For some reason, the one Christmas TV special that I think of first every year is "Twas the Night Before Christmas". It's certainly not one of the more famous ones, but something about it made a strong impression on me as a kid. Maybe it was the fact that the Santa Claus in it had a beard, but no moustache, which I found really strange. Maybe it was because Santa is offended by a newspaper editorial that says people don't believe in him anymore, so he decides to cancel Christmas. First of all, I can believe that Santa delivers presents to every boy and girl in the world in one night - but where does he find the time to monitor every local newspaper? Maybe he has a team of elves working on it like the government people who would read everyone's mail during World War 2. And second of all, why would he be so convinced that one guy in some podunk town speaks for the entire world? Usually if Santa's going to cancel Christmas it's because of a big storm or a lack of presents or problems with the sled, not because he's being a whiny bitch. Well now I guess I can see why I remember it so well - I clearly gave it a lot of thought.
Anyway, the story is about a clockmaker who wants to make the town clock sing some song begging Santa to come back, but he can't make it work? Or he gets fired? Something like that. I know they're poor. Anyway, there is a friendly mouse family who lives in his house and they help him make it work at the end. Santa shows up and the titular poem is read, and it's a Merry Christmas to All and to All a Good Night. Like most Christmas specials it has a bunch of songs, and this catchy little ditty is one of my favorites from it.
There's nothing quite as great as a Christmas song that also rocks. Billy Squier was an early 80's rocker who never quite made it to legendary status (although my mother still thinks he was a "total hottie"). You might know him as the guy who sang "The Stroke", but I'll always remember him as the singer of one of my favorite Christmas songs. This video was filmed at MTV studios in 1981, a time when the "M" actually stood for something, and features the employees of the young network singing backup. Lord knows if this were done today the chorus would be filled with pregnant white trash 16 year olds and orange-skinned guidos.
Scrooged is one of my all-time favorite Christmas movies, because why wouldn't it be? It stars a pre-"I play a sad old man in everything" Bill Murray and has David "Buster Poindexter" Johansen as the Ghost of Christmas Past, Carol Kane as a gratuitously violent Ghost of Christmas Present, not to mention it was the last time Karen Allen was cute. Oh and did I mention Bobcat Goldthwait? It was co-written by Michael O'Donoghue, one of the original SNL writers who was famous for his extremely dark sense of humor, but he later disowned it and claimed there was too much meddling by the studio. He especially hated the ending, which he claims he was forced to change from one which was much more depressing. But I say screw Michael O'Donoghue - Bill Murray's speech about Christmas gets me every goddamn time. Legend has it that it was mostly improvised, and if so it's just another testament to Murray's genius. I think it's a perfect way to kick off this collection, so enjoy!
