This is the time of year when the TV machine features movies and specials for the season. What with cable and on-demand streaming services though, the broadcast networks don’t program the way they used to. Thanks to VHS tapes (old school) and DVDs, it is possible to see them regardless of what you subscribe to or what kind of connections you have.
So, what particular favorites do you like to watch this time of year? The Chuck Jones animation of the Grinch is a classic. Alistair Sims and “A Christmas Carol” is another, along with “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Do you like them in the original B&W, or have you found a restored/colorized version that strikes your fancy? Do you have an alternate version of “A Christmas Carol” that you prefer?
Tonight I watched one I can’t recall ever seeing all the way through: “A Muppet Family Christmas”. It has a fairly simple plot: Fozzie Bear invites everyone from the Muppet Show to a Christmas at his mother’s family farm. What makes it special is that the show has crossovers from all across the Henson muppet empire.
The special features various Muppets from The Muppet Show, Sesame Street, Fraggle Rock, and Muppet Babies.[1] It also stars Gerard Parkes as Doc from the North American wraparound segments of Fraggle Rock, and Henson as himself in a cameo appearance. In the special, the Muppets surprise Fozzie Bear's mother Emily with a Christmas visit to her farm, not knowing that she had already rented out the place to Doc for the holidays so she could spend a winter vacation in Malibu.
There’s some mild suspense. (Will everyone find a place to sleep? Will Miss Piggy make it through the snow storm? Will the Swedish Chef cook up Big Bird for the holiday feast?) Mostly though there are a lot of musical numbers and some classic muppet humor. It’s a treat seeing muppets interact who would never be seen together otherwise. There are scenes at the end where they’re all together in a room-filling crowd as they do a medley of Christmas songs. It’s made for a really big screen. (The logistics of getting all those muppets in one place must have been amazing.)
There are gentle messages of sharing and celebrating, and just getting along. There is a brief cameo at the end by Jim Henson, set as though he’s looking out over all the characters he’s created, saying he likes seeing them all happy together, then he turns away to start washing up the dishes.
It’s a bitter-sweet moment from a time now past. So much has changed since the show first aired in 1987. Jim Henson is gone. Caroll Spinney just died. You see the muppets selling insurance now, and video chat machines. Tom Hanks is reminding us what we had in Mr. Rogers. It seems we need shows like this more than ever lately.
So, what are you watching this holiday time?