Where have the Christmas specials gone?

[Wes R]

All through the 90s VH1 would have christmas vidoes on tv, for the week before every holiday special from the last 50 years would be on ranging from Rudolf to Snoopy and everything in between. VH1 on xmas day would have the top 100 toys marathons. Suddenly its all stopped. the stations aren't even showing the annoying half a month of Christmas Story and such. Last year Cartoon network had holiday movies counting down to xmas and this year nothing at all so far.
Has it become that un PC to show them or has it just gotten to cost too much? The one thing that surprised me last year was on a saturday they had repeats of the old "Holidays with the stars" or something like that on. it was an xmas variety show with Crystal Gale and others on it from the 80s.

 

[.:MirrorminD:.]

As a kid I used to love the California Raisens claymation special.

 

[neosporing]

As a kid I used to love the California Raisens claymation special.

ahem, your youth is showing...

or my accelerated decrepitude ... it was the stop motion bass rankin items...for my childhood...the long eared donkey, the drummer boy, rudolph etc...

 

[Wes R]

I forgot all about them. I actually have the figures that Hardee's had in the kid meals and i think one is wearing a santa hat. Funny thing is that claymation still looks better than Bay's Transformers lol.

 

[JasonCash]

I remember when I was little waiting for HBO to show Emmit Otter's Jugband Christmas

 

[Solo4114]

I'd bet it has more to do with the fact that IT'S STILL ONLY THE FIRST HALF OF DECEMBER.

The underlying point being that you won't see the X-mas specials until regular run TV starts going on hiatus. Instead, what you'll see are X-mas episodes of your usual shows, which still is a trend. Why would you preempt your already in-the-can new episodes for a totally unrelated Christmas special?

My bet is the schedule will look like this:

Week of 12/6 - 12/12 -- regular episodes.

Week of 12/13 - 12/19 -- christmas episodes.

Week of 12/20 - 12/26 -- mix of christmas/regular episodes and christmas specials.

 

[neosporing]

there's a new claymation special coming out made by joel mchale

thurs night nbc... sometime

 

[Wes R]

lol. Harry Potter and is that short guy in the bear suit Dick Cheney? o.o

 

[hankey01]

there's a new claymation special coming out made by joel mchale

thurs night nbc... sometime

That's the Community Christmas episode I believe. LOVE that show!

 

[allosaur176]

Christmas isnt what it used to be

 

[darthgordon]

Lifetime has been showing lousy Christmas movies since Thanksgiving.

TBS showed The Grinch (animated version) about a week before Thanksgiving.

Also shown (I believe Thanksgiving weekend) was ELF.

Basically, they've started shoving Christmas down our throats before Thanksgiving... and then discover they need to spread it out.

There's also 2000 channels out there now. Just two decades ago, that number was significantly lower. Therefore, they were easier to find, and appeared more prominently.

 

[Wes R]

lifetime shows good movies? lol.
they keep showing the xmas specials way early every year. Sadly nobody really makes christmas cartoons anymore.

 

[Charles Kline]

I used to watch Claymation Christmas.
The one the T rex and Triceratops hosted.

Nothing makes a Fun Old Fashion Family Christmas like National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation thou!

 

[TheDoctor]

Yeah... Idon't know what cable system you've got, but there's all SORTS of Christmas movies and such on the channels I have - not the least of which is...ugh...Elf.

Saw the Futurama Holiday special (PUKE!!), the Simpsons Christmas special (not bad, but not great...), and the Warehouse 13 special is tonight (can't wait!!!).

My favorite movies and shows, though, I save for DVD viewing.

 

[hankey01]

Oh yeah..and there was the Kung Fu Panda one (kids liked it) and Madagascar (no thanks). Also the Shrek one was on last week I think.

If only Pixar could make one and show us what happened to all the missing Toy Story characters!

 

[steveo]

It probably has a lot to do with the fact of the US becoming more PC. Is there such a thing as Christmas anymore? It's always Happy Holidays and I guess you can't just cater to one religious holiday, so the specials are slowly disappearing. It's feeling less and less like Christmas every year.

 

[EvilRocketeer]

It probably has a lot to do with the fact of the US becoming more PC. Is there such a thing as Christmas anymore? It's always Happy Holidays and I guess you can't just cater to one religious holiday, so the specials are slowly disappearing. It's feeling less and less like Christmas every year.

I was about to say the same thing....it is a sad day when the christmas tree is now the "holiday tree"

 

[Solo4114]

You guys don't really want to get schooled on the origins of the Christmas tree, do you?


At any rate, I don't think it's due to the "PC" influence. Like I said, you'll still see PLENTY of "Christmas" episodes of regular TV. The difference comes, I think, in how Christmas makes its way onto TV itself. You don't see the specials, but that may have more to do with how much bang the networks got for their buck when comparing a special to, say, running the Christmas episode of Glee or whatever.

Take a show like Bones, for example. Successful show, in its 6th season now. If memory serves, certainly for the first two or three seasons they ran a "Christmas" episode. If Christmas wasn't the whole point of the episode, it at least factored in in a big way.

My bet is it's got nothin' to do with PC and everything to do with the bottom line and the business model for television having shifted in the last 20-30 years.

But hey, TNT will still run A Christmas Story 24/7.

 

[steveo]

You guys don't really want to get schooled on the origins of the Christmas tree, do you?

Sure! This could be the Charlie Brown Christmas show of the RPF. School away, Solo4114.

 

[darthgordon]

You guys don't really want to get schooled on the origins of the Christmas tree, do you?

Thank you!

You might also throw the origins of Santa Claus in there too. From St. Nicholas to Sinterklaas to Odin.