It’s Christmas Time Again
I’ve been finishing up preparations for Christmas, and I’m guessing a significant portion of the readers are, too. The Life Day decorations have gone live on Star Wars: The Old Republic, as well as a graphics update that has utterly wrecked what I perceive as a fairly small minority of the user-base, but I don’t know that for sure. I, sadly, have not been able to watch any Christmas movies, yet; although I’ve come across a fair number of rankings of such films on YouTube this year. Specifically, I’ve seen multiple rankings of Rankin Bass Christmas specials (the company that did all the stop-motion films like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer); comparisons of Peanuts specials, both Christmas and other holidays; and several rankings of the various major versions of A Christmas Carol. Oh, and a few talking about the Jean Shepherd universe movies that primarily rotate around the 80’s movie A Christmas Story. I’m gonna add to these and give my own favorite Christmas movies, and maybe some other holidays that I throw in. While I eat a chicken sandwich.
Christmas
While Rankin Bass’ Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer is on my must-watch list every year, none of the other Rankin Bass specials have ever meant that much to me. I remember watching Frosty the Snowman many times, but the animation is quite honestly horrible; and I suspect the fact that it wasn’t stop-motion animated like Rudolph created an inherent distance in my mind. Plus, the songs in Rudolph are just phenomenal. The “worst” are good, and the really good ones are actually Christmas classics. Granted, the most enduring predate the holiday special: “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” of course was published years before by Gene Autry. The WRITER, however, was Johnny Marks, who specialized in Christmas music. He also wrote “A Holly Jolly Christmas,” which debuted two years before it was included in the Christmas special. He also created “Silver and Gold” for Rudolph, as well as writing “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” and “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.” You can actually find some Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer soundtracks that include these other songs.
Rankin Bass made *many* other Christmas specials, some of which I’ve seen. Several were of very high quality…even technically better than the original Rudolph. Very few had compelling stories, in my opinion. Probably the single best-known is Santa Clause is Coming to Town, narrated by a stop-motion Fred Astaire and starring Mickey Rooney. I see the opinion frequently shared that Rooney performed the best Santa Clause for Rankin Bass, which I personally disagree with. Rooney’s scratchy, high-pitched, whispery voice just doesn’t occupy the place I expect my Santa Claus voice to be. Stan Francis’ deep, rumbly intonations from Rudolph do nicely. I think many also like Rankin Bass’ Jack Frost, which is…fine, in my opinion. I prefer Rise of the Guardians, but that one isn’t on the “must-watch” list, either.
A Charlie Brown Christmas is not only a must-watch, it is the one quintessential, can-not-miss Christmas special. The YouTube channel History in the Dark recently published a short documentary on the production of this special; I recommend you look it up. Why this program worked for people is another deep-dive almost as long as the work I did on Labyrinth. In no particular order, I would name
- The use of mostly-inexperienced child voice performers
- A limited cast
- The successful (but not the first, contrary to popular opinion) translation of the comic strip characters to animation
- A story focused more on Charlie Brown’s normal, slice-of-life, fears and failures than on an overarching narrative (I would say this has been successfully done a few times, although even the best examples will not garner universal praise by fans)
- The children’s choir performing several songs, including the voice cast.
- The music. That glorious, Vince Guaraldi Trio music. The version of “Little Drummer Boy” in A Charlie Brown Christmas is still the first tune I think of when I hear the title.
There is a Christian-themed subtext in a few elements. One of Charlie Brown’s gripes is “the commercialization of Christmas,” which is displayed through Snoopy’s entry into a “house lighting” competition (he wins with a largely nonsensical, garishly-lighted, hodge-podge of decorations) and the overwhelming presence of aluminum Christmas trees on the Christmas tree lot. Believe it or not, these were real. They were incredibly popular in the late 1950’s through early 1960’s. It has been speculated that A Charlie Brown Christmas may have been single-handedly responsible for ending the industry, as live trees regained their popularity over the next few years following the airing of the Christmas special. While the program ends with a short Bible reading and a Christian carol, these elements seem only distantly related to the rest of the story. I suspect this influenced hundreds of Christmas stories going forward, where the “birth of Jesus” element always seems tacked on as a “necessity.” At least in the Charlie Brown special, it carries more nostalgia than preachiness.
I usually watch the second Charlie Brown Christmas special as well, although it’s less notable than the original. I’ll also revisit the Halloween and Thanksgiving specials at the same time.
The third must-watch at Christmas is, of course; A Christmas Story. I do not doubt there is an element of nostalgia as well to this film’s popularity, but I’ll point out that my kids enjoy it, too. There are other movies adapted from Jean Shepherd’s stories of varying quality and success, but this is the only one that managed to get just about every element correct in the casting (especially the casting), tone, editing, and sound design.
I promise I’ll look at all the “Ralphie” movies some day. At least a few are actually worth seeing once. Most people know the origins of this movie. Jean Shepherd was a radio DJ starting in the post-WWII years in Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. He began working at WOR in New York in 1955. In ’56, he took over the overnight shift and added humorous stories about his childhood in Hammond, Indiana and slice-of-life pop culture observations. Along with, it must be said, some incredibly absurdist, surreal segments that I suspect were primarily ways for him to relieve boredom doing the long shift. Anyway, these stories became so popular they got adapted into published collections of humor books and a few other products. Some of these stories were adapted into the “narrative” of A Christmas Story. For the record, I have an audio book of the primary printed source “In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash” read by Dick Cavett. I *highly* recommend it. Cavett’s sardonic, wry, smooth telling of the stories provides a level of reflection you don’t get from Shepherd’s own recitations, which frequently come off as tall tales from a liars’ convention. Jean Shepherd’s narration of A Christmas Story (the movie, just to be clear) is probably his most sober performance.
The main plot of the movie is taken almost verbatim from the story “Duel in the Snow; or Red Rider Nails the Cleveland Street Kid.” No surprises lurking about. Left mostly intact was the story about the Little Orphan Annie secret decoder ring. The original story, known as “The Counterfeit Secret Circle Member Gets the Message, or The Asp Strikes Again” leaves out a long segment where Shepherd reminisces on the original Little Orphan Annie radio program. From what I can tell, this show was the “The A*Team” of the 1930’s. If you’ve only seen one of the newer musicals or a stage production based thereof, you will likely be a bit surprised by that. Slightly less-unmolested is the story about the infamous leg lamp, “My Old Man and the Lascivious Special Award That Heralded the Birth of Pop Art.” The preamble of this story, a segment about Shepherd trying to pick up “art chicks” at the Museum of Modern Art, is obviously left out. In written form, it only introduces a reason for Shepherd to recall the entitled story. Even then, the first segment of the actual story is about how newspapers used to have nationwide, multi-week puzzle contests comprised of multiple tiers of difficulty, usually accomplished by becoming increasingly esoteric in nature to the point of, in my view, absolute bullshittery. I vaguely remember the final days of these contests being in the late 1970’s…when I was quite small still I would sit in my father’s lap at night before bed while he read the paper. I absorbed a surprising amount of information, at least in the form of vague impressions. Jean Shepherd relates how his father was a glutton for these contests. All of this makes it into A Christmas Story in the scene where The Old Man, working on a quiz of the “Great Figures in American Literature,” asks what the Lone Ranger’s nephew’s horse’s name was. (It really is “Victor,” by the way. Victor, son of Silver. Really.) All of these contests were, just as with modern word jumbles, crosswords, coupons, comic strips, wanted listings, and everything else that isn’t news; just another way to drive purchases. Obviously the contests were arranged so that the winners were few and rare. And no, Nehi never marketed a leg-lamp in any way. Shepherd created the lamp in his mind based ON a Nehi advertisement…which did use a stocking leg.
References to the bully Scut Farkus appear in several of Jean Shepherd’s childhood stories, often used interchangeably with the bully Grover Dill. For the movie, these two were transformed into a particular dynamic that sets up a scene late in the film. The “fight” was taken from the story “Grover Dill and the Tasmanian Devil.” As you can see, it was Dill rather than Farkus that Ralphie demolished. The setup was completely different and the contents of the story have essentially nothing to do with what was shown in the movie. However, bringing up the bullies connects with the other major story that appears only as a couple of references: “The Grandstand Passion Play of Delbert and the Bumpus Hounds” from Shepherd’s second book Wanda Hickey’s Night of Golden Memories. While this story does indeed end, as the name suggests, in the *Easter* ham being eaten by the neighbors’ unruly pack of dogs, this long story is actually the entire history of the Bumpus’s and their existence as the Parker’s neighbors and Ralphie’s occasional schoolmates. No Bumpus’ are named in connection with their plot points in the movie. BUT…the next time you watch look for the little girl who tattles on Flick’s location (when he licks the flagpole). Her name, as referenced by the teacher, is “Esther Jean,” who actually is one of the named Bumpus children. Although my memory is that she is a few years younger than Ralphie. Most of the Bumpus story is left out, obviously; although one notable part is probably *best* left out. One segment of the Bumpus story is the return of the oldest daughter from “the reformatory.” Cassie Bumpus, described as “the ripest sixteen-year-old Hohman (the fictional version of Hammond, IN) had ever seen” is presented as having an *extremely* casual relationship with her father and brothers, and gets more than one neighborhood father in trouble (including The Old Man) for even talking to her.
Finally; the ultimate “must-watch” Christmas movie on my list: National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.
The third Griswold vacation movie, and the one that allegedly cemented the idea that the “kids” would always be played by different actors; Christmas Vacation presented a surprisingly heartwarming and smart Christmas story. European Vacation had upped the raunchiness and not been as well received as the original Vacation. Christmas Vacation went not only *back* to more family friendly, but actually moved into “barely” PG-13 territory. While Vacation’s instances of “family togetherness” and “love” and “bonding” were all played for laughs; Christmas Vacation embraced multiple scenes of pure sentimentality and warmth. There’s even some legitimate morality in a few places. Clarke’s penny-pinching boss being kidnapped by idiot cousin Eddy obviously rhymes
{drink} with Vacation‘s hostage-taking situation with Roy Wally; you also have the encounter between Clarke and his father. Echoing Ellen, his father points out that he knows how hard Clarke worked, but that Clarke tends to build things up in his mind until no one and nothing could meet his expectations. This is one of several humanizing moments that keep Clarke Griswold from becoming a cartoon character. This one thing, incidentally, is why no movie starring the character of Cousin Eddy could *ever* work, regardless of the writing or production, unless they made him a completely different character. Because Eddy, even at his most real, and he *does* ride the line in this movie, is fundamentally a cartoon character.
National Lampoon’s Vacation works because most of the encounters are absurd, but played *almost* straight with frequent winks at the audience. Christmas Vacation is, arguably, less absurd in nature, although many scenes take on absurd premises. But despite the two films only being created six years apart, Christmas Vacation felt, and *still* feels like a product from a different era. Or vice-versa, whichever way you want to look at it. Why that is I’m not going to get into, but the point is, absurd things in Christmas Vacation don’t feel nearly as absurd. They’re absolutely normal things just turned up to 11; whereas National Lampoon’s Vacation felt like it was playing by different rules.
I will think on a full essay on National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. Maybe. I can see potential. But in summary, I’ll steal a line from B. Dylan Hollis: “It’s the taste of Christmas. And that’s fine by me.”
See you next week! Hope you’re having a good time preparing for Christmas!
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