Your Favorite Christmas Movies and TV Episodes?

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Luther's nephew Dobie
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Re: Your Favorite Christmas Movies and TV Episodes?

#11 Post by Luther's nephew Dobie »

marlboro wrote:
Luther's nephew Dobie wrote: 1) Run For Your Life - Time and a Half on Christmas Eve
Every Christmas special should have an extended go-go dancer scene.
Marlboro,
Hey, if a run down joint on Christmas Eve was good enough for George Bailey in It's a Wonderful Life it's good enough for Ben Gazzara and Ernie Borgnine.
Actually there's more truth about the human condition and grace or the lack of same in this gritty story of a poor slob cab driver(think a Marty gone to seed if Clara had left him and he lost the butcher shop) than in your typical Christmas episode. There's a lot going on here, such as, is the series star Paul, a highly intelligent attorney bemused by his driver, really any better off than Borgnine's shabby cabby when both wind up alone in a 3rd rate joint, with no loved ones in their lives?
Not forgetting of course Paul has only one year to live, but what choices did he make with that deadline in mind that none the less found him in such circumstances?
A scene near the very end suggests that while they both drew the same seemingly doomed hand, Paul is still in the game and hoping to improve his in the draw while
the cabby is just going to fold.
In the last few years this episode has caught on with many tv bloggers/historians and has garnered a lot of interest generally. Well worth catching.
Last edited by Luther's nephew Dobie on Thu Apr 16, 2020 2:05 am, edited 2 times in total.

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MagnumsLeftShoulder
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Re: Your Favorite Christmas Movies and TV Episodes?

#12 Post by MagnumsLeftShoulder »

Is that Garfield movie the one with the old lady and the letters? God, I haven't thought of that in 30 years.

Yes the old lady is Jon's grandma
That Linda Hamilton movie looks interesting. I may give that one a shot
You should. I guess there's even a Magnum connection. The real life little boy(Fritz) grew up to run a bakery in Honolulu!
In the pilot episode of Little House there is a portion that takes place on Christmas. The kids receive very small presents like a tin cup and a single candy cane or something.
I don't remember the episode, but that's straight out of Wilder's books.

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Mrs. Higgins
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Re: Your Favorite Christmas Movies and TV Episodes?

#13 Post by Mrs. Higgins »

One of my all time favorites...A Year Without a Santa Claus (1974) featuring Magnum's own Buzz Benoit (Dick Shawn) as the Snow Mixer.

https://youtu.be/_SGlPnA_iCk
I'm a Boxley Girl....

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Steve
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Re: Your Favorite Christmas Movies and TV Episodes?

#14 Post by Steve »

Hard to keep a list like this short...

Movies;
A Christmas Story
It's a Wonderful Life
Christmas Vacation

Ron Howard's How The Grinch Stole Christmas
and..
The Polar Express...In I-Max and 3-D as when it first was released, amazing!

TV.
It doesn't get much better than the Twilight Zone episode with Art Carney..

The Night of The Meek

If you see it is going to be on, watch it and see some of the best writing and acting in the history of television...

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Re: Your Favorite Christmas Movies and TV Episodes?

#15 Post by marlboro »

Anybody remember A Claymation Christmas Celebration [1987]?

It was made by Will Vinton, the guy who did the California raisins stuff and that claymation mark Twain movie.


It's on Dailymotion:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3dwrqo


I like the We Three Kings portion for some reason.

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Re: Your Favorite Christmas Movies and TV Episodes?

#16 Post by ConchRepublican »

My list is fairly short, and offbeat . . .

- Die Hard
- Year Without a Santa Claus
- The Sound of Music (that's a Christmas movie for me)
- Lethal Weapon
- The Ref
- Operation: Silent Night
- Mad About You - Met Someone
- Scrubs - My Own Personal Jesus
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Amends
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CoziTV Superfan spot
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPTmsykLQ04

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Re: Your Favorite Christmas Movies and TV Episodes?

#17 Post by eagle »

ConchRepublican wrote:My list is fairly short, and offbeat . . .

- Die Hard
- Year Without a Santa Claus
- The Sound of Music (that's a Christmas movie for me)
- Lethal Weapon
- The Ref
- Operation: Silent Night
- Mad About You - Met Someone
- Scrubs - My Own Personal Jesus
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Amends
-
I love both the Die Hard series and the Lethal Weapon series. I agree that LW1 works great as a Christmas movie.

And, I'm a Mad About You fan too -- I should add that ep to my annual viewing.

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Re: Your Favorite Christmas Movies and TV Episodes?

#18 Post by Mad Kudu Buck »

I ended up watching:

Three's Company: Three's Christmas (1977)
Scrooge (1951)
Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964)
WKRP: Bah Humbug (1980)
Starman: The Gift (1986)

Surprisingly, I didn't see any Magnum. Oh well, there's always next year.

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Re: Your Favorite Christmas Movies and TV Episodes?

#19 Post by marlboro »

Mad Kudu Buck wrote: WKRP: Bah Humbug (1980)
.

"As God is my witness, I thought reindeer could fly."

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Re: Your Favorite Christmas Movies and TV Episodes?

#20 Post by MagnumsLeftShoulder »

I was watching a Christmas themed Honeymooners sketch called "Santa and the Bookies" on Amazon Prime and guess who shows up? Elisha Cook as one of the bookies! I swear he was in EVERYTHING!

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Re: Your Favorite Christmas Movies and TV Episodes?

#21 Post by Mad Kudu Buck »

This year I watched "A Christmas Carol (1951)", "WKRP: Bah, Humbug", and the perennial Christmas favourite, "Aliens (1986)" - a heartwarming tale of a family of aliens who eat a bunch of colonists and learn the true meaning of Christmas: nuclear annihilation.

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Re: Your Favorite Christmas Movies and TV Episodes?

#22 Post by eagle »

Mad Kudu Buck wrote:This year I watched "A Christmas Carol (1951)"
I watched that this year too, for the first time. It was pretty creepy, but the original story is a little creepy and strange. (I read the book for the first time last year.) Even so, I thought it was a good version of the story.

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Re: Your Favorite Christmas Movies and TV Episodes?

#23 Post by Luther's nephew Dobie »

MagnumsLeftShoulder wrote:I was watching a Christmas themed Honeymooners sketch called "Santa and the Bookies" on Amazon Prime and guess who shows up? Elisha Cook as one of the bookies! I swear he was in EVERYTHING!
Hi MagnumsLeftShoulder,
I don't recall seeing that one. Is it one of those "75 Lost Episodes" that Gleason culled from Honeymooner skits on his 1950's variety show?
By the way, do you or anyone else here have favorite New Years Eve set episodes? For the life of me I can't think of any other than "Blackadder: Back and Forth".
You would think it would be a natural setting for a drama, with characters reflecting back on the past year.
Around the year end holidays I try to watch the New Years set "The Horn Blows at Midnight"(1945) starring Jack Benny and WC Fields immortal "The Bank Dick"(1940).
The great comic character actor Franklin Pangborn appeared in both.
When I was a kid channel 5 in NYC would run the Benny flick at 2 AM on New Years Day. My brothers and I would sneak down to watch it and raid the fridge after our parents went to sleep. Though I was always assigned by my older brother Greg to "lay chickie" halfway up the stairs on the landing, in order to keep a sharp eye out in case our
father woke up.
I guess watching it yearly is sort of like having a permanent touchstone to a earlier time, with the family and friends you had then. Which probably applies to many of the movies/TV shows you other posters have listed on this thread.

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Re: Your Favorite Christmas Movies and TV Episodes?

#24 Post by eagle »

My wife and I watch “Indiscreet,” starring Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman, every New Years.

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Re: Your Favorite Christmas Movies and TV Episodes?

#25 Post by terryfromkerry »

Hi guys,
My wife and I watch National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation every Christmas eve. This practise dates back to when our two sons were kids. So it brings back some nice memories. Now we watch with a few Christmas beers. Typically we giggle and guffaw right through the movie. I generally fall off the couch when Cousin Eddie in anticipation of the carving of the turkey says ..... " Save the neck for me Clarke". :lol:

This year I persuaded my wife to also watch "Operation: Silent Night" . Though chock full of great moments of comedy. My favourite scene is where Higgins remarks to T.C. "You called me Jonathan" and they walk out of frame together with T.C.'s arm around the shoulder of Higgins. One of the most touching moments in the whole series in my view.
"Oh Jonathan !....oh Jonathan, come quickly ...... your hot cross buns are smoking".

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