

And he could be daring, too. Let's not forget Capra's 1934 hit It Happened One NIght (8 p.m. ET, TCM), that rare comedy to sweep the Oscars, and a virtual blueprint for the screwball genre. Clark Gable made a manly newsman on the road retrieving runaway rich bride Claudette Colbert -- and their lessons got learned in motel rooms from opposite sides of that textile "wall of Jericho." (Moviegoers in the 1930s weren't confronted with dirty words or imagery, but they needed dirty minds to fill in the unsaid/seen.)

TCM's Dec. 14 lineup spotlights Capra's early talkies, a largely precode lineup of sharpies, skirmishes and scandalous sex. That last attribute comes in The Bitter Tea of General Yen (Dec. 14 at 8 p.m. ET, TCM), the 1933 Radio City opener that outraged audiences when nice white missionary Barbara Stanwyck fell for a Chinese warlord (although he was played by Swedish actor Nils Asther). Yes, that passed for scandal then. It also passed for "art," as did 1937's paradise picture Lost Horizon (Dec. 14 at 9:30 p.m. ET, TCM).

But we're into Capra's grittier side (grit being a relative term, since he wasn't at Warner Bros.), and that's revealed in his earliest sound films. Overnight on Dec. 14, TCM has two airborne love-and-action adventures, 1931's Dirigible and 1929's Flight (midnight and 1:45 a.m. ET), plus two overtly topical titles -- 1929's part-talkie of Jewish identity, The Younger Generation, and 1933's Depression banking tale American Madness (3:45 and 5:15 a.m. ET). In its view of "mad" financial risk-taking, it's unfortunately relevant today, too.

Politics is obviously Capra's point Dec. 21, when TCM lines up State of the Union, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and Meet John Doe, which tackle government, corruption, "the common man" and leadership values. The classic Mr. Smith may be known for Jimmy Stewart's golly-shucks sincerity and emotional arc, but Capra was saying something sharp with the suds. (And any movie with Jean Arthur has juice.)

As always, TCM's fine web site adds historical essays on Frank Capra and each of his featured films. It's another example of the way this channel doesn't merely present its programming, but appreciates and honors it.

By the way, the TV rights to It's a Wonderful Life belong to NBC. Its annual holiday broadcasts come this Saturday (Dec. 12) and Christmas Eve (Dec. 24), both at 8 p.m. ET.

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FLICK PICKS: Bogart, Capra, Christmas and more

December 1, 2009 12:04 PM

Have yourself a merry little Christmas, some Capra-corn, bunches of Bogart, and an elementary marathon of Sherlock Holmes. December's highlights on Turner Classic Movies also include a Thin Man sixpack and the 70th anniversary of Gone With the Wind.

Bogart gets things going Wednesday night with the first of five weekly round-the-clock tributes that total 64 movies for his 110th birthday marathon. The titles span Bogie's bit parts in the early 1930s to '40s stardom to his 1950s valedictories, and TCM isn't saving the best for last -- it's all over the place. Dec. 2's prime-time lineup includes The Petrified Forest (Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET) and Dead End (9:30 p.m. ET), with overnight goodies like the Cagney-Bogart gem Angels With Dirty Faces (1:30 a.m. ET) and 1988's first-person tribute Bacall on Bogart (3:30 a.m. ET, all on TCM). Dec. 9 includes '30s tough guys James Cagney and Bogart teamed in the unlikely western The Oklahoma Kid (Cagney sings!), and Dec. 16 pretty much runs the table of Bogie essentials: The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and The African Queen.

This year's TCM Christmas -- Thursday nights all through December -- mixes some familiar titles (Reginald Owen's 1938 A Christmas Carol, Dec. 3 at 8 p.m. ET) with more obscure finds (1947's homeless-to-penthouse heartwarmer It Happened on 5th Avenue, Dec. 10 at 8 p.m. ET, both on TCM). Also look for a yule bonus this Sunday afternoon with the Barbara Stanwyck double feature of Christmas in Connecticut and Remember the Night (Dec. 6 at noon and 2 p.m. ET, TCM).

Frank Capra's director of the month salute on Mondays starts Dec. 7 with an all-night all-star slam-dunk -- Clark Gable in It Happened One NIght (8 p.m. ET), Gary Cooper in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (10 p.m. ET), James Stewart in You Can't Take It With You (12 midnight ET), and Cary Grant in Arsenic and Old Lace (2:15 a.m. ET, all on TCM).

TCM celebrates the 70th anniversary of the Atlanta premiere of Gone With the Wind Dec. 15 by screening the four-hour epic followed by the 1988 documentary The Making of a Legend.

A dozen of the classic 1940s Sherlock Holmes films of Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce highlight the 17 Holmes titles celebrating Christmas Dec. 25-26. But we'll also get Billy Wilder's 1970 The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, among other alternatives.

And capping this completely classic month -- all six of the delightful mysteries pairing William Powell and Myrna Loy as married sleuths Nick and Nora Charles, as introduced by 1934's effervescent The Thin Man. The entire 1934-1947 series runs in release order starting at 8 p.m. ET New Year's Eve.

We'll keep track of other treats through the month. But in the meantime, consult tcm.com for details of the other franchises -- foreign faves, silent movies, underground classics -- with which commercial-free TCM continues to keep classic film buffs satisfied.

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