TV Specials 4 - 3

Let's get right down to business.

TV Special #4:  A Garfield Christmas


This one ties Will Vinton's Claymation Christmas as the youngest of the Christmas special offerings on this list, which should go a long way toward confirming that I am in my mid twenties and uninterested in anything that came out in the last 15 years (Maybe there are good Christmas specials that came out in the last 15 years, we don't know.  Frankly, we don't want to know.  It's a market we can do without).

I can't even explain how much I enjoy A Garfield Christmas.  Garfield and Odie, Jon and Doc Boy (don't call me Doc Boy), Grandma.  The songs are plentiful and absolutely perfect.  From the very beginning this special is great.  Remember Garfield's dream sequence of the perfect Christmas, followed by the Gimme, Gimme, Gimme, Gimme song?



"No time for small talk Garfield, it's Christmas morning, and you know what that means."
"Of course I do, Christmas means presents.  Lots and lots of presents."

After Can't Wait Til Christmas, the family sits down for dinner.  Next comes the trimming of the tree.  Garfield is tasked with putting the star on the top of the tree.  If this were anything but a cartoon disaster would follow.  Cats and Christmas trees do not mix--as we found out once when allowing my parents to cat sit our house's cat while we went to Chicago for New Years.



After singing songs and reading the boy's favorite Christmas story, we get one of my favorite moments of the special:  when Odie goes out to the barn to put together Garfield's present as Lou Rawl's You Can Never Find an Elf when you Need One, plays in the background.

I won't spoil the rest--in the hopes that you will watch the rest of the special for yourself.  Here is part three.  Enjoy.



TV Special #3: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer


The sixty minute Rankin/Bass Christmas special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer just happens to be the oldest special on the list, but it certainly hasn't gone out of style over the last forty-six years.  It is currently the longest running Christmas special on TV, and its popularity is evident in just how well everyone knows the story, from the Abominable Snow Monster, to Yukon Cornelius, to the Island of Misfit Toys.

Instead of writing extensively about this special, I am just going to embed the whole thing from YouTube--mostly so I can watch it myself.











(Unfortunately, the person who uploaded these to YouTube left off the last couple minutes.)