Christmas Specials

'Tis the season, yadda, yadda, yadda.

What are your favorite TV Christmas specials and which ones make your annual rotation?

There's so many to list, but here's the absolute always watch...


- Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer. The musical numbers are cute, and sometimes it's fun pointing out some of the goofy sequences with the puppets/dolls/whatever.


- Yogi's 1st Christmas. Soooooo Hanna-Barbera campy cartoon goodness. Yogi is hibernating with BooBoo, gets startled by drums, and tries to save a vacation lodge from being shut-down because they can only muster 5 guests for the Christmas festival... and yes, all of them are H-B mainstays (Huckleberry Hound, Snagglepuss, etc. etc.).


- It's a Wonderful Life. Do feature-length films count? I'll say so. It has moments where it kind of drags, but it's very touching and easy to associate with for anyone who feels like their life is meaningless and no one would care if they had never been born. I still weep like a girl at the end.


- The Muppet Christmas Carol - I love Muppets, I love the story of A Christmas Carol, and combining them = awesome. It might come as a surprise that it wasn't dumbed down for children, but not too deep to only be for older audiences, either, and some pretty good musical sequences, as well. I know I sound like a wuss, but when a fucking FROG can make you cry, there's some damn power in that character.



I try to catch The Grinch (animated, not the sucky toilet bowl of a movie), Frosty the Snowman, and a few of the other "classics." There's also nice charm in the Pee-Wee's Playhouse Christmas Special, too. So many guest stars, so little time.

I'll let you keep the full-length feature.

Some of my favorite specials include:


Futurama - Xmas Story and A Tale of Two Santas

Community - Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas

Jack Benny - Christmas Special

Abbot & Costello - Radio Special, maybe that one doesn't count

Simpson's - Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire, the first The Simpsons Christmas Special

Beavis & Butt-Head - Christmas Special

Animaniacs - Christmas Special

Muppet Christmas Carol

The Beavis and Butt-Head special was pretty awesome, now that you mention it.

Another tv series episode I would like to throw in the ring is the King of the Hill episode where they deal with Bill's increasingly more depressed/suicidal attitude before snapping and dressing up as his own wife.

I have the VHS copy of it. It has the Christmas music videos, unlike the DVD. I'd like to get the DVD copy of it, but I do like the music videos.

I have the VHS copy of it. It has the Christmas music videos, unlike the DVD. I'd like to get the DVD copy of it, but I do like the music videos.

Is this the first B&B XMas special? "Ho Ho Huh" from 1993. Where they keep flipping back to the Yule Log/Fireplace image and saying "... log... Huh huh".

Both where good. They had the later version with an actual Xmas story/cartoon, circa 1995. Beavis meeting the Ghost of Christmas Future (Buzzcut) and seeing his own tombstone is one of my favorite scenes in the entire franchise. "B...E...VIS... whoa, this guy has the same name as me!! He nev-errrr... scored. Heh. What a loser."

My two favorites:
-Justice League (animated)- "Comfort and Joy"
Haven't watched it the past two years, so I'm curious if I'll still like it as I've really soured on DC Comics since then.

-Emmett Otter's Jugband Christmas
Former HBO special that run until the early 90's.

- I liked The Office episode "A Benihana Christmas" (from Season...3?), but I'm curious if it's worth seeing again. The Office's brand of humor has lost its novelty in the past two years or so. I don't want to get into a "Jump the Shark" debate, as I still like the show. I think we've just gotten used to it.

-Watched "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" last week. It was much worse than I remembered. An attempt at an "Origin of Santa" is a neat concept, as is fighting (basically) the German Empire.

-Little tidbit about the Greatest Sitcom in History having its own Xmas episode:

As far as old sitcoms, All in the Family had a pretty good X-mas episode about the friend of Mike and Gloria being a draft dodger coming from Canada for the holidays, and Archie had coincidentally invited a friend who lost a son in the Vietnam war for dinner, as well. They had other X-mas related episodes, but that one stood out as the best of them from that series.

The Christmas episode from the first season of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

Mickey's Christmas Carol.

A Muppet Family Christmas.

I wanted to find some "Hee-Haw" Christmas clips, but I'm coming up empty.

Then it hit me: most folks who done watched Hee-Haw didn't have no fancy-dan VTR recorda-ma-vice back in the day and don't how to use the Internets today. *rimshot* Hey-ohhh! Thank you, I'll be here all week!

If you put Hee Haw up I'll kill you. One to guys I take care of at work ha the Hee Hae DVD set, and I have to watch it nearly every day. I absolutely HATE that show now

"Best" and "Hee-Haw" go together like ice cream and horse manure (tm, Bobby Heenan). I was trying to find some Junior Samples stuff that tied into Christmas, vaguely, just to piss everyone off. Be glad that such a thing isn't out there.

I can't believe I forgot the Muppet Family Christmas. It's been so long since I've seen it in good quality, I might as well have said "Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol" in terms of rememberance.

Christmas just isn't the same anymore. We don't have the great Christmas special tradition to look forward to.

The heyday for Christmas had to be the 60's. Every year we looked forward to the Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Perry Como, Andy Williams and other specials. Beautiful Christmas sets with huge decorated trees. Lots of the eras pop stars and athletes guested on these specials.

They continued into the 70's with new star hosts like John Denver, Sonny & Cher, and Captain & Tennille.

I keep hoping they'll make a come back. Those shows were a big part of my Christmas season.

I watched some clips from the "Colbert Christmas Special". It does make me think of the Christmas specials of the '50s and '60s. I was watching some clips of 1956 Judy Garland Show Christmas Special and the of the show is about the same. Just to note, Liza Manelli was rather pretty in her younger years.

I went to my Mom's and we watched "Rudolph", "A Garfield Christmas" and "Sesame Street Christmas." The Garfield and Sesame Street specials were better than I remember them being.

We held a great party in a big marquee that was decorated with beautiful lighting. We had also some dancers who entertain us with dance. It was really great fun for every age of person, minimum i enjoyed it a lot.