The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet - The Girl the Emporium (1960)
Nice little holiday adjacent episode of the classic sitcom.
Shirley Temple Babes in Toyland (1960)
A terrific cast lead a fun adaptation of Victor Herbert's Holiday favorite.
Pinocchio’s Christmas (1989)
Good looking Rankin Bass joint that I haven’t seen in ages. The songs are generally lackluster and the story doesn’t do much for me, in fact it’s pretty off putting, but it is very well made.
The King of Queens - Better Camera (2000)
Pretty good and it’s got Lou Ferrigno, so that’s nice..
To Grandmother’s House We Go (1992)
Vintage Olsen Twins vehicle that wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. It’s better than a lot of the new stuff airing these days, but it’s still fairly dire. My kids might have tolerated it when they were that age.
Victorian Farm Christmas Special (2009)
Terrific short series following cast members of the original Victorian Farm as they spend months preparing to recreate a Victorian Christmas.
A Christmas Carol (1910)
Tremendous adaptation, for 1910. A mere curiosity in 2020.
A Christmas Carol (1982)
Aussie animated version. Not great but not terrible.
A Christmas Carol (2012)
Overly ambitious, under funded adaptation unable to rise above its limitations. There are too many good adaptations o waste time with bad ones.
A Scooby-Doo Christmas (2002)
The gang takes on The Headless Snowman of Winter Hollow! Not great but even middling quality Scooby Doo is good enough for me.
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1948)
Made by Max Fleischer for Montgomery Ward and an early staple of holiday season TV this short has been relegated to bargain bin public domain collections and low-quality YouTube copies for a while now. Still, it’s one of the best early Christmas cartoons a and a good remastered copy of the original, pre popular song, version is a delight to behold.
Gumby - "Sad King Ott's Daughter" "Santa-Witch" "Scrooge Loose" (1960)
"Sad King Ott's Daughter" A dopey prince sets off to find a partridge in a pear tree to give his love but ends up with a pigeon in a plum tree.An elf saves the day.
"Santa-Witch" Pokey calls in his friend the witch to drive Santa’s sleigh when jolly fatso gets sick.
“Scrooge Loose” opens with Scrooge trying to kill Gumby and Pokey with a bulldozer before heading off to get Santa. I kid you not. Gumby and Pokey, as Sherlock Holes and Watson, go after him. There’s also a, possibly, unintentional dick joke. Merry Christmas!
The Christmas Elves (1995)
Some effort must have gone into this but it’s still pretty bad.
Magic Gift of the Snowman (1995)
Another stinker.
Brer Rabbits Christmas Carol (1992)
The cavalcade of crappy Christmas cartoon continues.
Scoot & Kassie's Christmas Adventure (2013)
Below mediocre family drama with kids a dog and the late Luke Perry.
An Irish Christmas : A Musical Celebration (1988)
A lovely collection of carols and brief spoken word pieces from Dublin in the year of its millennium.
ITV’s A Christmas Cracker (2014)
All star Christmas variety show hosted by Bradley Walsh. Highlights include, Katherine Jenkins attempting to sing a duet with Kermit the Frog, Aled Jones revisiting his big hit, a very surprising quiz question and a performance by the cast of the musical “White Christmas”
Lowlights include pop band The Vamps and some unnecessarily obnoxious standup
Capital Floyd Christmas / New Years (2000)
Solid instructional cooking programs from one of my favorite Brit-chefs.
Great British Christmas Menu (2020)
Surprisingly dull, poorly edited, and lackluster competition series that sees previous Great British Menu competitors try to outdo each other preparing dishes to be served at a banquet for Covid heroes. I often criticize Food Network here in the States, while championing British cookery shows, but FN has done a much better job, production-wise, with their Covid era competitions. I gave up on this one.
