a very special christmas special: “Alf’s Special Christmas” (1987)

It’s that time of year again, when we gather round the electronic hearth and listen to tales, both old and new, that remind us at once of the coming of the new year and the passage of time, as well as what is was to once be young.  A TV christmas special, at its finest, is at once poignant and invigorating; funny and thoughtful, spectacular, but with the humblest of intentions.  At their best, they define for their audience what Christmas truly means in the broadcast media age.

Alf’s Special Christmas… is not that.

Look, here’s the thing:  I’ve gotten more random comments about my write-up of Andy Williams and the NBC Kids Search For Santa Claus than I ever would have expected.  I seem to have lit a fire in the minds of America’s 30-somethings, all now reminded of this truly bizarre combination of homespun warmth and Hollywood shamelessness.  Now, everyone wants a copy of it, and it’s nowhere to be found.  Call it Andy978 and the Grown-Ups Who Used To Sort Of Wish They Were NBC Kids Search For Andy Williams and the NBC Kids Search For Santa Claus. On second thought, don’t call it that.  That’s a crappy title.

So, when I found yet another obscure NBC Christmas special on Hulu last week, I thought the stars were aligning.  I thought the Christmas Gods were smilin’ down on ol’ Andy.  There it was – Alf’s Special Christmas – starring good old Alf.   Always good for a laugh, that Alf.  I’d never seen the thing myself, but maybe – just maybe – someone out there had fond memories of it.  Even better, it was on Hulu.  It was on the internet legally.  Meaning: it wasn’t going to mysteriously disappear in a week after NBC/Universal discovered we were having fun with it.

“Hark!” I said.  “Here is where our Christmas season truly begins!  We shall watch this Alf’s Special Christmas, and yea verily, we shall make fun of it, and lo, our snark shalt bring us together in great joy.”  And so, with pen in hand, ready to
take notes, I pushed play.

omg fanvids lolz ^_^: Torchwood, “Friends” style

Yep.

Lauryn, I believe the words you are looking for are: “This is so very wrong, and yet, so very right.”

niiice!: Reading Rainbow on the set of Star Trek: The Next Generation (1989)

This episode’s book was something called The Bionic Bunny Show, though the YouTuber here cut that part out in order to focus on the real meat of the day: ruining Andy’s childhood fantasies.

Ha ha, no, I’m just kidding, of course, I never thought Star Trek: The Next Generation was real, per say.  Really, I didn’t.   When I learned that the transporter was actually a camera trick mixed with a shot of glitter in a glass of water, I was fine.  I was.  Fine.

But, seriously, though: this was a pretty awesome thing to see as a kid.  It was the making of Star Trek: The Next Generation.  It was how they put together a TV show, with full behind the scenes access provided by our friend Levar Burton, who just happened to be on both shows.   Even non-Trekkies remember this one (at least the transporter glitter thing).  For slightly nerdier children, it was nerdvana.

Here’s part two, where we learn that the crappy containment device from that crappy episode “Home Soil” was actually about two feet tall and made of stuff Rob Legato had left over after building his model planes.  Also, the real Enterprise is like six feet long.  Sorry about that.

Stay tuned for exclusive bloopers near the end.  There is a TNG blooper reel, from the beginning of Season One, where you can actually hear Levar Burton saying the “S” word! You might like that as well, but you don’t have to take my word for it!

(da-dum-DUM!)

we are coming

Watch Torchwood: Children of Earth when it rolls around on BBC America next week.   Just watch it.  I don’t care if you’ve never seen Torchwood, or if you don’t like science fiction, or if you don’t get BBC America, or if you don’t own a television, or if you don’t have eyeballs.  Find some eyeballs and watch it.   Best piece of serialized science fiction television ever.  Ever.

“But, Andy, Battlestar Gal-“

“EVER!”

(do not question me, for I am GEEKUSA.)

What’s it about?  Well, without spoiling anything, it’s about this: one fine day, every child on the planet stopped and said, in unison, “WE ARE COMING.”  Turns out the “we” is an alien species who’s using the kids as a megaphone to announce their arrival.  The aliens do not have the best of intentions.  Neither, in fact, does the British government.   Things go very quickly from Independence Day to V for Vendetta. And that’s all I’m going to tell you.

Star Trek is the best movie ever made.

It’s so nice when something you’ve been waiting for with baited breath, shaking with anticipation, getting sucked in by hype and promises of the next big thing in cinema, actually turns out to be good. No, not good: superb. Superb is a word I have never used before in my entire life, and I’m using it now to describe Star Trek. This was popcorn entertainment of the highest caliber. It was the most enjoyable film I’ve seen in years.

Spoilers and nerdiness ahead.

from Broadsheet (and Jimmy Kimmel): Portia de Rossi says she’s sorry

Portia de Rossi recorded a PSA “apologizing” for getting married to Ellen DeGeneres the other night on Jimmy Kimmel.  It’s important that we watch, and think about what hath been wraught.

onetwothreefourfive…: Five Shows That Got Cancelled Too Soon

What is this, now?

Okay.  This is where I pick five things that have something in common, and write about them.

Oh, like a top five? Whatever, Rob from High Fidelity.

I am nothing…. NOTHING like Rob from High Fidelity.  Go away, please.   Anyway, it’s not a top five.  It’s five… things.

Ok, like Chris at  Geek Force Five does?

No.  Totally different.  Chris takes five things in pop culture that interest him and writes about them at great length and in great depth over the course of a specific period of time.  This is just five things that have something in common.

You’re intellectually lazy, you know that, right?

Yes. Yes, I know.

Anyway, let’s talk about television!

NOWHERE MAN

(UPN)

1995-1996

About: Photojournalist Thomas Veil, played by Bruce Greenwood, who discovers that his identity has been completely erased.  Does it have something to do with a controversial photo he took, of four men being executed in the jungle?  Is it a big government conspiracy, or is it something stranger and deeper?  How have they managed to get to everyone in this man’s life, including his wife and friends?  And what if the photo itself – and Mr. Veil himself – were part of the conspiracy from the beginning?

Hell should I know?  They canceled the thing before we could find out.

Goran Visnjic, however, offers his sweatsocks

If you’re a fan of ER, which I haven’t been for about ten years, then you know that tonight, George Clooney, Eriq LaSalle, and Juliana Marguiles are all returning to the show.  I say good for them – it’s important to remember where you came from, and to pay your respects to the place that made one-third of you a star.

What you may not know is that PETA wants to make George Clooney flavored tofu.  I would give anything – anything - to be making this up.  See, apparently, they got hold of Clooney’s gym towel, and are able to synthesize a “Clooney flavor” in the same way that artificial chicken flavoring is made.   Now, if I had the power to do this… I still wouldn’t.  But if I was the sort of person who was in the position to make Clooney-fu, and actually wanted to, I’d do it with the most reasonable of motives by which one would ever produce tofu out of Dr. Doug; namely, because it’d be funny.

However, PETA says they’re doing this in order to spare the life of a poor innocent animal from having to suffer the horrendous fate of being eaten, because PETA never has fun reasons for doing anything.   Their hopes are that some pig, or cow, or chicken will be able to live another day happily wallowing in their own poop, knowing that, come suppertime, the American people will be tucking in to bean curd garnished with George Clooney’s gym sweat.

Oh, PETA.

PETA’s in the same category as community theater productions of The Laramie Project and late 90s, Ticketmaster-is-bad era Pearl Jam.  By which I mean: I get what you’re trying to do.  Heck, I even support what you’re trying to do.  But sometimes, you really need to just stop.

Mr. Clooney, for his part, has put the kibbosh on the whole scheme, and good for him.  Clooney tofu won’t discourage people from eating meat.  It would probably be expensive, for a start, it smacks of cannibalism, and at the end of the day, it’s still tofu.  Tofu only tastes good when you pour lots of soy sauce on it, which deadens the palate and prevents one from truly savoring the subtle notes of George.

But that’s the thing about PETA – they have the best of intentions, but their actions sometimes make me question their ultimate views.  Did they think this was a good idea because it’s a publicity stunt, or because, by using Mr. Clooney’s sweat without his permission, it draws attention to the circumstances animals are sometimes placed in without their consent?  Or did they do it because they see no difference between a human life and a chicken?  I’m worried that it’s the latter.

For the record, I rarely eat beef or pork – most of my protein actually comes from peanuts, eggs,  or fish.   I never eat veal or rabbit.  I eat chicken, but chickens are stupid.  I don’t know why that makes things better, but I feel much guiltier about eating an animal that has some capacity for reason and emotion, which is why I rarely eat pig products.   Chickens, on the other hand, are so independent of their brains that… well, you ever heard the expression “running around like chickens with their heads cut off?”  Like most cliches, it is firmly based in reality.   I detest animal testing, or any other form of cruelty to animals.  Greyhound racing disturbs me.   Heck, the Westminster Dog Show disturbs me.   But there is, I believe, a certain hierarchy, and call me cruel, but George Clooney isn’t on it.

a very special christmas special: A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965) (or: Cheer Up, Emo Kid!)

When you think about Christmas specials, you think of A Charlie Brown Christmas.  End of story.  Oh sure, you might think about the Grinch or about Rudolph or even Frosty, and maybe you’re Jewish and you’re thinking about how the Rugrats gang finally threw the chosen people a frickin’ bone a few years back with their Hanukkah special.  A Charlie Brown Christmas, however, is the template.  It’s why every stupid sitcom has a very special holiday episode where someone learns the True Meaning of Christmas.

The True Meaning of Christmas.  That’s a phrase that means nothing, isn’t it?  It’s been dragged out by retailers and hucksters so often that it can now only be said wrapped snugly in quotation marks.   I think this is where it comes from, though.   The aforementioned Rudolph, and especially The Year Without A Santa Claus, are heavilly plot-based affairs.  Usually, Christmas itself is in jeapordy, and its up to a plucky soul to save it.  Why is Christmas so important?  Um, because, you know, the kids will be disappointed if there are no toys.  Oh noes.

The interesting thing about the Peanuts gang, though, is this: even though they’re presented as children, and even though they have some of the concerns children have, they’re not really children.  They’re flawed and selfish, but they’re flawed and selfish in the same way grownups are.  I knew bratty little kids growing up, but I never really met Lucy until, say, college.   You’ll notice you don’t see Charlie Brown pining after particular Christmas gifts here.  The other kids do, but it’s mostly incidental, and it’s in a very grown-up way.  Lucy wants real estate, and Sally wants her present in small bills.

As we begin, Charlie Brown’s practically singing The Mighty Mighty Bosstones’ “Sure Don’t Feel Like Christmas Time” as he walks around through his home town.  That’s one of the all-time great bummer Christmas songs, and I recommend you give it a listen if you’re ever feeling blue around the holidays.   You know what else is a bummer song?  “Christmas Time Is Here” by Vince Guaraldi – which all the kids are singing.  It’s a lovely slow jazz tune, but somehow the children’s choir gives it a certain dirge-like quality.

Charlie Brown and Linus head out to ice skate with the other kids, and Charlie opens up to his bro about how crappy Chrismas makes him feel.  Linus tells him to stop being so damn emo.  Charlie hits a tree while ice skating, and all the snow falls off the tree and buries him alive.  Then, the title appears.  That’s how it starts.  Probably the most beloved and resonant American Christmas story apart from “The Gift Of The Magi,” and it begins with seasonal depression and a potentially fatal avalanche.  MERRY [bleep]ING CHRISTMAS, EVERYBODY!!!!!!!

geekUSA is brought to you by: McDonalds: good time, great taste, and a clown with iiiice skates…

This was made back in 1984, I think, and wound up being played for years. It’s the strangely touching tale of a  little boy who can’t ice skate and feels left out by all the mean older kids and then Ronald McDonald shows up and everyone’s like “Hello, Clown! It’s so normal you’re here, in the woods, with a bunch of kids!” and Ronald shows the little boy how to skate, and the modern viewer is reminded of the really horrible joke with the blood in the clown suit.  Or maybe that’s just me.   Merry Christmas, everybody!

McDonald’s and Christmas are two things that have very little in common, at first glance.  However, if you think about it, it makes sense.  Both are things you loved and looked forward to as a child, and both are things that usually disappoint you and give you indigestion as an adult.   Both things make you fat, and both are things where, when you’re young, you’re really there for the free toys.

Also, sometimes, when you’re young, you find yourself dragged along for Christmas shopping trips with Mom and Pop, and at the end of the day, you wind up there.  Mom and Dad, by this point, have probably spent as much money as they’re willing to spend, and yet are too worn out by the holiday shopping experience to cook anything at home.  So, sometimes, you end up at McDonalds.  It’s a nice reward for behaving yourself when you’re seven, especially if they’re serving eggnog shakes.

Ohhhhh how I miss you, eggnog shakes…

Next up: it’s not a bad tree, it just needs a little encouragement.